Tony Hillerman - Finding Moon

Brock’s block had been a mixture of middle-class apartments and small one-story business addresses. Now the street was limited by a local TRAFFIC ONLY sign printed in both English and Tagalog. The side of Cuenco Street that bore his even-numbered residence hotel was now piled with the rubble of buildings smashed to make way for larger buildings.

Moon gave the driver the address of Mrs. van Winjgaarden’s hotel.

“Yes,” she said. “You must be exhaused. We can do no more today. Tomorrow-” She paused, not sure how to continue.

“I don’t know about tomorrow,” Moon said. “I want to think about it.”

“You said Castenada could give you nothing more? No better addresses? No more associates who might-”

“Three names. Yager, Rice, and Brock. Three addresses. He didn’t seem to know much about them, just that they’d had some association with

Ricky in the past. Worked for him or invested, or something.”

“You would think a lawyer would know more than just names,” she said.

“I could call Castenada in the morning,” Moon said. “I could ask him.” Could. But he didn’t think he would. If Castenada had any more information he would have offered it. It would just mean more wasted time. Tomorrow he would try to wrap up this business. Then he’d call Philippine Airlines and see if he could get on the day-after-tomorrow flight. He could be home when? He’d gain the day he’d lost crossing the international dateline. Make it three days from today, then. He thought of Debbie. Would she be there? Maybe, maybe not.

“And ask about Mr. Rice. I think you should. Find out how to see him in Bilibad.” Mrs. van Winjgaarden had been staring out the cab window at the rain, but now she turned to look at him. “I have been remembering,” she said. “Rice. Like what they grow so much of in the Mekong Delta. I remember him better now I have been thinking. He was supposed to be their best pilot. Always making jokes. A short man with a short beard. White. It made him look old.” She nodded. “Yes. Ricky said he could fly any of the helicopters.”

The cab was stopping.

“Here’s your hotel,” Moon said. But the driver had made a mistake. This crummy little place, jammed in between a generator rewinding shop and a service station, wouldn’t be where Mrs. van Winjgaarden would be staying.

She got out, shielding herself from the rain while she extracted cab fare from her purse.

Wrong again.

“I’ll pay him when he gets me home. We can settle up later,” Moon said, and watched her disappear into the crummy little place, leaving him with just the rain and the thought that his brother may have dealt with heroin.

SAIGON, South Vietnam, April 18 (UPI)- North Vietnamese troops began a furious tank, artillery and infantry attack today on Ham Tan, the capital of Binh Tuy Province and a 30-mile step closer to Saigon.

MOON HAD RISEN EARLY, HAD breakfast, called the Associated Press Bureau, got the day manager, identified himself and explained that he needed to know how to go about learning if a U.S. citizen named George Rice was held in Bilibad Prison and, if so, how to go about arranging an interview. The day manager had once covered Denver city hail for the Rocky Mountain News . He’d see what he could find out, but it would involve dealing with both the U.S. Embassy and the Philippine penal bureaucracy, so delay was unavoidable. He took Moon’s telephone number and said he’d try to get back to him by noon, but that might be optimistic.

With that step over, Moon took a taxi out to Caloocan City to check on the property Ricky had leased. Maybe someone would be there who knew something-such as where to find Brock. It was a long shot but better than waiting in his hotel room for the AP to call.

“ Caloocan City?” the cabbie said. “That’s a long ways outside. For that we don’t use the meter. I just use this special rate card. So you get a bargain.”

Moon had been warned about exactly this by the Maynila’s concierge. “Make sure they turn on the meter. Those special rate cards are stuff they make up themselves to get more money out of tourists.”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Moon said. “Give me the rate card price now and turn on the meter. And when we get there, we’ll compare them.”

The cabbie gave Moon a huge gap-toothed grin. “My name is Tino,” he said, “and I think you’ve been to Manila before.”

They drove north through the teeming traffic on Roxas Boulevard, which for no reason apparent to Moon suddenly became Bonifacio Drive. They crossed the muddy Pasig River, left modern Manila and its middle-class housing district behind, and were surrounded by slums and the distinctive aroma of burning garbage.

“ Smoky Mountain,” Tino said. “Lots of poor people live here.” He waved at the clusters of shacks they were passing and went on with the same tone of civic pride he’d been using to describe the glass and steel edifices along United National Avenue. “They build houses on the city dump. No rent to pay that way. And they collect stuff out of the trash and fix it up and sell it.”

The city dump also provided the homes. They

were patched together with sheet metal, odds and ends of wood, insulation board, bamboo. The architect of the hut they were passing now had used old carpeting to fill in a gap in the siding.

Caloocan City met expectations for a city no better than Smoky Mountain did for a mountain. They passed clusters of small fields being plowed this spring morning by men driving water buffaloes, followed by clusters of two-story business buildings, followed by great fields of sugarcane. The address they were seeking was surrounded by just such a field.

Castenada had written, Caloocan City , Marmoi Road, Number 700; took for billboard Great Luck Development Corp. Look for warehouse of Seven Seas Worldwide Container, Inc.

Great Luck had surrounded two or three acres of its property with a fence, to keep out the cane, and built two concrete-block structures. Judging from the signs, the smaller one housed the offices of both Great Luck and Seven Seas. The larger one looked new: an office wing attached to a triple-sized hangar. And above the high hangar doors was painted:

M. R. AIR, LTD.

HELICOPTER REPAIR, LEASING AND TRANSPORT

Moon stared at the sign. Not Ricky Mathias Air but Moon and Ricky Air. Ricky had meant it. That was hard to digest.

Tino looked around.

“This is it, no?”

“Yes,” Moon said. “Wait for me.”

The office door was locked, but through its window he could see that the room was furnished with two desks, a table, filing cabinets-the usual office furniture. The ashtray on the desk had two cigar butts in it. He pounded on the door. Waited. Pounded again. Then he walked across the gravel to the Great Luck Development Corp., encouraged by the whine of a band saw and hammering. The sign on the door said 700 marmoi road, and it opened just as he tapped on it.

A small, plump, and very pregnant woman looked up at him. “Good morning,” she said. “You must be Mr. Bascom, and you are a little bit too early.”

“My name is Malcolm Mathias,” Moon said. “I’m looking for Mr. Brock. I think he works next door at the helicopter company.”

“Mr. Brock?” she said, frowning. “Oh, yes. But I haven’t seen him for days.” She searched her memory. “Not for maybe two weeks.”

“Do you know where I could find him?”

“Is nobody over there?” she asked, indicating M. R, Air with a glance. “I think Mr. Delos would know.”

“No one was there.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, and laughed. “I forgot what day it is. Mr. Delos would be fighting his cock. He will be at the stadium.”