Tony Hillerman - Finding Moon

The road surface seemed to be a mixture of clay and gravel, packed hard and pocked with deep potholes. The roadside ditches produced frog sounds that his passage affected-loud ahead of him, silent beside him, and rising again to full cry behind him. This phenomenon reminded Moon that he was an intruder in this world of South Asian frogs and South Asian cultures. It reminded him of what he had come here to do.

A roadside palm had fallen there. Someone had sawed off the part that intruded into the roadway, but the remainder still spanned the ditch. Moon sat on it and reviewed his plans.

They were simple. His letter from the consulate had included a note from Assistant Warden Elogio Osoor. Warden Osoor said visiting hours were from one P.M. until two P.M. in the visiting room in the administration building. Convict Rice would be available for an interview. A guard would be present in the room at all times. No weapons or other contraband should be brought into the prison. This note should be shown to the guards at the perimeter.

Fair enough. He would ask Mr. Rice if he knew what the devil had happened to Ricky’s daughter. if he had any idea how to find her. And if Moon was lucky, Rice would say. he didn’t have the slightest idea and he knew of no one else who had an idea, and that the child was probably safe with her Cambodian grandmother somewhere in Thailand by now, and one of these days, when all this trouble was over and Southeast Asia returned to normal, Victoria Mathias would probably be receiving a letter from the Cambodian granny soliciting money for the child’s upbringing.

Whereupon Moon would be free to fly back to Los Angeles, make sure Victoria Mathias was getting proper care, and resume his life as a third-rate managing editor on a third-rate newspaper, sleeping with Miss Southern Rockies when she decided it was a good idea to have sex and trying to persuade her to marry him.

“Aaah!”

The cry came from the darkness down the road and was accompanied by a clatter and then an exclamation, which, while Moon couldn’t understand the language, was clearly an expression of anger and frustration.

He waited. Now the faint sound of footsteps coming toward him. The figure taking shape was tall, slender, female. Carrying a suitcase and a small handbag. Osa van Winjgaarden.

Moon didn’t want to startle her. He said, “Good evening, Mrs. van Winjgaarden.”

She produced what would have been a startled shriek, had she not instantly suppressed it, and said, “Who?”

“It’s just Ricky’s brother,” Moon said, getting to his feet. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh.” And put down the bag.

What was she doing out here carrying a suitcase? When they’d left the airport she’d said she was going to check into a hotel in Puerto Princesa. She hadn’t said why.

“Have a seat,” Moon said. He gestured to the palm trunk. “It’s comfortable.”

“Thank you,” she said. She left the bag on the road and sat. Even in the dim moonlight, he could see she was trembling.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She laughed. “It wasn’t your fault I’m so spooky.

What could you do? Just sit there and hope I didn’t -notice you when I walked past? That would have scared me to death.”

“An, well,” Moon said. “Anyway, it’s a nice night for a walk.”

“If you don’t break your ankle. I stepped in a hole back there.”

“I heard you,” Moon said.

Brief silence. Then she laughed. “I hope you don’t understand Dutch. Or the Indonesian Dutch we speak out here. You would have been shocked at my language.”

“I translated it to mean something like ‘Oh, shoot!’ in English.”

A chuckle. “That was kind of you,” she said. “And close enough, I guess.”

Moon had exhausted his small talk. He wanted to ask her what she was doing out here. Walking from her hotel in the town to Imelda’s hotel, apparently. Surely not all the way to the airport. But why not take a cab? Was she out of money? If the rates here were as cheap as Manila, it would have been less than half an American dollar. Moon’s lack of response didn’t seem to bother her. She sat motionless, looking at the night sky.

“You’re Dutch, then?”

“Van Winjgaarden,” she said. “That’s as Dutch as windmills and tulip fields.”

“It’s your husband’s name, though,” Moon- said. “Your maiden name might be French, or Italian, or Spanish, or just about anything.”

Silence. “No. Winjgaarden is my family name. Only the Mrs. isn’t really mine. I never married.”

“Oh,” Moon said.

“In my work I have to travel a lot. All over. In Asia, a woman traveling alone attracts attention- the wrong kind of attention. So I use the Mrs. and I bought myself the wedding ring.”

“Does it work?”

“It seems to be effective.” And she laughed. “Or maybe I just flatter myself with this. Maybe I just think I need the Mrs. and the ring.”

Moon thought about that. And about her. Remembering how he had first seen her walking into the hotel restaurant. A handsome woman, really. Graceful. Feminine. The sort of woman one saw in Cadillac commercials, escorted by a man in a tux. Not the sort of woman Moon would even think of approaching. But he knew a lot of men who would.

She glanced at him now, and away. It occurred to Moon that her remark wasn’t one to be left hanging. Silence would seem a confirmation.

“No,” he said. “I think you need the ring and the Mrs. I’m surprised they keep the wolves at bay.”

“Wolves at bay?”

“Wolves,” Moon said. “American slang for men who go around trying to connect with unattached women. I’m surprised you don’t attract them even with the ring and the title.”

“Oh,” Mrs. van Winjgaarden said. “Thank you.” And in an obvious effort to change the subject, added, “Have you noticed the constellation just above the horizon? The Southern Cross. I don’t think you see that in the United States. Aren’t you too far north of the equator?”

“We are in Colorado,” Moon said. “Can I ask where you are going with your suitcase?”

“To the new hotel. The one in the town was much cheaper, and I thought- Well, when I was here once before, the little hotel in the town wasn’t so bad. The ships’ officers stayed in it, and I guess the tourists stopped there when there were any, and a few businesspeople who came here. So they made the plumbing work and it was clean. Well, so-so. And the screens kept the mosquitoes out. But that was four years ago, and now the businesspeople come out to this new hotel, and the old one-” She shuddered. “The old one is awful. The smell. The roaches.”

“The new one is pretty good,” Moon said. It didn’t seem the time to mention the lack of refrigerated air.

“And of course I couldn’t get a taxi.” She laughed. “Puerto Princesa has only four with motors and then some pedicabs. But they all seem to quit at night.”

“No place much to go,” Moon said. “But weren’t you nervous? I mean, walking all the way out here in the dark. Alone.”

“No,” she said. “No tigers out there. But I was thinking of other things and when your voice came out of the dark, calling my name, then I was surprised.”

“What did you buy in Puerto Princesa? When you came four years ago?”

“Let me remember,” she said. “Yes. I bought ten dozen bamboo blowguns with pigskin quivers, four bamboo darts in each quiver. And one hundred fetish figures, carved out of bamboo, and some little things made out of shark bones, and-” She stopped. “Things like that. Then we sell them to exporters who resell them to importers, and someday they end their travels on the wall of someone’s parlor in Tokyo or Bonn or New York.”