Tony Hillerman - Finding Moon

Surprised, he looked at her. He saw nothing but total sympathy. Her eyes glistened with it. She was ready to cry for him.

Moon wasn’t sure what emotion this provoked in him. Whatever it was, it caused him to give a shout of laughter, thrust his arm around her shoulder, and hug her to him. “Mrs. van Winjgaarden,” he said. “Osa, you are absolutely something else.” He laughed again. “What do you mean, don’t worry about this? We’re standing here on the edge of the cliff, and it’s crumbling under our feet, and Osa van Winjgaarden is advising me not to worry.”

“Ooh,” Osa said. “Too tight. You hug too strongly.”

“We have a magazine in the States,” Moon said. He eased his grip. “Mad magazine, with this stupid guy grinning on the cover and saying, ‘What? Me worry?’ It’s the American symbol for craziness.”

Osa was free now. “Well,” she said. “The Italians have a useful phrase. Che sara sara. You know it?”

“It’s the same in Spanish,” he said. “And I guess they’re both right.”

And so he had picked up the telephone again and repeated the process with the number Rice had given them. The operator was different but the results were the same: disconnected.

“I think you should be calling me Osa,” she said. “Mrs. van Winjgaarden is too long. And you never get it quite right.”

“And everybody calls me Moon.”

Then he called information and got the number of the Pasag Imperial Hotel in Manila.

Mr. Lum Lee was in.

“Ah, Mr. Lee,” Moon said. “I think I know now the location of your urn of bones.”

He heard the sudden sound of Mr. Lee sucking in his breath.

“We found a man named George Rice. He

worked closely with my brother. Rice told us that the day Ricky was killed he called in on his radio and said he had picked up the urn someplace up north in Cambodia. He said he was leaving it off at the home of Eleth Vinh’s parents. The name is Vin Ba and it’s a tiny little village in Cambodia near the Vietnam border.”

“Ah,” Lum Lee said. “Mr. Mathias, this is very kind of you. Very generous. It is difficult for a Westerner- for anyone who is not a Buddhist-to understand how important these bones are for our family.”

“I’ve read about it,” Moon said. “But I’m afraid this information will be too late. I hear the Khmer Rouge are taking over everything. We may not be able to get there. And it may be gone if we do.”

“But this is most generous of you, this kindness to a stranger.”

“It is a family responsibility,” Moon said. “You contracted with my brother-”

Mr. Lee gave him a moment, decided the sentence wouldn’t be finished, said, “But that was an accident,” cleared his throat, and went on. “I myself was not able to reach Mr. Rice. I was informed he was in prison. In the south.”

“He’s in the Federal Correction Unit on Palawan Island,” Moon said. “Our embassy arranged for me to talk to him.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Lee, and Moon heard a wry chuckle. “I think the Taiwan embassy would not know me, and the mainland China embassy would not find favor in the present Philippine foreign office. You are there now? On Palawan?”

“At Puerto Princesa,” Moon said. “At the Puerto Princesa Filipina hotel.”

“And from there you are going over to Vietnam? Or you come back to Manila?”

“I don’t know,” Moon said. “I have no plans made. But if I can find the urn I will bring it to you. Where? At your hotel in Manila?”

“Yes,” Lee said. “They know me here. And where will you be?”

Probably in prison, but no use getting into all those details. “I’ll be here for a day or two.” Or however many years it takes to serve out a criminal conspiracy term.

And that had been more or less that. A few more expressions of gratitude on Mr. Lee’s part, and disclaimers by Moon.

The next call had been to the cardiac ward in Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. He’d asked the nurse who answered how his mother was doing.

“Morick,” the nurse said. “Oh, yes. Dr. Serna has been trying to reach you in Manila. Just a moment while I page her.”

Moon waited, uneasy. Dr. Serna calling him in Manila couldn’t be good. It wasn’t.

“Ah, Mr. Mathias,” she said. “I haven’t been able to reach you. The hotel number you gave us in Manila -”

“Is she worse?”

“We couldn’t wait,” Dr. Serna said. “We tried an angioplasty. Usually they’re effective. This one wasn’t. So we-”

“Is she dead?”

“She’s alive. Her condition is stabilizing. But we must do bypass surgery right away. How soon can you get to Los Angeles?”

“Ah,” Moon said. “I don’t know. I’m at Puerto Princesa. Little place way down at the wrong end of the Philippines. I’ll have to find a way to get back to Manila and then-”

He stopped, thinking of George Rice in the jungle, of the police surely watching the airport. He’d never get to Manila. And if he did, the police there would grab him the minute he showed his passport.

“Look,” he said. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Do the surgery. You have my permission. Do whatever you have to do to save her life.”

“We can declare it a medical emergency,” Dr. Serna said. “Because it is.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“She’s sedated.”

“Would you tell her for me that I love her. And tell her I’m going to find her granddaughter if I can.”

Osa and he had decided that they couldn’t risk Rice’s simply walking up to the hotel and asking for them. They’d split the night watch into shifts, one prowling the grounds while the other slept, hoping to spot him the moment he arrived. Moon had insisted that Osa take the early watch. Being nervous, he’d shared much of it with her. Now it was almost dawn. He’d memorized the night sky of spring ten degrees north of the equator, identifying the familiar constellations and trying to guess the names of those new to him. He’d sorted out the night sounds, lizards, birds, frogs, mammals. He noticed how the mating symphonies and the hunting calls fell almost silent when the moon went down and rose again just before the eastern horizon lightened. But he neither saw nor heard any trace of escaped convict George Rice. Not on the potholed road. Not on the fringes of jungle beyond the hotel grounds. Not anywhere.

Above and behind him a sudden flash of light:

the window of Osa’s room. A few moments later, it went off. Bathroom call, he thought. He needed one himself and strolled across the grass to a nearby bush. It was flowering, surrounding him with blossoms the size of baseballs, the aroma overpowering the thousand smells of the night.

When he emerged from the bush, Osa was sitting on the ledge under the hotel wall, looking toward the jungle.

She’ll say, Have you seen him? Or she’ll say, I couldn’t sleep.

She patted the ledge beside her, inviting him to sit, and said, “What are we going to do?”

Moon sat, thought about how to answer.

She rephrased the question. “What are you going to do?”

“If Rice doesn’t show up?”

“Yes. Or if he does get here. Either way.”

“I don’t know,” Moon said. “I know I have to figure out some way to get to L.A. But it looks impossible. How about you?”

“I’ll keep trying,” she said. “I don’t know exactly how to do it, but there must be a way.” She touched his arm. “Anyway, there’s nothing you could do there but pace the floor and wait. You said you had found a good doctor and a good hospital. All you can do is wait.”

Moon found himself thinking that he’d liked What are we going to do? better than What are you going to do? But he thought of no way to express that thought. So he said, “if Rice is coming, it should be about now. When it’s just light enough so he can see what he’s getting into. See if we’re out here waiting for him.”