Tony Hillerman: Finding Moon

Moon was not in the mood for Rooney at the moment. “What’s on the menu?” he asked. “What story are you leading with?”

“I don’t know yet,” Rooney said. “We have a thing out of the State Police and the Game Department about dog packs worrying tourists up around the ski run. I told Hubbell we ought to play that one. Give it eight columns, ninety-six points, all caps: TERRIERS TERRORIZE TOURISTS. Or maybe PET PACKS PROWL PARK. Or how about-”

“Get serious,” Moon said. Rooney had been hired as a feature writer and did mostly special assignments for the city desk. But once, after too many whiskey sours at an office party, he had confessed to working in a former life as rim man on the Kansas CityStar. That careless admission of editing experience had made him the paper’s utility desk man, writing headlines and handling copy in emergency manpower shortages. It was a job he detested, and Moon had learned that his news selection tended to be eccentric if he was drinking. But now, as Rooney provided a rundown on what he’d been using on inside pages and what he was stacking up for potential front-page use, his judgments seemed reassuringly orthodox. There wasn’t anything hot going on, either locally or statewide. Rooney had given big inside space to the Senate approval of price ceilings on domestic oil, which Moon would have used on page one, and the same sort of inside treatment to President Ford’s request to Congress for more aid for Saigon. For the front, he was holding the daily Nam battle story, with a sidebar about refugees clogging the highways; a feature about a local kid building his own computer; a two-fatality collision on the Interstate; and a city council discussion of a proposed sewer bond issue. Not bad, considering that Rooney had written the computer yarn himself before Moon’s departure had switched him from reporter to desk man.

“Then there’s another sidebar on Cambodia that maybe ought to go on page one. Sounds like the Khmer Rouge is gobbling up Phnom Perth.” Rooney’s tone had lost its flipancy earlier in the recitation of the day’s woes. Now it was grim. “Some of this stuff sounds like Attila the Hun is loose again. Everything but the giant pyramids of skulls.”

“Yeah,” Moon said. He felt a twinge of anxiety through the fatigue. “Well, tell Hubbell I’m at the Airport Inn and that Shirley has my number. And switch me back to her.”

“Debbie’s been calling. Asking about you. I think she misses you.” Unlike Shirley, Rooney liked Debbie. All males liked Debbie.

“What’s she want?”

“To know when you’d be coming back.”

“Tell her I’ve been trying to call her,” Moon said. “And, look, did I ever tell you how nasty Shakeshaft gets about drinking? If I didn’t, I’m doing it now. When he hired me I got the temperance sermon. My first job is to make sure nobody drinks in the newsroom. And my second job is to make sure nobody’s been drinking before they come in. After that, I worry about getting the paper out.”

“I’m not drinking,” Rooney said. Coldly.

“Good,” Moon said. “But did I tell you old Jerry has a habit of looking into desk drawers, poking around under piles of papers, and-”

“And smelling your breath,” Rooney said. “I used to have a managing editor like that.”

“You still do. I smelled it last Monday,” Moon said, and dropped it there.

He called Colorado Mortgage and Title Insurance. The woman on the reception desk was somebody he didn’t know. She said Debbie’s line was busy. She took his hotel number and said, yes, she’d tell Debbie he’d called and to call him.

“You did say J.D., didn’t you?” she asked.

“No,” Moon said. “Tell her Moon Mathias called;”

He looked at his watch. Probably too soon to try the Manila number again. Not the hour to sleep either. He was tired, almost dizzy with fatigue, but too tense to sleep. The shower would help. He rescued his shirt from the floor and inspected it. He’d packed without any real thought-shirts, socks, and underwear for a couple of days. The shirt he’d been wearing was knitted of something or other and could serve a second day. He carried it into the bathroom and carefully rinsed out a smudge below the pocket. He was hanging it up to dry when he heard a tapping at the door.

“Just a second,” Moon said. He pulled on his trousers.

Two men were at the door, the one in front small, frail and old, the one behind big and young. Both Chinese, Moon thought and, as he thought it, amended the thought to Oriental, and amended that to Asian. It seemed clear that his dead brother was pulling him inevitably into a world where one would need to know the difference between Chinese and Vietnamese and Japanese, Cambodians, Indonesians, and all the rest.

The small man dipped his head slightly and looked up at Moon through thick round glasses. “Mr. Malcolm Mathias?” the man said. “I beg your pardon for this intrusion.”

“Yes,” Moon said, “I’m Malcolm Mathias. What can I do for you?” The man was wearing a brown suit made of some expensive-looking silky material which, so it appeared, had been slept in. Behind him, the big young man was smiling an apprehensive smile.

“My name is Mr. Lum Lee. I wish to express my concern about the health of your mother.” He dipped his head again. “Also, I wish to express my condolences at the death of your esteemed brother, Mr. Richard Mathias.” Mr. Lum Lee cleared his throat. “Your brother was a good friend to me…” He paused, inspecting Moon, and added in a voice not much above a whisper, “And sometimes an associate in business.” He cleared his throat again, looked at Moon, and added, “Sometimes. Yes. And I hope the health of your mother is improving.”

“Yes,” Moon said. “Thank you.” He held out his hand. “Malcolm Mathias,” he said. “How do you do. Come on in. Find a place to sit down.”

Mr. Lee’s hand was small and dry. Totally without strength. It made Moon think of bird bones.

“Excuse me,” Mr. Lum Lee said. “I would present the son of my oldest daughter, Mr. Charley Ming. Mr. Ming has been good enough to be of assistance to me while I am in the United States.”

Mr. Ming’s hand, in contrast to his grandfather’s, was a wrestler’s: broad, hard, strong. But his smile was bashful. He held one of the room’s two chairs for his grandfather, refused Moon’s offer of the second one, and sat ramrod erect on the edge of the bed, holding his hat in his lap. Mr. Lee had placed his hat on the dresser beside his chair. His thick gray hair was cut short, into military bristles.

“I think your secretary will have told you I called,” Mr. Lee said.

“Yes,” Moon said. “But she didn’t tell me anything about your business. She didn’t say you would be coming to see me.” How had this man located him? It must have been through either the airline security office or the hospital. And, if his courtesy went deeper than his words, why hadn’t he called from the lobby to see if this visit was welcome? Was it because he didn’t want to take a chance that Moon would want to avoid him? Moon found himself smiling at that. He’d seen too many movies about Oriental intrigue.

Mr. Lee looked abashed. “I am very sorry about this,” he said. “I hope this visit is not inconvenient to you in any way. If it is-” Mr. Lee reached for his hat and started to rise.

“No, no. Not at all,” Moon said. “I’m delighted to meet a friend of my brother.”

“And a business associate as well,” Mr. Lee added.

“We don’t know much about his death,” Moon said. “Just what his attorney told my mother, and what the American consulate told us. All about the same. But no details.”

“It was a tragedy,” Mr. Lee said. “A genuine loss. A fine young man. An honorable man.” He shook his head solemnly. His eyes behind the thick lenses seemed even more watery and vague.