Finding Moon

Still the Fourteenth Day

MR. LEE ARRIVED AT THE HOTEL IN the same taxi that had brought Moon and Osa in from the airport. Osa, standing at the window of Moon’s room, saw him climbing out of it.

“Is your Mr. Lum Lee a very small man?” she asked Moon. “And old? And does he wear an old white straw hat?”

“That sounds like Mr. Lee,” Moon said. “But what would he be doing here?”

“Well, at least it’s not the police coming after us. Not yet, anyway.”

“They’re probably right behind him,” Moon- said, too drowsy to care much, thinking that in jail he could at least get some sleep. He had waited, too nervous even for dozing, for his two A.M. telephoning time. He’d learned that Dr. Serna was in surgery and had left a message that she would call him as soon as she had “anything definite to report.” Then he had failed to reach Debbie, who was either out somewhere or simply wasn’t answering the phone. Finally, he’d called the Press-Register to learn how things were going there.

They were not going well.

“Chaos,” Hubbell said. “Rooney jumped off the wagon. I think he started nipping day before yesterday. I got on him about it. Told him to go home. Then yesterday he didn’t show up. And this afternoon he walks in looking like hell warmed over and smelling like the drunk tank and runs right into old Jerry.”

Moon had started to say “Oh, shit,” but swallowed it because Osa was standing by his window. She’d been there most of the day, waiting and watching. Osa was absolutely certain that the people who ran the prison would have co

Moon bit back the expletive and said, “Jerry fired him?”

And Hubbell said, “He sure as hell did. He told him to clean out his desk and get his check from Edith.”

“Silly bastard,” Moon said. “You were already short-handed.”

“To say the least,” Hubbell said. “I’ve been coming in right after breakfast. Working about a twenty-eight-hour day.”

“Well, hang in there,” Moon said. “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

“You still in Manila? What’s the holdup? Before I forget it, the old man wants to talk to you. He’s been bitching about you being gone so long.”

“Why didn’t he call me?” And then he remembered why. “Oh. I guess I didn’t give anybody my new number.”

Hubbell laughed. “That ain’t the reason. Overseas calls are expensive. He wants to do it on your nickel.”

So Moon sat, holding the telephone to his ear, waiting for the publisher’s secretary to get Shakeshaft on the phone and watching Osa standing by the window. A slender woman, graceful. Not Debbie’s lush shape but lithe. Classy.

“Mathias!” Shakeshaft shouted into his ear. “How long is this goddamn spring vacation of yours going to last?”

“I can’t tell yet,” Moon said. “I may know by tomorrow.”

“I’m having a little trouble understanding all this,” Shakeshaft said. “Are you still out there in

Manila? And your momma’s sick in Los Angeles? That’s what I get from Hubbell, anyway. You want to tell me what the hell you’re doing in Manila while you’re on my payroll? You find us some readers out there?”

“Well,” Moon said, “it’s some important family business. My mother was going to handle it. She got sick, so I had to go do it for her.”

“And you don’t know how long it’s going to take you, this family business?”

“Not yet, I don’t. “Moon said. “I think maybe I’ll know by tomorrow.”

“Well, I got family business too. Which is getting this goddamn paper out. And if you remember, we’ve got the vacation edition coming up. Got enough ads sold already for four special sections and nobody here to write the copy for it. And that Rooney you hired. That wino son of a bitch. Did Hubbell tell you about what happened?”

“He said you fired him,” Moon said. “Maybe you should have waited.”

Shakeshaft did not appreciate the implied criticism. “Maybe you shouldn’t have hired him,” he said. “I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to hold your job open for you. Another day. Twenty-four more hours. You call me tomorrow and tell me you got your tickets and you’re on your way back.”

“If I can,” Moon said. “I’m sorry I had to leave the paper in such a-”

“I don’t want to hear any of that ‘if I can’ shit,” Shakeshaft said. “if you can’t, I’ll get out the application file tomorrow morning and start interviewing people for your replacement.”

“I’ll-” Moon began, but Shakeshaft had hung up.

Moon put the telephone down and rubbed his ear. Osa was looking at him.

“Everything is good?”

“Everything is about normal,” Moon said.

The telephone rang. It was Lum Lee. Mr. Lee hurried through the polite preliminaries. Mr. Lee hoped to confer with Mr. Mathias. Would that be convenient?

“Come on up,” Moon said. But he hoped Lee wouldn’t hurry. He wanted to think about being fired. If that was what was going to happen, and it sounded like it would, what would he do?

The payment had been due on his truck April fifteenth. He’d missed that already. Then there was the house payment. He had-let’s see-about eleven hundred in the bank. Enough to cover those. And Rooney owed him about four hundred dollars, which he’d probably never see. He owed maybe a hundred and fifty on the credit card, depending on how heavily Debbie had used it when he loaned it to her. He had about forty-five bucks of his own money left in his billfold, and his mother’s stack of big bills which he hadn’t touched so far. But then he must be a couple of thousand into his mother’s credit card by now: the expensive Hotel Maynila and the plane ticket to Palawan and the money he’d spent buying himself some clothes. That had to be paid back.

But maybe he’d learn today that Rice hadn’t escaped and there was no practical way to find the child and recover her. There would be nothing to do but call Shakeshaft and tell him he was on his way home. He yearned for that to happen. He did yearn for it, didn’t he?

He looked at Osa, holding back the dusty curtain, watching for Rice or for the police. He’d miss her.

Mr. Lee’s tap on the door was so polite that Moon barely heard it. He gave Moon his frail hand to shake, but in the dark eyes of Osa van Winjgaarden Mr. Lee somehow recognized a fellow Asian. To her he bowed over hands prayerfully pressed together. She returned the gesture exactly.

But otherwise today Mr. Lee made unusually short work of the polite formalities. He sat on the edge of the chair Moon had offered him and got right to the point.

“At the airport there were police,” he said, his eyes on Moon’s face. “It was said an inmate had left the penal institution without permission. It was said the one who escaped was an American.”

“Probably George Rice,” Moon said.

“Yes,” Lum Lee said. “And why do you say that? Could it be only because you understand there are very few Americans in the prison here?” Mr. Lee’s expression suggested he doubted that.

“He told us he pla

“Ah,” Lee said, nodding. “I am told that getting out is easy. Getting off the island is very hard. Did he suggest you help him accomplish that?”

“I think he expected a friend to fly in and pick him up.”

“A friend?”

“Just a guess,” Moon said, thinking, How much should I tell this little man? Have I already dug us deeper into trouble?

“Ah, yes,” Lee said. “A guess. And since the police are still at the airport, and the police are still around the port at Puerto Princesa, I would guess that the friend has not yet come.”

“That sounds logical,” Moon said, wondering how Mr. Lee knew about the police at the port. Hadn’t he come here directly from the airport?