Finding Moon

I am informed that arrangements to get a visa for the child and to place her on a flight from Saigon to Manila are being made by Ricky’s associates at R. M. Air in Vietnam. I do not yet know details of those arrangements and will advise you by telephone as soon as I learn when the child will arrive in Manila.

Most sincerely, your servant,

Roberto Castenada Bolivar

Moon was feeling better. Ricky seemed to have kept his paternity a secret from just about everyone. He resumed his exploration of the purse and found a folded note.

Mrs. Mathias:

Three phone calls for you. That man called from Manila and said he was returning your call and would try again and then there were two calls from a man who said his name was Charley Ming, but he was calling for somebody named Lum Lee. He called again about an hour later, and this time the other man talked and he said it was terribly important to get in touch with you and would you please call him at the Beverly Wilshire, room 612.1 will come in to help next week unless you contact me.

Ella

Two airline tickets were folded into an inside pocket. One was in the name of Mrs. Victoria Mathias Morick, a first-class round-trip to Manila via Honolulu. That was no surprise now. Nor was the second ticket, one-way from Manila to Miami International. The name on it was Baby Girl Lila Vinh Mathias. Victoria Mathias had been en route to rescue her granddaughter when her heart failed her.

WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI)-As much as $700 million in military supplies has been abandoned by the South Vietnamese army in its disastrous retreat from the Central Highlands, a well-placed Pentagon source estimated today.

The officer, who declined to be identified, said, “It’s all in the hands of the North Vietnamese now. We might as well have shipped it directly to Hanoi and avoided the wear and tear.”

Still the Second Day

THE FIRST WORDS Victoria Mathias said were, “We have a granddaughter.”

“Yes,” Moon said. “I saw the letters in your purse. How are you feeling?”

“What day is it? How long have I been here?”

“Just one day,” Moon said. “It’s April thirteenth.”

“I’ve got to go get her,” Moon’s mother said. She was in a different room now, moved to a different floor, in a different bed. But the wires were still there, and the tubes. Her skin had the pale, waxy look of death and her eyes the glaze of those who can barely discern reality. Moon took her hand. A cold and fragile hand.

“Ricky’s dead, you know,” she said. “Dead. But he had this daughter.”

“I know,” Moon said. “I know about Ricky and the baby.” My brother. My niece. “Don’t talk if it tires you. You take it easy now.”

Victoria Mathias turned her head slightly and looked at him. She had said, We have a granddaughter.

We. There was that.

“I called Ricky’s lawyer,” she said. Her eyes closed. A long pause. Moon looked nervously up at the monitor screen. The lines on it still moved in a regular pattern, telling him only that his mother was still alive. She’s just asleep, he thought. Good. But then she was speaking again, her voice so weak he could hardly understand the words. “…that man in the Philippines with the Spanish name. I don’t think she ever got there.”

“I saw the letter,” Moon said. “She will get there, okay? It takes time. You take care of getting well. The nuns in Manila will take care of the baby.”

“He didn’t seem to know anything,” his mother said.

“How about the mother?” Moon asked. “Why can’t she bring the child?” He had other questions. Why isn’t the mother keeping the baby? was one of them. But Victoria Mathias seemed no longer aware that he was there. Her body, already shrunken under the sheet, seemed to shrink even more.

She frowned vaguely, and her lips moved. “Very unsatisfactory,” she seemed to say. But the voice was too weak to be understood and Moon thought he might have only guessed at that phrase. Victoria Mathias communicated by letter. To his mother, all telephone conversations were very unsatisfactory.

The person in charge of saving his mother’s life was a doctor named Jerrigan. Dr. Jerrigan made his rounds from ten to eleven and should have been in this ward at about ten-thirty. Now it was fifteen minutes after eleven and Dr. Jerrigan had not arrived.

Moon had sat on the slick plastic chair in the waiting room for more than an hour. During the first thirty minutes of waiting he’d exhausted every possible speculation about his mother’s condition and what he should do about it. He had devoted only a few minutes to considering what needed to be done about Ricky’s daughter. Obviously, he would first call the lawyer in Manila for today’s reading on that problem. The second step would depend on the first. With that decided, he let his mind drift back to the problems he’d left behind him in his rush to the airport.

First, as always, there was Debbie. He could take care of the birthday by finding her something special in Los Angeles -if he could ever get away from this hospital. And then there was the spaniel left in his custody by Shirley until Shirley was safely moved into her new apartment, where spaniels were tolerated. The spaniel had an appointment with a veterinarian and he was supposed to have dropped the damned dog off on his way to work. He’d forgotten about that until he got to the airport at Denver and had had to call the paper. It was Shirley’s day off, so the burden fell upon Hubbell. Hubbell hadn’t sounded happy about it, but he said he’d try to find somebody to take care of it. And he would. Hubbell was grouchy but reliable. A little like himself, he thought.

So don’t worry about the dog. Worry about the other responsibilities he’d left behind. Like J.D.’s truck. Moon inspected his knuckle, which seemed to be scabbing over nicely, and his hands, which despite heavy soaping in the shower still showed evidence of grease in deep cracks and under his fingernails. The grease and the scab were both evidence of J.D.’s failure to maintain his vehicle properly. The baby blue paint always glittered, but J.D’s interest stopped with appearances. He never kept the engine properly tuned. Or cleaned it, which explained Moon’s greasy hands, slippery wrench handles, and a bloody knuckle. In Moon’s opinion, carelessness was only one of J.D.’s several shortcomings. But he was a good-looking kid, good-natured, and great on the te

The plastic of the waiting room chair crackled as Moon shifted his weight. His back ached. And suddenly the tension that had kept sleep at bay began draining away. He yawned. And when that was accomplished, he felt utterly exhausted. He looked at his watch, eyes barely in focus. Where the hell was Dr. what’s-his-name?

Dr. Jerrigan was walking into the waiting room. He was about Moon’s age, but a third smaller and a lot trimmer, with a California surfer’s tan and the hard, wiry physique of the handball courts. He glanced at Moon, saw nothing to inspire interest, and looked down at his clipboard.

“Morick,” he said. “Morick. It looks from this like he’s suffering a coronary occlusion of some sort. The situation will probably require a coronary bypass. But we won’t know until-”

“Wrong gender,” Moon said. “It’s Mrs. Victoria Mathias Morick. I am her son.”

Dr. Jerrigan frowned at Moon.

“Whatever,” he said, and checked his clipboard again. “Oh, yes. She’s that woman they brought in from the airport yesterday. Emergency Room checked her in.” He flipped through the pages on his clipboard. “We don’t have the data we need back from the lab yet but-let’s see-” Dr. Jerrigan studied his clipboard, frowned at it. “The EKG shows equivocal coronary abnormalities.”