Hillerman, Tony (18 page)

PARIS
, April 22 (Agence France-Presse)— The French government today urgently appealed for speedy resumption of negotiations to carry out the 1973 Paris agreement on Vietnam and for an immediate cease-fire.

THE SOUND OF RAIN POUNDING against his window had awakened Moon during the night. But by midmorning it had blown out over the South China Sea. The sky over Palawan Island wasn’t the dark deep blue that Moon had learned to expect in the Colorado high country, but it was as blue as it gets in the tropics. And the sun was bright enough to raise Moon’s spirits. It also produced a barely visible haze of steam from the potholes, rice paddies, and roadside ditches and sent the humidity up to steambath levels.

“I still don’t think they’re going to let you in,” he told Osa van Winjgaarden, who was jolting along. beside him in the back seat of their converted jeep taxi. “Prisons aren’t going to let strangers in without any sort of credentials or passes.”

“If they don’t, then they don’t,” Osa said. “Then I will just follow your plan. I’ll take the taxi back to the hotel and get out and send it back to pick you up.”

The tone was complacent, however. Moon glanced at her. Clearly Osa van Winjgaarden didn’t expect she would be taking the taxi back to the hotel.

Neither did the cabdriver, a tiny middle-aged man with a bushy mustache. Moon, who was trying to develop a better eye for things Asiatic, thought he might be part Chinese. Or perhaps, this far south, it was a Malay look. His cab, however, was distinctly Filipino. It was painted with pink, purple, and white stripes, with the name
COCK SLAYER
superimposed on both sides in a psychedelic yellow. Plastic statues of two fighting cocks facing each other in attack positions were mounted on the hood, a location that forced the cabbie to tilt his head to see past them when he rounded a curve. The cabbie had quickly lost patience with the argument in the back seat over Osa’s admissibility to the prison.

“They let her in,” he said, waving a hand impatiently. “No question. We all go in. I park at the office in there. I write down the time I wait for you. All right?”

The gate to the Palawan Island Federal Security Unit proved to be a large palm log blocking the narrow road. The log was overlooked by a palmthatched bamboo hut, which rose on bamboo stilts from the roadside ditch. A neatly printed sign above its door read
IWAHIG PRISON AND PENAL FARM
.

The cab stopped. Two men wearing blue coveralls emerged from the hut. If either of them was armed, Moon saw no evidence of it.

Cabbie and guards exchanged pleasantries and information in a language that wasn’t English and didn’t sound like the Tagalog Moon had been hearing in Manila. The older of the security men tipped his cap to Osa, gave Moon a curious stare, and held out his hand.

“He wants to see your pass,” the cabbie said.

Moon handed him the letter.

The guard examined it, stared at Moon again, returned the letter, and said something to the cabbie. All three laughed, and the older guard, still grinning, waved them through.

“Like I told you,” the cabbie said. “No trouble about the lady.”

Moon could see no sign that the inside of the Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm differed in any way from the outside. The potholed road still ran between rice paddies; hills rose a mile or two distant on either side of the road. The hills were covered by the deep green of the jungle, and at the margin of the jungle, bamboo shacks were scattered. Just ahead, two men were walking up the road, shovels over their shoulders. They stepped off into the grass, grinning, and made the universal hitchhiker’s signal.

“We’re inside the prison now?” Moon asked.

“Inside now,” the cabbie said. He laughed. “Don’t try to get away.” He slowed the jeepney to walking speed. The shovel bearers climbed onto the back.

“But who lives in the houses? Out beyond the rice paddies.”

“The colonists,” the cabbie said, gesturing toward his newly acquired passengers. “These guys.” He laughed. “They call ’em colonists. After they’ve been here awhile, not done anything wrong for a while, they can bring their women in and build a house and get some land to raise their crop.”

“Really?” Moon said. He was remembering the cabbie laughing with the guards. Clearly this cabdriver liked his little jokes at the expense of tourists. The hitchhikers were actually prison employees, of course.

“And the prison keeps some buffaloes. So the prisoners can rent them when they need to plow. And then they turn in part of their rice, and the warden sells it and keeps part of the money to pay for the seed and the fertilizer and the rent.” The cabbie laughed again and held up his hand—rubbing his fingers together in all of suffering humanity’s symbol of extortion. “And a little something for the warden, I think. And a little something to buy Imelda a present too.”

“They used a system a lot like that in Java too,” Osa said. “When it was Dutch.” She turned and said something to one of the hitchhikers. The man grinned a gap-toothed laugh and produced a lengthy answer.

“He said you have to serve a fifth of your sentence before you can bring your wife,” Osa explained. “For him that was four years. And now he’s growing vegetables.”

“Not everybody wants to be a farmer, though,” the cabbie said. “Some of them work in the shop. Carve things. Make antique canes, chairs. Nets to fish with. Blowguns. Things to sell in the market.”

“What were you telling the guards back there at the gate?” Moon asked.

“I told them the lady was a lawyer the government sent down from Manila to investigate something. I told them you were her bodyguard.”

This time Moon laughed. “You’ll have trouble getting me to believe that story,” he said. “They looked at the letter.”

Now Osa chuckled. “I’ll bet they don’t read,” she said. “Is that right?”

“That right,” the cabbie said. “I had to tell them what it said. And I don’t read either.”

The man who came down the steps when the cab stopped at the administration building certainly could read. “I am Lieutenant Elte Creso,” he said, and took Moon’s letter. He glanced at it. “You are Malcolm Mathias,” he said, and looked at Osa. “It says nothing about a woman. Do you have a pass for the woman?”

“This is Mrs. van Winjgaarden,” Moon said. “My secretary. In Manila they said the letter would suffice for both of us. They said the authorities here would understand that one would be accompanied by one’s secretary.”

The lieutenant looked surprised. He considered this, looked at the letter again, sighed, shook his head, and motioned them up the steps.

The building reminded Moon of buildings he had seen in coastal Louisiana. It was a two-story concrete structure, whitewashed but stained by whatever those organisms are that grow on buildings in the tropics. It was raised some five feet off the earth on posts in tropical fashion and surrounded on both levels and all sides by broad verandas. Moon guessed it had been built early in the century, and not as part of a prison. Perhaps it was a hospital once, or a school. It dominated a broad, grassy plaza, the other three sides of which were lined by one-story buildings. They looked like barracks, Moon thought, but probably were quarters for the nonfarming inmates. He paused in the shade of the portal and looked back. Nothing stirred in the noonday heat.

It was very little cooler in the whitewashed room where they sat waiting for George Rice to be delivered to them. High ceiling, high windows, and a brass plaque beside the door declaring that Iwahig Prison was built in 1905 by the United States Philippine Commission. Overhead the blades of an ornate ceiling fan made their leisurely effort to stir the humid air. Even the lieutenant, wearing knee-length shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, was wilted. He was also a bit confused. His stare made his suspicious dislike of Moon apparent. But somehow Mrs. van Winjgaarden had charmed him.

“You know the rules,” he said, glowering at Moon and then smiling shyly at Osa. “Visits are limited to twenty minutes for colonists during the first month of their incarceration. Colonist Rice has not been here long enough to qualify for a longer visit. Nothing can be passed to the inmate. Nothing can be received from the inmate. The rules require that a guard will be present at all times.”

This recitation completed, the lieutenant gave Moon a final warning stare and backed out, bowed to Osa, and closed the door behind him.

They sat in straight-backed wooden chairs behind a long wooden table. And waited.

“Here we are, then,” Osa said. “I think this will be it. I think Mr. Rice will tell us what we have to know. I have prayed for that.”

Moon nodded. “Maybe so,” he said. And maybe this would be an appropriate time for prayer. He closed his eyes.
Lord,
he thought,
let this Rice guy be the end of it. Let me just go home. Let this man tell us he doesn’t know where the kid is, and he doesn’t know how to get to this
crazy
preacher’s mission, and he doesn’t know a damned thing useful.
He opened his eyes. Closed them again.
Arid, Lord, let my mother be well again. And let her forgive me if I disappoint her again. Let her know it just wasn’t possible. That I really did—
The door opened and a small man walked through it. George Rice. He wore a loose cotton blouse with broad horizontal stripes in black and white. And under the blouse, loose pants with the same stripes. Exactly like the costumes cartoonists put on convicts, Moon thought. But the man didn’t look like a convict even in that uniform. He had bright blue eyes, and a broad grin showed perfect white teeth. He had a well-trimmed white beard and mustache. Moon thought of Santa Claus.

A guard walked in behind him, even smaller. The guard looked about seventeen, and nervous.

“Well, howdy do!” George Rice said, beaming at Osa. “It is so good to see you agin, darlin’. So very, very good.”

The guard pointed to the chair on the other side of the table and said, “Sit, please.”

Rice sat.

“Mr. Rice,” Osa said, “this is Ricky’s brother. We hope you can give us some information.”

“Moon Mathias,” Rice said, extending a hand.

“I’ll be damned. You finally got here. Ricky thought you were the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

The guard stepped forward. “No touch,” he said.

His expression said he was embarrassed by this rudeness. He looked at Moon, his eyes asking forgiveness.

“I’m glad to meet you,” Moon said. “Ricky told me a lot about you too. I guess you were his right-hand man.” A small white lie, but harmless as it was, Moon regretted it, just as he regretted the small ones he told Debbie. All Moon remembered hearing about Rice was a couple of anecdotes about his escapades.

“Don’t believe all you hear,” Rice said, grinning. And then, to Osa, “Damn’, did you come like the prince came to the tower where the princess was”—he searched for the proper word—“was incarcerated against her will? I trust that is your motive.”

“It would be nice if we could,” Osa said. “But we—”

Rice interrupted her. He turned to the guard. “This is my friend Mr. Preda. Mr. Preda, these are my good old friends, Mrs. van Winjgaarden and Mr. Moon Mathias. Good people. Good friends of President Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda.”

“How do you do,” Moon said. Osa said something that sounded like it might be in Tagalog, and Mr. Preda smiled shyly and nodded.

“Mr. Preda speaks English,” Rice said. “But when it comes to
La lengua
of Shakespeare, to the multiple-syllable latinate vocabulary, then it’s a different ball game. You two will understand without any explanation from me the advantage this linguistic situation will have for us.” He looked back at Preda, who smiled and nodded.

Rice smiled back.

“I understand,” Moon said glumly.

“You don’t have to be a Houdini for the first step,” Rice said. “I guess you noticed that coming in. A low hurdler could do the palm log. This isn’t Sing Sing. That’s not the problem. The problem is getting a drawbridge across the moat.”

“The Sulu Sea,” Moon said. He wasn’t happy about the direction this conversation was taking.

“Exactly,” Rice said. “Or, in our case, it would be the South China Sea.”

“Mr. Rice,” Osa said, “to tell the truth, we don’t have any way to build bridges over moats. We are trying to find the baby. Eleth’s baby. And Ricky’s. She was supposed to be brought out to Manila, but she didn’t get there. And we want to get my brother out of his mission too. Mr. Brock told us that you might—”

“Little Lila didn’t get to Manila?” Rice said, frowning. “Well, now, she should have.”

“And I would also like you to tell me some way I can reach my brother.”

“Oh,” Rice said. He leaned his elbows on the table, hands folded, lip caught between his teeth, thinking. He looked at Moon, blue eyes bright under bushy white eyebrows. And then at Osa. And then down at his hands.

Young Mr. Preda took a small step backward, leaned against the wall, looked out the window, exhaled a great sigh. Moon became conscious of the perspiration running down his cheekbone, down the back of his neck. The smell of mildew reached him, reminding him of something he couldn’t quite place.

“Where would she be?” Rice asked himself. He glanced up at Moon. “I take it you’re telling me they didn’t get her onto the flight to Manila,” he said.

“Apparently not,” Moon said.

Rice sighed. “The way it was supposed to work, we’d handle it at the Nam end and that lawyer— Castenada, I think his name is, the one that Ricky retained for R. M. Air—was supposed to meet the plane and get the kid sent along to the grandmother in the States.” Rice paused, lip between teeth again, remembering.

“I flew her up to Saigon,” Rice said. “Lo Tho Dem was there at the airport. He had his wife with him. They took the little girl. Dem said he thought everything was going to be okay but he might need a little more cash”—he glanced up at Moon as he rubbed his fingers together, making sure he understood such things—“because things were getting tense in Saigon already. The rich folks wanting out. People standing in line at the embassy for papers and visas. There was already a big run on the airlines for tickets. But Dem—”