Hillerman, Tony Read Online Free PDF Page B

places where the
    Communists are coming in. Delivering property to Hong Kong and Singapore and Manila—places that are secure. People who own valuable things will pay well for such deliveries.”
    “Oh,” Moon said.
    Mr. Lee shrugged, his expression philosophical. “I myself have paid well,” he said. “It is these terrible times we live in. Buddha taught us that one who runs against the wind carrying a torch will surely burn his hand. And yet we run against the wind.”
    “This is how you were associated with Ricky?”
    Mr. Lee nodded.
    “As a customer?”
    “As a contractor,” Mr. Lee agreed. “Mr. Mathias’s company sometimes contracted to pick up an item somewhere for me and take it someplace else.”
    “In Cambodia?”
    “In Cambodia. In Laos. In Vietnam. My home had been in Vietnam, in the highlands where it is cooler. But unfortunately, the war—” Mr. Lee shrugged again and lapsed into silence. Moon thought of the letter to Ricky. The details that had been incomprehensible when he’d read it must have referred to this delivery business.
    “And now, where is home?”
    Mr. Lee smiled. “Home?” He thought about it and smiled ruefully. “It is still in Vietnam,” he said. “I moved out of the mountains to a place near Hue. It proved an unfortunate choice.”
    “I guess I meant the family home,” Moon said, wondering why he’d bothered to ask that standard polite question.
    “The family comes from South China,” Mr. Lee said. “Canton. But the Nationalist Army defeated the warlord faction there, and my grandfather moved our family to the south. Then the Japanese defeated the Nationalists. My grandfather was killed, and my father moved the family down toward the border of Vietnam. Then the Japanese were defeated by the Americans and we moved again. And then the Communists defeated the Nationalist Army and my father was killed.”
    Mr. Lee sighed. “A long story,” he said. “I moved the family into Indochina. But the French came back in when the Japanese were driven out, and the Viet Minh, who had been fighting the Japanese, began fighting the French. My two brothers and my son were killed then. After the French were driven out, the Americans came in, and my wife and one of my grandchildren were killed and we moved again—” Mr. Lee broke off the recitation with an apologetic look at Moon. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “You were being polite. I was boring you with a family history.”
    “No, no,” Moon said. “I am interested.”
    “But you are also a busy man. With many responsibilities. I must not waste your time. I must tell you that I am here because one of the very last transactions your brother and I engaged in was not concluded. Not totally completed. The tragedy interrupted it. The delivery was not consummated.”
    He peered at Moon through the thick lenses, his watery eyes seeking understanding.
    “The goods were on the helicopter when it crashed?”
    “I think not,” Mr. Lee said, looking sad.
    A jet came over, lower than usual. Mr. Lee waited.
    So did Moon. It was the fatigue, he thought, that gave these two men, and the room, and everything else, a sense of unreality. He glanced at Mr. Charley Ming, who—caught staring—looked away. Mr. Lee was looking down at his small hands, folded in his lap.
    “I want to learn where my merchandise has gone,” he said. “I think Mr. Mathias put it somewhere for safekeeping. But the people at his company knew nothing about it. Your brother’s papers had already been sent to his attorney in Manila. But when I got to Manila, again I was too late. He had sent everything to your mother in the United States.” He shrugged, looking at Moon with the question in his face.
    “You want to look at Ricky’s papers to see if they’ll help you find—whatever it was?”
    “Exactly,” Mr. Lee said. “For that I came to the United States. But when I reached Miami Beach, your mother had already left.”
    “She brought a few things