“Okay. So, this Japanese thug, he was too drunk to tell me much. All he did was give me a location.”

“Oh? And what might that be?”

“The Philippines!” She pushed at his shoulder. “Why you think I’m asking?”

“Of course. I see, yes. Was that enough for Lansdale?”

“It must have been. Because he ain’t here now, is he?”

“No. Right.” Selfer sucked on his flask. “Tell me, why do I get the strange feeling you know more than this, or are after more?”

“Girls do strange things to a guy,” was all she said.

“Indeed.”

Selfer added a smile that should’ve given her the heebie-jeebies, but somehow it didn’t.

She shook her head at that and drank. “I tell you one thing. He’s a good man.”

“Lansdale?” Selfer snapped.

“Wendell Lett. You better treat him right. He came here thinking this place was gonna heal him somehow.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped again. “I’m the one who promised him.”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” she said. She shifted closer, and his smile came back. “Will you promise me, too?”

He set a hand on hers and caressed it. It warmed her tummy more than that wine or basi. She squirmed to make it go away, but that only made it worse. He kept gazing into her eyes, and those bags underneath were all gone, flushed away by sparkle and the blush of booze and desire.

She yanked her hand away. “You never answered my question.”

“What’s that?”

“The tunnels.”

“Oh, they’re here—up there, I mean. But that’s all I can say.” He made the zippering gesture across his lips.

“All you can say, or all you want to say?”

He held out his hands, palms up. “We shall see, won’t we?”

They got to work pulling out the food and setting it out without speaking like a couple together a long while, or at least months. They poured wine, toasted, ate, poured more wine.

“What is this?” he said. “What are we doing here?”

“We have something like a treaty. I only hope it’s not like the kine you Americans usually come offering. Those are full of tricks.”

“We Americans, you mean.”

“Me too? Huh. I sure don’t feel like it.”

They kept eating, staring out at the ancient Place of Refuge, and drinking, giving each other sidelong glances.

“I won’t take your mana, haole,” she said. “I promise.”

“And in return, I won’t make you swim across the shark’s den.”

“Deal,” they said at the same time, toasted the wine, and they laughed.

18.

Lett was now the talk of the operation. Lansdale slapped him on the back and stood so close Lett thought he was going to hug him and squeeze him.

“Man oh man, you’re making such progress,” Lansdale sang.