He grabbed the bottle from her, chugged some more. He positioned himself in the middle of the room, his toes mixing with the vomit, but he held his ground, feet wide apart.

“Gold!” he screamed at her. “There. We have it. They have it.”

“San Mariel,” she said in a calming monotone. “Cagayan Valley?”

“Yes, yes.”

“But here, too? Under us? Or near?”

His head was rolling around like a coconut dropped into a bowl, and she couldn’t tell if he was confirming it or not.

“No? Yes? That a yes?”

His face screwed up, and his mouth stretched open wide as if yawning. Then that coarse mug of his slackened with one big sigh that sent more acrid vapors her way. “You take me there, please? Take me home, mother,” he muttered and took another chug, and the bottle slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a crack, splitting in two, splashing vomit.

He swayed and pivoted and his eyes rolled back and fluttered and he dropped, his forehead hitting the rug as he went down. Thunk.

She checked the Japanese thug’s pulse as he lay there half on the rug, half in his own vomit. He was still alive. She couldn’t lift him. She opened the windows to flush out the stink. She tried to lift him again, heaving and hoing, and almost threw her back out. Eventually a couple guard types from the Main House came over, followed by Lansdale.

Lansdale took her out on the lanai. As she reported to him, she could only see his silhouette in the darkness, which helped her tell it to him the way she did. She mentioned her mark wanting the kimono, but neither of them laughed about it—to Lansdale it was surely just useful information, another weak point. She told him about his drinking hard, but they knew that already. The pakalolo didn’t surprise Lansdale—they probably gave him the reefer themselves to keep him good and loose. The dose from the vial worked like a charm, she reported. She sweet-talked him and went for broke. Eventually their Japanese visitor told her a location.

“San Mariel,” she stated. “Cagayan Valley.”

Lansdale’s eyes flashed, just a half second. “Are you sure?”

She shrugged. “That’s for you to decide, sir. I only know that this was his answer.”

Lansdale’s shadow seemed to grow and move closer, though he hadn’t budged. “Good, good. How did you ask it?”

“I just asked. He was good and loose, just like you said. So I went for broke, see. I had him confirm in different ways. At one point he said it was the Philippines, and in that valley.”

Lansdale was nodding along.

“He said one other thing,” she added.

“Go on.”

“A name. I don’t know if it means anything.”

“In what context?”