“I should be honored to assist.”
“We anticipate trouble at first. We have to go slow. Pretend we’re just available for instruction while we get to know the local big shots. Then, when the time comes....” He left the ominous sentence unfinished. I could imagine the rest, however. Fortunately, nature by then, with or without Mr. Butler’s assistance, would have removed me as a witness.
Inside the hotel the noise of plates being moved provided a familiar reference. I was conscious of being hungry: as the body’s mechanism jolts to a halt, it wants more fuel than it ever did at its optimum. I wanted to go in but before I could gracefully extricate myself Butler asked me a question. “You the only American in these parts?”
I said that I was.
“Funny nothing was said about there being any American up here. I guess they didn’t know you were here.”
“Perhaps they were counting me among the American colony at Cairo,” I said smoothly. “I suppose, officially, I am a resident of that city. I was on the Advisory Board of the Museum.” This was not remotely true but since, to my knowledge, there is no Advisory Board it would be difficult for anyone to establish my absence from it.
“That must be it.” Butler seemed easily satisfied, perhaps too easily. “Certainly makes things a lot easier for us, having somebody like you up here, another Cavite, who knows the lingo.”
“I’ll help in any way I can; though I’m afraid I have passed the age of usefulness. Like the British king, I can only advise.”
“Well, that’s enough. I’m the active one anyway. My partner takes care of the other things.”
“Partner? I thought you were alone.”