GETTING INTO THE PRISON ON Palawan Island and arranging a conversation with George Rice would be what the woman at the U.S. Consulate called “relatively simple.”

“The Marcos government keeps the important criminals up here at Bilibad to keep an eye on them,” she told Moon, looking up at him over her bifocals. “The Communists, the Huks, the wrong kind of politicians, old family types who have bad ideologies but good connections-they’re kept up here in Manila. They use Palawan for the regular criminals: robbers, burglars, murderers, car thieves, smugglers, rapists, so forth. The ones the government doesn’t have to worry about.”

The consulate clerk paused with that, rubbed her plump and dimpled chin, and considered what she might add to make sure Moon had received her message. Thinking of nothing, she looked up at him again and nodded.

“I think we can get you in, under the circumstances,” she said. “It seems to be a good cause. Finding a missing relative, I mean. And there doesn’t seem to be anything political about this Rice fellow.”

Then she suffered an awful second thought.

“There isn’t, is there?”

Looking into her determined stare, it seemed to Moon that this was another of those rare times when fudging a little on truth was ethical.

“I think he’s a Republican,” Moon said, and restored the clerk’s helpful attitude. She smiled at him.

“I don’t think they’d keep anyone there they considered dangerous,” she said. “I mean politically dangerous. I understand it doesn’t have any walls. Just sort of a big rice plantation surrounded by the jungle.”

“What keeps the prisoners from escaping?” asked Moon. The unexpected good news had stimulated his natural urge to be friendly.

The consulate clerk felt no such urge. “I have no idea,” she said. “Leave me your number and you’ll be informed when we get clearance.” While she was saying it she closed the folder in which she’d placed the request Moon had typed out, a copy of the relevant page from his passport, and the rest of the paperwork, and opened another folder and pushed the button that would send the next problem into her office to be dealt with.

“How long do you think it will take to get clearance?” Moon asked. “Any idea?”

“Probably two days if you’re lucky,” she said. “But don’t count on being lucky.” And she dismissed him with her official consulate clerk’s smile.

Moon had retreated to the Hotel Maynila to wait. He collected his laundry. He bought more socks and underwear. With the help of a vastly overweight cabdriver he solved the problem that large Americans have in Asian countries. The owner, either in ignorance or whimsy, called the shop L’Obèse Boutique, and in it Moon found two shirts, a water-repellent jacket, and jeans big enough to fit him. Then he got on the telephone to L.A. He talked to the nurse in the Intensive Care Unit and learned that Victoria Morick was still not ready for transfer to the Cardiac Care Unit but was “doing as well as can be expected.”

He left word for her doctor to call him at the Maynila. He called his own number in Durance and reached Debbie. Debbie reported that J.D. hadn’t been able to find anyone to put his engine back together, and what could he do about that? Shirley’s dog was no longer on the premises, and no, she didn’t know what had happened to it. She’d had his car washed. And don’t forget he’d been gone for her birthday. Also, she missed him terribly.

“I miss you too,” Moon said. “I dreamed about you last night.” True. And, of course, it had been an erotic dream. After he hung up, he sat awhile on the edge of the bed, glumly thinking about that. Why did he kid himself about the Debbie relationship? Why? Because for some reason he had never been able to fathom, he always needed to think of himself as the guy in the white hat. Moon, the good guy hanging around to save the poor maiden when J.D. and the other predators dumped her. Never Moon the going-to-seed lecher kidding himself about his motives with this sexy youngster.

Enough of that. He called the newsroom and learned from Hubbell that Rooney was threatening to quit, that their Sunday editorial about the ski basin had produced indignant telephone calls, that the Ford dealer on the school board was threatening to pull his advertising if the sports editor didn’t lay off the football coach, that nothing much was happening on the vacation edition, and that they’d had an electrical fire in the darkroom and were farming out their photo printing until the rewiring was done. That was playing hell with the newsroom budget.

Those duties done, Moon considered what was left. He should call Mrs. van Winjgaarden and tell her about Rice. He should return the three calls he’d had from old Lum Lee. Instead, he walked to the window and looked out at the evening. Lights coming on along Roxas Boulevard and Manila Bay. Clouds blowing out to sea. Stars appearing.

He picked up the telephone. What would he say to Mrs. van W.? Now that it seemed likely he could find Rice and talk to him, he didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to go to Palawan Island and visit this jerk in his jail cell, and she would certainly expect him to go. He didn’t want to go to collapsing Vietnam. Or bloody Cambodia. He wanted to go home.

Failing that, he’d go for a walk.

He walked faster than his army regulation pace at first because he was tense and he needed to burn off nervous energy. But the mild air got to him quickly. April is April, even in a climate where winter hardly makes itself noticed, and yesterday’s rain seemed to have provoked a sort of renewal. The perfume of flowers overpowered the aroma of decay. He could hear songs of frogs in the ditches, insect sounds, some sort of night bird he couldn’t identify, other noises strange to him. And on a night like this, Manila slept with its windows open. Somewhere someone was playing a violin. He heard laughter. A radio far off to his right broadcast Bob Dylan exhorting Mr. Tambourine Man to play a song for him. He meet three boys on bicycles. He met a couple hand in hand, the man grinning, the woman giggling. He met an old man carrying a cat. He thought about the priest in the confessional.

The priest had said his name was Julian. if this stroll took him past the cathedral, he’d go in and see if Father Julian was waiting to absolve his evening quota of sinners from their guilt. If he was there, if no one was waiting to confess, he might go in and ask if Julian would like to continue their conversation. Moon guessed he would. After all, he’d left the confessional with the priest’s curiosity unsatisfied. And he’d been rude. He’d like to apologize for that.

What was that big sin, Julian had asked, and he’d told him he’d killed a man. There had been silence then: Julian surprised, Julian shocked. The priest must have wondered if Moon was simply mocking him. His response, when it finally came, suggested that. The tone was light. As with the secular law, he’d said, the church has degrees for homicide too. Had he committed murder, premeditated and done with unrepented malice? Or had it been homicide committed in a sudden rage? Or perhaps Moon had left a fellow to starve stranded on some isolated cliff, simply out of forgetfulness. That would be another sort of sin altogether. Probably no sin at all. And the litany might have continued, had not Moon interrupted and cut it off.

It was murder by self-indulgence, he’d said. Far too many bourbons with water and then too much insistence on driving when Halsey wanted to drive and should have driven. Then driving too fast, losing control, flipping the jeep, killing Gene Halsey, killing the best friend he ever had.

And Julian had said, Ah, that is a terrible tragedy but not a terrible sin. To be a terrible sin it would need to be done with deliberation, an intentional, defiant violation of God’s prohibition against killing one’s fellow human being. And Moon had been able to bear no more of these sterile truisms. He had interrupted Julian again.