MURDER ON THE FIFTH FLOOR
by Andrew Bacevich
A first-chapter excerpt from Andrew Bacevich’s upcoming novel, Murder in Manila, releasing May 2026. The story of a murder of imperial implications, Murder in Manila tells of an homicide investigation in the 1920’s Philippines that just might prove to alter the United States’ — or whoever else — control of the overseas territory.
She listened carefully as Madam Olga explained what she was to do. Precisely at 11:00 p.m., on June 20, 1923, a cab would appear at the entrance to the White Russian and take her to the hotel. Upon arrival, she would cross the lobby and take an elevator to the fifth floor. She would walk to the far end of the corridor to Room 501, which would be unlocked. She would enter the room, lock it, and stay there until her client arrived.
Accustomed to obeying, she followed these instructions to the letter. She had now been sitting on the bed in this very dark and quiet room for the better part of an hour. Apart from the heavy glass ashtray sitting on the nightstand, the room was totally without distinguishing features. She briefly pulled back the drapes to view the moonlit bay on the far side of the hotel gardens but quickly changed her mind. Better for the drapes to remain closed.
She was beginning to feel uneasy. Had something gone wrong? Madam had not told her what to do if her client failed to show. She had a young son to support and needed money. Sitting alone in an empty hotel room was not going to pay her bills.
A tap on the door shortly before midnight came as a relief. She rose from the bed, unlocked the door, and opened it without saying a word. A tall figure, wearing an American military uniform, filled the doorway. He entered the room, kicked the door shut, and with his right hand gave her a violent shove. She fell back on the bed, paralyzed with sudden fear. There was no one to help her.
In an instant, he was on top of her. With his left hand, he covered her mouth; with his right, he tore at her clothes. He was expecting—indeed, had paid for—submission. He was not given to compromising on his requirements. But his ferocity terrified her. In all of her prior dealings with men, she had experienced nothing quite like this.
Her panic triggered an instinctive response: She sank her teeth into his hand. He winced and reacted impulsively, striking her with his fist. Her insolence in resisting him was an intolerable insult—that, rather than pain, required a forceful response. Reaching for the glass ashtray, he hit her with it once and then a second time. In an instant, she fell silent and stopped moving.
When he had finished with her, he rolled over and got to his feet. Breathing heavily, he buttoned his fly and adjusted his uniform. He looked at the mirror on the far side of the room and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. His hand was bleeding.
“Brown bitch,” he snarled at the motionless figure on the bed.
He walked unsteadily to the sink, rinsed his hand in cold water, and dried it on a towel. Reaching into his pocket, he threw a few coins on the bed.
As he prepared to leave, he took one last look at the girl’s body, still lying on the bed naked and inert. It was then that he noticed the blotches on her shoulder and arms, red, scaly, and ugly. One glimpse, and he felt his skin crawl.
He had brought home from the war in France an acute dread of anything that appeared diseased or unclean. When it came to personal hygiene, he was intensely, almost maniacally, fastidious. He did not understand nor could he explain this sudden phobia. It became his secret; ensuring that it remained so was his obsession. His career depended on it. So, too, did upholding his sense of manhood.
Standing at the foot of the bed, he struggled to suppress a growing feeling of panic. What had this girl exposed him to? The Islands were rife with vile diseases to which Whites were especially susceptible. So it seemed, anyway. Had she infected him with one of them?
The urge to flee, to put as much distance between himself and the girl as he possibly could, was suddenly overwhelming. So, he hastily picked up the ashtray, wrapped it in the blood-stained towel, and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
“I By the dawn of the Twentieth Century, graduates of the United States Naval Academy had acquired a formidable reputation for consuming copious quantities of alcohol. Although regulations since 1914 prohibited drinking onboard any U.S. Navy vessel, an ability to hold your liquor remained a hallmark of American naval professionalism. Nowhere was this more true than in the Philippines, which were exempt from federal laws barring the production and sale of alcohol. Prohibition just didn’t apply.
When it came to drinking, Ensign John “Cracker Jack” Hardesty, U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1921, was proving to be a bit of a disappointment. When sober, the slender and handsome Ensign Hardesty was a wonderful companion, popular among men and women alike. When not sober, he tended to be a handful.
During his four years at Annapolis, Hardesty had developed a taste for martinis. But as his classmates had long since learned, a single drink made with Navy-strength gin sufficed to make Cracker Jack tipsy; more than one, and he became either belligerent or sloppily sentimental.
On this particular Saturday night, after a night of hard drinking at the Manila Hotel and with their ship shoving off from Subic Bay in the morning, it fell to his friend and classmate Ensign Robert Statler to escort Cracker Jack safely to bed. Neither slender nor especially handsome—his wide face already gave hints of the double-chin to come—Bob Statler was steadfast, reliable, and, above all, loyal.
As a courtesy to members who overindulged—a nightly occurrence—the nearby Army & Navy Club, exclusively the domain of American military officers, routinely set aside a large room on its top floor for use as a de facto dorm-cum-drunk-tank. Delivering Cracker Jack to this sanctuary would assure his wellbeing for the night, allowing Ensign Statler to rest easy.
It was well past midnight as Hardesty and Statler left the hotel. On the far side of the Paseo de Luneta, Manila’s version of Central Park, the club’s lights glistened. But given Cracker Jack’s condition—he was presently entertaining himself by singing the several verses of the Navy Hymn—Statler decided against hoofing it. Better to hail one of the cabs that regularly arrived at the hotel’s main entrance.
Manila’s taxi fleet was motley and tired, with many cabs predating the Armistice of 1918. But service was cheap and Filipino drivers reliable. As soon as the two officers positioned themselves at the hotel’s main entrance, a worn-looking Ford arrived to offload its passengers. Hardesty and Statler stepped aside to allow a well-heeled and well-oiled American couple to exit.
As they were doing so, a stocky, dark-haired U.S. Army first lieutenant, identifiable by the silver bar on each shoulder, elbowed his way past the two sailors.
“Pardon me, gentlemen,” he said. “I’ll need this taxi. I have a very pregnant wife waiting at home.”
Slamming shut the taxi’s rear door, he turned toward the driver.
“Malacanan,” he snapped. “And make it quick.”
Without comment, the driver shifted noisily into gear and pulled away from the hotel. Barely able to stay upright, a dazed Cracker Jack Hardesty looked at his classmate in amazement.
“Who does that fat prick think he is?”
“That, my friend, is Lieutenant Osborne Wood, son of the Governor General.”
“Well, somebody needs to teach him…”
“Save it,” Statler interrupted. “Osborne makes his own rules. Let’s get you to bed.”
With some justification, Leonard Wood fancied himself a central figure in a turn-of-the-century epic: America’s ascent to the status of world power, ranking alongside such established players as Great Britain and France. As an architect of empire, Wood himself had played a consequential role in that story.
For Osborne Wood, however, the allure of empire had not survived a prolonged encounter with reality. His own exposure to teeming, dirty, and disease-ridden Manila convinced him that, once Admiral Dewey had sunk the Spanish Fleet in Manila Bay back in 1898, he should immediately have set sail for home. That the United States had a solemn obligation to confer the blessings of democracy on millions of Filipinos struck Osborne as patently ridiculous.
By the 1920s, more than a few of his fellow Americans agreed. Back in Washington, the idea of unloading the Philippines was finding favor. The challenge was to do so gracefully. No presidential administration was going to admit that annexing several thousand islands in the Western Pacific had been a mistake.
In the meantime, his father’s principal task as Governor General was to prevent the archipelago from being a source of aggravation, embarrassment, or undue expense. Implicit in that assignment, which Leonard Wood viewed with utmost seriousness, was a requirement to defend the islands from internal or external threat. That mission included defending the sovereign territory of the Governor General’s residence from intruders.
Among the emblems of imperial power dotting the various colonial possessions scattered throughout Asia, the Malacanan Palace ranked among the least regal. To say that it lacked grandeur was an understatement. Nestled alongside the notoriously polluted and malodorous Pasig River, it survived as a ramshackle remnant of a once-vast Spanish imperium. Once the United States seized the Philippines in 1898 and gave the structure a fresh coat of paint and new roof, it became a token of America’s transient appetite for colonizing the Far East.
When the taxi dropped Osborne at the Palace, the mansion was nearly dark and the front gate locked. As he dismounted from the cab and paid the driver, an American sentry approached and recognized the son of the Governor General. The sentry opened the tall wrought-iron gate, saluted as Osborne entered, and then loudly shut it again, thereby signaling his unhappiness at being on duty overnight.
General and Mrs. Wood had retired early, as was their habit unless some official engagement required otherwise. So, too, had Osborne’s young wife, Katherine. Except for the hum of the ceiling fans, the palace was quiet, and Osborne seemingly had the premises to himself. Gingerly mounting the main staircase in his stocking feet, he headed toward the bedroom that he shared with his wife.
When Osborne reached the midpoint of the staircase, a loud, metallic click broke the silence. It was the unmistakable sound of a revolver being cocked. From out of the dark came a command:
“Identify yourself, or I’ll shoot.”
Osborne instantly froze.
“It’s me, General. Osborne. Please put down the gun.”
General Wood chuckled.
“You gave me a start, Lieutenant. I didn’t know you were intending to make a late night of it.”
“Just poker with the usual crowd, mostly the Cuba gang. I guess I stayed longer than I should have.”
“Well, let’s turn in. I have an early start tomorrow.”
“Yessir, of course. And I apologize for waking you.”
“Acknowledged.”
Sticking the revolver into the waistband of his flannel pajamas and dragging his bad leg, General Wood walked slowly back toward the room where he and his wife slept. Osborne waited until his father had closed the door to his bedchamber and then headed down a connecting corridor. The door to his own room was shut tight. Assuming his wife to be asleep, he entered quietly, stripped down to his underwear, and climbed into bed.
Katherine stirred.
“You smell like whiskey,” she said in a low voice. “And sweat.”
She turned over so that her back was toward her husband. Osborne ignored the snub. Sooner or later, he would repay her in kind. For now, he needed to ponder the events of the evening and the blunder he had committed.
Mr. Bacevich is a former soldier, professor emeritus at Boston University, and author of over a dozen books, such as ‘America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History’ and ‘After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed.’ Ravens on a Wire is his first novel, and ‘Murder in Manila’ is his second.