Moondogs - Alexander Yates [102]
The pirate and three warehouse tenders stand wide-eyed about the forklift, loose fingers on celebratory San Mig shortnecks. One makes for the office but stops at the sight of shirtless Elvis in the doorway, shotgun leveled. Reynato chants orders. “Hands on heads. Knees on the ground. Hands on heads. Knees on the ground.” He breaks rhythm to shoot out the forklift tires. The pirate and warehouse men let their beers shatter. They put hands on their heads. They put knees on the ground. They look at Efrem, horrified, and he imagines himself a man made of light. Tall as a palm tree. Towering over cheering children in the outdoor movie house.
Reynato orders Racha to cuff them and Racha knows it’s time. His snubnosed pistol shakes as he edges toward the pirate. Snatching the Colt from the pirate’s belt, he lets the magazine fall, ejects a round from the chamber and throws the empty piece to the other end of the warehouse. He cuffs the pirate. He cuffs two of the warehouse tenders and turns to the third, a chubby man in an informal, short-sleeved barong. He has a fountain pen behind his ear, and when Racha reaches for him he stabs it clean through Racha’s palm, where it protrudes like a sixth finger. The snubnosed pistol falls and the two become a tangle of arms and cursing as they grab for it.
Efrem’s silenced Tingin makes the sound of whipped air. His shot nicks the chubby man’s earlobe and the tiny wound is enough to get him down and sobbing out of a scrunched-up face. Racha blinks at the pen half through his bleeding hand. He recovers his snubnosed and beats the chubby man’s face with it. Reynato grabs his gnarled scruff like a puppy and pulls him back. “Easy!” he scolds. “Man needs a mouth to answer questions with.” Racha goes easy. He handcuffs the man and gives him a final slap with his skewered palm.
What happens next is mostly a blur. It doesn’t go by quick, but it doesn’t go the way it should. Elvis discovers a pleatherbound briefcase full of pesos in the office. A quick count puts it over twenty million. Everybody goes silent. Reynato fans himself with a stack of bills. He talks to the pirate in his polite voice. He asks about suppliers and contacts. He asks why there’s so much money. He asks about dates, weights and destinations. All he gets back is a mess of beer-thick spit on his shoes.
Lorenzo approaches, flamboyant, heel-toe. He does a little bow, a flourish and lays the pirate out on concrete. Then, from the folds of his clear plastic poncho he produces a singing handsaw. Warehouse men scream as Lorenzo halves the pirate just above the waist. It takes no time at all. Lower half kicking, upper half shouting a past-tense protest, just a finger of red space between. “You killed me,” he shouts. “You killed me. I died.”
Reynato encourages the upper half to get ahold of itself. “This isn’t what you think,” he says, “this is just an illusion. The fear you’re feeling is real—the pain isn’t. Pain never is. Just tell me what I want to know and we’ll put you back together, good as new.”
The pirate’s upper half stares about, wildly. Surnames, nicknames, middlenames jumble in his mouth. Reynato pulls the fountain pen the rest of the way through Racha’s palm and takes dictation on a thousand-peso bill. He fills both sides with tiny block lettering, gore blotting the ink. After that the halved pirate has trouble breathing enough air to make words. “That’s enough,” Reynato says. “Fix him.” Lorenzo prances back over, hamming it up for the trembling warehouse men. He unclasps his poncho and lays it over the pirate. He pulls a string of multicolored kerchiefs from his straw hat and waves them about in the air. He taps once on the poncho, above the sawslice. “Pesto!” He pulls the poncho off with a flourish.
The pirate is still neatly divided. His lower half no longer kicks and his upper half just blinks. For the first time, Reynato looks concerned. “Enough goofing,” he says, “the