Moondogs - Alexander Yates [119]
Then, about halfway through his work, Ignacio comes across a different reply. One that doesn’t start with Dummy or Moron or What is he thinking? It’s from someone with the username Khalid Bakkar, a slightly off-kilter crescent moon as his profile image. The message is just a number—a phone number!—followed by five short words. If you’re for real, call.
Ignacio’s throat catches. He knew it. He fucking knew it. All those politically correct jackasses on TV saying there was nothing to his strategy. All those self-righteous citified Moros saying it would never work. Ignacio gives a little hoot and jumps up from his chair, sending it crashing to the floor behind him. All the children look again, but he doesn’t care. He borrows the clerk’s pen and writes Khalid Bakkar’s phone number on the dry, tucked hem of his shirt. Then he shuts the computer down and strides triumphantly out of the Internet café, out into the wedding of the horse people, out into the drizzle and dazzle.
Chapter 23
EFREM’S FATHERS
Efrem Khalid Bakkar follows Ka-Pow up to the roof at midnight. From atop the apartment high-rise the city looks like nothing but tendrils of metal and light sprung from a void. The lit homes and offices float like satellites, drifting among sparkshower from welding torches, held by untethered workmen on steel, building more homes, and more offices. Elvis and Racha spread a drop cloth over the roof and lie on their backs to watch the moon reckon with this smoggy, starless world. Lorenzo gulps a two-liter with more rum in it than cola, passing it around like he’s at a picnic. Reynato sucks his unlit cigar. Only Efrem is tense. It’s been just over a week since the raid against the pirate. And now, as he clutches a list of the pirate’s criminal network written in ink and Racha’s blood on a thousand-peso bill, they expect him to finish the job.
“You know Efrem, this puts me in a holiday mood,” Reynato says, his tone warm and easy. “This is just like New Year’s in Manila. You have that problem down south? Up here it’s the same story every damn year. A pretty little honor student, or a mother of six, killed while walking home from a party, their brain a landing strip for vertical gunfire. Struck down by a bullet just falling out of the damned sky like some kind of apocalyptic birdshit. Bullets belonging to one of ten thousand morons who prefer shooting the moon to fireworks. It never fails, and on January first every year I sit in my kitchen with the paper and just fucking marvel at it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished shit like that would happen to the people who actually deserve it. I mean, if this is going to be a country where it can rain bullets, and I mean really rain them, then shouldn’t it at least be a country where they land right?”
“On with the show!” Lorenzo calls, spilling rum and cola as he shakes his bottle. Efrem crosses to the center of the roof, Tingin loose at his side, eyes turned up. Reynato follows and puts his soft, tiny palms on Efrem’s shoulders.
“Don’t let him rush you,” he says. “You just take your time. I can see how a decision like this is tough, even for a man with your history. To be honest, I’d be turned off if you said yes right away. Stone-cold killers can’t be trusted. I like a man who gives the rules some good consideration before he breaks them. And I know you expected things to go different when you joined up. The problem with the lies we’re told is we start out wanting to believe them. Wanting to believe that the shabu dealer in Davao spent more than just a week in jail; that he isn’t back home, one-man-banding his poorest lady customer