Moondogs - Alexander Yates [120]
“Come on already,” Lorenzo yells, cupping his hands around his mouth as though calling to people on the other side of a ravine. “Get to the shooting!”
Without turning around Reynato threatens to toss Lorenzo off the roof and see if he can’t pull a parachute from that ear of his. “I can send them away,” he says, all quiet, “if you’d rather do this alone.”
Efrem shakes his head. “They won’t be able to see anything, anyway.” He hands the note to Reynato and asks him to read it aloud. Shouldering his Tingin, he aims straight up, eyes agape, pupils unhinged.
“You don’t even know, do you? You don’t even know how good you are,” Reynato says. He steps back, puts on his reading glasses and holds the list up so it catches floodlight spilling off the adjacent scaffolding. He reads like a radio announcer. “Ting Dangwa!” Efrem exhales slowly and lets his gaze trickle upward. He floats, clutching sooty clouds for purchase, climbing to a spot from which to spy upon the marked men. It always takes longer if he doesn’t know where to start, but the name is the important part. Manila glows in darkness below. Many Tings, doing Ting things, flicker among long gridlines of incandescent yellow. One twinkles brighter than the rest. Alone in his apartment, he reheats a steaming meal still frozen inside. He’s naked save an undershirt, nose pressed against the microwave door to watch his dinner spin. Efrem picks out a little window in the hallway and shoots, his silenced Tingin making a puff-cheek sound. Ting passes by carrying his plate just in time to catch it in the neck. Reynato reads another name. “Melvin Alao …” sits in a girly bar on Roxas, getting a lap dance in the back room. A woman wearing nothing but sequins twists her shoulders, flips her hair and runs out the neon door when Melvin’s face gets on hers. “Ed Recto and Joey Tanga …” both doze in the back of a jeepney traveling north on the superhighway. The kerosine engine is so loud that no one hears gasping replace their snores. “Angel Saya …” is farthest away. Efrem doesn’t recognize the place, but it’s daylight wherever she is. She walks along a leaky canal wearing a light jacket and hat decorated with plastic flowers. When she falls a blond man tries to help her up, as though all she’s done is slip on a slick cobblestone.
The list is done. A breeze scores the roof and Reynato lets the scrawled-upon bill fly out of his hand and disappear over the edge. He’s still close enough to touch Efrem, but doesn’t. “I’ve got one last name for you,” he says. “Howard Bridgewater.” He puts a hand flat along Efrem’s rifle-sight and pushes it down, breaking his aim. “You’re not killing this one,” he says. “I just want you to tell me if he’s still breathing.”
“Who is he?” Efrem asks.
“Howard’s one lucky asshole, that’s who he is,” Reynato says. “He’s American. One of Charlie Fuentes’s buddies who had sense enough to donate a whole lot of scratch to the campaign. And those facts have earned him the right to some scary-ass guardian angels.” Reynato cups his hands around the tip of his cigar, as if to block wind from fire that isn’t there, and puffs. He waits patiently while Efrem stares. “See him yet?”
“I see him. He’s hurt badly, but alive.”
“Fine,” Reynato says. “Super. I guess we’re going to have to keep him that way.” He shakes his head, as though amazed. “I help get the motherfucker elected and still he feels like he can call in favors. He swears this is the last one. Charlie wants us to rescue that clown.”
THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME Efrem’s used his ability to check in on people from afar. He’d been a frightened child; convinced his adoptive mother could fall ill at any