Moondogs - Alexander Yates [132]
Edilberto glanced at the bills riding shotgun and let out a sudden laugh. He mimicked Benicio, poorly: “I make it my business. You act like you’re on TV.” He retrieved the two bills from the seat and then unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned below the dash and rooted around for the other two that had blown to the floor. The traffic light ahead turned green but it made no difference because no one was going anywhere anyway. “Not many girls,” he said, straightening back up. “One girl. Many times. Sometime she come to him, sometime I bring him to her. You want one for yourself? I know the best place. One on P. Burgos, up Makati Ave, by the old international school. Another in Ermita, along Roxas.”
“I don’t want to take any girl home.”
“Some boy then? Some boys?” He grinned disconcertingly into the rearview. Benicio had felt ready for this conversation—it was supposed to be the easy part of the night. Edilberto was supposed to be polite and demure and do what he asked.
“No,” Benicio said. “No. I just want you to take me to her. To my father’s girl.”
Edilberto turned fully around in the front seat and gaped at him.
“It’s not for that,” Benicio said. “But, I don’t have to tell you what it’s for. If you don’t want to do it you can give me those bills back.”
A fissure opened in the brake lights ahead and the windowless bus behind them honked like a foghorn. Edilberto spun back around and accelerated through the broken congestion, making a sharp right onto Roxas Boulevard. It was the same route they took to the embassy, but it looked different in the dark. Buildings he’d thought abandoned now burned with neon signage and light ropes slung like Spanish moss. Clubs poured music while cigarette vendors and idling taxicabs loitered out front. Edilberto maneuvered into the outer lane and stopped abruptly by a stretch of squat buildings that looked like houses made of nail polish and stucco. Their signs competed like saplings for altitude. “That one,” Edilberto said, pointing to the banana-yellow and headband-pink building in the middle. “Your father’s girl works in that one.”
“Thanks,” Benicio said. “I won’t be long.”
“Good, sir. And what about Alice, sir?”
Benicio’s foot was already out the door, but he froze. “What about her?”
“Does she need me to take her someplace?”
“She’s sleeping.”
“I don’t mind, I can bring her anyplace. When you finish, we can meet you. We can meet you right here. And afterward, I could take the two of you for dancing. I know the best place. All in Malate. All close by.”
Taking his meaning, Benicio bristled. Just because he wanted to keep this trip—and the fact that his father might be letting his baby’s mother work in a whorehouse—private, that didn’t mean he had anything to be ashamed of. But then, even as he balked, he felt a grim awareness of his own hypocrisy. Because he was ashamed of plenty—the way he’d felt when he’d counted the zeros on Hon’s used napkin, for example. And the hard longing he had to watch Solita step out of his father’s shower again, glistening. So he opened his wallet back up and counted out four more thousand-peso bills. He didn’t let go when Edilberto grabbed hold, and for a moment the bills went taut and threatened to rip between their pinched fingers. “It’s a pretty good nice-guy act you’ve cultivated there, Berto.”
“Acting?” His pained expression looked sincere. “No, sir. No act. I am a nice guy. I just follow your lead tonight. And please, sir, it’s Edilberto.”
Benicio released the bills and Edilberto’s hand jerked back. He got out, closed the door behind him and headed toward the club. Three middle-aged men who sat on the curb passing around a single unfiltered cigarette got to their feet and rushed to intercept him. They called him “friend” and each pointed at a different brightly lit doorway. “All the best, all the best,” one of the men chanted, taking Benicio’s wrist and trying to lead him to a place called The Coconut Grove. “No charge, no door,” another insisted, pointing at another: Queen Bonobo’s. “Free first round and half-price