Moondogs - Alexander Yates [142]
Despite heavy fog and rough sea, Ignacio actually managed to get his bangka pointed in the right direction. They sank just off the northwest coast of topside Corregidor, and from there it’s an easy two-kilometer walk to the tourist hotel at the south dock. Reynato, Racha, Efrem and Lorenzo stroll at an easy pace, emerging from the dense jungle onto a little paved road that meanders from one cluster of war ruins to another. Reynato passes cigars and matches all around, keeping his unlit as always. His mood lightens and soon everybody, including Efrem, is smiling. A trolley approaches with the first morning tourists and Reynato makes a big show of jumping out from behind a crumbling wall and shooting at them with a phantom rifle. Children on the trolley return fire from the barrels of pointed index fingers and squeal with delight when Reynato clutches where his heart would be and falls backward into high grass. He waits for the trolley to disappear before standing and brushing himself off. “Where were you guys? You just let that happen.”
To Lorenzo’s delight, brunch at the hotel is served buffet style on an outdoor veranda overlooking the bay and the city beyond. They pile plates high and take a table in the corner. Reynato toasts them with a mimosa flute. “You’re good at what you do because you do good things,” he says. “Here’s to all those people worse than us.” They clink rims and begin eating. As Efrem chews he watches a television mounted above the buffet. A young newswoman in too much pink talks about the kidnapping as though the kidnapping is still a thing to be talked about. He checks Racha’s wrist-fused-watch and sees that it’s been over an hour since they left the beach.
“They don’t know yet,” he says, gesturing at the screen with buttered toast.
Reynato, munching bacon, glances up. The news lady cuts to stock shots—clips of a press conference given by Howard’s son mixed with older footage of an Abu Sayyaf terrorist with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher hoisted over his shoulder. The newswoman narrates the montage, outlining perilous possibilities. “Maybe Elvis has no signal on the beach,” Efrem says. He takes out his own cell phone and sees he has full bars. “I’ll make sure they get the message.”
Reynato takes Efrem’s phone and pockets it. He dabs the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin. “Easy does it, Mohammed. You’ll get credit soon enough.” They regard one another, the hurt and confusion on Efrem’s face a little diffuse because he’s been feeling it so often lately. Credit is not what he was after. Reynato, knowing this, blinks first. He crosses to the television and flips the channel to live cockfighting championships. Racha and Lorenzo, oblivious to the tension, get seconds and thirds at the buffet. They eat with noisy gusto long after Efrem has slid his half-full plate across the table. Lorenzo produces a flask of lambanog from his plastic poncho and fortifies their mimosas. He interlocks elbows with Racha and they sip daintily, braying and spilling. Celebration is a matter of course for Lorenzo at mealtimes, but Racha isn’t known to act the fool with him. Reynato eyes him suspiciously. “And what are you so happy about?” he asks.
Racha holds both hands in the air, displaying cracked palms and grizzled knuckles, as though that’s an answer. He stands and takes his shirt off, turning proudly while people at nearby tables gasp at his sagging adhesions, his missing nipples. He grins and says: “Not a scratch!”
Reynato crosses his arms over his chest. “You must have missed it.”
“Nope,” Racha says. “I checked two times.” He runs his fingers up and down the waxy discolored horror of his torso. “Nothing!”
Concern