Moondogs - Alexander Yates [151]
The dog eyes Howard with ears back and tail swishing. It pants and blood dribbles thickly from its loose lips and large, velvety nostrils. Howard makes to leave the ruined pavilion, and the dog follows him. “Get,” he says, but the dog does not get. It matches him step for step.
Together they walk into another patch of jungle, onto a trail marked with yellow blazes for the tourists. The Alsatian rushes when Howard rushes and slows when he slows, always just a step behind in the thickening ash. He feels sorry for the animal. It’s hurt, very badly, like he is. It looks a mess, like he’s sure he does. He makes a kissing noise. “It’s all right,” he says, “I won’t hurt you.” He steps toward it but the dog gives out a shrill whimper and backs away. “That’s fine,” Howard says. “That’s fine.”
Together they come to a clearing and the ground beneath Howard’s feet changes. He kicks some ash away and sees he’s standing on fresh asphalt. A road. That means that somebody will be along. Maybe not in time, but they’ll find him, at least. He sits in the middle of the road, and then when sitting gets tiring he lies down. The dog remains standing. It puffs, and shakes its coat to loosen the ash, and then becomes still, and quiet. The dog looks a mess, but it’s a beautiful dog, isn’t it? It looks so odd, so wonderful standing there in the slowly falling ash. Howard has an urge to call Benny—like he did with the ringed moon and the glowing plankton. Like he always does when he sees something wonderful. He even reaches for his belt loop, but there’s no phone there, of course.
Howard closes his eyes, enjoying this feeling of wonder. It pulses inside him. It pours. It trickles out into the ash, into the dark silence, into everything falling.
Chapter 30
MAKATI MEDICAL
The water in Manila Bay tasted foul, so Benicio backstroked. He swam about a hundred yards along the seawall and bumped lightly into the outrigger of a moored fishing bangka. Calling out twice and finding it empty, he climbed aboard, shimmied out along the pointed bow and hoisted his soggy self over the wall and back onto the promenade. Electricity along Roxas was still out and the falling ash had thickened. The crowd in front of the club had dispersed, and those who remained stood under the tacky awning for cover. Edilberto was still parked in the same spot, but all the doors were locked. Inside he saw Berto’s feet propped up on the dash and he rapped hard on the glass to wake him.
Edilberto cracked the window open and squinted out groggily. “You’re wet.”
“Open the door.”
“And dirty, too.” He pressed his tongue against the backs of his teeth and drew in three little snaps of breath. “Dirty upholstery is trouble for me.”
“I’ll tell them I made you.”
Edilberto leaned across the gearshift and opened the door for him. Benicio’s clothes squelched as he got inside and sat. Enough ash had settled on his wet skin that he was caked with grime.
“Bring me back to the hotel. Please.”
“Maybe first to hospital?” Edilberto gestured with his chin at Benicio’s temple.
He touched his cheek and traced a tickle of drying blood up to the gash that Solita had left in his high-cropped sideburn. It wasn’t that deep, but the cut stung, and it was filthy. “Yeah, take me to the hospital.” They sat for two minutes in near silence, the only sound being the dry rub of Edilberto’s middle and index fingers against his thumb. Benicio understood now that trying to bribe him was a mistake. He’d insulted him, and Edilberto was getting even. But he was pushing it. “I don’t have any more money,” he said. “I was robbed.”
“Robbed? In this kind of place?” Edilberto aped shock. He reached across Benicio’s lap and opened the glove compartment, producing a little pad of blank invoices and carbon paper. “You can write