Moondogs - Alexander Yates [162]
“That’s not completely foregone,” Bobby said.
“The hell it isn’t,” Hon said. “Benny, I’m telling you, if you do anything that opens the door to the courthouse then you’ll make that bitch rich. Don’t look at me that way, Bobby, you know she’ll steal everything Howie ever had.”
Benicio placed his hands flat on the table. “Well, what won’t open the door to the courthouse?”
Hon paused. “A talk with the judge. I can arrange it by tomorrow morning.”
“Define talk.”
“You want me to spell it out?”
“Yes. Spell it out.”
“Ten thousand bucks. That’ll lift the injunction and buy a clerical error. They’ll misplace her petition and won’t find it until after Howie’s been sent to the crematorium in Sukot and scattered off of Mainit Point, just like he wanted. I’ll put the bills in a cookie tin and have it dropped off at the judge’s home in Ayala Alabang. He’s a friend of mine.”
The young funeral director squirmed in his chair. This clearly wasn’t a discussion he’d signed up for. Bobby looked uncomfortable as well. But Benicio wasn’t about to let this happen. He wasn’t about to lose his father to this stranger. “We’ll give the judge twenty thousand,” he said.
HOWARD’S FUNERAL, held as planned on the first of June, was well attended. Guests carpooled in sport utility vehicles and parked along the mud road, as far away as the Balayan Bay Dive Club. The land was rough, overgrown with ant-swarming bramble and deep-rooted bamboo, but hired men from the nearby village had used machetes to cut a narrow lane through the undergrowth. It led like a hallway down to a clearing by the water where Crespo Funeral Services arranged folding chairs and vases of cut flowers among the wild ones. Camera crews arrived and were turned away, instead setting up their tripods on a hill down-shore of the property, getting filthy as they tried to run extension cords through the brush. Charlie Fuentes came with his own little entourage, followed closely by the American chargé d’affaires. Monique introduced Benicio to her bloodshot husband and Hon hugged him and Alice tight, the chill of their first conversation by now completely forgotten. Bobby and Reynato arrived just before the service started and each sat alone in the back. For a moment Benicio didn’t recognize either of them—Bobby because his bandages had just been removed, and Reynato because he’d grown a scraggly beard and walked slowly with sunken shoulders.
“Who’s that?” Alice asked, following Benicio’s gaze. “He looks familiar.”
“You met him on your first day here. He’s the policeman who almost saved Dad.”
“Not him, the other guy.” She stared at Bobby with an odd intensity.
“A friend of my father’s. I spent some time with him, before I knew what happened. You haven’t met him.”
“Is his name Robert something?”
“Yeah. Bobby. How do you know?”
Alice looked away from Bobby, as though the sight of him was a little unpleasant. “He was in some of the newspapers I read at the embassy,” she said. That was all she said. The specially hired secular officiant took the podium, and they sat.
THE SERVICE WAS SHORT. When it was over Benicio collected his father’s urn and walked down to the beach. He pulled off his suit jacket and laid it out on the wet, rocky sand. He sat on it and made room for Alice who squeezed in alongside. It only took about thirty seconds for him to feel cold water soaking though to his butt and thighs. A small crowd followed and waited in silence to watch him scatter the ashes. The minutes became a half hour and they trickled away. Soon the only one left was Reynato, who’d begun to sob while glancing at the overcast sky above them.
Benicio opened the urn and put his hand inside. Howard was soft and coarse at the same time, like the downy flakes that drifted after the eruption. He pressed his fingers in, knuckle-deep. It was more than he’d done with his mother. He’d never even cracked the lid of her casket. For all he knew it was empty or filled with salt. His mother, who just six months ago had been alive and