Moondogs - Alexander Yates [163]
Benicio pulled a handful of ash from the urn and looked at it. Seeing the ash, Reynato sobbed louder. It made gray little lines where it stuck in rivulets to the webbing between his fingers. He poured it back into the urn, careful not to let a single grain stray. He dusted his hands off over the open urn and sealed it shut. He stood. Alice looked at him.
“Aren’t you going to?”
“No, I’m not.” He reached down to help her up. “I’m bringing him home with me.” He left his soaking suit jacket on the beach. He held Alice by the arm and walked quickly, nodding to Reynato as they left. He didn’t slow until they were back on the road, off his father’s land.
ALICE LEFT THE NEXT EVENING. He’d wanted to ride with her to the airport but she preferred a shorter goodbye in the lobby. Benicio couldn’t say when he’d be coming home—didn’t know if he’d make the July network upgrade or the beginning of the school year at all. Hon thought it best he stay in the country while they figured out the estate and applied for a special investment visa. Alice thought that was best as well. She played it very cool as they waited for her ride to the airport, but once she was buckled into the backseat her resolve broke and she cried a little, and they kissed through the open window.
After seeing her off Benicio returned to his room and found that she’d left something on the bed. It was an old Inquirer from earlier that spring with a sticker in the upper-right corner indicating that Alice had taken it from the media center in the embassy. On the front page she’d written a note that read: He seems like he made it through all right. Under her handwriting was a headshot of Bobby Dancer. The story was highlighted.
DANCER AND DOGS ABDUCTED, FOUND BEATEN
Political consultant Robert Danilo Cerrano, aka Bobby Dancer, was found badly beaten and unconscious early this morning in Luneta Park, just ten hours after his mother reported him missing. He had last been seen walking his two male Labradors, both runners-up in this season’s showing at the Manila kennel club, some blocks from his family home in Dasmariñas village. Several witnesses reported that Dancer and his dogs were forced by armed men into a purple van and police suspect that these abductors held the young consultant for most of that night. Dancer sustained multiple blows to the side of his head that have resulted in a concussion, a shattered cheek and significant dental damage. Doctors at Makati Medical report that Dancer also sustained injury to his right knee, and that they are treating him for poisoning that occurred when his abductors made him ingest a combination of Fuentes campaign posters, kerosene and other things that this reporter will not mention here. Both dogs were found a short distance from Dancer, castrated and bludgeoned, and both were humanely euthanized on the spot.
Best known as the young mastermind of Senator Amoroso’s sweeping electoral victories in the late 1990s, Dancer had recently bid farewell to the Koalisyon Demokratiko ng Pilipinas to join the fledgling campaign of actor turned senate-seat-challenger Charlie Fuentes. Insiders from the Fuentes campaign have confided to this reporter that former Senator Amoroso was furious at the departure of her protégé, and one source who will remain anonymous even went so far as to accuse the Senator herself of involvement in the attack. The Fuentes campaign has vowed to see that …
Benicio stopped reading and dropped the newspaper back on the bed. The story wasn’t new to him, of course, but the details were. And God, the details were awful. He’d had enough of awful details. He wasn’t going to think about it.
He looked at the paper again just once before throwing it out, and then it was just at the file photo