Moondogs - Alexander Yates [17]
The tent quiets down. They all come from different islands but not a one of them has ever missed an Ocampo Justice film. Charlie Fuentes stars as Reynato Ocampo, the hardest cop in the country, maybe in the whole damn world. The one and only Mr. Tough Knocks, the Dirty Harry of the Wild Wild East, old Snaggletooth himself. They’ve all been to movie houses to watch him stick up for the unstuckup for, fixing the nation one dead criminal at a time. They’ve all seen him press Truth, his famous shitspilling pistol, into the foreheads of men who deserve it.
The silence stretches until it breaks into excited crosstalk, soldiers peppering Skinny with questions. Tell us what you heard again, not so fast this time. He’s coming to inspection? Fuentes? The Ocampo Fuentes? Himself? This morning?
Efrem keeps his eyes on his laces, but they won’t tie right. His fingers are shaking. He was nine when he saw his first Ocampo movie—first movie he ever saw. Back when his adoptive mother was still alive, back before he’d picked a side in the war, back before he’d switched sides. He’d been a little boy seated in the back near the projectionist. And Reynato Ocampo was the biggest man in the theater, so big they had to wheel the projector forward to squeeze him onto the screen, so bright they twice replaced the buzzing bulb that lit the film.
AN HOUR LATER the Boxer Boys stand stock still on a marching green south of camp. It’s not a proper marching green. The Armed Forces of the Philippines have leased the land from a Davao-based sugar concern and it slopes irregularly to the east. Tenant farmers tend rice some kilometers down the way, paying the soldiers no mind. A lone carabao munches reeds in a fallow paddy. A boy walks the mounds between, followed by an underfed but energetic puppy. Beyond them all is a tree line of unclaimed, cowering jungle.
Efrem’s in the front row, with soldiers spanning the green behind him and to either side. Hundreds of dirt-eaters, killer grunts, pride of the AFP. He looks sharper than usual this morning. Back straight, eyes forward, custom Tingin rifle shouldered. Beretta oiled and holstered snug. Dented helmet high. Boots tight as he can get them. The inspection’s late, but when it comes he’ll look his best.
Time passes. The sun wallows in low clouds over treetops. It’s mid-April, still very much the dry season, but tell that to this drizzle starting up. Somewhere down the line a soldier sits and the officers give him twenty kilometers of marching with a pack full of ruined cinder blocks. They promise the same for the whole division if another knee grazes ground. The drizzle thickens to rain. Most of the soldiers prefer rainwater to sweat so they leave their plastic ponchos in their packs. They whisper freely under the patter. Skinny Vincent’s story ricochets down the line. Charlie Fuentes is coming. The rumor makes it to the far end of the division and comes back an hour later as a rumor that the president’s been overthrown. Some of the men who have family in Manila start to get upset. Officers calm them down by radioing Metro Command. The president is fine. She’s breakfasting with Chinese businesspeople.
Another hour and the officers allow everybody to sit. Discouraged, they stretch their glutes and kick grass. Two soldiers in the back row loudly discuss what they’ll do to Skinny Vincent if Charlie’s a no-show. They settle on tying him to something with something and pissing on him. Gravely, they chug canteens.
“Not my fault,” Skinny grumbles. “I just told you what I heard.” He looks around for sympathy and gets none.
But Skinny has nothing to worry about. The jeeps are coming. As always, Efrem sees them before anyone else can. Three jeeps thread their way along a wooded road. He glimpses metal and rubber through distant rain-whipped foliage. The drivers wear humorless expressions. Brig. Gen. Antonio Yapha sits in the lead jeep, combing runny yolk out of his mustache. On Yapha’s left is a short man in a modest workshirt, his chin patchy with salt-and-pepper stubble, gleaming orthodontic