Moondogs - Alexander Yates [27]
“I’m not back yet, but I can see Makati up ahead,” Howard says, lying just a bit. Makati is actually to his right, receding. This driver is pushing his luck.
“Are you all the way out in Ermita again?” Hon asks. “I told you not to take the Aussies to that place. It’s not classy.”
“The Aussies didn’t mind,” Howard says.
“Well shit. What am I supposed to say to Richard?”
Howard tells Hon to open up his e-mail. He dictates a nasty message.
“Fuck me. That’s filthy,” Hon says, delighted. “Send!”
“Can I go now?”
The taxi hits a speed bump too fast and Howard lurches forward and drops his phone. It lands on the floor mat, illuminating the bottom of the cab. Reaching down, he sees that the floor is blanketed with green feathers—the same feathers that decorate the dash. When he puts the phone back to his ear he finds that Hon has hung up.
“Easy buddy,” Howard says to the driver, forcing a smile. “You’ll get what’s on the meter plus a hundred no problem. No need to rush so much.”
The driver sniffs. He rubs his face with his wrist. They come to a red light and stop beside a little white cathedral in stucco Gothic style—Iglesia Ni Kristo written in grand yellow letters above the door. The light turns green, but the taxi does not move. The driver looks down each street, as though making up his mind, and then turns. Makati is ahead of them now, the skyline blurred by smog. He must have decided to stop jerking Howard around.
The road widens and it begins to drizzle. A cloth billboard advertising skin whitener whips and drips like a sail. The taxi driver tailgates a brightly decorated jeepney—the only other vehicle on the road. Even through the rain Howard can clearly read Ethel, Gemini and Bless Our Trip hand-painted on the rear mudflaps. Then, just as they emerge from under a series of overpasses, just as Howard recognizes the pink obelisk of his hotel not two miles away, the driver turns onto a quiet residential side street.
“Enough,” Howard says, his patience at its end. “Makati Ave is back that way. You want your hundred, or not?”
The driver ignores him. The rain thickens and the taxi slows. It shudders to a sudden halt beneath a broken streetlight. The driver stares at the wheel. He stomps on the clutch and shifts jerkily through each gear.
“You hear me?”
“Something’s wrong,” the driver says.
“Yeah? What?”
The driver gives a kind of shrug. “Broken,” he says. He scratches his cheeks and upper lip. He looks out the windows. The rain sounds like stones on the dented taxi roof. The street is quiet and dark, little town-houses on each side sealed up like ship hulls against the ocean.
“It’s not broken,” Howard says, unable to believe he has to go through this bullshit again. He’s been robbed twice this year already—three times if you count pickpockets. “Let’s get this over with,” he says. “How much do you want?”
The driver smiles sheepishly and says: “Wait. I fix it.” Without another word he jumps out and hurries across the street. He pounds hard on a closed door, yelling something in Tagalog, getting soaked by the rain.
Howard looks out the back for signs of life, but everything is empty. He calls the police and tells them he’s getting robbed. No, he hasn’t been hurt. He doesn’t think he will be. Where is he? In a taxi. Somewhere north of Makati—he can see the Shangri-La from here. The license plate? Hold on, he’ll check.
Howard puts a foot out of the taxi, keeping an eye on the driver as he does so. The banged-upon door suddenly opens and light pours out from inside, illuminating a corridor of raindrops. A large, rectangular face juts out into the rain. The two men speak and look back at the taxi. The large man disappears and emerges seconds later with a length of PVC pipe in his hand. Nausea hits Howard hard. This is not a petty-theft situation. The depth to which he’s misjudged it opens below him like a hole in the asphalt. He has just enough time to slip his foot back inside and lock all four doors before the driver and his enormous friend reach the cab.