Moondogs - Alexander Yates [42]
The jeep bounces on the rough dirt track. They pass the semi-paved plantation road leading to the city, but don’t take it, pushing further into the overgrown dark. Reynato stays quiet, his breath heavy and slow, his loose smile giving him an open kind of look. Finally Efrem works up the courage to speak.
“Where are we going, sir?”
“My questions come first,” Reynato says.
Efrem waits, but Reynato just keeps staring. It lasts minutes. They rumble silently past the mud lane leading to the airfield, past the last access road for the Bukidnon-Davao highway, without slowing. The forest thickens into a quiet blur of ferns slapping at the jeep. Reynato moves the unlit cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. He sucks and puffs.
“So … there’s got to be a limit,” he says.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“No sirs. That rapist you just killed … or suspected rapist, rather. Innocent until proven, right?” Reynato winks. “He couldn’t have been closer than thirty kilometers away. Not to mention all the trees, hills, buildings, people and God-knows what else filling up the line that runs between you and him. So there’s no way a shot out of your gun lands anywhere near him. Bullets don’t go that far.”
Efrem thinks for a moment, trying to find an answer that doesn’t sound boastful. He can’t. “Mine do.”
Renato nods, like he’s thinking about this really hard. “Sure, hey … that much is clear. But, then, what the hell? Does that mean the rule’s flat-out broke? I mean, can you shoot someone in Zamboanga City from here? In Cebu? Can you bag me a jeepney driver in Manila?”
Now it’s Efrem’s turn to pause, and think. “I don’t know. I can shoot as far as I can see.”
“Well, can you see Manila?”
“I never tried.”
“Never tried?” Reynato sucks his unlit cigar again and clenches his teeth, as though savoring smoke. “Where’s your curiosity?”
“I wouldn’t know what to look for,” Efrem says.
“Problem solved; look for my wife. A name helps, right? She’s Lorna Ocampo. We live at …” Reynato glances at his watch, “no … she’ll be out now. Every week she does this damned expensive brunch with girlfriends at the Shangri-La hotel, corner of Makati Ave and Ayala. Should be there now. She’ll be the chubby one at the table, but don’t judge me for it. Lorna used to turn heads. Tell me what she looks like now.”
Efrem grips the seat cushion to steady himself and faces the leaf mosaic above. His eyes open to shimmering black. There are so many shorelines between him and Lorna Ocampo, hundreds of islands with beaches and cliffs. Boats trace white as they motor through straits and into shallow green bays. Freighters hardly move. Efrem sees a long beach—a big island where the land rises up into mountains. A wet checkerboard of rice paddies. The concentric rings of a lake-filled volcano. Beyond is smog like morning mist and the peeking heads of towers. The Shangri-La is pinkish. Six women sit around plates of fruit. Lorna’s plate is nearly empty. Efrem describes her hair in a high beehive, the string of black pearls around her neck. He lists the colors sewn into her blouse, and reads out some of the letters engraved onto her wedding band.
Reynato pats him once on the cheek and leaves his hand there. He can’t whistle but he makes a blowing sound that resembles whistling. “So, if you wanted to, you could shoot that far?”
Efrem nods, rocking his face into Reynato’s sweaty palm. “Can I ask you a question now, sir?”
“I said no sirs. You can ask me whatever you want.”
“Do you have Truth with you?” He means, of course, the famous pistol from the Ocampo Justice movies. When he was a boy his prize possession was a knockoff plastic replica of that larger-than-life Colt, stolen off a market stall run by half-blind Chinese. “Can I see it?”
There is subdued laughter from Charlie and Brig Yapha up front. “Truth? Mohammed … you should know better. I wouldn’t be caught dead with that queen pistol they got Charlie using in the movies.” Reynato lifts his shirt and pulls the handgun from his pant waist—a Glock, dull and wordless. “This is my gun.