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By Root 614 0

faster than he can unjumble it. Yapha bemoans that he’s not yet a full general and Charlie says forget it, quit, run with me. Don’t laugh! Better than a soldier’s pay, am I right? Second District, Davao del Sur, is coming open. Castillo’s got nut cancer and his son’s in New York learning how to be a better fag. You’ll be a shoo-in, come up to Manila and give me some help against those fucking cha-cha crybabies. Brig Yapha shyly sucks shank. They’ll never elect a Pangasinense down here, let alone a Yapha. Don’t be so sure. They know you well enough and they won’t care. What you need to do is start a fight. Get your name in the papers followed by a list of dead Abu Sayyaf terrorists. Who doesn’t like a hero? I don’t, Reynato says, picking his braces with a grouper bone. Don’t you even! I’m not even going to start with you. Charlie grins a soft, cowardly grin. You and your tired excuses. You squanderer of big-ass chances. National hero, tough on crime, connections at the top and at the bottom. The very bottom … and the very top. No telling how far a shred of ambition could take you. Mayor of Manila? Or elected to the Senate, with me, assuming I get there? Goddamnit, Renny, the way your rep cleans up at the box office … you’d be a fucking force at the ballot box. I mean, running on your name, how could you lose? Reynato belches and sort of karate-chops the air. No doubt, he says. But haven’t you beat me to it? Seems to me that you’re already running on my name. And I guess there’s only room for one Reynato Ocampo, real or fake, in voters’ heads. But more power to you. Power, and luck.

Reynato reaches across the table and uses the edge of his spoon to cleave off a brittle duck leg. He pauses to chew, crunching charred fat and bone.

EFREM IS HUNGRY BUT EATS LITTLE. Queasily he turns down blood-dripping shank and pork-spoiled banana flower. He lets Lorenzo have his unopened beer and scans the table for a water jug. He swallows what he can, pushes his plate away and watches the three bruhos. Lorenzo eats with abandon, emptying his plate as fast as he fills it. He’s dressed oddly. On his head is a wide-brimmed straw hat; the kind mothers make for daughters old enough to bend daylight on the rice paddies. Around his shoulders is a plastic rain poncho, clasped below his chin with a copper button. Open and flowing, it dances in the fan draft like a transparent cape.

Elvis is coated in thin filth, his hair a net for twigs and rainwater. He drinks more than he eats, looking just as vacant at the table as he did among the trees. It’s not just an expression—his face is smooth, empty, featureless. Efrem can’t place his age. He could be a tired thirty or a tight-skinned sixty.

But Racha, the man with the gnarled hide, is the most interesting. Efrem realizes that Racha’s whole body is covered in scars. He’s given and received pain enough times to know what mutilation looks like, the different marks left by different attacks. Just by looking at Racha’s exposed forearms, neck and face, he can tell that he’s been shot, stabbed, burned, bitten, whipped, strangled, stung by jellyfish, beaten with a manual can-opener and possibly scalped. Among those dark inches he can’t find a scrap of healthy skin—Racha is all made of scar tissue. And what’s more amazing than the scars is the fact that he survived long enough to collect them all.

Lunch concludes with plates of leche flan and small cups of civet coffee. Reynato sighs contentedly and leans back against the wall, looking across the table at Brig Yapha, and at Charlie. “Well,” he says, “that was a treat. I hate to sour the afterglow by talking business.”

Yapha puts on a quizzical expression. “You have business? What business do you have?”

“Cute.” Reynato places his cigar back in the corner of his mouth. Still he does not light it. “What do you want for him?”

Brig Yapha and Charlie Fuentes exchange looks. “Well,” Charlie says, all soft and friendly, “Tony and I were talking about that a little, before lunch. And you know, it’s a hard, a tough loss for the Division, right? Because Efrem is