Moondogs - Alexander Yates [54]
Where was his father, anyway? Benicio went back inside and listened to his messages. The first was from Hon, Howard’s partner. It started cordially but dissolved into: “Howie, you fucking asshole. I can’t believe you’re going to pull this shit on me again.” Other messages, all from people Benicio didn’t know, had a similar tenor—angry but unsurprised. Howard had clearly let them down before. In a way, that was reassuring.
He let the messages play as he poked around the suite. Damn, it was big—how much must his father be paying? It had a walk-in closet for God’s sake. Benicio stood in the closet, fingering expensive-looking suit jackets on wooden hangers. Shoeboxes lined the walls, as well as some packages wrapped in brown shipping paper with customs forms pasted on them. They seemed familiar, and when Benicio knelt down for a closer look he realized, with a kind of chill, that they were all the packages Howard had sent him in the years before his mother died. Packages he’d returned without opening. Atop each was an unsealed, unaddressed envelope containing a letter. Benicio read some of them. They were to him. Each letter started out the same. Dear Benny, When I got this package back in the mail, it made me feel … some variation of bad/sad/unhappy. But despite purporting to be about feelings, the letters were all formal and obligatory, probably the product of some exercise Howard’s therapist had prescribed. Only the last one actually sounded like him. Dear Benny, it read, Quit being an asshole. Grow up.
Benicio didn’t regret sending them back, but it was hard not to feel guilty when he saw them piled up like that, all at once. He began to wonder if the events of the last few days—not hearing from his father before leaving, not being met at the airport, not even being contacted on his first day here—were some kind of revenge on Howard’s part. Maybe he was finally getting even for all that silence. Could he really be that petty? Yes, Benicio thought. Probably.
The messages were still playing when he returned to the bedroom, and he shut the machine off. He closed the balcony and turned to the front door, where he was startled to see a head peeking inside. It was an older Filipino, his hair slick as a Broadway greaser’s, his cheeks rouged. “Hello,” he said in a warm, high voice. He checked the number on the door and looked back at Benicio. “Am I at the right room?” he asked.
Benicio stared at him. “That depends. Who are you looking for?”
“Howard. Is he here?”
“This is his room, but he’s not here.”
“He’s not?” the man repeated, sounding overly surprised and sad, as though Howard’s not being here was a moderate crisis. He pushed the door all the way open and stepped into the room. He was dressed in a formal, long-sleeved barong, and smelled strongly of sherry. “But he promised,” he said. “He promised to celebrate with me tonight.”
“Howard promises a lot of things,” Benicio said. Then, feeling like he was pushing the sullen thing a little far, he added: “Is there anything you want me to tell him?”
“No, I don’t think so,” the older man said, glum now. He walked into the room and sat in the armchair beside the bed. This made Benicio a little uncomfortable. “I guess he’ll call me when he gets back. Are you going to tell me where he is?”
“I don’t know where he is,” Benicio said.
“Come on,” the man waved at the air as though shooing flies, “don’t give me that.” He crossed one leg over the other and pressed himself into the chair. “You’re new, aren’t you? I know he told you not to give out his number, but we’re buddies, he and I. You won’t get into trouble, I promise.” He paused to stare ingratiatingly, his eyes foggy.
“I don’t work for him. I’m his son.”
The man kept staring. After a few seconds’ delay his countenance changed and he shot to his feet. “Fuck me, how did I not see that? You’ve got his, you know, his face.” He gestured