Moondogs - Alexander Yates [55]
“Benicio,” he said. They shook hands.
“I’m Charlie. Your dad talks about you every chance he gets. It’s really, really great you came.” He sounded surprisingly sincere. “If I’d have known you were here already I’d have sent a bottle up. Say, did you get in early or something?”
“No. I got in when we’d planned.”
There was another pause. Then Charlie smiled and clapped Benicio’s shoulder, hard. “Hey, don’t sweat it. He’s pulled that number on all of us. Sometimes a man just needs to check out. In the meantime, why don’t you come down with me? Like I said, I’ve got this celebration going tonight, and a bunch of your dad’s buddies will be out.” Benicio started to decline, but Charlie spoke over him. “Don’t even try it. You can’t pretend you have other plans. And besides, you’re family to a man I consider family, which makes us closer than you think we are.” Charlie kept smiling as he said this. He was somewhat creepy, and old, and drunk, but his warmth was undeniable and oddly genuine. And he was apparently a part of Howard’s life here, which made him innately fascinating.
“If you’re sure you don’t mind,” Benicio said.
“That’s the spirit.” Charlie threw an arm over his shoulder and began to lead him out of the suite. “Just give me an hour,” he said. “If it’s no fun after that, you can do your own thing. You won’t hurt my feelings. I promise.”
TOGETHER THEY TOOK THE ELEVATOR down to the mezzanine, which was busier than it had been the night before. As soon as Benicio emerged he felt conspicuous and underdressed. Guests lined the railings overlooking the grand lobby, drinking from snifters and flutes. Most of them were Filipino—men in formal white and ivory barongs, like Charlie, and women wearing dramatically shoulder-padded evening gowns—but there were also plenty of foreigners in the mix. From what he could catch of their conversations, nearly everybody spoke English. Charlie walked quickly through the throng, exchanging a few hellos, and turned at a large set of doors opening onto what seemed like an echo chamber filled with live music. A cloth banner hanging above the doors read: The Shangri-La Presents: Summer Ballroom Nights. Benicio followed Charlie inside.
Like everything else, the ballroom was enormous. In the middle was a hardwood floor where tipsy men and women hopped, shouted and spun. Ladies with eyeshadow invading their foreheads tore at the uniformed shoulders of young dance instructors while the men who could have been their husbands watched from banquet tables set along the perimeter. Couples on the floor twirled away, their arms tightening like strands of rope before collapsing back into embraces. At the far end of the ballroom was a little stage holding up a piano and a quintet of musicians. They wore nostalgic pinstripes and banded hats. Glasses of brandy sat atop stools beside their instruments and the musicians sipped while playing.
A bar sat against the opposite wall, and Charlie led them toward it. A young Filipino seated alone at the bar saw them coming, and waved. Even from a distance, Benicio noticed the bandages covering about half of his face. He wore a Western-style light gray suit and an elaborate looking brace was affixed to his left knee, atop his trousers. Charlie must have noticed him staring. “Better if you don’t ask him about those,” he said. “Your father asked him, and he kind of blew up. I think he’s still sore about it.”
They joined him at the bar, Charlie sitting to his right and Benicio sitting beside Charlie. The young man turned back around on his stool and stared intensely at a muted television mounted above the bar. “You almost missed it,” he said, pointing up at the screen with the tip of a lighted cigarette. Benicio looked up and saw that the TV was tuned to the local news. A grave anchor spoke from behind a composite wood desk while some numbers and crude graphics scrolled in the background.
“That garbage bores me,” Charlie said, waving him off. “Hey, look what I found!” He smacked Benicio’s upper back,