Moondogs - Alexander Yates [80]
The waiter returned and power-lifted a pair of ice buckets filled with brown bottles onto the table. Katrina pulled a dripping beer from the ice and gave it to Benicio. Still a little buzzed, he protested that he wasn’t usually a drinker.
“Tonight isn’t usual,” Bobby said. “You should try one. It’s better than the lambanog, I promise.”
“Wait, you mean you’ve never tried San Mig?” Katrina’s mouth hung open and she tapped herself rapidly between her collarbones, as though to calm sudden palpitations. “My God, you’re not even here yet! You haven’t arrived. You’re still in the airport waiting for your bags to spin out of that spinner.” She pushed the beer closer and watched until he took his first sip and gave her an it’s-good smile. He didn’t even have to fake it.
For a while Benicio just listened as Bobby’s tipsy friends laughed, drank and chain-smoked. They all spoke at the same time, talking over and under one another, weaving a conversation below the strum and boom of the band. Benicio guessed they were discussing the election, and though all the particulars and many acronyms—Ping, it seemed, spoke exclusively in letter combinations—might as well have been in another language, their excitement was difficult to not get caught up in. Occasionally Bobby leaned in to offer some explanation.
“OJS—that’s not an agency or anything. That’s the Ocampo Justice Series.”
“I remember, you said Charlie used to be an actor?”
“Still is. He’s got a movie coming out this Christmas, and he’s cast in another that starts filming in August. Katrina’s been hounding me to get her a part ever since I started working for him.”
“How long is that?”
“Few months. Charlie’s been entertaining the public for twenty years, but this is his first time serving them. The party assigned me to his race once he signed up on our ticket.”
“Ah.” Benicio took a long swig of beer and joined Bobby’s friends in ordering more when the waiter trotted past. “So he wasn’t your choice?”
“He would have been,” Bobby said. “I’m good at my job, so I can usually have my pick. If I didn’t want to work for Charlie I could have had someone else. There were a few others,” he paused, “who wanted me. But I wanted Charlie.”
Benicio glanced over at the big table, where Charlie was standing up, drinking from a yard of beer. A woman on his arm took time with a stopwatch. “So … he’s never done anything like this before?” He saw the bandage on the side of Bobby’s face rise just a little bit, as though somewhere under all that gauze he was cocking an eyebrow. “Sorry,” he said, “I don’t mean—”
“No,” Bobby said, “you do. But it’s fair. To tell you the truth,” he leaned in very close so that only Benicio could hear him, “I’m used to getting that expression. The intellectuals in this city have nothing but skepticism for Charlie Fuentes. And I’ll be honest—he’s got no real experience. None. I’ve got more. You’ve probably got more. I can’t even stretch and say he has relevant experience. And I don’t know if he’ll be a great senator, or even a good one. Good may be too much to hope for. But I know one thing for sure. He’ll be better, which is better than worse. I don’t kid myself—I know why he won. Big-town actor who plays a small-town cop, sticking up for the unstuckup for. People voted for a character they saw in the movies. But Charlie Fuentes is a mostly honest person with a good heart. That makes him an improvement on those same intellectuals who’ve been fucking us sideways for years now.”
As Bobby spoke Benicio felt a swell of admiration. He began to have thoughts that only came when he’d been drinking—that Bobby was really real and that he, in contrast, was not very real at all. And with that feeling came the too-familiar urge to overcorrect. “That’s pretty good,” he said. “You’ve practiced it a few times?”
“Fuck you very much.” Bobby leaned back in his chair with a potbelly smile. “When did it start to show? Was it the good heart line?” He took a drink, beating the beer about his cheeks before swallowing. “I’ve been working on that damn line. It’s just too fucking