Moondogs - Alexander Yates [84]
“Thanks,” he said, “but I don’t think so. My father will be in, I’m sure.” He reached down for his shoes at the foot of the couch and pulled them on. They felt stiff and too small, like they would after a long flight. “What kind of dogs do you have?” he asked, gesturing to the toys scattered across the floor.
“No kind,” Bobby said. His smile slackened almost imperceptibly. “They used to be Labradors.”
Benicio focused on tying his shoes. As he finished he heard a kind of singing drifting through the hallway. They were joined by a stocky woman in an apron. She hummed loudly to herself and went straight for the paintings on the wall. She turned each one about fifteen degrees crooked.
“My mother,” Bobby said.
Benicio shot to his feet a little too fast and said “Good morning,” very loud. The woman spun and said something in Tagalog.
“English, mother,” Bobby said. His mother turned to him and said more things that Benicio couldn’t understand. “Yes,” Bobby said, “I feel much better. Mother, speak in English please.”
She started in Tagalog again but changed midstream. “I can have the girls make some eggs, or toast, and we have juice or coffee, or they could fry sausages—”
“Any breakfast?” Bobby cut in.
“Nothing, thank you. I think I should get going.”
“You’re sure?” Bobby’s mother came over and took Benicio’s bruised hand between her chubby palms. “We can’t ask you to stay? Bobby, ask him to stay.”
“He has to leave, mother,” Bobby said. Then his tone changed a bit and he went on in Tagalog.
“English, Robert,” she said, holding hard onto Benicio’s hand and looking up at him. “Oh dear. You know it shouldn’t be long now at all.” She leaned in and almost whispered. “Those bandages will be off before you know it.”
“Thank you mother,” Bobby said, moving in to gently pry her hands off of Benicio. “He’s got to go.”
Bobby walked him through the house and out to a walled-in, lush garden. A guard in a blue uniform opened the gate for them and they waited in silence for an empty taxi to roll by. Benicio examined the garden out of the corner of his eye while they waited. A sprinkler spun between piles of mowed grass. A big tree in the corner wept yellow flowers onto the roofs of two freshly painted doghouses. Bobby caught him staring, and he looked away.
“So, why the crooked paintings?” Benicio asked.
Bobby searched the road for empty cabs. “She does it so that devils can’t sit on the frames. If the frames are crooked, the devils slide off.” He demonstrated by holding his left forearm out and walking the fingers of his right hand up and down it. He dipped the forearm down sharply and his walking hand fell.
Benicio took a moment to mull this over. “The devil?”
“Not the devil, as in the one and only, but devils. That’s not even a very good word for them, but it’s one you’d understand.”
“Ah.” Minutes passed without a taxi. “You know …” he trailed off, his voice hoarse. “My mother used to have this thing. She used to say that she could tell the future. Said she could see it in her dreams.”
“Really,” Bobby looked from the street back to Benicio. “Could she?”
WHEN BENICIO GOT BACK to the hotel, he realized that his father was finally home. Music thrummed dully through the adjoining door to Howard’s suite, and when he opened it he saw that the bed was slept in and some of the lights were on. He stepped inside, expecting to find Howard hunched over papers in his study. But the first thing he noticed was a dress. A green dress, crumpled at the foot of the bed. There were high heel shoes beside it, but no business loafers or slacks. Not a shred of men’s clothing anywhere, in fact.
The sound of a high-pressure shower spattered and hissed behind the music, and thin wisps of steam emanated from the open bathroom door. Benicio approached the door and saw, through the bathroom mirror, a lithe shape blurred behind the translucent shower curtain. He returned to the bedroom and switched the music off. A moment later, the shower switched off as well.
“It’s about damn