Moondogs - Alexander Yates [98]
But it hadn’t happened. It wouldn’t. His mother’s dreams were bullshit. She didn’t know what she was talking about. Benicio told Katrina good night. He told her to stop playing games with him. He told her that her friend was on the beach and needed to be helped to his room.
Chapter 17
PIE AND PIRATES
Efrem Khalid Bakkar watches doctors hem and haw over the best way to save Racha Casuco’s life. He sits, transfixed, on an elevated observation deck. Racha lies beyond the aquarium-style glass, skimming the surface of dying, submerging—now for a minute, now for two—and surfacing. No one on Task Force Ka-Pow seems to be concerned. Lorenzo stalks the hospital in search of a cafeteria. Reynato is outdoors, fielding questions from concerned reporters. Shirtless Elvis sits in an adjacent folding chair, nose in a glossy American magazine, bare feet propped against the glass, ignoring the butchering and mending below.
A full hour gone by and the doctors are still unable to get the fishman’s blade out of Racha’s chest. They yank at the handle, working the steel about his insides, unable to loose it. They bring in specialists, and strong young interns, and a priest, who sits on a stool in the corner, horrified. “Does it usually last this long?” Efrem asks.
“Depends,” Elvis says, still examining the best and worst dressed of Santa Barbara. “Sometimes Racha gets off easy. Door slams on his finger, sprains his ankle—something like that. We once arrested a whole cell of New People’s Army in Quezon, and all Racha had to show for it was a splinter in his ass cheek. But sometimes it’s pretty bad. This one’s bad, but not the worst.” Elvis looks up from his magazine. “Last year I was picking shrapnel out of the poor kid’s ear. Good old Racha. Get him bloody, but you won’t get him down.”
Cheering erupts below. One of the interns has managed to work the blade out. Surgeons descend upon the open wound with needles and thread. To Efrem they look like the old men back home, squatting beneath gum trees, all mending different pieces of the same big net.
Elvis turns to pictures of frail women carrying dogs. “I’ll tell you something,” he says, “I wouldn’t ever trade what he does for what I do. Always getting hurt and never dying? No thanks. Not for me. I’d rather be a dog, full time. A mosquito, even.”
Efrem says nothing. He watches machines pump blood and air in and out of Racha. One of them begins a beeping protest and a jagged line goes flat. He’s dead again. Doctors quit sewing and defibrillate. The priest in the corner stands, ready to do his part. Still, Elvis seems unconcerned.
“You a religious man?” he asks, glancing down briefly at the robed father.
“My family was,” Efrem says. “They thought God gave me these.” He makes a backward peace sign and puts a finger under each magic eye.
Elvis leans back, propping his feet higher on the glass. “They sound like my family,” he says. “My dad and brothers all went to seminary in Vigan. Tried to send me also … a few times. They never did figure out how I kept getting away. I could do a great impression of our dog, Biag. Dad once went out looking for me with me leading the way, hot on my own scent. He stopped every few minutes to hold my paws and pray. He was crazy for that shit.”
Elvis pauses for a while, smiling. This is the most ever said in Efrem’s company. “Are you crazy for it?” he asks.
“I pray.”
“You think someone’s listening?”
“I wouldn’t if I didn’t.”
Below them Racha breathes again, and the agitated machines calm down. Nurses dismiss the priest while surgeons backtrack to tighten the wet seam holding Racha closed. The door to the observation deck opens and Reynato strides in, sucking his soggy cigar, fanning himself with his cap. Lorenzo enters a moment