Moondogs (17 page)

Benicio banged on his father’s door, hard. There was no answer. He tried the handle, and found it unlocked. “Dad,” he called as he pushed
the door open. Still no answer. “Howard,” he called louder, adding three hard raps on the now fully open door. Nothing. The curtains were drawn and Howard’s suite was dark. A faint acrid smell hung in the air, and as Benicio’s eyes adjusted he saw that the bed was made, and empty. “That’s fine,” he said out loud. “If that’s how you want it, fine.”

Benicio shut the adjoining door. Then he opened it again. That acrid smell troubled him. He took a step into the suite and found that it wasn’t so faint at all. It was an unmistakable stink, like unclean dive gear that’s been left to sit in the sun. He walked further into the room and experienced one of those morbid fantasies that has a whole life-cycle in three or four seconds—his father was dead, he was in here rotting, Benicio was about to discover the body, he’d have to bury it, he wouldn’t have any parents, everybody would feel sorry for him. Get ahold of yourself, what an awful thing to think, who the hell cares if anybody is sorry for you, anyway? And besides, this is silly. A body would smell worse than this.

He groped along the dark wall and found a light switch. He flipped it on and stood there for a moment, shocked. His father’s suite made his own gilded room look like the servant’s quarters. It was the size of a large apartment, complete with a living room, bedroom, study, kitchenette and a tremendous balcony. The rooms were immaculately clean, save a round table in the study that the maids seemed to have gone to pains to avoid. It was strewn with papers that they must have assumed—perhaps correctly—were important. Benicio leafed through them, overturning some tented documents to reveal the source of the stink: a takeout tray of half eaten sushi that was yellow-green and festering. Once uncovered, the fish stank twice over. He had to hold the tray far away from his averted face as he dumped its contents into the toilet.

Even with the fish flushed, the suite still smelled like rot. Benicio opened the front door and jammed the deadbolt through the frame to keep it from snapping shut again. Then he opened the balcony doors, hoping that some cross breeze would help clean out the smell. There were two little chairs on the balcony and Benicio sat in one of them
to wait while the air changed. A tumbler half filled with rainwater sat at the base of a chair leg and he picked it up. He imagined his father drinking from it—imagined him sitting in this same chair, looking out at the same view. He swirled the rainwater around in the tumbler and then poured it over the railing. The water fell, breaking into a thousand droplets that seemed to catch in the air, and float.

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 vaguely at his own face. “I’m glad to meet you. It’s Benny, right?”

“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, winding him a little. “Can you guess who this is?” He leaned back on the stool, to give his friend a view.

The young man looked at Benicio, and Benicio looked at the young man. The right side of his face was a patchwork of white and ivory. Gauze and medical tape covered part of his forehead, his jaw and most of his cheek, leaving a hole that was too small for his bloodshot right eye. The dressings looked fresh and clean, but the skin beneath was purple. The left side of his face, the one farthest from Benicio, was unblemished and handsome. He seemed a very odd friend for his father to have.

“I’ve got it,” the young man said. “He’s a foreigner. It’s his first time here. He’s come to go scuba diving.”

“Quit teasing,” Charlie said.

“Actually, he’s right,” Benicio said, a little intrigued, if not charmed.

The young man winked, or seemed to—it was hard to tell through his bandages—and tapped two fingers on his forehead. “You see that?” he said. “Powers.”

“Yes, fine,” Charlie said, “but in addition to those things, he’s also Howie’s kid.”

“Is he now?” The young man leaned toward Benicio, as though to inspect him. “I’ll be damned. You look just like your pictures. Older, though. Is it Benny?”

“Benicio,” Charlie said. “He prefers Benicio.”

“Benicio?” The young man looked amused. “Well, that explains the pretty cappuccino complexion he’s got going.” He patted down his shirtfront and produced a clip of business cards on rigid ivory stock. He carefully removed one and handed it over. Beneath a golden filigree it read:
Robert Danilo Cerrano, Atty and Political Consultant
. Under that was a second name.
Bobby Dancer
. “I prefer Bobby,” he said. “So, your dad talks about you all the time. Why are we only meeting you now?”

“Because we don’t have much of a relationship,” Benicio said. His frankness put them both on their heels and, to soften it, he added: “Not for a while, anyway. We’re working back up to it.”

“Well, that’s good,” Charlie said in his oddly high voice. “That’s good.”

They were all quiet for a moment. Charlie motioned to the bartender
and ordered something in Tagalog. The bartender set three tumblers before them, added ice to each tumbler and poured in a measure of fuming blue liquid. The drinks looked like Windex on the rocks.

Charlie didn’t touch his. Neither did Bobby. Benicio followed their lead.

“Have you seen Renny yet?” Charlie asked, looking back at the crowd of dancers like a fidgety kid. “He said he might be here tonight.”

“Saw him on the floor with some blondie about an hour ago,” Bobby said. “I don’t know where he is now.”

“Damn.” Charlie picked his glass up and set it down again. “I’m going to go find him. It’s not a celebration without Renny there, right?” He got off his stool and looked back at Benicio. “And don’t you disappear anywhere, either. Don’t get shy on us. You’re Howie’s kid, after all. Shyness isn’t in your blood! Anyway, I’ll be back before the ice melts, with Renny, and then we’ll really get this started.”

With that he disappeared into the crowd, leaving an open stool between them. Bobby turned back up to the television, ignoring the dancers jittering and jumping behind them, singularly focused on the quiet little screen. The numbers kept scrolling along, and he put a hand on his forehead. Smoke trickled up between his fingers, through his spiked hair. He brought his cigarette back to his lips and blew a long plume up at the TV. Then, whatever he must have been waiting for happened. The shot switched to a cartoon map of the Philippines, and one of the islands changed color. Bobby struck the bar top, hard, and mumbled: “Son of a fuck.” It was a happy exclamation.