Moondogs (33 page)

“My father wouldn’t do that.”

“Your father did. Your father does. How else did I get into his room? We are regular.”

“Stop talking.” Benicio hadn’t realized that he’d shouted until other people in the lounge started looking his way. “I don’t mean he wouldn’t be with you,” he said, half-mastering his voice. “Because he would. But if he had a kid, if your kid was his kid …” he paused to get better control of himself. He didn’t know how good the boy’s English was and didn’t want to say anything too devastating. Or rather, he was looking for a soft way to say a devastating thing. “If that boy was my father’s, then you wouldn’t have to do what you do. You wouldn’t be you.”

His vitriol took them both off guard and Solita seemed to lose her balance for a moment. She took another step forward and the boy lost hold of her skirt and stood frozen—stranded atop the plush carpet. “He gives me some extra,” she said. “Not enough that I don’t have to work. School, for June. Food, for June. Some books. He’s late with the money.”

“Then it’s his business,” Benicio said. “Whatever arrangement you have with my father, you’ll have to sort out with him. He’ll be back any day now. But I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t care.” He turned his back on them, grabbed his dive bag and headed for the bank of elevators below the mezzanine stair, going just slow enough so he didn’t feel like he was running. After a moment Solita collected her son—if it even was her son and not her baby brother, cousin or just some kid who lived on her street—and followed him. When Benicio stepped into an open elevator she jammed her elbow against the door to keep it from closing.

“He’s a week late,” she said. “They’ll take June out of his class.”

“Talk to Howard about it.”

“Howard’s not here.” The elevator door bounced lightly off of Solita’s elbow as it tried and failed to close. A pair of small speakers began releasing a pleasant chiming noise. Benicio felt trapped. Like there was no way today for him to act like, look like or feel like a good person.

“Please,” he said. “Go away.” He held down the close-door button. When Solita still wouldn’t move her elbow he moved it for her—a measured shove just strong enough to send her a half step backward. The doors closed, and even through them he heard her shouting. First English and then Tagalog.

Once in his room he dropped his dive gear more roughly than he should have. There were three messages on his hotel room phone, but rather than anything from his father they were all just notifications from the front desk that a woman had arrived at the hotel and needed to speak with him, urgently. After listening to all three Benicio pulled the cord out of the wall and threw the phone, handset and all, across the room. When he heard hard, determined knocking on his door he felt about ready to explode.

“I don’t know how to say it better,” he almost screamed. “Leave
me the fuck alone.” He swung the door open, his fist tight around the handle.

“Mr. Bridgewater?” A white woman in business attire stood in his doorway. Benicio stared at her. He didn’t know her, but he knew why she was here. She introduced herself as Monique Thomas and said something or other about American Citizen Services. Benicio said nothing at all. He imagined soldiers, on a doorstep, in America, in the forties. Their hats were in their hands. That’s how real this was to him.

“Do you mind if I come in?” she asked. “I think it’s better that we talk in private.”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Benicio said. Hearing it in his own voice made it final, and then he was sure. “My father is dead.”

Chapter 20

The Marine manning Post One seemed to know something was up. He slid an after-hours sign-in ledger under the bulletproof glass and opened the blast door leading into the chancery. “Am I the last one here?” Monique asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” He had to lean down in his elevated booth to get his soft pink lips to a microphone. He couldn’t have been more than six years older than Shawn. “They’ve been coming in for the past hour. Ambo’s chopper touched down a few minutes ago.” Well, that was just great. Monique rushed though the blast door.

A small crowd was gathered in the Country Team conference room upstairs. The ambassador sat at the end of a long Philippine-mahogany table, reading a stack of papers and looking incongruous in denim and plaid. Beside him was the deputy chief in a bowling league jersey, who’d be taking over next week as chargé d’affaires when the ambassador flew back to Texas to attend his own divorce proceedings. Tom, who was filling in for Joyce, represented Public Affairs. He chatted with Jeff and the
new legal attaché, whose name Monique hadn’t learned yet and who was still green from the food-poisoning he’d gotten on the flight over. They all looked at her as she sat, flushed and sweating. The ambassador’s secretary passed out paper cups half-filled with cold coffee.

“Thanks for coming,” the ambassador said. “It’s late, so I’ll get right to it. An American businessman named Howard Bridgewater has been kidnapped. The National Police don’t have a timeline yet but they suspect it happened about a week ago, and the thinking is that he’s still in Manila. No one has reported Mr. Bridgewater missing, and the police were only alerted to the kidnapping when an Imam from Cavite called in about some suspicious characters. They were purportedly hoping to sell an American hostage to the Abu Sayyaf.”

Those last two words turned the air around the conference table to gelatin. The SuperFerry bombing in late February was still fresh in everybody’s minds. Jeff, who’d been stationed in Manila long enough to remember the Sobero beheading, shifted in his chair. The new legal attaché excused himself to vomit in the adjoining washroom, but probably more because of the food poisoning than because he was overcome.

“Is the story public?” Tom, who was filling in for Joyce, asked.

“Not yet,” the ambassador said, “but they want to include it in their weekly brief on Tuesday. It’ll leak before then, of course. Let’s do what we can to contact next of kin before that happens. Mona?” He looked at Monique and it took her a moment to look back. He slid a sheet of paper to her, which glided across the desk almost playfully, like a puck on an air-hockey table. It was a faxed copy of Howard Bridgewater’s driver’s license. “I know that’s not much to go off of, but see if you can find a contact person for him. He may have registered with us when he arrived in country. If he’s got a wife, we should let her know. If he’s got an ex-wife, let’s just skip it, am I right?” The ambassador laughed. “But no,” he said, “this is nothing to joke about.”

Monique left the fax on the table so it wouldn’t shake in her hands. She stared into Howard’s grainy, black-and-white face. He was a heavy man, not ugly but close to it, and just a few years younger than Joseph.
Big people never look good in little pictures, but his was especially bad. He filled the square frame, a bewildered, almost worried expression on his face, as though he’d known when they took his picture at the DMV that some day it’d be used as evidence. Staring down at the picture, Monique couldn’t help but imagine him reading a long list of demands in a pixelated Internet video. A slogan-spattered drop cloth would hang inert behind his head. He’d be flanked by men in masks with rockets on their shoulders. She imagined newscasters explaining how they’d come to the decision to air—or not to air—the execution, imagined Howard’s headshot transposed onto the upper right corner of her television, a death date accompanying the birth date, bracketing his life. As she looked down at the picture she longed for it to be nothing more than that; one of the dramatic evils gravely celebrated in the news. Of course she felt pity, tenderness, terror, but a louder part of her said:
No thanks
. I’m full right now. I have an affair to enjoy and then end. I have a marriage to rebuild, and children to rescue from themselves and from others. This kidnapped man doesn’t belong anywhere near my life.

UNFORTUNATELY, IT WASN’T ALL
that hard to find a contact person. When the meeting was over Monique unlocked her office in the annex and waded through smudgy registration files. After working her way back to February she gave up and started cold-calling luxury hotels—there were only so many, after all. She got lucky on her third try. Yes, Howard Bridgewater was a guest at the Shangri-La. Yes, they did have an emergency contact person on file. They could even do her one better; the contact person was in the Philippines and was also staying at the Shangri-La. Perfect. It was Howard’s son. Even better. The concierge transferred her and she was so, so thankful that the kid didn’t pick up. How the hell was she going to tell him anyway? She decided to write up a script when she got home and practice it before going to bed. Then, tomorrow morning, she’d give that boy the news.

It was past midnight when Monique left the annex, motion sensors brightening empty halls as she passed, tracing a trail of lights through the building that ended at the main exit. She signed out with the young
Marine at Post One and returned to the promenade. She walked south on Roxas, past the yachts waltzing darkly in their moorings. The moon was out, and though it was almost full it looked aloof; excluded and humiliated by the brighter skyline. There was a dark shape ahead; a car parked in the middle of the promenade. Reynato’s car. They’d been out to dinner when the call came in, and he’d dropped her off a few blocks away so as not to be seen. He sat on the hood, elbows on his knees, chin propped on his little hands.

“You didn’t need to wait for me,” she said, so thankful that he had.

“Don’t be silly,” he said, hopping off the hood. He reached into the open passenger-side window and produced her purse, dangling from his rigid finger by a leather shoulder strap. “Besides, you forgot this.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” He kissed her lightly and handed over her phone, which was supposed to be in her purse. “Your husband has been trying to call,” he said. “Don’t look at me like that. I joke plenty, but I would never answer it. I was just trying to turn it on silent.”

She looked at the screen and saw five missed calls from Joseph. He knew how late it was here. Something must be wrong. Monique took a few quick steps over to the seawall—for privacy—and called Joseph back.

“Are the kids all right?” she asked, stepping on his “hello.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Joe? Can you hear me? Is everything okay?”

“What are you talking about? Everything’s fine here.”

Air rushed out of her lungs, pushing up words. “Shit, Joe. Why are you calling me in the middle of the night? You had me scared to death.”

“What?” He always said “what” when he was hurt. Like he couldn’t believe you’d hurt him. “I was calling to
check on you
. Jeffrey phoned a few hours ago and he told me what happened.”

“Oh.” She put a hand on the seawall, the concrete moist under her fingertips.

“I thought you would want to talk.”

She did want to talk, but not now. And not over the telephone. And
maybe not even to him, but admitting that felt lousy. “Thanks. Thank you.”

“Listen …” he sighed. He must have been sitting, because she heard him stand. She imagined light coming through the windows, a closed book on the table beside their recliner. “I have been thinking about this. I have been giving this a lot of thought. And I want to say I’m sorry. I’m still angry, though, about the way you treated me. You should have told me, Monique.” He paused, maybe giving her time to concede the point. “I don’t regret leaving. But I didn’t think about you, not as much as I should have, at least. I regret that. I know that being there is hard on you, too. I know it’s not … really what you were expecting, I guess. I know how important it was for you to have that place feel like home. I’m sure my complaining all the time did not make it easier. And now I have left you there alone, with so much extra work … with this horrible thing to deal with.”

“The thing wouldn’t be less horrible if you were here. But thank you. And you’re right not to feel bad about going. Leaving made sense, for you and for the kids.”

“Of course it did.” She heard the crumpling sound of leather as he sat again. Then the metal-spring creak of the leg rest extending. “So, would you like to talk about it? I cannot imagine how it feels to work on something like this.”