Moondogs (23 page)

Then the building moved. Reynato gripped the leather and let out a shout—not the good kind. The terrarium toppled from its stand and crashed to the floor. The door to Shawn’s room slammed closed. Books leapt off shelves and Joseph’s big eighties-era speakers face-planted like drunks. It wasn’t a big earthquake, but they always feel worse in high-rises. For people on the topmost floors it’s like being perched atop a palm in a whipping storm. Reynato held on to her tight and shouted, “That’s enough. Whatever it is you’re doing, stop.”

Chapter 13

Howard wakes to the sound of a rooster crowing. It’s dark. Not night-dark, but blind-person dark. The floor below him is cool, and slick. He thinks he should try to sit up. He sits up. That was easy, he thinks, determined to be an optimist about this. I’m not bound, or gagged. I have strength enough to move. And my sitting-up parts still work. So far, so good.

Sitting in the dark, Howard takes stock of how badly he’s been hurt. The news here is less good. His fingers are in terrible shape; all but the thumb on his left hand are swollen and can hardly bend. There’s a menacing numbness floating beneath his right kneecap that, in a pinch, turns into an unforgettable shooting pain when he tries to move. He runs his hands over his lap, grazing glass chips and feathers soft as ash, and then touches his shirtfront, rigid with rivulets of dried blood. He can only imagine what his face looks like. He hesitates for a moment and then puts his good thumb on the tip of his nose. It’s still in the right place, at least. He moves his thumb down to trace the lines of his cheekbones and chin, his lips and eyebrows. It’s a slow process. There are ridges where there shouldn’t be, some open cuts cresting bruises. The gash in his cheek is still oozing freely, and the molars beneath it are loose. Howard works his tongue over them and rocks them in their sockets, the way he used to do as a boy, with baby teeth. Not good, all in all. But not the end of the world.

After feeling his body out, Howard feels out the space. He reaches in front and finds nothing but air. He reaches behind and his tender hands strike a wall. Sliding on his butt, he backs into it and runs his palms over the baked oatmeal texture of cinder block. No paint, no molding, no outlets or fixtures. Just the blocks, placed irregularly, and some nubbins of overflowed mortar like welling puss. It’s an amateur job, for sure. Howard has contempt for amateurs.

The rooster has been crowing this whole time, and it rises to
crescendo now. It sounds close, but muffled, as though the wall extends between them. A sudden blade of light, nearly a yard long, opens up opposite Howard’s feet—the sliver of space under a closed door. “Fuck off!” someone yells. It’s the taxi driver. “Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off. How many times do I have to tell you? It is too
goddamn
early!”

The light goes out and a door slams somewhere. The rooster clucks a bit, as though grumbling, and is quiet. The sound of the taxi driver’s voice spooks Howard a little, but also fills him with anger. He reaches instinctively for his belt loop. But of course his cell phone isn’t there. His pockets are empty, and they’ve taken his shoes and the cash inside his shoes. But it’s all right. It’ll be all right. You were stupid last night, he tells himself, but not completely stupid. You called the police. You gave them your name. They’ll check in with your hotel. They’ll contact your phone provider and do that satellite thing you’ve seen on TV. They’ll find your phone. And they’ll find you. And you’ll be fine.

He says this out loud, quietly. I’m going to be fine. It’s not the end of the world. He also says: These idiots are in big, big trouble. When I get out of this it won’t be fine for them. It will be the end of the world.

SOME TIME LATER
, he can’t tell how long or if he’s slept, the sun creeps in through a square window set just below the ceiling. The window is tiny, maybe nothing more than a placeholder for an eventual condenser or vent, but it lets in enough light for Howard to get a sense of the room. It’s about the size of his bathroom at the Shangri-La and is bare save the tiniest scraps of tape where something had, until recently, been pasted to the wall. Half the floor is tiled with glossy blue ceramic while the other half remains covered in a crumbling mosaic of vinyl-asbestos. There’s one door, and it is new and sits on heavy brass hinges. The room has the look of an unfinished home improvement job. It also looks fuzzy, and oddly lopsided. It’s not just shoddy workmanship. The floor inclines dizzyingly and the walls all limbo back. Howard realizes that one of his contact lenses is missing—it must have been knocked out when they dragged him to the street and beat him. The remaining lens hurts and gives him a squinting headache. It’s been in almost a day
too long. He considers popping it into his mouth to give his eye a rest, but that’d invite an infection for sure. And he isn’t ready to give up seeing, just yet.

THE POLICE ARE COMING
. The police are coming. He repeats this, under his breath, to pass some time. Sometimes he varies it. The police have come. The police are here. The police are beating those idiots senseless. The quiet chanting dries his mouth out, and reminds him that he’s very thirsty. He thinks about calling for water, but doesn’t. It’s up to the idiots to make the first move.

The light ages. Clouds roll in to soften it. No one comes inside Howard’s little room all day. The rooster crows, occasionally, and somebody on the other side of the door watches television at high volume. Sounds from the outside world flit in through the square window. Water dripping from gutters. Car horns, urgent and close. Howard imagines that, were he on his toes, he could look out there and get his bearings. He braces himself on the floor and pushes up gingerly. A vague tickle strokes the inside of his right knee. Something clicks lamely, like a misaligned cog. Howard loses his balance and falls back on his butt, breathing hard. He can hear footsteps outside the window. There are fading voices. What was it he’d read in the
Bulletin
last week? Something like eleven out of every ten Manileños have cell phones—or, there are eleven cell phones for every ten Manileños? Something like that.

He tries again, pushing up with his good leg and arms. He stands. The pain is intense, but subsides as he leans into the wall. He hops to the base of the window, reaches up and finds that he can pass his hand through—there’s no glass or screen at all. Bracing his swollen fingers on the base, he jumps and gets a brief glance outside. The news is good. The news is fucking excellent. He can see Makati out there. He can see the Shangri-La. The idiots must be keeping him in their house—the same place the taxi driver stopped at the night before.

Hoping to get a better look, Howard squats and jumps again, but this time he fouls the landing. His knee crumbles under him. An agonized,
percussive cry springs out of his chest. There’s very shortly a commotion in the other room. Something large is pushed or pulled across the floor, and the door opens. The slim taxi driver steps inside, framed in fresh, expensive wood. He’s quiet for a moment, twitching, looking almost confused.

“Be careful,” he finally says with an air of vague threat. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.” He pauses, significantly.

Even with his brain still ringing with pain, Howard takes the chance to peer past the taxi driver, into the adjacent room. He sees the scuffed back of a loveseat and a patio table with plastic chairs. The far wall is virtually plastered over with movie posters—mostly for Tarantino and Ocampo Justice films, and the sight of his pal Charlie Fuentes staring at him heroically is a jarring one. A television sits against the wall, partially covering Ocampo’s
Stick Up for the Unstuckup For
motto. It’s tuned to the international news. Two young women, one of them in a lovely neckerchief, discuss bombings at police recruitment centers in Iraq.

“I have money,” Howard says, still not making eye contact with the taxi driver, hoping he looks submissive. “Plenty. Cash. A lot more than what you found in my shoes. More than you could spend in a year, even if you spent it stupidly. More than you need.”

The taxi driver squats down on his haunches and clasps his hands together. Behind him the news changes to international weather. “What do you know about what I need?”

“Nothing. I don’t know anything about what you need,” Howard says. He pauses. An expert at the weather desk discusses the minor earthquakes in Taiwan and Mexico. There have been disturbances all along the ring of fire and she expects more to come. Someone else at the weather desk points out that this isn’t really weather related, is it? They both laugh about this.

“So tell me then,” Howard says. “Tell me what you need.”

The taxi driver shifts on his haunches. “What’s wrong with your voice? You sick or something?”

Howard shakes his head. “Just thirsty.”

The taxi driver looks about the little room. Then he disappears, leaving the door open. This jars Howard. He contemplates breaking for it. But he doesn’t know where the front door is, and with this knee any mad dash will be short. New experts come on the news, listing precautions one should take against the bird flu. Everybody should have canned goods and bottled water on hand. You should be able, if necessary, to be indoors for a very long time. Duct tape is an incredible, versatile tool, they say. Buy some.

The taxi driver returns with a plastic bowl filled to the brim with water. “Thank you,” Howard says, and drinks. “Thanks.”

The taxi driver takes the bowl back from him.

“Let’s talk about this,” Howard says. “Let’s talk about what you need, and how I can give it to you. There’s no reason this has to be hard.”

The taxi driver slaps him across the face with the empty plastic bowl. It hardly hurts, but Howard cups his cheek and squints so that his eyes water. He looks at the floor like he’s cowering. It’s important that this turd feel powerful.

The taxi driver leaves the room and closes the door. The floor vibrates as he slides a makeshift barricade—it must be the loveseat—back into place. Outside the sky clears a little and the room brightens. Light comes through the square window and dances about on the walls of Howard’s small cell. For a brief moment a sagging palm frond breaks the light into thin shadows that resemble prison bars. Then, with a gust, they look like feathered wings. Then they settle, and just look like a palm frond.

THE NEXT TIME HE WAKES
, it’s night. The air is cool. The window is a narrow box for the moon. Howard breathes slowly, his body sore as he changes positions on the hard floor. He turns to the door and sees that it’s cracked open. There’s a woman there, staring at him. He closes his bad eye and tries to get a better look at her. She’s young, and her black hair is streaked with peroxide-blond highlights. She slides a cardboard tray toward him—his refilled water bowl and a dish of boiled rice.

The television is off and Howard recognizes a familiar sound coming
from the adjacent room. His cell phone is ringing. That’s wonderful. The fact that it’s still on and that it’s so near means the police will definitely be able to do the satellite thing he’s seen on TV. They’ve had time enough to double-check with the hotel and learn he never made it back. They could be here as early as tonight. The particular quality of the ring raises Howard’s spirits even more. He’s set a different tone for each of his favorite contacts. This is Benny’s ring. Benny is calling him. The ringing stops and starts again after a few seconds. Still Benny.

Howard looks past the woman, into the room beyond. The taxi driver and his big friend—the one who beat Howard with the PVC pipe—sit at the plastic patio table. They stare down at Howard’s ringing phone, which sits in the middle of the table. They look perplexed, as though agonizing over what to do. There’s also someone new, someone weird-looking beside them. It takes Howard a moment to process the fact that it’s a green rooster, smoking a cigarette. The rooster stares intensely at the air. It jukes its head to ash the cigarette. Then it crows, erupting with smoke like a science-fair volcano.

“Ignacio!” the woman calls. “Littleboy! He’s awake.”

The taxi driver, Ignacio, looks up. “Goddamnit woman,” he hollers. “Weren’t you paying attention to our briefing? I said no names!”

Briefing? Howard laughs—he can’t help it. Ignacio pushes past the woman and starts kicking at Howard gingerly. That makes him laugh even harder. He forces himself to stop, which is difficult and feels a little like choking, which happened to him once, at a wedding. He can’t believe these morons—these wannabe badasses. They’re clearly afraid of hurting him any more than they’ve already done, and rightly so. They’re too frightened to just answer the phone and make demands, and too stupid to have smashed the phone in the first place.

“Listen,” Howard says, blocking Ignacio’s last kick with his elbows, panting like a man tickled. “Listen. This is silly. We both know you didn’t really think this over. You’re not prepared to do the whole ransom thing. That’s fine. I’ve got enough cash in my hotel room for you to retire on. I’ll tell you where it’s all hidden. Be smart about this. There’s no need to drag it out.”