Smaller and Smaller Circles (11 page)

 

 

It's depressing to read the papers or watch the news. Everyday something bad happens—a bank gets robbed, a war breaks out, a child gets raped—and nobody can do anything about it. Not the police, not the press. Not the mothers and fathers, not the lawyers or the priests.

 

We are all powerless in the face of evil.

 

No, no, that's not true. We are powerless when we wait for other people to act on our behalf.

 

Yes, that's it. The truly powerful man is the man who stands alone.

16

Thousands of miles
away in Boston, Massachusetts, Director Lastimosa is lying in bed in his son's home, recovering from surgery. It has been a peaceful morning; he is reading a newspaper and eating some oatmeal. His prognosis is excellent, and the doctors have advised him to taper off the pain medication as soon as he can, to break the pain cycle. His chest still hurts, but a little less each day, and he takes it without complaint. He has already begun a program of light exercise, including slow stretching and brief walks.

There is a knock on the bedroom door, and then his son, David, opens it cautiously.

“Pa?”

“Dave.”

“You feeling okay?” There is an undercurrent of anxiety in David's voice that makes him fold up the newspaper, push away the bed tray and sit up straighter in bed.

“I'm fine. What's wrong?”

“Umm
. . .
”

The director impatiently whacks the bedspread with the folded-up paper. “I'm not dying just yet, Son, so tell me.”

David is taken aback by this uncharacteristic display, but quickly realizes that his father must be bored after several weeks of relative quiet. “Jake Valdes called.”

“Jake? What did he say?”

“He wanted to know if you were well enough to talk to him. He said he had some news on a case you've been watching closely.”

The director reaches out to remove the blanket covering his legs, but his son rushes to the bed. “Is he still on the line?”

“Pa, he's—Wait. Wait a minute.”

“Let me talk to him,” the director says, struggling to get out of bed and completely ignoring David's frantic gestures of placation.

“Pa!”

“What? I need to talk to him, and your phone's downstairs.”

“Pa, please,” David says, practically begging. “Look, you've got an extension here. Right there on the desk by the window. See?”

The director looks at the desk. “I didn't hear it ring.”

“We turned off the ringer after you arrived from the hospital. So you could sleep.”

“All right,” he answers crossly. “So let me talk to him.”

“I told him to call back, Pa.”

“Call back? But why did you—”

“Because I needed to see if you felt well enough to take the call.” David runs a hand through his thinning hair in agitation. “Mama would kill me if you had another episode on my watch. Look, he said he'd call back in half an hour, okay? I'll bring the phone closer to you and turn the ringer back on, but you have to stay in bed. Okay? Can you do that for me, please?”

“Treating me like a child,” the director grumbles, as David leaves the room.

Jake Valdes calls less than half an hour later.

“It's Arcinas,” he says glumly. “He's detained a suspect in the Payatas case.”

“And?”

A pause. “I don't know what to tell you, sir. He seems to have followed standard procedure and all, but
. . .
”

“It doesn't feel right,” he says, completing Valdes's sentence for him.

“No, sir. I just feel
. . .
No.”

The director picks at one corner of the blanket while he considers his next move. “Tell Director Mapa to call me within the hour. Tell him I want to be briefed on how Arcinas found his suspect.”

“Okay,” Valdes says. “Not sure how happy he'll be to take my call at this time of the night.”

“It's only half past nine on your side of the planet, Jake. He'll live.”

Assistant Director Mapa
is all warmth and concern when the director answers the phone. “How are you feeling? Is there anything at all that we can do for you from here?”

Director Lastimosa tries to keep his tone of voice cool and even. “I hear Ben has already detained someone in the Payatas case.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, he has.” Mapa is enthusiastic. “We're getting ready to announce it at a press conference tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, Philip?”

“Uhh—yes. Yes, it's a good
. . .
” But the enthusiasm has drained away, leaving Mapa guarded. “Why, what's the problem?”

“I need you to tell me how he found this suspect.”

“How he—well, the usual ways,” Mapa answers, unable to mask his irritation. “He talked to residents, he looked through prior complaints, he—”

“So this suspect—he's been in trouble before?”

“Oh yes. Public indecency. Acts of lasciviousness.”

“Convictions? Or mere complaints?”

Mapa groans. “He's had complaints filed against him, sir. We know this for certain.”

“And that's it?”

“What do you mean, that's it? Ben did everything by the book, just the way you would have wanted it done if you were here.”

“What kind of complaints? How many? Have they been verified? And most important of all—what do you have that ties him directly with the killings?”

“He's confessed!” Mapa is highly agitated now. “What more do you want?”

“And how was that confession extracted from him?” Director Lastimosa presses him. “Philip, we can't afford to take short cuts here. Once you hold that news conference and confirm that these killings have taken place, once you present that suspect, you'll have very little room to maneuver.”

“What for?”

“What do you mean—” and then Director Lastimosa realizes he's talking to a brick wall. “Look, Philip, if you don't understand what for, I don't have the time to explain it to you. But while I'm still director, I hope my advice counts for something. And my advice is: I wouldn't hold that press conference if I were you.”

The director puts the receiver down. He pushes the entire instrument away from him, settles back on the pillows and pulls his blanket up to his waist. Then, he closes his eyes. He is exhausted but resolute.

David has seen that look on his father's face too many times not to know what it means. It's clear that he's come to a decision. The realization fills David with dread.

“Pa,” he begs. “Please. You're going to kill yourself.”

The director doesn't open his eyes. “They'll hold that press conference, against all good judgment. I just know it. It will alert the real killer, and he'll find even better ways of evading us. Or he might simply go elsewhere and slip out of our grasp.”

“Pa. You need more time to rest. You were supposed to recuperate for six to eight weeks, and it's been barely two. Your doctors here won't give you clearance, we'll have to sign a waiver, there'll be all sorts of complications—”

“A week from now, and no later,” he says, and David knows there's no arguing when he uses that tone. “If you would be so kind as to buy the ticket today.”

17

It is Jerome's
turn to say the six o'clock Mass at the university church, but this evening he keeps the homily brief. Saenz has invited him to dinner at his family's home, and Jerome has hardly ever passed up such an invitation.

The drive to Makati is murder as usual. There are patches of EDSA, the metropolis's main highway, where all vehicles are at a complete standstill, and there is little for him to do but gaze at the fading orange-and-lavender light of the setting sun reflected in the dingy glass windows of the buildings that line the avenue. And then in certain stretches the bottleneck clears, and the vehicles spill forward like beans from a jar, accelerating with a mad, pent-up energy, racing to claim every available space. He has lost count of how many times he has almost been sideswiped by other vehicles trying to squeeze past him. The completed flyovers are absolutely no help in easing the traffic situation, and neither, as far as he can tell, is the Metro Rail Transit. He pounds on the horn with the heel of his palm, like many other irate motorists on the highway, and then shakes his head:
conduct unbecoming a man of the cloth
.

When Saenz is driving, he is not given to pounding on
the horn, Jerome reflects; instead, he seems to grow calmer the
worse the traffic gets. In a situation like this, Saenz will usually
slide one of his beloved cassette tapes into the car stereo, if there isn't one playing already, and analyze the finer points of the music, the performance, even the instruments used. Jerome envies him his ready access to peace, the core of quiet he seems to possess.

Jerome is quite the opposite. Blunt to the point of occasional abrasiveness, he has few friends, although those he does have—brothers in the order, colleagues and students from the university—will go the last mile for him. Jerome is restless, dogged and questioning—the type, Saenz says, “who does not suffer fools gladly.” A contradiction of a man: on one hand an intense, volatile temperament, on the other a surprisingly gentle, compassionate nature.

“All that tai chi really pays off, eh?” Jerome kids his mentor on occasion, and all he gets in reply is, “In time, Grasshopper, you too will know these things.”

Saenz's family lives in a small, gated community in Makati. The parents own valuable urban real estate, while the children have expanded the family's assets to include a small chain of computer stores and a start-up firm that makes financial and retail software for large corporations.

Jerome has known Saenz's siblings since he was a teenager. They are all small and fair and fine boned, taking after their mother. Only Gus stands out, with his sharp features, tawny skin and unusual height. Jerome has long taken it for granted—but has never actually sought confirmation—that Saenz was adopted as a child.

It was not in their physical features but in their collective character as a family that Jerome first noted the qualities they shared with Saenz. He recognized in each of them the same genuine warmth and graciousness, the same keen intelligence that he saw in his mentor.

Jerome had entered their home for the first time as a reserved, awkward teenager. His ears buzzed with their multiple conversations, their easy, often raucous laughter. After years of living in his own very quiet home, where his parents rarely spoke to each other and even more rarely to him, Jerome had felt himself become almost giddy with an inexplicable happiness, wonderful and bewildering at the same time. Felt his breathing go quick and shallow, as though he were discovering something new, something he had only heard or read about in books.
Of course happy families exist. Of course
.

It is nearly half past eight when Jerome finally drives up to the house. Ranulfo, a driver for one of the Saenz siblings, pauses in the middle of cleaning the windshield of a car and waves at him, and he waves back. Ranulfo drops the rag into a bucket and scurries toward Jerome's car, directing him to an empty parking space along the curb, not far from the gate of the house.

“Parallel parking,” he grumbles. Hands gripping the steering wheel, he eases into the space, then he switches off the ignition and pulls up the hand brake.

“Evening, sir.” Ranulfo holds the car door open for him.

“Hi, Ranulfo. Has Father Gus arrived?”

“Yes, Father. He is waiting for you inside.”

“Thanks.”

He walks up the marble steps to the huge front doors and rings the bell, then waits a few minutes until one of the maids opens the door.

“Hi, Father,” she says brightly.

“Hello,
Manang
Delia.”

“They're in the living room. Adrian and Cecille just got back from their honeymoon.”

“Really?” Jerome officiated at the wedding of Father Saenz's youngest brother, Adrian, some two months before. “It will be good to see them.”

She bustles off down the long corridor. He follows his nose, which has caught the scent of stir-fried vegetables and barbecued spareribs and steamed seafood. The family has an excellent cook, and at these family gatherings Saenz himself will always have cooked at least one of the dishes.

The console table in the dining room is laden with chafing dishes full of food, and Jerome happily picks up a few morsels here and there to pop into his mouth: a broccoli floret, a butterflied prawn, a bit of tender pork sparerib stewed in black bean sauce—a signature Saenz dish.

He realizes how hungry he is; he has not eaten since an early lunch at around 11
a.m.
, and that had been an unremarkable tuna sandwich and a cup of sugary black coffee.

“All this food and nobody to keep it company.” He shakes his head. “This isn't right.”

He goes off to look for Saenz and the rest of the family.

In contrast to the usual laughter and talk, the family is gathered silently around the entertainment center in the living room: twenty-eight-year-old Adrian and his young wife, Cecille; tiny Marian, who is several years younger than Gus and oversees the computer store chain, as well as her husband. The twins, Tommy and Tony, who are both MIT graduates, both computer engineers, and married to a pair of sisters who are also twins. Cholo, who oversees the family's properties. Vicky, who handles investor relations for a Top 100 corporation. Quirky, funny, startlingly intelligent Vicky, with whom Jerome was infatuated many years ago while still in his teens.

Saenz stands in the middle, a head taller than his six brothers and sisters. They are all watching an hourly newscast on one of the top networks.

Jerome moves into the circle, and the siblings turn, smile and pat him on the back. They know only too well that he needs to hear the news, however, and step aside to let him through until he is standing beside Saenz.

On the screen, a perfectly made-up female newscaster is saying:
“The suspect is believed to be behind the killing of a young boy in the Payatas area. NBI Task Force officials say the boy, whose body was badly mutilated, was found last month. Authorities also say they purposely did not release details of the murder to avoid a panic in the community.”

Arcinas appears, all hooded eyes and unnatural swirls of reddish hair. “Yes, we had outside help, but to the credit of the bureau's personnel, this case was solved with in-house expertise.”

The newscaster comes back on the air to say the full story will be broadcast during the late evening news. But neither of the priests is listening anymore.

“You think he's the one?” Jerome whispers to Saenz.

“I hope so,” Saenz says. “Dear God, I hope so.”