Smaller and Smaller Circles (16 page)

“Sir—may I know who vouched for me? I mean—in spite of
. . .
” He's not quite sure how to finish the question, so he leaves it hanging while he waits for the answer.

The director exchanges a look with Valdes and then sighs. “Perhaps I'll tell you someday, Ben. When you've earned the right to know.”

26

Saenz is in
the shower, and his CD player is turned way up, Carlo Bergonzi singing Rossini's rousing “La Danza.” He sings along with the Italian tenor, his own powerful, resonant voice
bouncing off the bathroom walls,
“Già la luna è in mezzo al mare /
mama mia, si salterà! / L'ora è bella per danzare / chi è in amore non
marcherà!”
while the water beats on the shower curtain.

Suddenly the volume is turned way down. Saenz stops, turns off the shower taps quickly and listens. There is no other sound coming from the bedroom.

The priest draws the curtain aside, reaches for a towel, and wraps it around his waist. He cracks open the door and sees Jerome sitting at the foot of his bed, reading a newspaper.

The younger priest looks up.

“Most stereo component systems come with a control knob that can reduce the volume of even the loudest aria.”

Saenz pads out of the bathroom on wet feet. “But I can't hear it from inside the shower,” he protests.

“No, but a bunch of very old and very grumpy Jesuits can hear you very well from downstairs.” Jerome folds the newspaper. “Heard the news on the radio?”

Saenz nods, then shuffles toward his closet to look for something to wear. “Arcinas called early this morning. Apparently the director came back over the weekend. Severely jet-lagged, still in pain from the surgery and crabby as hell.”

Jerome's eyes widen in concern. “What? He's barely three weeks out of surgery. How did he—Nevermind.”

Saenz nods. “Here's the rub. He found out even before Arcinas did.”

“Oh boy. There's one pair of shoes I wouldn't want to be in.”

“Uh-hmmm. I doubt he enjoys being in them himself. What's your schedule look like?”

“I won't be seeing patients until late this afternoon.”

“Good. Have you taken a bath?”

Jerome stands and heads for the receiving room. “What, it can't be that time of year already.”

Malou knows her
boss is in trouble—big trouble. He was called to the office at the crack of dawn, and had spent the better part of three hours in meetings upstairs. When he came down, he looked like he had been bullwhipped.

Ill or not, the director is a terrible man to cross.

Now Attorny Arcinas is not taking any calls, certainly not from the media, who have been ringing the office nonstop since after 4
a.m.
, when news broke that another boy's body had been found, and are now camped in the lobby, waiting for him to make an appearance. He refuses to talk to anyone. He has given strict instructions that the only people to be allowed in to see him are the two Jesuit priests and that they are to be ushered in immediately.

Malou brought him a cup of coffee about an hour ago, but he waved it away; she will try to convince him to snack on a cheese pimiento sandwich and a Zesto orange drink from the canteen in about fifteen minutes. She thinks, with an innocent loyalty and concern that would have touched him—if he were the type of person to notice or to care—that maybe a snack will cheer him up.

She glances up at the wall clock every five minutes or so to check the time. When she decides it's time, she puts the sandwich and the drink on a plate and knocks on his door. He doesn't answer. She hesitates a moment and then lets herself in.

Arcinas is sunk in his big leather swivel chair with the blinds on the windows drawn. The chair is bobbing gently up and down with its back to the door.

“Sir, please. Eat something,” she says, setting the plate down on his desk and sliding it closer to him. When he doesn't respond, she moves closer, steeling herself for his anger. “Attorney?”

The anger doesn't come; in its place is a numb dullness, as though all his sharp edges have been blunted by whatever it was that took place in the director's office.

“Sir?” she says, tapping him gently on the shoulder and then gesturing toward the plate.

He stares blankly, first at her, then at the plate and its contents.

“I don't
. . .
” he begins, and then his voice trails off.

Malou takes the sandwich, still wrapped in plastic wrap, and puts it in his hands. “Have a sandwich. You'll feel better.” She waits a few seconds, and when he doesn't toss the sandwich away, she takes the drink pack, pulls off the attached straw and punches it through the hole on top.

“I've done something wrong,” he says.

She nods. “You wouldn't be the first,” she says, handing him the drink.

“You don't understand.” He refuses the drink and sets the sandwich back down on the plate.

“Yes, I do,” she says. “I'm retiring next year, Attorney. I've seen all sorts of people come through this agency. People who are happy to sit around and just wait for the next paycheck, and people like you who want something more.”

When she sees that he's listening to her—really listening, for the first time perhaps in the eight years she's worked under him—she's emboldened to speak her mind. “You think you're the only one here who's done stupid things, even bad things, to get ahead? You can't spit in this building and not hit someone who's done the same, or worse.” Malou smiles, half-bitter, half-resigned. “You think anyone's going to remember any of this a year from now? No. Only the small folks like me remember, and nobody pays any attention to us anyway. The people on top—people like you—you'll all have bigger things to worry about soon enough. That's the way it goes. The wheel never stops turning.” She takes the sandwich and shoves it back in his hands. “Now eat something, before those priests get here.”

W

In the corridor
on the way to their meeting with Arcinas, Saenz puts his hand on Jerome's arm and they stop. “He'll probably ask us back.”

“Not that he could ever have fired us.”

“This is true. If he does ask, will you be nice?”

Jerome sniggers. “Goodness, no.”

Saenz sighs. “I had to ask. Diplomatic at least?”

“Can I gloat for a few minutes?”

“Jerome. A child died to prove us right.”

It's a sobering fact, and Jerome reluctantly puts away his feeling of vindication.

They find the secretary absent from her usual place in the anteroom. Saenz peers through the open blinds on a glass window cut into the front wall of Arcinas's office. Today the attorney looks different. Saenz notes that the languid, reptilian look has been replaced by a kind of troubled alertness. Even his very hair seems distressed, sagging instead of curling up and around his head in the usual manner. The manicured nails tap nervously on the glass-topped desk.

Saenz raps on the window to catch Arcinas's attention. When he sees them, he practically jumps out of his seat and throws the door open.

“Gentlemen
. . .
Father Saenz
. . .
”

Jerome flops down into one of the chairs without being asked, props his left foot up on his right knee, his fingers drumming a quick rhythm on the tattered leather armrests. “It looks like you have a situation here, Attorney.”

Arcinas clears his throat. “I
. . .
we
. . .
”

“Apologize?” Jerome asks.

“We appear to have
. . .
”

“Found another victim?” Jerome offers helpfully. “Arrested the wrong man?”

Arcinas wipes sweat from his brow with his bare hand. His foundation, applied hastily with unsteady fingers as he tried to calm himself down earlier this morning, is now caked with perspiration and oil.

“The boy—we were lucky that he was found so soon. His parents were able to identify him at once.” He holds a thin folder out to the older priest, and Jerome notices that the hand is shaking a little. “His name is Conrado Sacobia. Went by the name Dodong. He lived in Manggahan.”

“We would be happy to extend any assistance to you, Attorney. Give us a little time to study this, and we'll be in touch soon.” Saenz stands, takes the folder and shakes Arcinas's hand firmly. “All right, Father Lucero, let's get back to work.” And he hustles Jerome out of Arcinas's office.

In the parking lot, Saenz says, “You're awfully quiet.”

Jerome unlocks the car door, his face glum. “Still think you should have let me gloat a little.”

 

 

I feel so much better today. So light and unencumbered. I think I can actually get through the day, through the rest of the week.

I am filled with an astounding sense of peace.

I wish it could be like this everyday.

27

At the network,
Joanna has decided to skip lunch in favor of previewing Leo's tapes from the crime scene. Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, she nurses a large mug of industrial-strength coffee, flouting company regulations against bringing food and drinks into the preview or editing suites.

Leo comes in, claps her on the back. “Hey, Boss. How is it?”

“It's too damn dark.”

The cameraman peers at one of the two preview screens. “Hmmm,” he says, feigning grave concern. “Must be because we shot it at four o'clock in the morning.”

“Shut up.”

The camera moves slowly up the length of the child's body, from the feet up to the ruined face.

“We've got to mosaic that,” she says, taking down the time code on the tape.

“Black and white,” Leo suggests. The network has an unwritten rule that gory news footage should be altered so as not to offend the sensibilities of viewers.

“If we take it to black and white, you can still see—” Joanna begins. Then off-camera they hear the policeman's voice.

“Hey, you're not supposed to be here.”

The camera lens, which had moved from the child's head over to the area around the body, sweeps up in a sudden, jagged movement to Joanna and the approaching policeman.

“Wait, wait,” she says, reaching out to stop and rewind the tape.

“Why?” Leo asks.

She watches again as the scene is replayed. “There, look,” she says, tapping the screen with a forefinger. “Did you see that?”

“What?”

She stops, rewinds, taps the screen again. “There. That thing. Just before the camera moves to me.”

Leo knits his brows, still not seeing anything. “Try a slo-mo?”

She slows down the tape speed so they can view it frame by frame. Moving from the child's head to the ground around the body. A rat comes into view. The rat rears up on its hind legs, snout in the air, whiskers twitching, beady, black eyes registering red.

Garbage, mud. The policeman's voice, garbled to a low snarl by the much slower playback speed.

Then the glimmer of something in the mud. Less than twenty frames, then the camera whips to Joanna.

Joanna fiddles with the preview knob again.

There it is. Something thin and metallic, not too long, protruding from what looks like a black tube.

“What is it?” the cameraman asks.

“I don't know. Could be just scrap. Seems pretty out of place there, though.” She sits back, frowning. Takes a sip of coffee. “Leo, can you dub a copy of that for me? I need to go and take a shower; then I'll swing by and pick it up.”

“Sure. What are you going to do with it?”

She stands and heads for the door. “Go to confession, I think.”

Jerome is in
the middle of routine paperwork for the university when Joanna stops by. She knocks on the door of his faculty office, then opens it without waiting to be acknowledged.

“Hey, Father Lucero,” she says.

He looks up. “Miss Bonifacio.”

“How's it hanging?”

“Vertically, last time I checked. What can I do for you?”

She chuckles, pleased that the priest can give as good as he gets. She comes into the room, pulls up a chair and makes herself comfortable.

“Father Gus isn't in his office, and he's not at the lab. So I thought I'd come and see you instead. We were up at the dumpsite. Leo and I. When they found the body.”

“Ah.”

She unzips a capacious black backpack, retrieves a VHS tape from its depths and slides it on the desk toward him.

“We managed to get about four minutes of footage before the police kicked us off the dump. Leo picked something up on tape that I thought just didn't belong there. Looks like some kind of pick or probe. Thought you and Father Gus might want to take a look.”

Jerome leans forward and picks up the tape. “Thanks. Can we keep this for a while?”

“It's all yours. We have the original in the office.” She stands. “Tell Father Gus if the both of you figure out what it is, I'm buying lunch.”

Jerome stands up as well. “Thank you, Joanna. We'll get on this right away.”

With a wink, she is gone.

Half an hour
later, Saenz swings by Jerome's office from a faculty meeting.

“Starving,” he announces in a booming voice.

Jerome picks up Joanna's VHS tape and waves it in the air. “From Joanna,” he says, and Saenz scowls.

“I can't eat that.”

“She stopped by. Wants you to look at this. It's from the crime scene this morning.”

Saenz's expression changes to keen interest. “So she was there. Where she wasn't supposed to be.”

Jerome nods. “Said their camera caught something in the dumpsite that didn't look like it belonged there.”

“Have you looked at it?”

“Thought I'd better wait till you got back.” He takes the tape, wheels his office chair toward the television and VHS player set up on one side of the room and slides the tape into the player.

The footage is raw, unedited, unaltered in any way, so when the camera first pans to the boy's body, both Saenz and Jerome are jolted, even though they have been bracing themselves for the sight. They exchange quick glances, then continue watching. The camera moves slowly and smoothly at first, but then the motion becomes abrupt and jerky each time the cameraman moves to a different position around the body.

“Wait, what's that?” Saenz asks, pointing at the screen.

Jerome looks. “What's what?”

“After the rat. Can you rewind it?”

Jerome rewinds the tape, but the footage moves too fast for him to see what Saenz is pointing at. “What is it?” He rewinds again, cross with himself that he can't make anything out. On third viewing, he catches a glint from the camera's portable light bouncing off something half-buried in the mud. “Wait, was that it? What
is
that?”

Saenz is already halfway to the door. “Bring the tape. We're heading to the NBI.”

About three hours
later, they're sitting across a wooden table from Ading Rustia; he's just viewed the tape several times, and the look on his face is bleak. “None of my boys worked the scene last night. I mean, this morning. It was handled by Quezon City police,” Rustia says. He sniffs. “Not very good for you.”

Saenz nods. “I've already asked if they took photos or found anything at the site. No to both.”

Rustia snickers, a curious clicking noise. “Huh.”

“Can we do another search?” Jerome asks.

“We could try. But it would have to be done quietly. The QC boys get very annoyed when anyone steps on their turf.”

“Would you work it for us?”

Rustia's hand glides over the desk, then pulls a clipboard over to him. “The earliest I could do it is early tomorrow morning. I think I had better do it alone, though. I trust my boys, but any leak could make life difficult for me.”

Saenz stands up and holds out his hand. “Thanks, Ading. I really appreciate it. Will you let the director know yourself?”

Rustia's tiny hand is completely engulfed in the priest's large one. “Yes. Maybe I'll get a promotion. What do you think?”