Smaller and Smaller Circles (26 page)

43

Jerome has barely
come through the door of the receiving area when Saenz bounds out of the laboratory.

“We're driving.”

“You mean
I'm
driving. Where to?”

“Jake Valdes has found someone he'd like us to meet.”

They meet Jake
Valdes at a rundown, open-air vulcanizing shop along Don Mariano Marcos Avenue. Even in the late-afternoon heat radiating off the shop's rusting, galvanized-iron roof, he is cool and unruffled, his shirt crisp and dry at the collar and armpits.

“Thanks for coming,” he says, offering his hand. Saenz and Jerome take turns shaking it. “You asked me to dig up anything we might have on Alex Carlos. The man who owns this shop was a high school classmate of his. He
. . .
”

A small man with a dour face emerges from a ramshackle shed behind the shop and comes toward them, a smoldering cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth. He is a little wary of Valdes, but he eyes the two priests with ill humor.

“Guillermo Ricafrente,” Valdes says. “Emong. He filed a police report last year involving Alex.” He nods toward Emong, signaling him to speak.

He glances at all of them one by one, takes a puff and then removes the cigarette from his mouth.

“Hadn't seen him since high school, you see? So I thought it was strange, him coming here all of a sudden.”

“What did he want from you?”

“I wasn't too sure. Kept talking about high school, how he hated it, if I knew where any of the other guys were.”

“Other guys?”

He studies the three men through a haze of cigarette smoke.

“Our classmates. Wanted to know if I kept in touch with any of them.”

“You were good friends?”

Emong shrugs. “We hung out together sometimes, along with a whole bunch of other boys. But he was kind of different—shy, quiet. We didn't talk much.”

“What happened next?”

“He said he'd run into our old PE teacher, Gorospe. Thought it would be nice to pay him a visit. Surprise him, you know.”

Jerome takes a step forward. “What did you say?”

“Told him to go by himself. I'm a busy man. Don't have any time to socialize.”

“How did he take that?”

Emong tosses the spent cigarette onto the dirt floor and stubs it out under a dirty rubber slipper with tightly controlled fury. “Went crazy, you know? Started yelling at me, told me I was no friend. I told him, ‘Look,
pare
, I barely know you. We weren't friends then, and we aren't friends now, you hear?'”

“And then?”

“He starts throwing things around here. My things, you understand? My tools, my materials. Nearly got hit in the eye with a monkey wrench. Then he took a jack and started hitting the hood of one of my clients' cars. That's when I lost it.”

“Lost it?”

“I got mad. I told him, ‘Look,
pare
, I don't want any trouble; you just leave us in peace now, or else we'll have you arrested.' When he wouldn't stop, I told my wife to call the police, the
barangay tanod
.”

“Do you know what made him so angry?”

“How should I know?” Emong asks, his voice rising to a high-pitched whine. “Like I told you, I barely knew him anymore. He looked like he'd made it through life better than the rest of us, you understand? He's got decent clothes and a nice enough car, and then he comes here, out of the blue, and wants some kind of class reunion.”

Valdes clears his throat and comes closer. “He tried to hurt you.”

“Came after me with that jack, he was so angry. And the whole time we're yelling and he's chasing after me with that jack, the neighbors are hearing everything, you know? When people started coming out to see what was going on, he threw the jack at me, got into his car and drove off.”

“And the police—the
tanod
—they didn't get here in time?”

“No,” Emong says. He drags out a dingy plastic stool from one corner and sits down on it. “He was long gone by the time they arrived, the stupid bastards. I filed a police report and all, but nobody ever came back to talk to me about it. Guess they figured if I didn't die, it wasn't worth the trouble.”

“When did this happen?”

“Round April—no, wait. May. It was May, last year.”

Saenz and Jerome exchange glances, then turn to Valdes, who merely acknowledges their questioning looks with the slightest tilt of his head.

Jerome refocuses his attention on Emong. He's plainly angry. And while Jerome can understand that he would dislike Alex intensely after last year's confrontation, there's something else simmering beneath the anger. And he remembers Mr. Carlos's words in the church that afternoon:
Alex wasn't the only one.

“Did you like Mr. Gorospe?”

Emong's face twists into a sour smile. “Like Gorospe?”

“You know. Was he a good teacher? Didn't you feel like paying him a visit?”

“Like I said, I didn't have time for all that nonsense. I wasn't Alex's friend, and he was stupid to ask me.”

“But would you have gone—by yourself, if not with Alex?” Jerome is very still, and Saenz picks up on this stillness almost immediately. “To see your old teacher? If you knew where he lived?”

Emong blinks up at Jerome several times, as though he can't quite grasp the question. He has not thought about high school since Alex's visit, and before that he had tried to put it out of his mind for the longest time. He had dropped out as soon as his father died; it was easy then to say he had to find work, to put food on the table and keep the family together. Mainly he had just wanted to forget. High school was one very long, very bad dream.

“I didn't like him all that much,” he says, and he looks away from them as he says it. Jerome has seen it enough times to know what it is: dissembling.

“You didn't like him because he hurt you too. Isn't that right?” Jerome keeps his voice as steady, as even as he can.

Emong rises to his feet so quickly that the plastic stool topples over. “I don't know what you're talking about.
You
don't know what you're talking about.”

“Yes, you do. That's why Alex came to see you. Out of the blue, just like that. Because he thought you, of all people, might understand.”

Valdes studies Emong's face and then Jerome's. “What's going on, Father Lucero? What are you saying?”

But Jerome isn't paying attention to anyone but Emong. He sees it clearly now: the undersized frame, the thin limbs, the large eyes—Emong looks a lot like Alex, and in their teens, they would have looked exactly like the dead boys in the landfill, small for their age, small in the world, easy to frighten and take advantage of.

“He hurt you too,” Jerome repeats.

He says it very softly, and perhaps that's what makes it all the more devastating. In a blur of movement, Emong shoots forward and lashes out with his fist, catching Jerome off guard. The fist connects, and Jerome falls backward on the dirt. Saenz rushes to help him, and Valdes tries to hold Emong back, but he's on the offensive now, trying unsuccessfully to stomp on Jerome's legs and thighs, kicking up clouds of dust and dirt. Valdes is barely able to overpower the smaller man, gripping his arms and lifting him bodily away from Jerome, avoiding the flailing, kicking legs.

Jerome staggers to his feet and puts a hand to his lower lip; it is split open and bleeding.

“All right, that's enough. Enough now.” Valdes is still holding on to the wriggling Emong. “Calm down. Just calm down and let us explain.”

“I don't need your explanations. Just get out of my shop.”

“Please, just listen for a moment.” Saenz waits until the man stops struggling, until his breathing slows. Over Emong's shoulder, Valdes shoots Saenz a look to reassure him that he has the mechanic under control. It's his cue to continue. “You've probably heard about the young boys found dead in the Payatas dump.”

“Nothing to do with me,” Emong answers dully.

Saenz lets this pass. “We think Alex may have been involved in these murders.”

“So what?” Emong twists his head around to look at Valdes. “You said you wanted me to tell these people why I filed a police report against him. I already told them what happened; why are you all still here?”

Valdes's face is impassive, his tone firm without being harsh. “If there's anything more you can tell us—about him, about your time in school together—please don't withhold it.”

Saenz looks down at Emong. “Please,” he appeals to him. “We need to find out everything we can about him so we can understand why he's doing it.”

“Well, why don't you just catch him?” He turns to Valdes again. “Why don't
you
catch him?”

Valdes releases him, and then adjusts his shirt, rumpled a bit in the scuffle. “We don't have any proof yet.”

Jerome moves closer to Emong. “Look, anything you say will remain private. Nobody outside of this group will know. Will you help us? Will you tell us what you can remember about him?”

It was so
long ago; what's the point of telling anyone? Nobody has to know.

But what about the boys? You've heard the talk in the neighborhood. All the rumors about the missing boys. Could it really have been Alex? How is that even possible?

What if he takes your boys next? Joseph is just about to finish sixth grade, not so bright but a good, hard-working boy. And Michael is so small.

And Alex knew where to find you.

What have you got to lose?

“There were seven
or eight of us,” Emong begins. “We were small boys, about twelve to fifteen years old. We couldn't keep up with the rest of the class—all that running, all the contact sports and the calisthenics—so Mr. Gorospe used to make us stay after school, sometimes two or three at a time.

“He would take us to the gym, and he'd lock the doors. It would be dark by then—past six in the evening. He'd turn off the lights.” He stops, wipes a grease-stained hand across his eyes as his face hardens in anger. “It wasn't enough that he would do things to us.”

Jerome is appalled, and when he glances at Saenz, it's clear that he, too, realizes what Emong means.
He would make you do things to each other, as well
, Jerome thinks, filling in what Emong cannot seem to bring himself to say.

He's watching Emong carefully now, fearing that he might shut down if he's forced to examine his own past torments too closely. “Tell us about Alex,” he says, shifting the focus away from Emong's own painful secrets.

“He liked Alex best. Alex was smart, clean, neat. He used to get us all together and tell us that Alex was his special boy, that he enjoyed everything Gorospe did to him. And we knew it wasn't true. We all felt sorry for Alex.”

“The scholarships stopped in his second year.”

Emong nods. “How could anybody expect him to go on? He was a mess. After a while, it was just him, him all the time, and we all knew.” He pauses, trying to remember more. “He couldn't stand it when we looked at him, and he used to pick fights whenever he caught any of us looking at him. He would sit all the way in the back of the classroom, and soon he was all alone; he wouldn't talk to anybody. When he had to, though, he would never look them in the face.”

Jerome and Saenz exchange looks. “Didn't anybody complain about Gorospe?”

The mechanic sighs and shrugs, and they know what he would have said anyway:
Complain about what? To whom? We didn't want any trouble.

“Thank you, Emong,” Saenz says gently.

Valdes, who hasn't spoken for a while, asks: “Did you hear about what happened to Gorospe, then? After Alex came by?”

Emong shakes his head. “No. Why? What happened?”

“He was found murdered in his apartment.”

44

At the laboratory
the next evening, Valdes is holding the file on Isabelo Gorospe, dead at age forty-nine, former PE instructor at the Payatas District High School. “It says here the heart was cut out and the face removed.”

“Any other details?”

“Well, no other injuries, but it was a messy job, blood all over the bed and the bedroom.”

“Signs of forced entry?”

Saenz waits while Valdes scans the documents.

“No, the front door was unlocked, and there were bottles of beer on a table in the
sala
. His television set, his wallet, some money and other valuables were still in the apartment, so it couldn't have been a burglary. The investigators assumed Gorospe knew the killer, let him in, drank a couple of beers with him. They got drunk, had an argument; one of them ended up dead.” He hands the file over to Saenz, who quickly flips through it.

“But they never found the killer?”

“No. There were no witnesses, and all the beer bottles had been wiped clean.”

“Did they find the heart?” Jerome asks.

“No,” Saenz says, still reading the file. “Whoever killed him must have taken it away.”

He stands and moves to the whiteboard and its information grid. He takes a marker and draws a long, black line from top to bottom, to the left of the first column on the grid, creating a new column. At the top, he writes
Gorospe
, then
molester
, and ticks off the boxes for
heart
and
face
appearing in the leftmost column under the heading,
mutilations
.

“So he killed Gorospe, with two of the major characteristics of the seven recent murders.” Saenz draws large circles around the two tick marks. “Which means the removal of the face and the heart is the central symbolic act. They antedate all the other mutilations—”

“Which are simply refinements of his technique. Or an elaboration of his rage.” Jerome squints so that all he can see are the tick marks inside the circles. “Emong says Alex was Gorospe's favorite, his special little boy. But Alex didn't want to be special. He wanted to—”

“Erase himself.” Saenz moves closer to the whiteboard, pushing his glasses lower on the bridge of his nose. “Become ordinary. If he couldn't help being a victim, he wanted at least to be like the ordinary victims, like Emong and the rest. And then of course, there's the fact that he didn't like being looked at by the others.”

“So maybe that's why he's killing these boys. Killing Gorospe wasn't enough; the others were still alive.”

Valdes stands beside Saenz in front of the whiteboard. “They still knew he was ‘special.'”

Saenz nods. “But he couldn't kill them as adults. In his mind, the other boys stayed the same age, still too small for their early teens. In some perverse way, he blames them—”

“For being ordinary. For abetting Gorospe's special attentions toward him. For simply knowing.” Jerome starts to pace back and forth. “You know what disturbs me about our conversation with Emong?”

Saenz nods. “There were seven or eight boys in the group.”

“Exactly. He's at number seven. He could go for eight, but if he doesn't—”

“He could just drop out of sight? No, I don't think so. He's at a symbolic age—twenty years, give or take, past the trauma. He's escalating to a resolution, but I think at the end of it he'll realize that he still isn't satisfied.”

“So he'll repeat the cycle?” Valdes asks.

“I'm more inclined to think he'll destroy the one thing that keeps reminding him of the trauma.” Saenz draws a small stick figure thoughtfully on the whiteboard. “Himself.”

“But surely not suicide?”

“No,” Saenz says, “probably not. But he might place himself, consciously or unconsciously, in a position to end the violence one way or another—”

“By getting caught or getting killed.” Jerome picks up another whiteboard marker and draws triangles under the arms of the stick figure; it is no longer a person but a set of balance scales. “And just as an authority figure started this whole mess, he's looking to an authority figure—the police, maybe even you—to bring it to an end. He knows he has to answer to society's justice, but only after he's exacted his own personal justice.” Jerome caps the marker.

“So you're saying he's got nothing to lose.” Valdes stands back, looking at the drawing, and then back at Saenz and Jerome. “That makes him a very dangerous man.”

The telephone rings, and Saenz frowns. “Who on earth could that be at this hour?” Jerome tosses the marker onto the whiteboard's ledge and runs to answer the call.

“Hello.” When there's no response, he asks, “Who is this?” Still no answer, so he hangs up.

“Who was that?” Saenz asks.

“I'm not—” Jerome begins, but the phone rings again. “Hello.”

The person at the other end of the line doesn't speak, but Jerome can hear his breathing and the vague sound of human activity in the background. “Hello, I can't hear you very well,” he says, and something in the way he says it alerts Saenz and Valdes. They come closer as he turns on the speaker. “You'll have to speak up, please.”

Nothing, just the person's breathing and indeterminate background sounds. Saenz grabs the whiteboard marker, scribbles
pay phone?
on the whiteboard, makes a circular motion with his hand, a signal to Jerome to keep the other party talking. Jerome nods, then says, “Who is this? How can I help you?”

Then, the very faint sound of eight musical notes played in quick succession, the first four notes ascending, the last four descending, followed one or two seconds later by the muffled but unmistakable sound of a human voice echoing in a very large space. Saenz's brows knit together in fierce concentration; then his face brightens in recognition and he writes again—this time the word
mall
.

Again, he makes the circular motion, and Jerome says, “Look, it's difficult to know how to help you if you won't talk to me.”

Valdes turns to Saenz. “Who do you think it is?” he whispers.

“Someone who doesn't want to be traced,” Saenz whispers back. Then he writes
parents
,
points to the word for Jerome's benefit.

Jerome nods again, understanding.

“If this is who I think it is,” he says, “your parents are very worried about you.”

They hear the person's breathing quickening, then the same eight notes again, and the muffled human voice—now recognizable as being female. It's the sequence of sounds when an announcement is made—usually by female sales staff—via the public address system at one of the country's more popular mall chains.

“You wouldn't be calling us if you didn't want to tell us something,” Jerome says gently. “Your parents want nothing more than to have you back safely with them. Let us help you.”

There's a loud crack, and then the line goes dead.