Monkey on a Chain (17 page)

The hotel in Manila was different in only one essential point from the one in El Paso. The rooms were the same size. The beds were as soft; the service was perhaps a little better; the furnishings were a little older. But in Manila, we got a ceiling fan. I’d forgotten how good those were to sleep under. As soon as we were in the room, I called for two bottles of San Miguel beer on ice and two large omelets and pointed April toward the shower. She signed for the order while I took my turn under the tepid water. The eggs tasted good, but different. The beer was as I’d remembered it. In the tropics, there is nothing better than San Miguel. I finished my beer and part of April’s. She ate her omelet and part of mine. Then we fell into bed.

It was well after midnight before I woke again. I dressed quietly and went downstairs. The bar was still open. As I hoped, it was almost empty. The bartender came over and took my order for a coffee, then hung around when I pushed a twenty at him. He was a thin man in his sixties. The name embroidered on his white lace shirt identified him as Pete.

The place was small and dimly lit. There was no one else at the bar. Only two tables were still occupied, one by a Japanese businessman with his mistress and one by two American tourists, man and wife from the way they acted. They hadn’t been on the plane. Neither of the groups showed any interest in me. The waitress stood at her station at the far end of the bar, smoking a cigarette and resting her feet one at a time. She looked bored. The juke box was playing last year’s American hits.

Pete kept his eye on the twenty. “What can I do for you, sir?” He probably thought the American tourist was lonely, maybe looking for a little female companionship to take the edge off the rest of the night.

I told him I hadn’t been in the Philippines for twenty years, that it looked like things had changed a lot.

“Oh, yes, sir. Many changes. New hotels. New business. Many more Japanese here now.” He glanced at the Japanese couple at the table. “I haven’t seen so many since the war. But of course, they are different now. They use money instead of bullets.”

“And the politics, too,” I said.

“Oh, the politics,” he said. “Yes. Very different. Marcos is gone. Now we have a woman. Very different.” He made a face that was hard to interpret, like a cross between a grimace and a wink.

“But things are better now?”

“Yes, much better now,” he said. “Once I was a poor student. I studied architecture at the university. Now, you see, I have a job. I am much better off. Much better.”

I pushed the bill toward him and asked for more coffee, then laid another twenty on the bar. He refilled my cup, glanced down, and said, “So much money for coffee. It must be cheaper in the states, yes?”

“Coffee like this is not available there,” I told him. “The last time I was here, there was trouble in the mountains.”

“There is always trouble in the mountains, sir.”

“Then it was the Huks.”

“The Huks.” He shrugged. “Now it is the NPA, the New People’s Army. Always there is someone in the mountains.”

“But are they new people?” I asked. “Or the same people with a new name?”

“Twenty years.” He looked straight into my face. “People grow old. They die. Some die without growing old. It is hard to say. You are a tourist, sir?”

“A visitor,” I told him. “A man who wishes to visit with an old friend. A man he met twenty years ago. In the mountains.”

“The mountains are a dangerous place, sir. A man might be advised to stay away from the mountains. Even a welcome visitor might be advised to stay away from the mountains.” His face was impassive.

“Even if the old friend would wish to see him? Even if the old friend owed a debt he might wish to repay?”

“Even so, sir. Not all in the mountains are friends. And it is my experience that old debts are often forgotten.” He moved the twenty from the bar to his pocket.

“I appreciate your advice,” I told him. “You are very gracious to a visitor. Perhaps you could do me a small favor? Help me find someone to do a service for me?”

“Perhaps.” He glanced at the waitress. “You wish a companion? One who can show you the delights of Manila?”

“In a way. I wish to see more of your beautiful islands. I want to find a driver who can show me what there is to see. Here in the city, and perhaps elsewhere. A driver who would know how to avoid the dangers you spoke of.”

“Such a man might be hard to find.”

I put another twenty on the bar. “There is a saying in America: A good man is hard to find, but once found, he is priceless.”

The bill disappeared. “You are not in America, sir. Here, there is a price for everything. But you are obviously a generous person, and generosity is frequently repaid. Perhaps you will find what you seek in the morning. About ten o’clock, it is usually possible to find a taxi in front of the hotel.”

I thanked him and held up my cup. “Is it permitted to take the cup to my room?”

“Here in the P.I., what is not specifically permitted is forbidden.” He allowed himself a small smile. “But that is permitted. Enjoy your stay, sir.”

He and the waitress both watched as I walked out. April was awake when I got back to the room. She was sitting in one of the chairs with her arms crossed over her breasts. “Where have you been?” she exploded. “I’ve been up for an hour! I was worried sick!”

“I haven’t been gone an hour.”

“Don’t change the damned subject! Where have you been!”

“I went out for coffee.” I waved the cup at her as though it proved something.

“It doesn’t take an hour to get coffee!”

There was no point in repeating that I hadn’t been gone an hour. “I arranged for a driver for the morning.” I described my conversation with Pete, my impression of the political situation here. That mollified her a little, but she was still angry.

“You promised you wouldn’t go off on your own,” she told me. “You should have gotten me up. I could have helped.”

“How? He wouldn’t have opened up with you there. Some things have to be done alone,” I told her. “You’ll get your chance to help. Remember, I let you talk to the woman in El Paso first. Because it was better that way. When it is better for me to do the talking, I will. We can each do our part, but I’m going to be the one to decide!”

“We’ll see about that,” she said grimly. “Aren’t you going to drink your coffee?”

“I’m going back to bed.”

“Then give it to me.”

I handed her the cup and turned in, feeling persecuted. I lay awake until she calmed down and crawled in beside me. It took her long enough. After she turned off the light, she dug an elbow into my side and said, “Next time, wake me.” Then I could fall asleep. The punishment was over.

There was only one taxi on the street at ten the next morning. It was an old Chevy, heavily dented. The driver had about a thousand medallions, statues, religious pictures, even Barbie dolls glued to the dash. The upholstery was worn and torn. It might have been beige at one time. The most valuable part of the car was the stereo. That worked too well.

The driver hopped out when he saw us leave the hotel and look around. “You want a driver, sah? See all Manila? All Island? Maybe see mountains?”

He was in his late twenties or early thirties, with a thin face and bushy eyebrows. He combed his hair straight back, where it fell to the collar of the lacy white shirt favored by all the men on the street who weren’t obvious laborers. His smile was open and attentive, but he held himself as though he had spent many hours at attention, or on a parade field. April started to answer. I overrode her. “You bet, guy! You got a name?”

“You call me Pete, sah! Number one driver. I can take you anywhere you want, you understand?”

“That’s great, Pete! My girlfriend here wants to go shopping. You know a good store?”

That threw him. “Shopping?” He looked at her dubiously, as though not sure he had the right couple. “Shopping can do! What do you want to shop for, sah?”

“Pearls, Pete,” I told him. “The pearl of the Orient, right? Maybe a nice emerald ring for the little lady. And maybe some furniture too. You know about monkey wood?”

April was looking at me as though I’d gone crazy. Maybe I had. But I was spooked.

“Monkey wood? You mean Monkeypod? Like for bowls?”

“Sure! Bowls too. We want to shop for everything.”

“You don’t want to see mountains?”

“We’ve got mountains back home,” I told him. “Anyway, I hear the mountains are dangerous here. Snakes or something. You take us shopping, okay?”

“Shopping. Right on, sah.” He drove, shaking his head.

We spent the day going from place to place. April was impatient at first, but after an hour or two she got into the act, demanding to be taken to one store after another. I insisted on buying one particularly nice emerald dinner ring for her, mostly just to stay in character, and after that she caught the bug. By the time Pete dropped us back at the hotel late that afternoon, the backseat of the Chevy held a number of packages, mostly laces and silks.

Only after we had carried them up and dumped them on the bed did she question me. “What was wrong with him?”

“Maybe nothing. He looked wrong. I’m jumpy. We’ll wait and see. But if anything comes up, remember who you are. Holly Carter. I’m a dirty old man from Los Angeles with more money than sense, treating my girlfriend to a trip around the Orient. Right?”

She grinned. “Stick with the truth, huh?”

“Right.”

We cleaned up and went down for dinner about eight. There wasn’t a table immediately, so we went to the lounge for a drink. Pete Number One was behind the bar again, listening to a Filipino in dress slacks and another of those fancy shirts. He didn’t say anything when he saw us. I waved to him and smiled like I’d just found a long lost friend. “Hey, Pete,” I called, “thanks for the driver! He did a number one job!”

I sat April at one of the booths and ordered two San Miguels from the waitress. As soon as she left, the man who had been talking to Pete came over. He pulled out a chair and sat without asking.

“Mr. Stephenson?”

“You got that exactly right, friend!” I gave him a hearty handshake. “And who might you be?”

“My name is Yabut. Colonel Yabut.” His black eyes stared into mine. He spoke without smiling. “You gave my driver quite a runaround today.”

“Your driver? You mean that nice fella was working for you? You own a taxi company or something? You’ve got some damned nice employees. That Pete was real patient with us, and he knows some of the best shops in town.”

“I do not own a taxi company, Mr. Stephenson. You should think of me as a policeman.”

“What? We just went shopping, you know. Did we break any laws?”

“You asked about the Huks and the NPA last night. These people are very dangerous. They are killers, Mr. Stephenson. Bank robbers. Gangsters. They run whorehouses and extortion rackets. They take the money of your soldiers and airmen and use it against our government. And you talked about contacting them. Naturally, we are very interested.”

“Last night? I was just talking about finding Freddy, for God’s sake! I don’t even know if that was his right name. I just met him the once, when I was stationed out at Clark. But he did me a big favor and I wanted to look him up.”

“You want to find a man named Freddy,” he repeated. “Tell me about him. Also about this favor he did you.”

“Like I said, I don’t even know if that was his name. He was a rice farmer. He must be almost seventy years old now. Anyway, I’d taken a jeep out for a ride. Wasn’t supposed to, of course, but I had some time off and I figured, what the hell, I’d never see the Philippines again, so I went for a joy ride out toward the mountains where they grow the rice, and the damned jeep broke down. Well, I was stuck! I didn’t know crap about fixing cars, and if I didn’t get that jeep back to base that night, I was up for a court-martial. You see my problem? And then Freddy came walking down the road with his daughter, and he offered to fix the damned thing for me. So you can see why I remember him. He saved my tail that day.”

“You want to look up a man who fixed a jeep for you twenty years ago? That hardly seems likely, Mr. Stephenson.”

“Well, there was a little more to it than that,” I told him. I acted embarrassed and glanced at April. “This all happened way before you were born, honey. You got to remember that.”

I turned back to Yabut and leaned forward, speaking earnestly. “You see, Colonel, while Freddy was working on the jeep, there was nothing for me and the girl to do, and it was hot on the road, so we went off to a little stream for a drink. And one thing led to another, and…well, anyway, I guess we had a little affair. And I felt bad about that ever since, after the way Freddy helped me and all. So that’s the real reason I wanted to look him up. Because I felt bad about what I did back then.”

He looked at me in silence. Finally he said, “You are playing me for a fool. A man doesn’t come halfway around the world to see a woman he made love to twenty years ago.”

“Well, I didn’t,” I said. “We were here anyway, and I got to remembering, and I snuck down and kind of sounded out the situation. That’s all.”

“You were going to see her!” April accused me. “You were going to see another woman. On our trip! You promised me you’d stop the women if I came with you, and already you’re at it again! On our first night!”

It was hard to keep my admiration from showing when I looked at her. “Darn it, Holly, I never went to see anyone! It was just the remembering, that’s all.” I put my hand over hers and tried to look soulful. “You know I love you, honey. Them other women were just mistakes, that’s all.”

Yabut decided to interrupt us. “Let me see your passports,” he demanded.

We handed them over and he studied them carefully. When he passed them back, he asked, “Do you work for the American government in any way, Mr. Stephenson?”

I saw where he was going and decided to muddy the waters a little bit.

“I have worked for them in the past.”

“But not now?”

“I’m a taxpayer, colonel. I work for them the first five months of the year. After that I get to work for myself.”