by J. E. Park
I cringed, hearing the shotgun blasts that cut my family down.
You fucking idiot. You did it now.
My eyes clenched shut, and I saw Tala and Mari holding each other, pleading for me to stop. They were begging for their lives like I imagined my mother and sister did with my father. Unable to bear that thought, I forced my eyes open again, fighting to keep from falling into one of my episodes. I took several deep breaths and did what I could to wrangle the thoughts racing through my mind. My eyes then focused upon a palm frond silhouetted before a full moon. I concentrated on that until I relaxed enough to be out of danger. Then I collapsed onto the picnic table and wiped the cold sweat from my brow.
Tala was right. She and Mari were not my responsibility. If seeing Rafaela in Barrio Barretto taught me anything, it was that my attempts to help people like them only made things worse. If I really wanted to help, I needed to stay as far away from them as possible.
*****
CHAPTER 15
A s soon as we stepped off the bus in Pagsanjan, a group of young men started working the foreigners in the crowd. “Hey, Joe!” one of them called out to me. “Welcome to Pagsanjan! You wanna see da wattapalls? I take you see da wattapalls! Dey just like Niagara Palls in New York!”
“No, thank you,” Master Chief Darrow told him, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead as he walked. He was doing his best to look as disinterested as possible.
“How ‘bout boat ride! You wanna ride da rapids? Huh? You wanna ride on the river?”
“There’s rapids here?” I asked my master chief. “Can we take a ride on the river?”
Darrow reached down and took my hand, pulling me closer to him as he shuffled the duffle bag he was carrying to the opposite shoulder. He then put his arm around my waist and guided me to his other side so that he was between the street urchin and me. I knew it was an act, but it still made me very uncomfortable. I was praying that no one from the ship saw that. “We’re not here to play in the water.”
The young man smiled knowingly. “You looking for pom-pom? I find you a pom-pom!”
Darrow stopped. “No, we want something different. How about a pam-pam?”
“A girl? Okay. I pind you a young girl! How old?”
My stomach tied itself into knots. That was how easy it was. One minute after stepping off the bus, my master chief was negotiating with some derelict over the price of defiling a child. I had to look away. Not wanting to blow our cover, I stepped over to a kiosk selling souvenir tee shirts and started browsing. It was an excuse to keep my back turned to the man bartering with my master chief. I did not want him to see the look of disgust on my face.
As I pulled out a shirt that falsely advertised a “Hard Rock Café – Pagsanjan,” I realized that I was not cut out for police work. I was far better suited as a vigilante, beating miscreants like Randy Green into epilepsy rather than this stuff Darrow was trying to do now. I regretted what I did to Rafaela’s husband, but only because of what happened to her as a result. That kid my master chief was talking to, though? That shit stain, I could beat to death, slowly and methodically, and not lose a wink of sleep over it.
“Doyle,” Master Chief Darrow called out to me. “What are you doing? Come on, this guy’s going to hook us up.”
If there was a red-light district in Pagsanjan, I never saw it. Things were done differently there. Pagsanjan was a resort town, a legitimate vacation spot for people who wanted to take advantage of the Bumbungan River. People did not want to take their families on holiday to places where the sex trade was as in your face as it was in Olongapo. You told someone what you were looking for, and they discreetly delivered it to your room.
My master chief’s inquiry was handled with even more discretion. Once our contact knew what we were in the market for, we had to follow him to where we could find it. He led us off the main avenues and into a winding maze of slums in the district’s shantytown. There were no streets there, only narrow alleyways full of smoke, trash, and, surprisingly, people. It was a busy area, teeming with pedestrian traffic. Most of the folks there were Filipino, usually aged north of fifty years by the look of them. The few natives I saw closer to my age looked surly and tough. They seemed to size us up as we passed, wondering how best to separate us from our money. Offer us sex? Sell us shabu? Or just stick us in the ribs with something sharp and grab our wallets while we bled out?
Darrow and I were not the only foreigners walking those alleys that day. We were, however, the only ones led by a guide. The others looked like they knew where they were going. I studied them as we walked and was relieved to see that none of them looked like servicemen. Their hair was way too long, they lacked purpose in the way that they walked, and their faces indicated that they were obviously too old.
We eventually arrived at a bloc of cabanas somewhere in the heart of the shantytown. They were put together with whatever the residents could find: bamboo, corrugated tin, rotten plywood, and discarded tarp material. The interiors of these cabanas were much nicer, though. These were places that generated money, so they contained actual beds. The people who lived there usually slept on some sort of pad thrown on the floor. There were also a couple of chairs, ratty but clean, and a jug of water to clean ourselves up with.
“Is okay?” our contact asked after he finished showing us the place.
“Good enough,” Darrow told him as he handed the kid some peso notes to take care of the rest of our business. After our guy left, the master chief turned to me and asked, “You alright?”
I shook my head. “It’s taking everything I have to keep myself from killing that fucker.”
That was not what my master chief wanted to hear. He pointed his index finger at me. “Keep your shit together, Murphy! I mean it! We’re not fucking around here!”
“I will but…”
“No ‘buts,’ goddammit! Shut your trap and focus on what we need to do! I don’t want to hear another word out of you until he comes back!”
Our silence did not make anything better. In fact, it made things worse. The cabanas were not built with soundproofing in mind, and I could hear what was going on in the rooms around us. It was disgusting. Darrow heard it too and glared at me, trying to determine my state of mind by the look on my face. I was going to tell him I was alright, but he put his index finger to his lips, reminding me to be quiet.
Our guide was not gone long. Within fifteen minutes, he opened our door and strolled right in with a girl in tow. I guessed her to be little more than ten or eleven. She was older, but with her hairstyle and the shape of her face, she looked way too much like Mari. Darrow saw it also and tensed up as if he was preparing to take me down in case the resemblance made me do something stupid. I did not have the chance to, however.
No sooner had the door swung shut behind our guide than Sergeant Tejada pushed it back open again. Stepping inside, TJ pulled a pistol from the small of his back and pointed it at the kid who brought the girl to us. The guide tried to duck, but before he could move, I had him by the throat, squeezing tight enough to keep him from screaming. He was not breathing well, either. I then slammed him up against the wall hard enough to snap a couple of the bamboo rods.
Tejada took a couple of steps forward so that he could put the barrel of his weapon right up against the cretin’s forehead. In Tagalog, he then asked, “You gonna be quiet when this man lets go of you?”
Unable to speak, our guide nodded, and TJ told me to let him go. He had to say it twice, though, before I finally did. After I stepped away, the policeman asked the kid what his name was.
“Dado.”
“Dado what?”
“Dado Afuang.”
TJ nodded. “Well, Dado, I give you a choice today. You wanna go to jail, or you wanna do what dese guys want you to do?”
Dado’s look hardened. “I no telling you about my priends. I go to jail.”
“Dey no lookin’ por you priends, Dado. Dey looking por some Yankee sailors.”
“A
mericans?” You could see Dado relax. He would not be tainted as an informer if he was just giving up foreigners. “What Americans dey lookin’ por?”
“Military Americans. All of them.” Darrow opened up the duffel bag he was carrying and showed him the disposable cameras he brought. “You can pass these out to your friends. If any American military men come back here and mess with these kids, you get a picture of them with the pam-pam or pom-pom they’re with, okay? If I can identify them, I’ll pay you twenty American dollars. Okay?”
Dado nodded. “Okay. No many military guys out here. Dey have to stay in Olongapo now. You guys da pirst I see dat I t’ink in da Navy por a long time.”
“It should be easy then.” Darrow pulled out a stack of photographs of Lieutenant Krause. “You get pictures of this guy with a pam-pam out here, I pay you five hundred dollars. Do you understand?” The kid’s eyes lit up greedily.
I reached into the pocket of my cargo shorts and pulled out some pictures I had of Palazzo. Handing them to Dado, I added, “I’m offering a hundred bucks if you get this guy.”
Darrow looked over at me. He had no idea I was adding Spanky to our mission. “Do you really think that Palazzo is capable of this?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. If he is, though, I want to find out.”
My master chief nodded. “Fair enough. Look, I’m going to work out some details with this dirtbag. We’re also going to inform him of what we’re going to do to him if he screws us over on this, too. Why don’t you get that little girl out of here and take care of her?”
“Sure,” I said. “No problem.” Before we went outside, I reached in my pocket and handed her a wad of peso notes. It was probably three times more than what she would have earned doing what Dado brought her to us for.
Once outside, I then asked her in Tagalog, “Do you like lumpia?”
*****
Knowing that Darrow and Tejada would be a while giving Dado his instructions, I bought the little girl some dinner and a couple of soft drinks. I then had her point me in the direction of the cabanas and spent the next half hour lost in the alleys trying to get back to where I came from. When I finally found Darrow and TJ, both were a little miffed.
“Where the hell were you?” Darrow growled.
“Lost,” I answered. “This place is a labyrinth.”
“You gotta be carepul inna place like dis, Murppey,” TJ said. “You get inna lot op trouble out here ip you no know what you doing.”
“I know, Sergeant. I’ve seen more of this place than I think I can handle. You mind if we get the hell out of here now?”
It had been a long time since Darrow had been in this part of Pagsanjan. Tejada made it there a couple of times a year for the government’s semi-annual crackdown on the place, so he led the way out. When we were finally walking, Darrow turned to me and said, “I wish you would have talked to me first before throwing Palazzo’s picture at that guy.”
“Really?” I asked. “Why?”
Darrow shrugged. “I have a sense for this kind of stuff, Doyle. Palazzo’s not tripping any of my switches.”
“Seriously? He's tripping all of mine,” I countered. “The man’s addicted to porn. Christ, you saw him before we left San Diego. The guy couldn't stop playing with himself. The bastard was getting caught red-handed jerking off every other day.”
“I’m not saying the guy doesn’t have issues. I’m saying that I don’t think he has this particular kind. Doyle, a hundred dollars is a lot of money to these people out here. You put that kind of bounty on a man’s head in these parts, and they can do some pretty shady stuff to collect it. Say these guys make Palazzo if he does end up out here? There are hookers all over this country that are of age but look young. Man, even with all the time I spent in this country, I have a hard time telling if a woman is fourteen or forty. They could honey trap the poor bastard, get him thinking he’s with an eighteen-year-old when he’s actually with someone who isn’t even in high school yet.”
“And you’re not worried about them doing that to Krause?”
Darrow shook his head. “Palazzo isn’t lying in bed at night obsessing about how he can ruin the two of us. Krause is. I didn’t ask that Dado guy to frame the lieutenant, but to be honest, I ain’t going to be looking a gift horse in the mouth if he comes through for me. Unlike Palazzo, Krause did trip a couple of alarms that have me thinking that he's hiding something out here. He was a little too forceful in his warning to us to stay away from the place, you know?”
“So, it’s a gut thing with…”
A rickety door opened up before us and I watched as a white guy stepped out into the alley in front of Tejada. Before the door closed, I caught a quick look inside. The man left a young boy behind that looked to be twelve or thirteen and obviously a pom-pom.
Sickened, I took another look at the man who exited the cabana. At the same time, he turned his head toward me. When our eyes met, there was a mutual flash of recognition that made both of us gasp.
*****
I was hit with a jolt of panic. The man I spotted in the Pagsanjan alley was Michael, the missionary I pointed my shotgun at during my first night in Subic Bay. In a flash, all the reasons this chance encounter was not in our best interests ripped through my mind. Michael was a missionary with Hope’s Children Ministries, the same organization where our division officer once worked. He could connect me to the Belleau Wood, not to mention to Krause, and blow our chances of catching our lieutenant in Pagsanjan.
Besides the threat he posed to our operational security, it appeared that Michael was also scum. He was someone in desperate need of a beating in the flavor of the one I had delivered to Randy Green. Guessing what I was capable of doing to him, the missionary broke off eye contact and bolted through the crowd. That triggered some predatory instinct deep within my brain, and I took off after him. I was so focused on my prey that I never heard Darrow or TJ calling after me to stop.
I do not know if Michael was an athlete or just fueled by terror, but I discovered that the man could run. He was also lithe and agile, able to effortlessly dodge and cut around the mass of people that filled the alley. I was much larger and clumsier. Despite my best efforts, I plowed gracelessly through the crowd, bowling people out of my way. That was not making me any friends among the locals.
Michael should have lost me in no time. Early in the chase, though, he tripped over a stack of wicker baskets and wiped out in a spectacular fashion. He had a half-block advantage at that point, but by the time he got back on his feet, I was close enough to reach out for him. My fingers just grazed the back of his shirt before he started putting distance between us again. Being so close to my quarry gave me a bit of a boost. That allowed me to keep up for about another block. After that, my pack-a-day cigarette habit caught up to me, and I started losing him once more.
I tried to keep pushing, but Michael increased his lead to a few yards, then to a few shacks. I reached in deep and tried to fire my adrenaline afterburners, but I was gassed. Tripping over my own feet, I ended up crashing into the dirt while watching my prey turn a corner and pass out of sight.
It took me forever to get back up. Once I did, I was out of air, fighting for breath. Intoxicated by oxygen deprivation, I stumbled around a bit, trying to balance myself. I attempted to jog to the corner that Michael had disappeared around, but even that was too much effort. An angry crowd of people, many of whom I had probably knocked over, began to gather around me. Though I did not speak the local dialect, I had no problem understanding the threats and insults they hurled my way.
Ignoring the mob as best as I could, I limped toward where I lost my missionary. I knew the chase was futile at that point, but my choices were to keep trying to catch my man or face the crowd behind me. I kept going.
Shantytown alleys are ad hoc and helter-skelter. They are not laid out in gridlines by civil engineers the way streets are. They formed as new places were built. The passageways twisted and turned, few of them leading to anyw
here with a purpose. Many came to unexpected dead ends. At some point, Michael must have gotten himself turned around and run into something like that. Even over the din of the crowd, I heard the sound of sprinting, sneaker-clad footsteps heading right for me. I squatted down to get my head beneath the throng and waited until the runner was almost upon me before I sprang.
My victim never saw it coming. He was running full bore right at me when I emerged above the mob and planted my fist in his face. I caught him beneath the eye so hard, it took him off of his feet. Inertia spun him around, lifting his legs into the air while his head careened back toward Earth. He hit the ground even harder than I hit him. When he landed, he was completely still.
I, on the other hand, felt like I had shattered my wrist. I hollered out in pain and tucked my paw into my armpit, jumping around as fresh bolts of agony shot up my forearm. With my attention focused on my hand, I was too distracted to notice that a half dozen tattooed young men had joined the crowd around me. Hooligans like that tended to like watching a good fight, but these guys were eyeing me with severe disapproval. “Wadda puck, mayn,” one of them called out to me in a thick accent. “Wha you tink you do-een?”
“What?” I asked, unable to decipher the accent.
“You hear me! I say wha you tink you do? Wha you problem?” The young punk took a step toward me, and I pulled my right hand out from under my armpit. I tried to shake out the remaining discomfort before I needed to use it again.
I stole a glance down at Michael. He was out cold and not going anywhere. That allowed me the opportunity to size up the kid in front of me. The street hoodlum was short and wiry. Had I faced off against him back in the States, I would never have given him a second thought. This guy grew up mean in the Pagsanjan ghetto, though. His eyes were full of “I just don’t give a fuck.” His need for street cred far outweighed any instinct he had for self-preservation. I still thought I could take him, but it was going to hurt.