2 PARAS BRODS, SIS IN ABUSE RAP
SOLONS CODDLING DRUG LORDS, SAYS COJUANGCO
35,500 QC FAMILIES TO GET LOTS ‘What does it mean?’ he whispered to Joyce.
‘What does what mean?’
‘The newspaper title. Any one. Don’t understand.’
Joyce peered at the framed newspaper nearest to her. GMA CONDOLES BANGUS SOLON. ‘Don’t know. Maybe they’re in the Filipino language.’
Wong peered at the text. ‘But the small writing is in English.’
‘Yeah, but the headlines ain’t.’
The door swung open. They both looked around as Ferdinand Cabigon entered the room, closely followed by Santos.
The editor was a chubby man of about fifty, with sloping shoulders and a pale brown suit the exact colour of his skin. ‘Hello, Mr Wong, Ms McQuinnie, I’m so glad you could make it. We need your help and, as I’m sure Boy has explained to you, we will be willing to pay for it.’
Wong’s eyebrows rose. Boy?
Santos, tucking a stray strand of hair over his ear, explained. ‘My name is Undungan Santos Junior, but most people call me Boy.’
The editor hitched up a trouser leg slightly and nimbly placed one buttock on the edge of his desk. He gestured with his hands as he spoke. ‘As you may have guessed, the death of Ms Del Rosario last night has affected us very strongly.’
‘Yes, very sad, very sorry,’ said Wong.
‘But this is the Philippine Daily Sun,’ Cabigon said grandly, as if the statement carried obvious associations with it.
‘It is,’ cheer-led Boy Santos Jr.
The editor waved his fist at no one in particular. ‘We’re not going to take this lying down. We are going to do a re-creation of Gloria’s last days and last hours. And we are going to get our top investigative reporting staff—that’s Boy, here—to do a daily series of articles on the investigation, the suspects, the way the probe is going, all that sort of thing. And we’re going to find out what happened and who was behind this.’
‘And us?’
‘And you, Mr Wong . . . well, judging by the reaction of journalists phoning us for comment, people are intrigued by the angle that she had an apartment full of mystics in her apartment a few hours before she died. Some say that you and Madam Xu must be useless at your job, because you did not predict her death. Others say you actually caused her death. We haven’t decided which angle to go for.’
Wong was outraged. ‘Not true! We were in restaurant with Madam Xu’s cousin last night. At time she died. Can give you name of restaurant. In Makati City.’
Cabigon shook his head. ‘No, I don’t mean that they think you pushed Gloria off the roof. They think that you used your black magic to make her kill herself.’
‘I got no black magic. I am feng shui master, not magic man.’
‘Whatever. To the reader, all this stuff is all the same. Magic, occult, witchery. They love it and hate it at the same time. They are deeply suspicious of it but they’re endlessly fascinated by it. The main thing, from our point of view, is that they can’t read enough of it. We need more.’
Santos folded his arms and sneaked a glance at his watch, apparently impatient with his long-winded boss. ‘I want to get moving as fast as I can on this one, boss.’
Cabigon nodded to his colleague but continued to address the feng shui master. ‘Mr Wong: You and Madam Xu have become part of the story, whether you like it or not. So we want to keep a tight hold on you. We’ll pay you two hundred thousand pesos to stay on our side. That means that you supply material to our reporters, and our reporters only.’
‘What material?’
‘Oh, nothing really. They’ll produce the material. You just have to okay it.’
Joyce butted in. ‘You mean they’ll make up stuff?’
‘Not exactly make up stuff,’ said Boy Santos Jr. ‘We might speculate a bit, but the basic facts will be absolutely true. Unless we get stuck.’ He gave her an apologetic, slightly sheepish look.
Cabigon picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. It was some sort of contract in small print. ‘The main thing you have to do to earn the money is this: sign this pledge not to talk to any other media. This murder will be the most talked about thing in Manila this month, with a bit of luck. We own the victim. We own the scene of the crime. That means we are also going to own the story. And to do that properly, we need to own you, too. We printed extra copies early this morning because we were all over the broadcast news. Circulation is going to climb from today onwards.’
He thrust the contract at them.
Joyce spoke to Wong in a stage whisper. ‘Should we be signing this? I think we should be asking them some tough questions first.’
‘Yes,’ said the feng shui master, and looked up at the editor. ‘When do we get paid?’
‘Half now, half in three days,’ Cabigon said.
Joyce folded her arms and said: ‘What if we don’t sign?’
The editor smiled. ‘We would stop being so friendly to you. We’d say goodbye. You’d be free to go. If we can’t find a decent suspect, we might even try to pin the murder on you. Suspicious foreigners. Wouldn’t be hard. I’d avoid that outcome if I were you. Manila jails—they’re not very comfortable. Ask Boy.’
Santos looked very uncomfortable.
‘That’s not fair,’ Joyce objected. She turned to stare at the investigative reporter, suddenly realising that the editor had identified him as a former jailbird. What had he been locked up for? Was he dangerous?
‘Maybe not,’ said Cabigon. ‘But it would sell a lot of newspapers. “Sun Nabs Sus Mystics”. Anyway, don’t worry about it. Mr Wong is going to sign.’
‘He is,’ Santos said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Look, it would do you no good not to. If you guys did refuse to co-operate, I’ll tell you exactly what would happen. Our rivals would try to sign you guys up. You’ll probably get an approach from Rogelio Marasigan of the Times or Eduardo Aras of the Herald or one of the others. Their operations are not nearly as classy as ours.’
Wong scratched his chin. ‘But what about their budget?’
Cabigon glanced at Santos. ‘I’d say much smaller than ours on this one. What do you think, Boy?’
‘Yes, much. We’re going to slaughter them on this story. Gloria was killed on our premises. It’s not worth them investing much money in this. I doubt they’d offer very much. Not two hundred thousand, anyway.’
‘Okay, we sign,’ said the feng shui master.
As he scrawled tiny Chinese characters at the bottom of the sheet, Santos took a seat and started flicking through a pile of papers he had brought with him.
Cabigon went around the back of his desk and sat down. ‘Let’s talk news angles,’ he said, handing the feng shui master a copy of that day’s newspaper.
The murder of Del Rosario, of course, had been front-page news, with the Philippine Daily Sun giving up its whole front page to the story.
Wong was pleased to note the headline was in a form of English he could understand, although the sentiment it expressed baffled him. Why talk about the weather?
SUN WILL
NOT STOP
SHINING
Santos turned to Wong and McQuinnie. ‘You guys are going to be stuck here in this office for the next few days, so you might as well make yourselves useful,’ he said. ‘Job one will be to identify the suspects.’
Joyce was still feeling uncomfortable about the way the newspaper people had strong-armed them into being on their team, but decided that she might as well use her formidable powers of deduction to help solve the case.
‘I’ve already worked out how to do it. The police think she may have insulted someone in her column,’ she said to Santos. ‘So we need to get like all the back issues of her column for the past few weeks or months or whatever. Then we find out who it was. I worked it out while the police were consulting us about what they should do.’
‘Got ’em,’ said Santos, pointing to the top sheet of the stack of
paper in front of him. ‘This is the total list of everyone she has written about in the past three months.’
‘Oh. Good. Then we need to make a list of all the people she was like really mean to.’
‘Got it,’ Santos replied, holding up a sheet of paper tightly packed with names.
‘Oh. Great,’ said Joyce, feeling out of her depth. ‘I guess you’ve done this sort of thing before.’
‘Yeah, Miss,’ he said. ‘A few times.’
‘So then what? I guess we should work through the list of suspects. Divide them into more likely and less likely.’
‘I been working on that, too,’ Santos said. ‘I’ve graded them all. I’ve been using a point system.’ He held up a large sheet of graph paper and showed his audience of three that it contained long lists of names, with tiny scribbled numbers next to each. He had something of the attitude of a magician demonstrating an illusion. Editor Cabigon placed a pair of reading glasses on his nose and squinted.
‘It’s a two-part system,’ Santos said, addressing his remarks mainly at his boss. ‘They get marks out of ten for each part. In the first column, I’ve written a number to indicate how insulting she was to them. Like, if Gloria just printed something stupid or embarrassing they said, they might get a two or a three. If she called them crooks or liars or wrote something that caused actual problems for them, they’ll get six or seven points. If what she wrote caused their share price to collapse or some agency to investigate them or some deal to be aborted or some divorce to take place, that person gets nine or ten points. That’s that column.’ He pointed with his pen to the list of small red numbers alongside the lists of names.
Then he pointed to a list of blue numbers. ‘These other numbers indicate the person’s ability to retaliate. If she is rude to some priest or something, he’ll probably forgive her so I put a zero here. If she insults someone who can’t really fight back—I don’t know, like a teacher or a social worker or something, that person might get a two or a three. If she insults a business person, the mark goes up to five or six or seven, and if it is some sort of tycoon with known connections to the underworld, I gave that person an eight or nine or ten.’
He looked around the table to make sure everyone understood the system.
‘That’s brilliant,’ Joyce said, clapping. ‘So all we have to do is see who gets the highest marks and we got ’im!’
‘Done that, too,’ said Santos.
The young woman was speechless with admiration.
‘That’s this list here.’ He held up a third sheet of paper, which contained about thirty names. ‘She insulted all these people in a pretty nasty way—she attacked them with what my grading system rates as an eight-to-ten point attack. And all of them have an eight-to-ten probability of being well-connected and rich enough to fight back.’
The editor reached for the sheet of paper and scanned the list of names. ‘Great work, Boy,’ he enthused. ‘Some nasty gentlemen here.’
Then he raised his eyes and focused on the middle distance, apparently seeing headlines floating before his eyes. TOP TEAM IN SUN JOURNO DEATH PROBE—SUSPECTS SHORT-LISTED—NAMES TO BE NAMED. Have we got a running news feature logo?’
‘Yeah,’ said Santos. ‘Graphics are doing one. Gloria’s face and a sort of blood dripping thing. It’s not bad.’
‘Looks like we’re on the boil,’ Cabigon said. ‘You can have Reynaldo and Billy and Imelda. I’ll leave the rest to you.’
‘Got it,’ Santos said.
The editor dismissed them by pulling a handful of letters from his in-tray and starting to read them.
In the corridor outside, the investigative reporter walked along with his head hunched downwards. ‘And what exactly am I going to do with you guys?’ he asked. He seemed to be directing the question to himself.
‘I don’t know,’ said Joyce, whose attitude to Boy Santos Jr had been transformed by the discovery that he had followed the same logic as she had in identifying a way to solve the mystery. ‘Whatever you want. I’m good at interviewing people. I’ve been on a few murder cases. And Wong has solved loads of cases. He’s a bit famous in Singapore for it. Really, truly.’
‘Okay. We’ll get you to do some checking. And what about the old guy? Does he speak enough English to be any use?’
‘I stay here in newspaper office,’ Wong said. ‘I want to study old newspapers. Where is newspaper library?’
‘I’ll get one of the cadets to take you down.’
‘Thank you.’
Joyce was assigned five names out of a list of thirty to investigate. She spent an hour in the newspaper library, collecting basic data. The five were all businessmen aged twenty-nine to fifty-eight living in Manila.
She spent several frustrating hours on the phone, attempting to schedule interviews over the next day or two. All the businessmen had secretaries or personal assistants who tried to dismiss her.
‘Mr Lin doesn’t take visits or calls from reporters, and especially not from your newspaper. If you want to learn about our company, we can send you an annual report.’
One was a little more helpful. ‘If you send in a written request with all the questions written down, one of our staff may be able to answer them.’
But none of them agreed to meet her.
Then she went back to the newspaper library, to see if she could learn more about the five individuals from what Boy called ‘the cuts’.
Meanwhile, Wong had stayed in the library throughout the day, reading newspaper after newspaper, working his way through several months worth of the Philippine Daily Sun, and then moving on to other newspapers, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star. He scribbled pages of notes.
Five-thirty—the designated hour for Wong, Boy Santos Jr and herself to regroup with the editor—came around all too fast, and Joyce felt that nothing had been achieved. As she walked towards Ferdinand Cabigon’s room, she was embarrassed to reveal what little she had to show for the hours she had spent making calls and poring over cuttings. What on earth would they put in tomorrow’s newspaper?
Santos was not in the least bit down-hearted. ‘It’s going great,’ he told editor Cabigon. ‘Head: REPORTER HAD ENEMIES, COPS SAY. Story: The fearless reporting of murdered Philippine Daily Sun columnist Gloria Del Rosario led to her having a host of enemies, a top police chief confirmed yesterday.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Cabigon. ‘But how about going on the investigation angle?’
‘I’m saving that for the sidebar, until we get stronger results,’ said Santos. ‘Head: Top Names In Murder Probe. Story: Some of Manila’s biggest names in business and politics are being investigated by a Philippine Daily Sun team and a crack team of police detectives in a bid to solve the murder which has rocked the country.’
Joyce listened to the discussion with fascination. She thought they had spent a dull day and obtained no significant results, but the way Santos phrased it, the investigation was powering ahead and results appeared to be just hours away.
The following morning, Wong decided to take a break from his reading, and headed to Gloria’s apartment in Mandalu-yong on the west side of Manila to see what had gone so tragically wrong on the feng shui front.
Although access to the apartment was officially off-limits, the police had finished their investigations and moved on. The newspaper had supplied a security guard to loiter in the area to stop anyone—meaning rival reporters—from entering. When Wong showed the guard his temporary staff badge from the Philippine Daily Sun, he was allowed through.
On the Friday morning, Gloria had said that she wanted them to tell her if the apartment was suitable for a home office. She was apparently thinking of leaving the newspaper business and working from home, although she hadn’t explained why.
The apartment was mostly blue-grey and was in the southeast sector of the building. Although due east was associated with busy, active work, the ch’i of the southeast had a similar energy, albeit noticeably gentler—and thus
perhaps more suitable for a mature writer who had passed the youthful workaholic ace-reporter stage.
Wong had produced a plan to gently redesign the apartment to make it more comfortable, and also to provide space for two functions: a living area and a home office.
For the second of these, he had drawn up plans for a curved surface set into a corner, at a 45-degree angle to the walls. This gave the desk a southern position, which would have allowed Ms Del Rosario to tap into the south’s fiery ch’i energy. As a woman whose career was concerned with being in the public eye, she needed to produce work that caused her to shine.
He had also added to the report a list of adjustments she needed to make—such as purchasing a purple mat to go under her chair to maintain the fire energy. He had mapped out a plan for how she should arrange her furniture, right down to the items on the desk (journalistic awards and pictures of loved ones on her right, computer in the centre, plant on the left and something representing finance in the northeast quadrant).
The whole process seemed straightforward enough, as did the lo shu charts he drew up for her birthday. But clearly he must have overlooked something important.
As he was on his knees, looking to see if there was something under one of the items of furniture he had missed, Madam Xu entered the apartment with the security guard at her side.
‘On the floor, Wong? You’ll simply destroy your trousers, not that they are really worth saving.’
Ah! Madam Xu. You better? Recover fully I hope?’
Upholstered in a red outfit with gold brocade, she looked larger than life. She placed her large handbag on the dining table.
‘Never better, Wong. Just had to get over the shock,’ she said, pulling out a handkerchief with which to pat her neck. ‘Damage to the self-confidence muscle is always painful, but fortunately my personality is massive enough to absorb even the most devastating of attacks. I am a rock, I am an island, as Confucius said.’
She sat down and started pulling objects out of her bag: various packets of cards, charts, rocks, a crystal ball and some metal trinkets. Her job had been difficult on Friday. Because Gloria had to go to work, she had left a handprint and some personal effects for Madam Xu to analyse. It was always harder doing readings from inanimate objects in place of a live client.
The Feng Shui Detective's Casebook Page 24