Elvis pauses for a while, smiling. This is the most ever said in Efrem’s company. “Are you crazy for it?” he asks.
“I pray.”
“You think someone’s listening?”
“I wouldn’t if I didn’t.”
Below them Racha breathes again, and the agitated machines calm down. Nurses dismiss the priest while surgeons backtrack to tighten the wet seam holding Racha closed. The door to the observation deck opens and Reynato strides in, sucking his soggy cigar, fanning himself with his cap. Lorenzo enters a moment later, riding a decked-out dessert trolley like a go-cart. He parks beside Efrem and, to his surprise, offers him a slice of buko pie. Efrem accepts. It’s delicious.
The doctors complete their final stitch and a happy commotion grows in the theater below. Everybody shakes hands, posing beside Racha’s bloodied form as a nurse takes pictures with her telephone. The head surgeon looks up at the observation window and flashes a big bloody thumbs-up. Stripping off his gloves and mask, he joins them in the cool air behind the glass. He tries and fails to look somber, pacing and twitching like a meth-addled junkie. “I once had a patient,” he says, “stabbed deep through the chest. He lived only because of the slimmest—the stupidest—luck. The knife navigated the maze of his guts perfectly, damaging nothing. Let me be clear,” he says, “your friend is not this patient. It’s no less crazy, but your friend is the opposite. The blade has done minor damage to virtually every organ in Racha’s body. Pierced skin, cracked ribs, hewn heart valve, nicked lungs, skewered liver, grazed stomach lining, whittled esophagus and—at the point where it came to a denting stop—a fractured upper vertebrae. It took an effort from every department in this hospital, but we’re confident he’ll survive. He has a long and extremely painful recovery ahead.”
“I’m sure you’re right about the painful part,” Reynato says. He approaches the viewing glass and knocks hard. “Racha! Quick-quick this time. That cocksucker Fuentes needs my ass in Manila by Friday. I already got flights, and so help me, if I get charged a rebooking fee on account of you being a sulky baby I’ll take the difference out of your paycheck!”
Racha is unresponsive below. Reynato looks at where the viewing glass meets the wall to gauge its thickness. He turns back to the head surgeon. “Can he hear me down there?” he asks. “I think I’d better go to him.”
The surgeon takes Reynato by the wrist. “Sir! Mr. Ocampo … I don’t think you understand. He’ll need months of bed rest. He’ll need supervised rehabilitation. Traveling this week isn’t just unhealthy, it’s impossible. And besides, you can’t go down there. There’s no smoking in the operating rooms.”
Reynato plucks the cigar from his teeth and taps it with his pinky, as though ashing. “You see smoke?” he asks. He frees himself politely from the surgeon’s grip and leads Ka-Pow below to collect their friend.
HE’S RIGHT, OF COURSE. Racha recovers in three days, but in that time he travels through more pain than Efrem thinks it possible to emerge whole from. Wide awake the whole time, he shivers and calls for blankets even with the air-conditioning off, mosquitoes buzzing joyfully though open windows. He picks his stitches, sweats blood, bleeds sweat, and loses his screaming voice before running out of things to scream about. Efrem and Elvis tend to him as best they can, which mostly means hitting rewind, play, and sometimes slow-motion on pornos in the VCR. “You see what I mean?” Elvis asks, patting Racha’s hacking torso. “This boy came up short in the bruho department. This isn’t the kind of power you wear a costume for.”
By Friday Racha looks about as healed as he’s ever going to get, and that afternoon Task Force Ka-Pow boards a flight bound for the capital. They land shortly before dark, Manila stretching all around like a high, dry reef. Immediately upon deplaning Reynato is swallowed by a modest bevy of reporters and Ocampo enthusiasts, but once they discover that Charlie Fuentes isn’t with him their excitement flags, and they disperse. Apparently the real Ocampo interests them far less than the false one. Efrem, for his life, can’t imagine why. Neither, it seems, can Reynato, who looks hurt as the cameramen pack their gear and grumble about an evening wasted.
Though Efrem doesn’t remember anyone having suitcases when they left Davao, they each grab one from the baggage carousel before squeezing into a taxicab—Reynato up front and the four bruhos crammed impossibly into the back. Thankfully the ride to Reynato’s home is brief. He lives in Magallanes Village, a gated community nestled grimly between EDSA and the South Superhighway. As they pass through the guarded checkpoint Reynato explains that this neighborhood isn’t so swanky as Dasmariñas, where Charlie Fuentes lives, but to Efrem it looks swanky as hell. He’s dumbstruck by Reynato’s house—three stories of plaster, wood and limestone tile, all walled in by a concrete bulwark topped with mortar and shards of Tanduay bottles. Beyond the wrought-iron gate is a front yard overgrown with lush calamansi trees, bisected by winding flagstones that lead to great double-doors affixed with an antique Intramuros knocker. Out back there’s a veritable papaya grove, a lawn cut neat as a putting green and a small swimming pool.
“That’s movie cash for you,” Lorenzo says, amused at Efrem’s evident shock. “He still won’t give us a taste of those royalty checks.”
“That’s because I don’t get any,” Reynato says from up front, still sore about the reporters’ cold shoulders back on the tarmac. “I just know how to invest … and dabble.” He winks bitterly into the rearview, opens the door and retrieves one of the suitcases from the trunk. Efrem opens his own door, set to get out as well. Reynato gives him a brief, quiet look; embarrassed for his sake. “I don’t think so, Mohammed. I love you, and all. But mi casa, mi casa.”
He turns his back on the cab, fiddling with keys, working them into a series of iron locks. Lorenzo chuckles, not unkindly, as Efrem shuts his door. The taxi departs the gated village, continuing down EDSA, into the heat-pumped heart of downtown Makati.
THEY NEXT STOP among the dingily landscaped roots of an apartment high-rise. Lorenzo, Racha and Elvis pile out. Efrem remains in the taxi. Lorenzo raps on the glass and stares him in the face. “Come on, kid. We’ve had our differences, you and I, but I wouldn’t do you like that. Follow me.”
With that he breezily leads the others into the lobby, leaving Efrem to pay the fare. By the time he catches up they’re already in the elevator, Elvis transformed into a svelte black cat, staring intensely at the lighted buttons like they’re tiny yellow birds. To Efrem’s continued amazement, the elevator stops at the penthouse, where the bruhos wander out into a tremendous flat, floored in marble of alternating white and black. He’s never been inside—never even seen—a place like this. It’s even more incredible to him than Reynato’s massive house. As a bona-fide national hero, Reynato deserves to live like that. But they, surely, do not.
Racha, still weak from his ordeal, heads straight to bed and Elvis races down the hall, leaping up on the windowsill to gaze lustily at the lighted streets below. Lorenzo lingers with Efrem on the landing, regarding him bemusedly. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “You’re thinking: No way these boys can afford this on police salaries. And there isn’t anybody making movies about them. So they’ve got to have something on the side—some source of dirty money.” Efrem nods, because yes, that’s exactly what he’s thinking. “Well, you’re righter than you know.” Wincing a bit, Lorenzo reaches into his ear and produces a filthy twenty-five sentimo coin—earwax coating the entire thing, some blood speckling the words Bangko and Sentral. “Took years,” he says. “It’s when I got impatient and upgraded to those fat five peso coins that my eardrum burst. But it was and continues to be worth it.” He steps across the massive entryway, arms outstretched as though to hug his own home.
“So … I’m staying here?” Efrem can’t quite wrap his mind around it.
Lorenzo doesn’t turn around, but Efrem sees his reflection grin in the window. “You’ve got somewhere else to go?”
“No,” he says, “I don’t.”
/> “Well then. You’re welcome.” Lorenzo crosses to the glass, gazing out at Makati. He strokes Elvis’s neck lightly and Elvis, like a perfect alley cat, affects an unconvincing indifference. “Best make yourself at home, because Renny won’t have much use for us until after this election. That slick fucker Fuentes means to squeeze him dry. He’ll have him running all over the city, cashing in favors, rallying support, smiling like he means it. Because as of now, you’re still on layaway. Renny’s gotta pay for your ass.”
Efrem joins Lorenzo at the window, gazing out at the night-drenched avenues and towers. Commuter helicopters drift and trawl through the smog, and the traffic below sparkles like phosphorescent plankton. His deep shame at being a source of aggravation for his lifelong hero is counterbalanced by the exhilarating thought that Reynato deems him worth it. Lorenzo glances at him sidelong and misreads his expression as one of continued awe at the opulent bruho apartment.
“Who’s your daddy?” he says.
“I don’t know,” Efrem responds, flatly, and without guile.
Lorenzo blinks at him for a moment. Then he laughs so hard that his forehead strikes the window and scares Elvis off the sill. The glass vibrates with the strike, and for a moment it looks as though the city itself is shaking.
AND SO, FOR TEN-ODD DAYS Ka-Pow lays dormant while their leader shills for the windbag would-be senator. Reynato doesn’t show until the evening after the election, and he looks supremely put out, grumbling: “So help me, Mohammed, you better be worth this silly shit.” He says it’s time they got back to their true calling. He says the country needs Ka-Pow tonight. He says they’ll be hunting pirates.
The target is a well-known smuggler of knockoff medications—sugar tablets sold throughout the provinces as cancer medicine, heart drugs, antibiotics, even boner-pills. The right size and color, packaged up in bottles looking just like the real thing. “But they’re as good as rat poison to people who are sick,” Reynato says. “He’s moving a shipment from producers to a distribution warehouse tonight. They’ve already escaped three raids by the Manila Police, so the NBI has requested that we come in for the assist.” Lorenzo gives an appreciative hoot at this, and Reynato grins. Everybody, it seems, is hurting for some action.
Ka-Pow collects just after sunset on the garbage-strewn banks of the Pasig River, some hundred meters upstream of the warehouse. They hide behind the hull of a rusted, mudsunk jeepney, awash in stinking steam rising off the green water. Efrem uses his fantastical peepers to gaze up the loading ramp, under the door and into every corner of the warehouse. Three men await the pirate—two playing Pusoy Dos in the back office, another sleeping on a chair just inside the loading dock.
“Three doesn’t sound too bad,” Racha says, furrowing his welted brow, maybe wondering how bad his injuries will be this time around. Efrem feels little sympathy for him. Knowing that only Racha will be hurt tonight is calming.
The moon intrudes on twilight, and stilted shanties on the opposite bank go dark, snuffing their electric and oil-fueled lamps. Finally a little truck turns a corner and wrecks the quiet with air-brakes. The loading dock opens and men inside wave the pirate up the ramp. A second engine in the warehouse barks and a small forklift emerges. The pirate opens his truck and loads boxes onto an empty palate. Efrem tenses. Reynato grabs him by the wrist.
“Easy, killer. You see any weapons inside?”
His eyes are all pupil. “One shotgun on a desk in the office,” he says. “And the pirate has a Colt in his belt. That’s it.”
Silence. Warehouse tenders finish loading the pallet and the pirate follows them inside. “Elvis!” Reynato hisses. “You first. Get inside. You’re on that shotgun.”
Elvis stands, kicking mud off his toes. He performs the first half of a high jump and disappears. A bald starling fills his spot in the sky. Wings beating air like a swimmer, he flies clumsily over the riverbank and into an air vent on the warehouse roof. Efrem watches him negotiate the rafters, perching beside pigeons above the open cubicle office. Then, following Reynato, he creeps through syrupy garbage. Edging along the wall, they stop just short of the dock. Reynato takes Glock out of his belt. “Be loud,” he says. “Scaring them is more than half of it.” He breathes long and deep, cramming air, chambering a shout. When it comes it’s big enough to wake shanties on the opposite bank. “Police!” Lorenzo, Racha and Efrem shout as well. Guns drawn, Ka-Pow pours in.
The pirate and three warehouse tenders stand wide-eyed about the forklift, loose fingers on celebratory San Mig shortnecks. One makes for the office but stops at the sight of shirtless Elvis in the doorway, shotgun leveled. Reynato chants orders. “Hands on heads. Knees on the ground. Hands on heads. Knees on the ground.” He breaks rhythm to shoot out the forklift tires. The pirate and warehouse men let their beers shatter. They put hands on their heads. They put knees on the ground. They look at Efrem, horrified, and he imagines himself a man made of light. Tall as a palm tree. Towering over cheering children in the outdoor movie house.
Reynato orders Racha to cuff them and Racha knows it’s time. His snubnosed pistol shakes as he edges toward the pirate. Snatching the Colt from the pirate’s belt, he lets the magazine fall, ejects a round from the chamber and throws the empty piece to the other end of the warehouse. He cuffs the pirate. He cuffs two of the warehouse tenders and turns to the third, a chubby man in an informal, short-sleeved barong. He has a fountain pen behind his ear, and when Racha reaches for him he stabs it clean through Racha’s palm, where it protrudes like a sixth finger. The snubnosed pistol falls and the two become a tangle of arms and cursing as they grab for it.
Efrem’s silenced Tingin makes the sound of whipped air. His shot nicks the chubby man’s earlobe and the tiny wound is enough to get him down and sobbing out of a scrunched-up face. Racha blinks at the pen half through his bleeding hand. He recovers his snubnosed and beats the chubby man’s face with it. Reynato grabs his gnarled scruff like a puppy and pulls him back. “Easy!” he scolds. “Man needs a mouth to answer questions with.” Racha goes easy. He handcuffs the man and gives him a final slap with his skewered palm.
What happens next is mostly a blur. It doesn’t go by quick, but it doesn’t go the way it should. Elvis discovers a pleatherbound briefcase full of pesos in the office. A quick count puts it over twenty million. Everybody goes silent. Reynato fans himself with a stack of bills. He talks to the pirate in his polite voice. He asks about suppliers and contacts. He asks why there’s so much money. He asks about dates, weights and destinations. All he gets back is a mess of beer-thick spit on his shoes.
Lorenzo approaches, flamboyant, heel-toe. He does a little bow, a flourish and lays the pirate out on concrete. Then, from the folds of his clear plastic poncho he produces a singing handsaw. Warehouse men scream as Lorenzo halves the pirate just above the waist. It takes no time at all. Lower half kicking, upper half shouting a past-tense protest, just a finger of red space between. “You killed me,” he shouts. “You killed me. I died.”
Reynato encourages the upper half to get ahold of itself. “This isn’t what you think,” he says, “this is just an illusion. The fear you’re feeling is real—the pain isn’t. Pain never is. Just tell me what I want to know and we’ll put you back together, good as new.”
The pirate’s upper half stares about, wildly. Surnames, nicknames, middlenames jumble in his mouth. Reynato pulls the fountain pen the rest of the way through Racha’s palm and takes dictation on a thousand-peso bill. He fills both sides with tiny block lettering, gore blotting the ink. After that the halved pirate has trouble breathing enough air to make words. “That’s enough,” Reynato says. “Fix him.” Lorenzo prances back over, hamming it up for the trembling warehouse men. He unclasps his poncho and lays it over the pirate. He pulls a string of multicolored kerchiefs from his straw hat and waves them about in the air. He taps once on the poncho, above the sawslice. “Pesto!” He pulls the poncho off with a flourish.
The pirate is still neatly divided. His lower h
alf no longer kicks and his upper half just blinks. For the first time, Reynato looks concerned. “Enough goofing,” he says, “the man did what I asked. Fix him.”
Lorenzo repeats the routine with less flair. Now neither half moves at all. Blood snakes about the warehouse floor, seeking a drain to the Pasig. Lorenzo puts a finger on the tip of his chin and looks contemplative. He announces that the only kind of news he has is bad. He’s never, come to think of it, tried this on a man. “Only ladies,” he says. “Correction—only pretty ladies. It works on them, honest to God.”
The weather outside gets bad and some garbage blows into the loading dock. Reynato uncuffs the pirate’s upper half. He uncuffs the warehouse men. They look at one another, confused. He tells Lorenzo to try one more time and Lorenzo tries one more time. The pirate remains dead in two pieces. Reynato squats and massages his temples. One of the warehouse men messes his pants. Another prays in Latin. Reynato plucks a pack of cigarettes from the pirate’s shirt pocket. He snaps the filter off of one, clusters it with three more in his fist and has Ka-Pow draw lots. Efrem loses the game, and he doesn’t know what that means, at first.
CELEBRATION ON THE RIDE home starts out a little forced. Racha blinks at them through the hole in his palm, grinning because he considers this getting off easy. Lorenzo sings along to English tunes on the radio. He stomps to the beat, muddy feet on a bright blanket of spilled money. Back at the high-rise flat they pile into the kitchen for beers. Efrem washes his hands a long time and fills a glass with the tapwater that only he dares drink. He retires to his room, sits on the edge of his bedroll and listens to toasts and roughhousing down the hall.
Efrem wipes away the signs of his crying when he hears Reynato coming. He walks past the open door twice, cigar backward in his mouth, before looking in and saying: “There you are, Mohammed. We’re missing you.”
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