“Tell you what we’ll do,” Moon said when the cabbie parked in a lot occupied by scores of bicycles and a couple of dozen cars and trucks. “I’ll buy you a ticket and you help me find Mr. Delos in the crowd.”
“Ten pisos,” Tino said, voice scornful. “And you get a discount because a lot of the fights are already over.”
“How do you know?” Moon said. “It’s still early.”
“Lots of losers,” Tino said, pointing to the pollos fritos sign.
Moon paid full fare for both tickets-about ninety cents American-and they found a place on the top row, seven levels up, where the siding had been removed to let hot air and tobacco smoke escape. The stadium was about two-thirds full with a couple of hundred spectators: all males, all ages, almost all clad in the Filipino summer garb of short-sleeved shirts, cotton pants, and straw hats. The exceptions were those who held the seats around the ring. Most of them wore jackets, and most of them had custody of roosters.
The ring itself was a platform raised about three feet above the earthen floor and surrounded by sheets of transparent plastic. In it five men stood. In the center a skinny little man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and necktie was talking into a microphone. To his right and left stood two-man teams, which Moon identified as bird holder and assistant. The man with the mike spoke in what Moon guessed must be Tagalog and then repeated at least some of it in heavily accented English. The audience listened in rapt silence.
“He’s telling about the cocks,” Tino murmured. “The oone with the red feathers around his neck-” Just then the master of ceremonies stopped talking.
He lowered the mike and the arena exploded into bedlam. All around them, all around the stadium, men were leaping to their feet, shouting, flashing hand signals, acknowledging hand signals. Tino was saying something in Moon’s ear.
“What?” Moon shouted.
“I say if you wanna bet, bet on the one with the red feathers around his neck. Number nineteen. The maestro said he’s won three fights.”
“I’ll just watch,” Moon said. “Do any of those guys holding roosters look like Delos? She said he was short and fat and wore a long mustache.”
“Two fat ones,” Tino said, pointing.
Moon had noticed that. But both were sitting with their backs to him.
In the ring, the maestro raised the microphone. The clamor of betting stopped almost instantly. The rooster bearers advanced. The roosters pecked at each other while the maestro watched. Unsatisfied, he signaled the rooster bearers forward again. This time the cocks pecked with more satisfying ferocity. The maestro sent the rooster bearers back to their corners. They crouched, holding the roosters on the floor. One of the roosters waiting his turn outside the ring crowed lustily. The maestro’s hand dropped and the combat began in a wild flurry of feathers of spurs. Red Feathers went for the head. His black opponent backed away, then counterattacked, encouraged by shouts and imprecations from the audience. There was another wild flurry, another, and another, and suddenly it seemed to be over. Red Feathers was down, wings extended, neck held out. Black Feathers took two wobbly steps and stopped.
“Looks like you picked the wrong rooster,” Moon said.
“I think maybe a draw,” Tino said.
The handlers picked up their roosters. The maestro called them together. They held out the birds, head to head. Red Feathers was obviously out of it. Another morsel for the pollos fritos stand. But the black bird had no fight left. Instead of pecking, he pulled his head back. Maestro ordered a retrial. Again, Black Feathers wanted no more combat. His backers in the audience groaned. Maestro made a washing gesture with his hands while the bird holders departed. He said something unintelligible into the mike and signaled the next fight.
Both fat men climbed into the ring, one with a handlebar mustache and holding a mostly white rooster. Mr. Delos, surely, since the other one was clean-shaven. The ritual was repeated, the birds pecked at each other, the uproar of betting resumed, and the fight began. This one lasted a little longer and ended with the white rooster prone and breathing its last.
Tino grinned at Moon. “Pretty good, huh?” he said. “I don’t think you have anything in America like this.”
“Just hockey,” Moon said. “I guess that’s as close as we get.”
This time when the concluding test was applied, the winning bird had retained enough martial spirit to deliver a couple of farewell pecks. The maestro pointed to it and said the proper words into the mike, and bedlam again ensued. This time the yelling and pointing was accompanied by the passing of money up and down the rows and across the seats-the white cock’s backers paying their gambling debts to the winners. The honor system in practice, Moon thought, which was something else now missing from American athletics. But he didn’t have time to watch. Mr. Delos was carrying his deceased bird out of the stadium.
Moon caught Delos at the pollos fritos stand, in a glum conversation with the cook. But any grief Mr. Delos might have been feeling for his bird vanished when Moon introduced himself. The round brown face of Mr. Delos went aglow with delight as he pumped Moon’s hand.
“At last. At last,” he said. “Your brother told us he hoped you would be coming, and Mr. Brock said he expected you. I am so happy to meet you.”
“Mr. Brock. Is he here?”
“He has gone back to Manila,” Mr. Delos said. “There was a business arrangement to complete with Thousand Islands Airways. Ricky had made a proposal-” Mr. Delos remembered that delight was not appropriate. His expression changed. “We are so sorry about Ricky. What a terrible loss for you and for your mother. Please accept my condolences.”
“Thank you,” Moon said. “Where can I reach Mr. Brock in Manila?”
Finding that address required going back to the office. Delos checked in his Rolodex file. He extracted a card with the same address Castenada had provided. That and the telephone number with it had been scratched out and replaced only by a different telephone number. Mr. Delos was apologetic.
“His apartment, they tore it down so he moved, but it’s just until he can find a new place so he didn’t put down where he is now. Just the phone number.”
Moon called it, and while he listened to it ring Mr. Delos talked about business. Ricky had persuaded Thousand Islands it should expand its copter fleet by tapping into the huge surplus that the end of the fighting in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia would make available. M. R. Air would do the brokering and the conversion from gunships to transports, would handle maintenance, and would even subcontract some island-hopping jobs.
“We have more than a thousand islands in the Philippines,” Mr. Delos said. “Too rough for airstrips, just perfect for landing pads. And then we think maybe we can get maintenance work for the Manila police. The U.S. government gave them a dozen copters but I think only about two now are safe to fly. And then-”
The telephone was not going to be answered. Moon hung up and listened with pseudo-attention until Mr. Delos completed his account of business prospects. He asked Mr. Delos to have Mr. Brock call him at the Maynila if he checked in, shook hands, and left.
In the parking lot, Tino was squatting beside the left rear wheel of his little Toyota taxi, examining a very low tire.
Moon looked at his watch. It was already well past the noon hour when AP hoped to call him.
“A nail or something out at the stadium, I guess,” Tino said, sounding disconsolate.
“I’ll help you change it,” Moon said.
“Okay,” Tino said. “But the spare’s flat too.”
WASHINGTON, April 18, (AP)-The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today approved a $200 million appropriation for humanitarian aid for South Vietnam, but a $722 million request for military aid remained stalled in Congress.
Still the Seventh Day
April 19, 1975
IN THE SHOP OF THE HOTEL Maynila, Moon bought copies of the two English-language Manila evening papers with the least flamboyant typography. He sat in the lobby reading, watc
hing the dinner-hour traffic pass in tuxes, cocktail gowns, and the formal wear of various desert sheikdoms. If getting Tino’s multiple flats fixed hadn’t made them so late he would have been tempted to ask Mrs. van Winjgaarden to join him for dinner. Not that he would have done it. Partly because he couldn’t dress for anything more chic than a greasy spoon coffee shop but mostly because she would have pressed him to help her, probably in some fairly subtle way. Besides, she was several degrees out of his class and wouldn’t be dining with him unless she wanted something. Even so, eating alone in a dining room surrounded by couples and foursomes had been a dreary affair. Equally dreary was the prospect that now confronted him: spending the evening watching the rain splash against the windows of his room.
The biological clock operating behind Moon’s forehead had not yet compensated for Los Angeles -to- Manila jet lag. He’d been sleepy about noon. Not now. In fact, he doubted if he’d be sleepy until about Manila sunrise. He skipped through the papers again. Nothing he found in either made the prospects of flying off to the Republic of Vietnam or the former Kingdom of Cambodia seem promising. The South Viets’ strategy, if they had one, seemed to be defending Saigon and the Mekong Delta, letting Uncle Ho have the rest of it, and hoping for the best. Floods of refugees were pouring out of the highlands. Floods of refugees were also pouring into Thailand from Cambodia, carrying terrible tales of Pol Pot’s “Zero Year” campaign. The stories of slaughter and atrocities sounded to Moon exaggerated by a factor of about a hundred. But even when you discounted it, the news made any notion of joining Mrs. van Winjgaarden on her journey to extract her suicidal brother from the Cambodian hills seem stupid.
He refolded the papers and put them on the chair beside him. Not sleepy but tired. He’d tried Brock’s Manila number as soon as he got back to the hotel, with no answer. He’d try it again tomorrow morning. The Associated Press day manager had left a message as promised. It was short and clear: “Bilibad says it has no George Rice. Media man at embassy (Del Fletcher) says he will check other possibilities tomorrow.” Another thing to deal with in the morning.
Moon felt a stirring of hope. George Rice would have jumped bond and vanished from the planet. Brock would answer his telephone and report that he knew absolutely nothing about the whereabouts of Ricky’s kid. Whereupon Moon would arrange his return flight to Los Angeles, express his regrets to the Dutch lady, and get the hell out of there. Or, better yet, Brock would say he had the child here in Manila and would Moon please drop by and pick her up? Then he’d go get the child and the two of them would fly home.
But what if Brock answered the phone and said the child was somewhere in Vietnam or Cambodia? What would he do then? He’d think about that only if he had to think about it. No need to think about it tonight. Instead he probed around for any other possibilities. Any loose ends he’d overlooked. Should he go back and cross-examine Castenada? Nothing to be gained from that. He imagined a recuperating Victoria Mathias sitting across a table from him, full of questions, looking for a reason to go over there and find the kid herself. Were there any loose ends he’d overlooked?
One. Ricky’s Manila apartment. He’d have to find it and take a look. He dreaded doing that. Dreaded it. But something there might be useful. Probably would be. Old letters. Old notes with names of people, names of friends of a pretty young woman named Vinh who had borne Ricky’s child, perhaps people who would take in this orphaned child.
From his pocket, Moon extracted the key Castenada had given him and checked the address on the tag attached to it. Then he walked out into the warm darkness and signaled a cab.
The address was Unit 27, 6062 San Cabo, Pasay City, less than three miles from his hotel. The building was a two-storied M-shaped structure surrounded by palm trees. Unit 27 was on the end of the upper floor. Moon climbed an external stairway and walked down the porch, checking numbers, hearing music through door panels, hearing laughter through opened windows, seeing the warmth of reading lamps through blowing curtains. Unit 23 was dark and silent. So were Unit 25 and Unit 27.
The key didn’t seem to fit. Moon inspected it, listened to the rain pattering against the roof tiles overhead, turned the key over, and slid it in. The lock clicked. Moon turned the knob and stepped into the darkness. He inhaled, testing for the stale, musty air of a room closed too long, feeling on the wall for a light switch, finally finding it.
The air, which should have had the mustiness of a long-unused apartment, was not musty at all. He was inhaling the aroma of onions, of burnt toast, of coffee, of talcum powder, of human perspiration. He was hearing someone breathing.
Moon pushed the light switch. Across the tiny living room in the doorway to a bedroom a man was facing him. Naked. He was a thin man, with thinning red hair and drooping mustache. In his right hand he held a large black pistol pointed at Moon’s chest.
“Hands on top of your head,” the man said. “And turn around.”
“Who the hell are you?” Moon asked. What are you doing here?”
The pistol looked like one of those old army-issue.45-caliber semiautomatics, exactly like one Moon once carried in his own army-issue holster. The naked man clicked back the hammer. “Turn around, you son of a bitch. Kneel and get yourself facedown on the floor.”
Moon turned around and knelt, hands atop his head. The carpet beneath him was grimy. Moon’s anger offset his fear. To hell with this.
“If this is Unit Twenty-seven,” he said, “then this is my brother’s apartment, and what the hell are you doing in it? If it’s not, I made a mistake. And I apologize.”
From somewhere behind him Moon heard a woman’s voice. “Who is it, Tommy? Do I call the police?”
“Your brother?” the naked man said. Brief silence. Then: “What’s your brother’s name?”
“Ricky Mathias.”
“Well, shit,” the man said. “I’ll be damned. Are you Moon Mathias? You look like you’re big enough.”
Moon stood up and turned around. “I’m Moon Mathias, and who the hell are you?”
“Tommy Brock.” He shifted the pistol to his left hand and held out his right.
Moon shook it.
“Nina,” Brock said. “if you’re decent, get out here and meet the famous Moon Mathias, Ricky’s brother. You’ve heard Ricky tell about him.”
Nina emerged from the bedroom in a short white nightgown. She was small and dark with long tousled hair. She examined Moon with frightened eyes, nodded, said “Hello,” and slipped back through the doorway into the darkness.
Moon found himself breathing normally again. Almost normally. Anger had replaced the fright.
“You’re sort of trespassing, aren’t you?” Moon said. “How the hell did you get in here? I want you to get your clothes on and get your asses out.”
Tommy Brock was disappearing into the bedroom. From the waist upward he was brown, waist downward virginal white-the two-tone coloration of one who works shirtless in the sun.
“I mean right now,” Moon said. “Out.” But even as he said it, he realized he had questions to ask this man.
“Well, now,” Brock said from somewhere out of sight in the bedroom, “what’s the goddamn rush? Get down to it, maybe you’re the one trespassing. This place is on lease to R. M. Air. Or M. R. Air as we’re calling it now. I’ve got the key. Everybody with the company picks up the key when they come to Manila.”
With that Brock emerged, looking amused, khaki pants on now and buttoning a short-sleeved shirt. The pistol seemed to have been left behind. He padded barefoot past Moon into the kitchen. “Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll put on some coffee. Or do you want something stronger? Ricky said you swore off drinking, but maybe you’d make an exception after somebody points a forty-five pistol at you.”
Embarrassment replaced Moon’s anger. He cleared his throat, thought of nothing to say, seated himself on the edge of the sofa. The light had gone on in me Kitchen. A clattering of utensils. How about I heat up what we had left over? It’s still sort of war
m. Not really stale. We just got in from seeing a movie and were going to bed when you-when you got here.”
“Warmed up’s fine,” Moon said.
Brock was leaning against the kitchen doorway, looking happy, good-natured, and amused. “You sure favor that picture Ricky had of you,” he said. “You going to take over the outfit?” His expression turned wry. “Lordy, there’d be enough irony in that for anyone. Ricky always wanted to get you out here. Said we’d be the Air Express of this whole corner of the world. We wouldn’t need the ARVN connection.” He shook his head. “Now you get here and it’s too damned late. Too late, anyway, for Ricky. Maybe not too late for the company, though. We’ve got several things working.”
“How did it happen?” Moon asked. “With Ricky, I mean. We never knew much except it was a copter crash.”
Brock frowned. “Nobody told you anything?”
“Just the official word from the embassy,” Moon said. “No details.”
“Well, then,” Brock said, looking somber, “I think I’d better start at the beginning. Skip back enough so you’ll know -why things weren’t quite normal.”
Brock said Ricky had concluded that they must move the R. M. Air repair base out of Can Tho. Can Tho was right beside the Hau Giang arm of the Mekong. The Vietnam navy had been slacking off its Mekong patrols and the Vietcong were raiding just upstream. That was in February. Ricky flew to
Saigon and met with the ARVN general they’d been doing business with. The general and Ricky had agreed that R. M. Air would move its operations down to a building the general owned in Long Phu. An ARVN ranger battalion was based there, and it was practically on the coast of the South China Sea. A comparatively safe place and easy to evacuate when everything went to hell. So they started moving stuff. Their two regular pilots were flying Hueys loaded with spare parts and office equipment down to Long Phu when an old Chinese man came in and wanted a hurry-up flight into Cambodia to pick up a cargo.
Moon interrupted. “You know his name? The old man?”
Finding Moon Page 10