by Ian Barclay
“I am a plainspoken man, Mr. Velez. You have heard the NPA offer. It is a very reasonable one. If something unexpected crops up that makes you unhappy, I will come here and discuss it with you.”
“Not so early next time,” Happy Man said.
Montova said harshly. “What if Mr. Velez does not agree to go along with the NPA on this?”
Quijano smiled wanly at him. “You’re speaking as if Mr. Velez really has a choice.”
Montova turned to Happy Man. “I’m going back to bed. Do you want me to call the guard in to arrest this criminal?”
Happy Man laughed. “Tell him to bring another bottle of champagne instead.” He turned to Quijano. “You want to meet a couple of nice girls?”
Dartley waited for an Ermita sporting-goods store to open and bought four golf bags, refusing all bargain deals on clubs and balls. He was lugging these along the sidewalk, two on each shoulder, when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
“Caddy, sir?”
Harry took two of the bags and walked alongside him.
“Finding it hard to go back to the souvenir business?” Dartley inquired.
“Something like that.”
“You weren’t made for the line of work I do, Harry. That’s not a criticism. Indeed, if you think about it, it’s a compliment. I don’t want to see you killed. Not that I give a shit about you as a person. I just don’t need the nagging responsibility of having you along. Nothing personal. I work alone.”
“If I can find you in a huge city like Manila, you are not doing very well on your own.”
Dartley couldn’t argue about that. “Does your wife know that Benjael is dead?”
“My wife does not know I talk with people like Benjael. You heard about the attacks on Happy Man’s managers in Negros Occidental?”
“Yes, I’ve been wondering whether I should go now or wait to see if he runs again.”
“He’ll stay,” Harry said. “It will take a lot to move him from the family plantations.” He held up one golf bag. “But you were leaving for there, anyway.”
“I was thinking about it.”
“I have been thinking also,” Harry announced. “I am not good at fighting and shooting, as you know. But you do not need me for that. If you do not have a Filipino representing you in Negros Occidental, you will waste much of your time trying to find your way and getting simple things done. People will try things with a foreigner they would never try with a fellow Filipino, even if he is not from their island. People are backward on Negros. There are no Hiltons, American Express—”
“I don’t need them,” Dartley said interrupting. “You’ve made your point, Harry. But there’s going to be a lot of risk in it for you.”
“Risk? I grew up in Tondo. Risk is my brother and sister.”
Dartley drove his hired car into the oldest part of the city, close to the South Harbor, where slum tenements mixed with decrepit warehouses. He had been by here before to check things out, and it amused Dartley to notice Harry’s surprise at the knowledgeable way in which this American was driving through the warren of streets. He backed the car into a loading bay beneath a rusted metal roof, and they went inside the building with the four golf bags. A wizened old man in a battered wicker chair smoked a huge, home-rolled cigar and ignored them. They took the rickety freight elevator without sides or a roof to the third floor, to which there was no access except through a locked steel door. Dartley hammered on it, and after some time it was opened by a no-necked brawny type with a Crucifixion tattooed on his right forearm, a blue figure on a green cross with red blood. He didn’t ask who they were, just waved them in and locked the door behind them.
Wood crates with stenciled letters were placed one on top of the other, creating islands on the bare floor of the large loft, beneath rows of fluorescent lights. Dartley’s goods were stacked in a separate pile. The weapons were wrapped in white cloth, stained with lubricating oil. He and Harry balanced the weight out evenly among the four golf bags and topped off each load with ammo boxes. This was neither the time nor the place to check if the weapons were all there. In fact, Dartley did not intend to check at all before leaving, because even if he had been cheated, he was not going to make matters any better through arguments with Fu. Either Fu was a straight dealer or he wasn’t. Arms dealers were in a position to make the rules.
Again without asking Harry for any directions, Dartley drove out to the airfield on the northern edge of the huge Manila urban complex to which the Australian had flown them previously. Dartley had phoned his business number the day before, and they saw him standing by his blue-and-white Cessna, waiting for them.
The pilot’s name was Purcell. He greeted them like old friends and made a joke about the favorite Strine sport being a “horse rice.” Harry’s English was good, but this was too much for him.
“No,” Purcell told him, “we Aussies don’t grow rice for horses. It’s just the way we pronounce horse race.” He adjusted the brim of his bushman’s hat. “I see I’m carrying cargo today. Where are we going?”
Dartley told him. Although the Cessna P210R was a single-engine plane, it seated six and had a payload of more than 1600 pounds. The plane had a range of nearly 1500 miles, a 325-horse-power turbocharged engine and a cruising speed of 245 miles per hour. The cabin was pressurized for high-altitude flight, and the landing gear was retractable. Back in the States, this plane was a frequent target of thieves for use in drug running, because it was very maneuverable and fast, flew well at low altitudes, and carried a substantial load.
Taking Harry out of earshot, Dartley said to him, “This is your last chance to back out. You know you’ll be putting your life in jeopardy. I don’t want any heroes sacrificing themselves, Harry. There’s nothing in this mission worth doing that for. I’m here to avenge some dead Americans who might be forgotten otherwise. You don’t have any good reason to come, and you have some real good reasons to stay behind, meaning a wife and children.”
“They are my reason for going. This is our ticket out of Tondo. Even if something happens to me, I know you will pay my money to them.”
Dartley scowled. This domestic stuff was too much for him. When he had to work with others, it was easier for a loner to team up with other loners. When they dropped, you buried them where they fell and that was that. With regular people there were always dependents or relatives, and with them came awkward questions. It always came as a big surprise to the families, who always had believed the dead man had been away on “coastal surveys” or “looking for oil” or some other dumb story. Men never liked to tell their loved ones that they might not be coming back, and probably they never believed it could really happen to them.
Time to go. They climbed aboard the plane. Purcell started the engine and said casually, “I don’t suppose you want to bother radioing in a flight plan?”
Ruben Montova was in a cold, lingering rage. He had put a lot of time and money into Happy Man’s political maneuverings, and he had a lot to lose if Velez lost out in his struggle for national power and status. If Happy Man was beaten, Montova could still benefit greatly, since he would be seen as a loyal anticommunist who supported men with similar commitments. The only real way for Ruben Montova to lose heavily in his association with Happy Man was if the latter grew soft on communism. Any backroom deal with the NPA guerrillas had to be defined as a softened attitude. Montova had not expected Velez to crack this easily. He was a man who had stood up to powerful generals like Bonifacio and more than held his own against them. Now here he was, allowing himself to be intimidated by some country yokels who had learned how to clean an M16 but not behind their ears. Normally he would have assumed that Happy Man was just playing games with them if it were not about this “black cloud” stuff and seeing the old herbalist. This was where they were going now, much to Ruben’s disgust.
“I remember my father saying that old Apo used to go to Siquijor Island to the tang-alap during Holy Week every year. Of course, he’s been too old
to go for a long time now. All the mananambals from all over the Viscayas and Mindanao gather there for the tang-alap, a very big ritual. They gather herbs from the forests, caves, and cemeteries, and form a circle around the material all night, to give it all their collected powers. At dawn they divide it up among them. Now, a lot of these mananambals are black sorcerers. The people hereabouts hire the black sorcerers to harm their enemies through special insects and special invocations called magbabarang. Ruben, I think this has been done to me.”
“I think your nerves are shot,” Ruben said, snapping at him. “You are beginning to lose your mind. The country people here are ignorant and superstitious. But you are an educated man. I can hardly believe what I see happening to you before my eyes. I warned you not to run away for the second time, to make a stand at Balbalasang. Instead you ran and hid here. Now you are thinking of letting some farmyard communist bullies grab half of your estates while you whine about sorcerers putting curses on you like a toothless old peasant woman. It’s time you took hold of yourself and ruthlessly struck back.”
Happy Man shook his head sadly. “Your reactions are entirely predictable, Ruben, and I don’t blame you for having them. I know what all this must seem like to a rational person who believes in material progress, such as you. Yet, not even you can deny that wherever I go, sudden attacks break out. Americans, Kalingas, NPA guerrillas… the sorcerer’s curse that I carry with me is breathed by them into their brains and they go mad.”
“Later today I’m going to phone a psychologist I know at the University of the Philippines and have him fly down here for a few days,” Ruben said.
“I’ll take him to meet Apo too,” Happy Man said fatalistically.
In spite of himself Ruben was curious. “Is this Apo a black sorcerer?”
“I don’t know. But everyone agrees that he is the most powerful mananambal in this area. Mananambals get into very intricate power games with one another, and the one who has the most anting-anting usually wins. I think Apo will be able to help me. Even if he can’t or won’t, he will be able to feel the presence of the curse—maybe even show it to you.”
“He had better,” Ruben said. Then he got mean. “What if this Apo is the one hired to harm you in the first place? Won’t you be putting yourself even more in his power by going to him?” Montova saw the look of deep panic on Happy Man’s face and instantly realized to what extent this man’s mind was disturbed. Ruben was wasting his time confronting him while he was in this irrational state—he might even be making him worse. He would make that phone call today and tell the psychologist to bring a colleague, for a second opinion. Ruben was beginning to get a terrible sinking feeling that his hero not only had feet of clay but also that Happy Man’s head was rapidly turning into the same substance.
Their car and the jeep escorting them pulled up at a grove of coconut trees, many of them fallen and rotting, on the ground. A bare patch of dirt before an old shack contained the rusted hulks of two pre-World War II cars, about fifty worn tires, and dozens of black plastic plant pots bearing crude symbols in white paint and containing small herbs of various shapes. The four guards left the jeep and looked around among the junk. One knocked at the door and waited a moment before going inside.
“You ever see these guards so respectful before, Ruben?” Happy Man asked. “They believe. They know better than to mess with Apo.”
The guard came out of the shack and waved to the guard beside the driver. He got out and opened the door for them. The other three guards stood at strategic points, their M16s leveled.
“If I make this deal with the NPA, I won’t have to live like this anymore on my own land,” Happy Man observed.
“Except you will never know which day the NPA will unilaterally decide to end your agreement by shooting you,” Ruben responded drily.
“The NPA I can deal with. What I can’t handle is this curse I am under. Let’s see what Apo can do about it.”
Ruben sighed and followed him across the junkyard to the shack. They both had to duck to get in the doorway. It was dim inside, and it took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust before they saw the mananambal. He looked light and brittle as a fallen leaf, but his eyes were as bright, sharp, and wild as those of a fox. He said nothing, and they said nothing to him. They watched him pour them tea with a shaking hand. The tea was incredibly bitter to taste, and they loaded spoonfuls of brown sugar into their cups. The old man said something.
“What did he say?” Ruben asked.
“That this tea prevents stomach cramps.”
Ruben snorted and looked around him. He could now make out pictures tacked to the bamboo walls. They were mostly color photos of flying saucers torn from magazines. “Have you seen any?” Ruben asked the old man in Tagalog.
“He doesn’t speak Tagalog or English, only Ilongo. I’ll ask him.” The old man spoke in a voluble monotone to Velez’s question, and Velez translated: “He says he sees them all the time. They like to hover over churches. He thinks they may be recharging their batteries. You can spot them by the light they give off, which is the same kind of light certain very powerful plants give off.”
“I’m sorry I asked,” Ruben said.
They sat for a while more without saying anything. Ruben noticed a sweet, pleasant smell in the shack and hoped it wasn’t something in the tea that was doing it to his mind. Unhurriedly th mananambal reached behind him and brought out little bottles with glass stoppers. Some he put back unopened after looking at them for a moment; others he partically emptied into a tiny heap in front of Velez and Montova, using the shake in his hand to trickle dried flakes of leaf, seeds, and pieces of root and bark out of the bottlenecks.
“Tell him I don’t want any,” Ruben said.
Happy Man did, and he translated Apo’s reply. “He says you need it more than I do.”
“Let’s get out of here and back to the real world,” Ruben responded.
The old man said something. Happy Man translated: “He says you will see the real world soon enough.”
“I thought you said he didn’t understand Tagalog,” Ruben pointed out.
“He doesn’t.”
Ruben let it go. This folk superstition stuff was going too far. Apo went on issuing crumbly organic stuff in the two little piles in front of them, and it bugged Montova to see that more was being added to his pile than Velez’s. Finally Happy Man used his left hand to push his pile of plant pieces into his right palm. He motioned for Montova to do the same. Ruben shook his head and got to his feet. Happy Man said nothing. He pressed a small roll of notes between the earthen pots and followed Ruben to the door, not forgetting to duck his head as he went outside.
The sun blazing in the blue sky blinded them as they emerged from the dim hut. They blinked and looked in the direction of a heavy truck speeding toward the junkyard and raising a plume of gray dust. Eight men stood in the roofless back of the truck, leaning their M16s on its wooden side. The rifles spat fire, and the four guards from the jeep twisted and fell without getting off an answering shot. The driver and guard from the car threw themselves on the ground and were not hit. A few adults and children who had gathered in the open space in front of the shack out of curiosity at Happy Man visiting the mananambal were not hit, either, although many of them made no effort to find cover.
Happy Man and Ruben were caught in the open, halfway across the yard, when they saw the guards cut down by the rifle fire from the passing truck. The truck skidded almost to a stop, and two shots were fired into Ruben Montova’s chest as he stood less than a meter from Happy Man’s side. Happy Man could have caught him before he fell to the ground, but instead, like everyone else, he stood and stared as Ruben took a few stiff steps forward like a man on stilts. He put his right hand out in front of his face and tried to say something. No words come from his mouth, stifled by a ribbon of crimson blood that gushed out and down over his chin and onto his shirt and pants. Then he fell down, as lifeless as a sack of rice, nose first into the dir
t.
Happy Man stood staring for a moment, as if finding it hard to believe that he was still alive. He naturally thought that the riflemen had been trying to hit him, not having seen Froilan Quijano in the back of the truck selecting the target for the top guerrilla marksman.
Happy Man opened his right fist and showed people Apo’s magical herbs, which he had been holding there.
“My curse is lifted,” he said. “Apo took it from me and laid it on poor Ruben’s shoulders for not respecting him. I’m a free man!” he shouted, and laughed hysterically at the awed people watching him. “Apo saved me! The curse is gone!”
CHAPTER
13
The American military attaché, Roscoe James, and his assistant, Ken Hodges, were shown without delay into the spartan office of General Pominador “Phil” Bonifacio. James did not attempt to smother the general with his Southern charm, knowing that this was the fastest way to arouse the Philippine army commander’s suspicions. The general was still treating Roscoe a bit coolly, implying once in a while that the American assassin on Velez’s trail was a CIA specialist there with Roscoe’s knowledge or, worse still, without his knowledge. Roscoe was still sticking by his concept of a renegade serviceman out to avenge his buddies, and the media was blaming the New People’s Army. What had begun to occur to both James and Bonifacio, but which so far remained unsaid between them, was that all these theories were wrong. The general was less sure now than before that he was being duped by the CIA, either with or without Roscoe’s connivance. If combat had taught the general anything, it had taught him not to rely too much on ideas. He had survived on gut instinct many times, and his gut feeling for Roscoe James was still good. Only, he wasn’t going to let the American see that. He was going to play a very tight game until he knew who all the players were.