EQMM, December 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

"Really, Danny?” Her dark eyes glistened.

  "Really."

  "Even though it means I can't help you with any money?"

  "Hell, don't worry about that, honey,” he said dismissively. “You know me. I'll come up with something.” Patting her hand, he withdrew his own, already beginning to worry about what his next step would be.

  "Do you have a place to stay tonight?” she asked.

  "Not yet,” Cargo shook his head.

  "Well, there's a cheap little hotel just outside the cul-de-sac called The Rittz, with a double-t. It's owned by a German national named Manfred Haas; everybody calls him Freddy. It's a dump, hardly anyone ever stays there; rumors are that it's just a front for something, stolen goods, pearl-smuggling, who knows what. Anyway, when the beds in our clinic are full, he lets the Mother Superior put patients in his hotel rooms on a temporary basis—always with a couple of nuns to stay overnight as chaperones—"

  "Isn't that kind of odd?” Cargo asked. “An arrangement like that between a Mother Superior and the type of guy you say this Haas is?"

  "Perhaps it is kind of odd,” Carli acknowledged, her tone once again tightening, “but we're all dedicated to the orphanage and the clinic and what we're doing for these unfortunate children, so sometimes we make our own rules."

  "Hey, Carli, I understand,” Cargo said quickly. “I wasn't being critical—not with my background."

  "Okay,” she said, more softly. “What I was getting at is that I can probably persuade Freddy to let you bunk at his place for a couple of nights, if you want me to."

  "Sure, great. Listen, thanks—” He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He was already wondering if this Haas could put him on to something so that he could manage to stay in Manila.

  And maybe get Carli back again.

  * * * *

  A little while later, Carli walked him out of Rose's Bar and around a corner to the Rittz Hotel, a shabby, ramshackle, two-story wooden building in front of which two teenage meth addicts were leaning shoulder to shoulder staring into space. Inside, at a scarred roll-top desk, wearing shorts and a sweaty undershirt, was a squat, muscular, completely bald man whom Carlotta introduced as Freddy Haas. There was a suspicious cheerfulness about him, and it irritated Cargo that he hugged Carli with such familiarity.

  "Sure, sure, of course, Carli, anything for you,” he agreed at once when Carli asked about a room for Cargo, and he shook Cargo's hand with a powerful grip. “Happy to help your friend out, my pleasure."

  As Carli thanked him and took her leave, Cargo noticed that the bulldog German's eyes swept over her lush young body until she was all the way out the door.

  "So,” he then asked Cargo, “how close were you to Carli?"

  "Just good friends,” Cargo lied.

  "Ever get her in bed?"

  Cargo kept his growing irritation in check and shook his head. “Like I said, just friends."

  "I've been trying to get her in bed ever since she came to work at the clinic,” he said candidly, “but no luck. Yet, anyway."

  "I got the impression she was involved with someone,” Cargo said, trying to sound casual.

  "What the hell difference does that make?” Haas growled. “I don't want to marry her, I just want to screw her.” Opening a drawer in the roll-top, he took out a key. “Come on, I'll show you your room."

  Awhile later, ravenous by then, Cargo left the hotel and walked around until he found a reasonably clean cafe and had a double order of adabo and sinigang, which he washed down with four bottles of San Miguel, the Filipino national beer. The adabo, which was shredded pork stewed in soy sauce and peppercorns, and the sinigang, soup made from guava, tamarind, and tomatoes, then poured over steamed rice, tasted like a feast to Cargo, who in the penal camp had subsisted for a year on beans and plain steamed rice, with an occasional hunk of undercooked chicken or pork.

  Walking back to the Rittz, he began to feel the results of the earlier drink with Carli, now boosted by the four bottles of beer. Several young Filipino street hoodlums took note of his slightly faltering gait with more than passing interest, but he managed to make it back to the hotel unmolested.

  Freddy Haas was nowhere to be seen when Cargo got there, which was a relief. He instinctively disliked the German and wanted to have as little to do with him as possible, so he hurried directly upstairs.

  Once in the room, Cargo undressed and laid down on the lumpy cot mattress in his underwear. There was a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling, but he did not bother to turn it on. One small window, with no shade or shutters, he left open in case a rogue breeze happened to penetrate the steamy night heat. But nothing came in except the mixed noises of the slum around him: a baby crying, a woman screaming angrily at someone, laughter now and again about God knew what, music from ghetto blasters, people's names being called out, children screeching in the streets—all of it blended into a raw symphony of people trying to get through the night, and probably dreading the day to come.

  Closing his eyes, Danny Cargo thought about all the nights he had gone to sleep on his straw mat at the penal farm. That had been the only pleasant part of the endless days, resting in the coolness of that higher altitude, listening to the soothing sounds of night herons.

  Odd, he thought as he began to drift off into an alcoholic buzz of sleep, that he should miss anything at all about the penal farm...

  * * * *

  Early the next morning, Cargo was awakened by someone gently shaking his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he saw that Carli, in a fresh nurse's uniform, was sitting on the side of his bed holding a container of steaming coffee for him.

  "My God, Danny, you're covered with mosquito bites!” she scolded him. “Why didn't you close the window?"

  "I guess I didn't think to,” he said sleepily. “We didn't have mosquitos up at Palayan. Too high.” He accepted the coffee. “I didn't expect room service in this trap,” he quipped. Carli was not amused; her pretty face was fixed in a serious expression.

  "Listen, I want you to get up and come with me. I think I may have found a way for you to get enough money to get out of the country before your visa expires."

  "How?” he asked, coming wide awake with interest.

  "Get out of bed, wash up, and come with me. Then you'll find out."

  At a grimy, brown-stained sink in one corner of the room, Cargo washed as best he could without the benefit of soap, slicked his hair back wet, and dried off with his undershirt, which he left on the bed. Getting into his shirt and trousers, he was conscious of Carli scrutinizing his haggard body and, embarrassed, turned away as he dressed.

  Managing to burn his mouth with several sips of the coffee she had brought him, he also began to perspire with the first muggy heat of the day, which made his mosquito bites begin to itch.

  "Don't scratch those!” Carli snapped. “When's the last time you had a malaria shot?"

  "Hell, Carli, I don't know!” he snapped back, beginning to get irritated now. “Two, three years, I guess."

  "We'll stop at the clinic on our way,” she decided.

  "On our way where?"

  "You'll see. Come on, hurry."

  It was a short walk to the clinic, but on the way they saw scores of people—old, young, feeble, addicted, desperate—hurrying along the street toward Smoky Mountain to be there when the overnight garbage trucks arrived to dump new loads onto the massive pile that had already begun to emit its methane haze as the tropical sun heated it up. Neither Carli nor Danny Cargo said anything about it. There was nothing to say.

  At the clinic, Carli gave him a malaria shot and handed him two pills.

  "Chloroquine and Fonsidar,” she said. “Drink this full glass of water with them."

  "Yes, nurse."

  She also gave him a small bottle of oily liquid. “Carry this with you. It's tea-tree oil for the itching. And don't scratch those bites."

  "Yes, nurse,” he repeated.

  From the clinic, Carli led him to Rose's Bar. “We're
meeting Angie, my friend that you met yesterday."

  "The pharmacist."

  "Yes."

  At Rose's, they went directly through the bar, which even that early had several customers, and past the open kitchen to a small office in the rear. Angie O'Brien was there, sitting at a rusting metal desk. Exchanging greetings, she explained to Cargo, “Rose, the owner, is letting us borrow her office.” When Carli and Cargo were seated in front of her, she said to him, “Obviously you're wondering what this is all about."

  "Obviously,” Cargo agreed.

  "As Carli told you yesterday, I run the pharmacy at the orphanage clinic. And as I'm sure you are able to guess by now, the clinic, as well as the orphanage, is being run on severely limited resources. That's why people work there for practically nothing. And that's why the Mother Superior has arrangements with people like Freddy Haas, as Carli also told you, to obtain extra bed space. She has arrangements with others also, to obtain everything from food to cleaning supplies to clothes for the children. A regular group of very proficient thieves sell to us every day at extremely reasonable prices. We wouldn't be able to exist without them."

  "But what about the church?” Cargo asked. “It's a Catholic orphanage, isn't it? Don't you receive funds from the church?"

  "A limited amount,” said Angie. “The problem is that we have expanded far beyond our original charter, because of an ever-increasing number of patients. You see, Danny, the Philippines, even though one of the smallest countries in the world, has now risen to fifth in the world in the number of cleft-palate births. And that is due to one simple reason: the lack of folic acid. Do you know what that is?"

  Cargo shook his head. “No."

  "It's a B vitamin, usually derived from a healthy diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, and enriched cereal and grain products. Even a quick look around the Tondo district will tell you that healthy diets of such foods are the exception, not the rule.” Angie leaned forward and clasped her hands together on an unrusted space on the desktop. “Folic acid, Danny, significantly reduces the incidence of cleft-palate deformity in unborn children. What we desperately need in our medical operation here is a huge supply of folic-acid supplement pills that we can distribute to every woman who becomes pregnant. But we haven't the funds to purchase those supplements in such quantity.” She fixed Danny Cargo in an unblinking stare. “That's why we decided to meet with you. We want your help."

  Cargo spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “I don't understand. How can I possibly be of any help?"

  Angie held him in her stare. “By hijacking a truck full of pharmaceutical supplies."

  "By what—?” Cargo's mouth dropped open. “You want me to hijack a truck for you?"

  "Yes. We have an informant on the docks who has told us when the next major shipment of pharmaceutical drugs arrives for the wholesale distributor in Manila. That shipment will be picked up by one of the distributor's trucks and taken to a warehouse where orders for various drugs are filled for pharmacies all over the city. We want the truck commandeered before it reaches the warehouse."

  Cargo looked from Angie to Carli and back again, several times. “I don't believe this,” he said incredulously. “You're talking about committing a serious crime, a major felony—"

  Carli reached over and put a hand on his arm. “No, Danny, we're talking about preventing dozens, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of babies from being born with awful facial deformities."

  "Okay, I understand that. I understand your purpose. But hijacking a truck loaded with drugs isn't like buying food and clothes from petty thieves. Hell, I wouldn't even begin to know how to go about it—"

  "The plan is already in place,” Angie assured him. Rising, she came around the desk and knelt in front of him. “We have someone who has worked everything out. We know the exact place where the truck can be taken; we even know who the driver will be. We just need one more person to put the plan into effect.” Angie touched his knees as if she were praying. “We need you, Danny. The unborn children need you."

  For the first time, Cargo closely studied Angie O'Brien. Her eyes were tawny, her red hair cut short in a helter-skelter way as if she had done it herself with dull scissors. Her lips, compared to the lushness of Carli's, had to be called thin, and curved down slightly at their corners. Overall, there was a certain something about her—a bearing, a presence, a quality—that, with the nearness of her, seemed to take Danny into its grip and hold him.

  "Please, Danny,” she pleaded, “just talk to the other person and have everything explained to you. You'll see how simple the whole plan is."

  Cargo could not force his eyes away from her. He felt spellbound.

  "All right,” he said.

  Angie rose and opened the office door. “Come in,” she said.

  Cargo looked around as someone entered. It was Manfred Haas.

  Angie sat back down and Haas hung a leg over the corner of the desk nearest to Cargo.

  "So,” he said, “you know what we are planning. Let me advise you that if you decide not to participate, and you repeat anything you hear in this room, perhaps to get that visa of yours lifted, it will be most unhealthy for you.” Haas raised one side of a tropical flowered shirt he wore outside his trousers to show Cargo an automatic pistol stuck in his belt. “Most unhealthy,” he repeated. “Do you take my meaning?"

  "Yes."

  "Good!” Haas smiled an artificially cheerful smile. “Now, here is the plan. I have already reconnoitered everything. The drug shipment arrives the day after tomorrow on the freighter Vancouver from Canada. The drugs will be off-loaded onto Pier 19 where longshoremen will then pack them into a large transport truck. The driver will be a Chinese named Heng, who is a longtime employee of DuPree Wholesale Drugs. He is grossly fat and lazy, and has been making this run for so long he could probably do it with his eyes closed.

  "Now then, the DuPree warehouse is north of the city in the Malolos district. From the docks, Heng drives directly to Independence Boulevard and travels north to Kasibu Street, where he makes a right turn toward an on-ramp of Highway 1, which is four blocks away. Between Independence Boulevard and the on-ramp is Matalon Street, which has a stop sign. When Heng stops at the intersection of Kasibu and Matalon, we take him. This is a quiet residential area where it is highly unlikely that we will be observed. I will approach on the passenger side with this—” Haas patted the pistol in his belt—"and order him to move over toward me. You get in on the driver's side and—” Haas suddenly frowned. ‘'You do know how to drive, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "We assumed so. Carli told us about your previous fossil-stone business. But I had to make sure. Anyway, we drive away with Heng between us. But instead of going north on Highway 1, we go south, toward Quezon City. We leave the highway at Manolo Avenue and drive to the E-Z Storage facility where I have rented a storage unit under an assumed name. We take Heng's cell phone away, tie him up, gag him, and leave him in the rented unit.” Haas glanced at Carli, then Angie, with an ingratiating smile. “Later, of course, we'll telephone his employer and tell him where the driver is; we want no one hurt in this operation.” Then, back to Cargo: “We drive the truck to a small warehouse I own back here in Tondo. There we sort out the various boxes of drugs—"

  "What kind of drugs are we talking about?” Cargo asked bluntly. “I don't want to take a chance of being executed for moving street drugs."

  Angie O'Brien shook her head. “No need to worry about that. These are pharmaceuticals only, drugs that physicians prescribe: for allergies, high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, glaucoma—that sort of thing. And, of course, folic acid. But no drugs that are on the illegal controlled substances list.” She nodded to Haas. “Go on, Freddy."

  "Sure. Once in my warehouse, we will separate out all the cartons of folic acid, and leave them there for later transfer to the orphanage clinic. The rest of the shipment we will drive to another warehouse where we will meet an associate of mine. He will buy the load from us, tr
uck and all, for twenty-five percent of the value stated on the import bill of lading, minus the folic-acid amount. In turn, he will negotiate with DuPree to sell the shipment back to him, minus the folic acid, for fifty percent of the value.” Haas paused to smile broadly. “The beauty of this is that everybody profits. The clinic gets its folic acid, you and I, my new friend, get our money, the middleman gets his, and even DuPree comes out ahead because he gets most of his drug shipment and a payoff from the insurance company that does not know the shipment has been returned. The plan is wonderful. Happiness will prevail for all!"

  Cargo did not like the practiced smile that Freddy Haas flashed, and it rankled him that Haas had referred to Danny as his “new friend.” But in his mind, Cargo had to admit to a certain genius in the plan. No violence. No one would get hurt. Everyone would get something out of it. And there seemed no way of anything going wrong. Could be, he decided, this would be his way either out of the country or being able to bribe away that exit visa.

  And now, looking more closely at Angie O'Brien, imagining he could still feel the warmth of her hands on his knees, he found his interest in her growing. Next to Carli, she was no raving beauty, of course, but there was still that something about her—

  "If I decide to come in,” he said to Haas, “what's the split?"

  "Seventy-thirty,” said Haas. “I take an extra twenty percent for the planning and arranging the buyer."

  "How much do you estimate the take will be?"

  Shrugging, Haas deferred to Angie, who held her hands out palms up in uncertainty.

  "There can be no promises made, of course. A lot will depend on the types of drugs in the shipment, and the quantity of each. But if I had to set a figure, strictly on speculation, but based on knowing which drugs are most popular in local hospitals and pharmacies, I would say—” she paused a beat, taking a deep breath—"ten million Philippine pesos."

  Pursing his lips in thought, Cargo tried to quickly work the exchange figures in his head, but Freddy Haas was too fast for him. “Danny, my new friend, it comes to a little over two hundred thousand U. S., which means our share would be approximately fifty thousand. You can figure your end at about sixteen."