‘Fried chicken,’ Sita told her, ‘in special batter. You’ll be doing the batter.’
‘Can’t, Mum, I’m right in the middle of a dentistry book.’ From her open bedroom door in the distance the sound of her radio competed with her sister’s pianistic stumblings.
‘You haven’t actually enrolled yet?’ her father asked in alarm.
‘Not quite. But I’ve decided to get a head start.’
Dingca knew that even as Sita and he were raising objections based on money neither of them really meant money. Everything nowadays cost a fortune; one simply took for granted that one couldn’t actually afford it before going right ahead and juggling around later with the payments. Things sort of got paid, somehow. No, it wasn’t the money. It was the thought of Eunice having to live in Manila in order to attend dentistry school. Why couldn’t she commute with him? For heaven’s sake, Dad, college students don’t live with their fathers. They share digs, dorms, whatever. They have lectures at night. They have to meet professors and so on. They aren’t prisoners, are they? They’re adults with their own social lives.
But Rio’s head was full of the scumbags who terrorised girls’ dormitories, of what happened to tired students waiting for buses to get home after lectures, of the thousand varieties of perdition which thronged the city’s streets, eyes bloodshot and fingers shaking with drugs. He didn’t want to talk about it tonight, okay? Not tonight, Eunice. It needed thought. Goddam it, he’d only been home ten minutes before they’d sprung it on him out of the blue. A conspiracy of women, all trying to trick him into saying Yes…
Not until this was all said and the fridge door had closed with a muffled sigh of finality was Rio able to take a second cold beer out to the yard. Whatever you did, whichever way you turned, they’d got you by the short and curlies – whoever ‘they’ currently happened to be. He retrieved the evening paper from behind the jeep’s visor, moved the folding chair closer to the light and, with Butch lying at his feet, finally read Vic Agusan’s ‘Queen of Shabu Nabbed’ story.
Some Narc boys from South CapCom had arrested her in a buy-bust operation while passing a consignment of drugs to an officer posing as a buyer. ‘Posing,’ said Rio out loud. ‘That’s a laugh.’ He took a mouthful of beer and then forgot to swallow as he saw the woman’s name. Lettie Tan. Agusan described her as ‘the owner of several businesses including night clubs in Cavite and Ermita and a string of foreign concessions, among them Japanese and Taiwanese engineering companies. Her Ermita club, ‘The Topless Pit’, has long been known as an alleged safe haven for certain notorious drug dealers, which argues weighty protection somewhere up the line.’ The man and his paper took risks, Dingca thought approvingly, at last swallowing the warm, flat mouthful. Lettie Tan, eh? That woman again.
He sat there slowly finishing his beer, no longer hearing the familiar sounds of cooking and TV voices in the house behind him, the sudden gushes of waste water. He had been joined in his yard by Babs’s ghost who materialised with a rustle in the mango tree as he stared across at it. ‘Was that it?’ he asked his murdered asset silently. ‘Was that what you were going to tell me, only…?’ Only what, though? Had the child-kidnapping been just a sideline, or was it after all a complete red herring with no connection to Babs’s employer? But suppose Babs had known about her being a drug boss. Several possibilities followed, one being that he might have preferred not to risk talking about it. This wasn’t a little light toddler-snatching. This was big time, as Dingca would have known. And as Agusan implied, it was impossible to run any sort of drugs empire without reliable and senior protection in the judiciary and the police. The trouble was – and the recollection of his own dismissiveness now caused him a jab of conscience – he had never made a secret to Babs of the fact that of all forms of criminality, drugs bored him most. There was something about the whole scene which left Rio cold, even impatiently to feel that if a lot of bored cretins wanted to stuff their veins and noses with fancy chemicals which further addled their brains, that was fine by him. Much better spend one’s time going after the real scalawags who were robbing the country blind, ruining the innocent and coming up squeaky clean time after time. Besides, he couldn’t really understand why anyone wouldn’t prefer a decent bottle of imported Black Label.
It was ironic. Two years ago when he’d still been in Station 5 with South CapCom Dingca had barely heard of Lettie Tan. Suddenly, now that he’d been posted to North CapCom and her fetid club was no longer his problem, she was assuming the proportions of a major criminal who, thanks to poor Babs, he felt was still very much his business. It was doubly irritating that under the PNP reshuffle his old team had been broken up and there were few men left in Station 5 with whom he would choose to share confidences about Lettie Tan. Two years was a long time. New alliances formed, injudicious questions could be life threatening. Now that the Narcs had their claws in her, too, there was little to be done. He dropped the newspaper and drained his glass. He actually debated ringing up this Agusan fellow to suggest that drugs would be only one of many skeletons hidden away in Lettie’s cupboard and as a journalist he would have the facilities to do some digging around her other business activities. ‘A string of foreign concessions’ was impossible to acquire without heavywork somewhere along the line. There had been an example only last year not five miles down the road from this very yard, when a businesswoman effectively tricked 294 Laguna farmers into selling 114 hectares of agricultural land and managed to get extreme pressure applied to the Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform to have the land’s designation converted to ‘industrial and commercial use’ in order to set up an industrial park. This move was strictly illegal under the terms of land reform law, as Dingca had taken the trouble to verify. No-one at the time offered any prizes for guessing where the pressure had come from which was senior enough to make the Secretary of the DAR openly flout his own laws. That had become a scandal mainly because it forced Cory Aquino, by then ex-president, to deny that Malacañang had had any knowledge of the case. This denial was somewhat weakened when a personal letter to her from the businesswoman was read out at the inquiry, expressly asking her presidential help in the matter. Defrauding illiterate peasants had been the easy part, of course. Dingca now wondered what equivalent mischief Lettie Tan might be involved in, never for a moment doubting it was there somewhere, probably not even very carefully hidden, so contemptuous of the law were people like her. It was not that he carried a particular flag for illiterate peasants, but this sort of thing was happening more and more often in Laguna as land prices soared in Metro Manila and the city sent its tentacles ever further into the surrounding provinces. He hadn’t moved here to the country seventeen years ago to find himself surrounded in his retirement by illegally-acquired industrial parks full of noise and trucks, with gigantic neon signs making the night sky pink and mauve as they blazed forth the rival empires of Toshiba and Samsung.
After supper he walked one block over to the Bowl-o-Rama on Ylang-ylang. He felt in need of familiar faces. The reassuring rumble and clatter greeted him as he went in and several gloved hands were raised in greeting. He strolled from lane to lane, watching and chatting, until a voice a little behind him said ‘Inspector Dingca, sir?’ He turned and couldn’t immediately place her, beautiful and young, until a gear engaged and the months rewound themselves and he was back at the High Scool Graduation, looking at lines of good-as-gold boys and girls. Especially girls. Big Girls.
‘Patti Gonzales, isn’t it?’
She gave an oddly wry smile. ‘You remember me, then?’
‘We police have a photographic memory for faces. I thought everyone knew that.’
This obviously disconcerted her. ‘Surely only for criminals, sir?’
‘I’m afraid we make no distinction, since Nature doesn’t. I must say you do look a little different out of school uniform.’ As if worried lest she should read disappointment in his tone he added quickly, ‘So how did you finally decide?’
�
��On what, sir?’
‘Between the Civil Service and dentistry. I think that was to be your choice, wasn’t it?’
It was true, she did look different. It was only reasonable that once no longer in school uniform she would look older, but that was to reckon without other changes both subtle and less so. Subtle was the way she was holding herself. The senior demurcness beside which he had felt like a Sixth Grader was now transmuted into a different sort of self-confidence. She no longer stood with her calves together, just touching, or held her hand in front of her perfect teeth when she smiled. Less subtly (though it was hard to tell in the Bowl-o-Rama’s lighting) she seemed to be wearing a suggestion of make-up. Oh no, Patti, he thought, foreseeing the Hostess Look which surely awaited her unless she was scrupulously careful. He had long noticed it was nearly impossible for his countrywomen to use make-up without looking like whores. It was unfortunate but true. The least attempt to paint an unnatural red on naturally brown cheeks, for instance, at once produced a bar girl straight from Ermita or Olongapo of the sort who might totter on high heels beside a towering foreigner with a bunch of crimson claws digging into his waist or dipping into his hip pocket.
‘Oh, that,’ she was saying. ‘I gave up that idea ages ago. I mean, who wants to stare into people’s mouths all day long? And imagine, six years before you earn a sentimo. You’d have to be a complete Brenda. Only plodders go in for dentistry.’
‘Eunice has just enrolled,’ said Dingca.
‘Oh.’ This time a hand did fly to her mouth. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean… I only meant for me, sir. Obviously some people are completely suit –’ her voice ran out as her brain finally overtook it.
In the awkward pause he said kindly, ‘You’re right, of course. We can’t all do the same thing. So what have you chosen?’
‘I –’ she began diffidently, ‘I’d like to join the police. It was meeting you. That’s why I wanted to speak to you, sir.’
‘Good God!’ Rio exclaimed involuntarily. ‘But you’re much too beautiful,’ picturing the terrifying collection of slags and tomboys which to his mind characterised the policewomen he knew. ‘What sort of career’s that for a nice girl? The pay’s lousy. Besides, as you must be well aware, the police in this country are going through a crisis at the moment. The reorganisation isn’t quite –. What I mean is, there are things still to iron out. Shakedown period… It’s a total mess,’ he conceded. ‘Honestly, Patti, I wouldn’t recommend your joining at the moment. At the very least not until things are clearer. Perhaps I should have a word with your father. What does he say? He’s never mentioned this to me.’ He glanced about him. Where was Butz?
‘He supports me. Whatever help you could give, sir, I’d be so grateful.’
Was there the faintest stress on the word? She couldn’t surely…? But in spite of himself Dingca felt the beginnings of an erection. An hour later, when he had talked to her father, he unhappily knew for certain. He had learned – in strictest confidence – that the scholar of the family had unfortunately failed her National College Entrance Examination, which somewhat limited Patti’s chances of a higher education. Indeed, it should have made it quite impossible, dependent on her re-sitting the exam in a year’s time. And for the police nowadays a college education was mandatory, wasn’t it? Dingca had assured her father this was so. But mandatory’ – and here the Bowl-o-Rama’s owner made flexuous gestures in the air like someone trying to rid his fingers of dough – there’s mandatory and mandatory, right? We’re men of the world, Rio, you and I. You’re not going to tell me hand on heart that everyone on the force with a certificate of higher education has actually been to college? Exactly. I’ve heard a figure of twenty thou. mentioned. It’s only a sheet of paper, after all. A date stamp, a couple of signatures, a mere formality. Old Buddy.
As it happened, 20,000 was the going rate for getting a charge of murder (which couldn’t be bailed) reduced to a charge of homicide (which could). It was also the agreed sum for rich kids to pay when they were arrested with unregistered firearms and didn’t want the hassle of being charged with illegal possession. So he supposed it might buy a short cut to two or three years’ study. All at once he fell prey to the same weariness which had made him invite that bleak renegade Father Herrera for drinks. It was not out of line to ask friends for favours, not according to the way things were. Yet for a strange moment Dingca had experienced it as an unthinkable liberty. It was as if he had stopped being part of an imaginary society where millions forgave their dead president for robbing the country blind because he only did it to help his own family and besides, had they been in his enviable position they would have done exactly the same. Only such a society wasn’t imaginary at all, and he could feel his head nodding dumbly of its own accord to signify the negation and denial and refusal he couldn’t trust himself to voice.
‘The job’s wearing you thin,’ Sita said to him later that night.
‘I know it,’ he agreed. In the morning he knew it still better, for the same newspaper’s early edition, no longer headlining the story, said: ‘Alleged Dealer Released.’ ‘Lack of evidence,’ went on Agusan (who must have been up all night) with a bitterness Dingca himself could taste, ‘is the supposed reason behind the nearly immediate release of the woman known widely as “The Queen of Shabu”. A more plausible reason, according to my informants, is thought to be the direct intervention of an unnamed police Chief Superintendent and a certain businessman with “connections at court”. Had those persons failed, the so-called “Magnificent Seven” could no doubt have been relied on to come up trumps. They, of course, are the seven judges on the Makati Regional Trial Court circuit who, in the words of the same reliable source, “facilitate the settlement of criminal charges against the members of drug syndicates in return for vast sums of money”. They, and many others like them, are presumably what the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission recently called “hoodlums in robes”. The Filipino people may wearily note that hoodlums in robes are distinct from, but often hand-in-glove with, hoodlums in uniform. (They will also recall the PACC’s description a month or two ago of “hoodlums in medical robes”, which referred to those doctors who form a cadet branch of the old-established Hoodlum family.) All of which means, in short, The Queen walks.’
On the way to work Dingca pondered the untouchable Lettie Tan with her friends at court, and her late employee Babs. He thought about anonymous Chief Superintendents and businessmen and judges to whom the world’s Babses and Dingcas were so small as to be indistinguishable. He had the fantasy – at first not overtly erotic – of being assigned to take Police Cadet Gonzales from her very first days in uniform and show her exactly where she stood, which was absolutely nowhere. Her entire career could be blighted if fate moved her to flag down the wrong third-rate little birdturd for jumping the lights on Taft. He would mould her until she was sharp enough to see how things were, and hard enough to withstand them. The purity of this pedagogical vision was spoiled as it unaccountably sideslipped into a picture of the rookie, Benhur Daldal, screwing her in the Tan mausoleum. But neither this nor the early sun bouncing off the brightly buffed metalwork of his jeep brought cheer, and an officious blast on his squawk box which sent a sagging taxi swerving for cover produced no smile. Small wonder there were so many horrendous accidents, with head-on collisions between overladen buses and jeepneys ‘losing their brakes’ and ploughing into crowds of schoolchildren. People simply had no idea how to drive, none whatever, which was hardly surprising given how easy it was to get a licence. Dingca knew people in the Department of Transportation who would issue a driver’s licence to a blind man for a bottle of imported Scotch.
Only the sight of Sgt. Cruz in the Station’s battered Tamaraw turning into the compound ahead of him gave Rio savage satisfaction. At least someone was doing something useful, and for quite modest sums of money. In the back of the Tamaraw a blue drum – empty, obviously, from the way it wobbled – was roped loosely upright. They parked beside each other.
‘I missed a party?’ asked Dingca, climbing out.
‘Ronnie Guzman from Station 2 sends his best. He provided Ninja.’
‘And you provided the drink? God’s own water for punkface and ESQ for the boys.’
‘Gin and Seven Up. I’ve a bit of a head. But Ninja drank the most.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Ninja Boy Magtibay. One of the four who raped that little student up in Greenhills or Cubao or somewhere. Dental nurse, I think. Before Christmas. They pushed a broken bottle up her and left her to bleed to death. We interviewed Ninja quite thoroughly about his friends. They’re booked for the same trip sooner or later.’
‘Which was where, may I ask?’
‘The Chinese piemen back of the airport. I owe you a couple of hundred,’ Cruz said.
We never know about blood money, Rio thought later that morning as he sat in the crime room, looking at the splintery desks and the three candles planted on them in puddles of their own wax. Brownout again. The candlelight lent the large office a quaintly ecclesiastical air despite the twenty-five-year-old city map on the wall. In one corner was a large Santo Niño in a niche made entirely of polished coconut shells. We receive payment for deeds we didn’t commit, for merely being a senior officer whose attitude permits their commission, or at least doesn’t stop it. Had Cruz not been such an enthusiast Station 2 would certainly have provided their own equivalent. Really, blood money was no more than part of our basic wage, truly inseparable from this job, this city, this now in this place. We are paid for our participation in the crime which merely living here involves.
The fat desk sergeant with the horn rims came in. ‘Morning, Lieutenant. Missed you earlier.’
‘Must be the brownout, Jun.’ It was the sergeant’s habit to slip out of the back of the station past the pens to where an enterprising squatter family had set up an impromptu commissary. Here he would slurp bowls of lugaw and flirt in a cumbersome way until summoned back to duty by a rookie.
Ghosts of Manila Page 21
