The Tesseract (7 page)

The first time
Alan had taken Sean to meet the mestizo was at a seafood restaurant on the waterfront, within walking distance of both the U.S. Embassy and the Manila Hotel. The day had not started well. Alan was in a lousy mood because the captain had asked him to hold out for free safe passage on the next trip. A month earlier, the
Karaboujan
had lost money on a shipment of Malaysian latex. The cargo had been corrupted by the heat in the holds, and an insurance screwup had left the
Karaboujan
accountable.

Sean, on the other hand, had his own worries. He’d heard
plenty about Don Pepe. Plenty about the half-breed whose racket covered all shipping through Filipino waters. He knew his bedtime prayers, his ageless age, his toothpick, and his power. But Alan, in a shitty mood, needed to take it out on someone, so he took it out by making Sean feel even worse.

“See that old man?” Alan had said as they walked across the docks.

“Old man?”

“Over there.”

Sean turned, saw crates but nobody near them.

“You missed him.”

“Oh…Who was he?”

“Crazy man, worked cranes, been around the bay since I can recall. You want to know what he once did?”

“Sure,” Sean said and looked around again. Squinting, he thought he could make out a figure in the shadows between the corrugated metal containers, but it was early evening and the light was bad enough to play tricks.

“He chopped off the harbormaster’s hands with a machete.”

“Yeah?”

“Killed the guy in the process.”

“Jesus,” said Sean. “Why did he do it?”

So Alan told him. A listless day on the seafront, a crazy docker, an overconfident harbormaster, a tyrant mestizo, and sticky fingerprints on a new suit.

At the restaurant, waiting for Don Pepe, Sean alternated between wiping his palms on his trousers and patting his breast pocket to feel the small square of his lucky charm.

“Quit wiping your fucking palms,” Alan had said, but Sean
had ignored him. On the off chance that Don Pepe expected a handshake, he was going to be shaking the driest, unstickiest hand in Manila.

Don Pepe
had not expected a handshake. When he and his entourage finally arrived, the mestizo didn’t even glance in Sean’s direction. Instead, he swept through the waiters that had appeared out of nowhere, and indicated a couple of tables. In the time it took him to leisurely cross the restaurant floor, the tables were inspected, wiped, and set.

Alan, Don Pepe, Bubot, and Teroy all sat together. Joe and Sean, not so important, sat separately. Their job was to hang in the background while their respective bosses cut their deals. Neither man talked much. There was an awkwardness, partly at being strangers, partly at their shared status as small fry. They also were listening in on the next table’s conversation, Alan pressing his point, and Don Pepe not giving an inch.

“Bery dippicult, bery unportunate. But it is not my problem.”

“All we’re asking for is a single free passage. One free passage and we’ll have covered the latex fuck-up. We can get business back to normal.”

“Eeh, business. You hab said the word that is on my,
ano
, mind. Nothing in this is ob a personal nature, Alan. It is business
lang
.”

“Then in business terms. The
Karaboujan
comes through here, what, six or seven times a year? If you don’t give us passage,
we’re looking at bankruptcy. That means you’re missing out on…”

“Do you know how many ship come through the Pilipino waters? What dipperence is one ship?”

“Exactly. So why not give us passage?”

“Heh, if you want to take your chances on the open seas…”

“We’ve cooperated for years, Don Pepe.”

“Yes, for years. So I think you know the way I work.”

Alan opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind. He hadn’t expected to talk the mestizo around.

“What can I say, Alan? This is life.
Mahirap buhay
.”

“Yeah,” said Alan tiredly. “
Talaga
.”

The edges of the mestizo’s lips curled upward. “
Talaga
? Your Pilipino is improbing.”

“Improbing?”

“Getting,
ano
, better all the time. Ebery time we meet, better still.”

“Oh.”

“And, eh, what about your priend here? He can speak Tagalog?”

“Sean?”

“Yes,” said Don Pepe, turning in his seat, turning the shoulders of Teroy and Bubot with him as if the men were connected by a thread. “Mr. Sean. Can you speak Tagalog?”

Sean stiffened. He had almost relaxed listening to the argument, and the sudden shift of attention had caught him by surprise.

“Eeh, can you eben speak English?”

“Yes, I can speak English,” Sean quickly replied. “But not Filipino.”

“Not Pilipino.”

“
Hindi pa, po
.”

Don Pepe’s eyes lit up. “
Hindi pa
?
Hindi pa
? How can you say
hindi pa
? I say, can you speak Tagalog, and you say no…in Tagalog! So you can speak,
di ba
?”

“
Conté lang, po
.”

“Aah! Only little, hah? Still, anyway, it’s good you try.”

“
Salamat, po
.”

“Mmm. Bery good that you try,” the mestizo said again and sucked pensively; then he turned back to Alan. “Okay, I hab changed my mind. I want Mr. Sean to continue learning Pilipino, so the
Karaboujan
will not be bankrupted. But,
ano
, this time only.”

Alan’s face screwed up in suspicion. “You’re giving us passage?”

“Yes.”

“Free passage?”

“Yes.”

“
Safe
passage?”

“Ob course.”

“Fuck me,” said Alan, his features softening, shaking his head. “San Miguels all around.”

Beer arrived
for everyone except Teroy—who politely declined the bottle that Alan slid across the table—and the ice was broken. Soon the other table was chatting, a surreal and
good-natured conversation about the federalization of Europe. Sean couldn’t believe his ears. It was the very last thing he’d imagined he might hear at the meeting.

And with the other table chatting, it didn’t seem right that Sean and Joe should continue sitting in silence. So Sean thought he ought to break some ice of his own and introduced himself.

If in doubt, not least in the company of South China Sea pirates, err on the side of formality. “I didn’t ask your name,” he said. “I’m Sean, by the way.”

Joe nodded. “Mr. Sean, I am Joe.”

“Joe.”

“Yes.”

“Well, hi Joe.”

“Yes, hi.”

They exchanged smiles. Then Joe said, “
Mang
Don Pepe was bery happy with you, speaking our Pilipino language.”

“Seemed so.”

“But you know, Mr. Sean, it was not the Pilipino language only. Really, it is because you already know to say
po
. Por
mang
Don Pepe, that is good. But it is good por me too.” Joe put his hand on his chest. “As a Pilipino, por me it is good you use
po
.”

“Thanks. Uh, it was Alan. Alan taught me.”

“Yes, but…” Joe’s voice lowered. “Alan does not use
po
. You can excuse me, but I do not think Mr. Alan is bery polite.”

“Sure, I can excuse you,” said Sean readily. “No problem.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“Yes.”

“So…want another drink?”

“No thank you. One only, it’s enough. I am dribing. Driber ob
mang
Don Pepe.”

“Then have something else.”

“Sopt drink?”

“Sopt as you like. How about a Coke?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Sean beamed. “I’ll get one in. My shout.”

“I wish you weren’t the killer, Joe.”

Sweat oiled the area where Sean’s forehead pressed against the door, making him slide against the wood. He had to make small readjustments to keep his eye level with the peephole’s tiny curve of glass. Sweat was also collecting in his hairline, running either side of his ears, tickling his neck. Dealing with the itch was not a problem; a noiseless swipe would not have alerted the Filipinos to his close and watchful proximity. But he chose to let it stay, taking it as an opportunity to stay loosely in contact with his senses.

Strange, though. To think that even at a time like this, your skin could still get tickled. The mind intent and serious, and the body frigging around, letting you down. Like running from something bad, only to discover that your legs still ache and start to seize up, and you still get short of breath. Discovering that trouble doesn’t provide miracle lungs, the way you wish it would.

Sean relaxed his right hand around the grip on his automatic, then tightened it. The light caresses on his neck were starting to burn a little, and more itches were springing out elsewhere. On the small of his back, on the back of his thighs, his scalp, his wrists, his stomach. Each one kicking off another.

Sean wondered: Is this what happens if you miss a scratch? Let an itch go, and suddenly you’re dealing with an avalanche. Your whole life, fending off avalanches with a rub of the fingernails here and there, unaware you’re doing it.

An avalanche was far more in touch with his senses than he had planned, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Eliminate one and he’d have to eliminate the lot, and he couldn’t afford to get so distracted, to lose what focus he had.

“Focus?” Sean whispered thickly. The tickling had infected his tongue. It had even, somehow, infected his vision and his hearing. Having covered his skin’s surface it was working inward, clouding him up in a needling crescendo, becoming abstract and ambitious.

“Can’t manage much…”

Mouthed it, didn’t say it. Or if he said it, he didn’t hear it.

“…more of this.”

In the fish-eye, standing in the elastic corridor, Don Pepe seemed to agree. Spitting out a splinter from his toothpick, he motioned at the closed door. Joe reached out and knocked for the second time.

The second time. The third time would be with the heel of a boot.

Time, then, to take the initiative.

And with that decision the itching either had consumed Sean entirely or it had gone.

The suck of
air from the opened door pulled another door shut, farther down the corridor. Caught in the passing vacuum, the lightbulb above the Filipinos began a single outward swing. Their heads turned to trace the source of the unexpected slam. Sean, his gun already leveled, was unseen by any of them. Standing in the doorframe, as good as alone, a free agent in a split second.

The mestizo was photographed by the first muzzle flash with his eyes half closed—the reactions of his blink halfway slower than a bullet. The second muzzle flash pictured him falling backward, still looking in the direction of the slam, with his toothpick hovering in space, an inch away from his lips. Teroy’s head was turning.

Sean pointed the gun at the next-nearest figure. Third muzzle flash: The mestizo was collapsing, and the flop of Bubot’s bangs had jumped upward like an exclamation mark. Teroy, incredibly, had his pistol almost fully drawn. Joe hadn’t moved out of profile.

Sean took a quick step back into his room, shooting twice more, these rounds aimless. In the same movement, he spun around and shoved the door closed with his shoulder. Then he leapt forward, landing heavily, facedown on the floor.

There was no immediate hail of return fire, and no moans or screams from the shot men outside. When Sean lifted his head a few moments later, all he noticed was that the bedroom
was full of blue smoke and the smell of sparks. Was it possible that he’d hit all four Filipinos? He couldn’t recall the last ten seconds clearly enough to be sure.

Although the
Karaboujan
was high in the water with a light cargo of dried noodles and Levi’s jeans, the salt spray still reached right up to the guardrail. Beneath Sean’s feet, the ship’s engine vibrated dully through the metal decks.

“Did I hit one?”

Alan shrugged.

“How do I know if I’ve hit one?”

“You don’t have to know. You’re only supposed to be getting used to the feel. So fire off a few more.”

Sean put easy pressure on the trigger, didn’t jerk or yank, and nothing happened.

“Hammer,” said Alan impatiently. “Remember. The hammer isn’t back. First shot on this automatic won’t do anything unless the hammer’s back. First shot you have to cock it by sliding back the casing. After that, the recoil does it all for you.”

“Right.”

Sean tried again. This time his gun bucked and burst and ejected cartridges, and when it was over, he counted: four or five. Of the four or five white-tipped dorsal fins that had been following in the slop trail, four or five remained.

“I’m probably missing them.”

“I said it doesn’t matter. You’re only supposed to be getting used to the feel.”

“Well, I think I’m getting there.”

“Unh-uh. Not yet. You’re still bunching up when you pull the trigger.”

“Oh.” Disappointed, Sean glanced down at the pistol in his palm. It felt as snug as a fat wallet, which, perhaps, was why it looked so unnatural there.

“Reload,” said Alan, and frowned when Sean hesitated.

“Something the matter?”

“No.”

“You sure? If there is, fine. Plenty of crew could use the extra cash.”

“I was just wondering if I’d ever really need to use this.”

“One day it’s going to be me captain of this tub, and it’s going to be you dealing with Don Pepe alone. I wouldn’t want to be doing that if I couldn’t use a gun, so it’s only fair that I make you ready. Not looking for anything on my conscience.” Alan pushed his peaked cap back on his head, then jabbed a stubby finger at the sharks. “Now I want to see you blowing holes in those things. And no bunching up.”

“No bunching up. Okay.”

“So let’s see it.”

Sean never did hit
a white-tip, as far as he knew, and eventually he got bored with trying. Instead, he shot seagulls. Soaring, catching updrafts, keeping pace with the
Karaboujan
, they made for almost stationary targets. And you could never
kill enough to empty the skies around the crow’s nest. There always seemed to be a similar number floating around, no matter how many had thudded onto the top deck or spiraled into the ocean.