Smaller and Smaller Circles (15 page)

25

Ben Arcinas arrives
at headquarters, out of breath, disheveled, his hair and jacket wet with rain. He was so preoccupied on the drive over, so distracted as he parked and emerged from his car, that he has failed to notice that he is in fact holding an umbrella in one hand, his briefcase in the other. He is only reminded of it when he gets to the glass doors, where he fumbles with the door handle and drops the umbrella.

“Leche,”
he swears under his breath. He picks up the umbrella, fumbles with the door again, and is surprised when someone holds it open for him. He looks up into the stony face of Jake Valdes.

“Good morning, Ben,” Valdes says. “Glad you could make it.”

“Of course I could make it,” he snaps. “It's my goddamned case, isn't it?”

Valdes wisely refrains from meeting his crossness head-on. Instead, he turns around and says, “Come upstairs with me.”

“I don't have time to chitchat with you. I've got work to do. I have to—”

“You have to come upstairs with me.” Valdes says it firmly; there's no room for argument.

Still, Arcinas is defiant. “Why?”

“Because the director wants to see you.”

He brushes past Valdes, knocking against the deputy director's left shoulder in his haste. “I just spoke with him on the phone on the way here. He knows where to find me.”

“I'm not talking about Director Mapa, Attorney Arcinas.”

It registers dimly in Arcinas's mind that Valdes has addressed him by a formal title and not his first name. When Valdes walks down the corridor, Arcinas remains rooted where he stands, the knuckles on both his hands pale from gripping the umbrella.

Valdes turns around, his face impassive. “You'd better hurry. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

All his life,
Benjamin Arcinas has fought against his circumstances. The youngest son in a brood of nine, he was not going to be like his brothers and sisters, who accepted who they were and did little to better themselves. Not for Ben Arcinas the prospect of a dead-end life in a hovel in Tondo similar to the one where he was born to poor parents. Not for him the eking out of a living selling
balut
and garlic-fried peanuts like his mother and father.

From early childhood, Ben Arcinas showed an unusual fastidiousness in the care of his person and his surroundings. Meticulously sweeping their tiny shack and the even tinier yard outside. Chiding his older brothers and sisters if they left dirty dishes in the sink or came in from work or school smelling less than pleasant.

He scraped up enough money from odd jobs for his first manicure at thirteen. The pleasure of having money and of being attended to as though he were someone important—ah, even after many years he can still remember what that first time was like.

In school Ben Arcinas envied the more well-off students who would come to class in cars driven by their office-worker parents. He wanted to have his own car someday. Perhaps even his own driver.

Young Arcinas knew school was the only weapon at his disposal in a tough world, and he worked hard and long at it. Not brilliant, but with a plodding intelligence that was sufficient to get him through high school with honors and eventually into a third-rate law school. Passed the bar after three tries. Took his family to Ma Mon Luk in Cubao for an obligatory
comida China
celebration from which he excused himself a tad too early.

He went off afterward to his own private celebration with himself and a bottle of imported, ridiculously overpriced beer in the lobby of a swank hotel. He nursed that beer for hours, ignoring repeated attempts by waitresses to interest him in another one, gazing up at the trompe l'oeil ceilings, watching well-heeled patrons and observing their manners. It was the first of many such celebrations.

Entering the civil service, Ben Arcinas had a way about him that made government employees of lesser aptitude think they were in the presence of someone who was too good for grunt work.

In a politely unbending manner, he would decline to do general tasks like photocopying and filling out forms, assigning them regally to the nearest female, even though certain such females may have outranked him in the
plantilla
. He perfected a smile that was both tolerant and condescending, as he had seen on so many of his bosses, believing that if he acted the part, he would eventually get the part. He devoted his energies to attaching himself to team leaders and supervisors who could further his career, and often they did.

Early in his career, he made a conscious decision to get involved in any capacity in prominent cases that drew the attention of media and of more powerful officials. He learned, quickly and well, how to project and promote himself, how to make each small achievement seem much bigger than it really was, how to grab credit and deflect blame.

In the few government offices where he has worked, he has always managed to vault over his former superiors, always taken great pleasure in referring to them years later as his “men.”

The government has supplied him with a good car, and a driver.

Benjamin Arcinas recognizes brains and breeding when he sees them and always, always seeks to subvert them, even in ways of which he is unconscious. This is particularly true in his current position, were he has attained a measure of status and celebrity. He has paid his dues, has earned the right to have people jump when he snaps his fingers.

These two priests—well-spoken, well-mannered, intelligent beyond any measure he could ever hope to attain—annoy and intimidate him at the same time.

The smile, he recognized early on, would not work on them.

He's seated across from Director Lastimosa now, with Valdes standing at the director's right hand, arms folded over his chest, his expression neutral, as always. Philip Mapa is seated in another chair, and the unfolding scene is a revelation to Arcinas. Mapa has spent most of the last half hour washing his hands of Arcinas and laying the blame for the latest killing squarely at his feet.

“You know, when you told me not to proceed with that news conference, I knew you were right. But Ben here was so insistent that he had the right man.” Mapa—his matinee-idol face dark with false concern and anger—points a finger at Arcinas. “You've misled me. You've made fools of all of us, and you've embarrassed the bureau. I'm recommending a suspension pending disciplinary proceedings.”

Had Arcinas not seen this sort of thing happen so many times before—often with himself in Mapa's shoes, selling a colleague or a subordinate down the river—he might have been surprised to hear these words coming from the mouth of the man he has served so loyally for so long. But this is how the bureaucracy works, and in its own strange, warped way, it's democratic. The wheel of fortune always turns: today you're stabbing someone in the back; tomorrow the knife is lodged
deep between your shoulder blades. Arcinas always had disdain for the people who pleaded for their jobs when their fortunes changed.
You should have some dignity. You should shut your mouth and let a lawyer do the talking for you. If you can afford a lawyer, that is.
He stares down at his nails, trying to stem the rising flood of panic he is feeling at the imminent loss of his job and his stature, trying to calculate whether or not he can even afford his own lawyer.

You should have some dignity. You should shut your mouth.

“Ben?” Director Lastimosa's voice slices cleanly through Arcinas's muddled thoughts.

“Sir. I—”

“You knew your man wasn't the killer. Yes or no?”

Arcinas hesitates. Had he known? Had he really been that desperate? Or did he think that doing things the usual way would produce the required results? “I
. . .
I thought there was a good chance that he was.”

“Based on what evidence?”

“Based on
. . .
”

“Prior complaints, this says,” the director says, leafing through Ricardo Navato's file.

“Yes, sir, and
. . .
”

“Circumstantial evidence.” Lastimosa closes the file, then pushes it away from him. “In other words—nothing.”

“That's right,” Mapa says, slapping the director's desk for emphasis, then turning to him. “Sir, we should file an administrative case against him immediately—”

“Shut up, Philip.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“You heard me. Shut up.”

Mapa is dense enough to feel offended. “But I—”

“Whatever negligence and stupidity Ben here got up to, he got up to under your watch. It's command responsibility, Philip. You might have heard of the concept; if not, I suggest you look it up. It means that if any administrative cases are going to be filed, your name will be right on top of the list.”

“
My
name?” Mapa's voice rises several decibels. “I've got nothing to do with his actions.” Then, just as quickly as he lost his temper, he is back to being his unctuously pleasant self. “And don't forget—there are people outside this organization who will be very displeased if I'm dragged into this.”

Director Lastimosa glances up at Valdes, and as if on cue, Valdes moves the telephone on the desk closer to him. “You really want to play that card with me, Philip? Fine.” He picks up the handset and starts punching out a series of numbers on the dial pad. “I'll call him right now. Let's see if he'll still back you for my position when he finds out what your bright boy here has done.”

“Wait,” Mapa says. “Who are you calling?”

“Why, our mutual friend in the Palace, of course. Did you honestly think I would allow you to blackmail me with your connections forever?” He presses a button to activate the speaker, and the sound of a ringing phone fills the room. “Shall I tell him that everything Ben here did was not just with your approval but under
your
instructions?”

There's a click, and then a voice at the other end of the line says, “Hello?”

Mapa springs out of his chair and slams his hand down on the hook switch, disconnecting the call. “Look, you old bastard,” he says, abandoning all pretense of courtesy or deference, “I won't be bullied by a dinosaur like you. You wouldn't even have this job if I hadn't agreed to wait a few years. I'm what this bureau needs; that's a fact, and the Palace knows it. You belong in a nursing home, if not in a coffin. That's my seat you're occupying, so don't you forget it.”

Arcinas is taken aback by this display, so naked in its ambition and bile that even he finds himself revolted. But Director Lastimosa merely sits back and looks at Mapa dispassionately.

“You may go now, Philip.”

“I'm not finished—”

“Yes, you are. Jake, would you ask our boys to escort Philip outside? I think we've heard enough from him for one day.”

Valdes picks up the telephone handset, but before he can make the call, Mapa strides toward the door, his rage pulsing through the room like a shock wave. He doesn't look back as he opens the door and slams it shut behind him, the force of the act shaking the walls and rattling the picture frames hanging on them.

There is a momentary silence, and then Director Lastimosa turns to Arcinas again.

“You see, Ben? That's what happens when we forget why we're all here. When the little political games we play become more important than the job we're entrusted to do. You used to know the difference. I know; somebody's told me. I would have sacked you on the spot today if that person hadn't interceded on your behalf.”

Arcinas's eyes widen.
Who in this whole godforsaken agency would stick up for me, especially now? Nobody has ever really liked me here, and I've stepped on so many toes.

“You're not sacking me?” he asks, incredulous.

“If you don't cooperate with me, I will. You have a second chance here, Ben, but if you waste it, I'll have no qualms—not just about sacking you, but about throwing the book at you. And don't think you're off the hook with that stunt you pulled either. Another child is dead because you didn't do your job right, and we can't sweep that under the rug. But for now, I'm asking you: are you going to help us—and I mean,
really
help, not just try to advance your own interests?”

Arcinas rises to his feet unsteadily. “Sir, I—I'll do whatever you tell me to.”

“Does that include providing the necessary assistance to Father Saenz and Father Lucero?”

He's surprised by how quickly, how easily he is able to say it. “Absolutely, sir.”

Director Lastimosa nods. “All right, then. I expect you'll make the calls as soon as you leave my office.”

“I will, sir.” He stands there another moment, unsure of what to do next.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

Arcinas nearly trips over his own feet in his hurry to leave. But then he stops and glances back at the director.