The Edge of Honor (53 page)

The escape of the chick started a fight in the pool, which ended when the monster dragged one of the smaller crocs, squirming in its massive jaws, under the swirling water to a bloody resolution. Brian saw the First Division side cleaners, Coltrane and Hooper, in the crowd. Hooper was speaking urgently to one of the pit bosses and Coltrane stared at the thrashing reptiles with his usual stupid grin. Hooper gestured to the crocs in the pool and shouted something about money.

After the chief lost four bets in a row, he signaled Brian that they were leaving. As they pushed their way out onto the boardwalk again, Brian asked what time it was. The chief consulted his watch, a stainless-steel job lashed to his massive wrist with a pickpocketproof steel band.

“Twenny-three-fifteen,” he announced. “We got time to get some chow, then I gotta get you back ta the gate.”

“Chow? You eat stuff out here?”

“Movin’ or settin’ still, I eat it, damn right. First night out, you gotta try monkey meat.” The chief steered Brian toward a nearby street vendor, who started his sales pitch as soon as he saw the chief.

Brian was hanging back. “Uh, I’m not sure—”

“Yeah, hell. C’mon, try it. It’s cooked an all, and it beats the shit outta that goddamn green Navy ham. Here, try a stick.”

Brian held the foot-long stick on which strands of sizzling aromatic meat were twisted. He tasted some gingerly and found it delicious. He nodded at the chief as he ate the rest of it. The chief grinned and bought two sticks for himself, which he made disappear in about three seconds. As they walked on, Brian asked if it was really monkey meat.

“Naw, it’s dog. They catch an old dog, stuff it with rice for about three weeks, and then beat it to death with sticks, make it real tender.

Then they soak it in soya sauce and—whatsa matter, you get a greenie back there at the croc pit?”

Brian composed his face while he tried to control his stomach and banish the image of a bloated dog being tenderized in some back alley. They walked back down the boardwalk toward the Shit River and the main gates.

Across the street, Brian saw the sign for Josie’s bar. The chief saw him looking and they stepped out of the stream of traffic and stopped across from the bar. The crowds on the street were thinner as curfew approached.

“You wanna see Josie again? You go in there, you know, she likes you, yer gonna have to git yerself back to the gates. You only got—what, an hour? Josie don’t do no short time, you follow me?”

Brian was acutely embarrassed. He did want to see her again. And he might manage just one more beer—with all this heat, the San Miguel had barely affected him. And, by God, she was the most exotic woman he had ever seen. He could not bring himself to admit that sex might be part of it. Might be, hell. But he was married, for Chrissakes. The chief was watching him carefully.

“Well, I’d kind of like just to talk to her, you know. I mean, I’m married and I can’t go fooling around with Olongapo whores. But—”

“Yeah, that ‘but’ is a bitch, ain’t it? Tell ya what—you go on in there, git you a table inna corner, outta the way, okay? Should be thinnin’ out, anyways. Tell the waitress you wanted to have one drink with the mamasan—don’t call her Josie in fronta the waitress—before you have to git back to the base. If it’s on, she’s gonna surprise the shit outta you. If it ain’t, have one fer the road and make yer gate.

Just jump on a jeepney and say, ‘Main gate.” Twenty pesos max, okay? I gotta go see a girl I know, git her bought out, okay?”

“Okay, Chief, and thanks for the grand tour. I’ll see you back aboard.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” The chief grinned as he walked away.

Brian, who was scampering across the dirt street to avoid a stream of passing jeepneys, did not hear him. He went into Josie’s place and sought out a corner table. He waved away three debutantes and signaled a waitress, to whom he gave the message. She seemed vastly amused as she headed for the bar, where a giggling session broke out. Nothing happened for fifteen minutes. The bar was about half full now and the Elvises had mercifully shut down for a while. Brian wondered just how big a fool he was making of himself, and also what time it was, when one of the bartenders slipped under a hatch in the bar and came over to his table.

The man seemed to get bigger as he got closer, and he, too, did not appear to be Filipino. His face was impassive as he approached Brian’stable.

“You come,” he ordered, then turned around, assuming that Brian would obey his curt command. Brian took a deep breath, got up, and followed the burly man to the back of the room. They walked past the bar to a door Brian had not noticed earlier. The man knocked once, stuck his head in, said something, bowed once, a sharp, formal movement, and stood aside, nodding with his head for Brian to go inside. Brian stepped through the door and into another world.

He found himself standing in an anteroom of some kind, the walls of which were paneled in a reddish wood.

There were Oriental rugs on the floor and side tables with brass lamps.

The air was cool and quiet, with no trace of the smoke and the beer stink of the bar beyond. An ornately carved large door beckoned at the other end of the room. A very pretty girl dressed in what looked like white silk pajamas materialized, bowed silently to him, and pointed to his shoes. He realized they were supposed to come off, so he obliged.

She passed him a pair of soft slippers and then led him to the other door. She repeated the procedure used by the barman, knocking softly, putting her head in, bowing, and withdrawing with a motion for him to go inside. She bowed as he went past her and he tried awkwardly to bow back, causing the girl to put her hand in front of her mouth.

The inner room was much larger. Its twelve-foot-high ceilings and walls were papered in a heavily embroidered material displaying several shades of red. Three upholstered rosewood armchairs and a couch occupied the foreground; a huge Chinese rug spanned the entire room.

There were brass standing lamps with ivory-colored shades, recessed bookshelves along the right-hand wall, and a large intricately carved mahogany desk at the other end of the room. To one side of the desk stood a four paneled Chinese screen framed in rosewood, with alternating panels of painted silk and translucent parchment.

The room had no windows, only a single door at the other end, identical to the one he had come through.

Brian took a breath and detected a tendril of incense in the air, mingling with beeswax furniture polish and the rich smell of old leather. Josie was sitting at the desk.

She let him drink in the rich hues and elegant trappings of the room, waiting for the contrast between the beer bar out front and this luxurious inner sanctum to sink in.

Then she rose. She had changed; she now wore a different gown, this one green and embroidered with silver dragons. Slit up one side to just above her knee, it had a high-topped collar above her bodice. As before, he could only stare. Her gown and her movements were modest and restrained, but that same gown managed to show off the luxuriance of her body with every step. Compared with this regal beauty, Brian felt severely underdressed in his sweaty sport shirt and chinos dusty from the Olongapo streets. He realized that she was much taller than he had remembered. With a gracious gesture, Josie invited him to sit down in one of the chairs.

“Would you like some champagne?” she asked. He loved her voice, which was husky but beautifully modulated.

Her English was precise, unaccented, and bespoke an educated person. As she sat down, he figured that she was probably in her early thirties, although her flawless skin and unwrinkled eyes made it very difficult to tell. If she was wearing makeup, he could not see it, except for the intense red of her lipstick. She sat upright in the chair with her back straight, her legs uncrossed, and her hands in her lap. He noticed that she had tiny hands and feet.

“Yes,” he said, clipping off the ma’am that had almost popped out. As if she had heard it in his thoughts, she smiled in mild amusement and then clapped her hands once. The girl in the white silk pajamas appeared from behind the screen with a silver tray holding a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck champagne in a silver ice bucket and two crystal champagne flutes. She set the tray down, nudged the cork out of the bottle, poured out the golden wine, passing one glass to Brian and the other to Josie, before withdrawing with a bow.

“To your very good health,” Josie said.

“To yours,” he replied, and tasted the champagne. It was marvelous, cold, sweet, and astringent all at the same time. The sweaty taste of the Olongapo beer bars was swept away.

“Now, Mr. Holcomb, why have you come to see me?”

“Please call me Brian. If that’s okay, I mean.”

“Very well. Brian.”

“Well, to tell the truth, I, uh, I really wanted to see you again. I’ve never seen anyone like you before. I guess that’s sort of dumb. But, well, there it is.” He smiled lamely, running out of words. He really did just want to look at her.

She looked back at him, directly into his eyes, her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly. Brian felt his peripheral vision blur just a bit.

“Do you think that I am beautiful?”

“Oh yes, very much so. I didn’t think that … out here in Olongapo, I mean, I just didn’t expect … you … all this.” He embraced the richly appointed parlor with a sweep of his hand. “Damn. I’m acting like an idiot. Maybe I should just apologize and get out of here.

I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be bothering you.”

Josie smiled again; this time it was more friendly than amused. “Please relax, Mr. Holcomb. Brian. You cannot offend a woman by telling her she is beautiful. You are curious about me, and how there can be a room like this in a village with dirt streets, three hundred bars, two hundred brothels, and wooden sidewalks.”

Brian smiled back and sipped some champagne to gain a moment in which to compose his thoughts. “Yes. But I didn’t know anything about all this, this room, when I saw you. I’m still mostly curious about you.”

“Is this about sex, Brian?”

Brian colored. “No, no. I mean, I’m married. I didn’t come out here to get—to find a woman. It’s my first time in WESTPAC, in Subic. The chief brought me along so I could see the sights of Olongapo. I’m sorry if you—”

She waved her hand as if to dismiss his protests.

“Then I shall tell you about me. My father was Chinese; my mother, the daughter of an American sailor and a Filipina woman. I was raised in Hong Kong. My father was wealthy. He died during a typhoon, when our house was taken by a mud slide. My mother moved back to Manila, where she had family. They did not approve of her because she was of mixed blood. But she also had money, so she decided to come to Olongapo. She bought several of these establishments that service the American Navy.

When the war in Vietnam came, she became very rich. I was her only child and business partner, and I now run the many businesses. In Hong Kong, were I a man, I would be taipan. To answer your unspoken question, all of that, outside that door, pays for all of this.”

Brian nodded his head slowly. “But I thought that in Asia, women would not be permitted to be what we call a boss. How do you get away with it?”

“You are perceptive. The hatreds exist on many levels.

As a woman, I am by tradition usurping my rightful place, which is on my back in the boudoir. As a businesswoman who owns more than a third of the bars and establishments in Olongapo, I am resented for my wealth.

As a person of mixed race, I am despised by the Filipinos and the Chinese alike. I get away with it because I am very rich and can buy the power to hurt or even destroy my enemies if I choose to.” Brian smiled.

“It’s funny. I asked the chief what you were, and he didn’t understand the question. I meant what racial origins you came from. He said that we white people care too much about race. He said you were a beautiful woman and that nothing else really mattered.”

His brain flirted with the image of Josie on her back in the boudoir.

“Chief Louie is a special man. You and I would never have met if you had not been with him.”

“He’s special all right. He’s the tall dog in the chief’s locker and nobody, but nobody gives him any trouble.”

“He and I are alike in that manner,” she said. “Have some more champagne.”

They talked for what seemed to Brian like a short time.

He could feel rather than hear the thump and twanging of the rock band in the front of the building. There was the niggling thought in his mind that he ought to know what time it was, but he was absorbed by this woman. Even as they talked and she told him how the town had boomed once the war began in earnest in 1965, how it was now awash in money, drugs, and crime, only part of him was listening. He was drinking her in with his eyes—her face, the genteel voice, the way her lips formed the words, and the way her hand would occasionally rub the length of her thigh, absently, as if it needed an occasional touch.

A sudden silence in the room brought him back, but something was different. She was looking at him now; her face and hands were still. He felt a rush of blood beginning to fill his head; it became difficult to breathe.

“Do you know the Asian custom of the bath?” she asked in a low voice.

“I’ve heard the officers on the ship talk about hotse baths,” he replied. His throat was dry. It must have been the champagne.

“My servant will assist you. I must withdraw now.

When you are finished, I will see you again.”

She rose from the chair, smoothed the dress over the front of her body in a sweeping motion with both her hands, barely touching, and then she bowed slightly with just her head and disappeared behind the screen. The servant girl waited for Brian by the door at the end of the room.

Brian took a deep breath. For just a minute there … Then he remembered the curfew. But he did not have his watch on. What the hell time was it?

And what was he going to do if it was past curfew? Go back to the gate?

Get written up like a drunken sailor? The servant girl was saying something.

“What?”