The Tesseract (6 page)

“So…why did Don Pepe let Panding live?”

“Jesus, son! These questions you ask. That was the way it was!”

Don Pepe, old as any church that Jojo had ever seen, moved in mysterious ways.

Making good time, said the green LCD clock on the dashboard. Having cut through side streets, slaloming past foot-deep potholes, they were going to arrive at the Patay ahead of schedule. Jojo wasn’t sure whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, in view of the fuss there had been over punctuality. Now that the meeting had been moved to a later time, which arrangement was the correct one to stick to? Which punctuality took precedence? Probably the original one, Jojo guessed, so he took no detours and stuck to the quick route.

On Sayang Avenue, just before the left to Sugat Drive, the Mercedes ran over a cat. It was caught by the headlights for a frozen second, then caught by the left front wheel. The impact shook the car and made everyone hunch his shoulders—except Teroy, who had never hunched his shoulders in his life.

“Was that a dog?”

“It was a cat.”

“A kid?”

“Eh! Eh! We hit a kid?”

“I think it was a cat, sir.”

“Not a kid?”

“A cat, sir.” Jojo steered the car over to the side of the road. “I’d better check the car for damage.”

“Hmm,” Don Pepe murmured, not yet sure whether this was something he ought to be getting angry about. “Yes, you do that. You go and check.”

The tarmac was still half melted from the daytime heat. It sucked at the soles of Jojo’s shoes as he walked around the front of the car, feeling along the bumper for dents, nicks, or fur. Behind the car, the injured cat flipped and jerked in a pool of red light. At a guess, its back was broken. Jojo tried to avoid looking in its direction, but found he couldn’t help it. His daughters kept a cat with similar markings. The cat slept at the foot of the younger girl’s bed. There had been no mice in the kitchen for years.

“Damn,” Jojo said to himself. “I can’t leave it like that.” He walked to Teroy’s window and motioned for him to wind it down.

“It’s still alive.”

“Is it going to be okay?”

“No.”

Teroy rubbed his cheek. “Run it over again?”

“We have to do something, but…”

“What’s going on?” Don Pepe’s voice snapped from the backseat.

“The cat is still alive, sir,” said Teroy. “We’re wondering what to do about it.”

“It’s hurt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Eeh…And is the car damaged?”

“No, sir.”

“Good.”

There was a pause, during which, in Jojo’s peripheral vision, the twisting of the silhouette moved up a frantic gear. As the pause continued, Jojo realized that Don Pepe was waiting for him to get back in the car.

“Sir,” he said. “Perhaps we should kill it.”

“Kill it?”

“Stop its suffering.”

“Ah. Ah well, yes. Mercy, absolutely. Go on then.”

“Right, sir.”

“Anyway, we’re early for the meeting now, so there’s no, eeh…no need for you to hurry.”

Jojo and Teroy glanced at each other.

“No need to hurry,” Jojo repeated warily.

“Yes. We’re early now, so you don’t need to hurry.”

“Sorry, sir. You…want me to kill the cat slowly?”

A wrinkled face appeared over Teroy’s shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry, sir. I thought you were saying that—”

“Do you know, Jojo, if I have time tonight I shall say a prayer for your soul.”

“Kill it quickly, sir.”

“Yes, kill it quickly, sir! Kill it very quickly, sir! God in Heaven, what have I done to…” The sentence tailed off as the face retreated. “Oh, just get on with it.”

Easier said
than done. Jojo never used his gun. Come to that, he’d never used
any
gun. Age twelve, circumcision had come and gone, and age sixteen, he—and every other boy he’d grown up with—had lost his virginity to one of the three barrio whores. If only firing your first bullet were as straightforward as losing your virginity. Pay fifty pesos to a sharp-tongued but basically kind lady who showed you how to load a clip and squeeze on a trigger, and who didn’t laugh when you got it wrong.

And now too much time had passed for him to joke with his colleagues about his inexperience with weapons, or even to mention it. Although in the back of his mind, he had a feeling that Teroy knew. Teroy had given him the automatic that was now strapped to the side of his chest, and when Jojo had outstretched his palm to accept it, his hand had dropped under the sudden weight and the pistol had nearly fallen to the floor. He hadn’t expected the weight. Stupid, not to expect the weight of a big lump of metal, but there it was.

Four years ago. Four years since he had changed from being the son of an employee to an employee in his own right, and four years of worrying that one day his inexperience was going to be revealed. The real fear was that it would be at a moment when he needed to defend someone else’s life. That seemed worse than if he were defending his own. A couple of nights he’d been unable to sleep, imagining the way he’d pull on the trigger only to hear a hollow click from a hollow chamber. Teroy collapsing beside him as he fumbled with a safety catch.

On one of those sleepless nights, his wife had come into their mouseless kitchen to find him sitting at the table, surrounded
by bullets. He’d taken them out of the magazine so he could learn how to load and reload but then had been unable to put them back in. His fingers had been trembling, and he was afraid that if he shook the bullets too hard they’d explode. So the two of them had stayed up together, fretting over the stiff spring of the magazine, loading and reloading until they were sure they’d got it right.

Well, Jojo reflected, now he was about to find out if they’d got it right. He reached for the holster under his jacket, tore away the Velcro, and pulled out the pistol. It was as cold as a can of Coke, chilled by the air-con in the car.

Things to think about: safety catch, recoil, two-handed grip, aiming, squeeze don’t pull.

What a
loud
noise. Jojo might not have fired a gun before, but he’d often heard them, and they’d always sounded like popping. No louder than a firework, but oddly neater, more compact. But this—this was unbelievable. Ringing ears, blurred vision, dizziness, shock…

The cat was still alive.

Had he missed? It was certainly possible, given that his eyes had been closed for a good second or two before he fired. Should have been on the list of things to remember: Keep your eyes open.
Idiot!
And he couldn’t shoot again, because people in the car would want to know why he couldn’t kill a half-dead cat with a gun that could shoot through walls.

But maybe he had hit it. Maybe it was mortally wounded—just a question of waiting a few moments more. The problem was, with the red from the Mercedes’ taillights and the already
matted fur, it was impossible to tell if there was a mortal wound or not. Jojo squatted down to see better.

With an epileptic spasm, the cat leapt up off the tarmac and onto his chest, where it clung with its claws and teeth. “Oh,” said Jojo, and lost his balance. He fell backward and sat heavily on the road. The cat remained, clinging. Instinctively, Jojo lifted his arms to make a cradle, holding the animal firmly enough to contain its wriggling. It died in less than a minute.

Bubot and Don Pepe
were engrossed in shop talk when Jojo got back into the car, so they didn’t notice the rips or the blood on his shirt. Teroy did notice, but, being a good
compadre
, he didn’t draw attention to it. “
Paré
, spare shirt in my bag,” he whispered once Jojo had the engine running. “In the trunk. You can change when we go in for the meeting.”

“Thanks,
paré
,” Jojo whispered back.

Teroy smiled. Then, at a normal volume, he said, “Let me have your gun. You can’t reload it while you drive.”

Grateful, embarrassed, Jojo handed it over.

“Incredible,” muttered Don Pepe, looking through the car windows, shaking his head at the crumbling streets that led to Hotel Patay. “Completely incredible. Teroy, what were you thinking of?”

“Mr. Alain, sir. He once stayed here, so I thought…”

“Mr. who?”

“Mr. Sean’s predecessor, sir,” Bubot chipped in. “He was the first mate of the
Karaboujan
, until…”

“Oh, Mr. Al
an. An
, Teroy, not
ain
…Poor Mr. Alan. He must have been very sad about the loss of his captain. Off Mindanao, wasn’t it?”

“Palawan, sir.”

“Tch, tch. Thais, I daresay.”

Bubot cleared his throat. “No, sir. Not Thais.”

“Cambodians?”

“No.”

“Not us, surely?”

“Actually, sir, I believe it was.”

“Us? But I’d done business with him for years.
Surely
the
Karaboujan
has safe passage. Why on earth haven’t you told me this before?”

“Sir, the
Karaboujan
was boarded on your orders.”

“It was?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Eeeh.”

“You may remember, sir, the
Karaboujan
’s captain had been difficult with his payments for nearly nine months. We—you—felt he was getting too arrogant.”

“Ah…Ah well, it’s a bloody business, no question. Has to be.”

“You might say, sir,
nature of the beast
,” said Bubot, ambitiously, in faltering English that made Jojo wince.

But if the mestizo noticed the
sip-sip
, he didn’t show it.
“Yes,” he said absently. “It is indeed.” Then he gave a couple long sucks on his toothpick. “So, eh, out of interest, what was the
Karaboujan
’s cargo?”

“Sugar, sir,” Bubot replied.

“Sugar? Was it really? And did we get a good price?”

“Very good, sir.”

Don Pepe smiled. “Yes, of course we did. No Pepe would stand for anything less. Who took it? Seb?”

“Dante.”

“Dante. So there you are. A lesson for us all. Never lose your contacts and never forget where you come from.”

“An excellent lesson, sir.”

“Almost makes me miss the sugar trade.”

“No one traded like the Pepes, sir.”

This time, Don Pepe did notice the
sip-sip. “Por favor
, Bubot,” he said languidly. “Shut up.”

“Shut up,” Bubot echoed, absorbing the insult with an ease that came from long practice. “At once, sir.”

Jojo leaned
on the hood of the Mercedes, arms folded across his chest to hide the cat’s blood, and shivered. He’d seen the hotel once before, that morning when he’d delivered the boss’s note to the bruiser at reception. In daylight the building looked bad, a concrete corpse, but now it was something else. The single light on the second floor had reanimated it. Made it vaguely alive, or undead. Even if he hadn’t had to change his shirt, he wouldn’t have wanted to take a step inside.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, Jojo heard Don Pepe say, “All of us, I think, for this meeting.”

“Sir, don’t you think I should stay with the car? This neighborhood…”

“No. The purpose of this meeting is to put our business with Mr. Sean on a formal basis. And the talk of the
Karaboujan
’s late captain has reminded me. I want to make a strong impression on Mr. Sean, to make the impression last. For the sake of the
Karaboujan
’s new captain, if nothing else.”

Then, to Jojo’s amazement, Don Pepe laughed. Or as close to a laugh as he ever managed. “So, you see, I am expecting that the blood on your shirt will work to our advantage.”

Jojo let his arms drop to his sides.

“Aaah, heh, it will give the Englishman something to think about.”

“Yes, sir.”

Don Pepe gave another rasping chuckle and began walking toward the hotel entrance.

But Jojo paused before following. Just as the mestizo had turned his back, Jojo thought he’d seen something appear at the single lit window. Two hands, fast-moving shadows, that looked as if they were pulling at the bars. And then they had disappeared, too quickly for him to be sure if he had imagined them or not.

“Jojo!” Teroy hissed, holding open Patay’s frosted-glass door. Bubot and Don Pepe were already in the building. “Come on! Let’s go!”

The bathroom mirror was gone, replaced by a buckled square of hardboard. And there were now hundreds of little Seans gazing up at him from around his feet and pooled in the drain of the sink. “Jesus,” Sean said, inhaling tightly. He checked his knuckles and felt his forehead. There was no cut—a lucky break.

A lucky break from a broken mirror. Seven years bad luck, with a lucky break.

That couldn’t be right. He felt his forehead again, not for wetness this time, just massaging his temples.

The glass crunched under his shoes as he took a step backward. “Think,” he whispered. “Get a grip.”

Get a grip? He’d lost his face. There was no grip to get.

So instead, he got his gun. And the spare magazine he’d put aside earlier, and the loose shells from his bag.

One of the men had blood all over his shirt. The same man whose hand, five times as big as his head through the peephole’s fish-eye lens, reached out and knocked on the door. It was Joe, Sean noticed with numb dismay. Of all people, Joe, the driver.