With that step over, Moon took a taxi out to Caloocan City to check on the property Ricky had leased. Maybe someone would be there who knew something-such as where to find Brock. It was a long shot but better than waiting in his hotel room for the AP to call.
“ Caloocan City?” the cabbie said. “That’s a long ways outside. For that we don’t use the meter. I just use this special rate card. So you get a bargain.”
Moon had been warned about exactly this by the Maynila’s concierge. “Make sure they turn on the meter. Those special rate cards are stuff they make up themselves to get more money out of tourists.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Moon said. “Give me the rate card price now and turn on the meter. And when we get there, we’ll compare them.”
The cabbie gave Moon a huge gap-toothed grin. “My name is Tino,” he said, “and I think you’ve been to Manila before.”
They drove north through the teeming traffic on Roxas Boulevard, which for no reason apparent to Moon suddenly became Bonifacio Drive. They crossed the muddy Pasig River, left modern Manila and its middle-class housing district behind, and were surrounded by slums and the distinctive aroma of burning garbage.
“ Smoky Mountain,” Tino said. “Lots of poor people live here.” He waved at the clusters of shacks they were passing and went on with the same tone of civic pride he’d been using to describe the glass and steel edifices along United National Avenue. “They build houses on the city dump. No rent to pay that way. And they collect stuff out of the trash and fix it up and sell it.”
The city dump also provided the homes. They
were patched together with sheet metal, odds and ends of wood, insulation board, bamboo. The architect of the hut they were passing now had used old carpeting to fill in a gap in the siding.
Caloocan City met expectations for a city no better than Smoky Mountain did for a mountain. They passed clusters of small fields being plowed this spring morning by men driving water buffaloes, followed by clusters of two-story business buildings, followed by great fields of sugarcane. The address they were seeking was surrounded by just such a field.
Castenada had written, Caloocan City, Marmoi Road, Number 700; took for billboard Great Luck Development Corp. Look for warehouse of Seven Seas Worldwide Container, Inc.
Great Luck had surrounded two or three acres of its property with a fence, to keep out the cane, and built two concrete-block structures. Judging from the signs, the smaller one housed the offices of both Great Luck and Seven Seas. The larger one looked new: an office wing attached to a triple-sized hangar. And above the high hangar doors was painted:
M. R. AIR, LTD.
HELICOPTER REPAIR, LEASING AND TRANSPORT
Moon stared at the sign. Not Ricky Mathias Air but Moon and Ricky Air. Ricky had meant it. That was hard to digest.
Tino looked around.
“This is it, no?”
“Yes,” Moon said. “Wait for me.”
The office door was locked, but through its window he could see that the room was furnished with two desks, a table, filing cabinets-the usual office furniture. The ashtray on the desk had two cigar butts in it. He pounded on the door. Waited. Pounded again. Then he walked across the gravel to the Great Luck Development Corp., encouraged by the whine of a band saw and hammering. The sign on the door said 700 marmoi road, and it opened just as he tapped on it.
A small, plump, and very pregnant woman looked up at him. “Good morning,” she said. “You must be Mr. Bascom, and you are a little bit too early.”
“My name is Malcolm Mathias,” Moon said. “I’m looking for Mr. Brock. I think he works next door at the helicopter company.”
“Mr. Brock?” she said, frowning. “Oh, yes. But I haven’t seen him for days.” She searched her memory. “Not for maybe two weeks.”
“Do you know where I could find him?”
“Is nobody over there?” she asked, indicating M. R, Air with a glance. “I think Mr. Delos would know.”
“No one was there.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and laughed. “I forgot what day it is. Mr. Delos would be fighting his cock. He will be at the stadium.”
The stadium was a mile or so beyond the cane fields, beside a creek that irrigated a narrow row of rice paddies. It was round, designed by someone with access to a large number of heavy timbers and a supply of corrugated sheet metal roofing. The timbers were erected exactly far enough apart to be spanned by the roofing material, which was nailed to it to form the walls. The roof was a steep thatched cone, and the single entrance was guarded by two small booths made of lumber. At one, admission tickets were on sale at ten pisos each. Over the other a sign declared pollos fritos, and from it rose a thin haze of smoke and the delicious smell of frying chicken.
“Tell you what we’ll do,” Moon said when the cabbie parked in a lot occupied by scores of bicycles and a couple of dozen cars and trucks. “I’ll buy you a ticket and you help me find Mr. Delos in the crowd.”
“Ten pisos,” Tino said, voice scornful. “And you get a discount because a lot of the fights are already over.”
“How do you know?” Moon said. “It’s still early.”
“Lots of losers,” Tino said, pointing to the pollos fritos sign.
Moon paid full fare for both tickets-about ninety cents American-and they found a place on the top row, seven levels up, where the siding had been removed to let hot air and tobacco smoke escape. The stadium was about two-thirds full with a couple of hundred spectators: all males, all ages, almost all clad in the Filipino summer garb of short-sleeved shirts, cotton pants, and straw hats. The exceptions were those who held the seats around the ring. Most of them wore jackets, and most of them had custody of roosters.
The ring itself was a platform raised about three feet above the earthen floor and surrounded by sheets of transparent plastic. In it five men stood. In the center a skinny little man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and necktie was talking into a microphone. To his right and left stood two-man teams, which Moon identified as bird holder and assistant. The man with the mike spoke in what Moon guessed must be Tagalog and then repeated at least some of it in heavily accented English. The audience listened in rapt silence.
“He’s telling about the cocks,” Tino murmured. “The oone with the red feathers around his neck-” Just then the master of ceremonies stopped talking.
He lowered the mike and the arena exploded into bedlam. All around them, all around the stadium, men were leaping to their feet, shouting, flashing hand signals, acknowledging hand signals. Tino was saying something in Moon’s ear.
“What?” Moon shouted.
“I say if you wanna bet, bet on the one with the red feathers around his neck. Number nineteen. The maestro said he’s won three fights.”
“I’ll just watch,” Moon said. “Do any of those guys holding roosters look like Delos? She said he was short and fat and wore a long mustache.”
“Two fat ones,” Tino said, pointing.
Moon had noticed that. But both were sitting with their backs to him.
In the ring, the maestro raised the microphone. The clamor of betting stopped almost instantly. The rooster bearers advanced. The roosters pecked at each other while the maestro watched. Unsatisfied, he signaled the rooster bearers forward again. This time the cocks pecked with more satisfying ferocity. The maestro sent the rooster bearers back to their corners. They crouched, holding the roosters on the floor. One of the roosters waiting his turn outside the ring crowed lustily. The maestro’s hand dropped and the combat began in a wild flurry of feathers of spurs. Red Feathers went for the head. His black opponent backed away, then counterattacked, encouraged by shouts and imprecations from the audience. There was another wild flurry, another, and another, and suddenly it seemed to be over. Red Feathers was down, wings extended, neck held out. Black Feathers took two wobbly steps and stopped.