The girls who stood up when we arrived were of a very provincial sort, either indecently young moving up in the bonded hierarchy of whoredom, or absurdly old, having fallen to the last layer. The Trick, except for Morning and I (he because of his peculiar brand of romantic puritanism or puritanical romanticism, and I because of my… rank?), didn't seem to mind and fell to seducing them in wholesale lots. Cagle sat on the lap of the largest professional in the whole PI, and acted like a ventriloquist's dummy to her great pleasure. Morning and I drifted to the rear where a solitary woman was shuffling a deck of cards under a bare light bulb. It was still early and there were no Filipino customers in the place.
"Okay, man," Morning said, "that's for this one."
"Don't be in such a rush. Your old sarge may have something to say about that, young trooper. That's your problem, kid, too big a hurry." He laughed and walked up to the table.
She had the delicate features – the thin, well-bridged nose, small curved lips – which spoke of some Spanish blood, but her body was squat, full and still firmly stacked in spite of the twenty-nine or thirty years of use. She would be shorter when she stood up than we had thought her to be. She wore no make-up and dressed in a simple black jersey and slacks and no shoes.
"Do you mind if we join you, young lady. Perhaps buy you a drink or something?" Morning asked, his cool, confident self as always with the women.
"I am not so young as I was but, yes, please sit if you wish," she answered, her voice as soft and heavy as her breasts. As we sat, she laid out a game of solitaire, placing each card as carefully and deliberately as if it were a piece in a puzzle. She moved with a patience, a sad dignity, but jolly wrinkles pinched the corners of her eyes and the suggestion of an ironic smile rippled about her face like a breeze on a pond.
"I'm Lt. Morning," Joe said, "And this is…"
"Sgt. Krummel," I interrupted before he made me a major again.
"Hello," she answered politely, not pausing in her game. She gave no name. Morning asked her. "My name is what you wish it to be," she replied. "That is my job, to be whatever and whoever men wish. Their girl friend, their wife, their mother, their battle, and I've even once been a sister. But it will cost you a lot of money, my young friend, to find out my name, because I'm a fine player. Yes, very much money." She did not glance up from the cards.
"Do, do you work here?" Morning asked.
"No." She answered as if that were the end of it, but after a short pause, added, "I work in Manila at the Golden Cave, but I also own this place. I come here to rest…" She paused again. "But for a profit, an unusual profit, or for even an unusual excitement, I might tell you my name. For say as much money as a lieutenant makes in, let us say, a week." She raised her head to stare into Morning's eyes, her long loose hair swaying back from her face. I saw mountain showers crossing the horizon at dusk, night rain swinging in the wind, and shimmering black strands coiled on a pillow. Her breasts bobbed shyly like a child's first curtsy.
"Is it worth it?" he asked.
"Is it ever? Isn't it always? I know a captain who says it's better, something like – my accent is different from his – 'Ya pays ya money, an' ya takes ya chance.' "
Morning laughed, then stood up to go for beer.
"Yes, I would very much like a beer, thank you," she answered when he asked. "You don't talk very much," she said, looking up at me as Joe walked away.
"Keeps me out of trouble."
"Your friend, he talks very much?"
"Very much. And lies a little, too."
She laughed, soft and mocking like a muted trumpet. "All men lie to us. It doesn't matter. I think I prefer the lies to the truth. Once a sailor told me the truth, that he loved men instead of women because he couldn't help himself. After that, when he couldn't make it, he cut his arms with a broken beer bottle. Yes, I better like lies, I think."
"Did he die?"
"Who? Oh, the sailor. No, he was lying about that. But he did ruin four of my dresses and nearly lost my job."
"The Golden Cave is a very famous place. I've heard about it, but I've never been there."
"You must come sometime. During the week. Never on weekend. But this is a famous place, too. It isn't as… what would you say?"
"Elegant?"
"Elegant, yes. But it is haunted." She stopped her game, took the beer Morning brought and continued, "It has been here – the house, I mean – since before the war. It was the only building left standing when the Japs shelled the city. An officer, a colonel I think, used it as his civil headquarters or something like that, and he ran the city. He was big for a Jap, even as big as you, and very mean. He killed many of my people in here. He shot them against that wall, in the stomach, and watched and laughed and drank as they bled to death. Some people say you can still hear the laughter and screams on certain dark nights. They say his evil is still in the walls." She drank from the bottle. "For three, four years the blood soaked the floor. Then once a young girl, a virgin he stole from the church altar, was brought here, and when he tried to screw her, she vomited on him. They said he beat and beat her, then cut a breast off and ate it before her as she bled to death. But he was upstairs drunk when the Americans came and was left behind.
"My people came and took him and many wanted to torture him, and they tore one finger off and made him chew it a little bit before the leader stopped them. Then they chopped his head off with an axe. They said his mouth was still laughing when it hit the floor." She rose and motioned us to the bar, showed us the three deep gashes in the wood and then made us put our fingers in the bullet scars in the wall.
"An evil devil," she said as we sat down, "and evil never dies. You know that. My people tried to burn this place, but a storm came and put the fire out.
"Then one night about three months later a wind blew out all the candles upstairs and down. Before they could be lit again, a girl ran downstairs screaming, half-naked, with one breast cut off. She died of fright, and though they searched and searched the house for the breast, it was not found. Never.
"And so the lights are never turned off," she said, waving her delicate hand. "Never. And when a monsoon wind breaks the electricity, something bad happens. Always very bad." She smiled as she finished the story as if it had rubbed her tired back. "So this is called The Haunted Whorehouse."
"A fine tale," I said. "Beautiful."
"Oh, but it is not a tale. Go ask any of the girls."
I walked over to the giggling mingle of whores and asked the one with Novotny. The girl on Novotny's lap flung her head up at me, quickly covered her breasts with her arms and in a child's voice said, "Oh, but you must not talk of it for bad luck."
The world continued around me, the talk, the music, the dancing, Cagle squealing on the fat whore's lap, but inside the needle-iced shell of my body, time stumbled long enough for the girl's fear to be mine. The ghost was real.
"I think I need a beer," I said when back at our table.
"I told you," she said.
"Joe, that kid was scared out of her mind. It was as bad as seeing the ghost myself." I had always kept a silent fear of seeing a ghost. Not that I expected the spirits to harm me, but that fatal knowledge of seeing one would be fright enough. I looked too hard not to see one someday.