Страница 7 из 68
Over the next few days, we used the GPS to track Ma
“Why do you suppose he’s going out to the suburbs every day and not even staying in the hotel?” Dox asked as we charted his movements.
I paused and thought about that for a moment. “I’m not sure. It could have to do with security, with the multiple locations creating a shell game dynamic. But two shells isn’t much. And his timing is more regular than I would be comfortable with.”
“I reckon he’s got a woman out there.”
“He could get a woman a lot easier in Makati, near the hotel.”
“Maybe this one is love.”
I shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Upon arriving in Manila three weeks earlier, I had rented an unobtrusive gray Honda Civic, which I had garaged at the Peninsula. In my mind, I was an advance man for a Japanese boss, scouting locations for his arrival in the city. The cover was simple, provided for a wide range of behavior, and would be difficult to disprove. The yakuza maintains a sizable presence in the Philippines, a country that supplies many of Japan’s female “entertainers,” and my story, including a reticence about details, would be adequate to survive any foreseeable inquiries.
I drove out to Greenhills late in the afternoon, before Ma
I’D SPENT TIME in Manila while with the army in Vietnam, but of course that had been long ago, and the city had changed. Enclaves like what was now called Greenhills had once been rice paddies. The city was denser now: more people, more cars, more frenzy. There was a new air of commercialism, too, with mega-malls visible from auto-choked highways and billboards advertising teeth-whitening toothpastes and modern high-rises emphasizing by contrast the eternal shantytowns and slums around them. For the three weeks before Ma
Ma
I left the Jollibee and entered the shopping mall. I called Dox from a prepaid cell phone I had bought with cash. Dox was also using a prepaid. He had his own GSM unit, but I’d told him to keep it switched off while we were operational. There are ways of tracking a cell phone, and I didn’t know who might have had Dox’s number.
“He’s here,” I told him. “The condominium in Greenhills.”
“I know. I’m watching the little arrow moving around the computer. I saw the car pull up ten minutes ago. Anything interesting?”
“There’s a lot of security at the building. We’re going to need to watch him some more.”
“Roger that.”
“What’s the earliest he’s left the building so far?”
“Hang on a minute.” I heard the sound of the keyboard. “Oh-seven-hundred. Seems like he’s typically on his way by oh-eight-hundred.”
“All right. I’m leaving. I’ll come back in the morning. I’ve seen him arrive. Maybe I’ll learn something watching him go out.”
I returned at just before seven the next morning. It was Sunday. I ate at the Jollibee again. The morning crew was new. Even if they’d been the same as the previous afternoon, I doubted that they would have noticed me. When I want to, I have a way of just being part of the scenery.
Ma
They got into the back of the Benz and I watched as it pulled away from the curb. My cell phone rang. It was Dox.
“He’s moving,” he said.
“I know. I’m watching.”
“What do you see?”
I paused, then said, “He’s not staying at the hotel because he’s got a family here in Greenhills. A woman and a son.”
“How do you know?”
“I just saw them all together. From the way they’re dressed on a Sunday morning, I’d say they’re on their way to church. And it makes sense. The file says Ma
“I thought old Ma
I thought for a moment, then said, “If I’m right about where they’re going, he’s probably doing it as an accommodation to the woman. Filipinas can be pretty serious about their Catholicism.”
“All right, I’ll buy that. Any angle on how we reach out and touch him?”
“We’ve got a pretty good idea of where he’s actually staying. That’s a start. Keep me posted on where the car is heading, and I’ll follow them from a distance until they stop. Maybe I’ll learn more.”
“Roger that.”
As it turned out, they weren’t going far: a nearby gated community called East Greenhills. I had to show a guard my ID, which was fake in any event, but he let me in when I told him, following my hunch, that I was there to attend morning Mass. He could have tested me on the liturgy if he’d wanted. My American mother, who was Catholic, had taken me to church regularly enough for the experience to have made an impression.