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"Don't pull that buddy-buddy shit with us, man," Morning said. "We've seen as many movies as you."
"Your friend is quite a wise ass," the older cop said to me, no longer even faking kindness. "You should teach him to keep his mouth shut."
"Nobody likes a cop," I said. "Particularly a crooked one."
"Let's go," he said, motioning us out the door. "Bring the cigarettes."
"Oh, the little shit told you they were cigarettes, huh?" Morning said as he picked up one suitcase. "Tell him hello from me, will you, when you pay him off. Tell him I'll have another drop next Break, huh? A big one. A cement overcoat in the bay."
We followed the silent cop out the front and into an old jeep, gray and rusted, touched with a thousand dents. The younger cop sat behind the wheel, smoking a hastily lit cigarette, posing tough. He drove us through more crooked lanes for about ten minutes, stopped once at a call box to prepare the station for us, then took the longest way round to the station house. Morning and I carried in the suitcases and set them on a desk in an office shut away from the rest of the large wooden room by glass, then the cops took our names and our valuables, our belts, and Morning's shoe laces, and afterward locked us in a wooden cage in the center of the room, across from the glass office. No place to sit, the floor, smeared with shit and vomit, too filthy to sit on, so we stood, waiting, saying nothing, watching the other occupant of the cage, a ragged drunk curled in a corner who never moved the whole time we were in the room, so still he might have been dead waiting to stink. We might have smoked, but the cops, the two who had brought us in and five or six others, were quickly demolishing our cigarettes in front of the booking desk at the other end of the room. The booking desk, like the one in the office, still bore the marks of whatever American military unit had used them before they were released for surplus. I shouted about the cigarettes, but one of the cops told me to smoke my toe, whatever that meant. If it was an insult, it didn't work because it gave us a terrible case of nervous giggles, which relaxed us more than any cigarette. Morning shouted back to ask if it was okay if he smoked his thumb because his toe was empty, but the cops missed the joke.
In about an hour a tall neat man in a barong tagalog came in the room, neatly combed hair, neat nails, and a dapper line of moustache. He nodded as he passed, as if we were casual acquaintances, spoke to the man at the desk, then walked in the straightest line into the glass office. Two different cops came, handcuffed Morning, then led him to the office. For five minutes there was a quiet businesslike talk, calm motions, thoughtful head movements, but Morning began, it looked like, saying no, no, no, in more fiery language. He stood up, and though I couldn't hear him I could tell he said Bullshit in his best voice, allowing no argument. He was handcuffed again, not roughly, but forcefully, and taken outside. Then they came for me.
"Sgt. Krummel, I believe it is," he said, reaching out a hand as they removed the cuffs. "Capt. Mendoza, second in command of the Pasay City Secret Service."
I didn't shake his hand. "Where did they take my friend?"
"Just to an outside cell. He will be all right. I didn't want him making any more, how should I say, bad blood with the two sergeants who brought you here." His English was very neat too, but he sounded like an insurance man making a pitch for increased coverage, or a Bible salesman.
"Just talk straight, huh? What's your price? What's it going to cost us to get out of this fairy tale?"
"Oh, everyone is in such a hurry today. But it is late, and I, ah, shall we say, have a lady waiting. So to the point. If you had not made my two worthy sergeants quite so angry, we could arrange some sort of deal where I, ah, would purchase your cigarettes at a very small loss to you. You pay seven for them on Base, I would pay you seven. You would be out nothing but your profit and expenses, and be much the richer, as they say, for the experience. A very small loss, indeed," he said, pausing to offer me a cigarette, which I didn't take.
"A small loss?" I asked, "or a shakedown?"
"Oh, such a crude term. I would have expected more from an educated man," he said, lighting his Chesterfield.
"Educated?" I said.
"Oh, yes, I know about you, Sgt. Krummel. I've known Teresita for many years. A lovely woman, as they say, yes, indeed. I've known about your business for some time. I also heard about your unfortunate encounter with Mr. Garcia this afternoon. He is a pig, but he could be dangerous, yes, indeed. As they say, I have my ear to many walls, yes, and you might call this a tax, a luxury tax. And the small loss you speak of so heavily would indeed be small compared to the price you would pay if you force me to call the U.S. Military Adjutant. You will surely face charges, be, as they say, busted, and perhaps spend some time in the stockade," he said, finishing with a perfect smoke ring.
"But, as I said," he quickly continued, "that was before you two boys made my men so unhappy, so damned unhappy. Now, unfortunately, it will take only a gesture for you and your friend. You must walk out, forgetting you ever saw these cigarettes. You have reserve, surely, and it will take all of this to, as they say, grease the angry palms around here." There wasn't a trace of irony or of threat in his voice, but a slight note of sadness; the director of one company hearing about the director of another falling into a bad but not disastrous deal.
"My friend said no deal, didn't he?" I said.
"Unfortunately, yes. He's such an emotional creature." Another perfect smoky circle.
"Then no deal."
"Don't be foolish. You made a mistake dealing with such a, as you might say, small tomatoes for a drop." He rustled in his desk for a moment, then handed me a card, and offered me another cigarette. I took this one. "My address and telephone number. I also deal slightly in the market. When you make a run after now, call me. If you can boost your load to three hundred cartons a week, guaranteed, I can raise the price to eleven and a half. You will get rich; I will get richer. But you have to take this small loss. The younger man has, as you might say, political co
"Did you tell my friend this?" I asked, blowing a ragged ring of smoke between us.
"Yes," he said, standing. As he walked around the desk the crease in his trousers lay as precise as a ruler edge, the shine on his expensive shoes, hard and brilliant. "And other things. Other things."
"And he still said no?"
"Yes."
"Then, no."
He sighed, then said, "You must be very good friends, indeed. Money can't buy friendship, as they say." He made out a receipt for the cigarettes, "But I think this is going to be an expensive friendship for you." He reached for the phone. "Good luck. Think about what they say, Money can't buy friendship."
"I guess not," I said as I left, cuffed again. They walked me out and lodged me in the cell with Morning.
"He give you that get-rich-quick shit, too?" he asked out of the dark corner where he perched on a bamboo cot.
"Sure," I said, sitting on the other after the two cops removed the cuffs. "I told him it was a great idea. Told him to go ahead."
"Don't try to shit me, Krummel. You told him to shove it right back up his crooked ass. Just like me." His words seemed very close to my ear, but I still couldn't see him; my eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness. "Crooked mother."
"Where do you get off being so damned moral?" I asked.
"What we're doing is okay; what that bastard is doing is crooked. He's supposed to be a cop. And so what if we do have to deal with shit, at least it knows it's shit, like our lovely drop man, but that mother up there thinks he don't stink. Where do I get off being so moral? Shit, man, where does he get off being so crooked. So I told him to shove it," he said quickly, something, not fear, nor excitement, making his voice high and tired, almost a whine.