makes things happen in a hurry.”
“I have no plans,” Stickney said.
“Beautiful,” Favor said. He looked at Arielle: she grinned and shrugged. Mendonza was walking back to the gazebo, putting his phone away.
“Pack your bags,” Stickney said to him. “Apparently Ray wants to sponsor a disgusting blowout at some place you can’t spell, and we’re going there in style.”
“I’d like to,” Mendonza said. “But I can’t. I’m on a midnight flight to the Philippines. And it’s not in style, it’s on standby.”
“An emergency?” Favor said.
“I have no idea. A kid, a teenage girl, is in trouble. I’ve been conscripted to help out.”
“Your family?”
“Her father is the second cousin of my mother’s uncle by marriage. Something like that. Don’t laugh. Please. It’s a Filipino thing. There is no such thing as a distant relative. Something else about Filipinos. When Mom says you get on a plane, you don’t argue, you look for a ticket counter.”
“Want me to come along?” Favor said.
“I wouldn’t mind a little company,” Mendonza said.
“I’m going if Ray goes,” Arielle said.
“I’m in,” Stickney said.
“You don’t have to do this,” Mendonza said.
“We were just going to fart around and get a sunburn anyway,” Arielle said. “We can do that in the Philippines.”
“Okay,” Mendonza said. “Great. But I don’t think we’ll all get on the flight.”
“I wouldn’t worry about the flight,” Arielle said. “We have an alternative.”
“What’s the story on the girl?” Favor said.
“The girl went missing; nobody knows what happened. Mom was getting this thirdhand, and she was vague on the details. All she said was ‘You must go to Manila, the truth is in Manila.’ Quote unquote.”
Six
Far from Manila, and half a world from Lake Tahoe, Marivic Valencia lay on her cot in a small room with high concrete walls. She was waiting for the sign that would reassure her, tell her that her situation was not as desperate as she feared.
It would be a few bars of a beautiful melody, whistled pitch-perfect by someone who really knew how to whistle. She had been waiting for it almost half a day. But she heard only the incessant churning of the ocean against a shore, and the soft whisk of the ceiling fan, the broad blades turning overhead.
No melody.
It should have happened by now. Every minute that passed, she became more certain that she would never hear it and that she was in a deep pit of trouble, with no way out.
Her ordeal had begun when she stepped off the bus in Manila six days earlier.
She didn’t realize it right away. She was aware only of the thick, pungent air that leaves its impression on all first-time visitors to Manila. It was like walking into a wall. All her life, growing up beside the gulf, she had known only fresh air and ocean breezes, nothing like this viscous stew of diesel fumes and sweat and rotting garbage and fish fried in hot oil.
The odor stunned her—that, and the mob of people milling around the concrete apron, and the sounds, and the activity. So much happening at once.
A woman was calling her name.
“Marivic Valencia? You are Marivic, yes?”
The woman stood a few feet away. She was about fifty years old. Slim and well dressed. Gold bangle earrings, too much makeup on a bony, pinched face. An overpowering perfume. Marivic recognized her as a matrona, a middle-aged woman with some money—a formidable type.
“Yes,” Marivic said, and walked over to the woman. “Are you from Optimo?”
“Were you expecting someone else?”
At first this remark struck Marivic as abrupt, almost sarcastic. But the matrona cocked her head and waited for Marivic to speak, and Marivic realized that it was an actual question.
“No,” Marivic said. “Only the representative from the agency.”
“That’s me,” the woman said. “Do you have any other bags?”
“Just this one.”
The woman crooked a finger over one shoulder, summoning a man who stood waiting behind her. Late forties, hair shorn close to the scalp, stocky, face impassive. He stepped forward and reached for her bag, and Marivic saw that his face was badly pockmarked. His eyes were heavy lidded and unfriendly. He was terrifying without even seeming to try. Marivic stepped back involuntarily as he approached, and he took the bag and turned and began to walk away with it. The woman started after him.
Marivic hesitated. This was all happening so suddenly. The woman stopped and looked back to Marivic and said, “Well? Aren’t you coming?”
Marivic didn’t know what to say. Something here didn’t seem right.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re scared. Yes, you are,