for communicating with the employees and managers of the seven businesses around Manila that he owned and supervised. He ran a taxi and car service; a bakery; a ready-to-wear manufacturing company; a travel agency; two restaurants; and a beer garden. This was the busiest phone, and the one he was most likely to ignore if he was otherwise occupied: the internal workings of the businesses were important, but they could usually wait. And he paid others to deal with emergencies.
The second phone was dedicated to the customers and potential customers and suppliers of his businesses. It represented cash in hand, and he would always leave the first phone to answer the second.
The third phone carried the fewest phone numbers but the most important. They included his few close friends, his attorney and accountant, and his less conventional business contacts, representing discreet understandings, unwritten but mortally binding agreements, and an intricate balance sheet of obligations and payments in kind.
His twenty-year-old daughter, Anabeth, had a dedicated ring tone on each phone. He would drop any of them to pick up her call.
The call from Mendonza came over the third phone as Santos was finishing breakfast with Anabeth in their apartment on President Quirino Avenue in Manila. The phones were lined up on a side table, each plugged into a charger. A meal with Anabeth came along too seldom, so he had turned off the ringers on the first two phones but not the third—never the third.
He reached for it, recognized the number. Anabeth threw him a look of reproach, and for a moment Santos considered putting the phone aside. But Mendonza had paid well a year earlier, and Santos had once enjoyed working with the four Americans. He was never sure exactly what they were doing, but he knew it wasn’t ordinary. They had expected tact and discretion and loyalty; he liked that, and he liked high stakes, and now he hoped that this call might bring him more of the same.
He put up an apologetic hand to his daughter and took the phone into another room.
They exchanged pleasantries before Mendonza said, “Eddie, we’re coming into Manila late tonight. We can use your help, if you’re free.”
“ ‘We’? All four?”
“The gang’s all here.”
“Wonderful,” Santos said. “I’m always available for you.”
“We’ll need four phones and a couple of cars with good drivers. Tickets on an early flight to Tacloban for Alex Mendonza and Raymond Favor.”
Santos said, “Using your true name? And who is Raymond Favor?”
“You knew him as Jules. Real names all the way this time.”
“No paper? No safe house?”
Mendonza laughed and said, “None of that. We don’t need it. We’re on the straight.”
Santos felt vaguely cheated. It was not so much the money as the camaraderie, the shared experience. He said, “I see. This is business or pleasure?”
“A lot of pleasure, I hope, but we have a small chore to take care of first.”
“I’ll be glad to help any way I can,” Santos said, trying to sound sincere. But he didn’t feel much enthusiasm anymore. Four phones, a couple of cars, and plane tickets? Anybody could do that.
Mendonza told him that they would arrive at the general aviation terminal after midnight; he would call later with a more specific time.
“It’ll be great to see you again,” Mendonza said.
“Yes, thanks. You, too, of course,” Santos said. He clicked off, and went into the dining room. Anabeth was gone from her chair.
He said, ”Beth? Where are you? I’m done.”
She came in from her room, carrying a book bag. She attended Assumption College, one of the nation’s most exclusive schools, a Catholic women’s university. It was a school for the daughters of Manila’s elite, and Santos qualified neither by birth nor bankroll.
But she was a very good student, and in her senior year the brother of a certain Mother Superior in the order had required a certain intervention to avoid a public scandal. Eddie Santos had been happy to use his connections, and his daughter’s application was accepted shortly after.
He said, “Come, finish breakfast. I’m sorry I left. It was nothing.”
“That’s okay. I should be going anyway,” she said. She pecked him on the cheek and started for the door.
He said, “How are you fixed for cash? Can you use a little money?”
That stopped her and brought her back. He took some cash from his pocket, decided not to count it, and pressed it into her hand.
Anabeth counted it, though.
“Thanks,” she said, and she turned and left.
He watched her walk out the door.
Unusual among Filipinos,