hard now. He went out quickly, holding the wrapped guns and ammo in the crook of one arm, checking the time on one of his phones as he walked. It was 5:43, and the bodega in Tondo was fifteen minutes away even under the best conditions. Santos was ready to call Favor, tell him that he would be late, but he decided to hold off until he knew for sure.
He put the phone in his pocket and looked up as he approached his car.
Totoy Ribera was standing in his path.
Totoy said, “You. You fucking little hustler. I should have guessed.”
Just after seven p.m., Elvis Vega came by the bodega with dinner. Favor asked him if he had heard from Eddie; Vega said no, not since the early
afternoon.
Vega left, and they ate. Arielle was at the laptop, munching as she worked. At 7:15 she said to Favor, “Here you go, hotshot. Don’t lose it.”
It was a USB flash drive, about the size of her thumb.
“Plug it in, that’s all,” she said. “The software does the rest. It’ll take a few seconds.”
“How do I know if it worked?” Favor said.
“I’ll know. I’ll be online. If it loads, it should connect back to me within a few seconds, then I’ll tell you.”
They were going to set up a conference call on their phones, Bluetooth headsets, using the phones like radios.
She said, “Nothing from Eddie?”
“Not a thing.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Not enough to cancel tonight.” He thought for a moment, and corrected himself: “There is no canceling tonight. We’re committed.”
Stickney said, “Anyway, the passports are in case we screw up. The guns are in case we really screw up. We don’t have the guns or the passports…”
“So let’s not screw up,” Mendonza said.
“There you go,” Favor said.
“I met them thirteen years ago,” Santos said. “They came to me. They said they knew me through mutual friends.”
“Who were the friends?” said Totoy.
“I never figured that out.”
“You never asked them?”
“They aren’t the kind of people you ask a lot of questions.”
“You think they would have been angry?”
“I think they would have disappeared.”
Totoy had taken Santos to a vacant apartment. At first Santos was relieved. It could have been police headquarters: possession of a firearm without a permit was a serious crime in the Philippines. It could get you years.
Then, alone in the apartment with Totoy, Santos realized that the headquarters might have been safer.
He also was not sure that they were alone. Santos got the sense of someone else in the next room, behind him. He didn’t hear or see anyone, but something in the way Totoy spoke—something intangible—gave Santos that idea.
Totoy was standing, Santos seated in a chair, the only piece of furniture in the place.
Totoy held out the passports.
“Where did you come up with these names?”
“I used their names. That’s what they call themselves.”
Totoy took out photocopies of the passports from the hotel check-in, and gave them to Santos.
“What about this?” Totoy said.
Santos studied the photocopies. ”I never heard those names before.”
“What are the true names of the other two?”
“To the best of my knowledge, they are Jules and Roberto. I never ran a background check.”
Santos had decided that he would give up only so much. His story would be a half-true concoction of fact and lies. Plausible lies, he hoped. With each answer, he was weighing how much to yield, how to camouflage the truth with realistic fabrication.
Part of this was loyalty. He wasn’t close to the Americans, but they had trusted him, put their lives in his hands. His life and business relationships were built on discretion, and if his disloyalty became known, he would lose the trust of all who dealt with him. Betrayal was bad for business.
And there was an element of pride. He disliked being coerced. He believed that he was better than Totoy Ribera, smarter and more solid if not as vicious.
This was a high-wire act, but he wouldn’t be bullied by a lesser man.
“What was the nature of their activity when they came here thirteen years ago?”
“I never knew for sure, but I believed that it was clandestine.”
“Clandestine? Like spies?”
“They’re an odd sort of spy. But yes, I guess so.”
“Spying for who?”
“I never knew. I told you, they’re pros.”
“And why did they return?”
“I think they were here mostly on a holiday. But they had some small business to attend to. I have no idea what it was. I think they ran into some difficulty, though.”
“How did you know that?”
“When someone asks for weapons and forged documents, you can