one--

Metropolitan Manila Morgue—6 p.m. Saturday

Harvey Tucker, 59, had died with his boots on—but nothing else. Two hundred and twenty-three out-of-shape pounds had twitched for about thirty seconds before coming to rest.
     Dr. Chin, M.E., took another look at the visa photo. Harv’s face, never much to look at, was now unrecognizable.
     From the abrasions on his legs and chest, it appeared that he had been dragged by his ankles down a flight of stairs, face thumping on each tread. The broken nose and jaw, the fractures to the cranium, had all occurred post mortem.
     None of them had done anything to improve his appearance. 
     Lying in a dumpster in ninety-degree heat for three days had caused the body to plump up like a ballpark frank. Visits by curious dogs, peckish rats, and an uncountable number of insect friends had left him almost unidentifiable.
     Chin found the task of positive identification unpleasant, but rewarding; not every day yields a white male corpse in Manila. Even rarer was one with Taser prongs tangled in his pubic thatch.
     The good doctor knew he would get a lot of mileage from this one at cocktail parties. Because he was ethnic Chinese, he was disliked by most of the Filipino doctors who worked for him, but they would all laugh dutifully as he related his findings. After all, he was the chief coroner.
     He’d have to make as much of it as he could before Ol’ Harv’s peccadilloes surfaced in the papers.

two--

LAX Airport—10p.m. Saturday

Sam leaned across the counter and pointed out the purchaser code to the very pretty Filipina clerk. “That stands for Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Homeland Security.”
     “Is this official business, sir?” 
     Sam wondered where this might be going. “Yes, I have an investigation in Manila.”
     The clerk looked at him for a long moment. “Let me make a call and see if I can upgrade your ticket for you. I don’t think the flight would be—comfortable—for you in economy. And there are still a few seats open in business class.”
     She picked up a phone, half-turned away from Sam, and spoke in Tagalog.
     The passengers behind Sam seemed resigned to the wait and offered no complaint. In fact, the elderly Filipina woman behind him offered a toothless grin and said, “All lines are the same—endless. But we will get to where we should be, by the grace of God.” 
     Sam wasn’t sure what to make of this, so he just smiled. She smiled back, revealing a furrowed tongue darting around her spotted gums.
     He didn’t like international travel all that much, but all the other agents working out of Los Angeles had families, so he was getting the short end again. Still, he thought it was better to be busy in the field, rather than be stuck behind an analyst’s desk.
     “Mr. Haine? I received clearance to upgrade your ticket—as a courtesy from Philippine Airlines to your government.”
     Sam teased out the meaning. “I’m sorry, miss. I can’t accept favors or gifts from companies. You can see how that would compromise my ability to do my job. Let me pay the difference in ticket price myself. Perhaps I’ll get reimbursed, if I’m lucky.”
     The clerk nodded, as if not sure she understood. She punched in the new ticket info, took two hundred dollars from Sam, and issued him a boarding pass.


During the three-and-a-half hour wait before departure, Sam scanned the Filipinos who were flying economy class on his flight. That line stretched across the lobby until it hit another airline counter, where it doubled back on itself.
     Each passenger was taking a golf cart-sized load of assorted goods to the family back home. The luggage of choice was a large cardboard box, tied with string, which was opened for search, retied, and loaded on the luggage conveyor belt.
     First-class passengers had a separate, considerably shorter, check-in line. They awaited boarding in a private club where the airline staff treated them with a degree of deference most often accorded rock stars. Sam viewed it all through the club door’s porthole window while he stood outside nursing a beer.
     Boarding the plane, Sam passed through the first-class cabin, where the seats reclined into beds, amid an air of calm. Situated between the haves and the have-nots was business class. He slid his six-foot frame into a seat of reasonable size.
     He was in the last row of business class. Just beyond the partition a chorus of infants began their pre-flight howl as the cabin was pressurized for take off. Sam looked back, noting that seats in economy didn’t recline more than two inches, engineered to squeeze the maximum number of Filipinos into an aircraft fuselage. Average-size Americans need not apply.
     He checked his watch—five hours since he had left his house and the plane hadn’t even started to taxi. Flight time plus a refueling stop in Hawaii would make it twenty-one hours before he could retrieve his luggage.
     “Would you like a pillow and blanket, sir?”
     “Thank you,” said Sam, noting that the woman now serving him was the same one who had earlier upgraded his ticket. “Must make a long shift for you—first ticket collector, now flight attendant.”
     “Have a good flight.” She flashed him a bright smile and moved on. Four hundred passengers didn’t leave time for chitchat.
      Glancing about, Sam realized his was the sole white face on the plane. In the row ahead, two Japanese businessmen wearing identical charcoal suits murmured together. He pulled a file folder from his briefcase and reviewed the case notes on Harvey Tucker and his Tasered testicles.
     He needed to synchronize with the local homicide investigation as soon as possible. If suspects weren’t found in the first three days, the search tended to drag on for weeks, losing momentum as new cases demanded the attention of a detective force spread too thin.
     Branch Supervisor Ricci had given him a contact number for the lead detective handling the case: Raymond “Bogie” Lorenzano, Philippine National Bureau of Investigation. Sam wondered what kind of guy chose to call himself “Bogie.”

three--

National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Headquarters Manila—8:10 a.m. Sunday

For the second time in the interrogation, Detective Bogie Lorenzano motioned for Detective Garcia to back off. He placed a stack of Polaroid photos on the table.
     “Nothing you haven’t seen before,” Bogie said to the young Filipino seated there.
     “I don’t want to look at these!” said Chito, pushing away the Polaroids. The deal table was stained by the “accidental” nosebleeds of a thousand earlier interrogations.
     Chito sat with his back straight against the chair, and Bogie thought he appeared prissy, almost girl-pretty in that way many slim, athletic, eighteen-year-old Filipinos can look. The heavy gold chain on his neck and multiple jeweled rings on his fingers revealed that he wasn’t your average citizen of the republic.
     Detective Garcia grabbed the back of Chito’s neck and turned his boyish face toward the photos. “No one cares what you want. We found these a block from the club where you work.”
     Bogie touched Garcia’s arm, motioning his partner to move away from Chito. He realized how tired he was of the way Garcia always tried to impress the higher-ups, making every move at high velocity.
     Not for the first time, he thought Garcia might be doing speed. Bogie had never moved that fast, not even when he was twenty. And that was nineteen years ago. He reflected—again—that it was a long time until his pension kicked in.
     Garcia, feathers ruffled, was smoothing the lines of his suit. Bogie noted the preening, as well as the hint of makeup.
     Though Bogie’s suits were well tailored, chain smoking left them with a stale scent and smudged by ash. He accessorized the ensemble with three days’ worth of stubble and pouches under the eyes. Bogie reached over and picked up the top photo.
     The picture showed a willowy, well-built Filipina wearing a sheer peignoir over a leather bustier. Bogie thought it could have been some boyfriend’s keepsake photo— except the woman in the photo was also wearing a pig mask.
     Bogie observed that Chito sucked back a small gasp. Garcia snorted his derision at Chito’s reaction. Bogie put down the first Polaroid and picked up another.
     “You take these pictures, Chito?”
     The photo he was now holding showed the woman taking off the bustier, exposing her breasts. Obscuring the foreground was a man’s arm covered with reddish-gold hair.
     Bogie saw that even with the fan blowing on Chito, he was sweating profusely. Half moons of perspiration darkened the armpits of his spandex wife-beater.
     “She doesn’t do the kinky stuff any more!” Chito blurted.
     “Looks like she still does, when the price is right,” Garcia said, flipping over a picture showing part of a man’s tattooed torso, his hand holding a whip. The woman was now nude except for the mask.
     Bogie stared at Chito as he smoked his cigarette. He took a deep drag and let the smoke trickle from his mouth, never taking his eyes from the nervous boy.
     “What’s making you so unhappy, Chito? Could it be that you didn’t see any of the money from this john?”
     He turned over the next photo, making sure that Chito saw it. There were stripes of blood on the woman’s back, and her arms were manacled above her head. The john was revealed to be a sixty-ish redneck wearing a cowboy hat.
     Bogie watched Chito bite his own hand to keep from crying out. There was real pain in the young man’s eyes—and that bothered Bogie. Pimps made a point of not being emotionally involved with their stable. He wondered what was going on.
     “Where can we find her?” His voice was all business.
     Chito fought back tears, tried to speak, but it was garbled. Garcia lashed out, slapped him across the cheek. “Don’t wanna hear ‘I don’t know’,” said Garcia. Bogie gave Garcia a hard look, but Garcia smirked, and added, “A pimp always knows where his top whore is.”
     Chito tried to push away from the table, but Bogie blocked the chair with his foot. “Even a stupid pimp like you,” said Bogie.
     “I’m not her pimp! She’s my sister!”
     Garcia held up the photo and pointed to the porcine mask. “So? You and Miss Piggy are relatives?”
     “She’s an entertainer, not a whore!” said Chito. “I’m her manager.”
     “If you’re her manager, I think your client has a problem,” said Garcia. Bogie saw that Garcia was on a roll and let him carry on.
     “Your Miss Piggy hooked a Taser to this fella’s pee-pee. Not only did this cause premature ejaculation—which I suppose saved everybody a lot of valuable time—but it also triggered a premature coronary.” Garcia smacked Chito again. This time harder. “You’re gonna tell us where the suspect is.”
     Bogie thought that Chito’s confusion was genuine when he stammered, “Suspect? What do you mean?”
     Garcia drew his arm back to belt Chito again, but Bogie stopped him with a look and stubbed out his cigarette. He lit another before breaking the long moment of silence that he’d created. He spoke slowly, patiently to the boy.
     “The kano in the picture ended up assuming room temperature, Chito. In a dumpster behind a certain night spot—Club de Sex. And since that club is owned by your ‘sister,’ you can see how she might be considered a suspect.”
     Chito processed that for several moments, and took a new tack.
     “You can’t charge Olivia with murder,” he said. “You can’t tell for sure who the woman is in that picture. I made a mistake. It’s just someone wearing a mask.”
     Garcia leaned in close, ready to deliver another smack. Again, Bogie caught his eye and stopped him.
     Chito saw Bogie’s signal, and it gave him enough juice to take the offensive. “And if I’m not a suspect, you don’t even have the right to be questioning me!”
     “Since you are also part owner of the club where the body was found, it just makes us wonder,” said Bogie. To himself he thought, How similar all these interrogations have become.
     “Wonder what?” said Chito. “About who?”
     The detectives exchanged a look.
     “All right,” said Bogie, “since this mystery lady—the one with lash marks all over her back—is unknown to you, we’ll leak these pictures to one of the tabloids. Maybe some public-minded citizen will be able to identify her.”
     Chito shrank in on himself.
     Bogie gestured for Garcia to take Chito back to the holding tank. “Meanwhile, we’ll detain you for another seventy-two hours,” said Bogie. “Just in case your memory improves.”
     Garcia levered Chito out of the chair, jacking his arm high up behind his back. “Hey Chito,” Garcia whispered from behind Chito’s head, “I hear romance blossoms overnight in these tiny cells. Yeah, good-looking kid like you oughta make some close friends.”
     As Chito was frog-marched from the room, he looked back over his shoulder, his face distorted by rage and fear. “Don’t put those pictures in the paper!” he screamed at Bogie, saliva spraying.
     After they left, Bogie sorted through the photos and pocketed the most salacious for himself. He picked out two others, inspecting the background in one of them, rather than the people. The second one he held close as he examined the woman’s back with care, spotting a small mole among the weals.
     These should do.