Slash and Burn

2

Nino Sebastian had done very nicely for himself out of his stint with Air America. He’d lived frugally, made a little extra here and there by selling things that weren’t exactly his to sell, and unlike the Romeos at the Udon base, he didn’t pump his salary into the bars and massage parlours. When it was all over he’d come back to Manila, built a house and a service station, and married a girl who’d never have looked at him twice without the forty thousand dollars in his pocket. His mother and father pumped gas, his sister looked after the canteen, and he and his brother Oscar ran the garage. It was all sweet. Life. Love. Grease. There wasn’t the excitement but that wasn’t a bad thing. Excitement just meant there was a chance you’d get your testicles blown off. He could do without that kind of excitement. Here he had boxing and jai alai to get his pulse racing.

There was a match tonight. Jets vs. Redemption. He had money on the reds. He’d take the truck over there. Pick up his cousin Poco on the way. It was a sticky night. He’d already taken a shower and put on his lucky turquoise shirt but he was sweating so bad he was thinking of taking another. He looked out the kitchen window and was pissed off to see the light on in the garage. Oscar was away in Samal so he guessed some customer had come in hoping for a rush job, had the nerve to turn on the light. Some people had more balls than manners. But no matter how much the guy offered, he wasn’t going to get service on pelota night.

When Nino walked in the back door of the service area, a darkskinned man was standing looking under the hood at the 1961 Cadillac engine Nino and Oscar had been sweating over for a month.

“Sorry, guy,” Nino said. “Nobody working tonight.”

“That’s OK,” said the man. “I was just passing through, wondering if you might have a job opening.”

Nino looked the stranger up and down. He wasn’t dressed like the type of man who enjoyed getting grime under his fingernails. He was too … finicky looking. He had a comb stuck in his hair at the back like he’d been grooming that morning and forgotten it was there. Some of the kids today thought that was a statement. Nino thought it was stupid. And, of all things, in spite of the heat, the guy was wearing a jacket and showed no sign of sweating.

“We do all our own repairs here, pal. Me and my brother. We only take on work the two of us can handle. Sorry.”

The stranger shrugged.

“No problem. Thought I’d ask anyway.” He took one more look at the engine. “Excuse me saying so, but you do realize you’ve screwed up the carburetor assembly?”

“What are you talking about?” Nino had never screwed up anything to do with an engine.

“Here,” said the guy. “You’ve put the throttle lever in upside down.”

Nino hurried over to the car and looked under the hood.

“Are you crazy?” he said. “That is a perf-”

He barely felt the pin prick of the needle in his neck and, in a breath, it was all over for Nino Sebastian.