The Pull of Gravity

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Because of my lunch with Larry, I ended up getting to The Lounge sooner than I was expected. For a weekday afternoon, the bar was crowded, almost two dozen guys enjoying the show and a beer. I assumed Tommy must have sent out the call for reinforcement, because I noticed several girls from the night shift had come in early.

Tommy, never one to take his job as part-time papasan too seriously, was enjoying the special attention of one of the dancers, a girl named Charlene, and hadn’t noticed me come in. As I walked up, Charlene had just finished unbuttoning his shirt to his waist and was running her hands over his bare, hairy, flabby chest. He had a big grin on his face, and was urging her on with his eyes.

“Get you something to drink?” I asked him.

If I hadn’t been looking at him when he turned to me, I wouldn’t have noticed the flash of fear and surprise in his eyes. A fraction of a second later, it was gone.

“Hey, Doc,” he said.

“Comfortable?”

“Couldn’t be more so.”

Charlene’s hand moved down over his ample stomach toward his pants, then slipped under his waistband.

“I’ll take that drink now,” he said.

I laughed and signaled the waitress to bring Tommy a beer. The occasional fooling around on the job was not unusual. Papasans weren’t paid that much, so if a girl was willing to flirt with them, I long ago decided it wasn’t any of my business.

“I need to do a little work in back,” I said. “Come get me if you need me.”

I don’t know what Tommy was thinking. I guess he wasn’t. There had been a moment, right after I first arrived, when he could have taken action. The impulse had been there, it was what I’d seen in his eyes. But I suppose once Charlene’s hands started wandering around near his dick, his neural pathways had clogged up and his mind had gone blank.

In the end, he did get his act together. Only by then it was too late. I was already sitting at the desk in the office staring down at the remnants of two lines of white powder on the desk blotter. As if that wasn’t enough, there was the small plastic bag sitting nearby containing more of the stuff.

I didn’t even have to taste it to know it was cocaine. In my early Navy days I had tried it once. You never forget.

“What the hell?” Tommy said. He was standing in the doorway, his shirt not completely buttoned. “Is that what I think it is?”

I looked at him, my face blank. “You tell me.”

“That’s not mine, if that’s what you’re thinking. Probably one of the girls’,” he said. “I’ll bring them back here a couple at a time and we’ll find out.”

He started to leave, but I stopped him with a forceful “Wait.” Once he was looking at me, I said, “Come in and shut the door.”

I don’t know why he didn’t just run. That’s probably what he was planning to do when he said he was going to round up the girls. But instead, he did as I told him, then took the seat across from me.

“You have a better plan?” he asked. There was still a hope that I hadn’t guessed the truth in his voice.

“Yeah.” I stared at him silently for several seconds. “This is what’s going to happen,” I said, keeping my voice level and unemotional. “You’re going to give me your key to The Lounge, then you are going to get up and walk out. You’re not going to talk to anyone. You’re not going to even look at anyone. And, most importantly, you’re never going to come back here. Understand?”

“But it’s not my-”

“Bullshit! Don’t even fuck with me, Tommy. It’s yours and we both know it. I told you the rules when I took over as bar manager. Rule number one: no drugs.” I waited a moment to see if he would continue to protest, but he said nothing. “Give me your key.”

He hesitated a moment, then pulled a set of keys from his pocket, removed one and handed it to me. There was a moment of awkward silence, then he stood up.

“I’m sorry, Jay. You’re right. I fucked up.” He paused, then said, “But I’m not the only one fucking up around here.”

He started to put his hand out so we could shake, thought better of it, and left. I followed him out, making sure he didn’t talk to anyone on his way to the front door.

As soon as he was gone, a few of the girls came over to ask if something was up. I told them everything was fine. They seemed dubious, but once they returned to the fold there were no obvious signs of problems.

Over the next few days, I began to wonder if I had done the right thing. Maybe it had been an isolated event, and I’d been too harsh on him. It was the life, after all. Things happened, people made mistakes. In our fantasy existence, mistakes were often overlooked, and bad habits encouraged.

Then I found out it had been more than just the drugs. Tommy had been skimming from the receipts. I couldn’t tell how much was missing, and I would never be able to prove it, but there was no mistaking that money was missing. I knew I should have noticed it earlier, but I hadn’t. It made me wonder what else I had overlooked.

Tommy was right-he wasn’t the only one fucking up around there.

Larry and Isabel spent Christmas in Manila. He had reserved a room in the one of the best hotels in town, the Makati Shangri-La Hotel. They never left the building the entire time they were there.

Isabel said it reminded her in many ways of that first trip to Boracay. They were like two people in love for the first time. They ate breakfast in bed, went for a swim every day, and made love every afternoon before the sun went down. Dinner was in the Shang Palace, a four-star restaurant on the second level. Then it was back to the room where they’d watch a movie on TV, hold each other, make love again and eventually fall asleep in each other’s arms. There was no Angeles, no go-go bars, no obnoxious customers.

“And no Mariella,” I said.

Isabel was silent for a moment. It was late, well after midnight. We were sitting by the pool at my hotel. No one else was around, just two old friends remembering other times. In some ways, better times, in other ways, not.

“Right,” she said eventually. “No Mariella.”

“Why did you stay with her?” I asked.

“It was better than going back to where I was living before,” she said, though without much enthusiasm.

Physically, it might have been better, I thought. Mentally, I wasn’t so sure.

“Why didn’t you leave Angeles after Cathy left you?” she asked

I looked away, toward the ocean. “I don’t know.”

“Same for me,” she said.

When I looked back at her, she was holding her empty wine glass in both hands, staring at it absently, a waning smile on her face.

“Would you like some more?” I asked.

“What?” She looked up, realized what she’d been doing and put the glass down. “No. No more.”

“Do you want to go to bed?” I asked.

“Do you?”

“No.”

We sat quietly for several minutes listening to the ocean, lost in our thoughts. At some point she reached over and put her hand over mine.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” she said.

I looked over, brow furrowed. “Who?”

“Cathy. She got out,” she said, then more distantly added, “She was lucky.”

I almost laughed in surprise. Though she was right-I was thinking about Cathy-my thoughts were no longer of what could have been, but merely of one friend worrying about another, and hoping she was happy.

“What were you thinking about?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. There was a pause, then, “Nothing at all.”

The silence returned, this time stretching out for almost five minutes. But we were getting closer to the end, closer to the things I’d come to find out. So finally I said, “Tell me about when you came back to Angeles.”

A single tear welled in the corner of her eye, but somehow she refused to let it fall.

“We came back two days after Christmas. I wanted to stay in Manila longer. I don’t know why, but Larry wanted to return to Angeles…”

They returned to the Las Palmas Hotel, and though they both would have liked to stay in Manila longer, I knew that Larry was watching his expenses. His business back home was growing, but he told me that cash flow was tight. Staying at the Las Palmas Hotel was a hell of a lot cheaper than staying at the Makati Shangri-La. In another six months, he had said, he’d be doing really well. And in another year, he figured he could afford a full month at the Shangri-La without even worrying about it.

I don’t know why he never told Isabel this. Pride, I guess, but she wouldn’t have cared. In fact, she probably would have been happy to help him save every penny.

It wasn’t long after their return that Mariella showed up again, this time “accidentally” running into them while they were having breakfast at The Pit Stop the morning after they got back.

“Hi,” she said, drawing the word out so it sounded like she was almost singing it. “Larry, so good to see you.”

She leaned down and gave Larry a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I wondered what happened to Isabel until someone told me you were back in town,” she said. “What a surprise.” She smiled at Isabel. “What a nice Christmas present for you, di ba?”

“Yes,” Isabel said, her own smile slightly strained.

“Where are you staying? The Las Palmas again?” Mariella asked.

“Yes,” Larry said.

“That’s great, that’s great.”

“We’re just about to have breakfast. Would you like to join us?” Larry asked.

Isabel cringed inwardly.

“Oh, I wish I could,” Mariella said, “but I am meeting some friends. We’re going to the mall in San Fernando. Have you been?”

“Once,” Larry said.

“Would you like to come with us?”

Larry smiled. “I think we’re just going to take it easy today.”

“No problem, no problem. You have a fun day, okay?” She leaned in and kissed the air a few inches above her cousin’s cheek. “Next time tell me when you’re going away. You had me scared.”

“I will.”

“Okay. I have to go,” Mariella said. “I’ll see you later.” When she was only a few feet away, she looked back. “It’s really good to see you again, Larry.”

Two nights later, Larry stopped by The Lounge alone.

“I was wondering when we could have that boys’ night out,” he said as we sat at the bar.

“Kind of tough for me to get away right now,” I said. “I’m down a papasan, so Doug and I are working every day.”

When he asked what happened, I looked around to make sure no one else was nearby, then told him the Tommy story.

After I finished, he said, “That sucks,” then took a sip of his beer.

“You don’t seem surprised,” I said.

“Were you?”

“Of course I was,” I said.

He nodded. He took another drink of his beer, then set it down on the counter and turned on his barstool so he was facing the dance stage. “Have you looked at this place lately?”

“I look at it every day.”

“On my last trip, The Lounge was the place to be. Every night was like a party. All the girls were having fun, they all felt cared for and watched over. By you. That was about the same time you bought a share of this place, right?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Cathy left you not long after that, didn’t she?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

He chuckled as if I’d said something funny. “I know you’ve been thrown into the shit, but you’ve got to pull yourself out.”

“Maybe you need to mind your own business a little more,” I told him.

“Maybe,” he replied.

One of the dancers walked by and tried to catch Larry’s eye, going so far as to run her hand across Larry’s knee as she passed. He gave her a quick smile, but shook his head so she walked on.

“That wouldn’t have happened before,” Larry said.

“What?” I asked.

“Everyone here knows I’m Isabel’s boyfriend. In the past, that meant none of the girls tried to make a move on me. But the atmosphere’s changed. It’s like no one cares about anyone else here anymore. Every girl for herself.”

“That’s crap,” I said.

“No,” he said, “it’s not.” He looked me in the eyes. “You used to have control of this place. I used to watch you work. You were gentle, but firm. Now? It’s like you just don’t care. If I can see it, you know the girls can see it. They take their cues from you so now they don’t care, either.”

I pushed up off my stool, my eyes narrowing with anger. “You come here two or three times a year,” I said, keeping my voice low so no one else could hear what I was saying. “You barely spend any time in my bar at all, and yet you’re telling me I’ve lost control of my business? Who the hell are you to do that?”

“A friend,” he said calmly.

“Well, fuck you, friend.”