LECHAIM TRIED HARD to hide his dislike of the man behind the bar that was speaking to him but it wasn't easy. “Take any girl in the place and fuck the arse off her if you want!” John Devlin declared.
Lito to one side of Lechaim was listening with amusement to the crudity of John Devlin who was obviously trying to impress Lechaim. John would have to do more than that to impress this man, Lito thought. On the other side of Lechaim Lothar loomed. One of these big men sitting there would have been enough to deter anyone but two were just downright intimidating. It wasn't good for business, John had long ago decided. It frightened off his clientele but he wasn't prepared to tell the men this. He certainly didn't want to upset the Englishman who still seemed very threatening somehow.
“Well, Lothar!” Lito said across Lechaim. “Is it a girl, a ‘San Miguel’or a fight?” Lito knew that Lothar couldn't hold his beer and he always baited the German when he saw his eyelids dropping from too much inebriation.
Lothar grunted and didn't respond. Lito couldn't be bothered to pursue the matter and spoke instead to his friend. “Doing anything for Christmas, Lechaim?”
“We'll celebrate Christmas around the pool, I expect.”
Lito envied the big man his lifestyle, the sort of lifestyle that Lito would never enjoy. The white man's way of life with all that it entailed was alien to him. Yet, Lechaim was not like other foreigners Lito had known. The colour of a man's skin and his position in life didn't seem to matter to Lechaim. What was even more impressive as far as Lito was concerned was the fact that despite his fame, Lechaim was a modest man. He had done things that few men could, yet, never once had Lito heard Lechaim trying to impress anyone with who he was or what he had done. In fact, Lechaim never talked about himself at all which astounded Lito. If he had done what Lechaim had done, the world would have known about it. Even the irascible Lothar who had run foul of Lechaim in the beginning had come around. Both Lothar and Lechaim had done some pistol shooting together four days before and Lothar had on his return proclaimed to Lito, “That Englander.. him all right!” For Lothar that was a major speech and a seal of the highest approval. Now that he thought about it some more, Lito couldn't recall anyone that didn't like Lechaim. And, as for women, they fell over themselves for him but he didn't seem interested. Well, that was his loss, Lito concluded. Personally, he loved women and couldn't get enough of them.
“What about you, my friend.” Lechaim had got into Carlos' habit of calling everyone “my friend” - it sounded warmer somehow.
“Oh, I'll spend it with my brother's family - the usual thing.”
Lechaim had a thought. “Why don't you come over on boxing day for a drink?”
“Boxing day! What's that?”
Lechaim remembered that he wasn't in England now. “Sorry! The day after Christmas Day, the twenty-sixth!” As Lechaim made the offer, he realized that he hadn't checked with the Regas whether it would be all right.
“Thanks anyway, but my brother would want me to spend Christmas with them.”
Just like him, Lito thought, to ask that is. He appreciated the gesture and it warmed him that his friend had asked.
“Just a thought!” Lechaim replied relieved that he wouldn't have to clear it with Eva. Lechaim was a brave man but Eva could cower the best of men when she wanted to. He had to get Lito and Eva together and then she would see that the rogue was harmless enough.
“Christmas!” Lothar exclaimed on Lechaim's other side. “Plenty beer und gud fook!”
“Back to sleep Lothar!” Lito said and Lothar grunted his assent.
“Do you want to come out with me to the airport tomorrow?” Lechaim asked.
“What for?”
“I'm picking up my friend's wife's sister.”
Lito considered for a moment. “When?”
“In the morning, ten-thirty!”
“Why not!”
“I'll pick you up at your brother's on the way through.”
“No, best not! I'll meet you! Say nine-thirty outside the Hilton Hotel.” Lito didn't want Lechaim to see the shabby dwelling that his brother called home. He was that proud. Not that Lechaim would have minded, he knew, but he preferred that Lechaim didn't see how his brother lived, all the same.
“Sounds good to me!” Lechaim replied.
The men lapsed into silence and sat watching John Devlin as he wiped down the bar top yet again.
From time to time girls in skimpy outfits would sidle up to the men offering their wares and Lothar finally decided that he still had enough energy left. Rising with his arms around a girl, Lothar made another major statement. “I go!”
Lechaim and Lito watched him stagger out of the club while the girl went to get dressed and join him outside.
Since his return to Manila a fortnight ago, this was the third time Lechaim had met Lito in John Devlin's club. Yet the degradation he witnessed therein still appalled him. If Lechaim had not felt the need to stay in touch with John Devlin he would not be there now. At the back of the club, girls cavorted on stage while coloured lights danced around them. Lechaim gazed in their direction and wondered how foreigners, and many rapacious lusting Filipino males for that matter, could justify such exploitation. It was, it seemed to him, a sorry indictment of the world at large.
As he watched the young women swaying on the stage, Lechaim was reminded of how exquisite most Filipino women were, with their smooth skin, lithe figures, dancing brown eyes, and friendly natures. Time to go, he thought, before the place corrupted him as well.
“I think I'll be off as well!” Lechaim declared. “Coming?”
“No, I'll hang on for a bit!”
“Okay! I'll see you at, say, nine-thirty outside the Hilton then!”
“Right!” Lito acknowledged and watched his friend walk out.
Some young girls were standing outside the open doors of John Devlin's sex parlour pleading with passers-by to come in. As Lechaim passed them by, he could hear them peddling their wares frantically. It seemed so incongruous to him that so many young girls of questionable age could sneak up on likely-looking males walking by and ask in a silky coquettish voice, “You want fuck, mister?” English was a second language to these girls from the provinces and they had little mastery over it. As he walked down the street, he questioned why it was that saying something salacious in another tongue never quite seemed as bad as saying it in one's own language. Perhaps that was the reason for their seeming innocence when they uttered such vulgarities, he rationalized. For Lechaim, it was repellent rather than alluring when he heard these young women talking like this. He was not puritanical and in no way blamed these people for the way they lived. In similar circumstances, with stark poverty staring one in the face, most people, he surmised, would probably act in a similar fashion. Are any of us really that different, he pondered as he walked along the smelly, crumbling pavement that fronted one bordello after another. If anyone was to be censured here in the Philippines, it was the ubiquitous male tourist with his money and his insatiable sexual appetite, he concluded.
Glancing around him as he walked along, Lechaim observed the beggars, pimps, and traders hawking their wares in this street of prurient pleasure. The fetid smells rising from the crumbling road, and the throng of people in this sultry oppressive place made it all seem very Eastern and somehow unreal. He contemplated, not for the first time, the paradox between this particular den of iniquity and the rest of this island paradise called the Philippines.
Strolling by the Sheraton Peninsula Hotel situated a short distance away from the club he had just left, on impulse, he decided to enter its cool interior for refreshment from the oppressive conditions. The hotel, unlike the cat houses situated nearby, was of five-star quality with its spacious thoroughfares, shops, restaurants, and spacious dining room, Finding a suitable spot within the hotel dining area, he ordered a glass of beer and settled himself at a table in one of the alcoves. He felt sleepy from the alcohol he had consumed earlier, having acquired a taste for the local San Miguel beer that was found everywhere in the Phillippines. However, that hadn't stopped him from ordering another. If he had been more alert, he would probably have noticed the women that had been following him for some time. She now made her move.
“Hi!” she said by way of an announcement as she planted herself opposite him at the table. “You're Captain Lewis, aren't you?”
He looked up from his drink to find a beautiful young white woman facing him. She seemed oddly familiar.
“Who wants to know?” he answered affably but guardedly.
She prided herself on her savoir-faire, but, for once, she felt herself unsettled by this man's eyes that seemed to be boring into her. At the same time, she was struck by the softness she found within those wondrous pools of blue. Someone had once said, she couldn't remember who, “Eyes are the mirrors of the soul”. If that were so, then this man's soul was in very good shape, she fancied.
Since Sinead’s death, Lechaim had not been stirred by another woman, until now, that is! Now, facing him was a woman that was stunning. Her self-assurance and manner exuded sophistication. Her nose was long and slender, bisected by large tawny eyes that offered much. Her soft sensual full lips parted to reveal a set of white teeth that were almost flawless and the long legs she now paraded as she sat crossed-legged beckoned. The effect she had on Lechaim, as on most men, was immediate.
“ You are Captain Lewis, aren't you?”
Cautiously, he replied, “What makes you think that?”
“Well, Captain, I must admit that you do look a little different to the last time I saw you. But then you had an army haircut and you were wearing a uniform.”
“We've met before?” he queried. “I seem to know you?”
For a moment, he thought she looked vulnerable.
She hesitated and then said, “Yes and no, Captain. I'm a freelance reporter. I was in Ireland when you made the news. You were quite the hero! Maxine Mant is my name”, she confided extending her hand. She hesitated again and then said, “I was very sorry to hear about your wife!”
For once the reminder of his wife did not cut through him. Time and circumstances were slowly but surely dispelling his grief.
“Thank you!” Lechaim replied. And then not wishing to mention Sinead further, he changed the subject.
“And what are you doing here?” Lechaim asked as he shook the slim, cool hand she had offered.
“Believe it or not, I'm on vacation” she replied and noted his skeptical look.
“Really, I'm on vacation, but now that we've met, any chance of an interview?”
He smiled in a friendly way as he said, “I'm afraid not, Miss Mant. I don't give interviews.”
“Surely captain, it wouldn't do any harm. The world has been dying to know what really did happen that night in Belfast. Besides, it would be a wonderful scoop for me” she added with a smile she knew he couldn't refuse.
“Have you eaten yet?” he asked”
“No! Not yet!”
“A bargain then. You join me for something to eat, and I'll provide you with some information but that's all” he warned.
“Fair enough, Captain, a deal” she agreed
He called a waiter over and found that orders for lunch were still being taken despite the latest of the hour. When the waiter departed, she started her seduction. “Now, captain, what have you been doing since you arrived in the Philippines?” She could tackle him later about Ireland when his defenses were down.