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Charlie Gilmour, failed and disgraced police officer, failed husband and boyfriend to many women and soon to be failed rag trade manufacturer and exporter was almost in tears. He was good at this Max thought, he had you thinking that the whole world conspired against him and his personal happiness while he worked on a way to fuck you over.

"I don't know why Harry wants me to go" he whined, "I can do a lot more for him here than traipsing around the country. You can handle that better than me Max, you know I fly off the handle at the Pinoys if things go wrong, and it will, we won't spend too much time traveling with that lot without someone fucking up."

Max, who had no intentions of spending much time with a bunch of gunmen, was working on a way to get rid of them for most of the outward journey and meet up in Mindanao but also had no intentions of telling Charlie this. Harry didn't mind alterations to his plans as long as he didn't know about them before hand and the end result was still what he intended. Max never doubted that Charlie would run back to Harry with the news and was enjoying his tantrum anyway.

"Cop a look at that Charlie," he said, "You wouldn't need Viagra to keep a woman happy with a tongue like that." He was watching Harry who had approached the nightclub stage and stripped a teenage dancer to the waist and was happily licking her small breasts.

"You wouldn't think he'd be interested if you'd seen the hammering these two Russian scrubbers gave him in Pattaya last week," he said without envy.

Charlie resisted the diversion and persisted with his original topic. "Please tell Harry you don't want me along," he pleaded, "he'll listen to you, he doesn't take any notice of me any more".

"Probably because you've spent half that cash he gave you to look after," said Max with out rancor, "don't worry Charlie, it'll only take a few days and we'll be back before you know it. As long as we keep it business like and don't spend too much time in the one spot, particularly on the way back, particularly with these fucking mystery parcels, all should go well. Just keep your fucking mouth shut and let me do any talking."

He turned away from the sulking Charlie and signaled a hovering waitress for another beer and realizing he knew her from an earlier visit he mentally penciled her down as a possible bed mate as the night was coming to a close. He ordered a drink for her also and after collecting the drinks she sat next to him, glowing with pleasure at his recognition of her and forgoing the usual well worn preliminaries of introduction and intelligence gathering common to bargirls throughout Asia. She snuggled against him happily as they played "have you seen so and so lately" confident that she had a customer for the night. She knew she had no hope with Harry or Charlie who stroked their egos with the younger more beautiful girls but Max cared little for age or looks. Once he had spent weeks with a thin plain girl from the same bar even taking her to a Subic Bay resort for a weekend as if she was the best looking dancer in Angeles. When pressed for the reason for the attraction by a baffled Charlie he had shrugged and said, "my cock loves her mate, she's nearly killing me."

Charlie had shaken his head in wonder, almost contemptuous of someone who hadn't realized that sex had nothing to do with the type of girl you allowed yourself to be seen in public with. It was all about showing off, being one up on the next guy as far as he was concerned.

As they finally left the club, Harry replete with the teenage dancer, Max happy with his waitress and Charlie disdaining the rest as unsuitable Max suggested an early meet in the morning. He wanted to get on the road he said, tickets could be booked in the morning and maybe a start, at least to Manila, made in the afternoon. He would catch up with an agent for SEA, a small domestic airline that went every where, and see what was involved in getting to Mindanao. He and Charlie could go with them and the others with Philippines Airlines, a more tolerant airline to those who wished to check in fire arms on departure. The NPA also had many sympathizers, some of whom worked for airport security. Best to not appear as a group before they had picked up the goods he said, planting the seed that had occurred to him during Charlie's whinging. Harry who, unusually for him, had consumed several beers nodded agreement.

"As long as the security are in full attendance on the way back" he said, "I don't want you cunts getting lost with my stuff" and laughed to show he was only joking.
Satisfied Max walked off to a waiting trike as Charlie protested that he had his car there, "too much of a crowd" Max said, "I might want to stop for a drink on the way back to the hotel anyway."

He climbed into the trike with the girl on his lap, adjusting his seat to accommodate the erection that always started to rear it's head at the prospect of a new pussy and hearing the girl laugh as she felt it. He wondered how long sex went on for guys who stayed with the same woman all there adult lives. Did boredom set in and it become a weekly then a monthly event? Finally ending as they approached their sixties and friendship replaced passion. He thought about his Thai wife and hoped not. He would make a real effort to do the right thing when he got home, maybe just a massage and a blow job occasionally he thought unhopefully, nothing that was really classed as being unfaithful. Getting home would be the problem; particularly in one piece, so many loose ends to tie off, so many betrayed people to fix up.

Oh well, he thought, most of the guys he had grown up with thought that bowls at the RSL club on a Saturday and a beer afterwards was a big deal; with the lawn to worry about on Sunday morning and a nap with the Missus after dinner, hoping the couple of glasses of cask wine with the roast lamb would have put her in the mood for a leg over . At least he had lived he thought as the trike accelerated down Perimeter Road, racing another being cheered on by it's pair of drunken customers.

Charlie looked at the chunky Fokker sitting on the runway like a minibus with wings. "I don't know why you brought that fucking back pack" he said, " you said we'll only be gone for a couple of days you could have left it at the pub."

"You never know what you'll need on a trip," said Max, "we want to look like tourists anyway don't we?"

"Why couldn't we go Philippine Airlines?" the ex-cop whined, "at least they've got a business class, it's wasted on that lot and I could have driven us to Manila to pick it up."

"Shut up Charlie, Harry want's us to look like a couple of mugs seeing the sights and this is how it's done," Max replied, "We'll change for Cebu City at Manila then get the next flight to Zamboanga, Marylyn will pick us up and take us to the stuff, we'll be on the way back before you know it."

"Fucking Marylyn?" howled Charlie, startling several passengers already bemused at the sight of the tiny propeller driven plane, "that slut fucking hates me, no one said anything about her being involved, at least if there's any thing of value there she'll have already stolen it," he sneered.

Marylyn was a tall rangy Filipina who had kept Harry company on his Philippines visits for a few years before he moved on. Personally Max had thought he could have done a lot worse, a woman of many years experience in the bars she had genuinely liked Harry and he, not recognizing affection, had paid her well for her time and she had built a new house in her home town from the proceeds. Max doubted she would rip Harry off and would be being paid well for her input anyway. Charlie hated her after seeing her with another guy in Angeles while Harry was in Australia and after triumphantly bearing the news back had been laughed at by all concerned.

Max had always got on well with her after informing her he intended to settle down in southern Luzon with one of her friends. Amazingly she broke the bargirl code; looking him without expression but shaking her head minutely. Max had second thoughts and not long after found the object of his desire to build a nest with was keeping a husband in her home village.

The small plane took off and purred contentedly over Manila Bay. The lack of a pressurized cabin kept it under 10,000 feet and Max happily watched the small boats beneath them working the hundreds of fish farms. That was the real Asia he thought, Work, eat and breed. Hard work that killed most of them early, he had seen men unloading boats on the Mekong in Vientiane, straining under huge loads as they staggered ashore. It was slowly changing though he mused, he had seen it in his time in Asia, certainly for the better. The down side for the likes of him was no more daughters sent off to the cheap bars of Angeles and Pattaya, they would go to the schools now to learn nursing and teaching or stay home to work in the shops and new factories and good luck to them, there would be enough left to last him out and he had no sons to miss out on their bounty.

Almost as soon as it reached it's maximum height the plane dipped into Manila Airport to touch down and they disembarked to transfer to the Cebu flight.
Charlie thought Cebu City looked nice from the airport but Max knew that the nearby metropolis was a huge vice ridden slum, once a desperate woman had offered him a 'massage' for twenty pesos, fifty cents Australian, and pimps paraded flocks of girls, some as young as twelve, along the darkened streets for as little as a hundred pesos a time.

Max had spent time there with an Australian Vietnam veteran who scoffed at places like Angeles. "I can get drunk and laid here most nights for five hundred pesos...about twelve dollars," he said "why would I go to shit holes like Angeles and pay sixty for a beer and more than a thousand for some stuck up bitch that may not do what I want anyway?"

Max, who had acquired a dose of Chlamydia from a cute but slightly simple street prostitute, knew that it wasn't all roses there.

After some investigation the pair found that the options involved an early morning flight to Zamboanga or two ferries that went via Dumaghetti on Negros Island and took more than twenty four hours. Max marked the latter down as a possible return route and Charlie booked them on the morning plane.

Now fully in control he approached the hotel booking desk and after a moments perusal of their book chose the Golden Valley Inn and informed a bemused Max that with a name like that it must be a comfortable hotel on the outskirts of the city. Max, who had met his ex-serviceman friend at a bar across the road from this fine establishment and later the same night contracted Chlamydia on one of it's beds took no steps to enlighten him.

"Sounds good to me Charlie," he agreed, "I might have to have an early night though, bit shagged out after last night. Don't let me stop you having a look at the town though."

Once booked in Max decided to do as he had promised and settled into the comfortable room with the TV on and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black on the bedside table. As he started to doze a preemptory knock on the door revealed a company seeking Charlie who informed him that they appeared to be in the centre of what passed for the action part of town. Feigning amazement Max said, "You could have fooled me Charlie, I thought you said it was on the outskirts of the city, I'll come out but not if you're not gonna have a drink, I had a guts full of that with Harry and if I have to drink alone I'll do it here in front of the TV, I'm ready to crash anyway."

Full of Charlie's reassurances that a good time would be had by all they stepped out onto the humid smoky street and were immediately approached by several young men offering female company. Cheerfully declining Max lead Charlie into a nearby outdoor bar where he ordered a couple of San Miguels. Making a bold attempt to match Max's intake Charlie soon waxed voluble, telling Max he was one of the few of his mates he really trusted and he couldn't understand why people held him in so little regard personally.

"I bust my guts for my mate's, all I ask is a little respect in return," he waffled, swigging unsteadily on his fourth beer. He peered myopically at the cute young girl wearing a small back pack who had mysteriously appeared at Max's side. "Jeez, they fancy you Max," he cried, "how does an ugly bastard like you do it?".

"What the fuck's in the back pack anyway?" Max, who knew very well it was her days work clothes from the factory down the road and she hoped to wash them in some mug's hotel room bathroom while he waited hopefully on the bed winked at Charlie, "that's for you to find out mate, this girl tells me she's a specialist and carries all the necessary equipment."

He ordered another beer for a goggling Charlie and winked at the girl, nodding in his direction, making the universal sign for wealth by rubbing finger and thumb together. Instantly she changed sides, lowering her head shyly under Charlie's enthusiastic gaze as Max bought her a drink. He shook his head at the warnings of a frantically beckoning expat across the room and confident the girl still carried the germs that had caused him so much pain previously he paid the bill and apologizing to all for being so tired he left happily for his hotel.

The first light of day the next morning found Max eating an omelet while a nauseous Charlie sipped warily on an orange juice.

"How did you go mate?" he cheerfully inquired, "turned you inside out like rubber glove did she?"

Charlie shifted in his chair uncomfortably, "to be honest I don't remember too much about it," he said. "Funny taste in my mouth this morning though and it's not just the booze," as Max suddenly choked on the omelet.

"Don't worry about it mate, she's probably just a college student you had the good luck to pick up on the way home from school."

They departed for the Airport, Charlie harboring a suspicion that somehow, somewhere along the line he had been got at.

Max never tired of flying in the Philippines, everything lay beneath him, islands big and small, volcanoes dormant and active, coral reefs in turquoise seas and the spider web patterns of fish farms in the bays of the larger islands. On international flights he always requested an aisle seat, he could walk around when he wished, get drinks from the galley without bothering with the bell and talk to the other passengers as he desired. Flying over the Philippines was a pleasure that demanded a window seat though even with Charlie snoring beside him sleeping off his hangover. He wondered if the girl had picked up any other diseases in the couple of years since he had seen her, Charlie often bragged he was partial to anal sex and never used condoms, childishly refusing to do anything that reduced his selfish pleasures in any way. Not that he would wish AIDS on any one but who was he to stand between Charlie and something he didn't doubt he richly deserved.

The terrain became mountainous as they flew over the large island of Mindanao. This was the Muslim part of the country and if the Spanish had arrived a hundred years later they would have found all the islands converted to that faith. Instead they had brought the Catholic version of Christianity building magnificent churches in dirt poor towns and cities while the populace barely subsisted and sent their daughters to the brothels and bars to aid in the families survival. The Americans had added to the chaos, building enclaves like Clarke air base and Subic Bay naval base through out the islands and ignoring the rest of the country. Rich in natural resources the Philippines remained one of the poorest nations on earth.

 

© Julian. All rights reserved by the author.