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The Philipino police force are probably the worse trained and most poorly paid in Asia. Max was sure others would disagree, citing the Cambodians as less well paid and the Lao as more badly trained but for a combination of factors leading to a higher degree of indifference to any police work and incompetence he stood behind the Philipinos.

A national newspaper launched a campaign one Christmas to have them issued with small tool kits and materials to make models at home that could be sold for extra money.

New year is a dangerous time in the Philippines, dozens die every year from fireworks and gunshot wounds. The police contribute to this by firing their guns in the air at midnight and what goes up must come down, usually in densely populated areas. In Angeles City one year the station commander personally taped every gun barrel as officers went on duty; signing the tape and saying that an explanation would be required if any guns were fired. The entire complement returned the next morning with the tape broken and guns empty, including the commander's deputy.

The arresting officers weren't sure what they had in Max. They had been told to watch for two large foreigners but to them most foreigners were large and the other descriptions were sketchy. A phone call to Manila revealed that the entry stamp in Max Bryant's passport was not recorded so the locked him up while awaiting further instructions. They took his belongings but left him enough money to buy food from the vendors who came through the cell block and hire a bed and blanket.

Max wasn't surprised to find that all sorts of small luxuries were available if you could pay for them; he had known an Angeles City bar owner who had spent a month in Luzon's foreigners only prison after refusing to pay bribes to the local police force. Set up with an under age bargirl, he had gone into jail with his driver/bodyguard and his girlfriend and sat it out until the charges were dropped; paying for a cell, beds, furniture and food and drink during his incarceration. People with no money slept on the floor of a large communal cell or in the dirt of the prison yard if it was full.

Max couldn't see himself waiting it out in comfort. there was a nagging fear that Marylyn would disappear with the bags and the dope. He had a couple of hundred US dollars on him, the remainder was stashed in his room, and it wouldn't last long, The vendors were unused to foreigners but still upped their prices hopefully and he could only hope that the police would put him in the too hard basket and let him go.

After a week several large gentlemen arrived and knocked him about the cell for an hour then tearing his shirt off as one produced a length of bamboo
and thrashed him with it.
Where had he come from?
Where was he staying?
Where were his bags?
Where was the other foreigner?

Not the most courageous of men Max knew that the consequences of revealing all would be far worse then allowing the punishment to continue. He suspected that the new arrivals weren't associated with any sort of federal security force; the beating was too amateurish. Smirking thugs who allowed him to roll against the wall, protecting his genitals, as they thrashed him with the bamboo cane and laughed.

They only came back once more, a few days later, working him over in the knowledge that it hurt more on the new bruises. He remained silent again but knew that they were only going through the motions. Thank God it wasn't Thailand where the police and prison guards would have tortured him all day just for the fun of it.

By his calculations it was two weeks before he was taken to the Governor's office and released into Rex's custody.

"That's five grand you owe me Max" said the short nuggety man. "You get yourself in this shit and then expect your mates to come around and pull you out of it".
Max could tell the small man was very pleased with himself, he liked Max and enjoyed helping him out.

"That fucking Marylyn's as tight as a clam, not a word about where the stuff is or where poor old Harry's bags are, you must be hung like a fucking donkey to get that sort of loyalty out of a woman."

Rex was firing on all four cylinders and as happy as Max had seen him for a long time. He handed over Max's watch, a Longines Max liked a lot, having bought it on impulse the day his divorce came through.

"Why don't you get your self a Rolex like Harry and Charlie" he laughed, "then you'll look the part too."

Max suspected Charlie's Rolex was in Marylyn's handbag but decided not to take that any further.

"So how did you get here, I heard a rumour you were locked up in South America" he said, changing the subject.

Rex laughed as he lead Max to the waiting car and driver, "Some cunt tried to set me up in a coke deal over there, just a fucking amateur, I was only there to see the sights, and next thing they're whistling up the coppers" Max could believe this, Rex lived for the tourist bit, scorning the world's girlie bars and ignoring the overseas criminal opportunities laid in his path to look at castles and pyramids. He always said he made his money in Australia and spent it overseas.

He winced as he got into the car, the freshly healed skin breaking and the blood showing through his tee-shirt. Rex was unsympathetic, "We got worse than that when I was in the boy's homes, they used to give us credits for what we did wrong during the week, then we got so many strokes of the stick on Saturday morning. For a lot of the weak pricks the waiting was the worst, they'd break down and cry and beg when they were taken up for the beating."

He looked at Max, "I never did and I bet you didn't either, you fucking pisspot."
Max saw the friendship and sympathy in the man's eyes and said what was expected, "If you've finished fucking wanking on can we go somewhere for a drink?"

Chuckling Rex waved the driver on, "There's a sheila waiting to see you first then you can get cleaned up. The emails caught me in Hawaii and I changed planes and headed here, you're lucky that I never had the New Zealand flight back to Australia."
He became thoughtful. "Harry's having a blue fit, I've never seen him like this. Where's fucking Charlie? He should have been back in that shithole Angeles by now."

The silence held so long broke and Max told Rex where Charlie was.

Rex shook his head and whistled appreciatively.
"You were fucking lucky Max, I'd have blown you a way with out the conversation. That's a real amateur's mistake, standing around chatting while the guys scheming up a way of getting out of being shot. If you're ever holding the gun mate let him have it. You've got the advantage, why throw it away by giving the mug a chance?"

He looked at Max's face.

"Hey, I was in a few bad fights in the old days" he said, "but I never pulled the trigger on an unarmed man. It was mainly knives and iron bars with the gangs, then the bikies had guns so everybody got them."

"Don't worry about Charlie, he was a piece of shit anyway. He only got what he's had coming for years. Let's have a look at the knife mate."

Max handed it over, marveling that the police hadn't stolen it, but then for five grand he supposed the police chief would have made sure that everything was returned. At least they hadn't connected him to the rebels, or the bigwigs from Manila would have been involved and a million bucks wouldn't have bought him out. The Yank anti-terrorist people would have watched the situation closely and God help anyone who allowed a suspect to walk away.

Rex snapped the knife open a couple of times, shaking his head in admiration at the high quality workmanship. He noted the blade sharpened on both sides and it's needle sharp point and handed it back to Max.

"Nice shiv he said, I know blokes would give you five hundred bucks for that in Australia."

They got back to the hotel where an ecstatic Marylyn waited with antiseptic and sticking plaster, the damage was minimal with a bit of broken skin on his back with a lot of bruising and a cut over his left eye that should have had a couple of stitches but it was too late now. Rex diplomatically remembered the need to buy toothpaste and departed towards the market promising to return in an hour. Max doubted he would need any more although a night watchman at the jail had brought him an almost black skinned girl of indeterminate age a few days prior in return for twenty dollars then watched the performance through the door. The woman had seemed stimulated by the voyeurism and had clung to Max, shuddering and heaving as he vented the built up frustration and pain on her body. Later Max had offered the turnkey a turn at the woman but the man had turned his head away with a strange look on his face and Max noticed that his skin colour was practically identical to the girls and the shape of the eyes and nose very similar. Nothing like keeping the business in the family he thought.
The lovemaking with Marylyn was special even for them, not only did she use a surprising gentleness but it was if they both realised that their relationship was drawing to a close. He had come twice with very little effort on his part when Rex knocked on the door as he dozed in the Filipina girls arms.

"Come on, off the nest root rat" Rex informed him through the door along with the rest of the hotel.

"We've got to get organized, I'm not staying in this shit hole one second longer than necessary and if we hang around the coppers might start getting ideas about a regular source of income."

The ferries that run between the Philippine Islands vary in size and quality. They range from large ships with four or five decks, complete with bars and restaurants, down to small craft carrying less twenty people. There are many incidents of them sinking with considerable loss of life which is usually put down to poorly built and maintained craft. In fact the best designed ships would have difficulty coping with the freak waves that are caused by the Pacific swells, often typhoon driven that are built up as they come out of the deepest water on the planet into the shallow channels between the islands.
When there is a storm warning out passengers are banned from the upper decks of the larger vessels in an attempt to keep the centre of balance lower in an effort to prevent the rollovers that account for nearly all of the tragedies.

Max quite liked them, he found that people traveling by sea were friendlier than they would be on land, perhaps the adventure of a voyage and the shared assumed danger made them more open. He left Rex and Marylyn in the lower deck which contained many rows of bunks in tiers and went up the stairs to the bar which offered views of the passing coastline.

They had driven the car on as the sky began to darken, finding that the last ferry that day was bound for Dumaghetti, the southern most city on the large island of Negros. Max knew Dumaghetti well and had visited it on several occasions. An open, clean city it was the home of Silliman University where thousands of young woman studied various disciplines. In the evening most of them met their friends on the broad esplanade and sat in the outdoor restaurants or walked hand in hand in the manner of good friends in Asia.

Max considered this superb eye candy and had wiled away many a happy hour with an Australian Vietnam veteran who lived there. The guy swore that many of the girls supplemented their income with part time prostitution, a theory dear to expats in most Asian university cities, but Max had never tested this. Dumaghetti was a place where he had brought girls from Angeles City to relax for a few days; the small expat community had several good bars and restaurants and the lifestyle was very laid back. He had considered living there once; the ex-serviceman had showed him several beach front houses on the outskirts of the city with ridiculously low rentals but he had eventually settled in Thailand for what had seemed like good reasons at the time.

Even though the ferry docked just after midnight they had decided to stay on board and disembark at daylight along with most of the other passengers. Rex agreed with Max that the heat would be off them, the authorities would have assumed that what ever they had come to pick up, and neither doubted that the captured guerrilla had told them all he knew, was weapons or explosives that were bound for the areas of the country in conflict.

Max also realised that Marylyn was in ‘go home mode', she considered that her part of the job was done and her holiday was over. The death of her brother had made her realise that it was time to go home. She didn't want any part of a future with Max, dearly as she loved him, she knew she would be better off with Harry. He was much more predictable than Max and after what he had whispered in her ear that first night she saw that there could be a future for them.

She thought about the plan and could see no fault in it and suspected that only a man could think of it. It was a combination of loyalty, friendship, revenge and one-upmanship.

 

© Julian. All rights reserved by the author.