Chapter 3

Manila...

Shit...

Still in Manila.

There was no doubt that he'd been here, but there was the very same absence of doubt that he was now gone.

I been pounding the broken, dirty concrete for three days and all I'd come up with was half a dozen clubs missing girls and no idea where he'd taken them.

Sometimes I wish these bastards would do their collecting in more pleasant parts of the world.

But, while I am pretty good at making my wishes come to fruition, I couldn't change the fact that heavily populated urban areas were ideal for anyone wanting to make a handful of pretty young prostitutes or strippers disappear without causing too much of a ruckus.

Since metropolitan slums were the best places for them to hunt their prey, that was where I hunted them.

There were plenty of places in the Philippines that were clean, fresh and beautiful.

Manila just wasn't one of them.

Manila was simply depressing.

The trike weaved in and out of the heavy traffic.

From about seven in the morning to ten or eleven at night the Manila roadways were heavily congested.

A intricate ballet of vehicular pushing and shoving as drivers vied for position and progress.

Horns bleated – not out of frustration, but just to let others know they were there.

Other drivers responded in kind.

During these times, trikes are the only way to travel, next to motorcycles of course – those found it fairly easy to slide between cars and made excellent time.

I am a seasoned motorcycle rider and have driven in many different countries – but not in Manila.

Driving in Manila was one challenge I was unwilling to take and trikes made pretty good time, all things considered.

It was faster than walking, at any rate.

I spotted the bar ahead and told the trike driver to pull over.

I climbed out of the nicely appointed side car and dug some pesos out of my pocket.

He'd asked for forty pesos to bring me here.

It was more than the going rate, but that was to be expected – he was trying to feed, cloth and shelter his family and foreigners could simply afford to pay more.

Instead of the Philippine currency equivalent of a dollar, I handed him a hundred peso bill and waved another one.

"Babalik ako, sundali lang." I said, indicating he would get the other hundred if he waited for me.

Turning to enter the bar, I figured odds were even whether or not he would still be there when I came out.

That additional hundred would be as much as five or six regular fares and he would weigh the chances that I would actually pay up with the lost income he would incur waiting.

I could have ensured his loyalty by using my talent and not the promise of financial gain.

But I don't like doing business that way.

I'd rather leave it up to them.

He would likely park down at the corner Sari-Sari store and kill an hour smoking cigarettes, drinking a soda-pop and shooting the shit with the other trike drivers while watching the door.

Experience had told me that if I took much longer than an hour or two he probably wouldn't be there when I came out.

I didn't intened to be that long and if he waited he would make a lot of money, by his standards.

I had several stops to make and would give him the same amount at each stop.

I left the grimy, rusted corrugated steel; soot stained, pocked marked brick; crumbling concrete and stinking, stagnant puddles of the street and entered a spottlessly clean establishment.

The Filipino people were like a lot of third world inhabitants in that regard.

Indoors and outdoors were often different worlds – at least for those lucky enough to have an indoors.

I always assumed it was a habit formed to defend against the disease and depression spread by living in a dingy and squalid environment.

I looked for the owner.

He would be here.

He's always here when the joint is open – he doesn't trust his employees not to skim the till.

It's what he would do.

I spotted him standing next what looked like a teen-aged boy wearing a crisp uniform, dark pants and a white shirt festooned with patches and a badge.

He was carrying an old, beat up shotgun slung with a rope.

I wondered if the gun would fire without falling apart.

I knew I wasn't going to give him any reason to find out.

One consequence of abject poverty and little to no government assistance was a thriving security guard industry – which employed many young men who would otherwise be adding to the crime rate rather than deterring it.

Don't get the wrong impression.

There were still plenty of young men left for the nefarious side of things.

I made my way through the crowd of revelers and past the sexy go-go dancers in various stages of undress, greeting him as I approached.

"Manuelo, kamusta ka?" (How are you) His eyes flickered with recognition.

A flicker that would not have been there had I not offered that greeting.

If I had wanted to go unnoticed, I simply would not have said anything to him.

"Hunter." he said with some trepidation.

He knew what was coming.

Fuck him, he would be well paid.

"Mabuti.

What can I do for you, my friend?" His English was better than most, but he still had a thick accent and the look on his face said that 'my friend' was merely a phrase he was used to using.

"You've misplaced one of your girls, di ba?" I didn't know for certain that the asshole I was looking for had taken one of Manny's girls, but it was a good bet.

He offered a signing bonus better then most so he could be more selective in who he hired.

As a result, his girls were among the prettiest in the Manila skin trade.

Anyone pilfering professional pussy in this neck of the world's woods would more than likely get one from Manny's place.

His widening eyes told me I had been right.

"Sus! How are you knowing that?" "Let's go talk in your office.

Sige na." He headed for his office like a kid on his way to the woodshed.

"Can you just showing me a picture this time? I am being careful to note every face that come in here." "Sorry, you know that's not how it works." It wasn't his veracity that was in question.

It was his memory.

Manny wasn't out on the floor all night long to keep an eye on his patrons, he had bouncers and security guards for that.

He was watching his employees to make sure no one was holding back tips or failing to ring up drink orders.

He might have noticed my guy come in, and he might even recognize a picture of the guy, but he wouldn't remember where he sat and who he talked to.

Even if he didn't recall it, the images were in his mind and I could find them.

It just wasn't much fun for him.

"Are you ready?" "O'po." (Yes, sir) "Get it over with." I pushed him tightly into the back of his chair and grabbed his chin to ensure he would not look away.

I could read surface thoughts, tinker with his beliefs or push a command without the eye contact, but to thoroughly rifle through what he has seen or heard in the last week or so it was just easier to go in this way.

I sensed his nausea as the disorientation and sense of vertigo this caused took hold.

I forced down his impending eruption.

I was way too close to let that happen.

There were any number of things I could have done to lessen, or even eliminate, this discomfort, but like I said earlier, he was going to be well compensated.

So, fuck him, he wasn't a whole lot better than the animal I was hunting.

Main difference being, Manny didn't kill his girls ... physically anyway.

I skimmed his mind like a speed reader skims a novel.

It was a fast and efficient way to review a lot of information – but then, there was a whole lot of information and it was about half an hour before I had covered everything.

As he returned to his senses, he noted the unhappy look on my face and winced – he knew what I'd found.

Probably why he'd tried to avoid the read.

Fuck him.

He'd been warned.

"I thought we'd agreed you were only going to fuck the girls after you hired them, Manny." "I was going to hire her ... tapos...

I found out she was too young." "Bullshit.

You knew she was thirteen when you interviewed her." "No, no...

I ... she didn't..." he saw I had no sympathy in my eyes.

"But ... sobra maganda!" (she was so beautiful) "No excuse.

You've got twenty or thirty of the most beautiful women to ever wander into Manila working for you.

Fuck one of them if you're horny." Manny's beautiful women...

I hadn't intended to ask, but my mouth blurted it out without waiting for permission from my brain.

"Elenita around?" "O-o." (yes) "She is out doing a short-time right now but she will be back soon.

I will let you have her tonight for free if you can forget my ... little transgression." "I pay my way." He'd just take it out on her.

I tossed an envelope containing the five thousand peso reward for enduring my abuses and snagged a piece of scrap paper off his desk, writing down my hotel and room number.

I handed it to him along with an additional fifteen hundred pesos.

Again, a bit more than the usual but I was on an expense account and in my line of work, fucking is a legitimate expense.

"Make sure she's there by midnight." "O'po." "Now, Manny, about your little transgression." I forced him to sit perfectly upright in his chair, his hands flat on his desk.

"You will find you cannot move from this position for one hour." His eyes grew wide as he saw several large, black and yellow banana spiders crawl over the front of his desk and head for his hands.

"No screaming." I commanded and his mouth snapped shut as he was inhaling a lungful of air.

He was whimpering as I left.

His fear of spiders was near absolute and causing a vivid, lingering hallucination was easy.

Now, while he still felt like he was going to puke, he was about to shit his pants as well.

I wondered which end would win.

About the time the spiders would fade away, so would his memories of me and my abilites – until the next time I wanted him to know me.

Maybe the slimy shit would follow my rules a little better if he could remember why they were so important ... you know ... other than those occasional spider infestations that were mysteriously linked to him breaking one of those rules.

I could simply make him behave, but then I'd never find out if he could be trained – and I wouldn't get to see that wonderful look in his eyes as the spiders came over the front of the desk.

I wandered through the club, scanning the faces of the girls writhing about on the various platforms and strolling among the customers, mostly foreigners getting wasted on strong Red Horse beer chilling in buckets of ice.

I'll give Manny this, he sure knew how to pick 'em.

There wasn't one of the girls who wasn't a wet dream's wet dream.

Full round tits of various volumes bounced and jiggled, wispy thin waists twisted and gyrated and smooth round buttocks bumped and ground to the music.

Seductive almond eyes watched customers with a wise worldliness from under sleek, shiny black hair.

The girls were always on the look out for a mark that seemed to have a lot of money to throw around.

Money was obviously why they were here, but it wasn't for themselves, at least, not initially.

A lot of these girls were supporting their entire clan.

Of course, most of their families deluded themselves as to where the money the girls sent home every week was coming from.

Many of the girls came from the smaller towns in remote provinces looking for work as nannies, maids or store clerks.

Despite Manila being one of the most densely populated cities in the world with huge mega-malls, those jobs were hard to find as nepotism was a firmly entrenched hiring practice and unless you had a relative who owned or managed a business, or knew someone who did, finding that sort of job was nearly impossible.

Some got lucky, most didn't, but they told their families they were indeed working as a maid for some rich guy and sold their bodies to whoever was willing to pay, just to make sure their younger siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews would be adequately fed and could afford to go to school thereby giving them a chance at a normal, non-pornographic life.

That is, until the girls – usually raised in staunchly Catholic environments – were worn down by the debauchery and held back a little money so they could find some temporary escape through one drug or another.

Eventually they would be holding back most of it to feed their habit rather than using it to feed their relatives back home.

The extended family would then send out the next eldest girl to look for work in the big city, telling her and all who would listen that she would be working in a store, office or fine home, but knowing, deep inside, what she would really end up doing.

That young girl Manny had fucked but didn't hire had likely found work displaying herself for internet chat rooms or in one of the bars that didn't pay such close attention to age limits or, for that matter, common decency.

There were some that catered to those looking for companionship that had only recently entered puberty.

Wasn't my problem.

Wasn't why I was here.

These girls weren't being mind fucked – merely having their desperation taken advantage of.