Coconuts and Crooks Read online

  The cool thing about all of the legroom was that we had an abundance of creature comforts right at our feet for the flight.

  Mom had brought her own headphones to listen to the inflight radio and had also packed a copious amount of those packets of crackers with processed cheese in between them.

  It surprised me that the flight had Wi-Fi. I found myself checking my Facebook, wishing that DC had changed his mind. I responded to a few comments on our Facebook group and liked a few comments on my personal page from friends wishing me safe travels. Mom, Wenling, and I took a selfie, and we all posted that online as well.

  Mom made Wenling an admin on our group page so that we could all split duties tending to the page. There were lots of recipe questions that Wenling could answer better than I could.

  Dar-Dar was handling any mail-order cake requests while we were gone. He managed the coffeehouse on Main Street right down the street from the Lucky Dragon restaurant so he could use their commercial oven whenever he needed. Jennifer was excited about getting to run the restaurant by herself. I checked on the website with my laptop to make sure that everything was up to date.

  We’d still earn money with the mail-order portion of the catering business while we were gone. The business had grown and the website was a big part of it. I was proud that I was able to handle that and the bookkeeping. And thanks to the royalties I earned for the song, Mom and I, for the first time in years, didn’t have to worry about money. Well, as long as the trip didn’t last more than four months. After that, things could get dicey.

  But it couldn’t take longer than four months, could it? I’d promised Mom I’d stay to the end, but I was determined to make sure everything at home and on this trip ran as smooth as possible. Yes, we’d do a little sightseeing here and there, but I’d make sure that we stayed on track to solve this case.

  I closed my laptop and slid it into my soft carry-on under the seat at the same time Wenling had decided to break out her iPad.

  Wenling’s daughter had loaded up both her Kindle and her iPad with enough movies to last the entire flight. Wenling had taken a liking to the actor Russell Crowe, after seeing an ad for the Les Miserables movie that she never went to see. Both Mom and Wenling had the same philosophy on movies: they were too expensive and took too long to watch. But apparently, Jennifer had bought her an iPad last Christmas and a Kindle Fire for her birthday. Wenling had never used them before, but upon finding out how much money they cost, she consented to have Jennifer “load them up” with movies for the plane.

  Remembering the hot new star Russell Crowe, Wenling opted for all of his movies. Although, from what I could tell, she didn’t seem to discern the difference between Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson. I assumed it was because they were both Australian, but I couldn’t be sure.

  So for her Russell Crowe marathon Wenling had picked out Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, that movie with him and Meg Ryan that I can never remember the title to, and Braveheart with Mel Gibson. She started with Gladiator and never got around to the others. She watched Gladiator, paused for her meal, took a nap, and then watched more Gladiator, rewinding it back to her favorite parts. Wenling decided that the movie encapsulated everything that we needed for our trip.

  “Can I have your pudding?” Wenling asked.

  “No,” Mom said. “I’m saving it.”

  “You can save it, but it will go bad,” she said.

  “It’s sealed, and it’s cold enough here. It’ll be fine,” Mom said.

  “Then can I just borrow it for my picture?” Wenling asked. She’d eaten her pudding first and wanted to take a picture of her food, noticing that other people seemed to do that sort of thing on the internet. Mom looked over at Wenling’s tray and agreed that the picture wouldn’t look right without the pudding and agreed to lend it.

  Wenling snapped the photo. “I’m going to post it to our page. We have a bunch of new members in the group, and we haven’t shared anything in five hours.” Mom and Wenling had really gotten into social media in the last few months. They shared all kinds of random things, but nobody seemed to mind.

  “Give me back my pudding,” Mom said.

  “I will,” Wenling said, still focused on loading her photo. “This picture didn’t turn out right.”

  “I know you, you think I’ll forget,” Mom said, angrily pointing at her friend with her fork.

  Wenling looked over and then quickly snapped a picture of Mom. “Hey!” Mom said.

  “Here’s your pudding,” Wenling said, smiling. “This picture is better.”

  “You did that on purpose,” Mom said.

  Wenling shook her head no and then showed the picture to Mom, careful not to let her come within reaching distance of the iPad so Mom couldn’t delete it.

  Mom laughed. I looked at it and laughed too. Mom looked like she was going to do some serious damage with her plastic fork. There was something about the stern look on her face and the small, white plastic utensil that just made it funny.

  “It’s too good not to share,” Wenling said. “Your skin and hair look good, and the jeans around your neck are kind of flattering.”

  Mom and I looked closer at the picture. Wenling had a point. Sensing we both were being won over, Wenling added, “You look ten years younger in this photo. I can even do the thing where we put words on it so it will be funny.”

  “You know how to make a meme?” I asked Wenling.

  “I have a program on my iPad,” Wenling said.

  “Then do it with the special program,” Mom said, even though I wasn’t sure Mom knew what a meme was.

  Being obsessed with Gladiator, Wenling decided to use her meme program to add the words, “And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”

  She showed it to Mom and me, and we both laughed. Mom found it funny even though she’d never even seen Gladiator. Wenling uploaded it to our Facebook group, and Mom and I shared it to our personal pages as well. It was just too funny and cute not to. It didn’t occur to me at the time that this little joke would turn out to be a big mistake.

  3

  Spiders and Sand

  After the long flight from Manila to our island, the one-hour flight to Lapitan was a breeze. Except for the part where they weighed us with our carry-on luggage so they could seat us on the plane and distribute the weight evenly. The rows were only two seats on either side, and I got a row to myself—which would have been insulting if I wasn’t so afraid of how small the plane was. The city of Lapitan was on an island not far from the island of Cebu in the Central Visayas—the middle islands in the Philippines. I marveled at how close the runway was to the ocean, but noticing the mountains and the dense tropical trees on other parts of the island, it made sense to have the airport so close to the coast. As we neared the island, I saw the thatched roofs and rice fields on the outskirts of town turn to more cement buildings the closer we got to the airport.

  The plane was so small we stepped off of it like we were in an old Beatles movie. The moment I stepped out of the plane, the heat and humidity fogged up my glasses. It made me laugh. I welcomed the sun as I walked across the tarmac. It was a nice change of pace from the chilly airplane. The welcoming of the heat faded quickly.

  The airport consisted of two glass buildings. The larger building to our right looked to be the terminal where people picked up their tickets and waited for the plane, and the smaller building to our left with the doors propped open was where you waited for your luggage.

  The luggage area was crowded. Another flight had come in about a half hour before ours, and the people from that flight were still crowded around the luggage carousel. There was only one carousel, and only one large fan. All of the seats were taken, and I could see the crowd of pedi-cabdrivers and people waiting to pick up their relatives just outside the fenced area. The noise from both the thumping luggage of the carousel and all of the people talking in a language I didn’t understand made it very hectic.

  The heat from all of the bodies a
nd the sun beating down through the glass made me feel like a Ball Park frank ready to explode in a microwave.

  Mom and Wenling seemed to take it in stride and were already talking about the case.

  “Dar-Dar’s mother said she had some important information that she wanted to talk over with us,” Mom said. “So we’ll go see her first, and then decide from there if we should go talk to the judge or talk to Kim Lim.”

  “Do you think they’ll have balut at the hotel restaurant?” Wenling asked Mom after agreeing to Mom’s plan.

  “You don’t want that,” Mom said.

  “It’s a delicacy,” Wenling said.

  I wiped the sweat from the back of my neck and joined the conversation. “What’s a delicacy?”

  “Balut,” Wenling said.

  “You wouldn’t like it.” Mom shushed Wenling, and said to me, “You wouldn’t like it.”

  The luggage carousel started moving. Mom and Wenling rushed over to get a spot, and I was left to wonder about what balut was.

  There was no way that our luggage could already be on there; the other flight had come in before us, and I could actually see our baggage handlers just now rolling the giant cart to get the luggage over to our airplane.

  Nevertheless, all of the passengers from our flight except me insisted on crowding around the small carousel. Luckily, everyone jumping in front of the carousel allowed a new place on a plastic seat to rest.

  The plastic chair was warm from the sun and someone else sitting in it before me. I looked through the glass at the trees surrounding the airport. The palm trees here were fuller and thicker than the palm trees in California, but I couldn’t focus on the scenery. It was way too hot. All I wanted to do was take a shower after our long flight, and take a major, major nap.

  The cacophony of a strange new world washed over me, and I didn’t even realize that I’d fallen asleep until Mom and Wenling shook me by the shoulders and told me it was time to go to the hotel. Thank goodness. I could feel the back of my shirt drenched with sweat as I stood.

  We exited the small airport. Men rushed up to us and reached for our luggage. I instinctively pulled back from the man trying to steal my bags.

  “No no,” Mom said. “They are trying to help us get to a pedicab.”

  Being an American, I didn’t trust anyone taking my luggage, so Mom and Wenling allowed their bags to be taken, and we were led to a pedicab. The weight of our luggage slowed it down considerably, and I was amazed that our three large bags and two carry-ons actually fit into the small carriage attached to the little motorcycle.

  “Are you from Manila?” the pedicab driver asked Mom.

  “California,” Mom said.

  The driver seemed impressed, and Mom and him began to speak. It was weird to hear Mom speaking a foreign language. I’d only heard her speak that way on the occasional phone call that she made to the Philippines. We’d grown up only speaking English, because my mother said that my dad only spoke English and it wouldn’t be fair if we spoke in a language he didn’t understand in his own house.

  As a kid, I didn’t mind. I felt self-conscious enough not looking like the other kids, so I was glad to only speak English.

  But right now, I wished that I had learned a foreign language. I enjoyed the breeze from the pedicab, and looked out the open sides as the town whizzed by. There were Spanish-style buildings at what looked like a college campus.

  Many of the signs were printed in English, which really impressed me. That made things a lot easier. I noticed that there were some really nice buildings, and it turned out to be a local nursing college. The small town had several schools, and the children as they exited wore what looked like Catholic uniforms.

  The nicest buildings in town were the churches, the schools, and the courthouse. After that, the hotels and restaurants. It surprised me how there could be a beautiful building right across the street from smaller shack-like stores with corrugated tin roofs and dirt walls.

  A pang of guilt hit me as I saw a small child without any shoes or clothes playing in the street. I’d always known how lucky I was to grow up in the United States, but it surprised me how shocked I was when confronted with the poverty. As we neared the Boulevard, which is where the hotel was, I noticed there were a lot of pedicabs and a lot of very nice buildings. There were more cars on the Boulevard, but most of the people seemed to travel on small motorcycles.

  The sea air and cool breeze made me smile. The sun glinted white sparks off the dark water. Fisherman in modest boats shared the ocean with larger ferry boats. It reminded me of a painting my mother had on the wall. It was painted by my grandpapa.

  We arrived at the hotel, and a bellman in a very regal red uniform jumped out to gather our bags. My trip had exhausted me, and all I could think of was a shower.

  Mom paid the pedicab driver. She’d been smart enough to change some money at a kiosk in the Manila airport.

  “Dong,” Mom said to the young man loading our luggage, “is there an ATM in the hotel?” By this time I'd gathered was the Filipino way of saying, dude or man.

  “No, ma’am. You can go to PNB just down the Boulevard.”

  “Can they exchange dollars here at the hotel?” Mom asked.

  “Yes,” the young man said in a whisper. “But you get a better rate at the bank.”

  Mom smiled and said something in Visayan. The young man smiled. He turned toward me, giggled, and then turned away. Mom checked in with the front desk. I sat down and enjoyed the air-conditioning. The front desk took up most of the lobby, but in the corner they’d set up a gift shop area that I vowed to check out later. In an adjoining area there was a door that led to a small cafeteria, which I also vowed to check out later. I only hoped after my nap that they’d still be open. It was eleven in the morning, but I felt like I could sleep for days. Mom finished up, and the three of us including the bellman took the elevator to our room.

  “Do they have balut in the cafeteria?” Wenling asked.

  “No, but some of the street vendors will,” the bellman said.

  Mom shook her head at Wenling, and I was too tired to ask what balut was. Mom continued to talk to the bellman in Visayan. I heard her say the word, “Wi-Fi” and the bellman pointed at a spot on Mom’s check-in paperwork, which I assumed contained the information. He occasionally would glance back at me and giggle as he turned away. It unnerved me a little, but I was so tired the slow elevator almost made me feel like I was still on the airplane.

  Mom opened the door to the room. The bellman showed Mom how the key fit inside a little slot by the door that operated the power to the room. As he pushed the key into the slot the lights and wall unit air-conditioning unit clicked on. The air in the room was hot and stale, and the windows to the room were small. But the beds looked comfortable—two queen beds.

  Out of habit, I reached into my pocket and tipped the bellman five bucks. He smiled at the tip and left.

  “Did you give him a tip in dollars?” Mom asked me.

  “A five,” I said.

  “You never have to tip him again,” Wenling laughed.

  “No more tipping dollars,” Mom said. “That was over two hundred pesos you gave him.”

  Not knowing what two hundred pesos would buy, I couldn’t appreciate my big tip. But being exhausted I assumed it was too much and resolved to leave Mom in charge of tipping until I got a handle on the local norms.

  “Would you guys mind if I took a shower first?” I asked, assuming everyone would want to take a shower after such a long trip.

  Mom and Wenling nodded that it was fine. They were more consumed with powering up all of their devices and figuring out the Wi-Fi. Wenling’s Gladiator obsession had burned through all of her iPad battery and most of her Kindle Fire battery as well.

  I rifled through my suitcase to find the shorts and T-shirt I planned to wear to bed and headed to the bathroom. At first, it looked like a standard hotel bathroom that you’d find in the United States until I pulled back the show
er curtain. There wasn’t a tub inside. There wasn’t even anything separating the tile floor of the bathroom with the rest of the bathroom. I noticed the drain was actually closer to the center of the bathroom than in the shower area, and there was a bucket under the faucet portion of the shower.

  The shower head was one of those detachable ones, and it went into a box. Next to it rested a plastic scoop, which I thought was interesting. I got undressed, monkeyed with the machine trying to get the water to run hot, but gave up. The water pressure was weaker than I was used to. I noticed that half of the water dripped out of the lower faucet and into the bucket. In order for me to rinse my hair, I had to use the plastic scoop. It was actually pretty handy.

  Even though I couldn’t figure out how to get the little temperature box to make the water hot, it was still surprisingly warm just out of the tap. It did, however, make me hurry out of the shower.

  The cold water had woken me up a little bit, but I knew the moment my head hit the pillow I’d fall asleep. I exited the bathroom.

  “Good, you’re out. Wenling wants to change her diaper,” Mom said.

  “I just have to use the bathroom before we go,” Wenling said.

  I noticed that she was carrying another shirt and that Mom had changed her clothes.

  “Are you going to wear your shorts?” Mom asked.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Are you going to wear your shorts to Gurley’s house?”

  “Who’s Gurley?” I asked.

  “Dar-Dar’s mom. She’s expecting us,” Mom said.

  That’s why Mom and Wenling had changed their clothes. They wanted to go and start the case right now.

  “Aren’t you tired from the trip, Mom?” I asked.

  “I slept on the plane.”

  Wenling exited the bathroom. “Don’t wear your shoes in there. The floor is still drying,” she said to Mom.

  “I don’t have to go,” Mom said to Wenling.

  They talked about something else, but I was distracted by a large spot on the wall that appeared to move. Then, I realized it was a spider—a huge spider as big as my entire face.