Book Excerpt for Mabini Shadows

Mabini Shadows -- Extract

Richard Stooker

Cover graphic design by Drew at idrewdesign on Fiverr.com.

The right of Richard Stooker to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyrights and Patents Act 1988.

Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

Mabini Shadows

As he waited inside the dimly lit Tropicana Club, Dan played ten-peso pool with Raul.

The shadows outside stirred, for they knew Raul was a police informer.

Born of the union of Malay and Spanish conquistador blood soaking rich tropical humus. Nurtured by semen, menstrual discharge and ivory needle abortions. Until a year ago they gorged nightly on puke, rice noodles and San Miguel beer.

Now the shadows surged, angry -- starving.

"Your turn," Raul said. "You see some girl you want?"

Dan turned away from the window and bent over the table. Where was Lin Lin?

"Most you foreigners like take Filipino woman to hotel," Raul said. "Even back to your country. Filipino man, we don't marry whores. She must virginity."

The cue ball rebounded across the scarred table.

"I get what you want," Raul said. "Young lady? Boy? Okay, no problem."

It was rude to show anger so Dan said only, "Your shot."

His heart beat empty and sad. Many other Filipinas were as beautiful as Lin Lin, but only she lit the love inside his soul. Without her it would be snuffed out by the darkness on the empty MH del Pilar Avenue outside, so close to where they had met, now so changed by the passage of one year, the election of one puritanical mayor and the enforcement of one law. Early in the morning he would board the plane to return to the U.S. Would Lin Lin finally come see him tonight?

Lin Lin held on to the overhead stainless steel bar as the jeepney jerked forward and stopped, slowly jolting its way through Manila traffic. By not taking a taxi she saved eighty pesos of the transportation money Dan sent via her friend, Helen. Such stinginess saddened her, but the money would buy rice for her nieces and nephews. Besides, the jeepney took longer, and she was scared to see Dan again.

The week she spent with him last year seemed as far away as America itself. Tonight he would laugh at her. No, he was a nice foreigner. He wouldn't laugh, just turn his face away. Then maybe he would give her money.

That's why she finally decided to go, for the money.

Last year, Dan was her last special customer. Two weeks after their time together, when Dan paid out her bar fine for almost three entire weeks, the newly elected Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim shut down the Mabini bars.

After that she went to The Hollywood Club in nearby Pasay. She couldn't refuse to go with any man who paid her bar fee. Besides, the small elderly Japanese man was nice until they were inside the short-time hotel. Then he bound and gagged her and sliced up her face. The fifty thousand pesos he left her paid for the hospital, but not plastic surgery.

After her wounds healed the only job she could find was in the back room of a dockside bar servicing sailors for twenty pesos. Most were too drunk to notice the quilt of scars that was her face.

She missed the old Mabini, the fun and excitement, the safety and money and, most of all, Dan.