*2 Ah Meng was an irrepressible orangutan that was for many years in the 1980s the star attraction of the Singapore Zoo.
*3 A sweet rolled pancake filled with coconut palm sugar that, because of the way the pancake is folded at the ends, just happens to resemble a small uncircumcised penis.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
From Tommy Yip’s daily gossip column:
Titas were atwitter last night over what happened in the middle of the spectacularly elegant party at China Cruz’s divine mansion in Dasmari?as. Apparently, while Chris-Emmanuelle Yam (clad in a curvy Chloé confection) was belting out the Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” accompanied by a full orchestra, a tremendous crashing noise sent the couture-clad guests rushing out of the ballroom to the grand foyer. There they found debonair Diego San Antonio wrestling on the marble floor with an intruder.
“It was this Chinese man, rather handsome, but obviously quite deranged. He had Diego by the collar and he kept shouting, ‘Tell me where she is!’?” social dynamo Doris Hoh (enchanting in an emerald Elie Saab) breathlessly told me. “It was surreal. Here were two men rolling around on the floor, with purple glass everywhere and a huge roasted pig right next to them!” Apparently the fight began upstairs, where Diego first encountered the intruder in China’s library. A tussle began and they ended up rolling down the dramatic curving Gone with the Wind–style double staircase, toppling over the buffet table where a huge lechon* was just about to be carved, and smashing into a Ramon Orlina glass sculpture.
“That sculpture was of my breasts. It was a beautiful masterpiece that got destroyed!” China (sheathed in a showstopping strapless Saint Laurent) lamented. “What a waste! I was so looking forward to the lechon. I heard it was a special pig that had only eaten truffles its entire life and was flown in from Spain,” Josie Natori (draped in a dress of her own design, of course) said with a sigh. Thankfully, before the intruder could do much damage to Diego’s fabulous Brioni blazer, Brunomars—China’s 250-pound Tibetan mastiff—leapt onto the intruder and according to onlookers “bit him in the ass.”
But the intrepid journalist Karen Davila (astonishingly alluring in Armani) quashed that story. “Tommy, do your fact-checking, please! Brunomars did not bite him in the ass! He is still a puppy, and he leapt onto the men on the floor because he was trying to get a taste of the lechon! He bit the lechon on the ass!” Whoever’s ass it was, Brunomars saved the day, because the intruder suddenly calmed down when he saw all the guests clustered around like they were watching Manny Pacquiao in the boxing ring. (Manny was actually at the party too, but he was in the basement having an intense chess match with China’s son.) He ran out the front door without another word, jumped into a waiting black Toyota Alphard, and sped off before any of China’s guards could stop him.
···
Charlie leaned against the bathroom sink in his suite at the Raffles Makati, holding a towel full of ice to his face to soothe the swelling. How in the world had he let things devolve to this point? He had snuck unnoticed into China Cruz’s party, and managed to get Diego’s attention when the singing began. Diego had suggested that they go upstairs to the library to talk things over, but things became heated when Diego had refused to reveal Astrid’s whereabouts.
“I can assure you, Mr. Wu, that you can search every corner of Manila and all seven thousand islands of the Philippines, but you’ll never find her. If she wanted you to know where she was, she would have told you,” Diego had said rather nonchalantly.
“You don’t understand! If she knew what was really happening, she’d come out of hiding. The situation has changed, and there’s some vitally important information she needs to know!” he had pleaded.
“Well, who put her in this situation in the first place? As far as I’m concerned, everything bad that’s happened to Astrid in the past few months has had something to do with your involvement in her life. The leaked paparazzi photos. The leaked video. Your ex-wife. I’m sorry, but my only duty here is to protect Astrid from you.”
And that’s when things got out of control. He knew he shouldn’t have lunged at Diego, but some visceral force just overtook his body. And now he had caused yet another scandal, this time among the most elite circles of Manila high society. And these people were sure to talk. The news would be all over town, all over Asia, and into Astrid’s ears in no time. And this might make her go even deeper into hiding. Goddamnit, he had really screwed things up again.
Charlie dumped the ice from his towel into the sink and splashed some cold water on his face. Turning off the running faucet, he suddenly heard a soft knock on the door. He walked out of the bathroom and peered through the peephole. He saw a petite Filipino girl in a gold lamé cocktail dress standing in the hallway.
“Who is it?”
“My name is Angel. I have a message for you.”
Charlie opened the door and stared at the girl. She looked to be in her early twenties, with shoulder-length hair and a friendly, open face. “Sir Charlie, I have some instructions for you from my boss. Go to the ITI Private Terminal on Andrews Avenue in Pasay City tomorrow morning and take the seven-thirty flight. Your name will be on the list.”
“Wait a minute, how do you know me?”
“I was at China’s party tonight. I recognized you immediately.”
“Who’s your boss? How does he know I was staying here?”
“My boss knows everything,” Angel said with an enigmatic smile, before turning to leave.
—
The next morning, Charlie followed the instructions that had been provided by the mysterious girl and went to the private terminal in Pasay City, where he discovered in the hospitality lounge that this was a charter plane bound for different resorts on the Philippines’ southwest coast. He boarded the twin-propeller plane, which was filled with tourists eager to get their beach vacations started. The plane took off and flew low over the coast, landing forty-five minutes later at a small desolate airstrip on the edge of the sea.
It was gray and raining when Charlie got off the plane. All the passengers were guided onto a colorfully painted bus, and they were driven down a muddy track to a series of open-air wooden huts. EL NIDO AIRPORT, a charming painted wooden sign announced. A row of Filipino women stood in the rain at the edge of the hut, singing a welcome song. Charlie got off the bus and was about to follow the tourists into the hut when an athletic young Filipino dressed in a white polo tee and crisp navy cargo pants approached him, holding a large white golf umbrella.