Tony Hillerman - Finding Moon

The stadium was a mile or so beyond the cane fields, beside a creek that irrigated a narrow row of rice paddies. It was round, designed by someone with access to a large number of heavy timbers and a supply of corrugated sheet metal roofing. The timbers were erected exactly far enough apart to be spanned by the roofing material, which was nailed to it to form the walls. The roof was a steep thatched cone, and the single entrance was guarded by two small booths made of lumber. At one, admission tickets were on sale at ten pisos each. Over the other a sign declared pollos fritos, and from it rose a thin haze of smoke and the delicious smell of frying chicken.

“Tell you what we’ll do,” Moon said when the cabbie parked in a lot occupied by scores of bicycles and a couple of dozen cars and trucks. “I’ll buy you a ticket and you help me find Mr. Delos in the crowd.”

“Ten pisos,” Tino said, voice scornful. “And you get a discount because a lot of the fights are already over.”

“How do you know?” Moon said. “It’s still early.”

“Lots of losers,” Tino said, pointing to the pollos fritos sign.

Moon paid full fare for both tickets-about ninety cents American-and they found a place on the top row, seven levels up, where the siding had been removed to let hot air and tobacco smoke escape. The stadium was about two-thirds full with a couple of hundred spectators: all males, all ages, almost all clad in the Filipino summer garb of short-sleeved shirts, cotton pants, and straw hats. The exceptions were those who held the seats around the ring. Most of them wore jackets, and most of them had custody of roosters.

The ring itself was a platform raised about three feet above the earthen floor and surrounded by sheets of transparent plastic. In it five men stood. In the center a skinny little man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and necktie was talking into a microphone. To his right and left stood two-man teams, which Moon identified as bird holder and assistant. The man with the mike spoke in what Moon guessed must be Tagalog and then repeated at least some of it in heavily accented English. The audience listened in rapt silence.

“He’s telling about the cocks,” Tino murmured. “The oone with the red feathers around his neck-” Just then the master of ceremonies stopped talking.

He lowered the mike and the arena exploded into bedlam. All around them, all around the stadium, men were leaping to their feet, shouting, flashing hand signals, acknowledging hand signals. Tino was saying something in Moon’s ear.

“What?” Moon shouted.

“I say if you wanna bet, bet on the one with the red feathers around his neck. Number nineteen. The maestro said he’s won three fights.”

“I’ll just watch,” Moon said. “Do any of those guys holding roosters look like Delos? She said he was short and fat and wore a long mustache.”

“Two fat ones,” Tino said, pointing.

Moon had noticed that. But both were sitting with their backs to him.

In the ring, the maestro raised the microphone. The clamor of betting stopped almost instantly. The rooster bearers advanced. The roosters pecked at each other while the maestro watched. Unsatisfied, he signaled the rooster bearers forward again. This time the cocks pecked with more satisfying ferocity. The maestro sent the rooster bearers back to their corners. They crouched, holding the roosters on the floor. One of the roosters waiting his turn outside the ring crowed lustily. The maestro’s hand dropped and the combat began in a wild flurry of feathers of spurs. Red Feathers went for the head. His black opponent backed away, then counterattacked, encouraged by shouts and imprecations from the audience. There was another wild flurry, another, and another, and suddenly it seemed to be over. Red Feathers was down, wings extended, neck held out. Black Feathers took two wobbly steps and stopped.

“Looks like you picked the wrong rooster,” Moon said.

“I think maybe a draw,” Tino said.

The handlers picked up their roosters. The maestro called them together. They held out the birds, head to head. Red Feathers was obviously out of it. Another morsel for the pollos fritos stand. But the black bird had no fight left. Instead of pecking, he pulled his head back. Maestro ordered a retrial. Again, Black Feathers wanted no more combat. His backers in the audience groaned. Maestro made a washing gesture with his hands while the bird holders departed. He said something unintelligible into the mike and signaled the next fight.

Both fat men climbed into the ring, one with a handlebar mustache and holding a mostly white rooster. Mr. Delos, surely, since the other one was clean-shaven. The ritual was repeated, the birds pecked at each other, the uproar of betting resumed, and the fight began. This one lasted a little longer and ended with the white rooster prone and breathing its last.

Tino grinned at Moon. “Pretty good, huh?” he said. “I don’t think you have anything in America like this.”

“Just hockey,” Moon said. “I guess that’s as close as we get.”

This time when the concluding test was applied, the winning bird had retained enough martial spirit to deliver a couple of farewell pecks. The maestro pointed to it and said the proper words into the mike, and bedlam again ensued. This time the yelling and pointing was accompanied by the passing of money up and down the rows and across the seats-the white cock’s backers paying their gambling debts to the winners. The honor system in practice, Moon thought, which was something else now missing from American athletics. But he didn’t have time to watch. Mr. Delos was carrying his deceased bird out of the stadium.

Moon caught Delos at the pollos fritos stand, in a glum conversation with the cook. But any grief Mr. Delos might have been feeling for his bird vanished when Moon introduced himself. The round brown face of Mr. Delos went aglow with delight as he pumped Moon’s hand.

“At last. At last,” he said. “Your brother told us he hoped you would be coming, and Mr. Brock said he expected you. I am so happy to meet you.”

“Mr. Brock. Is he here?”

“He has gone back to Manila,” Mr. Delos said. “There was a business arrangement to complete with Thousand Islands Airways. Ricky had made a proposal-” Mr. Delos remembered that delight was not appropriate. His expression changed. “We are so sorry about Ricky. What a terrible loss for you and for your mother. Please accept my condolences.”

“Thank you,” Moon said. “Where can I reach Mr. Brock in Manila?”

Finding that address required going back to the office. Delos checked in his Rolodex file. He extracted a card with the same address Castenada had provided. That and the telephone number with it had been scratched out and replaced only by a different telephone number. Mr. Delos was apologetic.

“His apartment, they tore it down so he moved, but it’s just until he can find a new place so he didn’t put down where he is now. Just the phone number.”

Moon called it, and while he listened to it ring Mr. Delos talked about business. Ricky had persuaded Thousand Islands it should expand its copter fleet by tapping into the huge surplus that the end of the fighting in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia would make available. M. R. Air would do the brokering and the conversion from gunships to transports, would handle maintenance, and would even subcontract some island-hopping jobs.

“We have more than a thousand islands in the Philippines,” Mr. Delos said. “Too rough for airstrips, just perfect for landing pads. And then we think maybe we can get maintenance work for the Manila police. The U.S. government gave them a dozen copters but I think only about two now are safe to fly. And then-”

The telephone was not going to be answered. Moon hung up and listened with pseudo-attention until Mr. Delos completed his account of business prospects. He asked Mr. Delos to have Mr. Brock call him at the Maynila if he checked in, shook hands, and left.