Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

I asked her what she wanted, but she had just had lunch; a cup of coffee would do. I ordered a hamburger. She wanted to talk and I was eager to listen. Then I remembered what Kuya Nick had told me, that I was not to fraternize with my customers for I may be telling them things I shouldn’t, but more than that, they might find out ways by which they could put one over on me. Remember, Kuya Nick had said, they are dependent on their pushers, whom they hate. It is a loathsome but necessary relationship. But it was too late now, she was just too pretty to be ignored, and I was just, as Toto had said, too much of an extrovert, and a Sagittarian, to keep away from people even though they might spell danger or doom.

“What is your name?”

“Toto,” I said.

“I see that you are a student.”

I had no special bookcover and my notebooks were not bought from the university store. She did not know, and she was trying to find out, where I was studying. “Not in the school where your friends go,” I said.

“You are evasive,” she quickly got the point.

“Is Doris your real name?”

She nodded. Then, the other surprise. “Do not get me wrong. I don’t use it. It’s for my friend. I would like to help her stop, but I don’t know how I can make her. It is not the money. She has lots of it. But she has been at it for six months now, and she is growing thinner.”

“Then why are you giving her this?”

She was quiet for a moment. “Because I understand,” she said finally. “I tried it once, twice, and liked it, but I had more self-control.”

“You can go to a hospital, or this foundation I have heard about,” I suggested.

“Her parents would die of shock. They wouldn’t believe that their daughter — and I, a pusher. I used to accompany her when she got the stuff from Joe. But she hated him.” She smiled at me again. “You are not repulsive at all. How did you get started on this?”

“Money,” I said simply.

“That’s three hundred fifty I gave you. How much is yours?”

“Only thirty-five,” I lied, realizing I had made more again. “And I am not rich like you and your friends.” I thrust at her my battered, brown leather shoes. “That’s the only pair I have.”

Her face was downcast. She sipped her coffee and her hand trembled. Her arms bore no telltale injection marks. She had none of the glassy, sleepy look of the boy in the Volks, the girl at the Intercon.

“You are so unlike Joe,” she said. “Joe is always trying to increase the price, saying it is more and more difficult to get the stuff. The supplier in Cavite, that was what he said, was demanding more and more, too. Is it true?”

“I am new,” I said. “I don’t know many things. I just follow instructions.”

“Where is Joe?”

I told her. She blanched and her cup almost spilled.

“I am not sorry,” she shook her head. “Will you stay in this job long? You are not afraid? After what has happened?”

“I have no choice,” I said. “Jobs are hard to find and I am not through with college. Besides, I said I would try it for a week.” Bending over to her, I said: “Don’t judge me too harshly. I am not rich like you or your friends, the whole lot of you who have no better use for your money than this. I don’t want this job, knowing what it does to people. But if I did not take it, someone else would. It pays well; something I never dreamed I would get when I was in the province. Maybe I will hang on to it, if my tastes do not interfere, and make a little pile, then I will retire. Ha, that is what every prostitute says, but they all end up old and wrinkled and penniless.”

“You really know,” she said, her eyes crinkling in a smile.

“Of course,” I shot back. “You think wisdom is the monopoly of those who go to exclusive schools?”

She shook her head. “You really have a chip on your shoulder.”

“A block,” I said.

“What is it you really want to do?”

I looked at the intense face, the dimple that had disappeared, the down on her arms. “You are very pretty,” I said.

She blushed. “I asked you a question,” she prodded.

“I would like to eat well,” I said. “I ate at a Japanese restaurant for the first time yesterday. And I do not like to go to school.”

“Same here,” she said.

“But I like campus popularity — and my friends in school.”

“Same here,” she laughed.

We were now both laughing.

“Hey,” I said. “We are both pushers, you know. Except that I get paid and you don’t.” Then, seriously: “You must tell the parents of your friend even if she ends up hating you. And take her to a doctor … only a doctor can help her, and you can, by refusing to give all this to her, by reducing her intake. By talking her into disciplining herself.”

“You will be losing one good customer.”

“I’ll make two new friends.”

“You are no pusher.”

“Not yet, but given time …”

We had sat there for almost an hour. “I enjoyed talking with you,” she said as we stood up.

“The pleasure is mine,” I said leaving a big tip for the waiter. She noticed it. “My—” she shook her head.

“It’s not my money, it’s your friend’s,” I said.

We walked to the door and shook hands. “Next week,” I said.

She turned and walked across the small plaza to the parking lot. She had a mustard-colored Beetle, and as she passed me on her way to the exit, she smiled and waved.

At four, the Medical Center. I sat in the lobby, a few minutes early, but I noticed him at once, a man in his forties, very patrician, with a black leather portfolio on the floor at his feet. He was impeccably dressed in a gray double-knit suit as if he was an executive, which I was sure he was. I walked over to him with the usual, “Joe is not going to make the deliveries anymore.” He quickly stood up and told me to follow him. He walked fast ahead of me as if he did not want to be seen with me, and I followed him to his car in the parking lot, a huge, black Lincoln. He motioned me inside. It was air-conditioned. We drove out without talking. He was soon driving very fast, and he seemed tense. This was all wrong, but there was no way I could tell him to stop. I had already gotten the envelope out and laid it beside him, saying it was all there, and may I please have the payment? But he grunted angrily, and we sped on. We were on the highway now. I began to panic. Then, at the intersection, at a red light, I tried to open the door so I could rush out, but it wouldn’t budge. He turned to me with that kind of laughter that chills. “Only I can open the doors,” he said. “They are all automatically locked.”

I could break the windows and squirm through. This was one time I should have been armed or known karate.

“I am not going to harm you,” he said softly. “I just want to ask a few questions. You know what happened to Joe? I am sure you suspect. No, I am not a policeman — it is useless going to the police. The sonofabitch was blackmailing me, was upping the price, too.… He had it coming … and you will, too … if you don’t talk.”

There was something frantic about him, and I knew that there was a gun under his jacket, for the bulge showed.

“What do you want to know, sir? You know I am new at the job,” I said. “I just follow instructions.”

“Well, I want to know who your boss is — the top man — because I want more, and no blackmailing, no stories. I have been on this for two years now, and I need it as I need food and air. I will kill if I have to. Or I will have to get it from other sources. Why are you doing this to me? Am I not paying enough? Why do you want my family to know … and my friends? Don’t you know this will destroy me? Each man has his private passion. Can you not understand that?”