Manila and Cebu Island, Philippines

Klay arrived at the Open Orchid, a shabby hotel in Manila’s old red-light district not far from the American embassy. He set his duffel bag on the floor beside the front desk. “Reservation for Flanagan,” he said, and handed over a passport. “Three nights,” he added, and paid in advance, though he would only stay for one. Klay leaned an elbow on the counter while the thin Filipino clerk jotted his details with a ballpoint pen. “This hotel was recommended by Monsignor Martelino.” The clerk’s pen paused, then continued scribbling.

Across the lobby, a big man who looked to be in his fifties waited for an elevator beside a Filipino boy, maybe nine or ten years old. The man had a football lineman’s size, but there was something not American in his carriage. Hawaiian shirt. Too-short shorts. Sandals with the socks pulled up. German or Australian, Klay guessed.

Klay cleared his throat to get the man’s attention. He wanted to see his face. The big man tilted his head and spoke to the boy. Klay heard bits of German. The man kept his back to Klay until he and the boy were inside the elevator. Then he turned and stared at Klay without expression, his hand on the boy’s scrawny shoulder as the elevator doors closed. Ownership.

Klay felt revulsion turn in his gut, but he had his assignment, and it didn’t start here. He accepted his fake passport back from the clerk and shouldered his bag. Next to the front desk was the doorway to the hotel’s bar-restaurant, the bar a five-stool setup serving bottom-shelf liquor under brown palm fronds. An elderly woman sat behind the bar turning pages in a magazine, smoking a cigarette. Beyond the bar was the restaurant. Klay smelled overheated food. “Pork sisig,” a chalkboard said. He ordered his dinner with the bartender and went up to his room.

A waiter arrived with his food, laid a tray on the foot of his bed, and asked if there would be anything else.

“No,” Klay said, handing him a tip.

“Are you certain?” the young man said. “Boy or girl, doesn’t matter.”

There was a shrewdness in the teenager’s eyes. A certainty in his smile.

“I’m tired,” Klay said and pointed a finger toward the door.