“Nearly there,” said Inchoy.

Slowed in traffic by the Lion’s Head monument, I watched a man in traditional Igorot costume texting on the side of the road. He was dressed for the tourists. You could probably pay some pesos to have your picture taken with him, and in that, he was truly the descendant of Timicheg.

Chet had booked a suite at the Forest Lodge at Camp John Hay. The room was far more extravagant than anything Inchoy and I would have booked on our own. I preferred the cheaper accommodation of the convent, the narrow bed with its stiff little mattress, the pillows hard as a sack of flour, the scratchy blanket that was so exciting to use because this was the only place in the Philippines cold enough to require it. Here we had two huge beds, a bathroom with a tub and water both thundering and hot, and a balcony that gave out to a view of the Cordilleras, at this time shrouded in cloud. I felt manipulated by Chet. He wanted to keep track of where I was and now had done so.

Inchoy’s mood was holding. He wasn’t wildly joyful, but his stable, reasonable demeanor functioned as a kind of levity.

He was unpacking the contents of his small suitcase into the drawers in the closet. I stood by the window, looking at the view that was quickly fading in the evening light. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

While he was showering, I ordered a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black from room service, because that’s what Inchoy liked to drink. The bottle arrived swaddled in a napkin, perhaps to impart fanciness. It wasn’t Inchoy’s birthday until the next day, but I felt the need to celebrate something. Or to have something to celebrate in order to drink. I poured myself a glass and went to sit on the balcony with my cigarette as Inchoy got dressed and then came and joined me.

“So?” he said.

“So?” I repeated.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking about Chet.” I was actually thinking about Bibo and how happy she would have been in this hotel room, and I knew that was also what Inchoy was thinking, and he was counting on me to come up with something else. “I wonder what he’s up to?”

“Are you so in love with him?” Inchoy found this funny.

“Of course not. You know, he’s been back and forth to Baguio.” The whiskey was loosening my tongue, but I found it unlikely that Inchoy would share the information. “José Martin thinks he’s up to something interesting, some sort of business deal.”

“What’s interesting about it?”

“Emails go to Rocco Basilang, also Gumboc.”

“Chet’s in with Gumboc?”

“Chet says he’s not.”

Inchoy looked at me sternly.