I decide I don’t care for the Hard Rock’s sisig as much as other places. Still, tension begins to unknot from my shoulders. I laugh unexpectedly with the bartender as she swears off balut; in my limited experience, that puts her in rare company. She pantomimes the tiny eyes looking up and I shudder, laughing anyway. For a minute I forget about tomorrow at nine—and the search waiting on my phone.

My phone. I reach into my back pocket, wake it, and swipe up. ChatGPT is already open; my smile fades as if the screen absorbs it. The results sit there like a held breath. The bartender sets down another drink and asks if I want anything else. I shake my head. Something in my face must give me away, because she adds, “Everything okay?” I nod. “Of course. Thank you, po.” My gaze returns to the glass rectangle.

The query I left running links to a longer piece. I tap.

“Woman Found at Foot of Condo Staircase; Cause Undetermined, Toxicology Pending. No signs of forced entry. A housekeeper discovered the victim inside a two-level unit in a high-rise off J.P. Rizal. EMS said she was breathing but not fully conscious. Police are reviewing service-corridor CCTV; ‘robbery not ruled out.’ A neighbor who asked not to be named said Alvarez had knocked late one night saying her key ‘wouldn’t work,’ and a building employee reported she’d recently asked the desk not to send anyone up unless confirmed by phone.” The article includes a still from an interior elevator—her hand lifted near her face, a thin band catching the light.

A sudden wave of nausea hits; the room tilts. A memory flares like a switch I can’t unflip. It isn’t her crumpled form that I can’t bear to look at—though I’m careful not to look long. It’s her hand. “Wrong hand, wrong company.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

“What was that, po?” the bartender asks, perhaps more attentive than usual, given the look on my face.

I glance up from my phone and force a smile. “Wrong hand, wrong company,” I say again. “It’s something my ex used to say to me.”

The bartender smiles the way people do when they’re being polite but have no idea what you’re talking about. Her attention shifts and only then do I notice a man in a black cap occupying a stool at the far end of the bar. How long has he been there? He doesn’t look at me. His lighter clicks once, twice, and a mint-sweet note threads the air—Marlboro menthol. I know it from a brief, younger flirtation with smoking; I’d almost forgotten, but the note is unmistakable.

In the booth across the way, a couple has appeared since I came in. They sit close, knees touching under the table, faces tilted in that practiced angle lovers find without thinking. She laughs into his mouth; his thumb presses lightly along her cheekbone; they break, breathe, return. Maybe it’s the rum, maybe it’s just them. Either way, the wanting is obvious. I smile, and a small ache opens.

My phone buzzes, and the moment drains away.

I glance down: a text from my daughters. “Hey Dad, how’s your trip going?” It’s from my youngest, Cati. I fire back a quick reply and promise to call once I’m back at the hotel. I swipe into the ChatGPT tab and reread the summary, pinching to zoom on the photo. No forced entry. Which means—if she was pushed—it was someone she knew. What am I even doing? I want no part of this. Already my thoughts are cinching tight. It’s as if, in death, she’s found a way to reinfect my life.

Despite my better judgment, I open Messages and type to Detective Santos: “Found a report from two months ago. Not sure if it helps, but… her ring. ‘Wrong hand, wrong company.’”

Send. A beat later: Delivered. Then: Read. The typing bubble appears, vanishes, returns, vanishes. I put the phone face down. Anxiety has taken root and the thought of my hotel room has an allure that pulls me out of my seat. I pocket my phone, settle the bill with a thousand pesos, tell the bartender to keep the change, and step into the wet shine of the street.

I walk. Neon bleeds into puddles. Before long I pull my phone out again to text my daughters. I deliberately avoid looking at the thread with Detective Santos. Because I still don’t know my way around, I slow to get my bearings. It’s only been about ten minutes since I left the Hard Rock, but the sweet smell of menthol hits me and I clock the man who’d been sitting at the end of the bar moving in the same direction. Or is he? At first it doesn’t strike me as anything, but it yanks up a memory from Switzerland years ago when a drunk followed me home from a train, shouting Sie haben mich angegriffen—you attacked me—before forcing his way into the family home where I was living and attacking the family St. Bernard, Xora. I tackled him in the hallway, bone on tile. No regrets; I’d do it again.

I keep walking. A block later, I glance up and catch the street sign: P. Burgos. Only then do I register that my hotel—chosen for its “city center” location—sits just yards from Makati’s short red-light strip where neon and umbrellas never clock out. As soon as the recognition settles in, the invitations begin: “Massage, sir? Massage? Good massage.” A woman steps from a doorway and tries to steer my wrist toward an alley hand-painted with arrows for things I don’t need. I disengage gently—palms out, a smile, salamat po—and start to cross the street when a lighter clicks—once, twice—closer.