MULTO by Cindy Fazzi, Excerpt
We are delighted to feature this excerpt from MULTO by Cindy Fazzi!
MULTO
His latest job is to catch the one that got away…three times.
Filipino-American bounty hunter Domingo has made a career of catching criminal undocumented immigrants. He’s the best in the business—and it isn’t lost on him that he’s so good because of his similarities to his targets. Despite Domingo’s claims that he is unsympathetic to their plight, yet spends his spare moments on stakeouts and in between jobs writing a book of advice for aspiring immigrants. Brash, funny, and candid, he compiles the names of all the people he’s apprehended, documenting the hazards of his profession, and imparting advice to foreigners who dare to dream of life in America.
Domingo’s latest job is finding biracial Filipino woman Monica Reed—for the third time. Monica is the only fugitive who has ever escaped him, and the only one he’s ever released, against orders. As he embarks on a third and final hunt for her, Domingo uncovers a dangerous truth that Monica was determined to publicize—even though it put her life in danger. And as he chases her around the country, despite his agreement to arrest people like Monica, Domingo finds himself taking her side. Flushing out immigrants whose biggest crime was clinging to the American Dream pales in comparison to getting justice for a woman who he discovers was living in the shadows, but was only ever searching for the truth.
Full of action and humor, MULTO is also a meditation on what it means to be unwelcome and unwanted in a country you love and the sacrifices such love requires.
Excerpted from Multo, by Cindy Fazzi
Agora, 2023. Reprinted with permission.
“You heard me—you’re free as a ghost. Go before I change my mind.”
“Domingo.”
She said his name as though she’d only just realized who he was—her father’s thug, a mercenary, her enemy. Did she regret opening up to him? She clutched her tote bag close to her chest.
He inhaled the whiff of gas so powerful and satisfying. Damn, he might get high just sitting here. The SUV roared away, startling him. At last, Monica scrambled out of the car. Whatever she’d meant to say never saw the light.
He glanced at her. Under the feeble glow of a nearby lamp post, her mirthless expression seemed as hard as a diamond, like someone who had steeled herself to the reality of being illegal. From here on, she would forever be hiding. Tago nang tago, or TNT, as Filipinos would say. But she would be fine. She would survive Leonard Reed and his America. Her demeanor told him as much.
He nodded. What else was there to say? They were strangers who happened to speak the same language, both of them unwanted and unwelcome in America. The biggest difference between them—he was legal and she wasn’t. He chased while she hid, but he would turn a blind eye just this one time.
The gas smell, his decision to let her go, her fortitude, and everything else wrapped him in a strange buoyant sensation. It wasn’t pleasant like being high on drugs, but surreal, as though he was trapped inside an elevator cut loose at the top. One moment he was floating, the next moment he was falling fast. His heart pumped hard.
She flicked her hand in a quick goodbye. No smile. He gunned the engine and drove away.
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Cindy Fazzi is a Filipino-American writer and former Associated Press reporter. She has worked as a journalist in the Philippines, Taiwan, and the United States. Her writing has been published in Snake Nation Review, Copperfield Review, and most recently, Electric Literature. She has published a romance novel under a pen name and a historical novel with the micro-indie Sand Hill Press, My MacArthur, which was a quarter finalist in the 2018 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book contest. Multo is the first in a planned series.
Category: On Writing
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