Drug firm Takeda Tokuhin took over the former site of Hamilton Brown at the Escolta several months ago but hasn't started trading. The disgruntled principal here complained to a friend of mine that he couldn't get drugs from Japan — but he didn't tell the full story. His stock, worth around a million pesos now, lies at the bottom of the sea courtesy of an American submarine, and Tokyo is reluctant to send more. So he waits and waits. I see him daily taking his cup of java at the Astoria, where he sees me doing the same. We're both waiting — for ships.

It appears that Crescendo G. Reyes hasn't been executed. Apparently he wasn't the killer though he may have been an accomplice. He was asked if he had ever been one of Schaer's waiters. The questioners wanted to link him with the killing of the Japanese who beat Schaer up at the Quezon Institute, and to implicate Schaer as having engaged him to do so. Evidently the real killer is still free.