Pacific Poison

by David Liscio

  Tanaka had equally divided the major shares of the Saipan enterprise among Yoshi, Asaki and himself, which made him wonder why they had nonetheless chosen to steal. After a close look at the books, it was evident the amount of cash missing could not have come from the roulette wheels, Black Jack tables, overpriced drinks at the casino bar, marijuana sales, or the Asian sex slave workers. It had been skimmed from one of the bigger operations — gun running or heroin smuggling.

  When had it begun? Did they hide the cash as though it were some pirate treasure, maybe buried it in the sand on Managaha Island, or stashed it in one of Saipan’s many remote caves next to the bones of long-dead Japanese soldiers and their rusty Arisaka rifles? Had they taken only a few thousand dollars at each grab, small amounts that likely would not be missed, no different than an unscrupulous bank siphoning nickels and dimes from its unwary depositors? Were those millions now stored safely in a private account in Tokyo, or had his associates been clever enough to send the money to an offshore bank? The Caymans came to mind. It brought his blood to a boil and he scolded himself for killing Yoshi, but his temper had gotten the better of him once the torture methods had failed.

  Tanaka was at a table counting stacks of American dollars when Hannah walked in and sat at the bar. She was wearing a strapless yellow sundress that showcased her bronzed shoulders. Her yellow rubber flip-flops matched flawlessly. Designer sunglasses were nestled atop her hair, which was coiled loosely in golden strands. Three Rastafarian-style weaves hung to the left of her forehead, giving off a Bohemian accent. She was carrying two paperback guidebooks on how to travel efficiently and affordably in Micronesia.

  Hannah set her leather clutch purse on the bar but before she could say a word Tony the bartender placed a napkin and prepared to take her order.

  Tanaka stood and casually nudged Tony aside.

  “I’ll get her whatever she needs,” he said with an air of authority and a flirtatious grin that Hannah found repulsive. “We’re here to please.”

  Hannah ignored Tanaka and looked squarely at Tony, who seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m in the mood for liquid lunch — a frozen margarita with Patron – if you have it. If not, Cuervo will do just fine.”

  Tanaka rested an elbow on the bar directly in front of Hannah. He glowed with self-importance. The Lucky Carp stocked Patron tequila, which had been introduced to the liquor market the previous year, but he wanted to show Hannah that he, too, was sophisticated when it came to drinking spirits, perhaps more so than she.

  “Patron, certainly, if that’s your wish. But I have something rare that you can find only in Mexico, and only if you have the right connections. I have a bottle of Fortaleza, tequila like none other you will ever taste, and made especially by my friend Guillermo who has taken over his family’s distillery. This tequila will not even go into production until next year, so you’ll be among a select few to savor it beforehand.”

  “Why the special treatment?”

  “Let’s just say it’s a way of offering friendship to the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in Garapan, or all of Saipan, or maybe even all of Micronesia.”

  Hannah faked a smile. It was a lame line from a stranger and she’d heard versions of it dozens of times since she began dating in her teens. Clearly the bullshit was getting knee deep. She was amused that Tanaka had actually winked at her, something no man had ever done. It seemed preposterous, something from a past era or an old movie. But then again, she’d already heard he was extremely weird.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said coyly.

  “That’s the idea.”

  “And you’ll be joining me in this special tequila moment?”

  “Certainly. It would be an honor.”

  Tanaka disappeared into a back room and reemerged with his precious bottle of Fortaleza. “It seems a waste to dilute such fine spirits with ice and bar mix. I suggest we simply sip it from shot glasses, or a larger glass if you prefer.”

  Hannah forced a pleasant smile. “So now you want to pound down shots of tequila in the middle of the day? And here I thought you were a responsible businessman and member of the community.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you. Miss? I don’t believe you mentioned your name.”

  “Mariel Becker.”

  “Miss Becker. Sipping tequila in the middle of the day would be more accurate than pounding down shots. But if you are game, that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

  Tanaka gave Tony some sort of signal that caused him to mumble about an errand that needed doing immediately in the back room. There were only four other customers in the place, Japanese men seated at a table near one of the dancer cages, as though hoping a nude woman might suddenly appear and begin to shake and grind. The next show wasn’t scheduled to start for another two hours. Tony served them a round of drinks before he departed, leaving Hannah and Tanaka seated at the bar.

  “Where is your boyfriend?”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “The blond-haired man who arrived in Saipan with you.”

  “He’s a business associate. That’s all. We work together.”

  “I saw you walking along the road with him. He had his arm around your waist. You seemed close.”

  “Like a brother.”

  “And where is your brother today?”

  “Not a clue. Probably surfing. Or drinking beer on the beach. Maybe just hanging with the locals at one of the surfboard rental shacks. He loves to surf. Definitely not working, though he should be. He can’t get too far because I have the keys to the car.”

  Hannah purposefully let slip the name of her luxury travel company and her title as a business partner and consultant, knowing if Tanaka tried to check it out his call would be instantly routed to a CIA operations desk and her story verified.

  Tanaka carefully poured two shots. As he reached for one of the glasses, Hannah’s hand intercepted. “I’ll take that one.”

  Tanaka grinned, registering his companion’s survival skills. Perhaps someone had once slipped a roofie into her drink.

  “And your toast?”

  “To enjoying the best things in life.”

  Tanaka clinked his shot glass to hers and took a sip. Hannah followed suit, making a purring sound as she swallowed the warm spirits.

  “Tell me, Miss Becker — or may I call you Mariel?”

  “Mariel is just fine.”

  “What are the best things in this life, Mariel? Money? Love? Power? Big houses? Fast cars? Perhaps a gleaming yacht?”

  “I like to think the best things are sunny days, good friends, fun parties, and wherever those celebrations might lead me,” she said, disgusted by her own answer loaded with sexual innuendo but knowing she had to dangle the bait. It took Tanaka all of two seconds to nibble at it. He was already aroused.

  “If I were to meet you at a party, I would not want to leave without you. I would insist you come home with me and together we would have the time of our lives.”

  Hannah wondered how many times Tanaka had uttered those same words to countless women. Had any of them fallen for it? Sad if they did. And the whole ‘time of our lives’ line was obviously something he’d borrowed from a book or, more likely, a movie soundtrack. He didn’t seem like the type with patience enough to read a book, to sit by a roaring fire and devour sentence after sentence. She wouldn’t have been surprised if at that moment Tanaka flicked a switch under the bar and the ceiling speakers filled the room with his picks of romantic music – Montovani, or Percy Faith and his orchestra.

  “Well, maybe we’ll meet at a party. Only I don’t know enough people on Saipan to get invited to one.”

  Tanaka blushed for the first time. Hannah had caught him off guard as he unveiled his predatory thoughts. Tanaka had been imagining taking Mariel Becker back to his home overlooking the sea and seducing her, but then he remembered Hiraku and the ruckus she might cause. Even if the girl was locked in the basement, she still might do something to arouse suspicion. The girl was a pa
in in the ass. He silently cursed her and her Uncle Yoshi and Mikito Asaki. Once again, the trio had managed to rob him, this time of an opportunity to engage in sex with a tall Argentine blonde, among his favorites of all the female types, better even than those he had bedded from Australia and Sweden. German women repulsed him because he had found they did not always shave their armpits and that was something he could not endure. He was a self-admitted clean freak and he preferred bodies, including his own, be shaved in the most private places, particularly if sex was in the offing.

  “Are you hungry? We have fish that you won’t find any fresher. In fact, we can catch whatever you like and cook it immediately.”

  “Actually, I’m more in the mood for gambling than eating. I noticed you have a healthy assortment of electronic poker machines in your casino.”

  “So you’re a gambler?”

  “Not really. But I’d be willing to risk losing this soggy twenty,” she said, pulling a damp $20 bill from her purse. “I forgot I had tucked it into my bathing suit when I went for a dip earlier.”

  Tanaka raised his shot glass. “To taking risks. Sometimes they are necessary.”

  “To taking risks.”

  Krill sauntered into the bar just as Hannah and Tanaka set down their glasses. Her pinkish orange hair nicely framed her face with its delicate features, and her pouty mouth was coated with dark blue lipstick. “Well, if it isn’t my friend from the ladies’ room. I didn’t know you two were acquainted.”

  Hannah smiled, trying to hide her alarm. “Please join us.”

  “No. The customers might get the wrong idea if they see the lowly night manager drinking with the boss.”

  Tanaka’s facial expression showed his surprise that the two women had previously met, but he quickly recovered and once again became the suave player.

  Hannah had taken notice of Tanaka’s demeanor as she continued to smile coquettishly. “So you own The Lucky Carp? Silly me. Here I thought you were simply the handsome manager who’d taken a liking to these wonderful surroundings as his favorite watering hole.”

  “Yes, I own the casino and hotel with a group of partners,” Tanaka said, attempting to override his pride with a matter-of-fact reply. “It seemed like a good investment opportunity.”

  “And has it been?”

  “We make a modest profit. Only so many dollars can be made from beer, mixed drinks and cheeseburgers.”

  “But that isn’t all you sell.”

  Tanaka visibly reddened, his eyes narrowed to slits as he studied Hannah. “I’m not certain what you are implying. We are not a house of prostitution.”

  “I guess it’s legal, at least here in Garapan.”

  “Men come to see the dancers and in doing so spend their paychecks on overpriced drinks. I believe that is not an unusual or unorthodox business model, even in Argentina, Europe, or the continental United States.”

  “I was kidding,” she said, playfully punching his arm near the shoulder. “Just trying to get through that reserved Japanese exterior.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Tanaka, looking visibly relieved. “If you are aware of a more lucrative method to earn a living, please inform me and I will look into it. I hold an MBA.”

  Hannah reached out and clasped Tanaka’s hand. It was clam cold, but she held it. “Orochi – may I call you Orochi?”

  “Please do.”

  “Orochi, I sometimes have a sense of humor learned in my Argentine homeland. It can be blunt, but that’s only a sign of affection. In Argentina, those who don’t joke with you aren’t your friends.”

  “I will take that as a compliment,” he said. “We should drink another tequila.”

  15

  After the Raid

  Saipan

  Northern Mariana Islands

  March 1990

  The four prisoners seated in the Datsun pickup were coated with coral dust by the time the convoy pulled up in front of the police station in Susupe. Their wrists were still bound with plastic handcuffs. None spoke or made eye contact with their captors.

  Detective Mashima unlatched the truck’s rear gate and cocked his head, signaling the prisoners to follow him. A dozen police officers cradled their weapons and flanked the entrance to the building, though their stance showed more exhaustion than aggression because in some cases the men being led into the police station were relatives or friends. It had been an intense morning and afternoon and the work day wasn’t over. A reporter from the cable television station in Guam was doing a live stand-up in front of the police station, Sony video camera mounted on a tripod. He’d been tipped off to the raid but didn’t arrive in time to actually accompany the task force to Tanapag. Donley had been counting on the publicity that would showcase his anti-drug task force in a positive light.

  As police and suspects entered the jail, Mashima ordered the CNMI sergeant to remain behind to guard the SUV where the confiscated weapons were piled beside a duffel bag stuffed with cash, presumably proceeds from marijuana sales.

  Once the prisoners were secured in their holding cells, Mashima and Lt. Brick began the task of counting the seized money. It took them nearly an hour to straighten and stack the crumpled bills. The haul totaled $36,015 and was mostly in well-worn tens and twenties. Mashima turned the money over to CNMI Police Sgt. Alfred Torres, supervisor of the department’s evidence locker, for safekeeping and to ensure the chain-of-custody procedure was followed.

  By late afternoon, the prisoners were in Garapan, standing with heads bowed before a judge and facing arraignment for their alleged crimes that still remained unspecified. The justice system on Saipan was a hybrid of its own making, a mix of U.S. law and island tradition, a situation that perplexed prosecutor Ray Donley because he was powerless to change it. During his first week on the island, an elder Chamorro had whispered some advice in his ear. You cannot come out here and expect to change anything. You will have to learn to accept or ignore it, or certain things may drive you a little crazy.

  Tired and sweaty, Mashima and Lt. Brick stood beside Donley, who loosely described two of the men arrested as suspected yakuza associates and the other pair as pot farmers, operators of a marijuana plantation with a sophisticated irrigation system and camouflage designed to evade aerial reconnaissance.

  When Mikito Asaki’s criminal history was read into the record, Donley didn’t defend him before the judge. “Mikito Asaki lived a gangster’s life and died a gangster’s death. But nobody had the right to murder him.”

  Donley alleged two of the four defendants were formerly Mikito Asaki’s bodyguards who had been pressured by an as-yet-unidentified but high-ranking yakuza underboss to turn against him. Donley described the two men as mob assassins but offered no further details because his argument was based on speculation and rumor.

  Instead, Donley showed the judge photographs of the victim, beaten and strangled by his killers, his body bloated and battered by the sea. Donley requested the photos be marked as evidence. The judge agreed and quickly slipped the gruesome photos into a manila envelope, to which the court clerk affixed a label.

  FBI Special Agents Brent Palmer and Sean O’Reilly stood at the rear of the courtroom, waiting for their turn before the judge if summoned. The agents had found tire tracks and blood traces at the edge of Banzai Cliff. The tire imprints matched the tread on a Toyota sedan found torched behind a run-down automobile repair shop near Tanapag. The blood samples were at the police lab but no results were expected for at least a week, maybe much longer.

  Donley requested bail be set at $10,000 for each of the alleged pot farmers and $100,000 for the two suspects associated with the yakuza. The court-appointed defense lawyer — a gaunt, middle-aged man whose pallor suggested he’d never been outdoors when the sun was shining — objected on grounds the alleged pot farmers had only minor offenses on their criminal record while even less was known about the so-called mob assassins.

  The judge set individual bail at $500 cash for the two alleged marijuana growers and $5,000 e
ach for the other two defendants who were loosely charged with serving as accessories to a homicide.

  Relatives and friends quickly raised $1,000 to free the pair charged with growing pot. The other two defendants were ordered held in lieu of bail, but within an hour a courier representing Orochi Tanaka arrived at the courthouse and posted the required $10,000 cash.

  Police Chief Joe Napuna and his law enforcement superiors in the U.S. strongly emphasized the FBI would be given full credit for the arrests. Napuna conveyed as much to Mashima, adding if he didn’t like it, he should prepare to spend the rest of his career at a desk in a windowless police station on one of the outer islands, deciphering illegible reports written by illiterate police officers.

  Mashima turned over his fingerprint files and witness statements – the most rudimentary facts of the investigation. As a result, the FBI agents celebrated the arrests but could offer the court no motive for the slaying. None of the suspects were talking.

  Hannah and Carrington monitored the situation through conversations with friendly trial court officers and whoever else would talk. In Saipan, it was more effective to learn the behind-the-scenes story than what was actually happening in the courtroom.

  Hannah rubbed her chin, as though in deep thought. “Interesting that Mashima didn’t tell the Feebies about Tanaka or why he might have wanted Asaki dead. Something tells me we’ll be hearing from the detective very soon.”

  As though on cue, Mashima knocked on their hotel room door at the Chalan Kanoa Hotel. Hannah studied him through the peephole before opening the door.