by Rob Swigart
“This is a grave situation,” the man said urgently. “Not to be taken lightly. Bad publicity for the territories, for the government, if certain things become known, you understand?”
The official nodded, of course he understood, he was not above doing a little intelligence gathering himself, perhaps this man had heard about him, seen some of his reports on the Silicon Valley in America, what was going on there? No? Well, no matter. He understood perfectly, perfectly.
“You read too many novels,” the man told him. He was so nondescript that he defied description altogether. Ordinary. Medium. Average. Ordinary looks, medium height, average intelligence. His eyes were gray, or perhaps blue. Not brown, though. Certainly not brown.
Sangier processed visas. He looked at people, measured them against their passport photographs. He carried the shorthand of passport descriptions in his blood. But this man could not be identified. A photograph of him would look like thousands of other photographs of other people. He could be anyone.
This pleased the official. This man’s anyoneness was an asset in his profession, a chameleon talent that let him slip in and out unnoticed. “How long have you been here?” The official asked.
The man shrugged and sipped at his beer. “You came in at six thirteen,” he said slowly. “At six thirty-two you went to the men’s room. Nine minutes later you came back. You had washed your hands. You still stink of that American soap that comes out in liquid spurts as if it were sex. That’s the Americans for you. Obsessed.”
The official smiled. “That’s what they say about us,” he observed.
The other man put his empty glass down on the black plastic tabletop. He did it precisely on top of the condensation ring that had formed when the waiter put the glass down the first time. “My name,” he said, “really is Phénix. Henri Phénix.’’
“I see.”
“Americans think everyone is a spy, a secret agent. They are romantic, the Americans. I am not a spy. You are not a spy. You are a clerk. I am a messenger. Nothing romantic or glorious about any of it.”
Sangier thought this a lengthy speech for a man so anonymous. It lent him an imitation of character, the sketchiest outlines of a personality. This man thought of himself as a realist, pragmatic, down-to-earth, as the Americans liked to say, though God knew why.
“So. What is your message?”
The waiter materialized. Henri tapped his glass and the waiter nodded then glanced at the official, who failed to notice. “Another glass of wine?” the waiter asked Sangier, indicating his glass.
“Wine? You can’t call this wine,” the official stated.
The waiter turned away. “Whatever you say,” he murmured. He was back in moments with the beer, but when he reached for Henri’s empty glass the man placed his palm over it. The waiter shrugged and put the bottle down. Condensation rolled down the sides of the bottle and pooled on the black table. Onyx, the official thought, looking at the beads raised over the surface, reflecting the ceiling lights. Black and bright.
After the waiter vanished again, Henri lifted the glass straight up from its ring, poured swiftly and precisely, and set the bottle down in its own circle. The head of the beer rose swiftly to the rim and stopped.
There was something disquieting about the man’s skill. The consular official decided he was not average, medium, or ordinary at all. “The message,” he urged.
“The situation is complex,” Henri said. “The protest vessel intruded into French territorial waters near Moruroa. There was a bomb test under way, a small one, just another in the series. But there was a small… disruption… of the basalt core. Some leakage. Radiation. Military intelligence believes the ship was monitoring the water and air. Very sophisticated, some of these radical ecology people. Full of cunning and fat with money, resources. But they broke the law.” He lifted his glass and drank slowly. A tight knot in his neck, somehow menacing as he swallowed, one, two, three. The consular official decided this would turn into a wonderful story to tell his wife. Drinks at the Hilton with a secret agent.
The man, Henri, was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt. His hair was brown. The official began editing his story, shading it, improving it, removing redundancies and dull spots. A little reworking and it would play fine at official functions, dinners. Diplomatic insiders having a laugh at the expense of the darker services.
“Then,” Henri went on, “they stopped by Raïatéa. Are you familiar with Polynesia? No Well, Raïatéa is a thousand kilometers from Moruroa, a couple of hundred kilometers northwest of Tahiti, near Bora Bora. But it was the ancient religious center of Polynesia, and the ship aroused considerable local support by playing on this fact, so the High Commissioner’s office had doubts about the advisability of intercepting it. The public relations would have been… not good at all.” He shrugged and drank again. “One of the crew was a local activist, a Tahitian, Noel Taviri. You see how it is.”
It was a statement, not a question. The official cleared his throat.
“You have been to the local police?” Henri was looking at him with disconcerting steadiness.
“Well, yes, of course. That was my task, to sound them out.” The official’s words sounded a little resentful. It was a tone he did not like, and to cover it he looked into the nearly empty glass of this dreadful wine. Why the Americans exhibited such pride in this swill was unfathomable.
The other man said nothing, but his eyes were now fixed on the official, who finally looked up again. “They have no leads. Not yet.”
“Really? Everyone dead. The Death Ship, they call it.” His eyes rested on those of the official without wavering. Without blinking.
“Well, no. There was a survivor. So the police informed me.”
“Ah. Is that so?” The official wondered if the question was idle, or was there some policy matter he did not entirely grasp?
“Does it matter?” the official insisted. “The French citizens are dead. That is enough to cause trouble, I should think. A survivor may help unravel what happened.”
“And has it?”
“No, I don’t think so. The police told me she had said nothing yet.”
“So the American girl survived.” Henri began to peel the label from his beer bottle. He did it slowly and with intense concentration, as if preparing the bottle for display, and next he would construct a ship in amazing detail inside it.
Sangier did not notice the slip at first and began to say something, stopped. “The American girl? I didn’t mention which one survived, did I?”
After a silence, Henri said, “My job. And the police, they’re going to Tahiti, yes?”
“It sounded that way, yes.” The official decided it would not be proper for him to pursue most of the swarm of questions now circling in his head. Finally, he selected the most flattering. “How did you know they were going to Tahiti?”
Henri didn’t answer. “They should not find much there to interest them,” he said. “But if they do find something, we shall have to take steps. In fact, we shall have to take steps anyway, just in case.”
“Steps?”
“A matter of containment,” Henri said. Something about his voice caused the official to look up again. He found Henri’s eyes waiting for him, and the look in those eyes was even more disquieting than his voice had been. The official had a sudden helpless feeling of being in over his depth and decided to bring this interview to a close as quickly as he could. He held up his hand and attempted to catch the waiter’s eye. But the waiter was on the other side of the room, leaning over a table, speaking with what was obviously great pleasure to a very tan woman with a phenomenal amount of gold about her. Henri followed the official’s look and smiled. “I’ll take care of it,” he said softly.
“Eh?”
“The bill. I’ll take care of it.”
The consular official stood up. “Yes. I take it you have passed me the message?”
“I believe you understand me, yes.”
The official pau
sed at the entrance to the room and looked back. He was not at all sure he understood. He watched Henri finish his beer, set the glass down, take out his wallet and place a few bills precisely on the table. It looked as though Henri had carefully laid the money in the pool of water left by the beer bottle. He stood, smoothed the front of his shirt and walked over to where the waiter was still talking to the very tan woman.
This, he thought, should be interesting, but Henri glanced his direction as he steered through the black tables, and the official half turned to watch in a mirror near the entrance. He checked his necktie and felt grateful that the bar at the Hilton was air-conditioned.
Henri gave no sign that he had seen him, but continued to the woman’s table. Henri touched the waiter briefly on the elbow. The waiter looked up in astonishment, said something, nodded and moved away. The woman was looking up with a light in her eyes, a delicate smile playing around her lips. Her gold shone in the subdued light with a heavy liquid glow.
The woman patted the plastic seat beside her. Henri sat down and they fell into an animated conversation, almost as if they were old friends, though it seemed a stunning coincidence that Henri, so recently arrived from Tahiti, could know anyone here. The official shook his head. It was glorious to be French. He went to the front desk, where he booked a room. Jet lag was catching up with him.
Sergeant Handel sauntered out of the bar and leaned over the magazine rack near the front desk. Finally he selected a copy of Runner’s World, which he paid for as the consular official followed the bellhop toward the elevators. The elevator stopped on the fourth floor, but by then Sergeant Handel had already left the building.
Sangicr’s room looked out on the ocean, swiftly dimming as darkness fell. He stood for a long time at the window watching the white creamy phosphorescence of the surf until he couldn’t see it any longer. Then he called room service and ordered a steak sandwich and a bottle of beer. Better to stick to something safe, not try the wine again. That done he lifted the receiver again and dialed the number of Vincent Meissner’s hotel.
ELEVEN
PAPEETE
“What are we looking for?” Chazz was sitting awkwardly in the back of le truck from Faaa Airport into Papeete, his bulk braced against the window frame at his back as the vehicle bounced onto the highway. “Exactly?” he added. They swerved and accelerated to top speed of around forty miles an hour.
“If you had not slept all the way down here…” Cobb Takamura began. He lounged, completely at ease, his immaculate slacks holding their cutting crease despite the five-and-a-half-hour plane ride and this ridiculous jouncing transport.
“Yes?” Chazz asked. The road and traffic flow were smooth now, but the wind blowing through the half-opened windows along the sides of the passenger compartment, which was little more than a camper shell on the back of something like a pickup truck, made a constant wail, and he had to shout. The man opposite had long braided hair draped down his back away from a substantial bald spot. His beard, also braided, terminated in a dangling row of beads that made a small clattering sound when he looked at Chazz with bland curiosity. When Chazz looked back, the man smiled shyly and looked at his hands dangling between his knees. The beads clicked, and for some reason, the sound seemed very loud, even over the roar of the wind.
“…you would know.” Cobb was laughing.
“Oh. But I did sleep. So, what are we looking for?”
“Clues,” Cobb shouted and grinned.
“Oh. Of course.” Chazz shook his head in disbelief. “Silly of me.”
Except for the vehicle they were riding in, this might have been Kauai. The air was the same temperature, the hills clothed in similar green. Brilliant sun fell over the slopes.
There were differences that slowly appeared, though, as if forming in a Polaroid image. There was a feeling of urban sprawl, of closeness not so much exotic as simply different. More people crowded on the narrow shelf edge of a high island. There were different smells, too — exhaust, hot asphalt and machine oil, tropical flowers and dead fish, fresh-cut plants, and distant rain and old sweat. As they approached town, another smell began to dominate, a sharp, heavy rancid smell Chazz finally decided must be copra. Mostly Papeete smelled of cars, though.
Le truck wound through impossible traffic and stopped in the center of town beside the covered market. They climbed out and paid the driver with large silver coins. Cobb unfolded a map and stood frowning at it. Chazz stood beside him and wondered what he was doing here.
“This way,” Cobb said, putting the map away. He strode off before Chazz could reply and plunged into the market building, a square block under glass where fish and plantains, lettuce and tomatoes, papayas and pineapples, limes and mangoes, taro and yams, and unrecognizable tubers tumbled over the edges of wooden display cases. They wandered down the aisles. There were flowers for sale everywhere. “This isn’t even market day,” Cobb said. “And this is siesta time. Pretty quiet.”
Chazz merely looked at him.
They came out the other side. The streets were narrow and dense with cars. Exhaust coughed into the air and hung in brown clouds. Horns blared. Bicycles and pedestrians threaded their way through the traffic. There was about the city an air of good-natured chaos, as if nothing mattered very much.
At the corner, Chazz asked why they hadn’t been met. “I didn’t tell them we were coming,” Lieutenant Takamura replied reasonably.
“Oh.”
“I thought we might surprise them,” Cobb added. “Another block. We’re looking for the corner of Rue de Gaulle and the Avenue Braut.”
They paused in front of the sprawling Territorial Assembly building. Chazz shook his head again. He had never seen Cobb Takamura act like a tourist before. “If they’re not expecting us,” he said, “how do you know they will see us?”
“You worry too much, Chazz. Must be the scientist in you. Don’t you want to look around? We don’t come down here all that often, do we? As the great detective Charlie Chan would say…”
“No, please. No quotes. Where to next?”
“Okay. Left here. Two blocks down. Rue des Poilus Tahitiens.”
“Okay. What’s there?”
“Police station.”
They were kept waiting a mere twenty minutes before they were ushered into a large office. The policeman inside was overweight, affable, and serene as he maneuvered around his enormous desk with both his hands outstretched in greeting, apparently untroubled by this sudden appearance of colleagues from America. “Welcome, welcome,” he murmured. “Or ia orana, as we say here.” It sounded like “Yo-rana.” He ordered coffee and settled down behind his desk, a battered thing of dark wood, nicked by a hundred years of colonial administrators kicking it in frustration. Or so he said. He did not appear frustrated himself. “Aita pe’ape’a,” he told them. “No problem. This is Tahiti. Everything is maitai, fine, just fine.” His English was good. He brushed his plump hand through lank graying hair that instantly fell back across his brow, concealing three horizontal folds. “Learn a few words and you will find what you want here. Maururu is thank you and ia orana is hello. Very simple.”
When Cobb answered, “We’re not here to sightsee, Monsieur LeBlanc,” Chazz stifled a snort of delight, visions of Takamura gawking in shop windows at displays of black pearl jewelry and shell necklaces. Cobb gave him a sharp look. “There was another crew member of the Ocean Mother. We want to know who that was, and what happened to him.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” A young policeman in a baggy khaki uniform brought in coffee. He set down the tray and smiled at the visitors as if his only hope in life was to serve coffee to such distinguished and powerful foreigners. He almost backed out of the room, he was staring so hard. “Thank you, René,” the fat policeman said, and the other nodded and closed the door behind him.
“He is young,” LeBlanc suggested, as if youth explained such obvious interest. “He has considerable enthusiasm.”
“Yes,” Cobb said, picking up
his cup. “I have a sergeant of similar disposition. Too much television, I believe.”
“So it is here also,” LeBlanc said. “And there is very little crime in Tahiti, you see. Only five gendarmes in all of Raïatéa. Small force for a place so large. Uturoa is the second largest city in all of Polynésie.”
“Really?” Chazz asked.
“Twenty-five hundred people,” LeBlanc said proudly. “Capital of the Leeward Islands. High school, dispensary. Two doctors. Very civilized.”
“How long have you been out here?” Chazz asked.
“Twenty years now,” LeBlanc said.
“You never wanted to go back to France?”
“What?” LeBlanc was surprised. “Of course. I go back every year, for vacation. But this is my home.”
They drank coffee in companionable silence. A large fan circled lazily overhead, redistributing the relatively clear air at head level and replacing it with smoky air from near the ceiling. LeBlanc’s cigarette burned itself up in his ashtray. A long straight column of smoke gradually spread until it hit the level of the fan, where it wavered and dissipated. The cigarette crumbled to gray ash. The policeman lit another, which he placed carefully in the ashtray and promptly forgot. The tray was full of expired cigarettes, all apparently forgotten. This was clearly a ritual. LeBlanc never seemed to inhale from the cigarette.
After a time he spoke. “You are taking the five o’clock flight?” Of course he would know the interisland schedule like the contents of his wallet.
Cobb nodded and set down his empty cup. “We’ll be at someone’s house, a judge, I think.”
“Quite. Queneau is an interesting man. I’m sure you will learn much.”
“Good coffee,” Cobb said. “I wonder if you have anything to tell us?”
“Aita pe’ape’a.” But he set down his own cup and reached for a large manila file folder on the side of his desk, which he opened and fell to examining with intense concentration. “My notes,” he explained, looking up once. The sheets were mostly handwritten in light purple ink. One or two had photographs clipped to them.
