Fire Knife Dancing (Jungle Beat)

by John Enright

  Apelu had to stand for Agent Rick to unshackle him. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Okay, Detective, tell us what happened.”

  Apelu described the events in the Korean graveyard at Vailoatai.

  “Take us there,” the tall agent said.

  They took both rental cars. At the graveyard, Apelu walked them through what had happened. After a short search, one of the agents turned up four rifle shell casings in the rocks on the ocean side of the road. Apelu took the tall agent to where Mati’s body had been. The spot had been covered with fresh dirt and torn-up weeds, but the earth beneath was still dark with blood.

  “I’ll tell you why you were a prime suspect, Detective,” the agent said. “Because your attorney general fingered you, said you and Agent Sparks had something going on and that you were already under a cloud of suspicion.”

  “Did the attorney general know Sparks was one of you guys?” Apelu asked.

  “Not before I told him so.”

  “If they had known Mati was FBI, he’d still be alive. Too much heat to come down,” Apelu said.

  “Wait. You think the attorney general had something to do with Sparks being murdered?”

  “You mean Sparks never told you he had put all the pieces together and that the AG was the linchpin not just in the smuggling but in the human trafficking too?”

  “The last he reported was that he had some new information he had to confirm, That’s when he asked for back-up.”

  “Look, I don’t know who pulled the trigger, but the AG had the most to gain from Mati’s silence. The plates on the car were from his office.”

  The tall agent turned and looked out to sea. He was silent for a while. “Nice spot here,” he said and then was silent for a bit longer. “Okay, Detective, we’ll go with your theory, with your word right now the only thing to back it up. We don’t even have a body and nothing to materially connect this attorney general to much of anything. But we’ll go with it. Sparks had told us all about you and this girl called Tia. We still have to find her. She’s the prime remaining witness in our sex trafficking case.”

  Apelu told them what he had told Sparks about the girl called Tia being apprehended the week before. “Her real name’s not Tia but Sila Fa’afima. I saw her passport. What did the attorney general have to say about Sparks?” Apelu turned away from the bloody uncovered stones and looked out to sea.

  “That he just hadn’t come into work Friday and Monday, took a long weekend, probably shacked up someplace. Agent Sparks was under special orders to check in with the Honolulu office every day at nineteen hundred hours Honolulu time. When he failed to do so three days in a row, we scrambled. Even if Sparks was shacked up someplace, he’d still have reported in.”

  “Family?” Apelu asked, still looking out to sea.

  “Nothing close. A loner. Okay guy, though.”

  “That bloody shirt you found. It was mine. My blood too, not Sparks’. An accident.”

  A car drove by slowly up on the road. The other agents were busy taking photographs and making diagrams on clipboards. The car, a black sedan, drove on.

  “What next?” Apelu asked.

  “Well, I’m sure your attorney general would like us to bring you in.”

  “Well, you can’t do that. There are still pieces that you guys ain’t got and that I can’t give you while in custody.”

  “Like what pieces?”

  “Like the girl Tia. Like who shot Sparks.”

  The name of the tall agent interviewing him was Dwayne. Apelu wondered if there was some reason why he was learning only their first names. Dwayne seemed to be in charge. He told the other agents to finish up their initial investigation of the crime scene, and then they all returned to Ezra’s house, where they held a meeting. Dwayne ran the meeting. They would report back their findings that Special Agent Sparks was missing and presumed dead and that they would continue their investigation into his disappearance. They would tell their bosses but not the local authorities that they had connected up with Detective Soifua, who would be working with them on the case. They would continue their search for the Tia woman. The problems were that they had no body and they had no legal powers to pick up anyone for questioning or detain anyone. For the time being they would not mention the suspicion thrown on the attorney general and his office by Detective Soifua’s uncorroborated story.

  “The AG has got to at least appear cooperative,” Apelu said.

  “Right,” Dwayne said. “We can put pressure on him by forcing him to cooperate.”

  “Like in finding Sparks’ body,” another agent said.

  “Forget about Sparks’ body,” Apelu told them. “It’s a big ocean, a lot of coastline, a deep jungle. If they wanted him disappeared, you’ll never find him. No, follow up on Tia. The police took her in six days ago. Either they handed her over to Immigration for deportation, or she’s still in custody. I think all they had her for was overstaying her visa. If the AG is involved in the trafficking for prostitution, as Sparks thought, she is the trump card he’ll want to hide. All the other girls—except the dead one—have been deported, I think.”

  “We can’t just let a special agent’s murder slide,” the same guy protested.

  “We won’t,” Dwayne said.

  “No,” Apelu said. “Follow up on the cars—Sparks’ car and the black sedan, both with government plates. Somebody drove both of them away. Some car or van hauled his body away. There were drivers involved who didn’t want to be involved. This thing is getting out of their control. It’s ballooning.”

  “So, what are you going to be doing, Detective?” It was the same agent again, a round blond guy.

  “What’s your name?” Apelu asked.

  “Ethan,” he said.

  “Anybody got last names?” Apelu looked around.

  “Not yet,” Dwayne said.

  “Well, Ethan, I thought I might help you strangers out by keeping an eye on the only other suspects you’ve got around right now, the Woos, seeing as I know where they’re at and you guys would be about as obvious as a black helicopter. And I thought I might follow up on the murder weapon for you. What were those shell casings you picked up?”

  The fourth agent, the quietest one, the one still without a name and obviously the techie, spoke up. “They’re thirty caliber, but short rounds, not normal assault rifle ammo.”

  “Could you give me one so I can check on them?” Finally with something to do, Apelu was getting impatient. The techie looked at Dwayne, who nodded. “How are we going to communicate? Where are you guys staying?”

  “The Rainmaker,” Dwayne said. “I tried this morning to get cell phones from your Office of Communications, but they didn’t have anything available, they said.”

  “Oh shit,” Apelu said. “The Rainmaker is the government-owned hotel. The lines aren’t secure. I know that. We’ve got one happy crew that just spends all its time listening to calls in and out of there. And now that the AG knows you’re feds, you’ll never get cell phones, which wouldn’t be secure anyway. Look, here’s a number.” Apelu gave them Asia’s number. “It’s safe. There’s an answering machine if I’m not there. Use public phones or private lines—but not the public phone at the hotel.”

  They set a time when they would talk on the phone the next day—two p.m. As the agents drove away, Apelu went to visit with Nick and Nora. They were excited and upset. Apelu fed them and sat with them a while until they calmed down. Then, as he got the shovel and hose to clean out the kennel, he did something he had never done before—feeling sorry for them being caged up for so many days, he let them go. He held open the kennel gate and told them to go play, but come back when he called them. Nick gave him a questioning look.

  “Go on, but come right back,” Apelu said and nodded toward the open gate.

  Nick barked once, okay, and he and Nora walked sedately through the gate onto free concrete. Then they took one look at each other and tore off into the bush, leaping cleanly over the bordering l
ava stone wall.

  Apelu was sitting at the edge of the cliff, looking out to sea, trying to get straight in his head who knew what and decide what he would do next, when he heard a movement behind him. He froze, then turned slowly in the direction of the sound. Nick was just sitting down behind him, his big mouth open and breathing heavily. Nora was coming up behind him, sniffing at things. When Apelu looked at Nick, he barked once and looked out to sea. Nora flopped down and began her tongue bath. They had been gone maybe half an hour. Apelu reached back and scratched Nick between his ears. They followed Apelu back to the kennel and through the gate, where Apelu filled their food and water troughs again and locked them in. They seemed content.

  Back at Asia’s house Apelu propped the shotgun, which he had retrieved from the bush, beside the back door. A light was blinking on the answering machine. Dwayne checking out the number already? Apelu pushed the new message button.

  “Apelu? Apelu, if you’re there please pick up. This is Asia. Apelu? Okay, you’re not there. It’s about ten thirty Tuesday morning. Would you please give me a call as soon as you get this message. I’m at…,” and she left an Apia phone number and a room number.

  Apelu called the number—it was the Tusitala Hotel—and got her room. Asia answered on the third European bring bring of the phone.

  “Taking a little vacation?” Apelu asked after she said hello.

  “Out of Dodge anyway,” she said. “How are you doing? I thought you might take up my invitation.”

  “Good good, just kicking back, relaxing. A little zen here, a little zen there.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Relatively clear. What’s up?”

  “Apelu, you said that you got the list of missing girls’ names from someone over here in Apia. I was wondering if you could tell me who your contact was. I’m over here. I may as well follow up on the girls, see what I can find out about how they’re doing.”

  “As Sally the social worker?”

  “Something like that.”

  Apelu’s initial reaction was not to give Asia Lisa’s number. He liked keeping these things separate in his mind. He wondered if he wanted Asia involved more than she already was, on her amateur citizen’s campaign to help victimized women. Then he thought, what the hell, we’re on a new roll here, maybe Asia can find Lisa. Asia was a big girl. So he gave her Lisa’s telephone numbers and told her Lisa’s official position and where her office was.

  “But, if you do get in touch with her, have her contact me here at your place.”

  “Okay, got that.” Asia read back to Apelu the numbers she had written down. “And, Apelu, about the other night, I just wanted to say I wouldn’t mind repeating it sometime.”

  Apelu caught his breath. Someone was reading his mind again, sharing the same thought. “I’d like that too,” he said, “but you’ve got to come home first.”

  Apelu’s next call was to a cement company

  “RT here, Quality Erections, that’s our motto, if you’re into that sort of thing.” It was a familiar Aussie drawl.

  “RT, Apelu.”

  “Ah, me favorite copper. I saw in the paper where you’ve started your retirement program. Be careful with them young sheilas, Pelu. They’re a perishable commodity.”

  “I know you’re an expert in such matters, RT, which is why I called you. What are you doing for lunch?”

  “I was eatin’ it before I answered the bloody phone.”

  “After work?”

  “I’ll let you buy me a beer.”

  “Where are they the coldest?”

  “The Juke Box.”

  “Five?”

  “Shit, I work for a fuckin’ livin’, mate, unlike you government types. Make it six.”

  Apelu had noticed an unfinished house in a lot next door to the Woos’ house—two-story unpainted cement block with no roof, windows, doors. The jungle had begun to reclaim it. Such half-finished houses were not uncommon on Tutuila. The family had run out of money, someone had died, fortunes had taken a bad turn, grandiose dreams had been dreamed on financial quicksand. He parked Asia’s Kia in the lot of a Laundromat up on the road about a quarter of a mile away and hiked into the house, carrying a white plastic shopping bag containing two tuna fish sandwiches and three bottles of water. The sun was out, and it was hot. Sweat rolled down his forehead from beneath his Chargers cap. At the abandoned house he found some shade in the corner of a wall on the second floor from which he could watch the Woos’ front door and driveway. He made himself as comfortable as he could. The bottled water got quickly warm. He ate the sandwiches and sipped the water, smoked cigarettes, and watched the birds—swiftlets and honeyeaters mostly. Every so often a small interisland plane would land or take off from the airport runway on the other side of the perimeter fence. Off in some direction a Weed eater whined its uneven song. Why did the sound of the Weed eater make him think of Merle Haggard? Why did the individual army ants on the opposite wall never wander from their prescribed if undulating trail? How come no one tended to or harvested the banana trees in this yard? They were just going to waste. What would the kids be doing now, just getting out of school? Would Sanele be headed for football practice? Would already-too-chubby Sarah—without Daddy around to scold her—be eating Bongos and drinking a soda? Why didn’t he quit smoking? If he had gone to church and pretended to believe in all that shit, would he and Sina still be together? What was it people lacked that made them open to religion? What would Asia’s small firm breasts look like, taste like, naked in the sunlight? Why was he a cop? By virtue of what physical forces did that khaki-colored gecko sniping army ants out of their column cling so freely to the vertical wall? Why did he smoke? Maybe he should just quit.

  It wasn’t a black SUV but a taxicab that finally pulled into the Woos’ driveway. Apelu crawled over to the window opening from which he had the best view of the driveway. Two men, both Asian, one skinny, one fat, got out of the rear seat of the cab and looked around. Then the two front doors of the cab opened. Mr. Woo got out of the passenger side and a male Samoan driver got out of the other. The driver opened the trunk and pulled four black suitcases out of it. The Asian strangers—both in black suits—took the luggage, two each, and followed Mr. Woo into the house. The cab turned around and left.

  Apelu waited another half an hour, until five thirty, then walked back to the car and drove to the Juke Box, which was only about ten minutes away. On the way he stopped at a bush store and bought a fresh pack of cigarettes.

  The Juke Box was more a memory than a bar. Its best virtue was probably its location—if you had never been there before it was almost impossible to find and virtually impossible to give directions to, lost in the maze of unnamed, almost accidental lanes of the Tafuna Plain. Once, years before, it had briefly been a hot spot for a certain social set, with always at least a passable local band playing to dance to and the cachet of being almost a private club where no one you didn’t know went. But those years had passed—a couple of fights, a drug bust, several changes of owners—and now it stayed open almost by habit. Its only real business was the dart league that met there once a week—not on Tuesdays like today—and a few Aussie expats who had made it their after-work hangout. It stocked their Foster’s Lager. There never had been a juke box in the place.

  At six p.m. RT was the only other patron. He was seated at the small bar, talking with the bartender.

  “What’ll it be, Apelu? Already started a tab for ya.”

  Apelu got a Steinlager and they moved to a table away from the bar. RT had been in the islands a long time. He was onto his second or third Samoan wife, depending on how you counted such things, but what he was best known for was his arsenal of weapons. Of course, most of them were illegal. Shotguns and .22 rifles for hunting were all you could legally register, although there really wasn’t much you could legally hunt anymore after the government had banned the shooting of fruit bats and doves. Apelu thought of RT’s collection as more of a private museum than an i
llicit arsenal.

  “You know, you look better without that walrus.” RT pointed at Apelu’s upper lip. “So good I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  “Maybe you should grow one now.”

  “Nah, mate. It’s bloody red and makes me face look even more like a train wreck. Missus wouldn’t stand for it.”

  Apelu put the shell casing that the FBI techie had given him on the table.

  “Thirty short,” RT said, just glancing at it. “Not much call for those around here.”

  “Could this be fired from a weapon with a silencer?”

  “Probably was,” RT said, “probably was.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because the only firearm on this island that I know of that takes a load like that is fitted with a perfectly lovely Belgian muzzle suppressor.”

  “Does this firearm have a name?” Apelu liked playing twenty questions with someone who knew all the answers.

  “Carmen.”

  “Carmen?”

  “Carmen the carbine. She’s an M1 carbine, US Army issue. Though not many around. Little sister to the M1 rifle. Got a special sight on her too.”

  “Is Carmen dating anyone special these days? Like going steady?”

  “I sold her to a bloke called himself Ioane Viliami, couple of years ago. Said he wanted it for shooting sharks from his fishing boat. Be good for that.”

  “Know where I could find this Viliami?”

  “Piece of cake. He’s in your bloody lockup, has been for more than a year. Busted for assaulting his wife’s boyfriend, shot up his fuckin’ truck real good. You remember that one?” RT motioned to the barman to bring them more beers.

  “I remember that, but it wasn’t a Viliami.”

  “Some other bloody name then. He had a bunch. Carmen was the gun he used. Never got the boyfriend, just his truck. I was a bit chagrined ’bout that—good weapon and all, wrong use. Glad you coppers never connected me to the fuckin’ piece.”

  “If Viliami is in the slammer, where’s Carmen?”