by Tod A
It clicked. “So Frank started replacing the temple icons with his forgeries, and shipping the genuine stuff to Yow?”
“That’s my theory. Naga’s forgeries are probably the best in the business. Perhaps Yow convinced your man Frank to merely add one more step to the supply chain and ramp up the profits for all concerned. If so, bloody brilliant, I must say.”
“Until the cops figured it out.”
“I doubt Yow is worried,” he said. “He has many fish on the fire. Indeed, my sources inform me it’s all but certain Yow is the head of the revamped Ah Kong.”
“So Frank was in bed with the Ah Kong?”
“So it seems—which makes my other news all the more sobering.”
“Spill it.”
“It’s Tripod. Somebody has … put her down.”
“Fuck. No. Are you sure?”
“Am I certain it was Tripod? No. But either way, it cannot be good,” he said. “I stopped by your villa to see if I could glean anything from staff.”
“Was Sanjaya there?”
“No, he has returned to his village. Do you know that everyone has absconded except sweeper? And I caught her making off with fistfuls of cutlery. She claimed to be justly entitled, as none of staff had been salaried in weeks.”
“I know, but what about Tripod?”
“That’s the vexing part. A dog’s head was nailed to the garden rear door. Sweeper said it was your dog. For your sake, I wanted to examine for myself. But sweeper had already removed the odious object.”
“Nailed to the door? What the fuck? Who would do something like that?”
“The Ah Kong commit such acts as a warning.”
“What, like, ‘Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes’?”
“Exactly. It appears that you too are now in bed with the Ah Kong. Do be careful, Mark. These are some very nasty people. They don’t play about.”
This was starting to get a little too real.
Monty showed up the following afternoon.
“It’s good to see you, man! How’s Kubu?”
“He sends kisses. And I bear good tidings.”
“I need some.”
“Well, I spoke to the police: a certain First Polis Inspector Bajingan.”
“And?”
“A most unpleasant man. Most unpleasant.”
“Yes, I know.”
“No Einstein, either. I don’t think this rube could solve a jigsaw puzzle, let alone a murder.”
“Right, but what did he say?”
“He kept leering at me in the most disturbing fashion. I was ready to—“
“Monty, what the fuck did he say?”
“I was getting to that,” Monty said. “Apparently, the forensic reports finally came back from Germany. I don’t know what took them so long. I persuaded him to tell me what they had found out.”
“Monty, I beg of you.”
He paused dramatically.
“The dead man found in the lagoon wasn’t Frank Fochs.”
It took a moment for the information to sink in. “Jesus fuck,” I said. “That means Frank is still alive.”
“May be still alive,” he corrected. “At very least, the police have no evidence of him being dead.”
“That’s good, right?”
“That’s very good indeed, Mark. It means we have a decent shot at getting you out of here.”
“Monty, I want to kiss you!”
“Now, don’t let’s get out of our prams,” he said. “There’s still the matter of the expedition fee.”
“What? Again with the fee? If I’m not a suspect anymore, shouldn’t they let me go?”
“Of course they should. But there’s still the visa violation. And you know how it works here: if you don’t have the time, you’d better have the money.”
“Monty, listen to me. I don’t know how much longer I can cope in this place. I’m starting to lose it.”
“Chin up, private. We’ll get through this. Now, I’ve got to run. I should have more news for you in a few days. In the meantime, obtain those funds, would you?”
“Believe me, man, I’m working on it.”
Rain, rain, and more rain.
I kept rolling the whole convoluted mess around in my mind, but nothing seemed to add up.
By now I knew that Nung had keys to Frank’s place and had been two-timing Mick with Frank. Maybe Frank had returned home unexpectedly and lost control when he discovered Nung and Mick doing the nasty in his fine teak bed. No, that didn’t work: Nung was still sniffing around for the Welshman, so she clearly hadn’t witnessed his murder.
Perhaps Frank had lain in wait for Mick in the jungle, jumped him, then dumped the body in the river. Nah, I just didn’t buy it. I could picture crazy Mick killing out of jealousy, not Frank. Nung was beautiful, but a rich bastard like Frank could afford a dozen like her.
I figured the explanation must have had something to do with the murkier side of Frank’s export business. He’d progressed from buying tainted teak, to forging counterfeit antiques, to the theft and smuggling of religious icons.
If Blacky could be believed, Mick had long been doing Frank’s dirty work. The Welshman was clearly a loose cannon. Maybe Frank had finally decided Mick was too big a liability, and opted to get rid of him. That theory held some water. But on an island where you could get someone killed for a couple of grand, why would Frank take the risk of doing the deed himself? Surely he would have kept his hands clean by hiring some Filipinos to do it for him. But if that’s what had happened, why was Frank in hiding?
Of course there was a simpler explanation. The Welshman, shit-faced as usual, had slipped, fallen into the river and drowned. But why was he wearing Frank’s clothes? And where the fuck was Frank? I couldn’t get my head around it.
I was roused from troubled dreams by what sounded like a dumpster full of frying pans falling down a flight of stairs. I leapt from bed but couldn’t seem to find my footing. The walls were wavering. Crossing the concrete floor was like treading on Jell-O. I heard shouts and banging from out in the yard, and the mad jingling of keys. Guards were racing through the blocks unlocking all the cells.
Somehow, I made it to the balcony. The prison yard was a riot of half-naked bodies: inmates banging plates and buckets, guards yelling and running in all directions. It was a few seconds before I realized I was in the midst of my first real earthquake.
Adrenaline jolted me fully awake. I raced down the stairs, grasping the metal railing to steady myself. Light bulbs flickered in their wire cages. A klaxon horn bellowed over the town. Crows shrieked in the half-light. I tripped at the bottom of the stairs and did something nasty to my ankle.
Eventually the shaking ceased. I picked myself up and limped over to join the crowd. There was a pregnant silence, as everyone waited to see if the quake was really over.
I saw a few faces turn toward a light. Slowly, the gaze of the crowd fell upon the eastern wall. The shaking had shattered the stockade. Prisoners converged around a ragged breach in the brickwork. I spotted Blacky and Cupcake and went to join them near the pile of rubble.
A ruddy sun was rising now, framed by the rude gash. There beyond the wafting dust, like some weird hallucination, was the Outside—the streets, the shops, the pye-dogs, the leaning palms, the whole illuminated world beckoning in all its brilliance—and for a few breathless moments nobody spoke.
Then Cupcake flashed us an impish grin and, leaping over the heap of broken masonry, ran whooping into the street. All of us stood for a moment, stupefied. Then a huge cheer rose up from the crowd. A second later the guards were after her, clomping down the road in their combat boots, firing into the air.
My phone rang. It was Monty.
“Are you still in one piece, dear boy?”
“I think so.”
“Well,
pack your bags. Your expedition fee has been paid. You are being released.”
{ 15 }
No Place Like Home
It was mid-afternoon by the time the last form was inked and stamped and signed. I limped outside, squinting in the shifting sunlight. Monty had guided me through the court appearance and the thicket of legalese.
“Corpus delicti, my boy. No body, no case.”
This meant that since Frank had been downgraded from homicide victim to missing person, I was no longer a murder suspect.
“What about the Welshman?”
“They do not yet consider you a suspect in that particular death.”
“Who do they suspect?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t much care,” he sang.
Monty had done a pretty good job for a disbarred Dutch lawyer in a foreign land. In exchange for the copious baksheesh and a plea of nolo contendere, I’d gotten off with probation on the work visa violation.
“You are forbidden from working,” Monty explained. “But on the bright side, you won’t be deported. The police have retained your passport.”
“That’s the bright side? No passport means I’m stuck here.”
“They are just hedging their bets while they wait to see if your Mr Fochs turns up dead as well. If he does, you can damned certain you’ll be back inside Neraka in an instant. You could of course enter a formal complaint through your consulate. But I wouldn’t advise it.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what do they expect me to live on?”
“The fruit of gratitude, I expect,” he laughed. “Don’t worry, we won’t let you starve, dear boy.” He mounted his bike and strapped on his helmet. “Sorry I can’t drop you home. All this red tape took longer than I expected. Must dash into Joro to collect some tickets before the agency closes.”
“Go. I’d rather walk,” I said. “I can’t thank you enough, Monty. I’ll repay you, somehow, I promise.”
“What are friends for! Sunset drinks at Cooney’s to celebrate your liberation, yes?”
As I watched him disappear into the traffic, I wished that Wulan had been there to meet me.
But maybe it was better that I was alone. I needed to come up with a plan. I set out toward the only home I had, knowing it would not be home tomorrow. There was no way I could stay at Frank’s any longer. I decided to grab my stuff and head to the Saloon, hoping that Cooney would put me up for a while. An aftershock juddered the tarmac—a swift shimmy, rattle and shake—as the mountain exhaled a nervous breath.
The town was buzzing in anticipation of that night’s festival: families out in their best sarongs, streets draped in flowers, grandmothers tottering toward the temple bearing offerings, motorbikes piled high with teenagers.
While the rain held off, farmers seized the moment to harvest their fields. Women hacked the rice plants off at the root, while men whacked the stalks on wooden boards, spilling the grains onto tarpaulins spread in the sun. Most paddies were already stripped and dotted with piles of burning stalks. Smoke wafted eerily over the landscape in the rising breeze. By the time I put my key in the front door of Villa Istana I was sweat-soaked and sooty.
The compound was deserted. Shriveled flowers spiraled from the vines as I crossed the overgrown lawn and climbed the ladder to my room.
Strange chirruping sounds and a trail of guano led me to the wardrobe, where indignant yellow eyes glared at me from the shadows. I’d left a window open: now a brood of flying foxes roosted inverted among my shirts. I decided to leave my clothes behind.
I grabbed my typewriter and computer bag, pausing at the edge of the hatch to look around for the last time at my little piece of heaven. Then I turned and went down, leaving paradise to the bats.
Gusts of wind nagged the palm tops and rattled the bamboo chimes as I limped up the front steps of the villa. I wandered from room to room, dragging my fingers through the dust on the teak furniture, as dead leaves skittered across the floor. The glass cases full of precious artifacts now seemed like displays in a forgotten museum. Whatever envy or admiration I’d felt on first entering this place had faded.
I pulled down a crutch from the wall and hobbled up the stairs to Frank’s study, examining once again the handful of photographs he’d hung among his Madunese art: Frank smirking with classmates at a European university, Frank and his wife with a baby boy and girl, Frank and his teenage daughter, Frank stone-faced at a table of Asian businessmen, Frank proud and alone in front of Villa Istana. Though I’d hoped at last to gain some understanding of the man, I still couldn’t put the pieces together.
At the TV Bar Kala had said that Frank’s ‘Singapore friends’ were ‘looking for him’. Clearly something had gone wrong in Frank’s dealings with the Ah Kong. It must have been something pretty heavy to make him abandon his picture-book ex-pat life and send him into hiding. Maybe he’d tried to disappear permanently—fake his own death. He’d murdered the Welshman, dressed the corpse in his clothes, and left Mick for the water rats. It was possible. But that would’ve meant Frank hired me to be the patsy.
I didn’t notice the fire until a handful of embers fell to the floor, scattering at my feet. Smoke blew into my face, drawing tears. Shouts came from the street. I looked up as clumps of burning thatch began dropping all around me. I found a fire extinguisher and pointed it at the flames. By the time I had put out the fire, the room was full of rancid smoke and there was a gaping hole in the roof. I opened a window and leaned out to get some air. My respite was brief.
One of the palms in the compound had ignited and its cusp quickly blossomed into a torch. The leaves wafted into the air, borne on the monsoon updrafts. I emptied the rest of the extinguisher toward the flames. But its reach was too short, the flames too far gone. I remembered Cooney’s warning about burning palm leaves. The sweat chilled on my neck: the wind was blowing toward Cooney’s place.
“Oh, fuck no. Please. Fuck, no.”
I staggered down the stairs and out the back garden door, stumbling and slipping through the paddies toward the lagoon. But by the time I got to Cooney’s it was already too late.
There was nothing to be done: the bar went up like a fireworks factory. Savage flames sprang fifty feet into the sky. It sounded like a war zone. Bamboo beams became bombs, the air trapped inside their hollow nodes super-heating until the walls burst, exploding like barrages of artillery fire. Each blast sent volleys of flaming splinters and sharp wooden shrapnel screaming in all directions, leaving trails like tracer bullets.
A bamboo fire cannot be extinguished: it must burn itself out. The whole neighborhood came to watch. Families looked on silently, parents holding children. Men crouched on thatch roofs further up the incline, ready to smother wandering sparks with buckets of water and damp rags.
I joined Monty and Kubu at the far side of the bridge. The awful scene was mocked by its reflection on surface of the lagoon. We couldn’t look away. Even from across the water the heat was fierce, searing our skin and driving us slowly back toward the crest of the dune, where Cooney sat on his haunches.
Behind us the sun was slowly absorbed by the sea as the fire before us burned itself out. Soon all you could see of the villagers were their eyes glowing in the undergrowth.
Cooney hunkered motionless on the sand, his expression locked in a rigor of disbelief. Nobody spoke. In ten minutes it was all but over. The building collapsed in upon itself—the summation of one man’s dreams self-immolated in the tropical night.
“I’m sorry, Cooney,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
Muffled pops and bangs spat up puffs of ash from the smoking ruin.
“That would be the liquor bottles,” Monty said.
We stood in silence as bats and swallows emerged into the twilight.
Suddenly Cooney leapt up and set off down the beach, the plastic jug of jungle juice swinging at his side.
“Co
oney, wait!” Monty cried.
“Sod this!” he shouted over his shoulder.
I jumped up and hobbled after him.
“Cooney! Hold up, man,” I shouted. “We need to talk.”
He waved my words away like a troublesome cloud of gnats. With my bad ankle I couldn’t match his manic pace. I collapsed onto the edge of the dune, and watched his wiry figure diminish up the beach into the rising dark. After a while Monty and Kubu came over and sat down beside me on the sand.
“It’s a shame,” Monty said. “All that labor and love up in smoke.”
“Up in smoke,” echoed Kubu.
“And all that booze,” I said, poking at my ankle.
“Speaking of smoke,” Monty said, eying the mountain, “Kubu and I are off tonight for Bangkok. They say following the temblor there may be a serious eruption here. Could turn out to be nothing, of course. But you never know with these things. Your consul and his staff have already decamped for Jakarta—”
“Fitch already split? Surprise, surprise.”
“—and there won’t be any flights after midnight. Kum Sati, you know, the Day of Silence.”
A muted rumble rolled down from Kebakaran. I turned toward the volcano to see steam fluming from its peak.
“Day of Silence? Doesn’t look like it.”
“We have misgivings. We’ve never missed Galung Gong. And leaving you here with no passport—it just doesn’t seem right.”
“No, you guys go ahead. You’ve done so much for me, Monty—the legal help, paying my baksheesh.”
“Dear boy,” he said. “It wasn’t me that paid your expedition fee.”
“What?” I said. “Who was it?”
“She didn’t want me to tell you.”
“Wulan?”
“You have a good girl there, Mark. Hang onto her.”
I was speechless.
He smiled as they got up to go. “You will look after Cooney, won’t you?”
I watched them lug their suitcases across the bridge and disappear into the lingering smoke.
It was dark when I finally set off toward Joro.