Night of the Tustumena

by Arne Bue

  "Don't go calling up this hour, setting a favor trap. Doesn't work with me, Henderson whoever you are." Sewell heard a small snort.

  "Captain, sir. It's not so much what we want. More like we're doing you a favor."

  They always sound sincere, make it sound like I should give control of my ship over to them to save their mothers and the United States and the State of Alaska and apple pie. Sure he sounds sincere.

  "Since when has the Alaska Department of Public Safety started doing favors? I thought you were supposed to be out there saving lives, catching the bad guys."

  "Captain, sir. We need your help."

  The guy's desperate. A request for assistance. Like at sea, a ship in trouble. A little more compliant-sounding, controllable. Coffee's beginning to taste pretty good. But we're not at sea. We're here in the state system, some damn Trooper wanting me to do his work for him.

  "I won't be around Anchorage to be of much assistance. I'm out of here day after tomorrow."

  "Yes, Captain, sir. We know that. The Aleutian run. That's where you can ... that's where we need you. We need your help on this run."

  A snot nosed kid pretending to be a big man. Probably parades around some office in a fancy uniform, trying to look tough.

  "Henderson," what's your rank?

  "Sir, I'm a Sergeant. I've been on this case, working on this case with DEA almost a year. We've identified a possible."

  "Well I'm happy for you. Why don't you guys just pull this possible in, beat him with a phone book or something?" Sewell heard Henderson issue another snort.

  "You read about the murder in Sand Point?" Henderson asked.

  "On the news. Execution or something."

  "Meth dealer," Henderson said. "We think meth's being fed out to the Aleutian communities by ship. Maybe even the Tustumena.

  Sewell looked out at the rain. There was no way illegal drugs were being run on his ship. No way whatsoever. On the trail going past his condo he could see the woman and her daughter in their green raincoats. The girl had her hood up, but the woman who looked like Joyce didn't. She was letting rain pour down on her blonde hair. Joyce had her hair up that night in Northway Mall. He missed her, wanted his wife alive again.

  "I don't allow drugs on the Tustumena, Sergeant. And I know what goes on aboard my ship every damn trip. Anyone get screwed-up aboard ship, I kick 'em off next port of call. Had some college kids taken away by you boys in Kodiak not too long ago."

  "Yes, Captain. We know all about that. And sir, we're not saying the drugs are being run on your ship. But it could be."

  "I totally disagree. You just put that out of your mind. Not on my ship."

  "Captain, sir?"

  "I'm busy, Sergeant."

  "Captain, let me ask you. Do you have any repeats?"

  "Passengers?"

  "Yes, Captain. Passengers."

  "Of course. There's the birdwatchers from Maryland come up every June. A few others. Every year."

  "What about every trip out to the Aleutians?"

  "Locals, mostly. But not every trip, except the sketch artist. That biologist or professor or whoever he is."

  "Sketch artist or professor. Every trip?"

  "Might be a doctor or something. Doesn't speak English. But everyone likes his drawings. Takes lots of pictures."

  "Doesn't speak English? What's he speak?"

  "I don't know. Could be a Korean or Japanese. Maybe Chinese. But there's no way he could be running drugs. Not him."

  "Captain, sir. Folks in Sand Point say they saw a man in a coffee shop talking to Jeffrey Johnson, the murder victim? He was Korean or from the Philippines, my source says. But he could have been Japanese."

  "Wrong man, Henderson. Not this guy. Nice try."

  "Captain, sir. How long has he been taking all these rides out to the Chain with you?"

  "Last two years."

  "That'd be about right, Captain. That's when the charts began to go up, the meth began to show more. He's a possible."

  "We take good care of our passengers, Henderson. Their safety and comfort. I'm not going to create suspicion and worry in the minds of our crew and passengers just because you, Henderson, think a man is a possible. Just because he's a Korean or a Japanese or Filipino."

  "Captain, sir, do you think he'll be there this trip?"

  "There had better not be any drug deliveries on my ship. I won't stand for it."

  The parking lot of the Northway Mall rolled through his mind like a film, the shadows, the car pulling up. Then the other car and the people getting out and shouting at each other in Korean, or Japanese, he couldn't tell. And the pop-pop-pop. John August Sewell set the coffee down so it wouldn't spill. Only half full, but the big hand wouldn't hold the cup so steady anymore for some reason.

  "Sir, is there a way to check? Will he be there this trip?"

  A drive-by shooting. They hadn't meant to shoot Joyce. A drug deal gone bad. All it took, one stray bullet. The coffee don't taste so good anymore. There's the pounding in the ears again. Maybe should take the Procardia like the doctor said.

  "What?"

  "Is there a way to check?"

  No way would the professor run meth.

  "Ticketing would know. Usually has a stateroom. He's on the manifest if he's going out with us again."

  "Do you know the name, Captain, sir?"

  "No, Henderson. I don't memorize the names of every passenger."

  "Captain, sir? Could you find out, let me know?"

  "Look, I run a ship. I'm not your special errand boy, Henderson. Have your own people do this." Snot nosed little punk.

  "Captain, sir, you know a man by the name of Captain Kelly, in Juneau?"

  Jim Kelly, Juneau Headquarters. Holy shit, Henderson's been talking to him. The asshole went over my head.

  "He's headquarters. Why?"

  "Well, DEA and I have been talking to him."

  Oh, great.

  "Well you go ahead, talk to him some more, Henderson. Talk to him all you want. But leave me and my ship alone. You want to snoop on passengers, put someone aboard. But don't go calling the captain of a ship, and tell him what to do. I've got enough on my mind keeping the ship running."

  Sewell hung up.

  Some people just don't know how to take no for an answer. The screen crackled and lit up his mind again. The bullet had entered her chest. He'd held her and screamed to someone to call the ambulance, now. He was holding his own chest, about the same location where the bullet had gone into her. He pulled himself back. Concentrate, dammit. Get a grip.

  Henderson going over his head like that, calling Jim Kelly, then trying to pull a fast one, saying Kelly had given the OK. Give me a break.

  The phone rang.

  "John?" Juneau Headquarters, Captain James B. Kelly, the boss.

  "Oh, for God's sake. I think I know what this is about."

  "You bet. Henderson just called. You told him to shove it."

  "Of course I did."

  "Wrong, John. Wrong."

  "Listen, Jim. I don't run snoop operations for other agencies. I run a ship."

  "John, the Troopers and DEA have a bug up their ass on this. They've even been talking to the governor. The commissioner heard about this at a cabinet meeting.

  "You tell them to take a hike."

  "No, John," Kelly said.

  "Well I will. I'm not doing this."

  "John, I think you should go over this slowly, carefully."

  "Jim, you leaning on me?"

  "Let's just say this is an order, John. You're to report to Henderson on what you find out. An order from me."

  "Oh, come on Jim. I'm not doing this."

  "John, you thinking of going early retirement? That right?"

  "Oh, for God's sake."

  "And I want you aboard right away."

  "Jim, the Tustumena will be Homer in a few days. I'll be there at that time, not a moment earlier, not a damned second later."

  "You'll board her in Seldovia, John
."

  "Oh, come on, Jim."

  "John, if you want trouble from me, just say so."

  John August Sewell heard Captain Jim Kelly, Juneau Headquarters hang up.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Unrelenting cyclones still swirled in Mr. Nakano's brain following the Tokyo meeting with his boss Nishimoto, and these storms continued even after his wife's successful operation, even after he'd betrayed Nishimoto by going to Ochi for financial help, and even after another long trip to Anchorage, Alaska.. The cyclones ate at his stomach and chest and sore knee. Imagine, Nishimoto suggesting he would replace Misako, as though she was a used car. Misako! Replaced?

  He took a room in a place called The Anchorage Hotel, and there Nakano sat on the plush carpeted floor where he read from The Teachings of Buddha, concentrating on each word.

  The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage. Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves but are like heat haze.

  For a moment Mr. Nakano believed the words helped his perspective, helped him think. He did this often, of late.

  The phone made an annoying chirp. Nakano answered.

  "Hello, my friend." He recognized the quiet voice of the accountant, Yasumasa Uchigama, in Tokyo.

  "The photos and sketches arrive?" Nakano asked, referring to a small sum of money he' wired to Tokyo.

  "Yes," Uchigama said. Mr. Nakano listened to the man's breathing. Uchigama continued, "There's more."

  Mr. Nakano pressed the phone to his ear.

  Uchigama said, "Our oyabun says not to worry."

  "I am not worried. Why would he say something like that?" Nakano's heart thundered in his ears.

  "Because you spoke of a problem at a meeting last month. A problem in Sand Point, a rather noisy problem. Our boss has taken care of this situation. You are not to worry. Let us say no more about this."

  "Not to worry," Nakano said. His mouth went dry. "There is no problem in Sand Point! I only said my man Jeffrey Johnson, was boisterous. That is how I described him. He talks in a loud voice. But that is not a problem, simply a description of how this American man behaves."

  "Nishimoto and the Sugimoto both heard you describe a problem. It has been fixed."

  "No, no. He has family, a wife, two children. There is nothing that needs to be done from Tokyo about him."

  Uchigama disconnected.

  He imagined Jeffrey Johnson's beery grin and round belly, heard his robust laughter and saw again the happiness in his bleary eyes at how much money he was making. He'd shown Mr. Nakano the pictures, the little girl, the little boy, the photograph of the wife, her shiny brunette hair, the long-sleeved green sweater, the flowers on her desk.

  He gathered himself and thought of his own wife and son. The insulting money problems with his boss brought again the outrage he lived with.

  I must go on. I must make the voyage. The last voyage.

  He forced his thoughts inward until there was nothing but a pale canvas. He imagined he was on deck at sea taking photographs. The wind made his hands and cheeks go numb, and he swayed with the roll of the ship, and he heard the thrumming of the diesels and the wash of the passing ocean. His breathing settled, but he still felt a weight upon the hollow of his stomach. He looked about the plush beige room of the hotel room steeped in soft light coming through thin white drapes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tuesday, September 27, was a gray, dreary day at Anchorage International, but the clouds were high enough for ERA Aviation to stay on schedule. Mr. Nakano boarded an aircraft with the number N886EA painted on the fuselage, and since open seating was allowed, he took a seat in the front. The aircraft was a Twin Otter. The cockpit in front was empty, and he saw levers inside looking like bones hanging from the overhead, above an orange-lighted control panel. Flight officers were on the ground talking to a Security woman in a dark uniform. Behind, he heard handlers loading luggage and passengers shuffling into seats. A scruffy American brown beard took the seat behind, and leaned over and looked right at him.

  The man said, "You a tourist?" The man had been studying Mr. Nakano's camera.

  Nakano nodded politely, but looked away. He opened his book of meditation. The man hung there like a mop, but Mr. Nakano read silently to himself, like a Buddha.

  What is the meaning of the saying, A cupful of water is more than the water of an ocean? This is the answer: A cupful of water given in a pure and compassionate spirit to one's parents or to a sick person has an eternal merit, but the water of an ocean will some day come to an end.

  The brown bearded barbarian grunted, sat down, leaving Mr. Nakano alone. The pilot and co-pilot boarded. The Twin Otter taxied, raised the voice of its engines, lifted off, climbed and headed south toward Homer. Mr. Nakano photographed the autumn orange and yellow trees of Anchorage. The Otter hummed above gray billows, which at times parted to show Mr. Nakano gold, green and blue of forests and waterways, and ridges along higher elevations dusted in early snow. In fifty-five minutes the plane descended over Kachemak Bay, a mirror under somber clouds. Homer Spit in the distance reminded Mr. Nakano of a strong, black hand-drawn line he'd once seen reach dramatically across a Japanese sketch. He snapped a photo.

  "First time here, right?" the man behind asked, calling forward between the seats. Many Americans are most persistent and impolite, but Mr. Nakano was one who controlled his emotions and exercised much tolerance, even when a man such as this insisted upon conversation. Perhaps he could make use of this man. Maybe the brown beard would give him a ride. If he didn't own a car, maybe Mr. Nakano could suggest they share the expense of a cab ride. After all, appearing frugal and acting like a tourist, or maybe a professor or sketch-artist had certain advantages. Wearing such an appearance, no one could possibly guess what Mr. Nakano did for a living.

  Mr. Nakano smiled and nodded and called out over the drone of the engine, "Are you walking all the way to Homer?"

  "Hell no," the man said.

  I've asked the wrong question, thought Mr. Nakano.

  "How are you getting there?"

  "Take the cab as usual," brown beard said.

  Mr. Nakano deplaned and headed straight into the terminal, a two story with burnt orange trim, tawny wood siding, navy roofing. He retrieved his duffel at the baggage claim, and placed himself in front of brown beard.

  "Would you like to share a ride to Homer?" Mr. Nakano asked.

  "Yeah, sure," the man said. The American had the one backpack slung over a shoulder and binoculars.

  Maggie's Taxi, a minivan, sat outside. A GMC truck and a new white Buick waited by a stand of spruce. Mr. Nakano studied them: Both vehicles vacant, of no concern. Clouds rolled up behind a ridge marked by green conifer and deciduous trees in September yellow.

  "Our pilot was quite proficient," Mr. Nakano said, imagining the trip off to a perfect beginning, his final Tustumena voyage.

  "I could fly better than most those guys," the man said. "I'd fly here myself, but my plane's busted."

  Mr. Nakano decided further questioning as to how brown beard had come to harm his own airplane would not be wise, and besides, they'd exited the airport and already had approached the taxi. The taxi driver was a round dishwater-hair woman who breathed a great deal as she loaded Mr. Nakano's duffel.

  "Where to?" she said

  The man said, "Bowling alley."

  "I would like to visit the Pratt Museum," Mr. Nakano said. The woman looked back.

  "You going to carry that big duffel around the museum?"

  "I'm waiting for the Tustumena," Mr. Nakano said.

  "Don't leave 'til late tonight. Why not stow it at our place?" the taxi-woman said.

  "Yeah. Safe place," brown beard said.

  Mr. Nakano considered this a fine idea and said so. After all, he'd done this before, but that was something he did not wish to comment on at this time. His duffel bag was wide and long enough to carry hockey equipment. He would hold on to his camera an
d the red sports bag.

  The woman said, "I gave you a ride once before, didn't I? And you left your gear with us. Remember?"

  Brown beard decided to answer for Mr. Nakano. "This is his first time here."

  "No, I've seen him before," she said, looking.

  Of course she's seen me before. I remember the first time I rode with her, must have been a year ago, Misako sick, son Kano wanting to visit Alaska. I remember her. I made a great deal of money for Nishimoto that trip, distributing white diamonds. Ha, many in Tokyo call shabu by that name, white diamonds. Those foul-smelling factories in Pusan, South Korea, manufacture the shabu and Nishimoto and people like cousin Ochi smuggle the drug into Japan through Shimanoseki. And I, Mr. Kenso Nakano, make much money from my own creation, the Aleutian route. My own distribution system of white diamonds, methamphetamines. I deserve respect for this. Much more respect and honor. For am I not an honorable man?

  "Ah," Kenso said to the dishwater taxi-woman, "Perhaps someone who looks like me?"

  The woman drove and hunched her shoulders and looked at Mr. Nakano in the rear-view mirror.

  The brown beard said, "Hey, you an archeologist?"

  Mr. Nakano looked benignly upon him. Binoculars hung about the man's neck. Their shape reminded Mr. Nakano of the delicious and fat mud-skippers of the Ariake Sea, but the pleasantness faded as the man moved and the binoculars bobbed on his chest. Mr. Nakano tightened and pictured the awful handguns, the Glocks he'd seen Shige Nishimoto and soldier Kiichi Sugimoto display and parade around with like cowboys. He looked away. "Not an archeologist," Nakano answered, curtly. "I'm here to see. Only to look around."

  The taxi-woman said, "You're always taking pictures. Seen you before. If it wasn't you, then you sure as hell got a twin."

  "Ah, yes. A twin," Mr. Nakano said. He laughed and took comfort that brown beard laughed, too. The woman did not laugh. Mr. Nakano saw her eyes peer at him in the rear-view mirror, steely and blue.