Night of the Tustumena

by Arne Bue

  He sat with the newspaper in the forward lounge chair in morning light. The chair was leather-like, remindful of the ones in Shige Nishimoto's private office. He adjusted its back, and read.

  Dozen arrested on drug charges.

  KODIAK - A dozen people have been arrested here on charges they were involved in a cocaine-selling ring, Kodiak police said.

  The names were listed, men and women charged with felony misconduct involving a controlled substance. Mr. Nakano's people were not among them.

  The arrests follow a three-month undercover operation by local police, Alaska State Troopers, the Coast Guard and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, who seized packages of powder and crack cocaine in the bust. The drug's street value was estimated at about $20,000. Police said they expected to soon make more arrests based on the undercover ring.

  Mr. Nakano was stunned. How could he have missed this one? Perhaps he'd been busy making deposits in Anchorage and did not read the paper the day the story broke.

  Mr. Nakano slung his camera. He had his white ticket receipt in his pocket. Outside the foyer, a seaman guarded the boarding area. He checked almost everyone. Mr. Nakano watched two young men come up the gangway. The seaman stopped one with a look.

  "See your ticket," he said.

  "Just seeing him off," the young man said, gesturing with his head to the other, who'd already taken out his ticket. "My brother's going out to Dutch, get set up for a job. Saying good-bye."

  "OK," the seaman said, waving them aboard. "Be off at 4:30."

  Mr. Nakano slid past the guard, worked his way down the gangway and onto the dock. He'd heard there were about 7,000 people in Kodiak. The community clung to the north end of Chiniak Bay near the eastern tip of Kodiak Island, the largest island in Alaska. The city had prospered from commercial fishing, and the long hours of work aboard ship and in multiple shifts at canneries made Mr. Nakano s shabu a commodity much in demand. Mr. Nakano had created a simple distribution arrangement, and his deliveries into the more volatile and lucrative Aleutian Islands depended on what happened here.

  Thousands of commercial fishing vessels used the harbor each year delivering salmon, shrimp, herring, halibut and whitefish, plus king, tanner and Dungeness crab to its several seafood processing companies, and container ships stopped here to transfer goods to smaller vessels bound for the Aleutians, the Alaska Peninsula and other destinations. Shabu packets arrived from Japan by ship.

  Near the ferry dock an old World War II liberty ship had long ago moored, the Star of Kodiak, brought to the community after the 1964 earthquake and tidal wave. Used as a cannery, the old ship had a sign, "All-Alaskan Seafoods," on its dockside hull.

  Mr. Nakano walked up Center Street, passed the optometrist's, the bank, the doctor's office and passed through the parking lot to the grocery store, where he bought a roll of mailing tape. He headed up Reznof, a steep climb, and worked his sore knee, hoping the pain he felt would reward him with new vigor and strength after a rest in his bunk. He kept with the exercise until he was above the ferry dock, at the access to the Near Island bridge.

  Broken clouds, blue skies, cool. Good walking weather, a beautiful morning, Mr. Nakano thought, rubbing the knee.

  He took photos of the boat harbor across the bridge on Near Island, and several more of the onion dome of the Holy Resurrection Russian Orthodox Church. Enough time had passed. The ferry dock phones would be free. He limped down Reznof and Center and returned to the dock, where he studied cars and people. No police, no one out of the ordinary. He entered a phone booth and dialed the Tokyo number.

  "I'm in Kodiak," Mr. Nakano said.

  "Trawler," the accountant Uchigama said.

  "Good," thought Mr. Nakano. The money from the last trip had arrived in Tokyo by trawler. Uchigama is speaking vaguely, very good.

  "I read of Kodiak in the newspaper," Mr. Nakano said.

  Uchigama said, "A story of shame?"

  "Yes."

  Uchigama said, "Your oyabun said not to worry," and before Mr. Nakano could respond with even one word, Uchigama asked quietly, "Locker?"

  "Number five, starboard side, forward, almost to the observation lounge. I will tape the key here."

  "There are three phones at that particular dock. Which one?" Uchigama asked in a new voice, a harsh one.

  Mr. Nakano was nearly unable to speak. The accountant should not have openly identified the telephones. And not only was Yasumasa Uchigama speaking directly and loosely, but he'd changed his voice. He was speaking in an insulting tone, as though Mr. Nakano was of low class, no more than a dog, not speaking softly and with respect.

  Mr. Nakano gathered together walls about his emotions, and said calmly, "Number three. Number one is nearest the ship, phone booth number three is nearest Center Street."

  Uchigama disconnected.

  How unfortunate Yasumasa Uchigama would at this time display a high-class tone with Mr. Nakano. Many had said Uchigama was distantly related to a servant in the household of the Emperor, but that of course was a rumor no one could substantiate. Conversations at this particular phone booth were dangerous. Last winter did not Mr. Nakano try to convince Yasumasa Uchigama to speak indirectly? In Tokyo, they'd eaten dinner at the restaurant near Nishimoto s office.

  "You worry too much, Kenso," the accountant had said.

  "The route will fail from a loose tongue," Mr. Nakano said.

  "Those police in Alaska, do they speak Japanese? Do they know enough to be wiring ferry dock phone booths?" Uchigama had asked, sarcastic and biting.

  "They can tape us. And they can certainly use a translator," Mr. Nakano said. He'd controlled himself and fastened gluey eyes upon the accountant.

  This Kodiak call to Tokyo carried insult and threat of exposure, almost as though the accountant wished Nakano exposed. The one good piece of news was oyabun Shige Nishimoto in all certainty had followed police activities in Kodiak regarding the cocaine arrests. Do not worry, Shige Nishimoto had said. Do not worry. Mr. Nakano's route was clean. The police suspect nothing. Methamphetamines are safe. Cocaine is not safe. The only thing Mr. Nakano considered not safe was the carelessness of the accountant Yasumasa Uchigama.

  Each trip, a different route. Last trip, a man from Tokyo dressed like a tourist left a duffel bag in a restroom in Homer. The trip before, Mr. Nakano drove to Seward and garnered from the cook aboard a floating fish processor a substantial quantity crammed in a suitcase. And the trip before, he took the train to Whittier, boarded a Japanese freighter, and gathered a backpack from the navigator.

  This trip, locker 5 would be the drop for the additional shabu.

  Mr. Nakano climbed the gangway. At the boarding area, the seaman said, "Ticket?" The man wore a half-day's beard. He checked Mr. Nakano's ticket, read all the words. His boar-hog eyes studied Mr. Nakano. "Go ahead," he said with an American gesture, hand with thumb up, the impolite hand movement of barbarians in Mr. Nakano s estimation.

  Mr. Nakano was not tempted to lurk about the lockers to see the delivery. He decided to spend a half hour on the forward deck to let the bright stroking sunlight soothe his smarting knee. Rather than invigorate him, the climb up Reznof Street had made the knee quite sore. A raven flew above Mr. Nakano. From perhaps five meters the black bird dropped a mussel down like a bomb onto the hard metal of the deck. The insides of the shellfish splattered over Mr. Nakano s coat. The raven landed on the gunnel and waited for Mr. Nakano to leave, for there was much left upon the metal deck to consume. Mr. Nakano stepped inside, into the observation lounge, and looked out at the bird.

  The raven consumed the meal instantly, and flew off.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Elaine worked with Captain Sewell on the wing of the bridge during the Kodiak docking, and after that she remained on her watch to look over the latest weather reports. A high pressure area moving in. Probably good sailing from Kodiak to Chignik, a run of over 18 hours. From the wing she watched a few fishing boats pass. A male sea lion poked its head a
nd thick neck from the water, thrashed about with something clenched in its jaws, a tearing motion, and submerged. She crossed to the other wing and watched passengers getting off. After awhile a few boarded with their hand-carries, suitcases, sleeping bags. One or two were visitors or just people seeing friends and relatives on their way. She saw a few of the locals who'd made trips before. The rest were strangers.

  She recognized Mr. Nakano right away. He walked in a pained, limping manner, as though his legs or maybe his back hurt. Had his camera with him, as always. He stopped and looked at the phone booths. They were full. Crew always flocked to the Kodiak phones like a school of herring when the Tustumena docked.

  Mr. Nakano continued up Center.

  Around 11:30, Elaine saw Mr. Nakano return. She put the binoculars on him. He was carrying a little paper bag, maybe something he'd bought at the store, film or whatever. Mr. Nakano went directly to the phones, no one using them anymore. He did some dialing and talking and, through the binoculars, seemed to have dropped some coins, the way he leaned down, maybe to pick something up. She could almost make out the expression on his face, but the booth's plexiglass windows weren't that clear. He looked in pain, maybe from his legs, when he leaned down. Looked like he was messing with the underside of the phone, maybe, but she wasn't sure.

  He was done with the phone, and now he was laboring across the dock and re-boarding. She'd probably keep John updated on this.

  A few minutes before Quinsen came to relieve her, Elaine saw a raven fly overhead. The big black bird carried something in its beak, maybe a clam or something. The bird dropped whatever it was onto the hard metal deck. Seemed as though raven's did that every trip here. Probably the same bird, every time.

  She'd tell Anna to have a wiper clean the mess after the raven finished his meal. Let the bird finish first. She wondered who Mr. Nakano had talked to on the phone. Such a strange man.

  As she was about to leave the bridge, she noticed someone, she could not tell if a man or a woman, enter the same phone booth Nakano had used. This person squatted down, perhaps having dropped some quarters on the floor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Mr. Nakano ordered the tuna steak for dinner. He ate slowly and kept himself from looking at the Bergers, the oily complexioned people or at reflections in the windows, though he did observe out on the water the passing of Spruce Island.

  He walked the decks as the ship headed through Kupreanof Straits, where the Tustumena labored against the tide. Later, the waitress Judy Wood announced politely over the loudspeakers, Last call for dinner. We're closing at seven o'clock.

  A movie played in the VCR-theater next to the observation lounge, "The Mighty Ducks: D2." An elderly man slept near the aisle. A middle-aged couple watched from the third row. A young mother with two children occupied the front. They took little notice as Mr. Nakano slid to the back of the theater. As arranged, the man or woman who'd delivered the shabu had used the key Mr. Nakano had taped in the phone booth to access locker 5. And there, the drugs waited. The delivery person had boarded the ship as a visitor and, after making the drop, had taped the key to the back of the last seat in the VCR theater on the port side, as previously arranged. Mr. Nakano opened his blade, cut the tape, and slipped the orange-knobbed key deep into his pocket.

  The delivery is done, Mr. Nakano sighed to himself. But he did not move from his seat: He would wait for a time he considered most safe.

  At 10:30 p.m., the night watchman dimmed interior lights and pulled drapes over the observation lounge windows. The young mother stepped from the theater. She was a narrow woman who Mr. Nakano imagined would be comfortable in a bikini. She sidled in front of the watchman.

  "Why are you covering the windows?" she asked in a breathy voice. The watchman wore wire-framed glasses with bottle-thick lenses, and to Mr. Nakano he had the haunted look a man who'd voyaged aboard the Tustumena for a hundred days straight. His clothes were dark, rumpled and loose, like a ninja, and he worked his 10 p.m.-6 a.m. shift moving station-to-station fluidly and silently, but slightly stooped, like a grave digger. Mr. Nakano had overheard him speak a few times to Anna on other trips. He always spoke in with a clotted voice. To Mr. Nakano, there was a brooding quality to the way he looked out at the world. But he always made his rounds, never missed. Predictable, as Mr. Nakano liked.

  Mr. Nakano had heard Anna say the man's name. She'd called him Dick.

  "Lights glare all over the bow," Dick said to the narrow woman. "Bridge can't see what's out there so good if the drapes ain't pulled.

  The movies over, passengers yawned and stretched, and wandered off from the theater. Dick looked about, checked for anything out of the ordinary. He took a key that hung from a post, a watch-key, one with a special cut in its metal that identified the little device as belonging solely to the lounge. He twisted the key into a time recorder, his watch clock, to post on the clock's paper the fact he'd checked the lounge, and what time he'd done the checking.

  Then he quietly slouched off to the next check-point.

  Billy Sullivan began on the floors, first with the mopping. Mr. Nakano smelled vinegar in the cleaning solution. After that, Billy ran the buffer, swaying with the ship.

  Mr. Nakano continued to sit silently, unobserved in the dark theater, pretending to sleep. By now Dick was on his rounds on the deck below, the stores deck, the space between the promenade and car decks. This was the time. Mr. Nakano headed directly from the movie theater, down the passage to the foyer, up the stairs to the sun deck, down another passage, and entered cabin 208, his stateroom.

  There, Mr. Nakano, emptied his sports bag. Immediately he retraced his steps, but stopped short of entering the forward observation lounge. He was by the lockers. He listened, looked around, and opened number 5. Inside, by his sketchpads, several brown-wrapped bundles crouched. The shape reminded of small curled, sick, caged animals. He shoved the packages in his bag, gathered his sketchpads and headed for the stateroom. There, he unwrapped and inventoried the product, 400 packets, one hundred from Nishimoto, the other 300 from his wife's cousin, Kosuke Ochi. Those from Ochi, together with what he'd brought with him, would finish this.

  The yakuza markup from the factory in Pusan, South Korea, was 50 times. His take for the trip as well as the previous two, would be $362,000. This, plus what he already had in the offshore accounts, would be enough. And it would end. He could now consider himself an honorable man.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  This late at night, the porter Billy Sullivan normally would have slept or at least napped in his quarters. But tonight he was restless. So he decided to work in the forward men's rest room, the one just aft of the observation lounge, right behind the VCR theater. One of the stall doors wouldn't hold. The damn thing banged all the time when the ship leaned side to side, even in small seas. He'd have to fix the catch, and he'd decided not to put it off any longer. He'd just have to do a jerry-rig. The damn door was driving him crazy, same as last trip.

  There was a small part on order for that damn door. He'd placed the order himself Jesus about a month ago, but it hadn't arrived. He figured Juneau Headquarters probably had the thing, but hadn't gotten around to sending it up yet, or probably those idiots sent it to Seward, rather than Homer as he'd asked them to on the requisition form. That's what they did last time he'd ordered something, just went ahead and sent the parts to the wrong port of call. Had to make three phone calls to get those people in Juneau to trace everything, and then they d tried to say it was his fault.

  He headed forward through the passageway, and as he was about to duck into the restroom, he saw a movement out the corner of his eye. He was pretty sure he saw Mr. Nakano bob over to the starboard side. The guy was limping a little, that's why he figured it was that Nakano guy. Sullivan stayed on the port side out of sight and waited by the mid-ship elevator. Billy decided just for the heck of it to see what the professor was doing, so he crossed over to starboard and peeked round into the passage. Mr. Nakano didn't look up, didn
't even see him, probably because he was so busy looking at one of those orange keys. Like the ones for the lockers.

  Billy Sullivan pulled back. He'd seen Mr. Nakano every trip, and sure didn't ever remember the professor using one of those lockers before. But this trip he had one. Go figure.

  Sullivan looked around again, a quick one. Mr. Nakano had opened a locker and was pulling out of there what looked like those sketchpads he always used. Then he took out brown packages, and stuffed them real fast-like in the red sports bag he lugged around.

  Sullivan pulled back and angled ahead to the forward men's room. He slid inside and began work on the stall door. He worked on the damn thing about fifteen minutes, made a fake stall hook out of a coat hanger. It'd have to do for now. Least he didn't have to listen to that banging, banging, banging while he buffed the floors and emptied the trash.

  Captain said to report anything he saw the professor do, but all Mr. Nakano did was get his sketchpad and probably drawing stuff or film. That's probably all was in the packages. Boy, that guy could draw. But anyway, Billy decided, I guess I'll at least say something to Anna.

  Besides, she said she wanted to see the pictures of the new baby, so I'll show them to her. My little girl is six months old now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The looming towers of Castle Cape on the port side told Mr. Nakano the ship was nearing Chignik, on the south shore of the Alaska Peninsula, over 250 miles from Kodiak. He made himself visible on the sun deck, sketching the cape and taking photos. In the mountains behind Chignik lived the 7,000 foot, active Veniaminot Volcano. Last trip the horizon hadn't been so cloudy, and Mr. Nakano had sketched the shape of the cone, but this trip the clouds hung low and shifted in mild winds and hid any possible sighting of a plume raising from Veniaminot's vent.