by Arne Bue
A few of the lower clouds parted. Stratifications in the cliffs of Chiniak Bay gathered his attention: muted horizontal swipes of granite in brown and tan, black lines of lava, a flowing river hardened to painted streams. Moving light roiled the hues, clouds altered the tones. Mr. Nakano sketched the sloping reaches, which pointed across to Anchorage Bay where an extended arm of land held a fuel tank. The Chignik Pride Dock sat waiting in the distance. The community of Chignik, its docks, houses and fuel tanks lay further off.
Mr. Nakano had heard Chignik was a Sugpiat Native word meaning 'big wind.' He'd also heard there was a local Aleut-Scandinavian history here, that this was a community established as a fishing village and cannery in the late 1800s on the site of an earlier Native village, Kaniagmuit. Locals said the Russians had destroyed Kaniagmuit in the 1700s. Commercial fishing for salmon, halibut, black cod and tanner crab kept the community going, as did the fish processing plants, which operated year round. In the summer, the population of 190 grew by 500, when fishing and processing intensified.
Mr. Nakano's man here was secretive and loyal, attributes that had helped make this route successful.
By 11:30 a.m., Anna Knight had already announced the ship would dock at the Chignik Pride Dock, rather than in Chignik itself. No matter. His contact knew what to do. He knew where to leave the instructions. High tide prevented disembarking by gangway, so Mr. Nakano followed Anna and the passengers. They descended the stairs to the car deck. Anna explained all passengers would use the lift from the car deck to disembark. When instructed, everyone, including Mr. Nakano, climbed aboard the lift, and stood expectantly in its middle section.
"Put your feet apart and brace," Anna ordered.
The turntable jolted, turned, and began its journey up. A seaman waved permission to walk onto the car-gangway, and down to the dock.
Ladies were selling homemade cookies and passing out brochures. Mr. Nakano had already obtained one of them on an earlier voyage. The small pamphlets contained information, he recalled, about Chignik.
Four of the passengers probably lived in Chignik, because, Mr. Nakano observed, they were met by folks who appeared to be relatives. Anna said nothing to Mr. Nakano. She directed her attention, Mr. Nakano was relieved to see, to a Chevy S-10, which a passenger drove off the ship. The Bergers, university people Mr. Nakano believed, walked mid-way up the dock. Anna Knight followed, and began talking with them.
Mr. Nakano must work quickly. He passed the Bergers and Anna Knight. The dock fed ashore and followed on up to a cracked concrete gap between two corrugated buildings. Mr. Nakano passed a basketball hoop attached to one of the buildings. A few fishing boats sat upon the land, set there by their captains for the off-season, the vessels safe and braced high and dry for the coming winter. The Miss Marit, the Sharon Lee, the Anita Marie, the Sharon Ann. Anna Knight was still mid-way on the dock talking to the Bergers.
Left side, blue tarp. Where? wondered Mr. Nakano, trying to recall the previously arranged instructions he'd received from Tokyo.
Mr. Nakano twisted about. He'd given too much thought to Chief Purser Anna Knight. He'd walked right by. There, behind him, net and corks, wound round and round into a pile six feet high, covered with a plastic blue tarp and tied with a yellow line of polymeric material. He approached.
Anna and the Bergers turned their heads. For appearances, he immediately took a picture of the community of Chignik off to his left, past the Chignik Pride Dock. Anna and the Bergers waved, and Mr. Nakano waved back. He backed out of their view and lifted an edge of the tarp. There he spied an envelope taped round with duct tape. He opened his knife, freed the envelope, sliced it open with the sharp, long blade.
Mr. Nakano read, "Sharon Ann."
One of the fishing vessels high and dry on braces in back of one of the Chignik Pride buildings. The Tustumena sounded its horn.
Already? So soon? worried Mr. Nakano.
He stepped into the open. The Bergers were walking toward the car lift. Anna was looking right at him.
"You'd better come on, we're leaving!" she shouted, waving him to follow. Her hand-held radiophone distracted her, and she began talking into it, and gesturing at a Deck Officer on the bridge.
Mr. Nakano readied his camera and traversed the pavement, past the basketball hoop, and looked at the hulls of the fishing boats.
The wooden braces, examine the wooden braces. Nothing. Wait. The footing of the braces beneath the Sharon Ann. Something stands out about one of them, dirt piled just so. The other braces, no dirt.
He moved closer.
Freshly dug. Not so noticeable unless one is looking for an incongruity.
He looked at Anna Knight off in the distance, down the dock. She was staring at him and at the same time talking into the hand-held radio-phone. The Deck Officer on the bridge, did he have binoculars? Too far away to tell.
Mr. Nakano kicked the dirt. The soil was loose and parted with the touch of the toe to reveal a moisture-proof expandable pouch, the color of cherry. He leaned, as though to tie his shoe. Anna Knight marched towards him, quick, deliberate steps. He heard her sharp voice carry between the buildings, over the pavement. An echoing intonation added to her demands.
"Sir, Mr. Nakano, sir," she called out acidly.
"Yes, yes," he shouted. He did not mean to shout so loud, with such vigor.
She stopped. Probably, she'd never heard him shout before. She'd hardly heard him speak. She was looking at him, and every once in awhile she looked back at the ship.
Mr. Nakano had opened the long blade and sliced the pouch. Anna Knight got on her radio phone again, looked back at the ship, gestured with her arm in Mr. Nakano's direction and looked at him over her shoulder.
The money was wrapped in cellophane, stacks of U.S. $100 bills. No time to count. The amount looked about right. All of it went in the bag. He removed the agreed number of packets and slipped them in the expandable pouch. He buried the illegal trade with his hands, and tapped the dirt with his foot. Mr. Nakano approached the concrete, his knee hurting, his heart pounding in his ears, aiming himself toward the dock and the ship. A slight breeze made the temperature feel cool on his face, but sweat had formed on his lip and trickled beneath his armpits and along his back. He thought of the pleasure he would receive from the public shower aboard ship.
Chief Purser Anna Knight waited at the gangway leading to the lift.
"What you doing over there? Lose something?" she asked. Mr. Nakano felt threatened by the strangeness of her voice, a way of speaking he suspected she reserved for awful things.
"No, I find, I find," he said, forcing upon Anna the thick artifice of an accent. He held up a Fuji film canister and tried to appear pleased with all of life.
The sign on the car deck read "Stairway to Upper Deck." The stairs were steep, twelve to the first small landing, eleven to the next. Shards of pain grieved his knee as he followed Anna. She disappeared through the door. Mr. Nakano followed inside the ship.
He dropped off the red sports bag in his cabin, 208.
I must be seen.
He returned to the deck, the one in front of the forward observation lounge. He looked over the port bow at the arm of land extending out into Anchorage Bay and took pictures. Clouds had blown away, and there was much more light than when the ship had docked less than an hour ago. Seamen appeared, preparing for the undocking.
Mr. Nakano stepped inside, pleased they had seen him taking pictures. They probably would speak of him in the Crew's Mess, and perhaps Anna would hear of his picture taking, and her suspicions, if indeed she had any, would disappear like the clouds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Last trip to Guam, Gary Quinsen heard his girlfriend was sleeping around with some other guy. He'd asked her about it, but she said, "No way, man. You think I want to get AIDS? I only do it with you. Hey, man, when you going to marry me? My dad is asking, you know."
Yeah, right. Give me a break, Gary thought.
Soon as Sewell retire
s I'll try for the Captain's slot. Elaine might want it, too, but I got a good shot at it. Hey, everyone knows she's hot for Captain Sewell, the way she ogles him all the time. Bet if he leaves she'll follow him, like the dog she is. If she doesn't, then maybe the fact she's a woman will be good for my cause. They won't let a woman be Captain. Or would they? Look at all the women deck officers in the Washington State system, and the ones on the East Coast. You never know about Juneau Headquarters, women's rights and everything.
But I've got as good shot at it as Lingenberry. Lingenberry's too messed up over his wife, and fooling around with that old babe in Dutch Harbor. Probably hasn't even heard the rumors about old Captain John Sewell going for the early retirement. Lingenberry's head is in the clouds.
Gary Quinsen headed for the bridge, passing Elaine. He gave her a dirty look.
I've got the watch. I wish Sewell would leave me the hell alone. I'm as good a Deck Officer as Sewell. One day I'll have the Tustumena. Main thing, keep Sewell off my back. None of his business what I do on my own time. OK, OK. So I came aboard a little under the weather. No need for him to be all over me like that.
Quinsen fumed on the wing, looking down at the Chignik Pride dock and the few passengers milling around. He saw the Bergers mid-way up the causeway. They were talking to Anna. Further on he saw a man limping along.
Quinsen put his binoculars on the man. Clearly, Mr. Nakano, the Jap professor who draws those pictures of birds and stuff. Look at that old guy limping along in between those buildings up there at the end of the dock. Hell, he's no drug runner. Look at him. The camera out. He put down the binoculars when the cough started again. Smoking a little too much of his stash this trip.
Shit, I hate this, thought Gary. Donna and Louie bugging me, trying to make a buy. They trying to make me a dealer? Just because I have a little grass, my own personal stock. In Guam, no problem. Smoke all the grass I want.
Wonder if it'll be a boy or girl. Me. A papa. Never thought I'd be one of those.
Gary Quinsen had run into Donna and Louie last trip to Homer in Alice's Champagne Palace. The English Bay Band was playing there again. Gary had had a few drinks. They'd shared a joint in the parking lot. They must have figured he had a stash, and on this trip they'd kept running out. He'd lose his job if the Captain found out. What would he do then?
"Gary," Anna said over the two-way.
"Yeah."
"Just about everyone's back aboard, except Mr. Nakano. He's up by those fishing boats, the ones up on braces."
"Well, get him. We're pulling out. Captain Sewell's here, ready to cast off."
"I'm trying. He practically yelled at me. He's digging around back there for something."
"Well, go help him, get him back."
"Right."
There, Anna's going after Mr. Nakano, waving at him. He's by those fishing boats put up for the winter. I can see Anna trying to talk to him. Now Sewell's taking a look, suspicious bastard that he is. We're leaving pretty quick. Glad when this is spying crap is over. I don't like everyone watching everyone else.
Good, here they come. Captain's giving me that look again, like he thinks I'm stupid. Guess we're ready to depart. He'll give me his stupid commands and like an idiot I'll have to repeat them to the asshole at the wheel.
What the hell am I doing here, anyway?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Blue water swelled as though alive and rolled toward the shoreline when the Tustumena headed out into the blinding dazzle of the sun's path. Mr. Nakano took into himself the whole world of pungent sea air. He figured it'd be ten or eleven hours to Sand Point, as it almost always was on every other trip he'd taken.
Sand Point, he thought. A creeping uneasiness at the bottom of his heart made him sit down suddenly in the forward observation lounge. Sand Point was now a chilling, awful place. Alien. Of late, whenever he called up Sand Point he became apprehensive. He could not get past an obsessive sense of everything gone wrong. The assassin Sugimoto had done his horrible deed, killed a happy, noisy man, Jeffrey Johnson, a man with two children and a wife. Mr. Nakano closed his eyes. The image of Jeffrey s wife in the photograph played with his heart and his stomach.
I cannot continue with such sickness within me, thought Mr. Nakano. I will call back to myself warm words of enlightenment, words that will heal me.
It is very difficult for the words spoken by Buddha from the far bank of enlightenment to reach people like me still struggling in a world of delusion. But Buddha returns to this world himself. He uses his own special methods of salvation.
Mr. Nakano focused his mind and heart until the story he d heard as a child returned. A monk had read the story to him, his mother and his father and all the rest gathered at the temple. The monk had said,
"And these are the words of Buddha." And he d read.
Now I will tell you a parable. Once there lived a wealthy man whose house caught on fire. The man was away from home and when he came back, he found that his children were so absorbed in play, they had not noticed the fire and were still inside the house. The father screamed, `Get out, children! Come out of the house! Hurry!' But the children did not heed him.
The anxious father shouted again, `Children, I have some wonderful toys here. Come out of the house and get them!' Heeding his cry this time, the children ran out of the burning house.
This world is a burning house. The people, unaware that the house is on fire, are in danger of being burned to death, so Buddha in compassion devises ways of saving them.
And so it shall be with me, thought Mr. Nakano.
He stared upward at the beams of the observation lounge and sniffed the scents of the ship as though to reassure himself his location was safe, just as the temple of his childhood had been.
He would climb the stairs after his lunch in the dining room. Then in his cabin he would count the money.
***
There must be a misunderstanding. One thousand American dollars short. Redbeard must know of this. He must account for this, explain! If Redbeard is in control like he says he is, he will tell me what has gone wrong. Did I not appoint him supervisor over the others? Is he not the one to ensure the correct amounts go into the satchels?
Mr. Nakano would see Redbeard in Cold Bay. If not there, Redbeard would be waiting in Dutch Harbor. That's the way the meetings always went with Redbeard.
I must walk, Mr. Nakano thought, and regain peace of mind, hold fast to my desires and my control. I do not wish to let worldly passions lead me to delusions. I know I can get rid of mistaken observations by careful and patient mind-control. I know with efficient mind-control I can avoid my own suspicions of the man I myself made supervisor, this Redbeard. There are benefits to my disciplines. I can avoid desires arising from the stimulation of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin and the subsequent mental processes and, by so doing, cut off the very root of all my worldly passions. That is what I shall seek on this walk. That is most certainly what I must seek, so I do not rush into an action against my appointed supervisor Redbeard that would be totally unnecessary. Were I to do that, why, I'd be no better than the murderous Sugimoto.
Mr. Nakano took the stairs down to the foyer and paced incessantly for hours about the passages and the promenade deck until the skies darkened and night visited the flowing seas. The lights of the ship came out, bright and soothing in their constancy. He was about to rest his mind and body in his cabin, but he stopped short at the sight of the Chief Mate, Elaine Miller. She was heading toward the purser's station, quick and quiet as a ferret, looking back as though a dark premonition chased her. Concern plagued the tall handsome woman from the way her feet braced on the deck, the way her chin thrust forward, the way she stood tight as piano wire at the brass bars of the purser s station. Mr. Nakano immediately invented an interest in the ship's arrival and departure times posted below DEPOSIT U.S. MAIL HERE.
Elaine Miller was talking to Anna. "...picking up now. By morning we'll have forty knots."
Mr. Naka
no read the Tustumena's schedule. Arrival at Sand Point should be at 10:15 p.m., Thursday, September 29.
"Forty isn't so bad," Anna said through the bars.
"The galley should know, so stuff doesn't go flying around," Elaine said.
"I'll get the word in," Anna said.
"There's more. A tramp steamer's coming in. Wants the Sand Point dock, so we're coming in early, departing soon as we can."
"I'll clue in our Sand Point passengers," Anna said.
Mr. Nakano labored up the stairs and opened the door with the sign STAIR TO SOLARIUM DK. He worked his way up another flight and exited to the open-ended solarium on the top deck. Wind came sliding down over the world and slashed and shoved against the plexiglass. The wind gave a concave feel when Mr. Nakano placed his hand on one of the panes. Condensation grew about their edges. The overhead heaters glowed orange, and he felt their heat on his face as he looked up at them. A dock s lights glimmered from the sea's darkness ahead, and steadily grew as the Tustumena drew to port. Astern through the open end of the solarium, past the stack, the rail and the car-lift uprights, Mr. Nakano spotted what must be the lights of the tramp steamer about which Elaine Miller had worried. The Tustumena's horn issued its irascible announcement. Her lights painted slanting sheets of rain as, slowly, the Sand Point cannery, dock, and boat harbor materialized in the raging tempest.
Mr. Nakano counted fifteen vehicles waiting in the blizzard of water dockside. There was no escape from Chief Purser Anna Knight, for even on the solarium deck a speaker sounded:
Remain in the immediate area of the dock, unless you are advised of a definite departure time. We may be departing very soon. Those passengers waiting to board the Tustumena on the dock please see the Porter at the bottom of the gangway. If you're loading a vehicle, please see the Purser in the yellow raingear.