A Bird in the Hand

by Lynn Stansbury

  I can get you a bio on anyone over the age of five in south L.A. in twenty-four hours, man. Just give me a name and a time frame. A classic bit of Derrick Lee as computer commuter, but about half the time, the man delivered. That was so far ahead of anything in second place that it was worth leaving a message in Derrick’s voice mail: Bank of America, Wendy Sondheim. Han added the name and address of the next-of-kin, and, for the hell of it, the name of every fucking bearded palagi male he could think of. He dropped the receiver in its cradle, yawned until his jaw cracked and went out to wait for Ioane. He climbed into the passenger seat of the jeep and was almost asleep before they were out the far side of the village.

  Except that, when they swung past the market, they could see lights still on at Nozaki’s and lights and activity out on the Baltic schooner.

  “How about,” Han said, “A bowl of noodles? And maybe a cup of tea?”

  Old Lady Nozaki was doing her accounts and not overly pleased to have customers, even paying customers. Noodles, she could manage, but for sugar and caffeine, they had to settle for tepid colas. They stood out on the dock, eating and staring out across the water.

  “We need a couple of your old fish-master’s outriggers.”

  Ioane slurped the last of his noodles and grunted. “Need a motor.” He tossed his trash into an empty oil drum and stalked off down the road. A few minutes later, Han heard an outboard motor, and then a dinghy nosed into the circle of light around the dock. Ioane sat amidships with a battery lantern, and the old fish-master’s grandson, the SEAL, sat in the stern with the motor.

  “Well done. Reinforcements, even.”

  The two younger men grinned. The fish-master’s grandson said, “You want I go quiet, sir?”

  “Oh, no. Let ‘em know they’ve got visitors.”

  The motor roared, and the little boat lifted over its bow wave, a bright pillow of phosphorescence that puffed beside them and then rolled away behind them in feathery wings of coiling and thinning light. As they approached the schooner, they saw that the crew were entertaining their tourists to a late, candle-lit supper, the mid-ships deck lit with a string of Chinese lanterns. The skipper rose from the table and watched impassively as Han’s SEAL cut back the motor and the boat drifted across the last yards of water toward the schooner. Ioane grasped the rope ladder.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Captain Poulsen,” Han said smoothly. “But I need to ask you some questions.”

  “This is not a good time. We are with guests. It is very late.”

  “Yeah,” Han said. “Welcome to police time.” Han started up the ladder. Poulsen could stomp on his hands or push him back into the water, but he didn’t think the man was that stupid. Han swung over the rail and straightened up. He nodded politely to the two palagi couples sitting over their wine and salmon and to Lee-girls 1 and 2, both dressed in short bright sarongs. He didn’t see the second man, Ivor. He turned back to Poulsen. “We could go down into your cabin, if you prefer.”

  Ioane climbed over the rail and stood at parade rest. Poulsen grimaced but led Han down the ladder and into his tiny forward cabin. “What is it?”

  Han slid onto the one-butt bench in front of the one-page desk and motioned to the bunk.

  “Have a seat.”

  “I am busy. What do you want?”

  Han cocked his head up at the tall man still standing in the cabin doorway. “What do I want? I’d like a reasonable dinner, maybe even a glass of wine. I’d like three nights sleep running. But mostly, I’d like to find out who killed Wendy Sondheim and your brother and whether the two things are connected. Other than the fact that they both worked for you.” Say ‘half-brother’ asshole, and I’ll arrest you on the spot. On such knife-points is justice decided. The big sailor moved his head restlessly but said nothing.

  Han went on. “You, your brother, and your other crewman, Ivor, were drinking at the Gooney Bird, the bar in Fagatogo near the police station, Thursday and Friday nights and you had Wendy Sondheim with you. At least two of the three of you were there at the same time she was on Saturday night as well.”

  “It was me,” Poulsen said. “With Thorvald. Someone had to keep an eye on him. Ivor did not feel well. He stayed here. So what?” The third tall blond, then, had to be McGee. That would explain the chummy scene between Pedersen and McGee on the green the day before yesterday.

  “So who was she playing up to that pissed your brother off so much that he killed her? And does his death mean that the boat comes to you?”

  Poulsen laughed harshly. A bare foot scraped softly on the ladder step, and one of the beautiful Lees appeared in the doorway. They were indistinguishable now that there was so much more breast and thigh and shoulder to look at than face. Poulsen shifted so that one arm was around the girl’s waist. She looked up at him, and her long black hair draped over his arm. Her neck was smooth and polished as carved amber. “Coming up soon?”

  “Yah. Soon.” He shifted her away, patting her rump. He turned back to Han. “For what do I need my brother’s stupid whore? Perhaps Thorvald tells her that the boat is his. And perhaps the money comes from his father. Who knows? I do not. But the boat is registered in our mother’s name. These birds have crazy dreams.”

  Sometimes people hand you exactly what you’re looking for, but you’re too tired to take it in. And it’s worse when you know it’s happening. Han looked at Poulsen stupidly for a minute, working to suppress all the irrelevant responses, like, just because some men have one perfect bint, doesn’t mean they won’t take whatever else comes along, and, what birds? What dreams? In the end, what he said was even stupider.

  “I don’t smell the eagle. Come to think of it, she didn’t scream when we came on board. You put a bag over her head?”

  Poulsen looked at him oddly. Han wondered if Poulsen knew that he was watching a man who was asleep on his feet and still asking questions. Or maybe Han had just described exactly what they had done with the goddamned bird. “The bird died,” Poulsen said stiffly.

  Han stood up. Poulsen backed out into the main cabin. Han knew that in another time and in another place he would have detained the whole lot of them and questioned them sequentially in private rooms with or without a goddamned lawyer present but definitely with a tape-recorder running. He knew that there was more to this crew’s sequential visits to the Gooney Bird and to the fight between Wendy and Pedersen. And he knew that he just couldn’t get it right now. He started up the ladder and said over his shoulder, “I won’t tell the Bird-man.”

  Behind him, Han heard Poulsen’s snort. “You go talk to that fucking Bird-man. He was there last Saturday night, at your Gooney Bird whorehouse. Other white men too I don’t know. But I do know him.”

  Ioane ushered Han into the dinghy like he was an admiral going ashore, and the fish-master’s grandson stood off from the schooner and then sped them back through the phosphorescent ripples like the helmsman of an elven starship.

  So the Birdman had been at the Gooney Bird that Saturday night as well. What about the other nights? Would Miti, in the Byzantine calculations of a shadow-world talking chief, rate the Birdman as one of Welly’s—and therefore even more importantly, Sa’ili’s—friends? Two days ago, Thorvald Pedersen pitched the Birdman off Nozaki’s dock. And then wasn’t seen alive after about noon that same day. Certainly seemed like it ought to be connected. But Han was far too experienced a policeman to believe that just because something ought to be true that it was. Han remembered the mobs of mynah birds at the dump.

  Would their colonization of the dump site have interested the Birdman? Had he seen the dump from the air, in his commuting back and forth from Ofu-Olosega with Allen Stewart? Being a palagi, like the schooner crew, local ghosts wouldn’t worry him. But he’d have been alone. And no vehicle. Which left McGee. Who did have a vehicle. And local contacts who knew lots about the area.

  Th
e dinghy bumped the low dock where they had pulled up the bits of Thor-vald Pedersen. “Want to stay with us?” said the fish-master’s grandson. “My grand-dad’d be glad to have you.”

  Han shook his head. “No. Thanks. Ioane and I both need to sleep in our own beds tonight.” They shook hands all round, and Han and Ioane started up the road toward the jeep. After a few yards, Ioane stopped.

  “Sir. This is where the old ladies say they saw the man sitting on the rock singing.”

  Reluctant to retard the momentum toward bed, Han had gone on a few steps. He looked down the bouldery slope toward the bay. “Yeah?”

  “Please, sir.” Ioane climbed down into the ditch on the land side of the road. “Come. I will show you. You will see.”

  From what Job-like reserves Han drew the strength not to shout at the kid, he didn’t know. And was duly rewarded by not seeing boulders where there were none.

  Back in the jeep, Han must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, Ioane was pulling into Han’s driveway. A light was on in the front room. Unusual, but maybe Sakiko and Jenny had been in bed before the power came on again and forgotten that lamp. He climbed out of the jeep. “Thanks,” he said. “See you tomorrow. Today. What the hell. Good work today, by the way.” The kid’s face flushed with gratitude; he looked like he might weep. Han stepped back and lifted a hand, and the kid put the jeep in gear and was gone down the road.

  Han was reaching for the handle of his front door when he finally got it. Yeah, so the Fijian girl was a him. But also the crowd at the Gooney Bird on Thursday night, the hospital ICU nurse, Pua. And the shy, statuesque beauty in the background. He grinned to himself. “What the hell,” he said again, opening the door. “I’m from San Francisco. All my best officers are in drag.”

  Sakiko was kneeling on the tatami in the front room staring at something on a low table. She didn’t move or look up when he came in.

  “You all right?” he said.

  She moved her head, her eyes barely lifting to his face, and then focused again on the objects on the table. In the poor light, he couldn’t make out what she was staring at, maybe pieces of broken crockery. Sometimes she would do that, analyze why a pot had fractured in a certain way. But it was a damned odd time for that sort of thing. “Forgive me for being foolish,” she said. “And disturbing a time when you are home. But we must talk about this.”

  With the dread that translates instantly to fury, he recognized that posture of defiant meekness, her own special blend of indigenous Japan and a decade in California. So now we fight. At least everyone knows the program. His gaze caught in the smooth black wing of hair that swept down from her part, framing and partially hiding her face, at the ivory column of her neck where it joined the shoulder, the little dip above the collar bone. Is this what’s left, then, when you open the last door, fit in the last piece, boil away the last drop? That across all time and cultures, experience and belief, a man is more like another man than a woman? That a man and a woman will always be the last strangers on the train? What did that mean about his relationship to his daughter? Or that poor kid, Ioane, and his friends, for that matter? Well, for right now, he was too fucking tired to give a shit. He went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. When he came back out into the living room, she hadn’t moved.

  Trying not to lose it right off the top, he said, “Talk about what?”

  Her head dipped toward the table. He could see from this angle that the pieces were indeed a broken pot. “Why you did this.”

  “Did what?”

  “Destroyed this.”

  “I am not consciously aware of having broken any crockery for at least two months. And that was a cheap mug that fell off a window ledge at work into the street. Almost brained the Lieutenant Governor getting into his limousine. Sorry I missed.”

  She looked up at him. Her eyes stayed on his face for measurable time. Always a bad sign. She picked up one of the pieces and turned it in the light, showing it to him. “Donald,” she said the name carefully, almost uncomfortably, as if the juxtaposed consonants were painful to say. “Donald told me. He told me you came to his hospital room last night. You were very angry. You hurt him. And you destroyed my vase with the flowers. You must therefore blame me very much.”

  Startled out of temper, Han sat down on the tatami across from her and picked up one of the pieces. Maybe it was part of what had been all over Gray-son’s floor after the Birdman’s fistfight with his IV pole, but he, Han, wouldn’t swear to it.

  “This one of yours?” She didn’t answer but held out the shard in her hand. He could see the imprint of her seal. “Look,” he said slowly. “I don’t know what this is about.” He said the words carefully, as one would to an injured child. “If_you want to_take flowers to_your friends, that’s your business. But_I_didn’t break this.” She had been staring at him as he spoke, but now her eyes shifted in confusion and dropped to her hands again. “A_one of the doctors was getting a prescription for me. It was late; after hours, so we went over to the wards.” He pulled the pharmacy vial out of his pocket, offering it in evidence. “I was standing waiting for the pills. Grayson tried to get out of bed, knocked his IV pole over and took the flowers with it. When the nurses went into try to help him, he got agitated and slugged one of them in the chest. I stepped in and held on to his wrist so that he couldn’t hit her again.”

  Sakiko was still staring at her hands.

  “Kiko-chan: There were three other people there besides me and Donald Grayson. They all saw what happened. I don’t know what Grayson remembers about what happened. The doc says his medications made him a little crazy. And I don’t know why he told you what he did. But what I’ve told you is what happened.”

  She still didn’t speak or look at him but rose to her feet and stepped silently out of the room. Before he could think of what to do next, she came back, knelt again, and held out a cupped hand, cradling two tiny objects in the palm.

  In the light from the single low lamp, he couldn’t see what they were. He held out his own hand, and she dropped them into his palm: two tiny gold shafts with a tiny gold ball at one end and a round pink stone set in the other. Earrings: a pair of gold and pale pink coral earrings.

  “Where did you get these?” His voice grated in his throat.

  “Donald gave them to me. In friendship. I was very confused. My American friends are all women. I was afraid of being wrong. I_took him flowers. As thank you. I know now this is wrong and foolish.”

  Looking at his wife crouched there over her lap in anguish, he thought: no. No. You knew. But we all need what we need when we need it. Or maybe you just thought you’d balance the books. What you didn’t pick up on is that the guy’s a liar. A liar and a nut case. And probably a double murderer. Even if you don’t count the pregnancy.

  He rolled to his feet and went to the telephone. Night shift meant two people on in each of the island’s three duty stations and one at the hospital. Sarge had been on today, so he probably wasn’t on tonight. The hospital operator confirmed that Donald Grayson was still a patient on the surgery ward, then put him through to the security office. After five rings, the telephone invited him to leave a message. Ringing the main police station, Han thought: Grayson still doesn’t have a car. Could he have borrowed one? What about McGee? They were at least acquainted from their nights at the Gooney Bird. The voice of the night desk officer came on. “I need somebody out at the hospital,” Han said. “Go quietly—no lights, no sirens. I’ve left a message for the security man on tonight that he’s going to have company. I want one of you on the surgery ward all the time. Don’t disturb the staff; don’t let Grayson know you’re there. Just make sure he stays put ‘til I get there.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Ann’s telephone rang. She picked up the receiver and said, “Dr. Maglynn,” then lay staring up at the darkness, mildly puzzled, as if she had just
remembered her own name but not yet picked up all the rest of the baggage that went with it.

  “I just got off the phone with the nurse from Ofu.” The voice was Neil Hutchinson. “They’ve got a five-year-old kid, face laid open with a bushknife.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  “In this case, precisely.”

  “What happened?”

  “Somebody’s wedding. Knife-dance.”

  Ann grunted. The traditional Samoan knife-dance did not involve slicing children across the face with machetes, but five-year-old boys are attracted to weapons like bears to honey, and she could imagine the rest of it. Excited kid gets too close to the dance floor. A dancer’s reach is longer than anyone judged it would be.

  “Bloody hell,” she said again. “So what’s happening?”

  “She’s got the bleeding stopped. But repairing it’s obviously beyond her capabilities.”

  “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t want to tackle that in the Ofu clinic anyway. Could she describe the wound?”

  “Not very well. Sounded like it was bleeding like stink and she was just, like, lifting a fistful of gauze pads to peek and shriek. I gather it’s all the way across the kid’s forehead. Knife was stuck in the skull initially.”

  “Did it penetrate? I mean, is the kid conscious?”

  Neil snorted. “If that was him I was hearing in the background, yes. Don’t know if it went all the way into the cranial cavity or not.”

  As an intern, Ann had been assigned a patient who’d shot himself in the head with a .22 pistol and was sitting up on the exam table for his pre-op physical. Of course, he didn’t talk much. The cranium can put up with a surprising amount of abuse. To a point. “So what happens next? They going to fly him in? Have you tracked down Welly yet?” That was always the trick question. She rolled over and looked at her clock: quarter of five; bars all long since closed. Samoa’s star surgeon could be damn near anywhere.

  Neil said, “Can’t land on Ofu in the dark. Just got off the phone with Allen Stewart, one of the Inter-Island pilots. He’s willing to take off at first light: about quarter of six.”