“Close enough. I’m looking for the guy they call ‘the Birdman.’ The hotel people on Ofu said they saw him headed across the land bridge this morning, after the airplane came the first time, with another palagi, a woman.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said. He was the best kind of Samoan eye candy: tall, broad chested, copper skinned, brilliant white teeth, wavy black hair, even the flower behind the left ear. “The lady doctor. They walked together through the plantations this morning toward the ridge trail. Many people saw them.”
The road didn’t go far. The driver pulled up at the first of the houses on the green. Maybe a dozen young men were gathered there behind three men who were obviously chiefs, two older men and one younger with a whole lot less gut. The two policemen and McGee jumped out of the back of the truck. Han swung out, nodding to Ioane for translation and backup as needed, and moved to greet the chiefs.
“Forgive me “ Han’s jaw clenched, but he knew that at least this minimum civility had to be gotten through “.For all of the ways in which I offend your dignities “ The younger men gave way to an older man in a white shirt and lavalava, probably the pastor with the telephone. „.But I need help to catch a man who may have killed two people on Tutuila.“ Some got it right away; the others had to wait for the translation. But he could read the message as it got through: some other village‘sproblem. You will obtain merit by being helpful and are not muddied in that mire. „I am afraid he may also be a danger to the lady doctor. I can‘t „ I can’t waste time fucking around here was what he wanted to say. But that wasn’t a concept he could fly in Samoan. Even with Ioane’s help. But Ioane’s voice continued smoothly beside him. The chiefs were nodding. The younger chief turned and rattled off some orders. Young men were trotting back to their houses, snatching up bush knives.
Last thing in the world Han needed was a self-appointed posse. He stepped forward. “No, please: keep your young men together. I don’t want people to get hurt.” That was about as much use as combing air. Even the chiefs were turning away, giving orders. As his villagers swept by him, the pastor said something to Ioane. Ioane grinned and nodded toward the pickup. “The ridge trail is very narrow,” he said to Han. “For much of it, we may only go one at a time.”
Han looked at their driver. “Can you get us to the foot of the ridge trail before this mob gets there?”
CHAPTER 33
“How’d you find this place?” Ann said. Grayson had killed two more birds, laying them at her feet like a cat. He motioned to her, as if she should join in the fun. She stepped back a couple of paces. A few of the birds in the branches overhead fluttered, as if they knew that something was amiss but hadn’t figured out quite what.
“They’re a lot like people, really,” Grayson said dreamily. A few of the petrels fluttered farther up into the branches. Grayson watched them, his head tracking their movement. Again, Ann thought of a cat. She took another step back. Her foot didn’t exactly slip, but pebbles rolled away from her heel. “Want a drink?” Grayson said.
“Got water. Thanks.” She pulled out her water bottle and took a swig.
“No, I mean something real. Got some vodka here.” He pulled a slim metal flask out of a back pocket.
“Vodka? Sorry: not exactly my style at nine on a hot morning at the top of a mountain. You do much of that?”
Grayson grinned and knocked back a big gulp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Learned it from a couple of Ruskies. Worked with ‘em in Finland one summer. Keeps you going.” He had his water bottle in his other hand now and tipped it back into his mouth, his pale grey eyes watching her steadily over the top of the container. He was at least one long, maybe two strides away from her, slightly down slope at the edge of the thicket.
“Yeah, well,” Ann said. “It wouldn’t keep me going.” She just avoided saying It would stop me dead. She glanced around, both needing to break his steady gaze and not want to take her eyes off of him. “Look, I wouldn’t mind a bit of a rest, but I want to get at least part of the way back down “
Grayson’s eyes glittered in the light that spangled down through the trees. “You said I should get Sa’ili’s help with that fucking policeman. Sakiko’s husband.” He spat the words out, then took another pull on the flask as if it would sterilize his mouth. “Don’t need Sa’ili.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, screwed down the cap and slid the flask carefully back into his hip pocket. “’Cause I can kill him all by myself. Little birdie taught me that.”
He leapt at her.
Pure instinct, she swung her water bottle at him and herself leapt sideways and back onto the first rock outcrop of the ridge trail. He ducked the water bottle but also missed her and, off balance, staggered toward the cliff edge. She scampered out across the razor-back boulders, gripping with fingers and toes. Behind her, he gasped, and she heard him sliding, cursing, and the sound of rolling stones and the heavy soles of his boots across the hard-packed earth.
“Whatsa-matter with you? I’m not gonna do anything!”
She knew that he was crazy, she knew that he was half lit, and she knew that he was a hell of a lot stronger than she was. If he ever got hold of her, he would kill her. She jumped from the razor-back onto the wider trail and took off running.
She heard a shout. For a split second, she thought help! But as if her left brain could not sustain the word and the effort, her right foot stumbled, and she fell. Grayson flew at her, arms outstretched. She rolled and twisted away from him, and he stumbled and fell as well. He gripped one of her ankles, but she kicked out, wild, instinctive, like a terrified horse, half on hands and knees, scrambling and bucking away from him. He thrust her leg to one side, but her heel slammed something tender, for he grunted in pain, cursed, lost his hold on her ankle and lunged at her again. But she yanked herself to her feet using a bush as a handhold. Its roots let go, and her hand flew around, still holding the bush.
Dirt, roots, pebbles, sticks, struck Grayson full in the face. He screamed and lunged at her again, teeth bared. One hand caught her outstretched arm and the other slid, clutching, across her other shoulder, gripping the cloth of her shirt. She wrenched around in his grasp, mouth wide, her instinct to bite like any animal at the thing that held her. He saw her coming and whipped his hand back away from her arm as if he would slap her, but somehow, she had bitten hold of one of his fingers. He screamed in pain and fury, trying to yank his finger out from between her grinding teeth and to hit her at the same time. She bit down and down like a mongoose on a cobra, knowing that to let go is to die, until she could feel the tiny finger bones splintering and her own teeth loosening. Grayson was still screaming curses, still trying to hit her but not letting go of her shoulder and not able to get the other hand free of her teeth. Finally, he shoved her away from him. She half fell, her jaw-grip breaking. He swung the injured hand as if to strike her, but the sleeve of her shirt tore off in his other hand, and he staggered backward. She twisted free of him and sprinted off like a rabbit down the trail.
She was aware of shouting again. Noise anyway: Grayson maybe or the roar of her own blood in her ears. She couldn’t really see. Only the trail immediately in front of her: where to put her feet, where to grab with a hand. The trail dropped suddenly in stair-step boulders.
Suddenly, below her, there were bodies, movement, people. At first, she thought they must just be villagers, something to do with the plantations, ordinary life, and wondered if she would be able to get them to hear her before Gray-son caught her again. And then she saw grey and black: DPS uniforms. And this time the shout was words and a deep bellow.
“Grayson!”
She tripped and fell, her face crashing against the stones. She collapsed, half somersaulting, and began to roll, bumping over the smaller rocks, sliding, hands and knees on the loose stones and dirt, finally catching herself against something larger, pulling herself to her feet, gasp
ing, leaning against the warm rock, trying to steady herself enough to run again. All she could hear now was the pounding of her pulse and the rush of her breathing.
Suddenly, Han was there, trotting up the lower trail, his face lifted, looking at something above her. Ioane was right behind him, and then another DPS officer and then a group of young Samoans with bush knives and, impossibly, Wills McGee. She rolled over the rock and crouched behind it, closing her eyes. Her face was bleeding. She could feel the abrasions, feel the drip of blood from her nose. Able to concentrate on this detail, she held her nose to stop the bleeding. Above her, she heard little stones rolling, clickey-click, and a single heavy, sliding footfall.
“Grayson. Stay where you are. I just want to talk to you.”
More clicking, little stones, rolling, falling farther now. The slap slap of rubber slippers: Han, perhaps, or one of the others. She opened her eyes. Han. She looked at his face. It was red from the effort of the climb but also dusky, like the rocks, hard.
A voice said, “Don’t. He means to kill you.” It was her own voice, muffled, nasal, from the bleeding and the pressure. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded. I’m sorry, she wanted to say again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry for doubting you. Sorry for all of this. I turned him loose and now someone will die. It should have been me. She may have said it aloud, but she didn’t know. He was still nodding. His arm was around her.
“Sit here,” he said. “Does he have a gun?”
She shook her head. “A knife.” She clutched at his arm. “Don’t get near him.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I know about him.” No you don’t, she thought. Not everything. But he was saying, “I know about him killing the girl and Pedersen. He can’t do that here. It’ll be okay.” She shook her head, but she couldn’t say anything.
“Hey, Mr. Big Bad Policeman!” Grayson’s voice rattled down on them like a shower of small stones. She couldn’t see him from where Han had made her sit, behind a shoulder of rock, but she heard the sound of the biologist’s boots as he moved away, back up the trail. He began to sing, shouting, to the tune of Tambourine Man, “Hey Mister Big Bad Policeman!” She saw Han motion to Ioane: Keep them back; it’s not like he can go anywhere. Han climbed up out of her line of vision. She closed her eyes. It’s the end of everything I ever want to see. I never want to see anything again. I want to be blind.
Footsteps sounded in front of her, and she flinched back, opening her eyes. Ioane stood at the bottom of the boulder pile, looking up out of Ann’s range of vison. He started to climb. McGee shifted through the little crowd of Samoans. He climbed up to where she was crouched. He offered her a hand up. She shook her head and looked at the ground.
“Nonsense,” he said. “Come on. Let’s at least get out of the way.” She refused his hand but did stand up, shifting away from him.
Above them, Han said, “Grayson. I know you knew the girl whose body we found at the dump. You went to school with her in L.A., and you’ve had contact with her here. I need to talk to you about that. You’re going to want to have a lawyer with you.”
McGee tried to get her to move down the trail again, but she twisted away, her hands flapping like a child’s but needing now to be a witness, owing them all that. She stopped, watching. Grayson was moving, crab-wise now, back out along the highest part of the trail. He was just where the razor-back began. Han had stopped moving forward. “I also need to talk to you about the sailor from the Baltic schooner, the one called Thorvald Peterson. I understand you had a little run-in with him Thursday morning. About a bird they had on their boat.” His voice was flat, almost sing-song, as if the words didn’t matter: you were just trying to get the person to do something different than you knew they were just about to do. Ioane reached the top of the boulder pile and stood up.
Grayson straightened up as well.
“Fuck you,” he said, his voice carrying clearly across the bright morning. “Fuck all of you.” He spread his arms, shouting. Then his arms dropped to his sides. “But fuck you particularly, Mr. Big Bad Policeman.” He snatched at his back pocket. Han dodged, and Grayson cackled with laughter, pulling out his flask. “Hah. Scared ya, huh? Fucker.” He took a swig of the vodka. “You worried about that girl? And that stupid fucking sailor? God, the world is full of stupid, pathetic, ugly, dirty, people. Now there are two less of ‘em. So what?” He drank again, emptying the flask, then flung it with startling power out into the void. They all waited, anticipating the distant sound when the metal would hit the rocks far below. But they never heard it.
Han said, “Grayson, listen to me. You “
“No. No, Mr. Policeman, you listen to me. Stupid blond cunt. Thought she was some kind of intellect. Just a stupid cunt like all the rest of them. Oh, baby, baby it’s a wide world. Thought having a baby made everything okay-dokay. You get what you want, fuck up everybody else’s life. Goddamned baby included.”
He took off his bush hat. It had somehow stayed with him in their chase across the ridge top, dangling around his neck by its string. He flung the hat now, as he had the flask, out into the air. For a moment, it sailed free, and the sight was somehow the more horrifying because it should have been so delightful.
“You,” he shouted, turning back to Han. “You had the most…wonderful “
His voice cracked. “.Wonderful woman. But did you give a shit? Oh no. I’ve seen you. At the Gooney Bird, on the green with that fucking drunk sailor, pissing around, being the big man “ He hooked his thumbs in his belt and swaggered toward Han, for an instant, pure Toshiro Mifune. He stopped abruptly. “You make her life hell.”
In that eerie way that Ann remembered, when he would go from psycho to suddenly right with you, he stood still, staring at Han. A little smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Think about it, police-fucker: If you hadn’t been so busy being Mr. Hard-time policeman, maybe I’d-a never met your wife. And maybe when little Wendy pig came weepy-weepy-weepy, I might-a bought it. But never when you’ve flown, man. Never when you’ve flown.”
He began to laugh. And then to cry. Horrible wrenching sobs. He folded, first his arms and then at the waist, as if he would sink to his knees. Ioane stepped forward. Grayson jumped to his feet again and edged out farther onto the razorback.
“Oh, no.” His voice was half a scream. “You want me. You catch me.” He looked at Han. His voice dropped. “And I hope it kills you.”
He leapt outward into the sky as if from a diving board. From where Ann stood, for a moment he was silhouetted against the sky, arms outspread, legs together, like a long-tailed sea-bird. And even as he tumbled forward and began to plummet downward, for a long time, he was still a cut-out against the wide, grey-green sea. Finally, he struck the first high slope, far below, soundlessly, like something in a dream, only the messy spray of blood, flesh and bone as the body continued to roll and smash and disintegrate and fall down and down among the rocks and through the greenery above the village toward the sea.
Ann turned away and sat down. McGee grunted and started up the rock pile toward the upper trail. She heard each step, the whisper of rubber on stone. Below her, the Samoans were murmuring and pointing. McGee’s voice said, “Chief, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna pronounce him dead from up here.”
She heard the slap of Han’s sandals, coming back toward the boulder pile and his voice, bleak. “Yeah. Well. I’ve still got to get him the hell out of there. So maybe he’ll get his way after all.”
EPILOGUE
White Sunday. The first Sunday in October. The Samoan Saturnalia, when children are the honored guests. A mid-island village green, nothing like Fagatogo, emerald lawn rolling out all around like expensive carpet. The scene is festive: island music, the smell of wood smoke, teens playing volleyball in a pitch to one side, smaller children running around after each other, noisy, free, un-chastised. A road winds through the scene but is
lined with pinwheels of fresh flowers, red and purple and white, and no cars pass. Everywhere, people move slowly, gracefully, all dressed in white. The adults are tall, stately, most of the women with wide hats evoking the end of the nineteenth century. Even the children are dressed in white. The centerpiece is a traditional guest house, but with concrete pillars and a rooflike an inverted funnel, hilariously ugly. But, no matter, people are still graceful and smiling and behaving with exceptional correctness.
Ann and Sakiko stood side by side in the shade of the guest house, looking out across the green together. From a distance, Ann thought, they would be clearly non-Samoan and possibly mistaken as sisters, their shapes under their long white dresses and the dresses themselves—cap sleeves, scooped neck, the fabric skimming the body from breast to ankle—similar if you weren’t looking closely or didn’t care. Closer up, however, Sakiko was as impenetrably delicate as ever, black hair twisted up on the back of her head with the red plastic clip, her dress perfectly pressed and edged with Philippine cut-work. Ann’s dress was rumpled and not quite the right shape for her body, giving her, she knew, the spiky, restless look of a boy in drag and none of the suggestive grace. They were watching two toddlers, Jenny in a frilly white smock and a Samoan boy in white shirt and lavalava, chase each other back and forth across the lawn.
“No,” Sakiko said. Her voice conveyed both denial and surprise. “I barely knew him. A very difficult person, I should think.”
Ann frowned and picked at a hanging thread on the side seam of her dress. So much for conversation. She looked up. Wills McGee was crossing the edge of the green toward them, looking very tall, very elegant in his whites, a younger Charles Dance when he was still being cast as the hero. His smile was dazzling. He carried a tiny paper plate of sushi, and the food glowed jewel-like against the white plate. He introduced himself to Sakiko.
“I understand you’re the artist here.” He lifted the plate slightly. “It’s brilliant.”
A Bird in the Hand Page 26