Fire Knife Dancing (Jungle Beat)

by John Enright

  “How did they do that?” Apelu asked.

  “You know those entry forms you have to fill in whenever you come here? Well, every day someone over at Immigration types up a list of that day’s entrants. Or at least they’re supposed to. They went through those lists for the months she’d been missing.”

  “That sounds like a lot of checking.”

  “Those Immigration guys don’t have much to do. Most of the time they’re just sitting around waiting for the next flight. Anyway, when nothing turned up, the mother of the girl came to see me to see what she could do about finding her daughter, which is not much really. But I got curious and ran an ad in the Observer asking other people or families with similar concerns about overstayers in American Samoa to contact the Department of Justice. Not many people came forward, but that didn’t surprise us. It is a bit like turning in a member of your family. They are technically breaking American Samoa law by overstaying. But these additional seven young women stood out because they fit the same profile as the first girl.”

  “Which is?”

  “Sex, age, recruited as short-term domestic help, gone missing.”

  “You had them checked against Immigration’s returnee’s lists?”

  “Yes, and their names weren’t there.” Lisa took the list back from Apelu and put it back in the file folder.

  “And you want me to…?” Apelu asked.

  “Do a little checking for me. Your Immigration people have been no help at all. They say there are so many Western Samoan overstayers that they can’t be concerned about just a handful. We know that for every thirty-day visitor’s permit issued there has to be an American Samoan sponsor, but we don’t have those sponsors’ names and your guys won’t release them to us. I want to know what happened to these women.” Lisa didn’t sound like a lawyer anymore. This had become personal.

  The immigration problems between the two Samoas, like so many other problems, went back to policies put in place during colonial days. From the very beginning the governors of German Samoa and the governors of American Samoa had tried to limit movement between the two parts of the once-contiguous-now-divided archipelago. Those efforts and all subsequent efforts to establish an artificial, political, people-proof border had never fully succeeded because the Samoans themselves never embraced the idea. There was but one language, one culture, one social order across all the islands. New barriers weren’t going to change that. There were always ways around palangi regulations, especially when it was Samoans who were supposed to enforce them. For Samoans family came first, and abstract government rules were so far down the list as to be practically meaningless. There were even more palangi rules and regs now. Like anything artificial they inspired little respect. All they did was create another underworld, like smuggling, where such exchanges still occurred but under a cloak of deceit that was not so much cynical as realistic, not so much evil as necessary. Not that deceit, the need for deceit, was a good thing. It wasn’t. It rewarded people who shouldn’t be rewarded. It left deep shadows where eight young women could disappear.

  Apelu took Ms. Ah Chong’s list of missing persons and said he would look into it as soon as he got back. She still seemed uncertain about trusting him, but she thanked him. He found his own way out.

  CHAPTER 6

  FOR SOME REASON it always seemed hotter in Apia than anywhere else in the islands. More buildings and cement perhaps, or maybe it was the traffic exhaust that filmed on your sweat. There wasn’t a breeze, and the earlier light rain steamed off the still-hot pavement. Apelu took a taxi back to the hotel. It was too early to eat, and he could use another shower.

  Mati was waiting for him at a sidewalk table outside the hotel’s bistro, drinking Vailimas with two women Apelu recognized from police headquarters. Mati was dressed in swim trunks and a short-sleeved shirt, flip-flops on his feet. Beside him on a chair was one of their hotel room’s towels.

  “There you are,” Mati said, standing up. “We were just about to leave without you. Bloody hot. We’re going for a swim. Want to come along?” Because Apelu had been introduced to the women already that morning, he was not introduced again. They said hello, and he said hello back but didn’t come close to giving them names.

  “No, I don’t think so, Mati. Thanks. Just a shower and a lie-down for me. Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know, some beach out near Agnes’s house,” Mati said, picking up his towel. “Well, we’re off then.”

  Apelu shook hands with the women and said “Tofa,” and they were gone, taking the taxi that he had pulled up in.

  Back in the room, after taking a shower and stretching his cramped-up ribs under the hot water, Apelu discovered that someone had gone through his things. It wasn’t anything obvious, but when he unzipped his unlocked bag for clean clothes something was amiss, not as he had left it. He wasn’t sure what at first. Nothing seemed missing. He checked for his passport, ticket, and American cash that he had stashed at the bottom of the bag, and they were still there, but now the bills were tucked into the back of the passport. He was sure he hadn’t done that. He searched for the ring of keys that he had just tossed in there—not needing them while not at home—and couldn’t find them. Then he saw them on the carpet beside where his bag had been.

  Well, it wasn’t a thief or his passport and cash would be gone, Apelu figured. So that left Mati. Somehow that was an easy leap to make, and getting payback seemed not only fair play but a necessary chess move. Mati’s luggage was locked, but Apelu picked the cheap latch easily with the file point of his fingernail clippers. Mati had brought more clothes than Apelu had, including a very nice pair of expensive Italian loafers. From a side net pouch Apelu pulled out Mati’s passport and return ticket and a large stash of cash, then put it all back just as he had found it. He felt through the clothes without unpacking them—nothing. As he was putting the fancy Italian loafers back in place, Apelu noticed that one shoe seemed slightly lighter than the other. From the toe of the heavier shoe he pulled out a nicely tooled black leather case. Inside it was a small gold badge and a picture ID: Matthew Sparks, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Apelu made sure that everything was put back just as he had found it, the latch relocked. So, Mati was someone else altogether.

  The question of whether or not the FBI’s jurisdiction extended to American Samoa had never been reasonably resolved. It was one of those quandaries left over from the colonial muddle the US had made of the place. The territory’s “unincorporated and unorganized” status basically meant that though it may be a possession of the United States, it was not a part of the United States. Citizens of American Samoa were not US citizens, but US nationals, whatever that meant aside from the fact that they could not vote for the president. The president technically “owned” the territory because the US Congress had never ratified a proper treaty incorporating it into the US system. American Samoans had their own separate constitution that differed in several significant ways from the US Constitution. They even had their own separate immigration system and immigration laws. The place was outside the borders of any federal court district. The relationship was quite confused, which was the way the Samoans liked it.

  In any event, in the past the FBI had pretty much treated American Samoa as they would a foreign country. They knew their federal warrants could not be legally served there, and there really wasn’t much of anything going down worthy of their investigation. Apelu could remember only two instances since he had been on the force when the feds had snatched someone out of the territory and whisked them back to Honolulu, to US soil, to be formally charged—just as they occasionally kidnapped dope dealers out of Mexico or Colombia. Both of those cases had involved non-Samoan federal fugitives, most-wanted types. Both of those times the federal agents had enlisted the assistance of the local police in the take-down. But otherwise there had been no FBI presence in American Samoa. Or at least Apelu had never heard about it. And he would have heard. At least part of the reason for the FBI
’s past efforts to cooperate had to be the fact that they knew they weren’t welcome in American Samoa, and that they were on shaky legal ground in an almost foreign land.

  Apelu sat by himself at one of the bistro’s outside tables and listened. It was sundown and still no breeze. Beside the hotel was a vacant stretch of land filled with the bunch grasses, thistles, weed trees, and low shrubs that were always the first to reclaim once-cleared land. That time of day it was rich with birdsong. The bird chorus here was different than that of back home. Even though only fifty miles of open ocean separated the most proximate points of this island and his island, there were a few different species of birds here, and the mix of songs and calls was like another avian language. They had the Miti here, for instance, the Polynesian Triller, which was totally absent from Tutuila. Its insistent chatter and trilling runs seemed to intimidate the other birds and altered their songs.

  Then a mynah bird fight broke out. A half dozen of them swooped down onto a grassy hummock near the center of the empty lot. One of them, for whatever mynah bird reason, was on the outs with the rest. In appearance there was no difference among any of the birds—black head, dark stocky body, and those distinctive flashes of white on the spread tail and wings. One of the group kept picking a fight with the bird on the outs—a lot of jumping and squawking with wings flapping. Whenever the outsider was getting the worst of it, the other birds would duck in for a screech and a quick peck. Then they would all stop and for a minute or two act like an all-friends family of identical birds on a peaceful lawn. Apelu figured that these breaks were a genetically dictated pause for a mutual predator check. Then they would start in all over again on the outsider. Apelu had to watch closely to see if it was the same bird that always got picked on. Because they were so identical, the birds could get confused in the melee. But it was always the same bird, he was sure. What had it done? Where had it arrived from to make it the enemy? Apelu wondered. Of course Mati would want to keep his true job a secret—and Apelu would let him keep it that way—but what was the job that called for him to be there at all? Why had he flown into their flock?

  That night, Apelu again had dinner as a party of one. When he returned from dinner, Mati had come and gone, judging from his wet swim trunks in the shower and the discarded short-sleeve shirt on his bed. Apelu wondered if he was wearing his fancy loafers, then took several of the pain pills he had packed and went to bed. He had trouble getting comfortable. Maybe Siaosi had cracked a rib, after all. Apelu awoke when Mati returned late, smelling of beer, cigarette smoke, and poor perfume. But Apelu didn’t let on that he had awakened, and he went quickly back to the dream he was having of being on stage and singing a song whose words he had to make up as he went along. It was a country-and-western song.

  In the morning Mati said he was close to being done with his checking, that he had a few calls to make to some wholesalers and importers, but that he ought to have it wrapped up by the end of the day. He still didn’t need any help with it. He asked how Apelu’s investigations were going, and Apelu said fine, that he too should be done today. They agreed to fly back late that afternoon, if they could get a flight. Mati said he would look into the reservations, as he would be at a desk with a phone all day. The two most upscale hotels in Apia were Aggie Grey’s and the Tusitala. They anchored the opposite ends of Beach Road’s run through the town area. That morning, Apelu visited both of them.

  The Tusitala was only a short walk back toward town from their hotel, so Apelu walked there and had breakfast in their swank poolside restaurant, reading the morning paper, starting with all the crime and trial stories. The paper, the Observer, was quite different from his hometown News. It was more professional and cosmopolitan, with more regional and international coverage. It was also a bit more risqué. In an article about a manslaughter trial, a defense witness, identified as a transvestite bartender, was quoted as testifying that the manslaughter victim—later whacked and stomped to death by the defendant, the bar’s bouncer—had drunkenly ordered four beers, refused to pay for them, then “stood up on the bar, unzipped, and told me to suck his dick.” That was language that would never appear in the News. It didn’t say whether she had complied with this order or not.

  After breakfast Apelu stopped at the front desk and inquired if his old friend Leilani Strand was registered there. She was not. In the lobby gift shop he bought a bottle of pain pills and a bottle of water to wash a bunch down. He caught a taxi to Aggie Grey’s, asked the same question, and got the same answer. But as he turned to leave a manager-type man called him back.

  “Who was it you were asking for, sir?” the man asked.

  “Leilani Strand, an old dear friend,” Apelu said. “I heard she was in Apia and thought she might be staying here.”

  “I thought that was the name I overheard. Mrs. Strand was staying with us, but she checked out a few days ago. However, she did leave a telephone number where she could be reached. She was expecting you to stop by.”

  “She was expecting me?” Apelu asked.

  “Well, she said a young man might stop by inquiring after her. I assume that would be you.” The man had stopped searching for the number and looked up at Apelu.

  “Yes, that would be me. She’s a clever old gal,” Apelu said.

  “That she is, sir, that she is. Here we are.” He handed Apelu a sheet of hotel notepaper. On it in a very nice hand was written Leilani and a six-digit local telephone number.

  “Thank you,” Apelu said. “May I?” gesturing toward the lobby phone.

  “Of course.”

  The taxi driver knew the place. It was one of the larger estates in a plush enclave in the foothills above the town. Apelu had been invited to lunch.

  “That’s the place,” the driver said as they cruised past a stop sign at a well-shaded intersection. All Apelu could see was a high stone wall running in both directions from the opposite corner. “A corner of it, anyway.” About a quarter of a mile farther down the road there was a break in the wall with a gate that the driver got out to open then shut behind them. The driveway was two smooth ribbons of cement with grass growing between them. It curved along the edge of a wood, around a large sloping lawn, then rose through a high hedge of hibiscus. When it appeared, the house was a bit of a surprise—low, ranch-style, very Southern Californian, hidden behind banks of more hibiscus and beneath overarching mimosa trees. Off to one side was a long garage.

  This was the house of the daughter of one of the highest-ranking families in the islands. Her father had been one of the founders of the new state after independence. Her name was one of those twenty-letter chiefly extravaganzas, but everyone called her Gigi. Apelu had spoken to her when he called from the hotel, not giving his name but just identifying himself as a friend asking for Leilani.

  “Oh yes, Leilani’s friend. She’s been waiting for you to call. You must come up for lunch. Leilani is out just now, but she’ll be back shortly. Do come up. I’m afraid I have an engagement elsewhere, but Leilani would love to see you.” And she gave him the directions that turned out to be unnecessary.

  At the time he didn’t know with whom he was speaking. It wasn’t until he started to give the taxi driver the directions, and he said, “Oh, the Ali`ivao place,” that he started to put it together.

  The house girl who came out to meet the taxi was Fijian and quite beautiful. Apelu stood outside the passenger-side door of the taxi, fumbling with the foreign bills and coins trying to pay the driver and give him a proper tip. As always, the accounting flustered him, and her quizzical smile as she watched him didn’t help. Her teeth were very white, her dark lips were very full. He felt underdressed and out of place. The taxi driver handed him a slip of paper with his phone number on it, so that he could call him later when he needed a ride back down to town, any time. The Fijian girl showed him to a chair on the patio beside a glass table and brought him an iced tea in a tall glass. The words of the Rolling Stones’ song “Brown Sugar” started repeating themselves in his h
ead along with the chord progressions. She disappeared back into the shadows of the house, still smiling.

  From where he was sitting Apelu could see the ocean’s horizon beyond the trees. It was empty. It was very blue. It sparkled. He listened to the song inside his head, Jagger’s voice, Wyman’s solid bass line. He bobbed his head to the music and smiled at himself for being so obvious.

  “Willie, so good of you to come.” It was Leilani’s soft, lilting voice coming from behind him. Apelu turned, distracted from his fantasy but still smiling.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s not Willie at all, is it? Is that you, Apelu?” Leilani had stopped short, and her diminutive left hand with numerous rings covered her delicate collarbones. “Oh my, Apelu. What are you doing here in Apia?”

  Apelu immediately stood and went over to her, put his hands on her shoulders, and bent down to press his right cheek against hers. “Talofa, Auntie Leilani. How are you? I didn’t mean to surprise you like that, but I was over here on business and wanted just to say hello. We miss you in Pago.”

  “I wish I could say the same about Tutuila, but it’s much lovelier here, don’t you think?” Leilani had recomposed herself. The Fijian beauty had reappeared with an iced tea for Leilani. Leilani and Apelu sat at the round glass table.

  “This is a fine spot,” Apelu said.

  “How are Sina and the children?” Leilani asked, patting him once on his forearm. The conversation turned that way for a while. Then Apelu asked if she had heard anything from Ezra recently.

  “Why no, I haven’t, Apelu, not in some time.”

  “Did you know that Ezra was in jail?” Apelu asked.

  “Oh.” Leilani spread her diminutive hands out on the table and stared at them. Apelu wondered whether she was seeing the gold there or the skin beneath the gold. “No, Apelu, I didn’t know.” More staring at her hands, which she now allowed to touch. Her hands were like strangers, thumbs delicately feeling each other out, hesitant fingertips caressing rings on the opposite hand. “I hadn’t heard. Poor Ezra. Perhaps he’s better off there. I’m sure the other prisoners will treat him well. He’s such a legend.”