“You don’t say,” Osborne laughed. His voice changed. “What else?”
“Don’t know,” the tattooist drawled. “Listen, man, I’d love to keep shooting the breeze, but I have work to do.”
The other men were chuckling away on the twisted benches. Osborne grabbed the Samoan’s wrist and, with a sudden twist, almost dislocated his shoulder. The man let out a cry and bent double across the counter. Next, the barrel of the .38 hit his mouth, breaking an incisor.
The others hadn’t even moved from their cushions. Osborne’s voice sounded like ground glass.
“Not everyone can do mokos of that quality. In fact, it’s an honor reserved for an elite. A name! Give me a name or I’ll break what’s left of your teeth and then set fire to your fucking shop!”
Little bones were cracking in his mouth.
“N—Nepia,” the man stammered.
Osborne removed the barrel of his gun, which was covered in dribble.
“Nepia,” the Samoan said again, holding his lip. “An old tattooist. A specialist. He used to have a parlor on the corner of Waihoehoe Road.”
Osborne gave a snarl. Beneath the fluorescent light, the butterflies were fluttering incoherently.
* * *
Nepia.
The name was on the list drawn up by Culhane. One of the Tainui involved in the occupation at Bastion Point twenty-five years earlier. First name: Joseph. Had Nepia met Zinzan Bee at Bastion Point? Was he the creator of the mokos worn by the Tagaloa brothers and the big Maori he had met at the Backstreet?
The neighborhood of Papatoetoe lay on the edge of the expressway, bristling with satellite dishes as far as the eye could see. The social housing was falling into ruin, and in keeping with the current approach, nobody bothered to repair it. Waihoehoe Road: Osborne found the tattoo parlor easily enough, but if Nepia was still practicing, you just had to glance through the filthy window to see that the workshop had been deserted for ages. Had the Samoan been pulling his leg?
Osborne crossed the street and walked to the only shop still open at this hour, a poorly-stocked grocery store where a fat, toothless Polynesian woman told him that she hadn’t seen “old Nepia” in months.
“Maybe he’s retired!” she added.
“Maybe.”
A TV set was blaring above the counter. Osborne left the store muttering to himself.
A cool wind was sweeping the empty street. A storm was on the way, and the air seemed full of water. It struck Osborne that there was something strange about the front of the tattoo parlor. The paint on the door was completely peeled, but there were small, green residues on the ground, as if someone had forced their way in. He straightened up and peered in through the window again, but could see nothing behind the grime. He pressed on the latch: it was open. With his shoulder, he pushed open the door.
He took out his .38. His tongue was coated as he entered the room, but the musty smell forced him to keep his mouth closed. The light switch didn’t work. He saw a dusty counter, and at that moment became aware of a threat behind him. He was just in time to dodge the club, and the sharp edge of it grazed his left shoulder. A tattooed face appeared briefly in the light from the street. Osborne fired into the Maori’s hand. The patu he was clutching fell to the floor with a dull thud, leaving a deep gash on the palm of his hand. Will Tagaloa didn’t bat an eyelid. His nickname was the Anaconda: big as he was, he was as quick as a rat. He threw himself on Osborne with such speed that the second shot went into the wall. They rolled on the dusty floor. It was too late to break his knee, too late for anything. The heavier and more powerful of the two, Tagaloa pinned him roughly to the ground. Osborne saw two huge hands descend on his throat and the hideous features of a man who was going to kill him. He tried to free himself from the grip but Tagaloa was much stronger. His viselike hands were squeezing his neck, he was already choking. Muscles tensed, a furious snarl on his moko-covered face, Tagaloa pressed down on his throat. The pain was sharp and violent. Osborne tried to stop him, get him to withdraw, but the only sound he emitted was a brief retching. There was no more air left in his lungs.
His wrist twisted, his index finger still tensed on the trigger, Osborne had the barrel of his .38 planted in the Maori’s liver. On the verge of his last breath, he fired.
The hands strangling him relaxed immediately. Will Tagaloa gave a look of surprise but made no move. Still pinned beneath the weight, Osborne swallowed a lungful of air that seemed to tear his chest. He expelled coffee and bile on the dusty floor. Tears were running from his eyes. He spat again, his esophagus burning.
Hit in the liver, the Maori still lay on top of him, his eyes wide open, although his body wasn’t as heavy as before. Blood was oozing from his stomach, a steady flow that spread across his shirt. Osborne swallowed, a smell of powder his only companion. At last, he tipped the deadweight over onto the floor.
He got unsteadily to his feet. The Maori lay there motionless in the half-light of the tattoo parlor. Osborne had never killed anyone before. This man wasn’t even twenty.
4.
Dawn was coming, as pale as a cloth hanging over the ocean. As she did every night, Hana had left the shore to swim in the open sea, with the sharks. The cowards, rather than eating her, had escorted her through the dark swell before disappearing, in search of other leftovers.
She was coming back, one more time. Her courage had failed her. Tonight, as every night, she had felt a shock in her cortex as she was about to let herself be dragged down into the depths of the sea, an irresistible call that had urged her to get back to shore. Now she had arrived, and she was exhausted. The foam licked her paralyzed legs, then rolled back, sucking at the shells. She felt like throwing up everything here, shipwrecked on this windswept beach. But she couldn’t make up her mind to die. Not yet.
Her thighs felt like wood as she stood up. The earth was weeping salty tears, above the waves the mist was steaming in wreaths that evaporated in the morning dew and caught the sun on the horizon. The penguins fled at her approach. Crushing shells beneath her feet, Hana walked toward the pohutukawas that lined the beach. The wind was drying her body if nothing else. A smell of decomposed seaweed rose from the sand where the waves were rolling. She walked naked across the deserted expanse, the morning wind grazing her skin.
The dawn was silent. Hana clutched her grandmother’s jade tiki. Ka aha ra koe? she kept repeating. What is to become of you? Dead souls hovered around her, all that distress rotting her heart. She passed a korora, a pygmy penguin, on the way to the house. The bird was clearly lost, and barely swerved to avoid her. It was no more than a year old, its back still covered in brownish down. It looked at her anxiously with its soft black eyes.
“So, have you lost your way too?”
The bird lifted its beak by way of reply and waddled away.
She climbed the rickety planks to the top of the cliff, dislodging a few stones in her path. The house appeared in the shade of the great flowering kowhai. Disturbed in the middle of its feast, the tui that was pecking at its nectar expressed its discontent. Hana found the house wide open. There was a bouquet of yellow flowers on the kitchen table. She put on the dress that lay on the bed and went out through the garden door.
The white orchids had been overrun by weeds and bracken. The garden was now just a fallow plot behind the house. She soon came to the workshop, hidden in the undergrowth beneath a fanlike ponga. Timidly, Hana approached.
“Can I come in?” she said, seeing the door ajar.
The man looked up from his work and granted her an ageless smile. “Of course,” he said. “I’ve nearly finished.”
He offered her a stool. Then, his thumb and index finger parting the skin like a pincer, he dug the chisel into the other man’s cheek. A black liquid took root in the flesh, overflowed from the cut, flooding the motionless face of Zinzan Bee.
Concentrating on his task, the tattooist wiped off the surplus with a cotton swab and completed the curve all the way up to the corners of the eyes.
Hana watched him, impressed. The line was sure and regular, the designs perfectly symmetrical. He carefully wiped the face and straightened up, pleased with his work. The moko was finished.
