Dark Places

15. Run Through The Jungle

I had an early dinner at Mekar Sari.
   "Mr. Wood," Femke asked me, after serving a superb dish of gado-gado, "have you by any chance seen a parang anywhere near here today?"
   "No," I said, affecting surprise.
   She shook her head. "These people. They're terribly racist, did you know that? Because I am white, they think it is perfectly all right to steal from us anything that they can."
   I made sympathetic sounds, feeling a little guilty, and went to bed before the sun had sunk into darkness.

* * *

   Hypothetical question. Suppose you have identified to your own satisfaction, beyond any reasonable doubt, a serial killer who has murdered at least two people for sure, one them a woman you loved, and will probably kill again. Suppose you know that there is no chance of the authorities ever catching up with him, because you have no hard evidence and furthermore he was smart enough to commit his murders beyond the jurisdiction of competent authorities. Suppose further that you and the killer know each other well. Suppose even further that he must also know that you know, or at least be very deeply suspicious. And finally suppose that you encounter one another in a remote Third World village.
   The question is… no. There are three questions. One, what is the right thing to do? Two, what is the smart thing to do? And three, what do you actually do? Those were the questions that ached in my brain that night as I lay behind a locked door and window and stared at the ceiling, listening to the unnerving keening noise, just at the edge of hearing, that radiated from the rice paddies. Some local critter, I guessed, like a cricket but more disturbing.
   The smart thing to do, that was easy. Run like hell.
   The right thing to do — well, never mind right in the moral sense. We were way past morals here. Try right as in what I wanted to happen. I wanted Morgan Jackson dead. Of that I was certain. I was as opposed to capital punishment as the next guy. Amnesty International was my favourite charity. But I wanted him dead. It wasn't even the threat he posed to future victims. I wanted him dead for what he had done to Laura.
   Could I kill him? Almost certainly not. He was the Great White Hunter, he was bigger than me, and stronger, and he had killed before, and overall was about a hundred times as dangerous as yours truly. But could I as in could I bring myself to do it? Would I kill him? I didn't know. In the heat of action, maybe, but in cold blood… I didn't know. Talena had said I wasn't a killer. But I didn't think she knew me as well as all that.
   Let me stress that I had no crazy plans about breaking into his room and running amok with the parang. I wasn't going to try to exact revenge all by my lonesome. My self-preservation instinct remained strong. So why didn't I leave? Why wasn't I already in Mataran? I didn't know. I don't know. It wasn't mental paralysis, though the effect was much the same. It was just a deep-rooted feeling that I shouldn't go. That somehow my work there was not done.
   Maybe, looking back, I was just waiting for him to come to me. I wasn't afraid any more. My anger didn't leave any room for fear. I understood now, for the first time in my life, what people were talking about when they talked about cold fury. I understood how it could last for years.
   So when it was well past dark I unbarred the door and stepped outside into the warm damp night, Maglite in one hand, parang in the other.
   He wasn't there. Nobody was there. I shined the Maglite around and its beam was swallowed up by the darkness. The moon was not yet up. Last night the starlight had been bright enough to navigate by, but tonight a thick tapestry of cloud hung overhead, and the darkness was absolute.
   I closed the door behind me and began my trek to the Harmony Cafe. I had to walk a zigzag rice-paddy-ridge path for five minutes and then go down the muddy road about half a kilometer. There was nobody else on it. A donkey whinnied somewhere, and something splashed in one of the rice paddies. A cool wind blew in fits and gusts. The air was fragrant with the clean sweet smell of recent rain. I was nervous but not frightened. The parangwas comforting in my hand. I didn't know what I was doing.
   Like many Indonesian lodges the Harmony was built as a U-shaped bungalow around a flagstoned patio. I crept around the edge of the building, looking in windows. There were still three rooms that flickered with candlelight.
   In the first, an old Indonesian man lay back on a moth-eaten bed, smoking ganja. I glanced in the second window, and past a curtain that covered it incompletely I got an eyeful of two topless Swedish beauties giggling and comparing their tan lines by candlelight. They seemed so completely incongruous to the pervasive sense of menace I felt that I nearly broke out laughing. After a moment's ogling I tore my attention away from the walking male fantasy and went to the third room, where Morgan and his redheaded friend Peter were lazily playing cards while Peter smoked a joint. I noticed that Morgan waved off Peter's offer to share. Very unlike him. Unless he was planning some kind of activity for which he did not want to be stoned.
   I stood there for awhile, indecisive, and then I walked back across the road and found a big rock to sit on, close enough that I could still make out shapes at the Harmony Cafe, far enough away that I wouldn't be noticed. I sat there for a long time. I placed the parang and Maglite between my feet. I think I fell asleep.
   Something brought me back to consciousness. At first I couldn't tell what. I looked around. The moon had risen. I suddenly realized that in the moonlight I might well be visible from the Harmony so I backed away another twenty feet.
   And only just in time. A shape detached itself from shadow and set off up the road. From the Harmony, towards Mekar Sari. A tiny circle of light led its way on the ground. Someone carrying a flashlight, I saw, as my eyes focused. And carrying something else. A parang, like mine. Morgan Jackson come to kill me. I must have heard him leaving his room. I hesitated for a moment, and then I followed him, flushed with adrenaline, like when I had found Stanley Goebel's body. Every sense on high alert, every muscle ready for action.
   The wind had picked up, for which I was grateful. Its soft whoosh helped to conceal the squelch of my boots in the mud. It was hard to follow him without using my Maglite, but I managed. I knew where he was going, which helped. Once I almost overbalanced and plunged into a rice paddy, but after a vertiginous moment I recovered my footing. He was moving much faster than me, armed with a flashlight and less concern for noise, and when Mekar Sari loomed out of the darkness I could no longer see him. For a moment a wild panic rose in me, thinking that he'd seen me following, that he waited in ambush. But then I saw movement right next to my cabin. He was there, underneath the window that faced Gunung Rinjani.
   I came as close as I dared, up to the mandi shack about twenty feet from my cabin, and peeked around the corner at him. I could see him clearly, silhouetted against the pale wood of the cabin. He waited patiently for a good five minutes, sitting on the chair beneath my window where I ate my breakfast, his head cocked, listening carefully. I focused on breathing silently. I slowly tensed and relaxed each of my muscles so that they did not cramp. I couldn't remember where I'd read about that trick. Some trashy fantasy novel. The parang felt very heavy but I did not dare to put it down and risk a noise.
   After the five minutes had passed he stood up, calmly walked up the three steps that led to the door, and pushed it open. He stood still for a second, as if surprised that it had not been locked. That was my chance. I knew it as it passed. In that moment of surprise I could have charged him from behind with my parang, could have had a better-than-even chance of getting the first swing in. I didn't try it. I didn't really even consider trying it.
   He turned on his Maglite and inspected the room. I heard him grunt in surprise. Then he turned around and played the Maglite around, and I ducked behind the corner of the mandi stall. I heard him laugh, quietly but perfectly audible at my distance, as if he'd just gotten a joke.
   "You out there, Balthazar?" he asked, his voice low but carrying. "You been keeping an eye on your old mate Morgan? I reckon you are. I reckon you're right behind that mandi there, aren't you?"
   I focused on breathing absolutely silently.
   "I think we should have a bit of chat, mate," Morgan said. "Just a full and frank exchange of views. That's all I came here for." I heard the creak of wood as he stepped down from the doorway.
   "Of course if you prefer," he continued, "we could settle this the old-fashioned way. Mano a mano. Deeds not words, eh? Step right out, Mr. Wood… if you think you're hard enough."
   I didn't move. I couldn't decide how to hold the parang. Low, to slash upward when he turned the corner? Or up, like a sword, to defend myself?
   "Fair enough," he said. "No need to make this a dialogue now. I always preferred the monologues myself. I reckon you've been doing some snooping, haven't you? Been thinking, what's my old mate Morgan been up to? What kind of shenanigans? And by now you've got a pretty good idea, I reckon. Right now you're deeply concerned about your own fair skin, aren't you, Woodsie? Anxious about the future of your own ocular capabilities, if you take my meaning?"
   I listened desperately, for the sound of his boots, and to the sound of his voice, trying to work out how close he was. I didn't think he was coming any closer. But I knew the Great White Hunter could move like a cat when he wanted to.
   "Well, I didn't come here for that. I'm on holiday, don't you know?" His laugh rippled through the darkness. "And the truth is I like you, Paul. Always have. And I'm not too fussed about any snooping you may have done. Anything you dredge up, it's not going to do me any harm, I think we both know that. Fact is I'm impressed. You were always the Internet wizard, weren't you? Presume that's what led you here. I'll have to take more care in the future. Point taken. And as for you, you'd best take my point. Take it to heart."
   And here his voice became edgier, angrier. Became the voice of a murderer.
   "My point is, fuck off. This is your only warning. Sod off back to America and stay there. I'm a patient man but my patience has its limits. Don't make me work my magic on you, old boy. Don't wave a red flag in front of The Bull. You hear me?"
   He waited, as if I was going to answer. Finally he laughed again.
   "Silence is golden, isn't it, mate? Ain't that the truth. Well, that's precisely the lesson I wanted to drill into you, so I suppose I can't complain… You take care now, Paul. Me and my little band are off tomorrow. I recommend you stay here. In fact I insist, and I warn you, I'll make it my business to stay informed of your activities. And I recommend you avoid seeing me ever again. Now piss off and fare thee well."
   And then he walked away, deliberately noisy, whistling loudly — that British Army tune from Bridge On The River Kwai — his boots crunching away from me, taking the long way back to the Harmony around Mekar Sari. I found I could breathe again. As the whistles diminished into the distance I scrambled back into my room and barred the door. I was very glad to be alive.
   Don't wave a red flag in front of The Bull. Words to live and die by.

* * *

   I dreamed of Swiss Army knives and of parangs. But I woke alive and whole and unimpaled, and I was grateful for it. I lay in bed a long time, luxuriating in each breath, full of wonder at my own existence, that I could draw in the air and expel it again, could with a twitch of my mind cause that heavy lump of flesh called my leg to rise into the air and then let it fall again, could experience the world around me with so many different senses.
   I flung the window open and stared out at the glorious sight of Gunung Rinjani above the rice paddies for some time. Even the thickly overcast day could not dim my joy. After a little while I arose and dressed and went to the Mekar Sari patio to collect banana pancakes and rose tea from Femke. I took them back and ate and drank sitting in the chair under my window. The same chair in which Morgan Jackson had sat not twelve hours ago, aparang in his hand, hunting me. It seemed like a bad dream, like a scene from a childhood TV show.
   Had he meant to kill me? Had he decided not to only because I was awake and alert? I didn't think so. I thought he had been telling the truth, that he had only meant to warn me, and had brought the parang to keep me from going after him. I've always liked you, Paul. Which was true. I'd always gotten along well with him. Better than most on the truck.
   Funny that he had called himself The Bull though. He knew that I knew that he wasn't, that he couldn't have killed any of the people in Southern Africa, because he was with me on the truck during that time. Maybe somewhere in the twisted pathways of his mind he had decided that he was The Bull and the other killer was the copycat. It made no difference.
   I should have felt terrible fear or terrible fury. I felt neither. Somehow they had cancelled each other out. Instead I felt immensely relieved. Last night's confrontation had somehow provided the closure I had stayed for. I would do as he said, I would stay in Tetebatu another day, and tomorrow I would go to Mataran, let Talena know what happened, and leave the country. But I certainly wasn't going to leave him be. I would find some way to get him. Not here, not in Indonesia, not mano a mano, not without a plan. That would be little more than suicide. But I had his name, now, and I knew where he lived. Mission accomplished. I had not merely identified The Bull, I had faced him and taken him by the horns. Well, maybe not quite… let's just say I had run with The Bull. Anyways I felt I could leave with my head held high. I knew it was a stupid macho thing to want to feel that way in the first place. But it still made me feel good.
   I anticipated telling my story to Talena, sitting in the Horseshoe across from her, looking into those blue eyes as she looked back at me with…well, quite possibly with disgust at my violation of my promise to her, and the reckless stupidity of following Morgan through the night. But I felt good about the image all the same. Surely she would be impressed, on some level, at what I had done. I was eager to go home and tell her all about it.
   First, though, I wanted to accentuate my stupid macho feeling of accomplishment. I wanted to go fuck with Morgan's mind just a little.

   I stepped into the Harmony Cafe. He wasn't around, but the Swedish girls Kerri and Ulrika were there, and we said hi and smiled at each other. They sat next to their Karrimor packs, obviously waiting for Morgan and Peter. I bought a Coke, thinking wistfully of the two pairs of perfect breasts I'd seen last night, and asked them where Morgan was. They pointed me to a dark room just off the patio.
   I had to duck my head to get in the doorway. It was the computer room, dirt-floored, furnished with a single desk. Morgan sat behind the computer. He was wearing his much-battered Tilley hat with shark's teeth. When he looked up and recognized me he looked alarmed. I felt alarmed too. Suddenly coming over here and pulling a hair from The Bull didn't seem like such a smart idea.
   I recognized the pattern his fingers made on the keyboard — Alt-F4, closing down whatever window he had had open — and then he relaxed back, cool as the proverbial cucumber, and said "And what can I do for you, Mr. Wood?"
   My idea had been to leave him with the notion that maybe I hadn't been behind that mandi last night, that I hadn't heard his soliloquy. Just to seed a little uncertainty in his life, keep it interesting. I suddenly wasn't sure if that was such a good idea. I cleared my throat and said in a worryingly quavery voice "Just came by to say goodbye. You off today?"
   "We are indeed. Kuta Beach. The Lombok version. And yourself?"
   "Thought I'd stay here for the day," I said, "maybe go back to Mataran tomorrow, Bali the next day."
   "That sounds very sensible," Morgan said.
   We looked at each other for awhile.
   "Well," Morgan said. "You take care of yourself."
   "I'll try," I said. And I turned to walk away, kicking myself for having come at all.
   I walked back to Mekar Sari. The air was so thick with humidity that I felt as if I was swimming not walking. The phone lines were not yet back up. I felt bad about breaking my email-every-day promise to Talena, but I figured I would feel even worse if I broke my staying-here-until-tomorrow promise to Morgan. And it wasn't really my fault, what could I do about the monsoons knocking out the phones?
   I spent the day playing chess, eating, and reading through my Lonely Planet. Indonesia actually sounded like quite a cool country and I would have to come back here sometime. But I wasn't going to stay for my whole three weeks. I had plans already forming. I wasn't going to come after Morgan Jackson here, but if he thought I was going to leave him alone, he was terribly mistaken.
   Something nagged at me all day long, the feeling that I'd forgotten something important. I ignored it in the hopes my subconscious would throw it up when least expected; but the hopes went unfulfilled. I fell asleep trying to make myself remember it.
   The next morning I went to the patio for my banana pancakes and rose tea, and Femke added one more ingredient to the breakfast; a folded piece of paper, taped shut. I looked at her quizzically.
   "Your friend Mr. Jackson gave it to me before he left," she said. "To give to you this morning."
   "Oh," I said. I managed to get to the relative privacy of the chair below my window before tearing it open and reading it. The words were scrawled so clumsily they were nearly illegible, but I managed to decipher it:

WOODSIE OLD BOY
AREN'T KERRI & ULRIKA A TREAT?
NEVER DONE TWO AT THE SAME TIME BEFORE
BUT DOWN IN KUTA
THEY'RE GOING TO MEET THE BULL
JUST THOUGHT I'D LET YOU KNOW…
HA HA HA & TA

   I read it again. I felt very cold.
   I was sure they were already dead. That was why he had me wait a day.
   Even if they weren't I knew I shouldn't go after him. Here in Indonesia, without some kind of a plan, I wouldn't have a chance. He would kill me. I should leave him be, follow yesterday's plan, go home and there work out some way to get him. Rushing after him to save two perfect strangers was the worst kind of foolishness. This changes nothing, I told myself. Go with yesterday's plan. Yesterday's plan was sound.
   Yesterday's plan was sound, and sensible, and utterly cowardly. It was very convenient how my elegant plan for revenging myself on the man who had murdered Laura involved letting him walk away and kill two more girls. Very convenient how it got me the hell out of danger as soon as was humanly possible. Abandoning the two Swedish girls, perfect strangers or no, was the act of a contemptible coward, and I knew it. Even if I was sure that they were probably already dead.
   What if they weren't? He couldn't plan for everything. Maybe something had gone wrong. Maybe he'd gotten sick. They might still be alive. And even if they weren't, the sooner I got there, the better chance of getting the authorities to catch him before he left Indonesia.
   Even as I contemplated this a raindrop the size of a marble smacked into the sheet of paper, smearing the cheap ink. I looked up. Dark clouds roiled the sky. I could see flickers of lightning on the horizon. The monsoon was back, and this time, I could tell, it wasn't going to fuck around.
   No time to lose, I thought, and five minutes later I was packed and paid for. Femke looked at me as if I was crazy when I told her I had to go to Kuta Beach right away. I guess I could understand why. It was already pouring as I began to slog along the rice paddies towards the road. Not quite running, but close.
   I left the parang behind. I was through with that particular madness.