The Pirate Hunters (10 page)

The tattooed man and the twins were astonished at their colleague’s actions. They weren’t even sure of his name. He was just the water taxi driver—the
haki
—they’d hired to take them to the magician’s hut, and he joined their band only because he had the last five dollars they needed to buy the magician’s bottle of air.

He was about halfway up the side of the freighter when he looked back to see the tattooed man hesitating at the other end of the pole. He was losing his nerve.

He called up to the haki. “Can you do this on your own?”

“Rob the ship—
by myself?”
the haki yelled back.

The tattooed man sucked it up, hastily poured some of the magician’s breath on himself, then grabbed the pole and started to climb unsteadily.

The haki had reached the railing by this time. The ship’s deck was dark and slippery; the only light to be seen was coming from the bridge.

The tattooed man arrived and the haki helped him over the railing.

“It’s too dark,” the tattooed man complained.

“But darkness helps,” the haki told him.

Again the tattooed man asked him: “Can you do this alone?”

He nodded impatiently. “OK—just watch my back.” The haki limped down the deck and climbed the ladder to the freighter’s bridge. He knocked hard on the door, causing it to swing open.

The satchel full of money was sitting on the map table, right next to the door. The four people on the bridge didn’t say a word; they didn’t even look at him. The haki took the money and went back down the ladder.

He made his way back to the railing to find the tattooed man already on the other side, ready to go down the pole. He was surprised the haki had returned so quickly. His eyes went wide when he saw the sack full of money.

“The magician was right,” the haki told him. “They couldn’t see me.”

The next night

ONCE AGAIN, THE
ship appeared right on time.

It was small, a coastal freighter, identical to the vessel the night before. This type of ship was common in this region, delivering goods to the thousands of islands in the Java Sea and beyond.

The twins were excited to no end.

“Two ships in two nights,” one of them said. “Certain people will definitely take notice if we pull this off.”

There were only three of them tonight. The tattooed man did not show up at the appointed time at their prearranged meeting place. He had taken his portion of the money from the night before and headed off to spend it on the Happy-Happy, local slang for “booze and women.” This was where a lot of would-be pirates floundered in their careers; the tattooed man had made himself $1,000 the night before, more money than he’d ever seen in his life. The temptation to blow it had been too much for him.

So now it was just three.

The trio had agreed to hang onto their booty. They’d splurged on only one thing: an ancient five-shot revolver they’d bought from a drug dealer on Goat Island. The weapon came with only three bullets, so they would have to be economical in how they used it.

They waited for the freighter to go by. Then, as before, they emptied the magician’s breath onto the boat and themselves and started out into the channel.

They were soon right up against the rear of the freighter. The haki used the bamboo stick and hook again. As before, he
caught the rail on his first try. The twins held the boat steady as he shimmied up the pole and grasped on to the stern railing. With great athletic ability, he swung up and over the railing, landing square on his feet. He had the weapon up and ready.

As before, he was gone for under a minute. When he reappeared at the railing, the twins thought something had gone wrong. But again, he was holding a bag that appeared to be full of cash. He slid down the pole and into the boat. The twins quickly motored away.

“That was so easy,” one of the twins told him.

“It’s that magician,” the haki replied. “His stuff
really
works.”

THE FOLLOWING NIGHT
the trio were in their same hiding spot. This time, the target ship was sailing westward. The two times before, their victims had been heading east.

By now, they were accomplished at moving into position. Roaring out of the reeds, they were soon riding along the freighter’s stern. The haki did his thing with the empty bottles and his bamboo pole, and soon was standing on the railing again.

Then one of the twins noticed something.

“Isn’t this the ship we hit two nights ago?” he asked.

The other twin studied the vessel’s stern. It did look the same—and its name appeared to have been painted over recently.

“Lots of ships like this go through here,” he said. “But it does seem familiar.”

They dropped the subject when they saw their colleague reappear on the railing, once again, waving a bag of money.

“How does he do it?” one twin asked the other excitedly.

“It’s magic,” his brother replied.

The man came down the pole and off they went.

THEY RETURNED TO
their hideout—a shack at the edge of their home island—and for the third time, counted their loot.

Each time it equaled $4,000. On the button.

“We were lucky,” the haki told the twins as they examined the money. “We got all three ships just before they had to make their payrolls. That magician is a genius.”

The twins contemplated the situation. The haki was a weird one. But it was hard to argue with what he’d done.

Three nights, three attempts, three successes?

The twins had never heard of anyone being such a good pirate.

The next night

THE TWINS STAGGERED
up the long set of steps to the hut where the haki said he lived.

They found him in a room empty of everything except a bucket of rainwater. No mattress, no blanket to keep the centipedes off. Just the hard wooden floor. He was asleep, still fully clothed, wearing his 501 jeans as always.

The twins were amazed he could sleep with all the noise around him: the water splashing up against the hut’s stilts, the grunts and groans of sex coming from the shack next door, the bad disco music blasting over the water from Goat Island just 100 yards away. The sound of money being spent twenty-six miles across the channel in Singapore.

They roused him by gently nudging his behind. He woke with a start. They laughed and handed him a bottle filled with an amber liquid.

“Is this gasoline?” he asked them, still groggy. “And are we going hunting tonight?”

“No, it’s whiskey,” one twin told him. “And no—tonight we’re going to make Happy-Happy.”

“But we shouldn’t spend our money,” the haki told them, wiping his bleary eyes. “That was the agreement.”

“We don’t need to spend our money,” the other twin said. “Word has gotten around about us. We have made some new friends. They want to pay our way.”

“Who are these ‘new friends?’ ” the haki asked.

Both twins put their fingers to their lips, and then smiled drunkenly.

“We can not say their names,” one replied. “Not yet . . .”

FIVE MINUTES LATER
, they were on a large
sekoci
, heading past Goat Island. A man wearing black pajamas and a red bandana steered the twenty-foot-long motorboat. None of them knew his name. He was one of their “new friends.”

It was almost midnight, and the water was lit up in many colors. There were so many lights, it was hard to tell if they belonged to passing ships or if they were coming from the hundreds of islands around them.

After a half-hour journey, during which they finished the bottle of whiskey, they arrived at an island none of them had ever been to before. It was surrounded by wooden buildings all resting on stilts about ten feet off the water. Some of the buildings seemed as large as the island itself.

The buildings, bars and lounges mostly, were covered with Christmas lights and tacky Chinese lanterns. Lots of sekocis, rubber rafts and water taxis were either moving around them or tied up nearby. Altogether, the island looked like an incredibly low-rent version of a city in the sky, something from a Grade-D
Star Wars
movie. But the music here was loud and the lights were bright. And they were much closer to the Shangri-La city of Singapore.

They climbed off the sekoci and staggered up a gangplank to a place called the Great Fortune Lounge & Karaoke. In this part of the world, “karaoke” was a euphemism for brothel.

The lounge part was huge and crowded. There were at least 300 people jammed into the place, probably more. It took the trio a while to realize they were actually inside the remains of a large wooden sailing ship that had been converted into a massive dance hall and bar. And though it was dark inside, it was soon apparent the place was filled with two kinds of people: “happy girls”—traveling prostitutes—and the area’s criminal element.

The hall reeked of spilled beer, cigarette smoke, bad perfume and sweat. The men outnumbered the happy girls by at
least three to one. And all of the men looked like escaped prisoners, hustlers, or worse: real pirates.

The man in the black pajamas led the twins and the haki across the dance floor to a particularly dark corner of the club. Here was a large rectangular table, bigger than any other piece of furniture in the place. Sitting at this table were twelve men all wearing the same style clothes: new jeans, white sneakers, black T-shirts and red bandanas. A thirteenth man, older than the rest, wore his bandana tied around his neck, allowing him to show off his long, snow-white hair.

“Zeek’s crew,” one of the twins whispered. “This means they want to meet us.”

The other twin punched his brother hard on the arm. “Do not speak that name, you fool,” he growled. “Or these people will make spare ribs of us.”

They sat at the end of the table and the men in red bandanas ignored them. A waitress appeared. The men in red bandanas ordered two bottles of whiskey and five pitchers of beer—and told the waitress to bring glasses for their three new friends. Then they called over a group of happy girls and signaled that the twins and the haki dance with them.

So dance they did.

Though none of them could move around very well—the beer and whiskey were kicking in—the happy girls they were dancing with not only looked beautiful, they were getting more beautiful with every beat of the music.

So they danced and drank, and danced some more and drank some more. And the hall got more crowded, and the stink of perfume and sweat and beer became like a fog. It got to the point where they almost forgot why they were there.

That ended when the men in the bandanas all rose as one and swept across the dance floor. The crowd parted for them like the Red Sea. The last man in the group, the pirate with the white hair, indicated that the haki should go with them. When the twins tried to go too, one look from this man discouraged them on the spot.

The last time the haki saw the twins, they were standing side by side, waving meekly, as he was led out of the club.

“MY NAME IS Bantang,”
the man with the white hair told the haki, slurring his words. “I’ve lived on these islands my entire life.”

They were walking down a gangplank that led away from the lounge and to another boat. But this boat was not a sekoci. It was a yacht, a long, stiletto-shaped vessel sixty feet in length and pimped out like something from an action movie.

“Our boss heard you can really handle yourself,” Bantang told him. “If that’s true, you can make big money with us. Does that sound good?”

The haki nodded. His jaw was too numb to move.

“Our boss said you should make the rounds with me tonight,” Bantang went on. “You can see how we operate. It’s a privilege not afforded to many. It means he almost considers you part of the crew already.”

They climbed aboard the yacht and went below to a cabin that appeared almost the same size as the dance hall at the Great Fortune Lounge. The cabin was dark and the music was mellower, more European. There were couches lining the walls and, in a reversal from the last place they were in, the ratio of happy girls to guys was about three to one. Indeed, the yacht was overflowing with beautiful women.

The haki was led to one long couch, and now he sat with the main group of men wearing red bandanas. Bantang sat next to him. The haki noticed all of the men had pistols stuck in their waistbands.

Bantang whispered to him: “You’re among
real
pirates now.”

The haki also noticed some of the pirates were now wearing T-shirts that seemed to be from the same shipping company.

“Those are the clothes of their enemies who have passed on,” Bantang explained. “You heard about what happened over in Singapore Harbor recently? Those people are dead, but their clothes have come to good use.”

One of the pirates produced a paper bag and dumped its contents out on the table. The others cheered and drunkenly applauded him.

What he’d spilled out was a load of large blue capsules. They looked like cold medication except they were the size of horse tranquilizers.

“We do drugs now,” Bantang said to the haki. “The night just begins here.”