There was no life in Greenland for me anymore. Lately, I couldn’t make a single step outside the police stations without tons of Chinese swooping in on me, swinging their arms and legs in the air and wildly screaming. I was stupid enough to think I could return to my miserable hotel, but a whole pack of them already waited for me there. Another bunch patrolled around my former office, and a third kept watch before my apartment building. And they weren’t like those clowns with the kitchen utensils! These were real thugs with real—probably positron—machine guns. Since the aliens came around, such “marvelous” toys were trendy among the gangsters, and they all had them. Eventually, I got out of the trouble by checking into another hotel, but I knew it wasn’t the ultimate answer to my problems. Soon, they would start recognizing me in every hotel in the city and simply wouldn’t let me in.

After the massacre in DuPont’s house, I had a relatively peaceful first night, sleeping until eleven a.m. because I was drained and emotionally exhausted. On the morning, just as expected, Menelaus’ murder had already made a colossal fuss in all the media. Every TV, radio, and website news channel had it as a headline, and the polemic about his wife—and potential heir to his business empire—revived. Unfortunately, I had no time to read articles or listen to radio programs because there was a real chance to become a headline myself. I quickly wrote my report, signed it with the chip in my ID card, and mailed it to Dunkin, careful not to screw up this time. He called me soon after and confirmed all my assumptions about the events in the mansion and their chronology.

First, Menelaus and the gardener were wiped out, followed by the Filipino and the bodyguard. DuPont was murdered with the wrench; the gardener’s head was smashed with the garden scissors; the girl was strangled—probably because it had to be done quietly; and lastly, the guard was shot on the stairs. Dunkin also told me during the last year, Menelaus had reduced the number of employees in his Greenland office and the staff caring for his house to the essentials, including security. There were rumors that his company was collapsing, and he experienced severe financial troubles. The people still working for him had been catered to, and on the day of the murders, a car of the catering firm ran into a black Corvic at the gate precisely at one p.m. It all backed up my statements quite nicely.

After the cop and I finished talking, I spent an extremely nervous afternoon and a horrible second night in my room. I barely slept and left the hotel as soon as the sun came up. At eleven a.m., I was at the court with my neck stiffened from all the turning around like a meerkat at a night watch, expecting to see Asian-looking guys chasing after me. I did what I had to do there, and it took fifteen minutes, just as Dunkin had promised. He didn’t show up himself. I paid all the fines and signed all the papers; they restored my status in the system to “clear” and kicked me out. When we stepped outside and my lawyer left, I hopped into the first cab and asked the guy to drive me to Menelaus’ house so I could collect my car. The police hadn’t touched it, as it turned out. While driving in my Beijing back toward the hotel, I was choosing the busy boulevards and streets and only stopped for thirty seconds at a liqueur shop to buy a bottle of whiskey because I felt I wouldn’t manage through the day without it.

About a quarter of an hour later, I stormed into my room and opened the bottle but barely touched it. The problem was that I felt trapped on the fourth floor, jumping toward the window whenever I heard tires screeching down the street or loud voices. I realized that when the Chinese eventually came here—they had found my previous hotel, so it was just a matter of time before they found this one too—I would have no chance of escape, and the thought drove me crazy. After another horrible hour in my stifling room, I simply couldn’t bear it anymore.

I quickly gathered all my stuff, which was only the jacket and my phone, and checked out. My first impulse was to call Jill, but two things stopped me. Firstly, I didn’t want to get her mixed up with the Chinese, and secondly, Dunkin said she didn’t want to see me, and his words were still painfully ringing in my head. She was totally right to hate me, by the way. I couldn’t even understand why she paid for my release in the first place. I also couldn’t grasp why Dunkin was helping me, even if he did it for Jill. When we talked on the telephone earlier, he said he had never been my enemy, but then he added that I was. The more I thought about it, the better I saw his point.

I nervously left the hotel and ran to my car, staying inside for a few minutes, fidgeting like a wild animal in a cage. Then I started the engine but had no idea where to go. After an hour of aimless driving along the streets of Nuuk, I realized my only chance of survival was to scram. I had to leave Greenland, at least for a while, because I couldn’t hide in the vehicle forever. After another hour of thinking, I thought I should follow the jerks that made my life a nightmare wherever they had gone. The situation was completely different now, and the game here was over.

When we talked with Dunkin, he mentioned that Bobby Bjornson was registered for a flight to Pago Pago the evening before that—right after she made that treacherous phone call to me. The city was the capital of the former American Samoa on the island of Tutuila, now part of the South Pacific Confederation. It was also the place of her previous job. The most curious thing, however, was that two other small islands were located very close to it, as it turned out—the islands of Ofu and Olosega. The coincidence was enough to convince me I was making the right decision. Dunkin also informed me he couldn’t find any trace of Sharon and Marty, but that didn’t surprise me: Sharon was surely using a false identity. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have allowed her boyfriend to kill people in motels where she had checked in. And besides, I already had an idea where they might have gone—the same island.

Half an hour later, full of new hope, I stopped my car at a post office to mail some money to Jill for my release, and I added a note: “I never thought I was special, baby. I’ve always thought you were, though. I’m so sorry I let you down!” Then, I drove straight to Anuk Airport as quickly as possible because I wanted to take off before I changed my mind. From Dunkin’s perspective, it was a very stupid thing to do, and I knew he would be mad at me, but I hoped he would understand eventually. It was a matter of life and death, and I couldn’t see anything else to choose from in my empty list of options—stupid or not. “After all, technically, I’m not escaping,” I tried to convince myself. “I will be only temporarily unavailable.”

With such “positive” thinking, I soon pulled up at the curb near the airport’s parking lot. I had to leave my devoted Beijing outside because I had no idea how long I would be away—it might be a week, it might be a year—and I didn’t want to pay debts for the rest of my life when I returned. Then I suddenly remembered about Lilly. She was my fish, and the poor creature would starve to death in my kitchen. Unfortunately, I could do nothing about her, even if I decided to stay in Greenland. The Chinese were waiting for me at my place, and I really doubted they would be kind enough to feed her while hanging in there. After a minute, still feeling terrible, I got out of the car and dejectedly headed for the airport building.

Once inside, I quickly forgot about all my troubles. I felt immediate relief, as if I was on another planet some hundred light-years away. I hurried to the ticket office, and when I looked at the screen on one of the walls, I hiccuped, delighted, because a flight to Pago Pago was scheduled in just an hour and thirty-five minutes. There simply couldn’t be a better omen than this! Hardly believing my luck, I feverishly bought the last ticket to that plane, which was actually another good omen, and finally ran to the departure terminal.

The time I spent afterward wasn’t so pleasant, however. I was out of reach for the Chinese now, but not for the cops. I didn’t know how deeply the airport and police systems were interconnected, and I expected an officer to come around any minute, asking me where I thought I was going. Fortunately, an hour passed without unpleasant surprises, and we eventually boarded the plane. Some thirty minutes later, we took off, and I was able to blow off steam at last. Since I was too nervous to sleep, I spent most of the time reading the news. I hoped I would find something about Menelaus’ murder, but so far, there have only been speculations in the press. I learned almost nothing. I did learn some curious things about the crisis in Britain, though. The country has been having rough times lately due to globalization and the flood of foreigners on the island, and the situation clearly spiraled out of control now.

It turned out the President—Ramesh Ranganathan—had unexpectedly dissolved the government of the Prime Minister—Salman Rouhani—in an attempt to save the nation, as he explained it. He had this extravagant plan to put Britain up for auction, but the Prime Minister was fiercely opposed, and they had a huge fight over it. The first time I heard about this, I thought there was a mistake because I believed such a thing was impossible, but it was true. According to Ranganathan’s plan, every native citizen in the country was supposed to become a shareholder in a joint venture and receive regular dividends after the sale. The president was convinced it would solve the deep crisis Britain had sunk into, and many people actually believed this could work. Without an opponent, the path was clear now, and a date for the auction was assigned, as was the company to conduct it—Sotheby’s. This move was so unorthodox that it nearly bordered on gambling, but as it seemed, the list of options for Britain was empty now, and it was time for desperate measures.

I played with my cell phone a while longer, and seventy-two minutes later, after completely draining the battery, we landed at the airport in Pago Pago. It had been an exhausting flight through the upper layers of the stratosphere, and I felt awful. While waiting for the airplane to maneuver, I wondered why they weren’t making faster machines these days and kept torturing people like that. After all, the aliens were here now, and everything was possible! When we finally stopped moving, I stuck my nose to the window, curious to see what heaven looked like. To my disappointment, what I saw was far from exotic, though. There were just a few pretty old machines outside, a lot of concrete, and a miserable airport building further in the distance. It seemed somehow rickety, and I didn’t even believe it would survive the next hurricane hitting this place. On top of that, I soon realized the flight to here was nothing compared to what was next. As it turned out, checking into “heaven” wasn’t quick and breezy at all.

First, we had to hang inside the machine for half an hour before they let us disembark. I didn’t know exactly what the crew was doing, but time obviously didn’t mean shit on this latitude, and people here were lazy as hell. Eventually, four air hostesses started opening the airplane door, but I had the feeling they were trying to solve the Rosetta Stone mystery instead! All the while, manuals flew everywhere, and there was a lot of yelling and screaming. At some point, they completed the task, and a towable stairway connected to our plane, but then the smelly bus we were supposed to travel in broke down, and the engine wouldn’t start. As a result, we had to walk all the way to the arrivals terminal, where a kilometer-long line of people was imperceptibly advancing at three millimeters per hour. During the painful queue processing, numerous scandals arose regarding suspicious objects in the passenger’s carry-on, expired ID cards and faulty chips, lost children and pets, and many others. I thought I would never go through it. On top of it, there was even a terrorist attempt. Fortunately, it turned out to be false—it was just the Imam of Kabuja coming on vacation with his eight sons, and the airport personnel had been too suspicious about it.

Another half hour later, which seemed like an eternity to me, my turn to pass through the scanners came at last. I stepped in impatiently; then I stepped out; then the customs officer looked at me, bored as hell; he asked me what the purpose of my trip was; I said “business”; he glanced at my ID card and ran it through another scanner; he gave it back to me and waved a hand, meaning to scram. And I scrammed. It was as easy as that! I quickly crossed the arrivals hall, and my checking-in to heaven was over. I was already out in the parking lot on the other side of the building and free to go.

I looked around, confused, because I still couldn’t believe it was over, but when my senses adapted to the new environment, I promptly realized I had come to a place pretty far from heaven. It rather seemed to be hell in the middle of the hottest summer! The temperature was probably forty billion degrees Celsius, and the shock I experienced was immense. Everything in the parking lot was busy melting.

Feeling dizzy, I removed my jacket to avoid overheating and looked around for a trashcan. Keeping it in a place like this was obviously stupid because I doubted the climate would change significantly during my stay. Moreover, I had left everything back in Greenland with the Chinese and didn’t even have spare underwear, so I had to go shopping anyway. I kept looking around, but there weren’t any garbage cans in the area. I saw only vehicles and a lonely bum in ragged clothes idling by the parking meter. Eventually, I considered it a good idea to give the jacket to him. “Bums are always cold,” I thought. “They tend to dress excessively, even in the most terrible heat!”

I cautiously approached the guy, and since I didn’t know if he knew any English words, I solemnly put my right hand to my heart and held my left hand with the clothing out to him.

“A gift!” I said earnestly. “It’s for you. I don’t want it!”

The man turned his head toward me, highly suspicious. In this stupid pose, I probably looked more like an Indian chief saluting the first pilgrims in America than a poor man’s patron. After his first reaction of mistrust, however, the aborigine suddenly shone brighter than the sun in the sky, and he quickly grabbed my jacket to examine its quality. “Well, clearly, the culture of gifts is universally accepted and honored worldwide!” I thought.

Soon, the man finished his checks and, apparently satisfied by the result, stepped meaningfully toward me, which I took with mixed feelings. Firstly, I didn’t want to touch him because the level of his personal hygiene was very doubtful and disturbing, and secondly, I had no idea how they expressed their gratitude hereabouts. He may easily want to embrace me or even kiss me in the mouth!

“I give sure recipe for mona,” he quietly said in broken English instead. “You rich no time. Only one million kudos. Cheap as hell!”

He started nodding his head vigorously and looked furtively around. I figured he was worried about his secret recipe for whatever “mona” stood for.

“No, no! I have plenty of mona, you know.” I quickly tried to assure him because I didn’t want to stay under the fierce sun anymore and urgently needed to kiss an air conditioner. Besides, his smell was really awful.

“Very cheap!” the bum insisted again. “And gift, too!”

He unexpectedly thrust my jacket back toward me without completely giving it away. All the while, he was making weird faces, and clearly, he wanted to trade my gift to him and his stupid mona recipe in return for one million kudos. I didn’t even know how much one million kudos was, let alone that I had none!

“No, keep it,” I said impatiently and retreated. “I don’t want your mona! I’m not interested!”

“Recipe make you good mona! Not false!” The bum kept repeating his offer while shortening the distance between us. He suddenly opened his coat to show me drawings in his inner pockets. The smell coming from him became devastating.

“Okay, man. I’m just the king of mona, you know. I don’t need anymore!” I withdrew further. I have enough of it to feed the entire population on this island.”

The scumbag gazed at me, genuinely shocked. His jaw dropped slightly open, and his face distorted as if he had tasted poison. I quickly realized I might have gone a bit too far with my presumption that “mona” was actually something tasty. It was obviously not food but something else.

“You crazy man!” The bum threateningly pointed a finger at me.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m very crazy! I just got out of the loony bin!” I promptly grasped the opportunity to shake him off, and I tapped my head with my palm a few times to demonstrate my poor mental health. The gesture didn’t scare my new friend, however. He took another step forward, and I took another step back, attempting to escape his stink. We repeated this twice more, and who knows where this weird dance would have taken us if something unexpected hadn’t happened right then. A loud explosion thundered in the air above our heads, startling me.

I jumped up, terrified. The thought that the Imam of Kabuja and his army of sons were terrorists, after all, swiftly flashed across my mind. It wasn’t them, though. A second later, when I turned my head around in alarm, I saw a dense smoke rising near the airport fence. There was an improvised slum beyond it, and one of the “houses” was burning.

Curiously enough, the scumbag didn’t pay the slightest attention to the explosion. He didn’t even glance to see what was going on. Instead, he started aggressively advertising his mona thing again. At first, I thought he was a callous bastard who didn’t give a shit about other people’s lives, but when I looked around, I just had to presume they were all callous bastards here on this island because no one else cared about the burning house either.

I hurriedly retreated more, trying to leave the airport area as soon as possible because I didn’t want to get into trouble on my first day at Tutuila. I thought the police were already on their way. Unfortunately, the bum didn’t intend to give up, and he started following me while going on with his nagging. He insisted so loudly that I should buy his mona recipe that I eventually had to stop and turn to him angrily.

“Look, buddy!” I was truly mad this time. “I don’t care about your fucking mona, understand? If you don’t beat it right away, I’ll kick your stinky ass, and I’ll take that jacket back! Do you get it?”

The threat had an immediate effect. The idiot got my point immediately and promptly scrammed while tightly holding my jacket under his armpit. When he drew back at a safe distance, he opened his mouth and babbled something in his language, which was probably swearing, but I didn’t care. I just wanted him off my back, so I made a few rude gestures with my hands to expel him as if he were some annoying bug. The scumbag walked away, visibly offended. I sighed with relief and sharply turned around, but it was only to stop again the next second. A shining red Ferrari convertible rushed by me with a hideous tire screech and almost blew me away. It nearly ran over my toes.

I jumped back and cried, startled. Two incredibly hot chicks with sunglasses were in the car—a brunette and a blonde—but they didn’t pay the slightest attention to me. The blonde was driving, and since the vehicle had passed so close, the scent of their exotic perfumes hit me right in the face. They smelled of raspberry or orchid, but I wasn’t too sure because it all happened so quickly.

I followed the women with craving eyes until they drove away, and I completely forgot I was supposed to be mad at them. It was unbelievable—not just one but two hot chicks in a red Ferrari, and they were alone! Suddenly, I was sorry that they didn’t hit me and spread my body parts across the parking lot because, in this case, they would’ve stopped to carry my remains to the hospital, and I’d have had the chance to know them. Not that it mattered, actually—they were well above my league—but I dreamed about it a little anyway.

After the car zipped out on the street and turned behind the next corner, I looked around without any idea where to go. My cellphone battery was dead, and since I didn’t know the city, I decided to follow the Ferrari path and look for a peaceful hotel with a nice lobby bar and good whiskey. It was almost six in the afternoon on a foreign island where people didn’t pay much attention to explosions, so I thought it wouldn’t be wise to spend my first night here hitting nightclubs and striptease joints.

Incidentally, the chicks and their car led me well, as it turned out. A few minutes later, at the intersection where they had vanished, I came across a small colonial-style hotel with little yellow balconies and four palm trees in front of it. It looked pretty neat. It was probably too close to the airport and, therefore, too noisy, but on the other hand, it was close enough to the airport and convenient if I had to leave quickly. Based on my experience so far, it was likely to happen at some point soon, so I had to consider it. And since I was already too tired, I decided to go inside and check on the lobby bar. If the whiskey was good, then it was my place!

©2016 S.T. Fargo
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!
(www.stfargo.com)