Black Jasmine (2012) (19 page)

“Now, that would be sweet.” Lei followed Marcella, as Rogers, carrying a duffel of recording equipment, walked up the steps into the house. “Why did you want to interview her here?”

“She’s close to collapsing. Thought the homey atmosphere might help,” Rogers said over his shoulder.

The girl was already seated at the little Formica table, and Stevens had filled a plate with more of the stir-fry, setting it in front of her.

“Smells good in here,” Rogers said. “Got enough for a couple more plates?”

“Give me a few more minutes and I’ll whip up some more.”

“Lei’s out of the kitchen. Good choice,” Marcella said as she and Rogers set up their equipment in the living room area.

“I can chop vegetables,” Lei grumbled, going to the refrigerator to take out the bags of stir-fry ingredients.

“That’s all I’ll trust her with,” Stevens said, turning up the flame under the frying pan as he tossed in more chicken strips.

In the midst of this swirl of activity, Anchara sat, eating efficiently, her head bent. Tangles of long hair shielded her face from view. Lei was reminded of the feral cats that were a part of life on Maui—thin, bedraggled, and blazing with intention to live. She’d seen them eating the food local residents brought to the parks with the same focus and speed. Stevens filled her plate a second time with the last of his and Lei’s meal. A slender brown hand picked up the glass of water Stevens had brought her, and the girl drank it down.

Lei finished chopping more bell peppers, celery, and onions, and Stevens added them to the pan. Marcella came in and sat beside Anchara. “Nice place.”

“No, it isn’t. But it gets the job done.” Stevens was generating a lot of good smells and sizzling sounds. “Why don’t you get started. This will be ready when the interview’s over.”

“Okay. Anchara, do you mind coming in and sitting on the couch, where we can record you?” Rogers leaned on one of the kitchen chairs, muscular shoulders bunching as he grasped the chair back. His blue eyes were kind. “We’d like to get it over with so you can take a shower and rest.”

Anchara nodded. She ghosted past them with the silent, graceful way of moving she had, and sat on one end of the old tweed couch.

Chapter 30

Marcella and Rogers seated themselves, Rogers in the armchair across from Anchara and the battered coffee table and Marcella on the other end of the couch. Lei brought kitchen chairs and set them back from the seating area while Stevens turned off the stove after giving the savory-smelling meal one last stir and covering it with a lid.

Marcella turned on the video recorder set on a tripod beside her and recited the date and time and the names and positions of all parties present.

“State your full name for the record, please.”

“Anchara Mookjai.”

“Your age and address?”

“I am twenty-three. My address is village outside of Bangkok. It not important.”

“How did you come to the United States, Anchara?”

“I came on cruise ship. They put up signs asking for waitress. I go because. . .” She took a deep breath, sighed it out. “My husband. He beat me.”

Lei took this in. Anchara was older than she looked, which was no more than twelve. She was curled up with her knees under her chin. She’d wrapped tawny arms around them, and her hair spread over her like a cloak.

“What happened next?”

“I go on board and apply. They say papers not important because we in international waters. I think it strange, but I go because I want to get away. Then we all go below in many beds in one room, and they lock us in.” She pushed the skeins of hair behind her ears. “I know something is wrong then.”

“How many other women were there?”

“There are ten in each room. The beds, they—how you say?” She made a gesture with her hands. “They on top each other.”

“Bunk beds. You speak English well. How did you learn?”

“I always want to come to United States. I am a teacher in Thailand; I study English for when I hope to come.”

“So then what happened?”

“We are cleaned up. They make us exercise in other room with machines. The food good. I think it not so bad; then we arrive in port. We get in dresses, and they drive us to hotel. Then I know it not so good.” She closed those big, expressive eyes for a long moment. “I read little bit, other languages. I see the signs out the window of van. That first port, Singapore. I know what we are now. Whores.”

Lei felt her heart constrict, and she had to speak up. “Not whores. Slaves. You were taken. You were forced.”

Marcella shot her a look for interrupting the flow. “What was the name of your ship?”

“We changed ships two times.” She told the names, neither of which were American. “Then we get on
Rainbow Duchess
. We go around through Hawaii. Now I trying to escape because I’m in America.”

“How long did this go on?”

“I think almost one year before Vixen help me escape.”

“How did you get away?”

“Vixen. She from Albania. She never talk much, she never be friends, but we both trying harder than other girls to get away. She hardly speak English, but we communicate how we can. We locked in…what you call…storage room in this island when we come after we…work.” Anchara’s eyes had become wide, the pupils dilated as she tried to find words in a foreign language and remember traumatic events at the same time.

“Kimo and Celeste, they move us and watch us in this port. The guard, Kimo, he pick us sometimes after we done. He like her; he take her outside. She do something for him. Then she hit him and take the key. She let us all out.” Anchara sighed a shuddering breath. “Most girls, they cry; they not want to leave. They scared of being beaten, no English. But we go.” She wound to a halt.

“Then what happened?” Gentle prompt from Rogers this time.

“We run. They chasing us in car. They catch Vixen. But I small, and I crawl between fence they can’t follow and hide until next day. Then I go along road, looking for where people hide. I find the camp with Ramona.” She closed her eyes again. “I think I know they kill Vixen because she make trouble. She never stop trying to get away.”

“Did you ever hear any other names here or on the ship?”

“They not talk to us. But I know English, and I listening. I know who in charge of Celeste and Kimo—the boss named Kennedy.”

Lei stiffened to attention, and so did the agents. “How did you hear this?”

“They talking about her. She come look at us when we first get in. She tell them how to make us pretty. They scared of her. Sometimes she take one of the men and she beat him.”

“Men? Where were they kept?”

“Only a few of them. They kept in different room in storage and on ship. They treated same as us. Only Ms. Kennedy, she like to beat them, do things to them.”

Lei suppressed the need to get up and pace—the description of the sadistic madam was getting to her. She pictured the arctic-blue eyes, the fury the woman had barely kept in check in the interview room.

“Did you ever hear any other names? Anything that would help us find them?”

“Ms. Kennedy, she have boss, too. He called the House.”

Marcella pounced. “How did you hear this? What was the situation?”

“Celeste and Kimo, they talking. They did the…what you call? Doctoring with the men when they come back from her. They working on this boy. He only a boy, he crying, and he all torn up outside our door in the warehouse. They grumbling. They say maybe they call the House and tell him she damaging the merchandise.” The last words had a memorized quality. Lei could imagine Anchara latching on to this nugget of potentially useful information and committing it to memory.

They all vibrated with attention—this was big, the first solid confirmation there was a connection between Magda Kennedy, the House, and the cruise ships. “Did you ever hear that name mentioned again?”

“Yes. About the safe.”

“The safe?”

“In the room on the ship—a big black safe. When we come into port in Honolulu, they make us go to the workout room and they move things in and out the safe. I always trying to see what is inside. I pretend to go back and get something. I see an Asian man, he putting money and bags inside the safe. He yell at me and I run out.” She closed her eyes as if remembering. “I keep watching. I try to see. And I hear them one day talking about the House. It his money going in the safe, his drugs in those bags. Then it come out at the ports—but not Maui.”

Magda Kennedy must be laundering the money for him, Lei thought. An art gallery would be a great venue for that.

“What about the other islands?” Marcella asked.

“It all come into safe from Honolulu and go back out to Kaua`i, Big Island. Then money go in from other islands, I think from the drugs. But not go in from here. Only go out to Maui.”

Marcella and Rogers exchanged a look, and Lei considered—this accounted for the drugs and prostitution money, but what about the purported guns?

“Did you ever see anything else being loaded on the ship?” Rogers asked.

“No. I always watching, but the room we in have no windows.”

“How did they get you on and off the ship?” Marcella picked up the thread.

“Late at night we go off the cargo exit. We get in van. We go to the place they keep us. There is one for us on each island.” Anchara lay her head down on top of her knees. “I tired. I can shower now?”

“Yes. Thank you, Anchara. You’ve been amazing.” Marcella smiled her luminous smile. “We’ll need to talk with you more, but that’s great for now. Get clean and get some rest.” The young woman nodded, unwound from the couch, and padded off to the bathroom. A few minutes later, they heard the rush of the shower.

“Think that stir-fry’s past ready,” Stevens said, getting up to return to the kitchen. “Wow, is all I can say.” He scooped rice out of the cooker and layered stir-fry over it.

“Hot damn, that girl’s going to be gold on the stand,” Rogers said, carrying the chairs back into the kitchen and sitting at the table.

“Yeah, she’s a gold mine, all right. More important than ever that we keep her safe and sound. I’m still worried—we don’t have anything on the guns, and we don’t have anything hard. We can’t make a case this big on the word of an illegal immigrant hooker—sorry, Lei. Human trafficking victim.” Marcella accepted her plate of stir-fry and rice from Stevens and sat down beside Rogers. Lei brought them some Aloha Shoyu and glasses of water and sat down with them.

“We’ve got solid grounds to search the
Rainbow Duchess
, though. And we’ve got Anchara and the key to the warehouse, if we can find it. It must be somewhere not too far from the encampment on the bluff,” Rogers said between bites of stir-fry.

“Yeah. I’ll call the coast guard again with this latest about the safe and confirmation that the
Duchess
is carrying human cargo. We should do a joint raid on the
Duchess
as soon as it gets into port, before they have a chance to move anything.” Marcella, as efficient an eater as Anchara, shoveled up the last bite of her stir-fry. “Stevens, you’re welcome to join us.”

“Hey, what about me?” Lei exclaimed.

“House arrest. You still have a hit out on you, and we need you to keep an eye on Anchara. Can’t have her giving us the slip at this stage.”

Lei sulked as she followed the agents out. Marcella was already working her cell phone. She locked the gate as the Acura pulled away, high beams slicing through the velvety plumeria-scented dark unique to Hawaii. She went into the light of the kitchen as Stevens put the leftovers away.

Lei could hear the shower still running. Anchara must be a prune by now, but Lei knew how good a hot shower could feel.

“Poor kid. She looked really wiped out.” Stevens gestured toward the bathroom.

“Me too.” Lei gave a jaw-cracking yawn. The confrontation with Kwon was catching up with her. She went to the cabinet and took out sheets, heading for the second bedroom. A plastic grocery bag with the girl’s meager belongings had been placed inside the door.

Lei resisted the urge rifle through it and made up the mattress. She was fluffing the flat polyester pillow when Anchara appeared, a towel around her midsection and another one wrapped into a turban on her head. With the grime off her face, Lei could see the beauty that had made the girl a victim of human trafficking—long-lashed doe eyes, a rounded little nose, full, cushiony mouth. Her skin, the warm gold of honey, was marked only by the shadows cast by a tracery of pleasing bones.

Anchara unwound the towel, draping it carefully over a chair, and used her fingers to comb out waist-length hair.

“Do you have anything clean to put on?” Lei asked.

Anchara shook her head.

“I’ve got some new clothes—I might have something that fits you.” Lei brushed past and went into the master bedroom, pulling out a set of sweats and bikini underwear that looked small enough for the petite woman to wear. She handed the bundle of clothing to Anchara and went on into the kitchen. They turned on the TV and eventually Anchara returned. Lei gestured to the couch beside her.

“Come, join us.”

The girl obeyed with obvious reluctance, curling up in a ball with one of the cushions against her chest, combing her hair with her fingers again.

“Where’d you go after Ramona’s campsite?” Lei asked.

A shrug of the skinny shoulders. “I ran because someone was coming for me. I hid and camped wherever.”

“Well, we’re glad you’re here. We’ll keep you safe until we can close the door on these people.”

“Are you sending me back to Thailand?”

“I don’t know.” Stevens answered that one. “Do you want to go?”

“No. I don’t want to go back.”

“We’ll talk to the district attorney and see what he says. You help us bring in this case, we’re going to owe you something, that’s for sure.”

Anchara nodded, lashes drooping in dark fans against her cheek.

“Why don’t you get some rest?” Lei asked. The woman nodded again and trailed off to bed. Lei indulged in another yawn. “I think I’ll go to bed early, too.”

“Yeah. I imagine you’re tired from wherever you went today.”