Ed Lacy - South Pacific Affair
Nancy said softly, her voice weary, “I know I have been the scheming mother-in-law. I hate the role. But you have become part of my 'business,' for the only business I have left in this world is to be sure Louise is happily settled. My mind isn't getting any better and I have not much time.”
“Don't go dramatic on me. You're as healthy as a horse!”
“My body is healthy but not my crumbling brain. I shall not hang around to become a lingering idiot. One of these days I shall swim out to sea. Twice in my life I have nearly drowned, have learned that water is a painless suicide. I tell you all this because if you are somewhat of a fool, you are not a scoundrel. You have money, if that is what you have been searching for. The decision is up to you.”
“This is my decision!” I snapped, tore the check up and threw the pieces over the side.
She shrugged, studied my face for a long moment then said sadly, “No, I do not think you have reached a decision. I hope with all my heart this isn't goodbye, Ray.” She touched my hand, waved at Eddie, and stepped back into her canoe.
I got the motor running, Eddie pulled up anchor and we headed toward the reef. I watched Nancy standing in the canoe, waving at us, a lonely figure against the breaking, bleak dawn.
As we crossed the reef, ran up the sails, and cut off the engine I felt damn good I'd been strong enough to tear up the check in her face. But there was another thought haunting me, one which made me feel ashamed. Later, when Eddie asked what had happened between myself and Nancy, I told him, and he had the same thought, minus any shame.
He asked casually, “You think the check was good?”
Chapter IX
I moved deeper into the shade of the cabin, watching the aeoei-shaded Papeete waterfront, hearing the sharp horns of the bicycles and frantic taxis on the Quai du Commerce. I was trying to sleep off a hangover. Eddie was stretched out near me, merely trying to sleep. I had been falling down drunk the night before; in fact I had been on a bender for several weeks.
It was all very dramatic and like a bad movie. Four days ago had been exactly a month since we'd left Numaga and Ruita had probably long since arrived there. I was still in Papeete, trying to find my future in a bottle.
We had sighted Point Venus on the third day out from Numaga, a stiff breeze pushing us all the way. Olin had taken our cargo, a doctor said my lungs were okay, and within two days after we landed there wasn't a single thing holding me in Papeete—except myself. And whenever I was sober enough to think, I held a number of all-night conversations with me as I lay atop the cabin, the cool night hupi drying off the rum sweating out of my pores.
They weren't very bright conversations. Sometimes I felt downright sorry for myself, giving up Ruita and our love, making a sacrifice for her happiness. I told myself I would be very honest—I was afraid of the responsibilities of another marriage, I didn't want to give up the carefree life of being a starving trader. Or I came up with a new idea: somehow I would get a bigger boat and Ruita and I would sail around the islands, trading. As I was chewing this one over, the hupi died down and the stench from our hold damn near made me give up.
Days and weeks went by with me either drunk—on credit while it lasted—or arguing with myself, and never winning an argument. Eddie wisely kept out of things. My “official” excuse was we were waiting for a cargo, which didn't make any sense: who would be shipping a cargo to an almost deserted island like Numaga?
Once, when we first ran out of francs and credit, Eddie came apart with, “You bastard, acting like all the other lousy popaas! I bet you've knocked her up already and are scared of—”
I clipped him with all I had in the way of a right hand and although he rolled with the punch, it still dropped him. When he jumped up and came at me, I dived over the side of the Hooker. Despite his being an islander, I was a better swimmer than Eddie, my fat making me more comfortable in the water. He knew he had no chance against me as long as I stayed in the water and after a couple minutes of cursing, Eddie suddenly laughed and shouted, “Come on out before you make the fish drunk.”
He helped me back on deck, asked, “No kidding, Ray, why don't you go back to Numaga?”
“I don't really know, except I'm scared.”
“If you're scared, don't go. What are you scared of?”
“I don't know,” I said stupidly.
Another time, when we were out in the dinghy, fishing, I told Eddie, “If I settle down on Numaga, you find yourself a girl and do the same.”
He shook his head. “No. I'll buy you out, pay you when I have the francs. Living in one spot ain't for me.”
“Why not?” I asked eagerly, hoping he had the answer for me, too.
“Because when I stand still some damn popaa comes along and gives me this 'colored' crap, the 'dumb, childish native' line. This way, on my own boat, it never catches up with me.”
It all added up to one fact: instead of being on Numaga with the girl I loved, I was slobbering all over the Papeete waterfront, making a damn fool of myself.
Now, I heard Eddie move and looked his way. He had his eyes half-opened, as if he was too lazy to either completely close or open them. There was couple of nuts in the shade near him and I said, “Hand me a nut—I'm dry as sand inside.”
Eddie rolled over, grabbed two coconuts and we each had one. He took out a cigar. I was surprised; we hadn't seen a franc in weeks. I asked him where he got it. He just said, “Found it,” and sent out a cloud of stinking smoke, making my eyes smart.
I felt Eddie's toes nudge me as he said, “We got a visitor. Dubon. Wish we had some francs. I could do with a night of Heru again.”
I raised myself on one elbow and looked toward the stern. Henri Dubon waved as he came up the gangplank, his face wet with sweat; the dirty linen suit was stained under the armpits.
He shoved his old straw hat back on his head, dropped his battered briefcase as he sat between us, cleverly announced, “Goddamn, is very hot.” He said this in English with the phony French accent he put on for tourists.
When Eddie told him, “Then why don't you jump overboard and cool off? You could stand a bath,” Henri grunted and answered in his best GI English, “Up yours. Can you spare a nut?”
Eddie pushed a drinking nut toward Dubon, who took out his switchblade and cut an opening, put the nut to his lips. A knife had to be real sharp to slash a nut like that.
Dubon tossed the nut overboard but it struck the railing and bounced back on the deck, at his feet. Henri took out a pack of English cigarettes, lit one, and quickly slipped the pack in his pocket. Eddie blew cigar smoke in his face, said, “Dubon, you smell like a pig but there's a rumor you're human. We keep a clean ship. Kick that damn nut into the water.”
Henri slipped Eddie a lazy glance, then grunted as he shoved the nut over the side. We all watched the splash. Henri wiped his forehead with a pink handkerchief, announced it was damn hot again, and what a busy-busy morning he'd had. A large yacht from Canada had sailed into the harbor the day before—a sleek mahogany and teak yawl anchored off the quay within sight of the Hooker. Henri jerked his thumb at the boat and told us he had been busy showing three fat couples the sights of Papeete that morning. At noon he'd suggested the ladies retire to their boat, escape the heat, while he had steered the men to Heru. Unhappily, he went on in explosive fast French, she had found a bottle of wine and was so drunk the yachtsmen had turned her down. Dubon finished by wiping his sweaty face as he cursed Heru, his luck, the tourists, and the world in general.
Henri opened his briefcase and took out a battered copy of Billboard, pretended he was reading it. I wondered how in hell he ever got ahold of the magazine and Eddie gave me the eye—we were waiting for his proposition. Henri never dropped in just to chatter and he knew we were broke, so he had a deal of some sort cooking in his fat brain.
Henri kept reading and finally Eddie's curiosity got the best of him and he asked, “What kind of a magazine is that?”
“A theatrical periodical from the States,” Henri said with comic seriousness. “One day I my take a troupe of Tahitian dancers on tour of the States and Europe.”
I said, “Old hat.”
“Old hat?” he repeated, puzzled, and asked in French what that meant. When I told him he repeated the words several times with great pleasure and I knew I'd hear the phrase the next time we talked. He said, “But this will not be any old stuff like the shimmy. A Tahitian hula will knock them in the aisles.”
“A real one is pretty hot,” Eddie agreed.
Henri sighed. “But these natives, they will not—”
“Islanders,” Eddie cut in.
“Yes, these islanders, they will not rehearse, make a name here so we can arrange bookings in the States. They have no understanding of making money. Look at the pitiful tourist business we get here. The government should encourage tourists, like they do in Hawaii.”
“Hawaii? Jeez!” Eddie said, neatly spitting over the rail.
“Everything is run here on a small scale, with great inefficiency as I have often said,” Henri went on. “The few tourists who do come here, like the people from this yacht we take them for only a handful of francs. We need a package deal.” He pronounced these last two words with great care, as though tasting them.
Eddie blew out a cloud of smoke. “A what?”
“You have been in America and do not know what a package deal means?” Henri asked, amazed. “I read much about it in this magazine and in other copies I have read. Instead of a cafe hiring a band, a singer, and dancers, the agent furnishes all the entertainment. A package means less trouble and more money for all. We should have a package deal for the tourist.”
“Like what?” Eddie asked.
“Dubon means he'll have postal cards already stamped, written, and addressed—save the tourist time,” I cornballed.
“I mean,” Henri shrilled, “we sell them what they want, they will pay hundreds of dollars instead of a hundred francs!”
“You give them what they want—when Heru is sober,” Eddie told him.
Henri didn't pay any attention to Eddie; instead he turned to me and added, “Monsieur Ray, if we tied our paradise package in bright pareu ribbons, we could make much money.”
“We?” My hangover didn't allow for any hard thinking.
Henri nodded, broke into fast French. “The pretty ribbons are the coral heads off Moorea—any place not more than a few hours sailing. These worthless dabs of land with a few coconut palms are too small for any use. But for us they become islets of dollars!”
“Okay, what about them?” I asked. This was his pitch— he needed a boat.
“Suppose we take over one of them, build a thatched hut? I put Heru there with flowers in her hair, some tapa bark cloth around her hips. We stock up plenty of food, let Eddie act like a nat... an islander. Perhaps we will cut in another tone and vahine. You see the package?”
Eddie and I shook our heads like puppets.
Henri waved a fat hand in the air, sweat rolled down his neck, onto his dirty collar. “Sometimes I believe I am the only man in Tahiti with a head for business! Now listen to me: instead of hustling these tourists for a few lousy francs, I pick out a man who has money. I get into a conversation with him at a bar, and off-hand I mention I know of an unknown island, so small no whites ever bothered with it.
On this island there is a beautiful vahine who it is said longs to see a nice popaa, all for free, of course. I say I wish I wasn't married here in Papeete, or I would surely go for this beautiful and lonely girl. The sucker bites, wants to know if it is possible for him to go there in the few days he has in port. I inform him it is possible in a small boat, that in truth I happen to know of a boat for charter—yours. We start off modestly, we charge the man three hundred American dollars. Are you interested?”
“What's the rest of this sales talk?” Eddie asked.
Henri waved the fat hand again. “Mon Dieu, can you not see it?”
I shrugged and Dubon said, “You are both blind! Once the man is on this boat, the money paid in advance of course, we sail out to sea and at night we cut back, so our sucker believes we have been sailing all night. Maybe we are only two dozen miles from here, say at the other end of Tahiti, off Point Puha. The exact spot we shall have to hunt for with care. But we land in the morning and Heru welcomes him as the great popaa god. Eddie cooks a big meal, a whole roasted pig and many fruits. Maybe we even hire some fool to drum and dance. Heru and Eddie are delighted with gifts of beads and other crap. The man has been fed well, and at night Heru will take care of his other appetites. The following day we sail, return to Papeete in the morning. Our tourist is most happy. At last he has seen the real South Seas, found a lovely princess madly in love with him. He will be the hero of all the cafe gossip back in his home town. Paradise in a package! This has many angles. Now, you like the idea?”
“Nobody would be dummy enough to fall for a set-up like that,” Eddie said.
“Yes, they would,” I said. “World is full of island-happy dreamers.” I almost added, “I know!”
“So what you think?” Henri asked impatiently.
“I don't like the idea, but what's our cut?” Eddie asked, re-lighting the stub of his cigar.
“Half. You will supply the boat and the food. I find the sucker, toss in Heru and what other... islanders we need. On the Post Office bulletin board there is an announcement of a round-the-world cruise ship putting into Papeete next week. She will remain four days. That is our chance.”
