Ed Lacy - South Pacific Affair
“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.”
Eddie fingered his prune-ear and flattened nose. “Won't my puss make the joker suspicious?” .
“We have to be careful about speaking English or French. As for your face, we can tell him you really are a Lion Face... no, that would frighten him. Don't worry—with Heru around why should he worry about your face?” Dubon turned to me. “You have not made a comment, Ray.”
I belched several times by way of an answer. I felt a little better—the deal wasn't too far-fetched. Our cut would be a hundred and fifty bucks, more than we cleared on a cargo. Of course this would put us in Henri's class, kind of panders by accessory. But with seventy-five bucks I could bring Ruita something decent—even a real wedding ring. I told myself maybe that was the thing troubling me. I felt like a poor relation, a kept man; she had everything.
Dubon said, “Why the silence?”
“I'm thinking,” I said.
He stood up and pulled a wad of money from his pants pocket, peeled off a thousand franc note, said, “Perhaps this will seal our deal.”
I glanced at Eddie. He nodded. “That will bind it for Ray, but for me—maybe I'll go over and see Heru now. One partner talking to another.”
“You are welcome to her,” Henri began. “I will—”
“I didn't ask you if I would be welcome or not.”
Henri handed me the money, got his magazine and briefcase together, straightened his greasy hat as he said, “In a day or so we shall find our hunk of paradise and prepare things. Come, Eddie, I shall take you to Heru.”
As Eddie stood up, Dubon took his arm. Eddie pushed him away. “I can find her myself.” As they walked off the cutter Eddie called over his shoulder, “Save a bottle for me, Ray.”
I didn't run off the ship and buy a bottle—right away. I sat on the cabin, a little excited about the deal. Maybe I could make the Hooker a part of a real sightseeing business, daily cruise around Tahiti? Hell, I was only helping Heru make some folding money—if she gave it all to Henri that was her business. And if the tourists were looking for that, it really didn't make any difference where they found it. There was talk of more cruise ships, tourist planes, stopping at Papeete, this could be the start of a real business; I could settle down in Papeete with Ruita, be a big man in the islands.
The idea was full of holes—I didn't want to be a big man, Ruita hated Papeete. Also there was no point in kidding myself, I was pimping. Without arguing about it, I decided I was going through with the deal. That decided, I went ashore and bought a litre of rum, got properly juiced.
Two days later, with Dubon and Heru aboard, we pulled anchor, went hunting for our islet. Although we were leaving port we didn't bother stopping at customs. The Papeete gossip already was broadcasting our plan and customs knew we weren't doing any trading on this trip. Henri was in a bad mood; he had wanted Heru to stay ashore and tend to her regulars, but she hadn't been sailing since she came to Papeete, and like all atoll people, she loved boats.
Eddie wasn't in a bright mood either. The night before he had been against the whole idea, saying it made him feel crummy. I'd told him, “But we've spent Dubon's francs.”
“Let him whistle up his nose for it. So he put on a show with his knife, slashing that nut open—a shiv don't mean nothing to me.”
“No, we've committed ourselves, we're in it,” I'd said, and somehow the whole messy idea fascinated me—as if I was punishing myself for being such a jerk with Ruita.
We sailed around Tahiti's tail end, which sticks out like a clam neck, with a number of coral heads long ago fertilized by bird droppings and seeds till palm trees and brush had sprung up. But there were too many villages on the mainland, not to mention a car scooting along Boom Road now and then.
We sailed around Moorea, whose jagged mountains made the sunsets as seen from Papeete so terrific. We found a tiny island which would do, but it was impossible to bring the boat up close, and I wasn't risking the Hooker for any seventy-five bucks. We decided to try the island of Huahine, which is about eighty miles from Tahiti—a six-hour sail for a fast boat.
We got there late in the afternoon and found our islet— an oval-shaped hunk of sand and coral about three hundred feet long, with a cluster of coconut trees in the center, plus some brush. It was part of the reef, and about a half a mile from the main island of Huahine, but there was enough water for the Hooker and we couldn't see a hut or a person on the mainland.
We spent the night on the boat, all of us sleeping on deck, each of us taking a three-hour anchor watch. Henri had been thoughtful enough to bring a couple of jugs of vin ordinaire and Heru got high. She seemed stupidly vulgar to me, a coarseness which was neither islander or Western, but rather unreal.
When the sun awoke us we went ashore. Heru looked pretty bad. She was wearing a gaudy green satin dress, wide feet crammed into slightly cockeyed high-heel shoes. Her eyes were bloodshot, her dress stained with sweat and wine. Eddie managed to climb a palm tree and throw down some nuts and leaves. A drink of coconut water seemed to straighten Heru out and she kicked off her shoes, washed the dirty make-up off her face, and wove the leaves into mats. For a second I thought of Ruita on our islet and felt so angry with myself for being a lousy coward that I started working like an eager beaver. We cleaned the island of coral rocks, built several lean-tos and one good hut, dug a fire pit, and in general made things look livable. We all worked hard, even Henri who refused to take off his shirt or linen suit although they were both soaking with sweat.
An old man paddled over from the island, politely asked what we were doing. He was a fat man with a very large face making him look bigger than he was. Somehow his name was Jack Pund. We told him we were about to rehearse a movie. He asked if Bill Cody was with us as he saw him every week on the screen. Eddie later found out they had one movie on Huahine, a Western, which was shown over and over.
Dubon gave Jack a slug of wine and a few francs and he helped us make more mats, showed us a spot where it was possible to swim without cutting yourself to pieces on the coral. Henri sort of hired Jack to look after things—and mainly to keep his mouth shut and keep any of the other islanders away—with the promise we would bring him a glass ash tray from Papeete. We sailed before sundown and reached Papeete in the morning.
Two days later we reached the islet in the middle of the day, put Eddie ashore with Heru, a small live pig, fishing spears, some food, and a couple of cigars. Tack Pund came paddling over wearing a torn shirt and a pair of almost new dungarees. We set up the mats to form a hut and a number of lean-tos, started a fire. Eddie gave me last minute instructions on how to sail the Hooker to Papeete and back by compass, wrote down the exact course. We agreed I wasn't to try it single-handed unless the weather was perfect.
“I can steer,” Henri said. “I have been to sea in—”
“Shut up,” Eddie said, gazing up at the sky and then at the horizon. “Don't think anything will come up within the next few days, but remember, Ray, if you have any doubts about the weather, stay in Papeete.”
Heru was sleeping under a palm tree and Jack Pund reminded us we hadn't brought his ash tray, a red glass one he wanted now. He was busy making a little brew by the simple process of putting sugar in a nut and carefully burying it. The last thing we took off the Hooker was a bolt of blue and white Pearl cloth to be worn as a pareu. Henri told Eddie, “Remember, now, plenty of flowers for Heru's hair, you and Pund wrap some of these around yourselves. Hide your clothes and her dress good. The cruise ship is due tomorrow, so we should be out by tomorrow night or the next morning.”
Jack Pund told us in Tahitian not to forget his ash tray, then asked, “Why must I wear a silly cloth around my behind instead of pants?”
“I'll explain later. It is part of the movie we are doing,” Eddie told him, then added in English, “Be best to keep this joker drunk.”
We made it back to Papeete before dark and I was damn proud of my navigating. Henri talked all the way, about how tough it was to make a fast franc in France these days and what a smart operator he was for staying in the Pacific. Some day he would surely return with a fortune and settle on the Cote d'Azure.
When I asked if the Riviera was as pretty as Tahiti he looked at me as if I was a moron and said, “But, Ray, the Riviera is in France!”
I was glad to dock and be rid of him. I cleaned the decks and slept like a rock. In the morning, flags were hoisted on the tower atop Signal Hill and a few hours later the cruise ship entered the harbor. She was a twenty-two thousand ton beauty and dwarfed everything. I sat on the Hooker as she steamed by, watched the tourists watching me. She was too large to anchor at the quay and soon boats were busy ferrying the tourists in, the men wearing slacks and loud shirts as though they were a uniform; most of the women fat and noisy in light dresses. Of course everybody was sporting a camera.
Late in the afternoon Henri rushed aboard, said he was working on a possible sucker, but this pitch took time and by tomorrow the sucker would either bite or we had wasted a few days. I was so angry at the very thought that this might fall through, you'd think I pimped every day. I cursed Henri out and he told me to stop acting the fool, gave me some francs to buy a bottle.
“What the hell is this, a handout?”
“When a man is in need of a drink he should drink. Now be patient, I am very busy on this deal.”
Henri left and I cooked a can of beans and went ashore. It was funny, maybe pathetic, to see the several hundred tourists decked out in flowers like walking corpses, haggling over trinkets, and then dumping dollars into the merchants' hands. My red beard was a big attraction and I must have been photographed a hundred times to the whispers of, “Look, a beachcomber!” Or: “He looks big enough to be an American.”
All the bars were doing a big business and as I passed one a woman cried out with a slight drawl, “Herbert, you stop smiling at those nigga-gals!”
I turned to see what this specimen looked like, and saw him. He was sitting alone at a table near the door, handsome face in profile toward me. He was wearing a new yachting cap at a rakish angle, a light blue silk jacket and a very white silk scarf knotted around his neck. He was toying with a lime and gin.
It had to be Barry Kent. I knew that handsome face too well, and the outfit was exactly what he would wear. I wondered if Milly was with him. But somehow, from the way the empty chairs were close to the table, I knew he was alone. I stared at him for several uncertain minutes, wondering what I should do. He took out a pack of cigarettes and put the entire pack to his mouth, pulled the pack away, leaving a cigarette between his lips. That did it—it was Barry, all right; I'd seen him do that practiced movement too often.
I saw myself in the dusty glass window of the bar. My sneakers were tom and without laces, my pants bleached a dirty tan by the sun and salt, my T-shirt was sweat-stained. My “yacht” cap was all out of shape, while my face looked as if a handful of red hair was hanging down over my chin. I looked exactly like what I was—a sea-going bum.
Walking into the bar, I passed his table and he didn't recognize me. I came up behind him, swallowed, then asked as casually as I could, “Spare a cigarette, Barry?”
I had to hand it to him, he didn't react the way I expected. He barely reacted at all—merely glanced up at me, his eyes widening a little but nothing else disturbing that groomed after-shaving-lotion face. Then he threw back his head and laughed, real deep laughter.
I pulled out a chair and sat down. “Thought I looked a fright, not funny,” I said. ”
“Ray Jundson! So this is where you've been staked out!” he said. His Dale Carnegie voice hadn't changed. “My God, I've looked all over the country for you, even hired a private dick. It's rather funny to stumble across you here! What are you doing in Tahiti?”
“I didn't come on any cruise ship with a round trip ticket in my pocket,” I said, taking a cigarette out of his pack and lighting it. I still couldn't feel angry at the guy.
He finished his drink, his eyes taking in all my torn and worn clothing. He held up his empty glass and I nodded. He ordered two. Barry said, “You look good. Weather-beaten face, body leaner. Just what are you doing here?”
“Living the good life, the one we always bulled about. I'm a South Seas trader, with my own boat and all the rest of it. Or has the South Seas kick worn off for you?”
“No, the dream is still there. Or I wouldn't be on this cruise. Ray, you really went and did it, like in the books?”
“Yeah. The books were liars but it still is pretty good. I've even been to the house of Edmond Stewart.” The waiter put bur drinks before us and I grinned at Barry. “Like the old days, gassing about the islands over cocktails.”
Barry pushed his hat back. “I can't believe it. Never thought you'd have the nerve.”
“You gave me that,” I said, taking a drink. The gin was smooth and strong. “When I... uh ... found you and Milly, this seemed to be the ideal way of getting even. How is she?”
“You really want to know?”
“No, but how is she?”
“Exactly as you left her, hard, tough, pushing. You know, Ray, I always thought of you as a good-natured dope. Not about Milly, but in general, a slob in a middle-class rut. But by God, you fixed me! I never thought you'd be here, living my dreams and ...”
