Ed Lacy - South Pacific Affair
“Guess he means the old joker is senile,” I cut in, afraid Eddie would overdo things.
Randall handed Jack a pack of cigarettes. Jack belched and asked in Tahitian, “Where is the red ash tray?”—
Of course Brad didn't understand Tahitian and Henri shoved Pund away, told Randall, “I translate. Chief here say be welcomes you to his island as honored guest. He say he hasn't much, and most of his people are out diving. But he say everything on island is yours. Also you must meet his daughter, Heru.”
“Tell him this is... is... wonderful!” Randall blabbered.
Jack Pund and Eddie took the canoe in while the three of us got into the dinghy and rowed ashore, Henri explaining Eddie was sort of an acting chief since Pund was too old to rule. As we stepped out on the sand, Heru came out of the large hut and Randall let out a fierce choked cry. Even I had to gasp.
She was sober and rested, probably had slept around the clock. Heru was absolutely beautiful with a crown of snow white delicate tiare flowers in her black hair, eyes clear and bright, red lips parted in a shy smile, slender body nude except for a bit of cloth barely covering her hips. Her breasts were proud, the nipples glistening with coconut oil. She really looked the part—a dream girl. A sense of tragedy cut into my high feelings; this must have been Heru before she hit the Papeete waterfront.
Randall's hands trembled as he pulled out a string of bright red beads, part of the junk he had purchased on Henri's “expert” advice, and handed them to Heru. She made the proper gushing noises of delight, put the beads around her neck, then hugged Randall. He turned a slight pink as he awkwardly tried to back away, touched her breasts in doing so, and then his face became lobster red. Happily, Heru didn't laugh.
Henri said, “Now, Monsieur Randall, since these people welcomed you, and it is amazing, most natives do not take to whites, I will ask the acting chief where he wants you to to stay.” He turned to Eddie and asked in Tahitian, “Everything all right?”
“Yes, you miserable flea!”
“What's the matter with you? Motion with your hands, like you are giving him the island.”
“He can have this hunk of sand—right up his nose!”
Henri tried to smile. “This is business, you fool!”
“The cemeteries are full of businessmen, remember that!” Eddie said. He turned to Randall and pointed to the sand, then waved his hand about.
Henri told Randall, “I now translate. Acting chief say island is yours. You are to stay in the big hut, as honored guest. He say perhaps you are tired from your trip and like to rest. You go to hut and soon Chief and daughter bring you papaya juice and many cool fruits to eat.”
“He doesn't have to go to any trouble,” Randall said, his eyes trying to stay off Hem's bosom.
“My dear sir, this is not trouble but the real—how you say —hospitality of the old islands. He will feel insulted if you refuse. Cap-a-tan Ray and myself will retire to the boat for a rest.”
“I sure don't want to insult the Chief. Say, will it be all right if I take some pictures?” Randall asked.
Henri told Eddie in Tahitian, “We have his money, don't blow the deal.”
Eddie said, “Tell him he's going to be able to get a picture of me busting your face!”
Heru said, “Talk, talk—it is hot out here.”
Henri looked at me and I told Randall, “They say you can take pictures but—don't be too obvious about it.”
Henri picked up Randall's bag and followed Eddie to the hut, Randall and Heru walking behind them, the air full of the heady scent of the tiare blossoms in her hair. At the entrance Henri turned and called out to Jack Pund, “You, bring the food in from the ship!”
Pund and I got into his canoe, paddled out to the Hooker, the old man saying, “This is crazy business. When we make movie and where is my ash tray?”
“In time we shall make a picture. The ash tray was purchased but by accident left behind in Papeete. You'll get it.”
I gave him the food, told him to give it to Eddie right away and he looked at the case of beer with big eyes, said he would dig a cool hole in the sand to store that at once.
Back on the beach Eddie and Henri waited for the canoe full of food. Eddie helped unload it as Henri rowed the dinghy out and jumped on deck, wiping his face and asking, “That Eddie, he nearly screwed the works. What's wrong with him?”
“I don't know, or maybe it's too long a story to tell you now. I'm turning in. I need sleep.”
“We have nothing to do now but wait. We should have charged more.”
“He would have gone for five hundred but you were so intent on your act, you didn't give him a chance.”
Henri shrugged, said in a grave voice, “One learns by experience.”
I checked the anchor, put a mat in the shade of the cabin, and went to sleep. I slept for a few hours and awoke when the sun hit my face. I moved the mat and while eating an orange, saw Randall in a pair of yellow swimming trunks yelling like a child as Eddie and Heru showed him how to spear the bright-colored reef fish. Eddie seemed to be enjoying it, too.
I knocked off a few more hours of shut-eye and awoke to find Eddie shaking my shoulder. Eddie said, “Your eye looks better. How was the trip?”
“Nothing to it. What did you do to Heru? She looks like something out of a book.”
Eddie smiled. “I didn't do anything to her. Just let her sleep and take it easy. Burns me up, a louse like Henri making money off such a pretty kid.”
I sat up and looked at the islet—no one was in sight. “What's playing now?”
“Randall is sleeping. The sun and running around pooped him. Heru is sleeping—by herself. Jack got to a couple of bottles of beer, and he's sleeping. The pimp is pounding his ear up near the bow. I have cooking stones heating in the fire pit and in a little while I'll shake Jack awake and start the 'feast.' This is sure sticky, us islanders doing all the work.”
“Hell, it's only an act. Tomorrow we pull out.”
“You get the dough?”
I nodded. “Have our half in my pocket.”
Eddie sat down and lit a cigar—a Stateside one he must have got from Randall. “Henri is a boy with real ideas. According to Heru he has an angle working he forgot to tell us. Plans to get the address of a guy like Randall and in a couple of months write him, in Heru's name, saying she is going to have a baby soon—his.”
“Blackmail?”
Eddie shook his head, blew out a fog of smoke. “Not exactly, rather a polite request for money to help out. She supposedly plans to go to a hospital in Papeete. Then maybe a note once a year thereafter, a gift for the 'young prince on his birthday.' With a dozen Randalls kicking in say, a hundred bucks a year, this would be a long-range jackpot for Henri.”
“That's a ratty deal.”
Eddie stared down at me through a crooked smoke ring. “And what does it make us? Cats? More I see of Henri, less I like him and I didn't care for him to start.” Eddie stood up and flexed his muscles. “Guess I'd better get back and start the food going. When do you think this slob will leave?”
“Sometime tomorrow. He isn't a bad sort.”
“This is a slimy deal and you're all smiles.”
“I'm feeling all smiles about something else.”
“That guy you belted?”
“Yeah. I've been wanting to wallop him for a long time. And he isn't a bad sort, either.”
“All the world is one big chum for you, it seems.” Eddie shook his head. “I don't know whether to feel sorry for Randall or bat him in his fat gut. The way he acts, as if this was real, he'd expect the islanders to fall all over him because he's a fat popaa with a few lousy trinkets.”
“Guess he means well. He just read to many phony books.”
“The islanders never read the books but they still get the wrong end of the stick. Got any rum?”
“No.”
“Good,” Eddie said. “Heru is itching for a shot, but beer will hold her. You're right, we're in this and we might as well take the dough. But this is the last time for me. See you when it gets dark.”
“Yes sir, acting chief.”
We both laughed and when Eddie paddled ashore I jumped over for a fast swim, then found more shade on the deck and went back to sleep. Henri awoke me. “The feast is about ready.”
It was twilight and I stared up at his sweaty shirt, dirty tie, the yellowed linen suit, asked, “Don't you ever put on clean clothes, take a bath?”
He swore in French. “What is eating you and your partner? All I get is insults.”
I sat up and slipped on my pants and a light sweater. “I was merely asking a polite question. By the way, don't let Heru lap up the beer. It's supposed to be a novelty to her— according to the script.”
“I will handle that bitch.”
“Bitch?” I repeated, pulling in the dinghy. “No way to talk about your meal ticket.”
Henri waved a modest hand. “Wasn't for me, silly little girls like Heru would be starving. I am her meal ticket.”
“You believe that?” I asked, as we got in the dinghy.
Henri gave me a fat-shouldered shrug for an answer.
Eddie amazed me; his feast was a first-rate job. We sat around palm leaves spread ner the fire pit, stuffed ourselves with tasty roast pig, fish baked in seaweed and lime juice, canned yams, a thick soup of some sort of greens, fish, rice, and shredded beef which was cooked and served steaming hot by the simple process of putting a hot stone into the pot.
Randall had a string of flowers around his thick neck, was wearing his seersucker suit but with the shirt open. He ate and sang and bragged about catching some of the fish we were eating, squeezed Heru's hand, “accidentally” touching her breasts now and then... the picture of a very happy fool.
I'd oiled my phonograph and we listened to scratchy music. When Eddie opened some beer bottles, Randall asked, “Beer? How did they get that?”
“My contribution to the feast,” I said.
“Say, that's right nice of you, Cap,” Brad said as he poured some into a coconut bowl and handed it to Heru. She took a sip, made a face, then spit the beer out as though she had never tasted the stuff before. Randall roared with idiotic laughter, downed the brew in one fast gulp.
Jack Pund, who had been watching Heru as if she was completely nuts, finished a bottle of beer and then stood up and did a crazy dance to the hill-billy record on my phonograph, throwing his arms and legs out as he spun around and around, finally hitting the ground and passing out.
Randall was impressed, said, “Seems an authentic war dance. Is he in a trance now?”
“Yes,” Henri told him. “And on the morrow he will be hung over from his trance. Well, we eat much, now we should sleep.”
Randall got up, went over and touched Jack Pund's heart. The old man immediately leaped up like a zombie, put a finger to his wet lips, then bounded off to return in a few minutes with his bug juice—an armful of fermented coconuts. These nuts must have been cooking since the first day we were on the islet and were powerful. Randall drank one, flushed, and a moment later joined Jack in a stupid dance, both of them lubbering about and trying to fling their feet high in the air.—
Henri, Eddie, and I watched the dance with pained looks —Heru was eyeing the rest of the fermented nuts. After a couple turns of this new dance, Jack hit the sand again, really out. Brad staggered around till Eddie led him to the hut, where he fell into a snoring sleep as soon as he touched the mats.
I tried one of the nuts and it immediately warmed my guts. Henri jerked Jack Pund to a sitting position, started bawling him out in French for making the bug juice. Since Pund couldn't understand much French, even if he was conscious, I thought it very funny—proving how strong the juice really was.
Henri was trying to twist Pund's ears when Eddie came over and said, “Let him go. He was only trying to be friendly.”
“Friendly?” Henri shouted, in Tahitian. “He almost spoiled everything!”
“Cut it,” Eddie said in English, “you give me more of a pain—”
“Watch it!” Henri screamed in Tahitian. “What are you saying?” and clapped a hand over Eddie's mouth.
Eddie pushed him away, sending Henri tumbling in the sand, then wiped his mouth, turned to me and asked, “What you standing like a dressmaker's dummy? Help me with Pund.”
We carried him over to the dinghy and I rowed him out to the Hooker, managed to roll Jack up onto the deck, then climbed aboard myself, full of food and drink. As I dozed off I could vaguely hear the tinny sound of the phonograph ashore, where Heru was sitting by the fire and playing records, marking time when Randall would come to and she could “sneak” into his hut. For a very short moment even in my drunken state it gave me a spooky feeling, a severe sense of wrong-doing. Then I told myself, so what, if he was in Papeete he'd be in her room anyway.
I had a nightmare in which I was arguing with Ruita on the porch of her house and she was saying, “If you go way, I shall go to Papeete.”
“You don't like Papeete.”
“I am still young, I can do things there.”
“What things?”
“You know what things.”
“You don't mean that. You're not like the... well.”
“Not like what?” Ruita asked. “Am I not a full-blooded islander? And is there anything finer for a native girl to do than whore around in Papeete bars?”
