Ed Lacy - South Pacific Affair
“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?”
“Keep it up—you're saying this to annoy me.”
“Annoy you? You are leaving me, running out, and yet you accuse me of annoying you!”
I reached over and shook Ruita, saying, “All right, goddammit, stop it! Let's talk slowly—with sense.”
In my nightmare we went through this routine several times and when I was shaking her again, I awoke to see Jack Pund bending over me, his fat face almost in my whiskers.
He whispered one word, “Trouble!” As I sat up, I heard screaming on the islet and we both jumped into the dinghy, made for the shore.
It was quite a tableau: a nude Heru was sprawled on the sand, screaming and sobbing, one hand to her bruised face, her right cheek and eye swollen and cut. Eddie was kneeling beside her, trying to comfort Heru, although from the way she was beaten up, I was sure he must have socked her. Wearing his baby blue pajamas, Randall was yelling like an enraged bull at Henri, who was completely clothed as usual in his dirty linen suit.
From what I heard then—and later—it seemed Heru had finally gone to Randall's hut and after she left him snoring again, had lucked-up on a couple of Jack Pund's fermented coconuts. Then she kicked Henri awake and asked for her money. He had stupidly offered her the usual few francs, and she had blown her drunken top.
While she was cursing Henri for cheating her—in plain French and English—Dubon had hit her and she had screamed. The racket had aroused Eddie and Randall. Eddie went for Henri who pulled out his knife, and the two cussed each other out—all cuss words made in the USA. Of course Randall, hearing the three of them swearing at each other, realized he had been taken. Seeing Randall, Henri had put the knife away, tried to go on with the act.
There was something terribly pitiful about Randall's frantic rage as he called Henri every kind of miserable bastard; Brad seemed on the verge of an hysterical explosion. When I told him to take it easy, he turned on me and shouted, “You! You call yourself an American! My God, last night I envied you. You—you're as much scum as this crummy pimp!”
“Aw relax, big boy,” Henri said in straight English, minus the tourist accent. “What you getting into an uproar about? Sure it's all a fake, so what? So much noise is old hat. You wanted 'romance' with all the fancy trimmings, and that's what you got. It cost more than you're used to paying, but we did put on a hell of a show for you, a package deal which—”
Randall drew back his fist, swung like a hammer-thrower. He hit Henri high on the forehead. I was certain he'd busted his hand. The force of the wild blow made Dubon do a rubber-legged dance before landing on his back.
Dubon wasn't out. “It was a deal worth the money!” Henri wailed. He sat up and rubbed his head.
“You lice! You damn perverts!” Randall screamed, his voice breaking as he began to sob. “Who cares about the goddamn money! Don't you see what you've done to me? Don't you see what you've done!” He sprang on Henri and started choking him. Brad may have been an elderly man but he was also big, heavy and powerful. Even in the moonlight I could see Henri's face turning pasty pale as he clawed at Randall's hands.
I pulled at Brad's hands but couldn't get him loose. I grunted for Eddie. He came over and hit him in his heaving gut, a short little punch which not only made Randall let go of Henri, but roll over on the sand, grasping his belly, his mouth open wide as he could possibly get it.
Henri made it to his feet, his clothes a mess, blood streaming from nose and mouth. He stared down at Randall, who was still on his back like an overturned turtle, then sent a glob of bloody spit down on Randall as he said, “You crazy old—”
I pushed Dubon away. “Leave him alone. We've done him enough harm.”
Dubon put a hand to his nose to stem the blood, which started down his sleeve, as he said in Tahitian, “Sorry, something went wrong. But we have his money. And suckers never run to the police or tell others about—”
“Stop talking, you damn fool!” I yelled. If the whole thing had seemed cheap before, what we had done to Randall was now sheer tragedy. I felt crummy; not even thinking about socking Barry could shake the crummy feeling.
While I was standing there, staring at everybody and seeing no one, Randall sat up, his heavy face still wet with tears, lines of pain around his open mouth. I was about to say I was sorry, but no words came out of my dry mouth. Heru came over, one hand to her puffed eye. Her good eye stared solemnly down at Randall.
Henri, who had been stuffing his shirt in his pants, straightening out his clothes, turned on Heru with tiger-speed, shrilled, “You're the cause of all this, you dirty drunken—”
It was an all-around bad night for Henri. Eddie's left hook flicked through the air and crumbled Henri into a heap. No staggering or falling backwards; the clean sound of the fist hitting and Henri went down. It was the hardest punch I'd ever seen. I was positive Dubon was dead.
Randall moaned, “Oh, my, my...” while Eddie rubbed his knuckles and said, “There's something I been waiting to do for a long time. The slimy... slimy—” Eddie walked down to the water and carefully washed his knuckles.
Jack Pund bent over Dubon, said softly, “This one will never arise again.”
I pulled Randall to his feet, told him, “Look, Mr. Randall, there isn't much I can say. I know how you must feel, and I'm sorry. Sorry isn't much of a word but... Well, you'll get your money back.”
“It doesn't matter,” Brad said in a whisper. He rubbed his stomach, looked down at Dubon, muttered, “He's a pug, isn't he?” He nodded at Eddie who was coming towards us, shaking his wet hands.
“Used to be. He had to hit you or you would have murdered Dubon.”
“You're all thugs! Where's my clothes?” Randall turned and slowly walked to the hut, rubbing Henri's bloody spit off the side of his face. Heru shivered and put an arm across her bare breasts. The little cut over her eye had stopped bleeding. Eddie told her to get dressed, added, “I will get some raw fish for your eye.”
Jack Pund was still squatting over Dubon and I told him to move, knelt, and felt of Henri's heart—it was under the wallet in his inside pocket. He was still alive. I took out the wallet, old, sweat-stained, and thick. He had all the francs I'd given him plus a fat rubber-banded bundle of one thousand franc notes and several American twenties. Beside his identity card, there were a few scribbled addresses I couldn't make out, an old army PX card, and a faded hunk of newspaper— an ad for a correspondence course in public speaking.
Randall returned, wearing his seersucker suit over his pajamas, carrying his pigskin overnight bag, sport cap stuck on his head sideways. I held out Henri's wallet. “I'll give you the three hundred we took you for.”
He shoved my hand aside. “How soon can I reach Papeete?”
“Probably by morning. Take the money, please.”
He pushed by me, went down to the dinghy and sat on the stern seat. Heru came out of one of the lean-tos wearing her gaudy dress, high heeled shoes slung around her neck. Eddie was walking beside her, holding a hunk of raw fish to her purple eye. I gave her Henri's wallet, told her to keep it. Then I took a thousand franc note out, handed it to Jack Pund. “Forget what happened here. And when he wakes,” I said, pointing at Henri with my foot, “paddle him to the mainland of Huahine.”
He grabbed the money eagerly, shoved it into his loin cloth, asked, “When you return with my red ash tray?”
“You can buy a dozen of them with that money,” I said.
“You no return?” Pund asked sadly.
“No, the show is over. Don't forget, take care of him.”
Eddie said, “Why not let the louse stay here till a passing canoe picks him up? Maybe he'll even starve!”
“Stop it,” I said, suddenly feeling very weary. “We're as much in this as Henri. Let's get out of here.”
We three walked down to the dinghy and got in, nearly swamping it. As I rowed I faced Randall and I told him, “You really don't know what happened here tonight. I'd like to—”
“Goddamn you, can't you shut up!” he snapped. “You think I Worry about the money, that I was rooked? I don't!”
“I want to explain what—”
“When a fellow is young and has some sense, he dreams, then settles down to hard work, making money,” Brad went on. “When he's too old for living he realizes he should have paid more attention to his dreams, they are important as money, maybe more important. Even if this was a fake, why did you have to spoil it? Ruin the greatest thing ever happened, to me? If I had left there still thinking this was all real, I'd have been the happiest man in the world! But you pimps, this cheap whore....”
“Sure she's cheap—she didn't get any new car!” I cut in. “Look, Randall, Henri isn't any more to blame than we are, and by we I mean all of us, including you. In a sense we're all trying, in our own way, to find the same dream you were chasing, even Dubon. We came here too late—Eddie and Heru should have been born two hundred years ago. All of us are the ugly by-products of too many years of cruel exploitation, double-crossing, and greed. We've been dreaming in a sewer. I thought sailing around in my own boat was clean and good, especially yesterday after I met up with them —the point is, I thought it the best life possible, but now that's dirtied up, too. I don't know if I'm making myself clean and good, especially yesterday after I met up with Kent responsibility for this mess.”
Somehow it seemed terribly important to me to explain all this, as if I had suddenly hit on the core of what was wrong in the islands—for me. But I was talking to myself. Randall was miles away in his thoughts, Eddie was whispering to Heru.
When we reached the Hooker, I stepped aboard and helped Randall on, although he pushed my hand away. Eddie and Heru jumped on deck. I got the motor working and we upped anchor. Eddie took the wheel. Once outside the reef we raised sail and Heru went below to sleep, while Randall sat on a mat in the cockpit, held his head.
He sat like that all night, maybe he was asleep. An hour or so after daybreak-we sailed through the Papeete pass, saw the spire of Notre Dame as we came into the harbor. When we docked Randall stood up stiffly, straightened his clothes and lit a cigar. I offered him his money once more but he brushed by me, jumped down onto the quay, and walked with strong rapid strides. The look on his face was still that of a puzzled, hurt child.
I watched till he was out of sight. Suddenly I didn't give a damn about Randall, or the Barry Kents in the world. I was full of an eager impatience—to get out of here, to never see another face, white or brown, except Ruita's. Even the Hooker or Eddie didn't mean a thing to me; I only wanted the peace and quiet of Numaga with Ruita for the rest of my life. I felt as though I couldn't lose a second, had to start at once.
Eddie said, “The poor jerk. In a way I feel sorry for him. Although I don't know why, all he cared about was having his fun with Heru and the hell with anything else, like my old man. The islands are just a big house to popaas. Let me have my dough, I need a bottle.”
“Eddie, how long will it take you to buy us enough supplies for a three-day sail?”
Eddie stared at me. “What's with you, Ray? A three-day sail? I'm bushed now.”
“Then I'll take the Hooker myself. I have to get to Numaga in a big hurry. Look, sail me there and the Hooker is all yours. You buying that?”
Eddie's battered face seemed to relax into tired lines, making him look old, uglier than ever. He held out his right hand. “Give me some money. I'll be back in an hour.”
“Make it faster,” I said, giving him all the money I had. “If I stay here too long, I'll go nuts.”
Eddie was back in a taxi he dug up somewhere in less than twenty minutes, with baskets of food and fruit. I'd spent the time staring around the harbor like a stranger seeing it for the first time. It didn't look beautiful, it didn't look exotic, or even quaint—it seemed decaying and tumbled down, a dying city. It looked so horrible I shut my eyes. I knew now what Edmond Stewart meant by the final retreat—I was more than ready for it.
As Eddie stored the food, cast off the lines, I started the engine, headed for customs. For some crazy reason it gave me a savage sense of satisfaction to think this would be the last time I'd ever see a customs man.
The sun was coming out, hot and powerful, and either the light or the motion of the boat awoke Heru. Her eye was a delicate purple against the honey-brown of her face. Yawning, she pointed to the quay over our wake, asked, “Where we go?”
“To Numaga,” I said, figuring she and Eddie could live on the other end of the island for awhile. I'd forgotten all about Heru in my haste to get away. “You'll get plenty of rest, a change of air. Later, Eddie will take you back to Papeete, if you so wish.”
“Be the best thing in the world for you,” Eddie said.
Heru turned and stared at the waterfront for a hot second, then jumped down into the cabin. She was out a moment later, her shoes tied around her neck, the wallet in her teeth. She dived overboard, a flash of brown legs, hardly making a splash. We watched her swim the few hundred yards to shore.
Although I couldn't stand the thought of any delay, I asked Eddie, “Shall we put about, pick her up?”
He shook his head. “What the hell do you make of that? Henri will beat the dough out of her when he comes back. Why did she do that?”
“I don't know or care. Maybe we each have to work out our own paradise in this world. Could be Papeete is hers. Some day when I'm rusting my can on Numaga I'll certainly try to think it out, maybe philosophize, grow mellow over it. Right now I don't know the answer to a damn thing, except I'm long, long overdue on Numaga. I don't even know the why Of that. But it doesn't matter now.”
