time. That way.” He pointed up the road toward town. “You need ride?” “How far is it?” “Maybe a mile. How long you be gone?” Rindi wanted to take his time,
make sure he didn’t miss any of Tuck’s valuables. “I’m not sure. Do you lock the door at midnight or something?” “No, I come get you if you drunk.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll be checking out in the morning. Can I get an eight o’clock wake-up call?”
“No. No phone in room.”
“How about a wake-up knock?”
“No problem.”
“Thanks.” Tucker went out the front door and was nearly thrown back by the thickness of the air. The temperature had dropped to the mid-80s, but it felt as if it had gotten more humid. Everything dripped. The air carried the scent of rotting flowers.
Tuck set off down the road and was soaked with sweat by the time he reached a rusted metal Quonset hut with a hand-painted sign that read YUMI BAR. The dirt parking lot was filled with Japanese beaters parked freestyle. A skeletal dog with open running sores, a crossbreed of dingo and sewer rat, cowered in the half-light coming through the door and looked at him as if pleading to be run over. Tuck’s stomach lurched. He made a wide path around the dog, who looked down and resumed concen-tration on its suffering.
“Hey, kid, you’re not going in there, are you?”
Tuck looked up. There was a cigarette glowing in the dark at the corner of the building. Tuck could just make out the form of a man standing there. He wore some kind of uniform—Tuck could see the silhouette of a captain’s hat. Anywhere else Tuck might have ignored a voice in the dark, but the accent was American, and out here he was drawn to the familiarity of it. He’d heard it before.
He said, “I thought I’d get a beer. I’m looking for an American named Pardee.”
The guy in the dark blew out a long stream of cigarette smoke. “He’s in there. But you don’t want to go in there right now. Wait a few minutes.”
Tuck was about to ask why when two men came crashing through the door and landed in the dirt at his feet. They were islanders, both screaming incomprehensibly as they punched and gouged at one another. The one on the top held a bush knife, a short machete, which he drew back and slammed into the other man’s head, severing an ear. Blood sprayed on the dust.
A stream of shouting natives spilled out of the bar, waving beer bottles and kicking at the fighters. Earless leaped to his feet and backed off to get a running attack at Bush Knife, who was rising to his feet. Earless hit him with a flying tackle as Bush Knife hacked at his ribs. A pickup truck full of policemen pulled into the parking lot and the crowd scattered into the dark and back into the bar, leaving
the fighters rolling in the dirt. Six policemen stood over the fighters, slamming them with riot batons until they both lay still. The police threw the fighters into the bed of their truck, climbed in after them, and drove off.
Tuck stood stunned. He’d never seen violence that sudden and raw in his life. Ten more seconds and he would have been in the middle of it instead of backpedaling across the parking lot.
“Should be okay to go in now,” said the voice from the dark.
Tuck looked up, but he couldn’t even see the cigarette glowing now. “Thanks,” he said. “You sure it’s okay?”
“Watch your ass, kid,” said the voice, and this time it seemed to come from above him. Tucker spun around, nearly wrenching his neck, but he couldn’t see anyone. He shook off the confusion and headed into the bar.
The skeletal dog crawled from under a truck, seized the severed ear from the dust, and slunk into the shadows. “Good dog,” said the voice out of the dark. The dog growled, ready to protect its prize. A young man, perhaps twenty-four, dark and sharp-featured, dressed in a gray flight suit, stepped out of the shadows and bent to the dog, who lowered its head in submission. The young man reached out as if to pet the dog, then grabbed its head and quickly snapped its neck. “Now, that’s better, ain’t it, ya little mook?”
The bar was as dingy inside as it was out. Yellow bug bulbs gave off just enough light to navigate around drunken islanders and a beat-up pool table. An old Wurlitzer bounced American country western songs off the metal walls. A khaki-wrapped hulk, Jefferson Pardee, sweated over a Budweiser at the bar. Tucker slid in next to him.
Pardee looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “You just missed all the excitement.”
“No, I saw it. I was outside.”
Pardee signaled for two more beers. “I thought I told you not to go out at night.”
“I’m leaving for Yap in the morning and I need to ask you some questions.”
Pardee grinned like a child given a surprise favor. “I’m at your service, Mr. Tucker.”
Tuck weighed his need for information against the ignominy of telling Pardee about the crash. He pulled the crumpled fax paper from his pants pocket and set it on the bar before the reporter.
Pardee lit a cigarette as he read. He finished reading and handed the fax back to Tucker. “It’s not unusual to have changes in travel plans out here. But what’s this about bacteria? I thought you were a pilot.”
Tucker took Pardee though the crash and the mysterious invitation from the doctor, including Jake’s theories about drug smuggling. “I think the bacteria stuff was just to throw off anyone who got hold of the fax.”
“You’re right there. But it’s not drugs. There aren’t any drugs produced in these islands except kava and betel nut, and nobody wants those except the islanders. Oh, they grow a little pot here and there, but it’s consumed here by the gangsta wanna-bes.”
“Gangsta wanna-bes?” Tuck asked.
“A few of the islanders have satellite TV. The people who look like them on TV are gangsta rappers. The old rundown buildings they see in the hood look like the buildings here. Except here they’re new and run-down. It’s a Coke and a smile and baby formula their babies can’t digest. It’s packaged junk food shipped here without expiration dates.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Pardee?”
“They buy into the advertising bullshit that Americans have become immune to. It’s like the entire Micronesian crescent is one big cargo cult. They buy the worst of American culture.”
“Are you saying I’m the worst America has to offer?”
Pardee patted his shoulder and leaned in close. Tuck could smell the sour beer sweat coming off the big man. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t know what’s going on out on Alualu, but I’m sure it’s no big deal. Evil tends to grow in proportion to the profit potential, and there’s just nothing out there that’s worth a shit. Go to your island, kid. And get in touch with me when you figure out what’s going on. In the meantime, I’ll do some checking.”
Tuck shook the reporter’s hand. “I will.” He threw some money on the bar and started to leave. Pardee called to him as he reached the door.
“One more thing. I checked around. I heard that there’s some armed men on Alualu. And there was another pilot that came through here a few months ago. Nobody’s seen him. Be careful, Tucker.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me that?”
“I had to be sure that you weren’t part of it.”
13
Out of the Frying Pan
Tuck’s first thought of the new morning was I’ve got to catch a plane. His second was, My dick’s broke.
It happens that way. One has a “private” irritation—hemorrhoids, menstrual cramps, swollen prostate, yeast infection, venereal disease, bladder infection—and no matter how hard the mind tries to escape the gravity of the affliction, it is inexorably pulled back into a doomed orbit of circular thought. Anything that distracts from the irritation is an irritation. Life is an irritation.