“But?” I said, urging him along in the hopes he’d offer us a seat.
“It must be done in a manner that reflects well upon the United States Navy,” Ritchie said, his chin jutting out as if it were the bow of a battleship cutting through the water.
I thought about that. And about the teletype sheets, and how the Office of Naval Intelligence had its fingerprints all over this investigation.
“You worked in ONI, didn’t you, Captain Ritchie?” I said.
“My previous assignment has nothing to do with this situation,” he said, the disdain a little heavier in his tone.
“I don’t believe that, sir,” I said. Then I sat down. Kaz followed suit. The hell with this guy and his pompous airs. “I didn’t understand how ONI got on top of this so fast. But once I saw you had a report with our names in it, I knew you had a connection.”
“I didn’t invite you to sit, Lieutenant,” Captain Ritchie said as he closed the file in front of him, nervously patting it down as if it might spring open and scatter pages for all to see.
“And I don’t think your commanding officer would take kindly to you doing political favors in a war zone, Captain. I bet you and Alan Kirk were at ONI at the same time, right?” Kirk was Joe Kennedy’s naval attaché in London, who had gone on to head ONI. He didn’t last long, and was heading up a bunch of destroyers in the Mediterranean last I heard.
“What of it?” Ritchie said, worry lines appearing in his forehead.
“Kirk is connected to Joe Kennedy Senior,” I said. “You’re connected to Kirk. Jack Kennedy gets himself involved in the murder of a local native, and the first thing you do? You don’t investigate, you don’t bring in the British or Australian police, instead you contact your buddies at ONI, who can get to Joe Senior. Then things begin to happen and favors accrue. I bet old Joe would pay a bundle to have his son’s name cleared.”
“I don’t have the time or inclination to listen to your preposterous theories,” Ritchie said, standing and sucking in his gut. That was our cue to leave. “Find out what happened to Tamana and try not to disgrace the uniform while you do it. Report to me if you find out anything useful.” I felt his glare on my back as we left.
“That was interesting,” Kaz said as we stood on the verandah, surveying the bustle of soldiers, sailors, and natives around the headquarters area. “When were you sure about Ritchie and ONI?”
“When he didn’t throw me in the brig for sitting in his damn chair,” I said, watching a crew of natives loading a truck from a supply tent. “And the few words I caught in that report didn’t sound like a military memo. It was the lowdown on us. On me, probably direct from old Joe himself.”
“Do you think Ritchie is really being paid off?” Kaz asked.
“Not with money or anything that can be traced,” I said. “But I bet he’ll get a promotion and a plum assignment next.”
“Unless we do not proceed in a manner that reflects well on the United States Navy,” Kaz said, in a rough attempt at imitating Ritchie’s growl.
“I’m tempted to disgrace the navy just to see him transferred to Greenland,” I said. “Come on, let’s find Jack and see what the hell he has to say about all this.”
We maneuvered the jeep through the heavy traffic around headquarters and the nearby docks. Seaplanes floated near their moorings offshore and a steady stream of small craft motored men and materials back and forth. Tulagi had become a backwater island when the fighting moved on up the Slot, but it was still a busy backwater.
The hospital was a long whitewashed cement block building with a red cross against a white background prominently painted on the roof. It sat high on a slope facing the sound, with breezes off the water drifting through the wide-open windows. I asked a clerk at a desk in the main corridor which room Jack Kennedy was in.
“He’s up the hill, Lieutenant,” the clerk said. “Go out the back door, third hut on the right.”
“In a hut?” I asked, expecting to find Jack bandaged and bruised, stretched out on white sheets.
“Yeah, the VIP lounge we call it,” he said. “It’s for officers with minor wounds. Not much different from in here except we don’t have to check on them that often.”
“No nurses here?” I asked, noticing the all-male character of the staff walking the hallways.
“Not of the female persuasion, not yet anyway,” he said. “Captain Ritchie says it ain’t good for morale to have a few women around with so many guys who ain’t seen a dame in months.”
“The captain must not be the most popular officer around,” I said.
“Let’s say if he were laid up here, he wouldn’t have many visitors,” the clerk said. “Not like Lieutenant Kennedy. He’s got people coming to see him around the clock. Nice guy.”
“Yeah, he’s swell.” We stepped out the back, taking a well-trodden path to a shaded palm grove with island huts arranged on either side. They were built up on stilts, the walls made of woven palm fronds. The roofs were thatched and makeshift windows were propped up to let the air circulate. We went into the third hut, where four hospital beds were arranged around a central table. A card game was in progress. Bridge, by the look of things. No one was in bed nursing their wounds. VIP lounge, indeed.
“Hey guys,” I said, waving my hand in greeting. By the bottles on the table and the wrinkled clothing, it didn’t seem any of them were sticklers for rank. “I’m looking for Jack Kennedy. Is he around here somewhere?”
“Crash? He’s on a date,” one of the players said as he tossed back a shot of bourbon.
“A date?” I said. “The kind with a woman?”
“I guess you don’t know our Jack,” another guy said.
“Oh, I know him all right,” I said. Then I began to laugh. The table joined in, probably to be polite, because I couldn’t stop. I come halfway around the world to save Kennedy from a murder charge, and on this small island with no women, he’s out on a date.
Jack, you sonuvabitch.
Chapter Nine
“Nem blong mi Jacob Vouza,” a booming voice said in my dreams. “Hu nao nem blong yu?”
I opened one eye, struggling to remember where I was. Tulagi. The assistant district administrator’s house. Asleep, under mosquito netting.
“Wanem nao yu duim?”
All I could make out was a hazy silhouette in the door, sunlight filtering into the room at his back. I scrambled out from under the netting in my skivvies, still half asleep, to find an imposing figure standing square in the doorway, his arms crossed, shooting a glare at Kao, the houseboy who came with the joint. Kao was a skinny little kid. Our visitor looked like he could snap him in two.
“Your name is Jacob Vouza?” Kaz asked, sitting up on the edge of his bed. I could see he was working out what the native was saying.
“Ya, Sergeant Jacob Vouza. Blong Solomon Islands Protectorate Armed Constabulary. Twenty-five year. Retired. Now marine.” He pronounced the English words precisely, with some island dialect mixed in.
“Blong,” Kaz said, standing to face Vouza. “Belong? The name which belongs to you?”
“Ya,” Vouza said, speaking slowly as if to a pair of slow children, pointing to each of us with an exaggerated gesture. “Nem blong yu?”
“Nem blong mi Kaz. Nem blong him Billy,” Kaz said, keeping things simple. I pulled on my trousers and watched as Vouza and Kaz exchanged a few more words. Kaz was the one with the language skills, so I left the lingo to him as I took in the man before us.
He was dressed in a lap-lap, which looked like a sarong to me, but Kao had corrected me on that point last night. Vouza was tall, broad, bare-chested, and wearing a web belt with a mean-looking machete and a.45 automatic slung off it. His hair was thick and frizzy, his skin a dark, rich brown. He had a broad, flat nose and sharp eyes which kept a watch on Kaz and me as I cinched my own web belt and pistol.
The scars were something to behold. His chest, throat, and ribs were decorated with thick, knotted scar tissue. Not the puckered scar of a gunshot wound, or the scattered rips and tears from shrapnel. Knife or bayonet, I guessed. Kao squatted on the floor, gazing at Vouza with awe. Maybe fear.