“You met the ambassador?” Kaz asked.
“Only in passing. He’d finished a term as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and was waiting to be appointed to some important post by FDR. It was the following year when he went to England. He basically ignored his kid’s guests. Not the friendliest guy around.”
“How did you get along with Joe Junior?” Kaz asked.
“I couldn’t take a liking to him. He had a mean streak. All the Kennedy kids were competitive in everything they did, and sailing was no exception, but Joe was the worst. He brought his little brother Teddy along on a race one day, and Teddy screwed something up, causing Joe to come in way behind the pack. Joe threw him in the water, not close to shore either. I know kid brothers can be a pain, but the little guy nearly drowned. Whatever they did, you couldn’t criticize any of them without the rest of them ganging up on you. Joe treated Jack pretty rotten at times, but I think either of them would go down fighting for the other.”
“So far, all I know is that Jack befriended you and you went to a baseball game and sat at first base instead of the bleachers, whatever they are. Then you went to what sounds like an ocean resort and went sailing. Did Jack throw you overboard?” Kaz laughed as he polished off his drink.
“It was fun, I admit,” I said. “One nice thing about Jack was that he didn’t lord his riches over you. He didn’t flash cash around. We’d go out at night but never anywhere I couldn’t afford.”
“A prince among men,” Kaz said, leaning back in his chair.
“Jack went to Europe later that summer, with Lem Billings, a good friend of his. He sent me a note when he got back, and we went out to a club once, but he was busy at Harvard and I’d started working the night shift. I didn’t hear from him again until November, right after the Yale-Harvard game.”
“More baseball?” Kaz asked.
“No. Football, American style,” I said, raising the glass to my lips. It was empty, and I set it down. “I got a letter from Jack. He wrote that the night of the game, he accidently backed into a woman’s automobile. There was some slight damage, and she wanted to call the police. In his words, she was a ‘shit’ and he gave her ‘a lot of shit’ in return. So he backed into her car again, four or five times, then drove off. But not before she wrote down his license plate number, yelling that she’d be reporting it to the Registry of Motor Vehicles in the morning. When the police came calling, Jack told them he’d loaned the vehicle to a friend, who had returned it with the rear bumper crumpled.”
“The friend he named was you,” Kaz said, his voice low.
“Yeah. The letter said Jack was sure I could work it out and that he didn’t want his father to find out about the accident.”
“Did you work it out?”
“I almost lost my job. Again. This time Jack didn’t come to my defense, since I was his alibi. I got called in front of a disciplinary hearing. I could either tell the truth, and risk bringing down the wrath of the Kennedys, especially if Jack’s old man got involved, or admit it was me.”
“What did your father say?”
“I tried to keep it a secret, but he found out soon enough. I told him the truth, and he made me promise never to have anything to do with the Kennedys again. I gave him my word, and I meant it. He and Uncle Dan showed up at the hearing wearing their dress blue uniforms. They never said a word. I got a reprimand, which was basically a slap on the wrist.”
“You never heard from Jack?”
“Nope. Not until we were summoned here. I was nothing but an alibi, when all was said and done. A convenient sap. Jack’s got a lot of personality, I’ll give him that. Too much. It blinds you to his shortcomings.”
“Do you think he was drunk at the time?” Kaz asked.
“He doesn’t touch the hard stuff. Why?”
“As much as he comes across as a scoundrel for his treatment of you, I have to wonder about a man who would lose his temper like that when confronted by a woman. To excuse his behavior by describing her as a shit is terribly self-centered, don’t you think? If he could repeatedly ram her automobile over a perceived slight, what else might he be capable of?”
“That’s a stretch, Kaz. It happened years ago. It doesn’t make him a killer.”
I drained the whiskey from my glass. It didn’t mean anything, I told myself.
Right?
Chapter Twenty-Four
I woke up beneath mosquito netting, clutching an empty bottle. The good news was that I’d made it to bed and even managed to close up the netting. The bad news was that sooner or later I’d have to move my head. I did, along with the rest of my body. I was glad there wasn’t a mirror in the room.
“You look like hell, boss,” Kao said as I stumbled out of the bedroom. “You don’t smell so good either.”
“Thanks, good morning to you, too,” I said. “Shower. Kopi.” I was pretty impressed with myself that I managed to remember the Pijin word for java.
“I can heat up water for the shower if you want.”
“No thanks, Kao, but make the kopi strong and sweet.” I headed out back to where an outdoor shower was rigged up to a rainwater barrel. Yesterday Kao had added hot water and the shower had been lukewarm, but this morning I needed a cold shock-or as cold as water can get in the Southwest Pacific.
Turns out, that’s pretty damn chilly. But it chased away the cobwebs and took my mind off the throbbing in my head. I shaved and got dressed in clean khakis, courtesy of the redoubtable Kao. By the time I was clutching a cup of coffee on the verandah with Kaz, I felt almost human.
“That was quite a story you told last night,” Kaz said. “I hope you don’t tell another; your liver might fail you.”
“Very funny,” I said. “But that’s it. Now you know the full story of the history between the Kennedy and Boyle clans, such as it is. As soon as we get out of here, I’ll be glad to never hear of Jack or his family again.”
“Hey boss, you want a Spam and egg sandwich?” Kao asked from the doorway.
“I think I’ll skip it, Kao. But thanks. Say, are you from Tulagi? How’d you end up with this job anyway?”
“No, not from Tulagi,” Kao said, coming out to the verandah and leaning against the railing. He had a slight physique and a lighter skin tone than most of the natives I’d seen. “My family is from Buka Island, north of Bougainville. They sent me to missionary school on Vella Lavella. The Japs came, and I escaped with my teachers. They found this job for me. Not bad work. Better than on plantation or unloading ships. I’m not strong like my brothers.” He looked downcast, maybe at the memory of being teased or missing his folks-big, strong brothers and all.
“Have you heard from your family?” Kaz asked.
“No. Buka full of Japs. Big airfield there. I hear they make all island men work to build it. Many die.”
“I am sorry,” Kaz said.
Kao shrugged, as if to say condolences were nice but of little value.
“Did you ever hear of Sam Chang from Bougainville?” I asked, as much to change the subject as for any information Kao might have.
“Sure, everyone in those islands knows Sam. He brought supplies to the mission every month. Smart man. I asked if I could work for him someday, told him about my grades in arithmetic. Best in my class.”
“What’d he say?” I asked.
“He said maybe he’d have a job on Pavau for me in a few months. Something about an opportunity there, some deal he was working on with Lever. But then the Japs came and everything ended.”