Brown Girls
Copyright © John Wesley Ireland, 2004, 2009.
Cover photo by Hinoi Henry. Courtesy of Elijah Communications Ltd. Used with permission.
Cover design by Koleman Ireland.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is dedicated to my wife, Heather. Without her love, inspiration and support, none of this would have been possible.
My heartfelt thanks to Alice Grey and Brenda Anderson for their invaluable editing expertise.
Meitaki ma’ata to George Pitt and Jeane Matenga, Glen Mills and Kim Holland, Jackie Davis, Moana Vaevae, Tetini Pekepo, Pasha Carruthers, Alicia Ika and Jeff Buick.
I’d also like to extend a special thank you to my muses, those beautiful brown girls who kindly bestowed their friendship on a stranger in a strange land and made him feel welcome: Maeva Arnold, Lena Wong, Tina Kae, Helani Kapi, Michelle Chaloner, Maryanne Short and Kriszara Hoff.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in British Columbia, Canada, John Wesley Ireland has been a journalist for more than 20 years. He has lived in several countries, including the Cook Islands, and is currently working as a freelance travel writer in New Zealand. For more of his musings, see his blog: www.bitemymoko.wordpress.com.
BROWN GIRLS
By John Wesley Ireland
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 John Wesley Ireland
Things happen on islands.
—Nick Smith
WEDNESDAY
1
They say three types of people wash up in the Cook Islands: missionaries, mercenaries and misfits. Jack Nolan fitted a lens to his Nikon and speculated which category would best describe the naked man floating face down in the swimming pool of the Outrigger Villas.
Jack nodded to the young police officer standing on the pool deck. Jimmy Tauranga’s uniform was crisp and pressed despite Rarotonga’s November heat.
“Hey, Jimmy.”
“Kia orana, Jack.” Jimmy looked at his watch. “That didn’t take long.”
Jack smiled. “Someone from the Outrigger phoned the paper.”
“Lloyd Dempster hoping to make the Tribune’s next edition?”
“That’s the plan.” Jack dropped his camera bag onto a plastic deck chair. “Which is why I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
Jack lifted his camera. He focused. He squeezed off a shot. “Any idea who he is?”
Jimmy shrugged. “He’s papa’a, a white man. No clothes, no ID. The maintenance man found him when he came to clean the pool. The manager is contacting his registration clerks to see if anyone recognizes him as a guest.”
Jack fired off a couple more frames, then pressed a knob on the rear of the camera to review the images on the LCD screen. Good enough.
He turned again to the body. The man’s back was fried a deep and painful crimson. A bald spot on his crown glowed an angry crimson. Jack shook his head: tourist.
A pair of island dogs slunk out of the underbrush. They padded to the pool’s edge on their stubby legs. Sniffed at the air. Soon there would be more of the scavengers—all ribs and arseholes—lured by the reek of sun-cooked meat.
The lead dog stretched over the water, toward the body just out of reach. The second dog licked its chops. Yellow fangs. Greasy slobber.
Jimmy clapped his hands. The beasts ignored him.
Jack hated these assignments. Hated taking photos of the dead. Hated staring through a viewfinder at a stark reminder of his own mortality. It frightened him.
He glanced up at Jimmy. Saw the apprehension in the constable’s eyes, in the set of his mouth.
He’s waiting for someone. He’s waiting for his boss.
Jack looked away from the nervous constable, away from the pool, away from the body. He fixed on the island’s interior mountains, on the steam rising like thin smoke from their jungle-clad flanks. A pair of kakerori rode the air currents like delicate feathered kites. He could hear the distant pounding of surf on coral reef.
This is why people came to the Cook Islands, he thought. To sample paradise, South Pacific style.
What they didn’t expect to do was die.
Jack’s eyes returned to the pool.
And if they did return to their homeland in a wooden box, it was seldom the result of drowning. Tourists usually died of heart attacks triggered by too much exertion and too much heat. Unlike the locals. When Cook Islanders died in an accident, it was almost always on the roaddrunk, driving with a drunk, hit by a drunk. Alcohol was a merciless master.
“You need to leave.”
The urgency in the constable’s voice was unmistakable, despite being almost drowned out by the guttural sputtering of an approaching engine.
“He’s here,” Jimmy said.
Jack shoved his camera into its bag. He raised his eyebrows at Jimmy. He face-talked: Later, bro.
He wasn’t fast enough.
“Kia matakite!” A man bellowed behind him. “Be careful!”
“Hello, Karl.” Jack didn’t bother hiding his contempt as he turned. “I was wondering when you might grace us with your presence.”
“It’s Chief Inspector Lamu to you.”
Karl Lamu—400 pounds of fat and sweat—perched on a small scooter, its thin tires barely supporting the inspector’s bulk.
Lamu twisted the ignition key to silence the noisy engine and kicked the bike onto its stand. He brushed past Jack, the smell of rum and garlic left in his wake. Wrinkled uniform shirt untucked. Thick, callused feet shoved into a pair of cheap rubber jandals.
The dogs backed away, eyes ringed in white, fangs bared. Sensing danger.
Lamu stood by the pool, his gut extending over the water. Jack kept his distance. Jack might dislike most everything about Lamu—his swagger, his hair-trigger temper, his proclivity to bully—but there was no doubting the man was a good cop. Mess up on Rarotonga and you met Karl Lamu. You seldom messed up again.
“What do we have here?” Lamu said.
Jimmy Tauranga consulted a notebook. “White male, approximately 45 to 50 years old. Found at 1:20 p.m. by the maintenance man. Manager rang the police at 1:23. I arrived on the scene at 1:31.”
“Are there any other bruises or wounds, other than those I can see on his shoulders?” Lamu said. “Any distinguishing marks? Tattoos? Scars?”
“I haven’t turned him over”
“If you’ve finished babbling to the media, you might want to think about doing that.”
Jack winced at the sarcasm. He knew Jimmy from the paddling crowd at Muri Lagoon. Knew he was a good man and a strong competitor in the vaka. He could make the Cook Islands racing canoes fly across the water. He didn’t deserve to be embarrassed like this.
“Ambulance been called?”
Jimmy nodded.
“When the doctor arrives, have him officially pronounce,” Lamu said. “Then get the body out of the pool before it attracts any more of these bloody animals.”
Lamu kicked a chair at the lingering dogs. They yelped. They scurried out of range. They didn’t go far.
“Aren’t you just a little bit curious who this guy is?” Jack said.
Lamu stomped away from the pool. “Another drunk tourist who thought he was a fish.” He wagged a finger under Jack’s nose as he passed. “Tell Dempster if he prints that quote, his house will burn.”
“You think this was an accident?” Jack said to the broad expanse of Lamu’s back. “What about those bruises?”
Lamu stopped. He turned. It was a deliberate motion, designed to intimidate. His scowl deepened. His thick eyebrows formed a single horizontal storm cloud.
“You’ve been watching too much TV, my papa’a friend,” Lamu said. “You should go back to writing books and leave police work to the professionals.”
He pointed his chin at Jimmy. “Take care of this,” he said. “I have other duties to attend to.”
Jack and the constable exchanged glances. They both knew about Lamu’s duties. They had nothing to do with police work.
2
Jack stopped his Toyota truck where the driveway of the Outrigger Villas met the single coastal road that followed Rarotonga’s nearly circular perimeter.
The Villas sat on the southwest edge of the island, between the districts of Vaimaanga and Arorangi. The Tribune had its office in the primary town of Avarua, located almost dead center on the north coast.
A left turn would take him to Avarua, where Jack could download his camera at an office computer and relate what he knew about the dead man.
A right turn would take him home. To his house in Matavera. To the cinder block bungalow sitting on a quiet stretch of coastline where the island dropped its shoulder to the northeast. He could use his own equipment to e-mail photos and notes to the newspaper.
Jack adjusted the volume on the truck’s radio while gauging his desire to endure both Lloyd Dempster and Karl Lamu in the same afternoon.
“—listening to the Great and Wonderful Johno on Radio Raro. This is Teen Scene, the show where you tell us what to play. Hip-hop, rap, power ballads, emo, techno: we’ve got ’em all.”
Perfect, Jack thought. Every kind of music I detest.
He really did need a CD deck.
“You know the number, so ring us and request a song,” the DJ said.
Jack stared at the radio, cocking his ear at the announcer’s voice. He did this every time he listened to the Great and Wonderful Johno. Trying to nail down the man’s accent. A fellow American? Washington state, maybe, or Oregon. Somewhere West Coast and north. Maybe even Canadian.
He was a long way from home, wherever it was.
“I can send it out to your best friends, your netball teammates, your school mates, or even someone you looooove,” Johno said.
Jack groaned at how the final word was drawn out. Someone had been a keen student at broadcast school.
“Kia orana, Johno.” A young girl’s voice, reedy from being filtered through the studio phone. “It’s Shaggy.”
“Hey, Shaggy. How’s my special shop girl?”
“I’m doing fine, thanks. I’d like to make the next dedication to you because you’re da bomb.”
Nice gig if you can get it, Jack thought. Play their music, let them talk on the radio, and the girlies will fall all over you. He wondered how old Johno really was—he didn’t sound like a teenager.
“Ah, Shaggy, I bet you say that to all the boys. What would you like to hear?”
“I’m requesting your favorite song, Johno. You’re My Mate by Right Said Fred.”
“Thanks, Shaggy, I’ll get that right on. And, speaking of mates, in the studio today is my lovely co-host Michelle Cha—”
A horn honked. Jack’s head snapped up. He flicked off the radio.
“Jack, my friend!”
A converted all-terrain vehicle blocked the driveway, panels striped in green and yellow, Mountain Motor Tours stenciled on its side.
A broad brown face, hedged by a bushy beard, protruded from the driver’s window. “Are you sleeping at the wheel again?”
Jack hopped out of his truck.
“Kia orana, Captain Tai,” he said in greeting.
He clasped the man’s outstretched hand. Captain Tai nodded past Jack in the direction of the Villas.
“Did you see the body?” he said in a whisper, cutting his eyes at the passenger area in the back of his vehicle.
“How could you possibly know about that? The police just got here themselves, for Christ’s sake.”
Captain Tai winked. He laughed. White teeth gleamed through the fringe surrounding his mouth. He patted Jack’s arm.
“Coconut wireless, mate,” he said. “It works like a charm. Your unfortunate white man up there was barely dead before the news was already spreading.”
Jack shook his head. “Why does Lloyd Dempster even bother with a newspaper? It’d be cheaper to pay for your petrol and have you drive around the island shouting headlines out the window.”
Captain Tai shrugged. “Someone has to keep you in beer until you get around to writing your next book.”
“I don’t suppose the coconut wireless happened to mention just how he died?”
Another laugh. “If gossip solved crimes, I’d be the Chief Inspector and Lamu would never have to leave the bar at the Ocean Beach Resort.”
“You told me once that you know everything about this island,” Jack said.
“And one day you will believe that.”
“So why don’t you know everything about this death?”
Captain Tai tapped his forehead. “That’s because it has very little to do with Rarotonga,” he said. “Not yet, anyway. But when it does affect my home, my people, you will be the first person I ring.”
Jack rapped the vehicle’s door with his knuckles. “I appreciate that.”
“And you will owe me a beer.”
“Fair enough.”
Jack looked at the small group of tourists perched on the metal seats in the back of the truck. They were all papa’a: cargo shorts, hiking boots, tropical shirts. The usual. They were all men. That was unusual.
“What’s the deal with this bunch?”
Captain Tai shrugged. “Tourists,” he said. Jack detected the depth of resignation contained in that single word.
“I’m not even sure how much English they know,” Captain Tai said, “because they’ve been pretty quiet. The good news is they’re all staying at the Breaker Point Lodges, so I only had to make one stop.”
He wiped a hairy forearm across his crinkled brow. A small fleck of coconut meat peeked out from the rat’s nest clinging to his chin. “The bad news is I’m not really saving any petrol.”
“How’s that?”
Captain Tai jabbed a thumb towards the back. “See the big bloke?”
It was easy to pick him out—hulking, broad-shouldered, short blond hair. A ragged scrap of scar tissue under one eye marred a flat Slavic face. It looked like wax from a melting candle had splashed onto his cheek and hardened into place.
“The one who looks like a rugby player?”
“That’s the one,” Captain Tai said. “He’s the only one who talks to me. He grunted something about he and his mates being here for some kind of a conference on worldwide education. They had me drive past Avarua College before we left town. That’s not on the tour route, and it was slow going because the students were just being let out for the day, but as long as they’re paying, I’m driving.”
“The college, eh?” Jack watched as the passengers conversed in hushed tones. Fingers stabbing at wristwatches indicated they were starting to question the delay.
“Mariko had a group from the same conference out this morning, and he said they asked him to drive by Titikaveka College,” said Captain Tai. “I’m guessing part of the reason they’re here is to evaluate our school system.”
He laughed. “Not that it taught me anything because I was born smart. That’s the sign of a true Cook Islander.”
He shook Jack’s hand again, coaxed the 4x4 into gear and rumbled off. Jack watched the truck pull away. Several of its passengers stared blankly at him.
For tourists in paradise, they don’t appear particularly happy, Jack thought. Must be a boring conference.
3
Jack turned left out of the driveway. He would go into Avarua. He would go to the office.
The November heat was intense, but Jack enjoyed its grip. It was January and February he disliked, when a soggy sheath of humidity magnified the sun’s intensity. All you could do then was drink plenty of fluids and refrain from anything strenuous. The locals had a saying for it: no hurry, no worry. Live life on island time. It was advice best heeded.
But today was a postcard brought to life. The breeze against Jack’s face was a perfume of gardenia, jasmine, plumeria and frangipani. Through gaps in the coconut palms and casuarinas to his left, Jack caught glimpses of the lagoon’s rippled teal surface. The blossoms of the flamboyant trees added a crimson punctuation to the scene.
This natural palette was just one of the reasons he’d vowed never to return to North America. Why he was content to live the rest of his life on this island.
He passed a dairy on the right and, just past the small store, spotted a group of local girls huddled on the side of the road.
Five of them—mid-teens, wearing identical school uniforms consisting of white blouses and chocolate-brown skirts. Barefoot, for the most part. Eating vanilla ice cream from sugar cones as they conversed. The contrast of the frozen white treat against their dark complexions triggered a professional reflex in Jack.
He pulled onto the shoulder, dug out his camera and twisted on a telephoto lens. Turning in his seat, he leaned out the window to work the focus ring.
Too absorbed in their conversation to notice him, the girls continued to chatter, their words frequently bookended by exclamation marks of laughter.
Jack recognized two of them. The short, pretty one was Maeva Benning. Her grandfather, a rugged granite block of a Scotsman named Alex, owned the Raro Railway, a popular tourist destination.
The second girl was Helani. He knew her from the Catholic cathedral in Avarua where she helped Father Conlan conduct mass each Sunday morning. Jack’s appearances at the cathedral were rare—Mother’s Day, Christmas—and were little more than a nod to his parents, who’d provided Jack and his brother Porter with a Catholic upbringing.
In an effort to endear himself to his neighbors in Matavera, he’d initially attended the village’s Cook Islands Christian Church. Now he was a member of the Rev. Albert Smail’s flock at the Church of Christ’s Blood.
It was the hymns that prompted Jack to endure long pants and a real shirt once a week. Cook Islanders have magnificent voices, and their harmony-laden hymnal singing—the rich interweaving of voices raised to the Almighty, reverberating off the thick coral walls of the old churches—could stir anyone’s soul. Even one as dog-eared as Jack’s.
Pink tongues darted while he depressed the shutter release. Tiny eels emerging from moist caves to lap at sticky rivulets of melting ice cream.
The girls’ thick black hair was plaited into braids or buns, revealing high, smooth foreheads. Their noses, some broad, others aquiline, wrinkled and flared in the hot air. White teeth flashed from between full lips while hibiscus blossoms, tucked jauntily behind ears, nodded with each movement.
Jack peered through the camera’s viewfinder. He felt a pang of guilt at his invasion of the girls’ privacy, but he was too intrigued by the non-verbal aspects of their conversation to put the camera down just yet.
He was constantly amazed by how the locals could communicate with a minimal use of words. Instead of their voices, they would utilize fluttered eyelids or hoisted eyebrows. A flick of the head could convey an entire sentence. A nod was as good as a paragraph. A jut of the chin spoke volumes.
It was a form of oral shorthand Jack had dubbed ‘face-talking.’
He fired off several more shots, then lowered the camera. He took one last look at the girls as he pulled onto the road.
He loved Polynesian women. The dusky tint of their skin, the enticing thickness of their hair. The slight hint of unspoken concern or worry that played around their eyes and drew down the corners of their mouths.
Jack loved the promise of mischief that could flicker to life at the edges of a coy grin. The glint of wickedness that occasionally rose to the surface from the luminous depths of huge dark eyes.
He was intrigued by the kindness instantly bestowed upon strangers, himself included, and flattered by the attention he received everywhere he went. He found this affability as attractive as the gleam of eager teeth or the fierce seductiveness implicit in the frenzied motions of the traditional dances.
Jack was considered somewhat of a prize in his early days on the island—a papa’a with money—and he seldom lacked for companionship.
What Jack encountered in dim bedrooms, on starlit beaches, were genies of desire waiting only for his touch to unleash them from tattooed vessels of savage sinew and ancient bone. He watched, mute with febrile appreciation, as hair, finally emancipated from the confinements of the cooling braid, gleamed blackly in candlelight. How coffee-colored nipples shivered into knots of pleasure as his tongue teased over them.
The sex was frequent and unfettered and very, very loud.
And, for a couple hours at least—as his cheek rested lightly on a flat tummy and the sweat of exertion dried in the blast furnace of the night—Jack was able to forget he no longer possessed the gift that had once defined him as a man.
4
WALNUT GROVE, 1996
“This is the best frickin’ book I’ve read in years!”
“I—”
“You’re a genius, kid. An A-1 grade genius, I tell ya.”
“I—”
“I’m going to make both of us very rich, my fine young cannibal. Filthy rich. You hearing me? Hello? You still there?”
“Yes. Excuse me?”
“—all the way to the top . . . What?”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name.”
“This is Ray Chimera. What, you nuts? Ain’t you Jack Nolan?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t you send your book—hang on, here it is—Resurrection Waters, to the Chimera Literary Agency?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you live, anyway? I got your query letter around here somewhere.”
“I’m in Walnut Grove.”
“Walnut what? Where in the hell is that?”
“We’re in Washington. Just outside Seattle.”
“Oh, right. Seattle. You guys still marry your sisters up there?”
“I—“
“Nevermind. Listen, buckaroo, you haven’t sent your manuscript out to anybody else, have you?”
“Maybe. Why? Is that a bad thing?”
“Bad thing? Bad thing! Judas priest! Rank amateurs, the rat-bastard lot of them. Listen, kid. Jack?”
“I’m still here, Mr. Chimera.”
“Call me Ray. OK, this is what you do. I’m going to courier you a ticket to Los Angeles. Soon as it arrives, you fly straight down here, understand? Someone will pick you up at LAX. I’ll get all the paperwork ready to sign. Let’s make a crap-load of money, shall we?”
“Mr. Chimera? Ray?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really like my book?”
“You bet your ass, kiddo. You bet your frickin’ ass.”
Jack was 25 years old.
He still lived in his parents’ house.
He had written one book.
He thought his dreams had just come true.
He had no idea.
5
Lloyd Dempster contemplated the motivation behind Miss December’s various piercings. His office phone trilled.
“Are you choking the moko again?”
“Hello, Sofia.”
Dempster idly contemplated the psychic abilities of wives as Sofia droned into his ear.
Using his free hand, Dempster carefully refolded the magazine’s center pages. He opened the top drawer of his desk, placed the magazine on last month’s issue. He licked his forefinger, used it to caress the cover model’s face.
“Yes, dear,” he said quickly as Sofia stopped for a breath.
Psychic? Perhaps. All-seeing? Hardly. Sofia had never picked up on all the little birds Dempster played with when he was supposed to be working late at the Tribune office. Then again, maybe she didn’t much care where he was, just as long as he wasn’t bothering her. Bitch.
“Are you writing this down, Lloyd?”
“Uh, just grabbing a pen, dear.”
“I know exactly what you’re grabbing, you pervert,” Sofia said. “Now get your hand out of your shorts and start taking notes. The French ambassador is going to be here and I want this party to be perfect.”
“OK,” Dempster said, shifting his gaze to the ceiling as if seeking divine intervention. “I’m ready.”
“Good. We’ll start with some fresh tuna. Get some from that Roger fellow at the Rocket Bar. He seems to have good contacts with the local fishermen. And—”
Dempster glanced out his office window. He smiled—all lips, no teeth. Divine intervention had struck after all.
“Sofia? Darling? I have to go. Bye.”
Lloyd Dempster slammed the phone down and launched out of his chair.
“Do you have any idea what a deadline is?”
Jack stopped in his tracks at the sound of Dempster’s bellowing. So much for sneaking in.
Jack considered the man an arsehole of the grandest design. The man was loud, browbeating, English, and the No 1 reason why Jack refused to join The Tribune’s full-time staff. Jordan Baxter and the local stringers were welcome to take the abuse. Jack had been married once. He’d already absorbed his quota of abuse for this lifetime.
Lloyd Dempster was one of the most powerful men in the Cook Islands. He’d taken over a faltering newspaper from the government and, with that big stick in his arsenal, soon added the country’s only radio and TV stations to his media empire. He sat on the board of Telecom and had his sticky fingers in several other ventures, from a condo development to the only vehicle rental company serving the airport.
He was still an arsehole.
Dempster waved Jack closer.
“I—” Jack began.
“Close it,” Dempster said. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“I—”
“Good, then you can take pictures at a party I’m hosting for the French ambassador,” Dempster said. “There’s going to be quite an assortment of the high-and-mighty on hand and I want a photo page of them eating my famous barbecued tuna.”
“You never go near the barbecue,” Jack said under his breath.
“Pardon me?”
“I said I’d be there.”
“Good boy.”
It wasn’t a tough decision. Party equaled free alcohol. Plus the Dempsters owned a spa pool. A good hot soak was the best way to end a workday.
“Now let’s go see what you’ve got for me,” Dempster said.
Jack followed the Englishman down a short hallway, through a doorway and into a large office. A window in the far wall provided a view of an ancient printing press. The contraption belched and squealed, the roar of its churning guts barely muted by the wall between the rooms. Jack could feel the vibrations from the clanking device in his feet.
A pair of local men, their ears covered by orange plastic ear protectors, bundled up color flyers advertising a supermarket’s weekend sale of tomato sauce and fresh taro.
Jack nodded to the newsroom’s two occupants, where they perched at desks in front of computers.
Jordan Baxter flashed a quick smile as he glanced up from his keyboard.
The room, lacking any ventilation, was stifling and yet Baxter showed no indication of discomfort. He wore a white, long-sleeved shirt with a conservative tie knotted tightly under his chin. His dress pants were woolen, his feet clad in brown leather shoes, carefully polished each morning before breakfast.
His hair was thinning and his narrow features culminated in a fading chin. His face was oddly wan for someone who had grown up in the tropics, a pencil-thin mustache its one redeeming quality.
A scoundrel with a notepad, Baxter was infamous throughout the country’s fifteen islands for mangling direct quotes. He personified the cliché of never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.
Dempster tapped his wedding ring on the window to get the workers’ attention. He drew a finger across his throat. One of the men slapped at a large, red button and the printing press shuddered and wheezed into silence.
“The prodigal photographer returns,” Baxter said. “Did you get art for us?”
“Shut your pie hole, Jordan,” Dempster said, “and let me ask the questions around here.” He turned to Jack. “Do you have a photo?”
Jack glanced at the other newsroom employee. Mona Vaevae was a local, robust with round features. She smiled up at Jack, rolling her eyes at Dempster’s performance. A genius at page design, it was really only Mona’s layout skills that gave The Tribune any resemblance at all to a real newspaper.
“There’s a couple you can choose from,” Jack said, handing his camera to Mona. She connected it to a USB cable snaking from the back of her computer tower. “All horizontal, however.”
Dempster fluttered his hand derisively. Jack wondered, not for the first time, if the man actually knew the difference between horizontal and vertical.
While the computer plucked images from Jack’s camera, he told Dempster what he knew of the incident at the Rarotonga Outrigger Villas. It wasn’t much.
“I’m way ahead of you, mate,” Baxter said. “My sources have already called me with details.” Baxter waved a notebook. “The deceased is one Gert Junger, a German national staying at the Breaker Point Lodges.”
“Breaker Point Lodges?” Jack said. “That’s on the other side of the island. What was he doing by himself in the Outrigger’s pool?
Baxter arched an eyebrow at Jack. It was a look he usually reserved for slow children. “How would I know? And does it really matter?”
Not to a hack like you, Jack thought.
“Anything else?” asked Dempster.
Baxter returned to his notes. “Not much. Only that he was here for some sort of educational conference.”
Jack perked up. Educational conference? He made a mental note to ask Captain Tai if any of his passengers had mentioned a missing colleague.
“Here we go.” Mona nodded at her monitor.
Jack leaned closer to the screen, studying each thumbnail image for focus and composition. It didn’t take long.
“That’s it? That’s all you got?” Dempster talked over Jack’s shoulder. “A big pink blob floating in the water?”
“That’s all there was to see,” Jack said. “Sorry if there isn’t more drama.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Dempster said. “Just try to do a better job.”
“Give me a break,” Jack said. “Karl Lamu hadn’t shown up yet so we couldn’t touch anything. And that so-called pink blob is all that’s left of some poor bugger.”
Dempster squinted at the images. “I can’t see his face. And there isn’t any blood.”
Jack pointed through the window at the printing press. “You make a lot of money off those flyers, Lloyd?”
“Almost all my profit most weeks. What’s your point?”
“Do you really want blood and gore on the front page?” Jack said. He talked slowly, evenly. It wouldn’t do to lose his temper. He’d save that for a bigger battle.
“I see that kind of shit staring at me on the dairy counter, I’m thinking, ‘I don’t want to look at that while I’m having breakfast,’ ” he said. “So I don’t buy the paper and I don’t see the flyer and Food Village doesn’t get my business. And maybe next time they think twice about advertising in The Tribune. Are you getting any of this?”
“Don’t patronize me,” Dempster said. His cheeks flushed a deeper red. Jack saw Mona’s head draw into her shoulders. Making herself a smaller target.
“I was merely inquiring,” Dempster said in a forced cadence, “if, experienced professional that you are, you might have thought to take another photo from a different angle. Apparently not.”
Dempster returned his attention to the monitor. He tapped a long fingernail on the second photo from the left.
“This one appears to be in focus,” he said. “Blow the shit out of it and,” he glanced at his watch, “make it fast. I’ve got a paper to put out tonight.”
As he stomped away, Baxter began to root through the stacks of paper on his desk. Jack ignored him. He watched his photo grow larger on Mona’s screen.
She made one final adjustment, then sat back to admire her handiwork.
“Any bigger and the pixels will blow out,” she said.
Jack didn’t answer. He was staring at the screen.
“You see that?” He touched the screen with a knuckle.
“It’s a scratch,” Mona said. “I tell you to replace that old skylight filter every time you’re in here.”
“I can see the scratch,” he said. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Look. There, on the ankle.”
“It’s a blotch of some kind,” Mona said. “A birthmark maybe. Didn’t you notice that when you were there?”
Jack straightened up. “Cyclone Lamu blew in right after I arrived. I was bloody lucky to get this lot before he started chewing on my arse. Can you enhance that ankle area a bit more?”
“I can try.”
Mona’s fingers skittered across her keyboard. A black outline appeared on the screen. She used the arrow keys to place it over the dead man’s ankle. She tapped a key. The image inside the black lines grew larger. She stopped.
“That’s as big as I can go before it becomes pixilated.”
Jack studied the image: a man’s leg, covered in coarse hair. Just above the anklebone, something black and red. An illustration.
“It’s not a birthmark,” he said. “It’s a tattoo.”
“I think you’re right,” said Mona. “Good eye . . . for a photographer.” She laughed at her own joke. “What do you make of it?”
Jack stepped back. He tilted his head. “It’s an animal of some kind. A dog maybe.”
“That’s one ugly—”
“Got it!” Jordan Baxter shouted from behind Jack. “What do you think?”
Jack turned to the reporter. Baxter thrust a magazine into his hand.
It was the latest edition of Surfie Chicks. The cover featured a young Polynesian woman. Her fluorescent green swimsuit accentuated a body sleek as a seal. She was holding a yellow surfboard tightly to one hip as a gentle surf swirled around her ankles. Behind her, small white clouds tacked across a sky that was painfully blue.
Her dark hair hung in wet curls, framing a face that was nearly expressionless as she stared into the camera. A slight uplifting of her chin was the only indication there was some attitude behind the blank exterior.
Jack looked up at Baxter. “OK. And?”
“Take another look,” Baxter said.
Jack tilted the magazine to the light from the window. The surfer was attractive. No argument there. And the cover shot certainly incorporated the essentials: teeth, tits, thong.
“The photo’s been airbrushed,” was all he could think to say. Seeing the look of exasperation on Baxter’s face, he quickly read the cover copy out loud. “‘Chaka Tane: Rapa Nui’s Surfing Siren.’ Am I supposed to be impressed?”
Jack returned the magazine to Baxter. The reporter cradled the publication with both hands, as if it were a priceless family heirloom. “What do you think of her?”
Jack looked at Mona. “Maybe this is a test to see whether or not you’re gay,” she said.
“What?” Baxter frowned as he processed her words. “No, no, no,” he finally said. “You are both such heathens. What I’m trying to do here is introduce my new girlfriend.”
Jack’s laugh was abrupt and harsh. It was cruel.
Baxter’s announcement had caught him by surprise. The assumption that a woman who looked like Chaka Tane would have anything to do with Jordan Baxter was too absurd to contemplate.
Baxter placed the magazine on his desk, smoothed the cover with his fingers.
“Sure, laugh at me now, Jackie boy,” he said. The thin line of his mustache quivered with every word. “But we’ll see who’s laughing tomorrow night when I bring her to Mr. Dempster’s party.”
“She’s surfing here?” Mona frowned.
“Oh, she’s doing much more than surfing,” Baxter said. “She’s hosting a documentary on the best surfing spots in the South Pacific. She even brought a film crew with her from Tahiti.”
“But the surfing here isn’t that great,” Mona said. “You have to be careful the reef doesn’t cut you to shreds.”
“Well, sure, it’s no Banzai Pipeline, but Chaka says she’s still getting some sweet footage.”
Baxter slammed down into his chair.
“Now let’s have less chatting and more tapping,” he said to Mona. “We’ve got a paper to put out and I just happen to have the perfect story for the front page.”
He made a dismissive gesture. “Goodbye, Jack.”
6
LOS ANGELES, 1997
“Hello, Jack!”
Disco was dead and buried. Someone had forgotten to tell Ray Chimera.
Jack hesitated at the entrance to the Magellan Royale Hotel’s Revelation Room. He stared in disbelief as Ray scurried toward him.
I couldn’t even invent a character this ridiculous, Jack thought as he gaped at his agent’s ensemble.
Ray’s leisure suit was powder blue. Under the jacket, a wide-collared paisley shirt gaped at the chest, revealing layers of gold chains glittering amidst the matted hair. Clunky rings caught the light as the agent’s soft, damp hands fluttered. His hair as black and slick as an oil spill.
Ray intercepted a waitress bearing a silver tray filled with Champagne glasses. The woman was dressed in a toga and very little else. Ray grabbed two glasses. Handed one to Jack, took a long swallow from the other.
Ray smacked his lips loudly. Waved an arm to encompass the room.
“Whaddya think, kiddo? Pretty smooth, huh?”
Jack stared at the Revelation Room. It was ostentatious. It was gaudy. It wasn’t on the same planet as “smooth.”
But this is where Ray had organized the book launch for Resurrection Waters, so Jack felt obliged to nod and smile and fight the urge to turn and run for his life.
It will all be over soon, he told himself. And then he could take the advance from William Burch & Sons and go home.
Nod and smile, baby, nod and smile.
The Revelation Room wasn’t spacious to begin with. Now, bolts of white cloth, draped in folds along the walls, made it appear even smaller, even closer. Jack sensed the room hunching under the heft of the decorations, hugging itself in embarrassment at the tackiness.
Jack knew the feeling.
Massive pillars constructed of lightweight wood and coated with plaster—carved and painted to resemble marble—stood in each corner. A large buffet table straddling the center of the room was the focal point for a crowd of strangers too busy filling their plates to make eye contact or small talk.
On one side of the room, inflatable coconut palms surrounded a portable hot tub. Lounging around the water feature was a collection of young women dressed in one-piece bathing suits cut both low and high.
Jack stared at the decorations—the faux marble, the plastic trees, the togas—and realized with a sickening jolt they were meant to represent the small Greek village that provided the setting for the final third of his book. The hot tub would be the Tear Pool, which figured so prominently in the book’s dénouement.
Jack was torn between bemusement and disgust.
Ray Chimera was an illusionist. He was a magician. With one wave of his checkbook he had managed to transform Jack’s words into shit.
Ray clapped Jack on the back. Champagne sloshed.
“I almost forgot to tell you the good news,” Ray said. He was smiling but his face muscles remained strangely fixed and unmoving. “See that big fella over there?” Ray pointed with his glass. “By the pool?”
Jack bobbed his head until he picked out the man. He was huge indeed—six-five, maybe, a good 350—but his suit was tasteful and impeccably cut. It conveyed an image of wealth and an attention to detail that deflected attention from the man’s considerable girth.
“That’s Paul Stengler, head of Citation Films,” Ray said, his words bursting with importance.
“OK.”
“We’re so far past OK we can’t even see it anymore, kiddo.” Ray clinked Jack’s glass with his own. “Paul Stengler is interested in buying the movie rights to your book. Are you hearing me?”
Jack stared. “You’re shitting me.”
“I make a point of never shitting at my own parties,” Ray said. “Not only that, he wants me to produce. He’s scheduled an interview tomorrow with Silver Screen Weekly to announce his plans.”
Jack fumbled for words. They wouldn’t come. He settled for remembering to breathe.
Ray leaned in close, gave Jack a light punch in the chest. “There’s even rumors on the street,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “that Shia and Mark are interested in playing the lead.”
Jack realized he was grinning like the village idiot. He didn’t care. His head seemed filled with helium. He wouldn’t vouch that his legs still worked. All he heard was white noise. The people moving around them were little more than blurs. The alcohol or Ray’s news—something was messing with his senses.
Jack tore his eyes away from Ray’s smug face. He scanned the room again for Paul Stengler. Found him. Found more.
Stengler was deep in conversation with a young woman. Blond hair fell past her shoulders. Her black dress, dipping dangerously low in front, clung tightly to her contours. Her posture erect, confident.
Ray was talking again, yammering on about something. Jack ignored him. Ray stopped in mid-sentence to look up at Jack, then followed his gaze across the room.
“Oh good,” Ray said. “Nile’s here.”
“You know her?”
“That’s Nile Ramsay, Paul Stengler’s PA at Citation.”
Ray waved. Nile, glancing away from Stengler for an instant, caught the movement. She raised her glass in salute. Ray motioned her over. Nile touched Stengler on the sleeve, said something, moved away.
“What are you doing?” Jack grimaced as he recognized the terror in his voice.
“I want you two to meet,” Ray said, sipping at his drink. “Don’t worry, she won’t bite.” Ray leered over his glass. “Unless you want her to.”
Jack stared as Nile threaded her way through the crowd. Her movements were cat-like. They were fluid. A measure of confidence in every gesture.
“She’s pretty.”
Ray snorted. “Christ, you really are from the sticks.”
Nile suddenly materialized in front of them.
“Nile, my dear, you look good enough to eat.” Ray stood on tiptoe to peck at her cheek. Nile threw air kisses at Ray, her eyes never leaving Jack’s face.
“Who’s this yummy young man?” she said. Her voice was husky. Issuing from a chamber deep in her throat. Something stirred in Jack’s pants.
“This is Jack Nolan,” Ray said, stepping aside as Nile pushed in closer. “The guest of honor.”
The slit in the front of Nile’s dress gaped as she moved, revealing flesh that was round and pink and enticing. Jack clenched his fists, willed himself to stare into Nile’s eyes. They were hazel—green lines radiated from the iris. Jack wondered if she wore contacts. Jack wondered if she was wearing anything under the dress.
He held out his hand. Nile ignored it. She embraced him, brushed her lips against his ear.
“Pleased to meet you,” she whispered. The hairs on the nape of his neck snapped to attention as if jolted by electricity.
Ray held up his glass. “Oh dear,” he said. “Look at me, fresh out. Can I trust you two kids alone for a minute?”
“Take your time,” Nile said.
Nile Ramsay was even more devastating up close. Tall, willowy, plush. Her skin smooth and clear. Her hair channeled sunshine, even inside the room. Her lipstick was filled with sparkles. Tiny fireworks exploded whenever she spoke.
Jack blushed. What do I say?
Nile, accustomed to having this effect on weak men, said, “Ray sure knows how to throw a party, doesn’t he?”
Jack nodded.
“He spent some serious coin here, Jack,” she said. “He must really believe in you.”
Nile’s eyes navigated the room. “I’m guessing it’s a celebration of both your success and the end of his dry spell.”
Jack found his voice. “Dry spell?”
Nile turned back to him. “Yes,” she said, the words igniting more fireworks. “Poor, dear Ray. It’s been nearly three years between home runs for him. You came along just in time.” She smiled. Her lips were mirror balls. “We were beginning to think the poor man was finished.”
Jack pondered this new development. Ray had never mentioned a dry spell. What else had he failed to mention?
Silence slipped between them like an uninvited guest. Nile was suddenly very interested in the condition of her nails.
“What kind of name is Nile?” Jack said. Ah, shit. What are you doing?
She cocked a carefully plucked eyebrow. “You might want to ask the Egyptians.” Her smile thin. No explosions this time. “I believe it’s the name of a big river in their backyard.”
Jack reddened again. His face hot. His underarms damp.
“I’m sorry,” he said, fighting not to stammer. “I wasn’t making fun of you. It’s a pretty name, actually. An . . . an unusual name.”
The eyebrow hovered for a second longer before unfurling.
“It was my parents’ idea of being creative,” she said. “Or cute. I’m not sure which. Apparently their second choice was Catillion.”
“Ouch.”
“Ouch, indeed.” She wrapped her spangled lips around the edge of her glass. “I may purr like a kitten, but no way do I want anyone calling me Cat.” She pointed her glass at him. “What kind of accent is that?”
A welcome rinse of coolant coursed through his body. The early awkwardness appeared to be fading. “I’m from Washington.”
“Really?” Nile’s eyes widened. Her spine straightened.
“I just adore politicians,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a senator for a daddy, would you?”
Jack’s mouth moved. Nothing came out. What?
“I once got as close to the president as I am to you,” Nile said. “And then some nasty Secret Service man shoved right in front of me. How rude! If I remember correctly, he broke one of my nails. Positively ruined my whole day.”
Somewhere in Jack’s brain, a warning light glowed into life. She’s kidding, right? Right?
Jack moved his mouth. This time it worked.
“Actually, I’m from Washington state,” he said. “But that’s OK, lots of people get the two mixed up. Actually, it’s happened a lot to me since I got to L.A.”
Nile’s blanked for a second—not a single thought disturbed the placid, bronzed surface of her face— and then she laughed. The sound was sharp. High-pitched. Forced.
She swallowed the last of her Champagne in a hurried gulp. Scanned the room for a refill.
Jack’s internal warning light flashed. Here there be dragons.
Nile spotted a waiter with a full tray. She patted Jack’s hand. “I’ll be right back.” And was gone.
Ray materialized. He nudged Jack’s ribs with a bony elbow.
“Whaddya think?”
Jack chewed on his lower lip.
“What’s with the long face?” Ray was confused. “Tits not big enough for ya?”
“Ray.” Jack once again fought the urge to sprint from the Revelation Room.
“She can always have them enlarged.”
“Ray.” Jack’s voice was sharp. It cut Ray short, got his attention.
Jack lowered his head to speak directly into his agent’s face.
“I don’t think she knows where Washington state is,” he said.
“So what?” Ray was puzzled. “You make that sound like a bad thing. Tell ya something, kiddo, most of the people in this city don’t know where their asses are half the time, never mind some state up north. And you know what? Nobody freakin’ cares.”
Jack flattened against the wall. “If these people are going to pretend to be my friends, they should at least know something about me.”
“Listen, kid, piece of advice.” Ray exhaled Champagne fumes. “And this is free, so you might want to write it down. These people don’t give two shits about you. They’re here to eat my food and drink my booze. They’ve never read your book and, what’s more, they ain’t never going to read it. As for Nile? She’s only looking to get laid. And she ain’t that particular, I can tell you that for a fact.”
Ray stabbed a finger into Jack’s chest.
“So that just leaves me and you, kid. And that’s all that really matters in the end, understand me? We’re a team, Jack, a team. Now lighten up, will ya. You only sell your first novel once, so shut up and have some fun.”
7
Chickens scattered as Jack braked on the forecourt of the Matavera Beach Store.
His house was situated on the adjacent property, with only an overgrown hedge separating it from the dairy. He could have parked in his own yard and walked over. But not today. Not after Karl Lamu and Lloyd Dempster. Not after Jordan Baxter.
Daylight was fading but the heat lingered. The air was thick inside the shop. Jack felt as if he were wading through it.
Bread shelves to the left. Further along the same wall, two freezers gurgled and clanked. Against the back wall sat a pair of upright chillers, glass-faced sarcophagi filled with bottles and cans—fizzy drinks and juice and beer. A long counter on the right separated customers from a three-tiered row of shelves filled with sundries. A sad collection of videos, cardboard display cases faded and dusty, lay scattered across a top shelf.
A cash register squatted on the counter, a stack of Island Tribunes propped against it. Lloyd Dempster paid extra for this kind of prime location.
Jack grabbed three unsliced loaves. When the bakery truck had made its delivery before dawn this morning, these had been soft and still warm from the oven. Now the crusts were hard. The edges crumbled between Jack’s fingers. Doughy flakes lay like snow on the wooden floorboards.
Jack had no concerns about freshness—he wasn’t expecting any complaints.
He placed the loaves on the counter while he rooted through the zippered compartments in his hiking shorts on the off chance they might contain a spare gold coin or two. He came up empty, as he’d anticipated.
He seldom kept coins in his pockets. He disliked the weight of them, disliked the sound of them clinking together. Instead, he regularly deposited them in a glass jar, his island version of a piggy bank. But the jar was in his kitchen. On the other side of the hedge.
“Chicken bread again, eh Jacko?”
Mama Rosie perched on a high, wooden stool behind the cash register like a withered bird. Her brown face was carved deep by age, its skin hanging in slack sheets from her cheekbones. What teeth she still possessed were scattered haphazardly around her gums, askew and stained. Flesh drooped in wrinkled flaps from her stick arms where they poked out of her pareu. Her hands littered with liver spots.
Mama Rosie wore a kerchief on her head. The hair poking out of it was the color of dull ivory. Her eyes were opaque, as if they’d been soaked in milk.
Mama Rosie knew everything that happened in the village: who was cheating on their partner, who was the real father of that girl’s baby, who had just mortgaged their land for a new ute.
She knew the history and legends of the Cook Islands.
She knew how the English missionaries forced the islanders to relocate from the valleys to the coast, the better to facilitate the conversion process. The better to speed up the process of banishing the old gods and placing thick clothing on these naked brown children of Adam.
She knew how, in the time when human flesh was still a desirable part of the island diet, cannibals would steal into the churches and club the new Christians, before dragging the battered bodies up the valleys, stealing away through the thick growths of Polynesian Chestnuts and Homalium.
Moving away from the coast. Away from the papa’as and their black book—their Good Book—and their dour, frowning faces. Away from a god they did not worship and had no use for.
Jack patted fruitlessly at his pockets one final time, then pulled out his wallet and placed a five-dollar note beside the bread. Mama Rosie picked up the bill, held it close to her face, studying it. She poked at the cash register.
“You spoil those chooks by giving them bread,” she said. “Once you have chickens in your yard, you’ll never sleep.”
Jack nodded. He waited for his change. He’d heard this advice before.
“You should spend your money on children instead.” Mama Rosie reached over to pat the back of Jack’s hand. She turned it over. She dropped change into his palm. Fresh coins for the glass jar.
“Before I have children, there might actually have to be a woman in my life,” Jack said. “I’ve heard that it works better that way.”
“You want Mama Rosie to introduce you to someone?” Her wide smile was gummy and pink and wet. “I know lots of nice local girls in Matavera who’d love to have children with a handsome papa’a man like you.”
Jack backed away. He tucked the loaves under his arm.
“Thanks for the kind offer,” he said. “But I think I’ll stick with the chooks for now. At least they eat the centipedes.”
Several chickens waited for him outside the store. Tilting their heads. Regarding him with impatience. With hunger. Always with the hunger.
He recognized most of them from his yard. Cheeky little buggers, he thought. No patience whatsoever.
He tore the top from one of the loaves, flipped it to the ground. A fat hen pounced on it. A juvenile rooster, jaunty tail feathers catching the last of the sunshine, attempted to snatch the piece from her beak. The two of them staggered into the hedge, quickly followed by several other chooks.
Mama Rosie was correct. The flock was noisy. The roosters crowed night and day. But they ate the centipedes and that made them invaluable.
More valuable even than sleep.
Jack had his own story to tell about the island, and it was just as frightening as any of Mama Rosie’s tales.
The ants didn’t bother him. Neither did the flies or the wasps or the mozzies. But a centipede—six thick inches of pure nasty— nearly finished him.
He’d been fumbling behind the couch for the remote control. Had instead encountered a centipede. Displeased with being disturbed, it had clamped its jaws into the meat of his right thumb.
Less than an hour later, Jack knew he was in trouble. Big trouble. His thumb throbbed with pain in thudding cadence with his heartbeat. His hand swelled until he could barely move it. His stomach lurched. His tongue grew thick and gummy.
He staggered into the dairy. Wheezing and flushed and burning up.
Mama Rosie’s fingers flew to the telephone.
Dr. Rangi met the ambulance at the Emergency Room entrance. He listened to Jack’s tortured breathing. He examined Jack’s swollen hand. The diagnosis was swift—anaphylactic shock.
Dr. Rangi administered an injection of epinephrine. He placed an oxygen mask, complete with a Ventolin nebulizer, over Jack’s face. Once Jack’s system stabilized, once his breathing slowed, the doctor started him on a program of Hydrocortisone and Benadryl, with fluids to counteract the insect venom’s effect.
“You suffered an allergic reaction to the centipede bite,” Dr. Rangi told him later. “What’s known as an IgE antibody response. With some people, a bee sting or a hornet causes this. With you, it was a centipede.”
“How much danger was I in?” Jack said.
“If you’d waited much longer to get help, your throat could have closed up completely,” Dr. Rangi said. “Within minutes you would have suffocated and—”
“And what?”
“And you would have died.”
Jack stared at the ceiling in the hospital ward. He had written about death. He had killed off characters and then gone out for dinner and a nice bottle of chilled wine. This reality—his reality—was not so easily shrugged off.
“What can I do?”
Dr. Rangi peered over his glasses. “Don’t get bit again,” he said. “And feed any chickens who wander into your yard.”
Jack drove along the shoulder.
Ten feet past the dairy, he made a hard left into his driveway. He drove past the side of his house. Past the wooden statute of Tangaroa, the god of the sea and fertility, its over-sized penis dragging in the flowerbed, and around to the back.
There was nothing flash about his rented bungalow. It was typical of many others on Rarotonga—walls of concrete blocks broken up by several rows of louvered windows.
The exterior had been painted a vibrant orange, the roof tiles rendered in matte red. The teal of the wooden door and window frames reflected the ocean, whose endless roar could be heard through the thicket of paw paw trees, banana palms, Norfolk pines and casuarinas separating the house from a narrow tract of beach.
Jack swung the Toyota in a big arc to the left. Careful not to clip the wire clothesline. Careful not to park under a coconut palm. Conscious that coconuts tend to fall without warning. Knowing from experience how much damage their impact can cause.
Jack killed the engine. He reached across the seat for the remaining bread and his camera bag. Chooks gathered near the truck. Brushed against the tires. Hungry. Always hungry.
Jack turned to the house. He had a visitor.
A teenage girl sat on the steps leading to the back deck. She was of Cook Islands Maori blood but he didn’t recognize her.
She wore a plain T-shirt, shorts, jandals. A battered canvas duffel bag slumped beside her.
Jack nodded. The girl didn’t move.
Her skin was darker than most of the locals, more cinnamon than milk chocolate. She was pretty enough, but not striking. Her face a bit too long, her almond-shaped eyes a fraction too far apart under thick eyebrows.
Jack’s gaze was drawn to a small, pale dribble of scar tissue extending from the left corner of her mouth and down her chin.
She had full lips and a wide, slightly flattened nose. Cheekbones high and prominent. Hair swept back from a prominent forehead and fashioned into a long braid that lay draped over one shoulder like a black snake. Tiny flowers were plaited into it.
The girl maintained her silence as Jack approached. Her deep, dark eyes never left his face. Never blinked.
“Can I help you?” Jack asked as chooks futzed around his legs.
The girl spoke.
“This is my house,” she said.
8
LOS ANGELES, 1999
“This is your house.”
Jack struggled to open his eyes. They weren’t cooperating.
It had been a never-ending drive into the hills and Jack could feel lunch sloshing around his guts each time Ray Chimera threw the Caddy around another corner. Someone had cranked the bass inside his skull. His eyes were on fire.
Jack was already feeling nauseous from his wicked hangover even before Ray stopped for a quick bite.
“We’re late,” Ray said, staring hard at Jack over the breadsticks.
Jack leaned over his plate. He started to shovel.
“We’re late,” Ray said, snapping his fingers for the bill.
Jack stopped chewing, started to swallow whole.
“You knew about this appointment last week,” Ray said as he gunned his great boat of a car around another sharp bend. “But are you ready when I knock on your door? No. Not quite. Almost. Jesus H Christ.”
Jack hunched on the back seat. He grimaced. He gnawed a knuckle. Nile smirked from the passenger seat. She shook her head in disgust.
“You OK?” she said. Her voice was cold. It was impersonal. She didn’t care.
“Did the lobster taste alright to you?” Jack burped. Tasted bile.
Nile didn’t answer. She had already turned away.
The Caddy made a final charge up a steep lane. Ray braked sharply. Jack was snapped forward. He fell back. His digestive tract spasmed.
“We’re here,” Ray said. “You can get out now. This is your house.”