Unless the message had been meant for Moreland.
My surmise about his attitude of noblesse oblige and the resentment it might have generated in the villagers could be right on target.
The good doctor less than universally loved? His guests seen as colonial interlopers?
If so, it could be anyone.
Paranoia, Delaware. The guy had kept thousands of bugs for years, four had gotten out because he was old and absentminded and had forgotten to put a lid on tight.
Spacey, just as Milo had said.
Not a comforting thought, considering the thousands of bugs, but I supposed he'd be especially careful now.
I tried to empty my head and sleep. Thought of the way Jo Picker had come in: drowsy, asking if someone had screamed.
Robin's scream had sounded a full ten minutes before.
Why the delay?
The sleeping pill slowing her responses?
Or no need to hurry because she knew?
And she'd been alone upstairs all evening.
Paranoia run amok. What reason would a grieving widow have for malicious mischief?
She'd said she was squeamish about insects, had refused even to enter the bug zoo.
And there was no animosity between us. Robin had been especially kind to her. . . . Even if she was a fiend, how could she have gained access to our room?
Her own room key— the lock similar to ours?
Or a simple pick. Most bedroom locks weren't designed for security. Ours back home could be popped with a screwdriver.
I lay there and listened for sounds through the wall.
Nothing.
What did I expect to hear, the click of her keyboard? Widow's wails?
I shifted position and the mattress rocked, but Robin didn't budge.
Teachers' voices from many years ago filtered through my brain.
Alexander is a very bright little boy, but he does tend to daydream.
Is something wrong at home, Mrs. Delaware? Alexander has seemed rather distracted lately.
A soft, liquid line of light oozed through a part in the curtains like golden paint freshly squeezed.
Playing on Robin's face.
She smiled in her sleep, curls dangling over one eye.
Take her example and adapt.
I relaxed my muscles consciously and deepened my breathing. Soon my chest loosened and I felt better.
Able to smile at the image of Moreland with his chocolate cake and schoolboy guilt.
My body felt heavy. Ready to sleep.
But it took a long time to fall under.
20
The next morning, the clouds were darker and moving closer, but still remote.
We were ready to dive at ten. Spike was acting restless, so we decided to take him along. Needing something to shade him, we went to the kitchen and asked Gladys. She called Carl Sleet in from the rose garden, where he was pruning, and he trotted over carrying his shears. His gray work clothes, hair, and beard were specked with grass clippings, and his nails were filthy. He went to the outbuildings and came back with an old umbrella with a spiked post and a blue-and-white canvas shade that was slightly soiled.
"Want me to load it for you?"
"No, thanks. I can do it."
"Put new locks on the bug house last night. Strong ones. Shouldn't be having any more problems."
"Thanks."
"Welcome. Got any fudge left, Gladys?"
"Here you go." She gave him some and he returned to his work, eating.
Gladys walked us through the kitchen. "Dr. Bill feels awful about last night."
"I'll let him know there are no hard feelings."
"That would be . . . charitable— now you two have a good time."
• • •
I pitched the umbrella on South Beach and realized we'd forgotten to bring drinks. Leaving Robin and Spike on the sand, I drove over to Auntie Mae's Trading Post. The same faded clothes were in the windows, which were fly-specked and cloudy. Inside, the place was barnlike, with wooden stalls lining a sawdust aisle and walls of raw board.
Most of the booths were empty and even those that were stocked weren't staffed. More clothing, cheap, out of date. Beach sandals, suntan lotion, and tourist kitsch— miniature thatched huts of bamboo and AstroTurf, plastic dancing girls, pouting tiki gods, coconuts carved into blowfish. The building smelled of cornmeal and seawater and a bit of backed-up bilge.
The only other human being was a young, plainfaced woman in a red tank top watching TV behind the counter of the third booth to the right. Her cash register was a scarred, black antique. Next to it were canisters of beef jerky and pickled eggs and a half-full bottle of Windex and a rag. The front case was filled with candy bars and chips— potato, corn, taro. On the rear wall were a swinging door and shelves holding sealed boxes of sweets. The television was mounted to the side wall that separated the stall from its neighbor, sharing space with a pay phone.
She noticed me but kept watching the screen. The image was fuzzy, streaked intermittently with bladelike flashes of white. A station from Guam. Long shot of a big room with polished wood walls, corporate logo of a hotel chain over a long banquet table.
Senator Nicholas Hoffman sat in the center behind a glass of water and a microphone. He wore a white-and-brown batik shirt and several brilliantly colored flower necklaces. The two white men flanking him were dressed the same way. One I recognized as a legislator from the Midwest; the other was cut from the same hair-tonicked, hungry-smile mold. Four other men, Asians, sat at the ends of the table.
Hoffman glanced at his notes, then looked up smiling. "And so let me conclude by celebrating the fact that we all share a vision of a more viable and prosperous Micronesia, a multicultural Micronesia that moves swiftly and confidently into the next century."
He smiled again and gave a small bow. Applause. The screen flickered, went gray, shut off. The young woman turned it back on. Commercial for Island Fever Restaurant # 6: slack-key guitar theme song, pupu platters and flaming desserts, "native beauties skilled in ancient dances for your entertainment pleasure." A caricature of a chubby little man in a grass skirt rolling his hips and winking.
"C'mon, brudda!"
The woman flicked the remote control. More black screen, then a ten-year-old sitcom. She watched as the credits rolled, then said, "Can I help you?" Pleasant, almost childish voice. Twenty or so, with acne and short, wavy hair. No bra under the tank top. Not even close to pretty, but her smile was open and lovely.
"Something to drink, if you've got it."
"I've got Coke and Sprite and beer in the back."
"Two Cokes, two Sprites." I noticed a couple of paperback books on the rear counter. "Maybe something to read, too."
She handed me the books. A Stephen King I'd read and a compact world atlas, both with curled covers.
"Any magazines?"
"Um, maybe under here." She bent and stood. "Nope. I'll check in back. You're the doctor staying with Dr. Bill, right?"
"Alex Delaware." I held out my hand and we shook. I noticed a diamond chip ring on the third finger.
"Bettina— Betty Aguilar." She smiled shyly. "Just got married."
"Congratulations."
"Thanks . . . he's a great man— Dr. Bill. When I was a kid I had a bad whooping cough and he cured me. Hold on, lemme get you your drinks and see about magazines."
She went through the swinging door.
So much for rampant island hostility to Moreland.
She came back with four cans and a stack of periodicals. "This is all we've got. Pretty old. Sorry."
"Is it hard to get current stuff?"
She shrugged. "We get whatever comes over on the supply boats, usually it's a couple of issues late. People and Playboy and stuff like that goes fast— any of this interest you?"
Half-year-old issues of Ladies' Home Journal, Reader's Digest, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, and at the bottom, several copies of a large glossy quarterly entitled Island World. Gorgeo
us smiling black-haired girls and sun-blushed tropical vistas.
The publications' dates, three to five years old.
"Boy, those really are old," said Betty. "Found 'em under a box. They used to publish it but I don't think anymore."
I flipped through tables of contents. Mostly boosterism. Then a title caught my eye.
"I'll take them," I said.
"Really? Gee, they're so old I wouldn't know what to charge you. Here, take 'em for free."
"I'll be happy to pay."
"It's okay," she insisted. "You're my best customer today and they're just taking up space. Want some munchies to go with your drinks?"
I bought two bags of kettle-boiled Maui potato chips and some jerky. As she took my money, her eyes drifted back to the TV. Another blackout. She switched the set on automatically, as if used to it.
"Bad reception?"
"The satellite keeps going in and out, depending on the weather and stuff." She counted out change. "I'm having a baby. Dr. Bill's gonna deliver it. In seven months."
"Congratulations."
"Yeah . . . we're excited. My husband and me. Here you go. . . . After the baby's born we'll probably be moving away. My husband works construction and there's no work."
"Nothing at all?"
"Not really. This here is the biggest building in town. A few years back Dr. Bill was thinking of redoing it, but no one else really cared."
"Dr. Bill owns the Trading Post?"
She seemed surprised that I didn't know. "Sure. He's real good about it, doesn't charge rent, just lets people order their own stuff and sell it outta the booths. There used to be more business here, when the Navy guys still came in. Now most of the stallkeepers don't come in unless someone calls to order. It's actually my mom's stall, but she's sick— bad heart. I've got time, waiting for my baby, so I take over for her and my husband delivers— most of our stuff's delivery."
She touched her still-flat belly.
"My husband would like a boy, but I don't care as long as it's healthy."
Laugh-track noise from the TV. She turned her head and smiled along with the electronic joy.
"Bye," I said.
She waved absently.
• • •
When I got back to the beach, Robin's snorkel was a tiny white duck bobbing near the outer edge of the reef. Our blankets were spread, and Spike was leashed to the umbrella post, barking furiously.
The object of his wrath was Skip Amalfi, stark naked, peeing a high, arcing stream into the sand, several yards away. Anders Haygood stood next to him, in knee-length baggies, watching. Skip's bleached-bone buttocks said skinny-dipping wasn't a habit. His green trunks lay next to him like a heap of wilted salad.
Spike barked louder. Skip laughed and aimed the stream closer to the dog, shaking with glee as Spike growled and spat drool. Then the arc dribbled and died. Spike shook himself off theatrically, and moved closer to the two men.
I ran. Haygood saw me and said something to Skip, who stopped and turned, offering a full frontal view. I kept coming.
Grinning, Skip looked over his shoulder at Robin's snorkel. His urine trail was drying quickly, a brown snake sinking into the sand. Spike was pawing the blanket, finally moving enough of it to reach sand and scatter it.
Skip stretched and yawned and massaged his gut.
"Is that going to be the official welcome at your resort?" I said, smiling.
His face darkened, but he forced himself to smile back. "Yeah, living naturally."
"Better watch the ultraviolet radiation. It can lead to impotence."
"Whu?"
"The sun."
"Your hard-on," said Haygood, amused. "What the man's trying to tell you is bruise it and lose it. Watch the UV on your tool or you'll be hauling limp wiener."
"Fuck you," Skip told him, but he looked at me edgily.
"It's true," I said. "Too much UV to the genitals heats up the scrotal plexus and weakens the neurotestostinal reflex."
"Boil it and spoil it," said Haygood.
"Fuck you in the ass," said Skip. Looking for his trunks.
Haygood lunged, grabbed them up, and began running down the beach. Stocky but fast.
Skip went after him, potbelly quivering, holding his crotch.
Spike was still drooling and breathing hard. I sat down and tried to calm him. Robin had moved into shallower waters. She stood, lifted her face mask, and waved. Then she saw the two men running and came out of the water.
"What was that all about?"
I told her.
"How rude."
"He was probably hoping you'd come out and see him playing fireman."
"Shucks, I missed it." She squatted and petted Spike. "Mama's all right, sweetie. Don't worry about those turkeys. It's gorgeous down there, Alex. Come on in."
"Maybe later."
"Is something wrong?"
"Let me just stick around for a while in case they return. Though I may have traumatized old Skip."
I recounted my UV warning and she cracked up.
"You probably ruined what little sex life he's got."
"Reverse therapy. My education is now fully validated."
"Don't worry about them, Alex— dive with me. If they come back, we'll give Spike a run at them."
"Spike can be drop-kicked by a twelve-year-old."
"They don't know that. Tell them he's a neurotestostinal pit bull."
• • •
We visited every crag in the reef side by side and emerged an hour later to an undisturbed beach. Spike slept noisily, under a cloud of sand flies. The drinks had warmed, but we poured them down our throats. Then Robin stretched out on a blanket and closed her eyes, and I picked up the spring 1988 issue of Island World.
The article that had caught my eye was on page 113, after come-hither tourist pieces on Pacific Rim archaeological sites, choice dive spots, restaurants and nightclubs.
Bikini: A History of Shame
The author was a man named Micah Sanjay, formerly a civilian official of the Marshall Islands' U.S. military government, now a retired high school principal living in Chalan Kanoa, Saipan.
His story was identical to the one Moreland had told me: failure to evacuate the residents of Bikini and Majuro and the neighboring Marshall atolls. Clandestine nighttime boat rides doling out compensation.
The exact same story, down to the amount of money paid.
Sanjay wrote matter-of-factly but his anger came through. A Majuro native, he'd lost relatives to leukemia and lymphoma.
No greater anger than when recounting the payoff.
Sanjay and six other civil servants assigned the job.
Six names, none of them Moreland.
I reread the article, searching for any mention of the doctor. Nothing.
If the old man had never been part of the payoff, why had he lied about it?
Something else he said the first night resonated:
Guilt is a great motivator, Alex.
Feeling himself culpable for the blast? He'd been a Navy officer. Had he known about the winds?
Was it guilt that had transformed him from a trust-fund kid in dress whites to a would-be Schweitzer?
Coming to Aruk to atone?
Not that his lifestyle had suffered— living in a grand estate, indulging his passions.
Aruk, his fiefdom . . . but his daughter couldn't be permitted to fraternize with the locals.
Did he want the villagers isolated? So he could enjoy Aruk on his own terms— an idealized refuge for noble savages with good hygiene and clean water?
Maybe I was judging him unfairly— residual anger about the cockroaches.
But it did appear that he'd lied to me about the Marshalls' compensation program, and that bothered me.
I looked over at Robin's beautiful, prone body, gleaming in the sun. Spike slept too.
I was hunched, fingers tight on the magazine.
Maybe Moreland had indeed been in those boats. Another payoff team, not Sa
njay's.
One way to find out: talk to the author.
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