Coldly, she replied, “I’m really enjoying this, Bachman. I’m really enjoying watching you die by my own hands you rotten som’bitch.”
I looked straight into her eyes. She stared back at me, emotionless. “And then he died?”
“Not right away,” she said. “Just for fun, I backed off, just to let him think for a minute he might live. Was that an evil thing to do, Billy?”
“Yeah, that was pretty hard-core, kid.”
“He coughed, wheezed, tried to breath. His eyes were begging me to let him go. He reached out to me, pleading. I smashed his hands with the can again, then I put the cane back on his throat, pressed down hard, and laughed as the life ran out of him.”
“Jesus, kid,” was all I could say yet again. I’d heard the coldest, most horrifying confessions of some of the most evil bastards to ever walk the Earth, but I’d never heard anything so horrific come out of a girl so sweet. “Once Bachman was dead, you returned the walking stick to Hawthorn’s suite, collected up your things, and took that one a.m. boat back to Key West.”
“That’s right.”
“Like nothing ever happened.”
“Yep. Like nothing ever happened.”
“You would have been back before two. I got the call at three that you’d tried to kill yourself.”
“I stole all the juice that Bachman had on him. By the time I got back to my apartment, I realized what I had done, and it hit me pretty hard. I took a dose to escape reality. It didn’t work exactly the way I’d hoped it would. I felt worse, to the point I didn’t think I could live with myself. I knew you would hate me when you found out. I knew Melinda would hate me, or at least think I was crazy enough to never want anything to do with me again. Ending it all...it seemed like the right thing to do. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you ask that doctor how he found me that night, did it?”
“No, actually. How did he find you?”
“My mother brought him to me,” she said. “She wanted me to live.”
+++
Jessica had taken more than forty-five minutes to tell her tale, forty-five minutes of my life I wish I’d never lived. I’d have been very happy thinking Melinda killed Bachman, and that Jessica was nothing more than an innocent victim, rescued too late from a fate brought on by a tough life, bad people and too much of a bad thing. But that bridge was washed out, lost forever. I thought I was at the center of my little world. It turned out Jessica was at the center of everything that happened to me in that two weeks in Florida, and was the center of everything that happened to Melinda, Hawthorn, Roberts, Bachman, and even Reams and the phantoms of four hundred souls, including her mother’s. It was Jessica who started the ball rolling, and she who made it come to an abrupt stop.
“She’s going back to sleep,” I said to Melinda as I shut Jessica’s door. “That confession knocked her out.”
“So she told you everything?” Melinda asked.
“I guess so. She told me she killed Bachman. She told me about the old Hawaiian War Chant lady.”
“Don’t make light of that, William. She is a powerful woman, as you have seen.”
“Sorry kid. What exactly...what did you three conjure up, anyway?”
Melinda sat on the sofa and lit a smoke. I couldn’t really get used to that. “In Hawaiian culture, there are many legends, many stories of Gods and Goddesses. Some are just stories. Some, however, are based on real events, real...”
“Tiki Gods?”
She smiled. “Something like that. There is a legend, involving the Goddess Kapo’ulakina’u. She is said to be able to call upon the dead. That is who Haukea...”
“What’s that?”
“My teacher’s name...the old woman, she was my Hawaiian teacher here on the Island...still works here as a story teller. Her name is Haukea, it means...well, it means “snow white”.”
“Kookie. Go on.”
“Anyway, the spirit of Kapo’ulakina’u is who Haukea invoked. According to legend, she would indicate who killed Jessica’s mother...not by becoming mortal and telling us straight-out, mind you, but by leaving signs, or clues over the next few weeks. But when Jessica interrupted and demanded revenge, Haukea invoked Pele, the Goddess of the Volcano, of fire, and of the female power of destruction.”
“Seriously,” I said, my head spinning.
“Very seriously. Whether you believe me or not has no bearing on what’s happened, William. Jessica asked a very powerful priestess to call on ancient Earthly powers to call on the dead and to take revenge on the living. And that is exactly what happened. The invocation tore a hole through our plane of existence into the plane of the dead, allowing the souls of Jessica’s mother, Vivian Hawthorn and all those women that Eliot...” she paused, unable to say it. She choked something back and continued, “...those other women, and the victims of the Great Atlantic Hurricane to spill through, forcing them to be trapped between worlds. It was then that Eliot’s hauntings started, as the entities tried to get their revenge on him as their powers grew. But they were weak, much too weak to do anything to harm him at first. So they waited, gaining strength with every storm, every bolt of lightning, every crash of thunder that cracked over Tiki Island, until...”
“Until they got strong enough to act,” I said, and lit myself a Camel. “They came in with the tropical storm, and when it turned into a hurricane they finally had enough juice to make themselves infinitely powerful, am I right?”
“That’s exactly right. It was then...in the early hours of Wednesday, October the Thirty-First, that they rode the storm, gaining enough strength to become...destructive.”
“Was it just a coincidence that it happened on Halloween?”
“Probably. Then again, it is a holiday that was observed by ancient cultures.”
“What about the drums?” I asked, intrigued by the idea that the dead could reach into the world of the living. “What were they all about?”
Melinda sighed a heavy sigh, then said, “In Hawaii, there are spirits that roam the Islands each night. They’re believed to be the souls of ancient warriors, looking for new battles, or perhaps looking to re-enact old battles they won or try to win battles they lost. They march through the night to the beat of deep, ominous jungle drums. On the Islands they are known as Night Marchers. I believe that here, on Tiki Island, the souls of the dead who came for Eliot came as the ancient Hawaiian Night Marchers have for centuries.” Melinda lost it on that last line and the tears began to fall. I got up and sat next to her, holding her. It felt strange.
Night Marchers. Ancient curses. Hawaiian Goddesses. All kookiness. I never believed in any of it, not even in ghosts until I saw one for myself. Now I was to believe that Jessica and Melinda conjured up these things, these phantoms, these Night Marchers to take revenge on a killer? It was hard to take. Then again after all I’d seen in the Florida Keys, it didn’t seem all that insane after all.
“When will it all be over, Melinda?”
She looked over at me, her eyes red. “When Jessica is dead.”
“Why her?”
“Because there is a price to pay,” she said through the tears, “for asking the Goddesses for such revenge.” The tears came faster now.
“You mean to tell me, she’s dying because those...those things are killing her?”
“Not exactly. Oh, William, she would have died soon anyway. Her liver is gone. Her heart is failing. It’s her own fault, and mine too. But they’re coming for her. Nothing can stop them now.” She came up close to my face and spoke in a hushed whisper. “Her mother...her mother’s spirit...is here almost all the time!”
That’s what I saw when I first entered Jessica’s room. That dark mass hanging over her bed...it was the phantom of Jessica’s mother, plying her, trying to get her to let go of her life and succumb to the sea. “When, Melinda?”
“Tonight,” she said solemnly. “They’re taking my Jessica tonight!”
+++
There was no fanfare, no big storm, no swirling
phantoms. At ten minutes to two in the morning, as Melinda and I each sat beside Jessica as she lay in her bed, the phantoms came. Her mother, glowing beautifully white, along with several others materialized right in front of us. Jessica looked over to Melinda and said goodbye, then she looked at me and said, “Thank you for believing in me, Billy, and for the best two weeks of my life. I love you.” I couldn’t help myself. I mouthed the words, “I love you too,” and she smiled. Then she said, “I’m ready. Take me, Mama. Take me away from here forever.” And very quietly she lay back down on her pillows, closed her eyes, and took her last breath. Melinda and I watched as a white, misty figure rose from Jessica’s body; it hovered for only a moment, then slipped away with the other phantoms through the picture window, disappearing into the Gulf. Melinda moaned and cried bitter tears and I held her; there was no point in being cruel now. We covered Jessica’s body with a clean white linen and left her in her room. A few minutes later with the help of some Valium, Melinda fell asleep in my arms one last time.
The next day was as depressing as they come. Melinda dressed all in black, the first time I’d ever seen her that way. She arranged for Jessica’s ashes to be spread across the beach as the tide came in, just as she had requested. I made arrangements to stay on Tiki Island through Tuesday, to make sure Melinda was all right, and to be there for Jessica’s ceremony. It was beautiful, with thousands of exotic flowers covering the beach, and dozens of people there to pay their respects. As for me, my heart cracked in half. I’d gone down to Florida for a nice little vacation, an escape, and ended up falling in love with a fallen angel. ’Til this day I still think of Jessica every time I see a young girl shooting up, or walking the streets, and it kills me a little, twists my guts so hard I can’t stand it. Maybe that’s why I’m such a sonovabitch when it comes to dispensing my own kind of justice to pushers and pimps. Maybe that’s why I stayed a vice detective all these years...maybe.
+++
“Melinda and I stayed in separate rooms of the suite. It wasn’t easy staying away from her, but I knew it was for the best. Tiki Island was her home. New York was mine. We said goodbye on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in December, I believe, and that was the last time I ever saw Melinda Hawthorn or Tiki Island.”
Juan snapped off the little cassette tape recorder and wrote a few notes in his book. Remembering all those crazy things from so many years ago had really got my mind going. “I have a few other stories if you want to hear them, kiddo,” I said. “Might take a while to remember the details. I ain’t a kid no more, you know.”
“Aye, I would love to hear dee stories, Beel,” he said with that dark voice and heavy Mexican accent of his, “But I thin, I have enough to keep me...what you say...occupado for a while, no?”
“I’d say you do! After you write the book, are you going to publish it or what?” I asked, knowing damned well that Juan was just doing this as an exercise to learn better English.
“Who know,” he said thickly. “Maybe so, maybe no. But I try.”
“Well, if you do, make sure I get a signed copy. And leave my name out of it.”
Juan laughed. After all we’d been through with Heather’s place and that damned Jack Slate, it was nice to see anyone laugh, especially one of the old gang. I thought he was crazy when he asked me if I had any other paranormal experiences in my life, before the whole business with Heather’s closet. But after thinking about it I remembered Tiki Island, all those memories from damned near thirty years ago that I’d pushed to the back of my head a long time ago, locked away with a lot of other things I’d rather not remember.
Funny, I thought, how different things were back then. I was only twenty-eight when I stayed on Tiki Island. Pushing sixty now, I really didn’t feel so much different...except maybe for a few bullet holes that hurt like hell now and then. There were no fax machines or car phones back then, no little computers you sat on your desk to write books with or draw pretty pictures. No pushbutton phones, Hell, no color TV! The ’57 Chevy was long gone, run up to a hundred and ninety thousand miles before it blew up. Captain Waters and La Rue were long gone. Johnny Princeton was long gone, changed his name and lived out his life as a rancher in Colorado. Tiki Island was long gone too, finally closed up in the mid-seventies and turned into condos like everything else that was cool or interesting. But some things are still the same...I still have my home in Weehawken, and I still have old Suzie, my .45 automatic that’s been with me to hell and back (literally, but that’s another story). I still like Tiki bars, and would order a Mai Tai over a Cuba Libre any day. And I still have my memories.
I never went back to Tiki Island. I did take a few more great vacations down to the Florida Keys...very relaxing, completely uneventful and amazingly ghost-free vacations, I might add, filled with fishing, boating, drinking and sightseeing. But nothing as crazy, nothing as so incredibly unbelievable as those two weeks in 1956 ever happened to me down there again.
“I go now, Beel. Please say hello to dee Meeses for me, no?”
“I will kid. Careful driving out there, it’s still snowing.”
Juan left, and I stared at the picture postcard that I had in my hand for most of the talk. It was of the main building on Tiki Island, post-dated December 22nd, 1973. It was just three lines, from the manager of the hotel. “Dear Mr. Riggins, thought you would like to know, Ms. Hawthorn passed away in her sleep this morning, apparently of a heart attack”. December twenty-second. Same day that Jessica was taken away by her mother.
For just a moment, I wondered if there was a connection.
Then I put the postcard away in my old desk drawer where it had sat for ten years, and finally closed the book on that part of my life, and Tiki Island, forever.
The End
April 19, 2011
Author’s note:
Detective Riggins is a recurring character in a series of pulp-noir novels I’ve been working on for years. He was first introduced to the public as a much older character in Murder Behind the Closet Door. Murder on Tiki Island is the second in the series, a prequel introducing Riggins as an already hardened detective at the age of twenty-eight. Juan, at the end of the story, is a character that Riggins meets in Murder Behind the Closet Door. If you don’t know what the hell it is they’re talking about at the end of the story, you’ll just have to buy MBTCD for yourself to catch up!
-Mahalos, Tiki Chris P.
About the Author, Christopher Pinto
Christopher Pinto is the author/editor of Tiki Lounge Talk (TikiLoungeTalk.com), a web-lounge dedicated to remembering and celebrating the kool stuff from the Atomic Age and beyond, from big band music to cocktails at the Tiki Bar, and curator of The Retro Tiki Lounge Facebook page. He’s been writing for over 25 years, has had several plays produced, and has won awards for his creative efforts. During the 1990s he was producer/director of a highly successful traveling theater company in the Atlantic City area, StarDust Productions.
Pinto currently lives in South Florida with his wife Colleen, four birds, two cats, a miracle dog and a Tiki Bar. Pinto moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in June of 2000, only one week after marrying his wife, Colleen. It was these major changes in his life that led to an avalanche of memories from his youth, including many happy days and nights spent on the Wildwood and Ocean City Boardwalks. He decided to write these memories down... and those notes became the basis for his first full-length novel, Murder Behind The Closet Door.
(wildwoodmurdermystery.com). It was after moving to South Florida and becoming a regular visitor to the Florida Keys that he was inspired to write a tale set in the unique, mysterious, magical string of tropical islands.
Pinto was no newcomer to writing when he began penning MBTCD. He began writing at an early age and won several awards, including a creative writing award from the Philadelphia Bulletin at age twelve. In 1985 he wrote a full-length musical entitled “SwingTime”, including the score, which was adapted for production in his senior year at Egg Harbor Township High School, NJ. A
fter college, he began acting in shows at Elaine’s Famous Dinner Theater in Cape May, NJ, where he starred in several shows over two years. His time in Cape May (and the adjacent Wildwoods) piqued his interest in the history, architecture and people of the area. Later he would use what he learned and experienced while writing Murder Behind the Closet Door and Murder on Tiki Island.
Pinto started his own traveling theater troupe in 1989, with its first show produced being “A Christmas Carolette”, a spoof of the time-honored A Christmas Carol. This lead to the forming of StarDust Production, Southern New Jersey’s premier traveling dinner theater company through 2000. Pinto wrote all the scripts for the shows performed, including “Wildwood Memories”, which was put into production for a run at Neil’s Oyster House in Wildwood…but was unfortunately never performed, due management changes at the restaurant. Pinto’s shows for StarDust Productions always maintained a retro theme; from jazz music and standards to shows set in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, every show transported the audience through space and time to a kooler, kookier and more swingin’ age.
In addition to writing fiction and plays, Pinto has also written for the Atlantic City Press as well as several blogs and flash fictions websites, and is also an award-winning graphic designer and advertising Creative Director. He is an accomplished jazz and swing clarinetist and saxophone player and an avid collector of 20th century pop culture junk. In his spare time he restores and customizes vintage cars, including his own custom 1953 Chevy Bel-Air hot rod (named StarDust), digs swingin’ standard tunes on the tenor horn, and of course, enjoys growing and sharing his collection of vintage memorabilia.
For more, visit www.StarDustMysteries.com or www.facebook.com/RetroTikiLounge.
THIS BOOK
Is dedicated to my wife Colleen, always helpful & beautiful too;
Murder on Tiki Island: A Noir Paranormal Mystery In The Florida Keys (Detective Bill Riggins Mysteries) Page 56
