Left Turn at Paradise

by Thomas Shawver

  “We were born too late, you and I,” Hart said, as we walked past the vintage shops, boutiques, and art galleries of the Lambton Quay. “The likes of Thomas Wise and Lord Rothchild are long gone, never to return.”

  “I know Rothchild cornered the market on eighteenth-century manuscripts, but I’ve never heard of Wise.”

  “Ah, Bevan, you have so much to learn. Thomas Wise presided over the Bibliographical Society and was a member of the Roxburghe Club, the most exclusive of all book-collecting fraternities. He was never rich, but his uncommon foresight, shrewdness, and acquisitive skill made him more than a match for the likes of J. P. Morgan and Huntington.”

  “I take it you’ve modeled your career on him.”

  “Indeed, as far as the new technology allows.”

  After that we talked about Frances Steloff and the grand old days of the Gotham Book Mart (he was delighted to learn I’d encountered Edward Gorey there) and followed that with a discussion of taste and method, the distinction between fashion and style, and the importance of obtaining a copy in the exact state it was issued.

  By the time we reached his hotel on Johnston Street I felt I’d earned an honorary Master of Arts degree in book collecting. With a comradely wave of his hand, he disappeared through the revolving door. I wedged Gibson’s journal in the small of my back between my belt and waistband and headed for the Duxton with a new lightness in my step.

  A hundred meters later, on a quiet side street between Johnston and Featherstone Quay, a stout young woman with monstrous bosoms and the arms of a linebacker popped from the doorway of a shuttered building.

  “Oy, big feller!” she gurgled, wiggling her bottom in a way that would have made any self-respecting pole dancer weep. “Want a piece of this?”

  Even if my taste ran to practitioners of the ancient trade (which, I hasten to add, it doesn’t—not anymore), I would have kept at the far end of the bench from this one.

  She was as common as an NBA tattoo, but what she lacked in looks and charm she made up in strength. I’d barely slipped from her lunging embrace when she was back at it, clutching my crotch with one viselike claw while the other mauled my backside.

  I wasn’t liking this one bit, especially when she rammed me up against a door and growled, “Okay, boys, he’s all yours!”

  Looking furtively over my shoulder, I saw two men materialize from the shadows like a pair of well-dressed rats.

  They weren’t particularly large, but wiry, and definitely not gangbangers. One even wore a sport coat—Harris Tweed, I think it was—a crisp white shirt, and a tie with regimental stripes. The other man looked like all the other office workers I’d seen in the square before the ruckus began the previous day. My first thought was they had assumed I was attacking the fair maiden and were performing their civic duty to save her.

  “Hold on, gents,” I squawked, while jerking loose of the harlot. “I’m an American!”

  As if that had anything to do with innocence.

  But then I noticed the knives. And the icy glint in their eyes.

  I’m not exactly Bo Jackson in the forty-yard dash, but I can be quick for the first three strides off the ball and there remained a dozen feet between us. I plowed into the first man with my shoulder, ducked the murderous swipe of his blade, grabbed his wrist with one hand and the seat of his pants with the other, then hurled him headfirst into the brick wall.

  If you’ve ever smashed pumpkins on Halloween you’d have a fair idea of the mess that made.

  All well and good, but his partner, having determined I was no stranger to alley brawls, kept his distance without retreating. To turn and run in that narrow lane meant giving him a clear shot at my back. There was nothing for it but to grit my teeth, snarl something unseemly about his mother, and stare him down in a Mexican standoff. Not a brilliant tactic, even if you have a weapon; ridiculous when you don’t.

  I still remember that grinning, feral face, studying me like I was just another ring in a straw target as he put one leg in front of the other and drew back his arm. A moment later a ninja-style Boker blade whispered past my ear, close enough for me to forswear close haircuts evermore. Before he could hurl a second knife, I snatched the journal from behind my back and flung it at his chest. He wheeled back on his heels as if struck by a brick. I was on him in a microsecond. Dodging the slashing blade, I countered with a series of short, fast jabs until his eyes rolled back. I finished the work with an uppercut and he sank to the concrete like last week’s laundry.

  Funny how a touch of disciplined resistance can take the stuffing out of even professional killers. And professionals are what I figured they were, having defended enough of the species in Jackson County courtrooms.

  The first man still lay crumpled by the brick wall. The lady, presumably paid in advance for having set me up, was long gone. I scooped up Gibson’s journal and left the street feeling a little less light-footed than before.

  * * *

  Outside the federal government building that the locals call the Beehive (but which looks more like an upside-down wedding cake) I summoned a police officer to give an account of the attack. When it came to my description of the perpetrators—“A heavyset, scantily clothed woman and two clean-shaven, office-worker types, one maybe six feet tall, maybe 180 pounds, mid-thirties, the other about the same”—she put away her pen, asked to see my passport, then suggested that I avoid whores and pimps for the remainder of my stay in beautiful downtown Wellywood.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Pillow picked me up in her rental car the next morning I was still mulling over why two strangers would try to kill me. The only thing I’d decided was that I wasn’t ready to share the experience with folks I didn’t know all that well. For the time being, that meant Pillow and her uncle as well as Adrian Hart.

  “You’ve known for a long time that your father had the third journal, haven’t you?” I demanded, as she pulled into a parking lot in the suburb of Kelburn. On a hill high above us loomed the crenellated spires of the University of Victoria.

  “No,” she insisted testily. “I had no idea until Cattley mentioned the possibility to me.”

  “When was that?”

  “The day before I introduced him to you at the rugby club.”

  “What about Adrian? He told me in San Francisco that he learned that a person in Hawaii likely bought the third from a Cotswold dealer, but he insisted the trail ended there. Do you think he lied to me? That he knew it was your father even before he left the U.K. looking for Bartow?”

  She shrugged. “All I know is that he believes it now and intends for my uncle to confirm it.”

  The arrival of Hart on a moped cut her off from saying more.

  “Hello, chums,” he said, as pleased to see me as when we shared our walk from the library. “Let us seek enlightenment from Olympus.”

  His words conjured images of Sisyphus while we trudged up a hundred or more steps to the marble-arched entrance of the anthropology department. Naturally, the ancient elevator was closed for repairs, so I felt like we’d climbed Everest upon reaching the fifth floor.

  While I gasped for breath, Pillow tapped her knuckles on the oak door numbered 551 and the now familiar voice of Cattley Middleditch invited us in.

  The office was typical for a tenured college faculty member, if, that is, your professor happens to collect shrunken heads, New Guinea penis gourds, and a delightful assortment of genital cuffs from the second century Han Dynasty. These artifacts were artfully arranged on a ledge beneath a pane-glass window offering a fine view of Wellington and the harbor.

  Hundreds of books on floor-to-ceiling shelves lined two adjacent walls. The professor hadn’t bothered to display evidence of his academic degrees, but a small framed ribbon of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George set atop the windowsill trumped any number of sheepskins he might have hung. An industrial-style kettle lamp hovered over a wide mahogany desk covered with papers, notebooks, and fifteen or so books wedged between a
pair of iron ingots.

  Middleditch rose from behind his desk as we entered, shook our hands, and urged us to sit in extra chairs that had been lugged in before our arrival. A coffee cup with a thin layer of clear liquid sat next to a laptop computer. I caught the whiff of mouthwash and gin, an oily combination reminiscent of Sunday mornings in the kitchen with my hungover old man.

  Hart began the meeting with an obsequious attempt at flattery.

  “Allow me to say, Professor, that I found Farewell to Elysium to be a fascinating book. Most extraordinary, indeed.”

  Middleditch acknowledged this with a faint strain of the facial muscles. “Do you even recall what it was about?”

  Hart looked as if he’d been pinched on the ass.

  “Certainly,” he answered defensively. “Your thesis was that the Hawaiians believed Cook to be supernatural.”

  “It’s rather more than that. But yes, the priests thought he was Lono, the incarnation of their fertility god in the flesh.”

  “Could they really have believed that mumbo jumbo back then?” Hart asked.

  “As much as today’s Christians believe Jesus was the son of God.”

  “I suppose it depends on which religion you’re born into.”

  The professor nodded, but his eyes searched the Englishman’s face across an abyss of distrust.

  “Are you a nonbeliever, Mr. Hart?”

  “Not necessarily. But I’ve always been one to hedge my bets.”

  “And you, Mr. Bevan?”

  “I still have a lot of questions the nuns couldn’t knock out of me.”

  Middleditch sniffed, then picked up the replica of a monkey paw—at least, I think it was a replica—that served as a paperweight on his desk.

  “Penelope tells me,” he began, shifting his eyes to Hart, “that you came to New Zealand to catch the thief who stole her journal.”

  Hart’s stitched smile rapidly faded. “Also owned by me, Professor. I recovered Bevan’s as well.”

  “Yes, of course. Congratulations to all.” Middleditch shut his eyes in a sort of prolonged blink, before adding: “I presume you’ll return to your respective countries now you have what you came for?”

  “On the contrary,” Hart said. “We intend to find the third one, which Ivo Mackin possesses.”

  Middleditch’s response was noncommittal. “Assuming he has it and would allow you access, what do you hope to accomplish?”

  “What else,” Hart said impatiently, “but to convince him to join us in publishing all three documents.”

  “Purely for the edification of scholars, no doubt? You’ve no interest in making money?”

  Pillow jumped to Hart’s defense. “We aren’t entirely without financial motive, Uncle.”

  “Best to be honest in that regard,” Middleditch said, scratching his chin with the monkey claws. “From my encounter with him, I got the distinct impression he never intends to share the journal. Not for you, Penelope, not for anyone.”

  “Are you certain he has it?” I asked.

  “I didn’t completely believe it then, but I do now. Undoubtedly, the thief who stole the first two believes it as well.”

  “Go on,” Hart urged.

  “Five years ago I didn’t give much thought to why Ivo was so obsessed with Cook. Then last December a student of mine, a very troubled lad who has since gone missing, claimed to have learned of the packet during his brief stay at the marae in the valley.”

  “Did he actually see it or hear what it contained?”

  “No, Mr. Hart. Apparently only Ivo and his chief adviser had access to its secrets.”

  “What sort of secrets?” I asked.

  Middleditch returned the monkey paw to its original place on the desk, then looked at me with those watery eyes. I could tell that he was struggling to control his impulse to pull a bottle from the desk drawer.

  “As I told you yesterday, Ivo visited me in this very room after spending a year in Hawaii. While he never mentioned the journal directly, he made continual references to Cook’s Marine. That could only have been Sergeant Gibson, who witnessed as near as anyone the mental, physical, and, I dare say, spiritual deterioration of his captain.”

  Hart’s glance reminded me that it was a person in Hawaii who had ordered the third journal from the Cotswold bookman.

  Middleditch coughed before continuing. “Whatever Ivo discovered at Kealakekua Bay altered him profoundly. It made him susceptible to wild conjectures.”

  “Such as Cook planning to desert his men,” Hart said, reiterating the theory he’d shared with me at the Marines’ Memorial Club.

  “Yes, but also that the great man had sexual intercourse with a daughter of the Hawaiian king.”

  Welcome to fairyland, I thought, as I exchanged incredulous looks with Pillow.

  Hart, however, wasn’t surprised. “Ivo Mackin may be bonkers, but there is a long-standing legend, mostly among Pacific Islanders of the lower orders, that Cook sired a Hawaiian child.”

  I looked to Middleditch for confirmation.

  “Supposedly an exemplar of sexual forbearance when it came to any woman other than his wife, the captain may have succumbed to the entreaties of the Hawaiian king’s daughter while off Maui. She reconnected with him six weeks later on the Big Island when her father’s entourage met up with the Resolution at Kealakekua Bay. If it’s true that the girl was pregnant, Cook would have learned of it just as the natives greeted him as Lono, their god of fertility.”

  “What a delicious irony,” Hart crowed.

  “I don’t suppose the myth includes what happened to the mother and child?” Pillow asked.

  “Within a year of Cook’s death,” Middleditch said, tamping tobacco into the walnut bowl of his pipe, “the young mother was banished to Kauai and her infant girl secretly whisked away to Maui. The child was raised by simple farmers, but the rumors persisted that the granddaughter of the gods of war and fertility walked the earth. This didn’t bode well for the girl, who grew to womanhood during the reign of King Kamehameha the Great. Her tapu”—he closed his eyes on the word—“was so great that no mortal could risk killing her. But neither could the new king afford to have her around.”

  The professor put a match to the edge of the bowl and sucked several times on the lip before getting it started. Satisfied with his efforts, he leaned back in his chair to watch the smoke curl toward the overhead fan.

  “In 1791, the same year the Hawaiian Islands were united under his rule, she was put on an American whaling ship headed for the South Island of New Zealand.

  “The young woman was adopted by a powerful tribe, married a warrior, and lived in the shadow of the Alps before dying in childbirth. The baby survived to become chief of the Ngāti Kāti Māmoe.”

  Pillow moved her eyes from Middleditch to me, and back to her uncle. “Mamoe is my father’s iwi, his tribe.”

  Middleditch relit the pipe. “It’s only a myth, Penelope.”

  “What evidence exists to support any of it?” I asked.

  “None, unless Gibson was aware of intercourse between Cook and the girl. Even then, I’d doubt he’d have had the gall to record it.”

  “Did this supposed love child have a moniker?” Hart asked.

  Professor Middleditch took a final pull on his pipe before returning it to its cradle by the ashtray. “They called her Linea.”

  Pillow gasped. “That name has been given to women in my family for generations.”

  “Yes, Pen. Your father believes that he—and you—are direct descendants of James Cook and the daughter of King Kalani’opu’u.”

  After several moments of silence, Hart rose from his chair, laid the palms of his hands on the desk, and looked directly into Middleditch’s eyes.

  “I can’t believe you haven’t tried to go up there to confirm this.”

  “It’s a physical impossibility for me. The compound’s within a mountain valley inaccessible by helicopter. To get there requires landing in a narrow gorge, followed by a
difficult mountain trek to the Waipara River. Beyond that, the area is controlled by Ivo’s people. No one gets past the threshold to the marae without an invitation. I don’t happen to be on that list.”

  Hart moved from the desk to place his hand on Pillow’s shoulder. “But I’ll bet she is.”

  She brushed his arm away, turned her head slowly, and looked at me.

  I nodded.

  “Then we’d best get packing,” she said.

  * * *

  That evening we made arrangements to fly to Queenstown on New Zealand’s South Island. Afterward, Pillow dropped me off at the Duxton. I’d just checked for messages at the front desk when I noticed an attractive redhead with shapely legs sitting in the lobby. She gazed at me with an amused look before I realized it was Beryl Cowper. The librarian had shed her owl-like glasses and dowdy attire for contacts and a low-cut black dress.

  I approached prepared to tell her how smashing she looked, but she spoke first.

  “I thought you didn’t want that man to see you.”

  “What man?”

  “The man you were whooping and hollering with at the library.”

  “You mean Adrian Hart?”

  “Well, if you say so. All I know is that he’s the one who signed the ledger as Mr. William Bartow last week.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  That tidbit of information earned Beryl a steak dinner at The Green Parrot on Taranaki Street. Afterward we ended up for the craic at Molly Malones Pub near Te Aro Park.

  The Celtic diaspora is everywhere in this world—you can find a Hibernian Club behind a barbwire wall in Kabul—but I didn’t expect the Kiwi version to be so…well, Irish.

  Downing two pints to limber up the old larynx, I stuffed twenty NZ dollars in the jar and challenged the locals on the vocals. “Foggy Dew” started a little shaky, but I hit my stride with “Dirty Old Town” and had the place singing along by the time I closed with “Four Green Fields.” Tommy Makem couldn’t have done it better. After I told the barkeep to apply my prize money to rounds for the house, you couldn’t have found a more popular man in Welly than yours truly that night. Just ask Beryl Cowper.