Bad Intentions

by Norman Partridge

  Speke grinned, thinking about it. Should you leave your shoes behind once they'd been stained with Madame Pele's mud? Was that the wise thing to do? And what about your swimming suit? If a grain of sand remained in the lining, and if you brought that single grain home with you and it didn't come out until your washing machine hit the rinse cycle, would you fall down the stairs with your laundry basket in hand and break your leg in eight places?

  Speke didn't know. Call them myths, call them religious parables, call them old wives' tales... to him, they had only been stories that hung like so many party costumes in the closet of his mind.

  Until now.

  He stared at his shoes and wondered.

  The worst part of it was that almost anything seemed possible here. Belief systems by the hundreds had washed upon these shores, each leaving a mark, each fighting for territory with crablike tenacity. It had been Speke's duty to weave the whole mess into a tapestry that would satisfy a dozen audiences, each with its own particular agenda. His job had been to sway disparate opponents with a good empathic line, just as he had done in Mexico and the Caribbean.

  But it was different here. Here, there was too much, too damn much, and now Speke was so full of it all that he wanted to sit down and decide what the truth was, and who had a lock on it, and who could suck all the extraneous crap out of his brain and make him feel clean and right again.

  No. That was only wishful thinking. In this place a single truth was nothing more than a missionary's wet dream. Still, Mitchell Speke longed for one glowing truth, because he dreaded the other possibility. Because if all of it was true in one way or another, if everything here had some measure of validity, then there could be no peace, no guarantees....

  The dog barked at him, sharp and insistent. Speke realized he would never have enough time to sort it out. He stared at the path beyond the white sand. The first step. It had to be. The beginning. Many years ago, Madame Pele had made a beginning in these islands. The soil was hers. Others had followed - Shingon Buddhists among them - creating their own beginnings. The path was theirs.

  And now Speke would make it his.

  With a single step.

  Second day. Negotiation.

  Speke faced off with the big Hawaiian. The dark-skinned man was sitting down and Speke was standing up, so Speke felt that the immediate advantage was his.

  "We understand your position, Mr. Kanahele. It's unfortunate that we didn't discover the burial site until construction was well underway. But you must understand our predicament. We've made quite a commitment to the Shipkiller Beach Project. Not only our money but the money of many innocent investors is at stake — "

  "I understand that... but this goes beyond money. Family is very important in our islands, and this is a matter of family."

  Speke sat down in a chair facing Kanahele and leaned forward, almost conspiratorially. He spoke in the same practiced whisper he'd used to enchant students at the university before his talents were purchased by the corporation. "You know, I'm not really a businessman. I've spent most of my life on college campuses, teaching students about the folklore of different cultures. So I'm not going to toss a pile of charts in your face, and I'm not going to bore you with a bunch of employment statistics."

  Kanahele nodded, his face an expressionless mask.

  Speke continued. "What I can tell you, Mr. Kanahele, is that the people I work for care about Hawaii. One of the reasons they brought me in was to teach them about your culture. They want to make this resort a genuine Hawaiian experience, and it's my job to bring in local artists, storytellers, musicians, historians people who can make this a special place. It's a program that we've had great success with in Mexico and the Caribbean, and I can assure you that the director stands behind it one hundred percent."

  Speke could see that he had Kanahele's full attention now, and he paused a moment before saying more. "I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. You recall the stories of the menehune, of course." Kanahele nodded. "Well, when I told our director about Hawaii's legendary builders, he was fascinated. Over dinner last night, I explained how the menehune only worked after dark, and how they could finish nearly any project in the course of one night despite their dwarfish stature. He took to the story immediately. In fact, this morning he put out a standing order: if any menehune applies for work on the Shipkiller Beach Project, he's to be hired on the spot."

  Kanahele laughed.

  "I guess what I'm trying to say is that this corporation is in for the long haul, and we want to be more than good neighbors. We want to become part of the community. Now, I have to be honest with you. If you want to stop the hotel, you're going to have one big, ugly fight on your hands. But if your concern centers on the burial site, I think I can sell the brass on a compromise that will please everyone... with your permission, of course. I'm positive that I can convince the director to retain the site as a historical monument. If we build around it—a museum, a visitors' center—we can bring the beliefs of your people to every guest who sets foot in the hotel."

  Kanahele was wise enough to hold out for a few days, but when the director offered him a position as a permanent consultant in all matters concerning the burial site museum, things were settled. The director gave Speke a bonus and asked that he remain on site in case any other trouble arose that might require his unusual skills. Speke hopped an afternoon flight from Honolulu to Lihue. He stopped for dinner at Gaylord's, arrived at the corporate-owned condo around eight, and was walking on Shipkiller Beach near the job site when the sun dipped below the silver horizon and big waves began to break over the reef.

  Speke sat at surf's edge and went to work on himself. Told himself that it was just another job, just like the jobs he'd done in Mexico and the Caribbean. The corporation was using his knowledge to deal with protesters the world over. Whenever anyone complained about "cold corporate identity" or "a lack of cultural understanding," Professor Speke appeared on the scene and calmed local fears. His smile said, "See, we do understand you, we really do and we want to help." The corporate bigwigs saw quickly enough that building a museum was a lot cheaper than fighting picketers, and a lot more appealing to the TV cameras, too. And the end result—a monument to the past, a boost in civic pride—provided Speke with a valuable justification. Without me, he told himself, the corporation wouldn't even do that much.

  That first night on Shipkiller Beach, Speke upended his shoes and knocked sand out of them. He thought about Mr. Kanahele and Madame Pele and the tourist lady from Texas.

  Then the dog trotted down the path. A coffee-brown mutt with a nub for a tail, it wandered across the sand and ducked its muzzle under Speke's hand and begged for attention. After a moment, it straightened as if it had heard something and returned to the path.

  Speke followed, but the dog was too far ahead. Besides, the path was muddy, and he didn't want to ruin his new white shoes.

  Ten steps along, the path disappeared beneath a web of bulldozer tracks. Speke found himself in a mire of blood-colored earth churned up by the corporation's equipment. He brushed mosquitos away from his face and stepped across the smallest puddle. Shifting his weight, he found solid ground on his second step. There was a sucking sound behind him as he pulled his back foot out of the mud, and he nearly lost his shoe because the shoelace had come untied. He bent low and retied it, staining his fingers the color of Madame Pele's earth in the process.

  Ahead, the dog was drinking water from an old Yuban can filled with bird-of-paradise, edging the long-stemmed flowers to one side with its muzzle. Speke saw that there was a Folgers can beside it, also filled with flowers. He frowned. Randy Takagi had assured him that the shrine was abandoned, but how could it be abandoned if people were still leaving offerings?

  Speke stepped past the coffee cans to a cement shrine that stood in the shade of a lichee tree. The shrine was in the shape of a small house with a sloping, peaked roof. There was an arching doorway at its center. Bending low, Speke peered inside the
dollhouse-sized structure at a statue rimmed with Japanese characters.

  The dog nipped at Speke's muddy heels, eager to continue. Speke took a charcoal briquet from his pocket and hastily dashed a large "1" on the roof of the cement shrine.

  "Okay, boy," he whispered. "Show me the way."

  Fourth day. Project inspection.

  Randy Takagi was a thin-faced man with a smile that seemed impossibly wide. He gave Speke a tour of the site, injecting his patter with tips about restaurants, bars, and beaches. Randy was a native of Kauai who had been hired for the Shipkiller Beach Project as soon as the corporation discovered his background. The PR guys did it up big in the Hawaiian newspapers—"Local Architect Helps Design New Hotel," that kind of thing. The stories placated a good portion of the community, and Randy's appointment also served as an unexpected goodwill gesture to a Japanese fishing corporation that was eager for foreign investment but uncertain about the Shipkiller Beach Project.

  "You'll never believe this," Randy Takagi said, "but that was the first damn resume I mailed after I graduated from U.C. Berkeley. Within a week I'm back home with a new job, studying blueprints on the same beach where I was a surf bum just six years ago. Jesus, can you believe it?"

  Speke smiled. "Crazy world," he said.

  Randy didn't see the light, but he was a bright kid when it came to design and a damn fast worker to boot, inspiring everyone from the corporate paper-pushers in Honolulu to the construction workers. Many of the nail-bangers were Randy's old high school buddies, and they worked under him with the intensity of the legendary menehune. Speke could see the respect Randy commanded while they toured the construction site, and he complimented the younger man as they stood on the balcony of an unfinished third-floor suite that would soon be a bone of contention among visiting executives.

  Speke's gaze traveled the beach and lingered on a hillside dotted with gray cement houses. At first he was confused by the sight of a condo project on corporation property, but then his mind sliced through the haze of business lunch mai tais - drinks that certainly weren't the powerless fruit punch cocktails they seemed to be—and he realized that the whole thing was a trick of perspective.

  Speke pointed to the miniature structures. "What's that?"

  Randy picked up the concern in the older man's voice. "Don't worry, Mitch... we own it. It's an old shrine, built by Japanese immigrants. Shingon Buddhists, if I remember correctly. It's a copy of the Kobo Dai Ishi Shrine back in Japan. Maybe you've heard of it?"

  Speke nodded. "Let's see... if memory serves, there are eighty-eight shrines along the path, each one representing a different sin, and the belief is that if you walk the path of the eighty-eight you'll never again be tempted by any of them." He lowered his voice to a well-practiced professional whisper. "Nobody told me, Randy. Have we had any complaints?"

  Randy's smile refused to evaporate. "No. Not one. See, the caretaker died back in the forties, and no one has done much in the way of maintenance since then." He patted Speke's shoulder. "Don't worry, Prof. Don't sweat it."

  Speke smiled. "Don't borrow trouble."

  "Huh?"

  "Just something my grandmother used to say."

  "Oh."

  "Look, Randy, does this bother you?"

  "Hell, I'm Catholic, and lapsed at that." Randy laughed. "Seriously, Mitch, I know a lot of the locals are against this kind of thing. Development, I mean. But I know a lot of guys on this island who can't afford a house, can't afford to live where their families have lived for generations. Now, construction brings money. Hotels bring money. I happen to think that money is a damn good answer to problems. And if we have to bend a little, if I have to share my favorite surfing beach with a few sunburnt tourists, so be it."

  Speke recognized the company line when he heard it. "Okay," he said. "I guess it's time to look at our real trouble-spot."

  Speke scrawled a large "17" on the roof of a leaning shrine. He stared back at the hotel. It was deserted - all the construction crews had Sunday off- and he remembered how strangely quiet the cement shrines had seemed from the unfinished third-floor suite. A humid breeze ruffled his graying hair and he found himself wishing that the silent hotel was just an optical illusion, a miniature made large by the power of too many mai tais.

  The dog barked, urging Speke onward. Beyond the twentieth shrine, the path was overgrown. There were two shrines above him on the hillside, both at the same level. Which was number twenty-one?

  Speke scratched the dog's head. "C'mon, boy. Take me there."

  The dog bounded through the tall grass and climbed to the shrine on the left. Speke followed.

  Fourth afternoon. Networking.

  Keleka Douglas grinned and set aside the chocolate bar she'd been nibbling. "Thanks for getting us back in business so quickly, Professor Speke."

  The archaeologist wiped her hands on her jeans and exchanged handshakes with Speke; hers was very firm. "Make it Mitch," Speke said, and her grin became a smile. "Kelly," she replied. "Keleka translates better as Theresa, but I prefer Kelly. Makes me sound like a carefree Irish lassie."

  Takagi had detailed Kelly Douglas's background. Yale-educated, graduate work in Israel, and, best of all (as far as the corporation was concerned), daughter of a Navy pilot and a native of Honolulu, Hawaii. She'd been working for the corporation for ten years. From the look of her, Speke decided that she found field work agreeable. She was deeply tanned, her dark hair was pulled back and braided, and her blue eyes shone with the enthusiasm of a true believer.

  "Excuse the mess," she apologized. "I'm trying to do everything myself. Guess I'm a control freak. First off, there are about a dozen reporters who want to get in here, plus I've got osteologists clamoring to run tests on this stuff, and on top of all that a colleague I'm not too fond of is pushing to do his own paleodemographic reconstruction. I told the director that this is my baby, and it's going to remain a closed site if I'm going to have anything to do with it. Which means that I get dibs on all the good toys, at least for now."

  "So you're the one the old man is running interference for."

  "Not me. The find. It's really spectacular."

  She pointed to a skull that lay on her desk. "Notice how the incisors are missing."

  Speke laughed. "Too many chocolate bars?"

  "Good one, Mitch," Kelly admitted. "Seriously, removal of the front teeth was an expression of grief in early Hawaiian society. Generally, it was done when an ali'i—a chief—died. That skull was one of the first things I saw here, and right away I knew we were dealing with a very significant burial site."

  "So, you hit the jackpot."

  "Hit it is an understatement—we clobbered the mother." Kelly stepped behind a long table. "These are the remains of a chiefess, found resting on a blanket of red sand. I was confused about that until I recalled that sometimes corpses were wrapped in barkcloth dyed with turmeric or ochre, which, quite naturally, decomposes." Kelly held up a rock oyster pendant strung on a necklace of braided human hair. "This is the finest lei niho palaoa I've come across. It's really remarkable, and a sure sign of an ali'i burial."

  The archaeologist turned her attention to another skeleton. "We believe that this one was a chief. He was also buried with valuables, including these bone fishhooks. Human bone. The early Hawaiians believed that fishhooks made from human long bones would contain the mana, or power, of the deceased. That's one reason why this burial site was concealed, so that our chief's enemies wouldn't use his bones in the same way."

  "Pretty exciting stuff," Speke examined one of the fishhooks. He turned it this way and that, and then he froze, the hook gripped so tightly in his hand that it nearly pierced his skin.

  "Gently... gently," Kelly uncoiled his fingers and took the fishhook from him. "It's not one of those plastic tiki letter openers that they sell at all the tourist traps. And sorry, no souvenirs."

  Speke was slightly embarrassed. Kelly laughed off his momentary case of chills, and Speke made her promise to buy him a
tiki letter opener since he couldn't keep the fishhook.

  They toured the burial site. Kelly explained that the mouth of the lava tube had been blocked with sand. The construction workers had unplugged the entrance to see if the tube would cause any problems with the hotel foundation. Deep inside, they had discovered a kapu marker—a warning fashioned from a large gourd—along with a stone that was covered with strands of human hair.

  Another expression of mourning, Kelly explained.

  They explored the lava tube. Kelly seemed a little tired of playing tour guide; she talked about the other projects she'd handled for the corporation. Speke discovered that Kelly Douglas had followed him both in Mexico and the Caribbean. She seemed to know quite a bit more about him than he knew about her. "You're a great advance man," she said. "Really, you've made my job very easy."

  "My pleasure. I think that this is going to be another easy one. Kanahele's really come around, and the museum should be a proud accomplishment for everyone. I mean, it's a small price to pay-"

  She raised her hand. "Spare me the corporate bullshit. I'm afraid I know it by heart."

  Before he could reply, Kelly suggested that they start back. She lowered her flashlight and the beam caught a candy-bar wrapper.

  Speke laughed. "Did they have Three Musketeers in ancient Hawaii?"

  "I guess I'm getting sloppy in my old age," Kelly said. "It happens at almost every sight. You clean everything out, all the things that are so special, and then you're left with another hole in the ground. Just another empty place."

  "I'm feeling kind of empty, but maybe I'm just hungry." Speke smiled. "Look, I know this is a little brisk, but there's a party in Honolulu tonight — "

  "At Wong Jak Man's, thrown by our honorable director." She took his hand, gently this time, "I'll make it easy—I'm invited, I don't have a date, and I'd love to go with you."