Trouble in Tahiti

by Hayford Peirce

  “Remember me?” I asked. “Probably not.” I stood at the foot of her bed and tried to look benign.

  “You’re…you’re the man who…found me?” She lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

  “That’s right. I brought you these,” I said awkwardly, and gestured with the flowers.

  “Oh, how thoughtful! Set them over there, please. Really, you shouldn’t have. I wanted.… How can I.… Oh, I look so awful,” and she began to weep.

  I comforted her the best I could, assured her that she was looking fine, that rescuing stranded ladies was all the day’s work, and that she’d be out of there in no time.

  “You really think so?” she asked in a tiny voice, fingering the remains of the lump on her forehead.

  “Of course,” I said cheerfully. “Look, your eye’s not swollen at all any more, that bump’s almost gone, and I can see you wiggling your toes at the end of that cast. Why, you could almost go dancing right now. In fact, I’ll be by for you at seven.”

  She smiled, and almost turned it into a laugh. It was probably a long time since her last belly-laugh, and I supposed she might have forgotten how. “You’re really very kind,” she said. “Susan and Hinano and some of…that crowd have been by, but they’re always so grim and serious when they look at me…it makes me feel like I’m about ready to die.” And tears welled up in her eyes again.

  I patted her hand. “Medicine, medicine,” I said jauntily, “just too much medicine. It makes your emotions go up and down like a yoyo. Why, when I was shot and full of dope I went on a crying jag that lasted for weeks!”

  “You were shot!” Her eyes widened.

  “Oh, years ago,” I said. “But it really wasn’t a very big gun.…”

  She clutched my hand. “Oh, tell me about it!”

  I smiled. “It was this way.…”

  Before I left, an hour later, I’d promised to return.

  * * * *

  Friday evening I drove Hinano up to La Chaumière, another mountain restaurant, on the opposite side of town from the Belvédère. But the only naked girl I found that night was Hinano as she slipped into my bed.

  The next day we got the kitchen to pack us a picnic lunch, and we drove out to the white-sand beach of Punaauia to lie in the sun and snorkel about in the crystal-clear water around the coral reefs. In the middle of a sunny afternoon it began to rain, at first from a cloudless sky, which was something that even San Francisco weather at its most baroque had never been able to do, and then from heavy gray clouds that rolled out from the hills behind us. We ran to the car and headed for town.

  About halfway back to Papeete, where the road skirted the lagoon and a small-craft marina on one side and an exclusive housing development in the hills on the other, Hinano clutched my arm suddenly. “Oh, turn here! Let’s go see Bob and Susan. They’re always there on Saturday afternoons.”

  “I thought you wanted a shower,” I said, already thinking of her gleaming ivory body stretching provocatively under a torrent of water.

  “They’ve got lots of showers there,” she wheedled.

  I shrugged in resignation. In Tahiti I guess you do drop in on your friends to take a shower when you feel like it.

  The house was a fair distance up in the hills at the junction of a gully and a couple of ridges and was fairly isolated. The nearest neighbor was at least a hundred yards away, but there were a half-dozen cars parked along the sides of the unpaved road. The house itself was nearly out of sight, tucked away in a cutting down on the side of the hill, so that all you could see of it was a chain-link fence, a two-car garage at road-level, and the red tile roof of the house itself just below the road.

  We got out of the car. The weather here was heavy and overcast, but not yet raining. A small red sign on the chain-link gate in the fence had neat white letters on it: FARE AUTE.

  “What’s that mean, beware of the dog?”

  “House Hibiscus, fare means house, aute is hibiscus.” I looked around but didn’t see any particular profusion of flowers overflowing the road or hillside. Hinano punched a button beside the gate and a voice from a speaker asked who was there.

  “Hinano,” she replied, and the gate was buzzed open. I was taken aback: it was the first time I’d seen American-style security anywhere in Tahiti. We walked down some concrete stairs to a small terrace of dark red tiles. A concrete planter stood on each side of a brown wooden door, with bright red hibiscuses growing in one and yellow in the other. Hinano snapped off one of the large red flowers and tucked it neatly into her hair above her right ear, then did the same for me with a yellow one from the other plant. I smiled. Tahitians did like their flowers.

  Hinano pushed the door open and we stepped into a tiled foyer, then a living room. I could hear voices on the far side of the house, and caught a glimpse of the end of a pool.

  “Is that you, Hinano?” came Bob’s voice.

  “Yes!” she shouted. “We’ll be right there!”

  “Leave your clothes out there, you don’t want to embarrass anybody!” There was a murmur of merriment.

  “Leave your clothes?” I said, laughing. “We’re only wearing our bathing suits.” But Hinano had already slipped out of her bikini top, and was stepping out of the bottom. I noticed now there were piles of clothing scattered about the living room. I looked back to Hinano and saw that the skin of her breasts was goose-pimpled and that the dark brown nipples were extended and hard.…

  I pushed my way past and stepped out on the cement terrace. It abutted a wooden deck and a circular pool. There were chaise longues, pool mattresses, lots of cushions, and about fifteen people, all of them naked. Bob West looked up from the red-headed girl he was fondling and gaped at me in astonishment. My own face was probably a similar study.

  After the initial reaction of gut-shock, I let out my breath in a sigh. It was only your friendly Marin County Saturday afternoon barbecue and swing-along transferred south of the equator. Just a lot of naked people doing various things to each other in varying combinations. With something of a pang I saw some long blond hair that might have been Susan’s, lost in a tangle of arms and legs of a man and another woman. Bob opened his mouth to protest, saw the expression on my face, and shut it again. A hush fell over the group: I’d cast a certain pall.

  I felt Hinano’s hand on my arm and shook it off angrily.

  “Nice party, Bob,” I said. “But unless there’s a hot-tub, it’s not for me. No peacocks, either.” I walked back through the living room. Hinano caught me at the stairs.

  “I thought—”

  “I’m old-fashioned,” I snarled, pushing her aside. “I even like it with the lights out.” On my way up the stairs I ripped the hibiscus from my hair and threw back it to the tiles of the terrace.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Kidnapped? Who’s been kidnapped?”

  “My…my mother,” said Tamara Payton, and began to sob with loud gulping noises. I looked around uncomfortably: people were beginning to stare over their morning coffee. I handed her a napkin. “Here, blow your nose, and let’s go back to my room, where we can talk about it a little more privately.”

  The weeping subsided and to curious stares I guided her off the terrace and into the garden. When we reached my bungalow she disappeared into the bathroom while I sat in the salon and scratched idly at my mosquito bites. I climbed to my feet when she returned and waved her into the other chair. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes red. She nodded weakly.

  She was an attractive young American who looked like the college girl next door. Her light-colored brown hair was short and fluffy, her nails were unpolished, and a dozen freckles were scattered over a friendly, candid face. She was of medium height, wore dark slacks and a loose pullover, and was probably about twenty-two. The only remarkable thing about her was that she was sitting in my hotel room in Tahiti telling me that her mother had been kidnapped.

  “Before we go any further,” I said, “just how is it that you’re talking to me of all people. I don’t t
hink I know—”

  “The Wests,” she blurted impatiently. “They suggested that I come and see you. I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice began to crack, and I feared another session of tears. I leaned over and took her hand paternally.

  “Fine, I just wanted to know. Now, supposed you tell me all about it. From the start,” I added hastily.

  “Yes…well…well, I…I flew in yesterday morning and there was no one at the airport to meet me, which was a little funny, but I took a taxi home, and when the servants came to work, they told me they hadn’t seen my mother in a long time, maybe a week. You know how Tahitians are when you try to pin them down to a date.”

  “Your mother was expecting you?”

  “Of course. I talked to her about two weeks ago. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t all that surprised not to find her home. I mean, I didn’t have a heart attack or anything. She likes to go and visit friends, even on the other islands, and maybe spend the night, things like that, she’s always on the go. But at least I thought she would have told the servants, so one of them could have met me, or left a car at the airport. Or something.”

  “So what did you do for the rest of the day?”

  “Oh, mostly I just grouched around and got some food in, and got the maid and the gardener working again.”

  “I thought you said they had come to work?”

  “Oh, they came to work, all right. But when nobody’s there to watch them, that doesn’t mean they work. The house was a mess. By the end of the day I’d worked harder than either of them, so I just boiled an egg and went to bed real early. And then this morning, about seven o’clock, the phone rang and this voice said that if I ever wanted to see her again, my father would have to pay a ransom of $5 million. They…they said not to say anything to the police or they…they’d send me one of her…fingers.…”

  She dabbed at her eyes, and I stared at my feet.

  “Was this person who called a man or a woman?”

  “Oh, a man.”

  “What language did he speak? French? Tahitian? English?”

  “French. With…with sort of a local accent, I think.”

  “You speak French well?” I asked, switching to that language. “For instance, what kind of accent do you think I have?”

  “Tiens,” she said, surprised, automatically continuing in French. “I speak pretty good French, but not like yours. I mean, I’m pretty fluent, but I can hear my American accent. You speak it just like a Frenchman. This man who talked to me, he spoke it like a Tahitian, you know, like this.” The last four words she pronounced with an exaggerated Tahitian accent. As she said, her French was pretty good. Excellent, actually.

  “It’s a pretty easy accent to mimic,” I said. “I’ve only been here about three weeks, and I could do it without any trouble. Okay. So then what did you do? Did you call the police?”

  She shook her head miserably. “I kept thinking about…about that finger. I picked up the phone and started calling all of mommy’s friends I could think of, and all of my friends, asking them if they’d seen her or knew where she was. When I called the Wests—”

  “Are they your friends, or hers?” I asked, rather sharply, I suppose, for she looked at me peculiarly.

  “Oh, hers. I mean, I hardly know them at all. He’s sort of yucky, isn’t he, always boasting about how smart he is? And she’s not even like an ageing flower child, she’s more like a broken-down old folksinger, with that long ratty hair. You know the one I mean? Who used to sing ‘Puff the Magic Dragon?’”

  “I’ll be damned! Peter, Paul, and Mary. That’s who she reminds me of! Mary whatever-her-name-is. I told her she reminded me of someone—I think I had her worried.”

  Tamara Payton shook her head uncertainly, not understanding. I wondered how she’d describe me, another graybeard, with the casual cruelty of youth. I pushed the thought aside. “Sorry. Go on.”

  “Well, anyway, they’re friends of mommy’s,” she said, “and when I called them they say, no, it was sort of strange, they were supposed to have dinner with her last night, but she never showed up or called or anything. Mommy was always very strict about that: she hated this Tahitian habit of just not coming, or coming the wrong day, or bringing three friends along, and never letting you know in advance.”

  She looked down at her hands. “They…they were the last people on my list to call, so when Susan said she didn’t know anything, I didn’t know what to do, and I…I guess I broke down a little and told her about the man who had telephoned. She didn’t know what to do either, so she put Bob on the phone, and after we talked for a little while he said there was a very good friend of his, a famous American detective, staying at the hotel, and that if I saw you maybe you could do something. Oh, can you, Mr. LaRoche? Can you?” Her eyes beseeched me. “Do you think they’ll hurt her?” She shook her head in desperation, unable to comprehend the enormity of what had thrust itself into her life.

  “I don’t know,” I said flatly. “You can never predict what a kidnapper will do.” I held her hands in mine. “You said they wanted a ransom of $5 million. That’s a lot of money, even for today. Could your father actually pay that much?”

  “Of course,” she said scornfully. “But he won’t.”

  “What?”

  “I called him right after I finished talking to the Wests, you can dial the States direct, you know, and when I told him…he just laughed! He said…he said…it’s one of Danielle’s damned jokes!” She bit her lip and turned her head away.

  It was my turn to stare. “Surely an unusual reaction for someone whose wife has just been kidnapped?”

  “My father is an unusual man,” she said bitterly. “He and my mother hate each other.” She eyed me curiously. “You mean you don’t know who he is?”

  “I don’t even know who you are, except your name’s Tamara Payton and your mother has a house in Tahiti.”

  “Oh.” She seemed taken aback. “I…I’m not explaining things very well, I’m afraid. I’m just used to thinking that everybody knows about my father. I guess because I do. That’s stupid, isn’t it? Anyway, he’s Charles Wentworth Payton.” She looked at me expectantly.

  I turned the name over in my mind. It meant nothing. I shook my head. “He’s running for the Senate,” she said. “The U.S. Senate. In New Mexico. He’s a Republican.”

  “I’ve still never heard of him. But then I don’t follow politics.”

  She grimaced. “Neither do I . It’s awful. But he really isn’t a politician, he’s a publisher. He’s made, oh, maybe a hundred million dollars in publishing, and now he thinks he can buy his way into the Senate.”

  “It’s been done, I gather. What does he publish? Hugh Hefner’s the only publisher I’ve ever heard of.”

  “That’s what makes my father so mad: Hefner’s the only publisher anybody’s ever heard of! And my father’s made this absolutely tremendous fortune with all these magazines that nobody’s ever heard of, like Undertakers’ Weekly, and Nurseryman’s News, and Steamfitters’ Union Gazette, and Restaurant Managers’ Daily and—”

  “These are real magazines?”

  She waved a hand. “Oh, I’m just making up those particular names, but that’s the kind of stuff he publishes: hundreds of trade journals and union magazines and industry surveys and things like that. It’s an enormous business. Don’t policemen have their own magazines?”

  “Sure, there’s probably half a dozen of them.”

  “Well, then. I’ll bet you that at least three of them belong to my father.”

  “I’ll be darned. I never knew there was that kind of money in magazines like that.”

  “Nobody does. That’s why he started a magazine called Getting Ahead. So that people would know about him.”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ve seen that one. Sort of a…well, how to get ahead, huh?” I shrugged helplessly.

  “There’s one hundred million people who want to,” she said pointedly. “It’s already selling two million copies a month.”
>
  “I guess I could use it myself, now that you mention it,” I said wryly. We looked at each other for a moment with small speculative smiles, until I stood up briskly. “How about some coffee?” I asked. “Think you can handle the terrace now?” She nodded mutely.

  We sat in a secluded corner of the terrace and sipped coffee while I tried to put my thoughts in order. “What do you think?” I said at last.

  She looked up, startled. “Me? About what? Oh?” Her fingers worked convulsively. “I think…I think…it’s true. That she really is kidnapped. She wouldn’t do that to me, she wouldn’t!” She shook her head fiercely. “I tell you she wouldn’t!”

  “Easy,” I soothed. “I believe you, I really do. People do get kidnapped, you know. It’s happening more and more. I just never thought it happened in Tahiti.…” A thought occurred to me. “Are you sure she’s even in Tahiti? Wealthy people like to jump around. Maybe she just flew off to…New Zealand, say. In which case this could be just a cruel hoax by someone here who knows she’s gone. Or.…” My voice trailed off.

  “Or…she’s been kidnapped somewhere else,” finished Tamara softly. “In some country where they really do kidnap people and…and cut off their fingers! Oh, I can’t stand it!”

  I reached across to calm her, but she shook my hand off. She grabbed my purse from beneath the table and dumped the contents out on the snowy linen. There was a small leather-bound checkbook. She opened it, found a pen, and began to write. She looked at what she had done for a long, grim moment, and then at me. I shifted uneasily. She nodded as if she had come to a decision, and signed the check. She held it out to me. After a while I took it, and lowered my eyes to the writing. It was to the order of Alain LaRoche in the amount of $10,000.00.

  CHAPTER 9

  Tamara zoomed her red Mercedes coupé to the Punaauia house with me in pursuit in the rented Fiat. It was a half-hour drive and I spent the time asking myself and my conscience what I was going to do to justify depositing her $10,000 into my dwindling San Francisco bank account. So far this morning I’d earned about a nickel of it by talking to the Wests.