“What about her life outside these parties, her husband, her activities, her—”
Chatoune shook her head impatiently. “You’ve got the wrong idea, Monsieur LaRoche. I don’t know her at all except at the orgies. Why would Hinano say…? Oh! She must have seen us making love together a couple of times and thought.… Oh, dear,” she said seriously, “how complicated life is.”
I passed my hand across my face to hide the blush she’d brought to my cheeks. Was she putting me on? Chatoune Tchen was completely unexpected.
“I’m glad you’re so frank,” I said, swallowing hard. “That lets me be frank with you. You certainly know that people who lead…unconventional lives in one sense often do in others. That’s why cops all over the world hassle people who are different whenever anything happens and the cops can’t think of anything else to do.”
“Are you hassling me?” she asked with a smile.
I smiled back. “Not at all. I’m explaining why I’m going around talking to you and your…friends. I don’t know anything about Tahiti and the people here. For instance, if Danielle was kidnapped by some crazy Tahitian liberation movement, I wouldn’t have a clue where to begin. Suppose she’s involved in drug smuggling: the same thing. What I’m doing, is going on a one-in-a-thousand possibility that someone like Danielle Payton who moves in unconventional circles might have met someone else in those circles, someone who was a little…more unconventional than the others.”
“And kidnapped her?” said Chatoune somberly.
“And…anything.…”
She pushed her melted ice cream around thoughtfully with her spoon. “The only thing I know is she once mentioned she had been seeing a Tahitian boyfriend occasionally, someone that she didn’t bring to the parties.”
I questioned her for another five minutes trying to elicit some further information about Danielle Payton and her Tahitian boyfriend but came up blank.
“You know a girl named Marie-France Laurent?”
“Marie-France? Of course.” She grinned mischievously. “She has a very pretty…well, let’s say Marie-France is very nice. But I don’t care much for her husband though.”
“That’s Jackie? The doctor?”
Chatoune made a moue. “He’s very AC/DC.” She flapped a limp wrist sardonically. “He’s a little too gay for my tastes.” I nodded politely: in the swinging world, it seemed, women might love women, but like the Old West, Men were supposed to be Men.
As Chatoune herself had just said: how complicated life is.
CHAPTER 11
Jackie Laurent had an office in the middle of town, just beside the cathédrale. Out of curiosity I went by and poked my head into his waiting room. There were half a dozen people fidgeting, so I backed out hastily. I called Tamara in Punaauia. She’d found her mother’s American passport, and an insurance policy for her car. It was a dark blue Mercedes diesel sedan, with year-old plates. I looked at my watch. It was only three o’clock, so I had the rest of the afternoon to kill. For two hours I walked up and down the streets of Papeete trying to spot a dark blue Mercedes. There were two of them in the parking lot that ran along the waterfront, but their plates were wrong and neither of them was a diesel.
At quarter after five I found my own Fiat and headed out to Faaa International Airport. Airport parking lots always have cars sitting around for long periods of time without attention being drawn to them. Parking at Faaa was directly in front of the terminal, with no attendants and no fees. In the middle of the parking lot there was the usual thatched-roof building, this one for the Tahitians who sold flower-and-shell leis to drape around the necks of airline passengers.
The blue Mercedes was parked about twenty feet away. It was locked. I peered inside but could see nothing useful. Tamara and I would have to locate some keys and come open it up.
I drove back to town, and a little beyond, to the suburb of Pirae where Dr. and Mrs. Laurent lived not far from the Hotel Taaone. I wondered gloomily if he were the house doctor.
Marie-France Laurent was a small girl with large breasts, a tiny waist, dead-white skin, raven-black hair, and a beaky nose. She would make a good witch when the boys and girls got tired of their straightforward swings and moved to Black Masses. Her husband the doctor seemed to be at least part-Tahitian. He was slim and delicate, with fine features and long brown hair that fell to his shoulders. They were both in their early thirties.
“This is most upsetting,” said Jackie in highly cultivated French with just a trace of the Tahitian manner of rolling the R’s. “Naturally we’ll tell you anything we can to help you. Danielle is simply so wonderful!” His hand held me firmly by the shoulder.
“Very kind of you,” I said uncomfortably. If Jackie was a little gay for Chatoune Tchen’s advanced tastes, he was way too gay for poor old LaRoche’s benighted ones. I turned to Marie-France, who was sitting on the other side of me on the sofa, and managed to disengage his hand. “You’re close friends with Mrs. Payton?”
“Oh yes,” she said softly. “We’re like that. That’s why I know that this is no joke.”
“Exactly,” said Jackie. “The three of us are like sisters. Danielle would never do such a thing, even to torment that husband of hers, without telling us all about it.”
“She isn’t a secretive woman?” I asked.
Jackie cocked his head to consider. “Secretive? No, not at all. On the contrary, very open, especially with us. She and Marie-France share everything.” Marie-France smiled wanly at the memories. Jackie frowned, as if I’d questioned his word. “But she is discreet, of course. All of us…in our little circle are discreet, you know. Even in Tahiti there are standards.”
“Don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.”
His laugh tinkled. “Oh you! What was I saying, dear?”
“That something must have happened to Danielle,” said Marie-France soberly. “You say you’ve found her passport, so she hasn’t left Tahiti. She is…well, frankly, too much of a blabbermouth to keep any kind of a hoax like that a secret.” She leaned forward, and her gaze held mine. She was obviously genuinely concerned. “We love Danielle very dearly, Monsieur LaRoche, even if she is a little…flighty on occasions. Something here—” she placed a hand on her breast “—tells me she is in trouble. Very serious trouble. Find her. Please.”
It was over-dramatic, even ridiculous, but convincing. I spread my hands helplessly. “I’m a former policeman, Mrs. Laurent, not a storybook private detective. As soon as I’m just a touch more certain there might have been a kidnapping I’ll advise her daughter to go to the authorities at once. This is a small island, crawling with police of one kind or another. It would be impossible to hide a kidnap victim for very long.”
“If she’s alive,” said Jackie judiciously. “A body is a lot easier to hide.”
“Oh, Jackie!” wailed Marie-France, and burst into tears. She ran from the room. Jackie shook his head dolefully but made no move to follow. For the fortieth time I wondered what their relationship was.
“Chatoune said Mrs. Payton might have a Tahitian boyfriend she didn’t bring around to the parties, Dr. Laurent. Do you know who that might be?”
He frowned delicately. “Hiro? Of course she has a boyfriend: Hiro. A very handsome fellow, very, very handsome.”
“You know him then?” I asked, wondering just whose boyfriend Hiro actually was.
“Of course! He’s come here several times with Danielle for…intimate little evenings, just the four of us, you understand?” He smiled reminiscently.
“That’s very helpful,” I said. “What’s his last name?”
“Oh dear. He’s just Danielle’s…animal: young, large, muscular, dumb. He can hardly talk. Purely a…sexual object, you know what I mean?” He blinked at me inquiringly.
“I think so,” I said wearily. “So you don’t know his name. What about where to find him?”
He pondered. “Well,” he said at last, “I really shouldn’t tell tales out of school, but this
Hiro brute is more than a little gay. I mean, aside from our own little evenings together, I know I’ve seen him around with some of the gay crowd.”
“Hrmph.” I considered. “Is there a gay bar in Tahiti? Or a place where they hang out?”
He told me where to go, and after thanking him I took my leave. Once in the car I shook my head in wonder. So Hiro was servicing Mrs. Payton on the one hand and swishing around with the gays on the other: it was almost beginning to seem normal to me. No wonder they say that travel is broadening.
* * * *
I had a question of two for Bob West and I drove by the hotel but the Wests had already left for the night. So I went back to the car and drove through the night to Danielle Payton’s home in Punaauia.
The servants had returned home for the night, and I found Tamara sitting alone and depressed in the dark. I switched on a table lamp. The floor around her was covered with shredded Kleenex. I sat down beside her and patted her hand. “Let’s go out to the kitchen,” I said, “and you can make me the world’s largest drink, and I’ll cook us the world’s greatest dinner.”
“You can cook?” she asked without any great interest.
“I grew up in a three-star French restaurant, there’s nothing I don’t know about French food.” Which didn’t answer the question of whether I could cook or not.
At least I can burn an omelet as easy as the next fellow, so while I fiddled with eggs I drank whiskey and gave her an abridged edition of the afternoon’s events, tried to answer her questions, and finally listened to her tell me about growing up with Charles Wentworth Payton and his wife Danielle. Mostly it seemed to be twenty-two years of traveling, from their duplex apartment—and later their town house—in New York to the ranch in New Mexico, to the pied-à-terre in Rome, to the house in Tahiti, and back again, with stops in between. “Now he’s even got his own 727,” she said without relish.
“Which reminds me: where’s that passport?” I asked, flipping the first omelet over in the pan. She padded off to get it, and while we ate the eggs and French bread I browsed through it. Danielle Payton, I learned, was 43 years old, born in Traverse City, Michigan, and female. She had written in her address as B.P. 451, Papeete, Tahiti, and in case of emergency asked that her daughter, Tamara, at Stanford University, Stanford, California, be notified. The pages were crowded with immigration frankings from all over the world, and there were annual multiple-entry visas from the local Tahitian authorities for the past three years.
I studied her black-and-white photograph, but like most passport pictures the harsh lighting exaggerated her features. It was hard to tell whether she was attractive or not, and whether she somehow seemed familiar to me.
I tapped the passport on the table. “She lists you as the person to notify.” Tamara gulped noisily.
“I…I saw that. I told you…she hates my father.”
“Well, that’s none of my business. I think. Will you be all right here alone? We could get you a room at the hotel.”
“Alone?” Her eyes widened.
“There’s some people I want to track down,” I said evasively. “It may be very late before I find them. If I don’t call you by eleven tonight I’ll call early tomorrow morning. All right?”
She nodded, her eyes lowered. “What do you really think, Mr. LaRoche?” she asked in a mournful voice.
“Rocky,” I said automatically, studying the remains of my half-eaten omelet. “I don’t think it looks too good,” I said after a while. There was a long silence.
“But it’s not hopeless,” I added. “We know her car is at the airport, and you don’t need a passport to go to Moorea or any of the other islands. So there’s always the chance she could have hopped over to Bora-Bora for a couple of weeks and the guy on the phone is just making a bad joke. Maybe I’ll learn something tonight. I’m going to ask Bob West to contact all the hotels in all the outer islands.…” I got to my feet.
“So maybe…maybe…?” Her eyes glistened.
I nodded fractionally. She rose blindly to her feet and came to me. Her head burrowed into my chest. Her back trembled beneath my hands. After a moment she pushed herself away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Find her, Mr. LaRoche. Please.”
CHAPTER 12
When the girl I was dancing with rubbed her erection against my leg I began to suspect she might not be entirely a girl. When she rubbed her beard against my cheek I became certain. I manhandled her to arm’s length and cast a second look down the front of her dress: her bare breasts were feminine all right, so I hadn’t entirely lost my mind.
Yet.
Assailed by an insanely amplified thump-thump-thump of mind-numbing disco beat, I didn’t think I had far to go. But just as Chantal grabbed my waist with a muscular arm and dragged me to her embrace the music came to a sudden stop and in the eerie silence I recovered myself enough to push my way back to my handkerchief-sized table. I downed my beer in two gulps and handed the bottle and some money to Chantal, who wiggled her way to the bar with the finesse of a bulldozer.
“The things a man will do for $10,000,” I muttered to myself disgustedly. Actually the Clarinet Club was pretty tame stuff compared to some of the chains and leather meat-racks south of Market around Folsom Street, but for the tourists from Waterloo, Iowa, the Clarinet Club was as pleasantly decadent as you could hope for. Six-foot Tahitian transvestites and transsexuals in rouge, lipstick, and revealing evening gowns, reeking of old sweat and ten-cent perfume, served drinks and danced with the customers. Pale French soldiers and sailors in T-shirts and bluejeans danced zombie-like by themselves, twitching in rhythm to the overpowering music as they gaped narcissistically at their own images in the floor-to-ceiling mirror along one wall. A few tourists sat bemused at the bar or clustered together for safety in one of the booths and watched an occasional gay waltz in from the street, solicit himself a lonely crewcut soldier, and disappear with him into the night. Aside from the head-splitting noise, the thick pall of smoke, and the price of drinks, it was all pretty harmless.
Since it was actually possible to edge your way through the humanity that thronged the tiny dance floor it was a slow night, said Chantal as she sat down beside me. She plunked a bottle of Hinano on the table for me and a flourescent-colored gin-tonic for herself.
She edged closed and tried to rub her breast against my arm. I moved out of range. “Very nice,” I said, “maybe tomorrow night when I’m not so tired. In the meantime.…” I removed a 1,000-franc note from my pocket, about $9, and pushed it over to her. “For you,” I said. She didn’t seem overwhelmed by the amount. It disappeared quickly enough though.
“You want me,” she said breathily.
“Later maybe. Right now I’m looking for a guy named Hiro. A big dumb Tahitian guy who screws old ladies—” I leered at her conspiratorially “—but who likes to hang around guys.”
“You want Hiro?” She seemed outraged at my lack of fidelity.
“I don’t want Hiro, I want to talk to him. He knows where a friend of mine is.”
“Oh.” Chantal considered. She turned to wave at a fellow transsexual, this one with silver spangles in her foot-high bouffant hair. She minced over to the table. Her breasts hung precariously from her dress as she leaned over to whisper with Chantal.
“This is Christine,” said Chantal. Christine simpered and kissed me wetly on both cheeks. She smelled of spoiled fish. I smiled faintly, though it wasn’t easy. “She says there’s someone named Hiro who works at Punk’s. But he isn’t at all beautiful like us.”
“I can certainly believe that,” I said sincerely. “Thank you, ladies, I’ll be back tomorrow for some serious dancing.” I tucked 500 francs down the front of Christine’s décolletage. “Buy yourself a drink, sweetie.”
Punk’s was a few yards down the street from the Clarinet Club. Its name was not enticing. Half a dozen young Tahitian males slouched around the outside, listening to the blast of music that emanated from within. But they
appeared to be neither gay, nor punks, nor male prostitutes, just impoverished teenagers with nothing else to do at 10:30 of a Tuesday evening. Things were looking up. I paid 200 francs to the doorkeeper and shoved my way into the noise.
I bought a beer at the counter and turned around to see what I could through the blue haze of cigarette smoke. There seemed to be a tranny or two washed in from the overflow at the Clarinet Club, and a lot of the same sad little sailors and soldiers, but there were also what looked to be genuine Tahitian girls and women, blowzy and toothless as some of them were, and some straight males dancing with them. None of the waiters fit the description of Hiro: big, dumb, and physical, a mere sexual object. In fact, all of them were women, or at least reason facsimiles thereof.
A transsexual waitress, slim, girlish, and almost good-looking, pushed her way to the bar and slapped her tray down beside me. I let 1,000 francs drop onto it lightly. She looked up in surprise.
“Hiro,” I said, “a big Tahitian.” I spread my hands to indicate just how big. “He works here.”
She shook her head. “He used to work here. Now he has a rich lover, so he doesn’t work any more.”
“A rich male lover, you said?”
“An American named Billy.” She loaded her tray with beer bottles and started to turn away.
“Hold it a second. Do you know where I can find these two?”
“Sure. They live on a yacht on the waterfront. Just ask for Billy.”
As easy as that. I thanked her and turned away. “Hey,” she called after me, “you left your thousand francs!”
For a place named Punk’s, it was a high-class joint.
* * * *
I walked the short block to the waterfront and turned left toward the center of town, where the yachts were tied up a couple of hundred yards down the road, just past the fleet of small wooden fishing boats. I walked slowly, savoring the fresh, cool air, mulling over the conversation I’d had with the Wests an hour or so before, when I’d stopped by their house in the hills on my way into town.
Trouble in Tahiti Page 7
