Trouble in Tahiti

by Hayford Peirce

  “Whose cabin was it in?” I asked.

  “None of theirs. It was an unused cabin generally used by the crew. As you might expect, they disclaim any knowledge of it and how it got there in loud voices.”

  “So what are you going to do about them?”

  “Arrest them,” ordered Tamara imperiously. “Beat them. Make them tell you where my Mama is.”

  Tama nodded understandingly. “I wish I could. They have been questioned closely, and we are waiting for information from France concerning them. In the meantime, they are under close surveillance in their home. If we should learn anything useful from France.…” He gestured broadly with his hands.

  There was a knock on the door, and an aide hurried in to whisper in his ear. Tama waved him from the room. “So,” he said. “Both of the local newspapers and the AP correspondent have just received photographs similar to the one on my desk. The story is about to break in the afternoon and evening papers in the United States. There is now nothing I can do to keep it from the local sources. Instead, we will ask them, and the radio-television service, to give it the greatest possible amount of publicity. It might bring someone forward with useful information.”

  “I think Miss Payton should call her father,” I said. “I don’t see how he can do anything but cooperate now.” She nodded dismally, and went to make the call from the next room.

  She returned ten minutes later, looking drained. “He’ll be here this evening,” she said simply.

  “This evening?” echoed Tama. “There’s no plane until the UTA tomorrow morning.”

  “His private jet,” said Tamara with a sigh. “The Quest for Truth.”

  * * * *

  Tamara had returned to Punaauia for lunch and a nap. I sat in my Fiat and drew up a list of things to do. The first was to stop by a hardware store. I purchased a box of plastic sandwich bags and some nylon fishing line and returned to the hotel, where I walked down to the beach and filled one of the bags with coarse black sand. Back in my room I stuffed the bag into a finely knit black sock and poked and prodded the sand until I had a well-balanced homemade blackjack in my hand. I cut off two pieces of the fishing line and sealed off first the bag and then the sock around it. I went back to the car and stowed my sandbag in the glove compartment. Now I was armed.

  It wasn’t needed for my first interview. Visiting hours at the Hôpital de Mamao weren’t until noon, so I put on my official face and made for Mareta’s room purposefully. I kissed her on both cheeks and admired her looks enthusiastically. This was the fourth time I’d been by, and the improvement was striking. She lost some weight, and her complexion had lost its tan, but her facial injuries had healed and her eyes sparkled. You could see now that she was a beautiful young woman. I sat down beside the bed, and she held my hand in hers while we talked.

  “Are you still seeing Hinano?” she asked shyly.

  “We had a…misunderstanding.”

  “Oh. She’s a little…peculiar sometimes.” I nodded. “They’re taking the cast off my leg in a couple of days,” she said exuberantly. “Then if my shoulder X-rays are all right, I can start the re-education on my knee. Then—home!”

  I smiled and squeezed her hand. “Sure. What’s a few broken ribs?” But a cloud had passed across her face. The mention of home had reminded her that she no longer had a home to return to. I leaned across and kissed her in the little hollow her nose joined her forehead. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I’ll be here to get you.”

  Her eyes glistened, and when I got up to leave her lips brushed across the corner of my mouth.

  * * * *

  The Jade Palace was almost directly across the street from the Banque de l’Indosuez. It had excellent Chinese food that was almost worth the prices you paid. Hinano was waiting for me when I arrived. Her manner was wary and reserved. While she sipped tea I told her about what had happened to Danielle Payton. She clutched my wrist. “It can’t be true!”

  “I’m afraid it is.” I looked down into my glass of ice water. “Tell me everything you can about Danielle Payton.”

  She did, for the rest of the lunch, but I learned nothing new. According to Hinano, Danielle Payton was a rich, fun-loving, frivolous woman who was unspoiled by her money. She was good-natured, open-hearted, generous, and devoted to the earthly pleasures in a somehow innocent fashion. At times she appeared scatter-brained: she could be both willful and easily led within a short period of time. She had traveled all over the world, but spent most of her time in Tahiti because of its zest for life, its relaxed moral standards, and the freedom it offered her to indulge herself in convivial company. She loved her daughter and hated her husband, but never discussed the reasons for the hatred.

  “All I know,” said Hinano, “is that they’ve been getting divorced for years, but they keep changing their minds about the property settlement and start fighting again, and the lawyers put it off. And now that he’s running for the Senate, it’s been delayed again. Danielle says he’s the world’s biggest hypocrite. He’s pretending to be a real goody-goody and very big on the Major Morality or whatever you Americans call it, and he wants her to stay out of the way in Tahiti so that people wouldn’t know about.…” She stared down into her plate of crystal shrimp. “Well, you know.…”

  “Yeah.”

  “She said he gave her a million dollars to stay here until the election was over.” She looked up at me, her eyes wide. “A million dollars!”

  I shook my head. “It’s nice to be rich,” I said.

  She considered this carefully. “Except you never hear of poor people being kidnapped for ransom.”

  * * * *

  After lunch I circled the waterfront for twenty minutes until a parking space opened up and I could nose the Fiat into it. The Book of Dreams, Billy’s floating hemp palace, was moored twenty yards down the road. For the rest of the afternoon I sat in the car, getting out occasionally to feed the meter.

  At 3:17 Billy appeared on deck, his shaven pate gleaming, jumped down to the sidewalk, and swaggered off to town. There was no sign of Hiro. I fingered my sandbag hopefully and tried to come to some conclusions about the three tough ex-paras, Jérôme, Jean-Paul, and Yves-Louis.

  Were they gangsters, reputable hotel owners, kidnappers, or a combination of all three? Tama had said he would check into the ownership of the Hotel Taaone, and I had mentioned that in passing to Hinano as lunch was drawing to a close.

  “Why, that’s ridiculous!” she said. “Of course Bob and Susan own the hotel! What bold liars these Frenchmen are!”

  I sighed. Somebody certainly was.

  By seven that evening the sun had made its usual spectacular descent behind Moorea, and there was still no sign of Hiro. I walked down to the Vaima Café for a ham sandwich and black coffee, and at eight o’clock began a tour of the Papeete bars, gay, straight, and in between.

  But two hours later I still hadn’t found him, so I returned to Punaauia and followed Tamara into the airport for the arrival of The Quest for Truth and its owner, publishing tycoon and Senatorial hopeful, Charles Wentworth Payton.

  CHAPTER 18

  Tamara’s father was in his early fifties, tall and well-built and tanned, with brown hair graying in dignified fashion around his ears. He wore a light gray herringbone suit and a black tie and looked every inch a Senator. He stepped down from his 727 into a brightly lighted cluster of officials, media people, and television cameras. A moment later his own claque of media people with their own equipment began to debark from the plane. I could make out bags and equipment labeled NBC, CBS, and ABC. Tamara and I watched from a distance while Payton waited for the others to set up shop. After a short speech to the cameras he turned finally toward the terminal.

  A few minutes later he entered the VIP waiting room, attended by Commissaire Tama, Colonel Schneider, and a man who introduced himself as Bobby Lee Tanner, his campaign manager. Charles Wentworth Payton embraced Tamara dutifully, who seemed to recoil from his touch, and flashed me a polit
ician’s smile as his hand brushed mine. Colonel Schneider failed to conceal his displeasure at seeing me. He muttered angrily to Tama, who shrugged and indicated Tamara with a flick of an eyebrow. Payton watched the exchange thoughtfully, then took me by the elbow and led me into the group that was sitting down in a corner of the room. Colonel Schneider averted his eyes.

  Payton listened attentively while Tama described the situation. “These…paratroopers, then, have been arrested.”

  “Detained for further questioning,” said Tama smoothly. “We’ve begun to receive information about them from Paris, and it is clear that they are of a dubious character. They were paratroop officers together in Algeria, and were then involved the attempted putsch against de Gaulle in 1961. They left the service and are believed to have joined the OAS, the Secret Army Organization, but this was never proven. In any case, the agencies fighting the OAS were not over-scrupulous in obtaining formal proof before…er, moving to action against OAS members. The fact that these three survived can be taken as either evidence of their non-involvement or of their slipperiness.”

  “What’s that got to do with what’s happening now?” asked Bobby Lee Tanner. He spoke fast, fluent French with an abominable Texas accent that made Colonel Schneider wince.

  “The OAS men were experts in terrorism, armed robbery, kidnapping, and murder,” said Tama equitably. “De Gaulle actually enlisted the aid of the French underworld to fight them on their own terms. It was a bloody period. Since the differences between the activities of the OAS and the criminal underworld were often rather slight, it was no great surprise when a number of OAS types eventually shifted allegiance and became full-fledged gangsters.”

  “And that’s what these three have done?” said Payton. His French was like Tamara’s—smooth and with only a trace of accent.

  “So it appears. They seem to belong to the milieu, the underworld, but have never been convicted of anything, or even been indicted, for that matter. Our information so far is that they have a number of business interest in southern France: trucking lines, janitorial services, bars and restaurants, hot-sheet hotels, which are traditionally favorite enterprises for legitimate-appearing crooks. They have been questioned from time to time about extortion and other strong-arm activities, but there has never been any suspicion of kidnapping, at least of respectable people. After all, the police are not always greatly concerned when they find the body of a gangster floating in Marseille harbor.”

  “What about the Hotel Taaone?” I asked. “Do they own it or not?”

  “A very complicated situation,” said Tama. “For the moment, let me say that the affair has been in various courts for over four years now with no end in sight. Tomorrow I hope to have a firmer grasp of the matter.”

  I sat back with a grimace, no wiser than a moment before.

  Tama caught my look. “Whatever the case,” he added, “it is clear that these men are not ordinary hoteliers. About the only undisputed fact in the case is that Monsieur West, who, with a certain justification, also claims to be the owner, is making monthly payments to the company owned by these men, but only under court order while waiting a clarification of the situation.

  “Now then,” he went on briskly. “We have the incontrovertible evidence of the purse found on their boat that Mrs. Payton was on that boat sometime around the first of October. Also, her diary strongly indicates that not only did she…know them previous to that time, they also engaged her in acrimonious conversation regarding money. It’s hard to believe that the diary could be referring to anyone other than these three. Careful questioning of her Tahitian servants seems to put her disappearance at approximately October 1st. A further interesting point is that this ship, the Aventurier, sailed from Papeete harbor for three or four days just at that time. They say that they left to sail to Rangiroa, a four-day sail, but had to turn back after two days because of technical problems. There is no one who can confirm this.”

  “But what about my mother?” blurted Tamara. “How is this helping her? What do they say about her?”

  Tama placed his hands on his knees and appeared to be studying them. “That is what I was coming to,” he said without looking up. “Confronted with the diary, one of them, Jean-Paul Luria, now maintains that he did indeed know your mother. He says, in fact, that he met her one evening in some nightclub and subsequently…became her lover on the boat.”

  Charles Wentworth Payton pursed his lips meditatively but remained silent. “That’s not true!” shouted Tamara. “I don’t believe it, no matter what that diary says!”

  Commissaire Tama permitted himself a thin smile. “Neither do we, Miss Payton. His account of their…tryst on the boat lacks conviction, and he is elusive about the date and actual setting. In fact, he has contradicted himself several times. If indeed he is, or was, a high-powered gangster, he is sadly out of training. Frankly, I don’t believe an innocent man could have so much trouble deciding whether or not he knows someone. Or he may simply be their weak link. The other two, Buisson and Baudchon, refuse to admit to anything whatsoever. Shown the evidence of the diary, they laugh. Clearly someone else, they say. Perhaps three 18-year-old sailors. In any case, I feel we are justified in detaining the three of them for further questioning.”

  “Excellent,” said Payton briskly, getting to his feet. “I see that the matter is in very competent hands. I’m certain you will shortly find my poor wife, Danielle, and lift this terrible burden from our shoulders.

  Tama and Schneider rose. “I’m glad to have your confidence,” said Tama. “Just one small point: are you still convinced that your wife’s kidnapping is a hoax? And if so, why?”

  It was nicely timed. Payton’s lips clenched and he threw a look of hatred at Tamara. I could see that it’d take him a couple of terms in the Senate—if he ever got there—to learn to dissemble with the automatic skill of the veteran politician.

  “I was mistaken,” he said shortly. “It is now obvious that my wife has indeed been kidnapped, and it is my dearest wish to find her in the quickest possible time.” He stepped forward and thrust out his hand. “Thank you gentlemen.” His face a picture of grave concern, he wrapped his arm around Tamara’s shoulder and led her to the door and the crowd of waiting media people.

  Tama scowled after him.

  Bobby Lee Tanner tapped me on the shoulder. I bent closer and he whispered in my ear. “He wants to talk to you privately. Come out to his house. Now.”

  I looked at my watch and sighed. It was six minutes past midnight. “Why not?” I said.

  * * * *

  I sat alone with Payton in his library, sipping a weak Scotch. Payton had removed his jacket and tie and was drinking brandy. He no longer looked like a politician’s ideal. He looked like a sharp, tough publisher on the way up, ready to cut any throats that got in his way. I liked him better like this.

  “I checked up on you, LaRoche,” he said, “after Tamara told me she’d hired you. The word from San Francisco is that you’re pretty good. At least you were good before you got yourself bounced off the force.”

  “No worse than losing an election,” I said.

  He made a noise that could have been half-laugh, half-yawn. “That’s why I’m talking to you right now instead of sleeping. It’s four in the morning, my time. Tamara’s already given you $10,000. I don’t know whether you’ve earned it or not, but I’ll pay you another $10,000 to find out what’s going on here.”

  “So you still don’t believe in the kidnapping?”

  He waved a hand wearily. “I don’t know what I think. But I do know that if I want to get elected I’m going to have to cover my ass every way I can. So as far as John Q. Public and the voters of the great state of New Mexico are concerned, my wife, Danielle, is really and truly kidnapped, and it will be well-publicized that we’ll do anything at all, pay any amount of money, to see her safely back. That’s the first thing. The second is that I have no desire at all to pay $5 million to a bunch of kidnappers—or to my goddamned wif
e either!”

  “That’s who you think is behind it?”

  “Of course. My wife and I have been fighting about our property settlement for years. She was rich when she married me and I had nothing. Now she wants half of everything I’ve made on my own, and that could run maybe a hundred million.” He shook his head. “I never heard about marriage contracts with separate property rights like they have here in Tahiti until it was too late. By the time I tried to get her to sign one she’d heard about them too. So no dice.”

  “You think the $5 million is just her idea of a preliminary divorce settlement?”

  “Exactly!” His lips drew back to reveal small, sharp teeth. “By God, LaRoche, that’s exactly what I think! That’s just the kind of crazy thing she’d do.”

  “Is that just a manner of speaking, or—”

  “Is she really crazy?” he whispered. He rubbed a hand across his eyes. He set the brandy snifter down and eyed me somberly. “I’m going to tell you something, LaRoche, and if I find out that you’ve ever passed it on I’ll…I’ll kill you if I can. I’ll certainly break you. A lot of money can—”

  “Sure,” I interrupted. “I’m trembling already. So either tell me or don’t. It’s getting late.”

  Payton studied me a further moment. “All right,” he said. “Not many people know this, and my daughter, Tamara, in particular doesn’t. She adores her mother and must never learn it.”

  “Cops have heard everything,” I said wearily. “Whatever you’re going to tell me, I’ve heard it five times in the last year.”

  “If that’s true,” said Payton, “I feel sorry for you. And the whole world.” He stared down into his glass of cognac and began to talk.

  In 1950, when Danielle Payton was thirteen years old, she was abducted by three men in a car as she returned from school one afternoon to her suburban home near Rochester, New York. The police were not brought in, and her father, an industrialist, secured her release with the payment of half a million dollars. Her abductors were never identified.