distrust, no, more a…hell, a downright fear of Americans, ’cause up till recently the CIA had a secret training center on the island, behind a security fence, not unlike the kind of fences the Japanese put up, in the old days.”
“And the Saipan natives were afraid of the Japs, so now they’re afraid of us.”
“Right. Just another foreign military presence to be feared. And they got worries from within, too—a good number of Saipanese collaborated with the Japs, vicious goddamn thugs, carrying clubs, beating and torturing their own people. Many of those mean old bastards, who were on the Japs’ ‘local police force,’ are still alive, and might retaliate if old secrets were revealed….”
“You’d think after the war, these snakes would’ve been rounded up and shot.”
“That’s not the way of the Saipanese. Yet gradually we did get natives to talk to us. Dozens of them, with similar stories of the lady pilot held in the hotel, and the man who’d come with her, kept in the prison.”
“So why bring me into it?”
He tapped the pocket where the photocopy was folded up; it crinkled under his prod. “You were on Saipan, Nate, well before the war…probably in 1939 or maybe ’40. Weren’t you?”
“Do I look like a priest?”
“You sure don’t look like a Jew. Even if your name is Heller. That’s ’cause your mama was a good Catholic girl; that’s where you get your Irish good looks.”
“What would I have been doing on Saipan in 1930-whatever?”
That bathroom tile grin flashed again; dentures, all right—you didn’t smoke that many cigarettes and keep them white like that unless they reside in a glass overnight.
“Same thing I was doing there in 1967 and ’69,” he said. “Looking for Amelia.”
“She’s been dead a long time.”
“Probably. But where did she die? And when? And where’s the body?”
Out the glass doors of our patio, moonlight glimmered on the waterway; but even with the moonlight, the night seemed dark.
I said, “Buried somewhere on that island, I suppose.”
He pounded a fist on the table. “That’s why I’m going back. To find her grave. To prove she was there, and give her a proper burial, and her rightful place in history as the first courageous casualty of the Second World War.”
I looked at him like he was the one who’d been mustered out on a Section Eight. “Then go dig her up. You don’t need me for it.”
The blue eyes narrowed and bore in on me like benign laser beams. “I think you’d be useful company, Nate. Might be interesting, seeing if that mug of yours stirs any memories, loosens any tongues. You’ll see some familiar faces. Remember a badass named Jesus Sablan? He was the head of the Saipan police—worst of the collaborators.”
My stomach grew cold again; my eyes felt like stones.
When I didn’t say anything, Buddy said, “Funny, I thought maybe you might remember him. One of the stories about the Irish priest involves Sablan…. They say Sablan’s the one that killed Fred Noonan. Some of them say that, anyway. Quietly, they say it. Secretly. Praying it never gets back to Lord Jesus.”
“Still alive.” My voice sounded hushed, distant, like somebody else was saying it, somewhere else.
A sly smile formed; blue eyes twinkled. “Oh, you do remember Jesus Sablan, then?”
I gave him my own sly smile. “I never confirmed your theory, Buddy. Never said I’d been to Saipan before. This could all just be another horseshit Amelia Earhart yarn.”
“Could be.”
“Remember your research. Remember all those people who dismiss Nate Heller’s ramblings as bullshit self- aggrandizement.”
“Good point. Of course, another thing I read about you, they say you like money. You don’t turn down a good retainer.”
“I’m old and rich, Buddy. Anyway, rich enough. And old enough, to ignore you and any offer you might make me.”
“Ten grand, Nate. For ten days. Are you so well off ten grand don’t matter?”
Actually, I was.
But I said, “Okay, Buddy—I’ll take your money. Just don’t ask me to go on record about that priest business.”
“No problem.” He rose from the table. “We leave next week. I’ll mosey out so you can break it to your wife…no wives on this trip.”
“Good policy.”
“Please do thank her for the hospitality, and my regrets for messin’ up Valentine’s Day evenin’. Passport in order?”
I nodded. “I’ll phone my office in Chicago and get you a contract.”
“I’m disappointed,” he said as I walked him to the front door. “I figured you’d want cash.”
“That was a long time ago, that Nate Heller. I’m a different man, Buddy.”
And I was, or at least I thought I was, till I heard those names: Amelia Earhart, James Forrestal, Lord Jesus Sablan.
