South Pacific Affair

his nose, had a bruise on his cheek, a nasty cut on his forehead, plus a torn shirt and scarf. When we finished our coffee he said, “I have to buy some clothes, cant go back like this.”

     “Why not? You'll be the hero of the cruise, battled a beachcomber and all that derelict stuff.”

     He said, “Ray, you know you've become a mean bastard?”

     “No, I never could get mean enough, I guess. Look, to buy clothes you'll have to go to a Chinese store, the others will be shut by now. Come on, I'll show you.”

     I took him down through one of the Chinese streets. He bought a white sport shirt and a new cap, threw his old ones away. We stopped for a sandwich and more coffee. When we hit the street I told him, “I have to return to the ship, expecting a joker on a deal.” And I thought how hysterical it would be if Henri's sucker turned out to be Barry.

     Kent said, “Look here, Ray, I may have been drunk awhile back, but I meant that about going in with you.”

     “No dice. Hell, nobody stopping you from going to the States, taking what cash you have and returning.”

     “It wouldn't work. I'd have to make the break now or never.”

     “That's right,” I told him, “and for you it will be never. Just as well. You're not ready for anything but armchair sailing.”

     “Damn, you've become a smug bastard as well as a mean sonofabitch!”

     I laughed at him. “I been eating crow for a long year, maybe all my life. Let me be smug for tonight.”

     Barry told me to do something to myself and walked away. From the rear, in his new clothes, he looked as smooth and confident as ever.

Chapter X

     I walked back to the quay, feeling jerky, childish... and wonderful. As I approached the Hooker I saw two men standing beside the gangplank. As it was growing dark I couldn't make them out, but a second later Henri called out in his tourist special thick accent, “Ah, Cap-a-tan Ray, there you are!”

     He had a tall stout man in tow who looked in his late fifties and everything about him—the carefully brushed silver-grey hair, well-fed pink face, seersucker suit, and thin nylon shirt—shouted money, folding money.

     I said, “Hello, Henri. Come aboard,” and walked up the gangplank ahead of them.

     In this cockeyed broken English Dubon said, “Cap-a- tan, I am tres glad to zee you. You have been in zee fights?”

     “Nothing much. Who's your friend?”

     Henri hit himself across the chest and bowed to the stout man. “Excuse my man-hairs I Cap-a-tan Ray, these is most good friend of mine, Monsieur Brad Randall. He, too, is from zee America.”

     We shook hands and Randall said, “We Americans sure get around. Thought Dubon was stringing me when he said there was a Yankee running a trading schooner here.”

     “Not exactly a schooner but a good enough boat. What business are you in, Mr. Randall?”

     “Hardware.”

     “Don't say. If you have any goods with you, nails, hammers, pliers, screws—all good for trading in the islands.”

     Randall slipped me a deep chuckle. “I also sell sporting goods and you look like a prospect for a headguard—or is the other guy cut worse?”

     “Guess it was a draw. Seriously, if you have goods...”

     Again the chuckle that rocked his stomach. “This is strictly a vacation trip for me. I was having a drink with Dubon here and he mentioned this island that...”

     I cut him off by turning on Henri, asking, “What you telling people about that island for?”

     “I do wrong? Monsieur Randall is most interested in zee islands. So I happen to say zee petit island you tell me.”

     Randall asked anxiously, “It is true, isn't it—this untouched island?”

     “Yes. Nothing there but a few people. No copra or shell to make it worthwhile for trading. It's off a larger island, but regarded as taboo for some reason, so the islet people are rarely visited, and of course never by a ship. I heard about it by pure accident.”

     “Have you been there, Captain Ray?” Randall asked.

     “I've been to the larger island but never to the islet. As I said, nothing worth stopping for. Why do you ask?”

     Randall was one of these direct jokers, especially when in heat. “Can you take me there?”

     I gave him an idiotic grin. “Now, Mr. Randall, you're a business man. You understand I have a regular schedule, stops to deliver and pick up cargo, I can't just—”

     “But my good friend, Ray,” Henri said quickly with a fine touch, “you say yourself you are between zee cargos now.”

     “Yeah, things are a little light at the moment, but I can't take off a couple days to go to a worthless island.”

     Randall cleared his-throat, “Captain, the island is not worthless to me. I am talking about chartering your vessel. As I understand it, this island is about a day away and as you know, the cruise ship sails in four days. Now, what would it cost to hire you and your boat for, say, three days?”

     I pretended I was doing some figuring in my noodle, felt so gay I almost suggested he get Barry and split the costs. I finally said, “On a trip like this, to little-known parts, there's always a risk of piling up on unchartered reefs and all that. Three days—five hundred bucks.”

     Randall didn't even blink. He would have forked over the five hundred there and then except Henri went into his song and dance. He slapped his face, took off his dirty straw hat and pulled at his thin hair as he pleaded and moaned I was betraying his friendship, Randall was a dear friend of his and therefore a boon buddy of mine.

     I said I would do it for four hundred dollars.

     Henri was so busy hamming it up I couldn't catch his eye, tell him the mark was more than willing. When I told him in Tahitian to cut the act, he didn't listen but shouted in his best broken English we were both old Pacific hands and who the hell was I kidding, four hundred bucks was an outrage!

     I said, “I didn't ask for this, it's Randall's idea. I don't like to haggle—three hundred and that's final.”

     “That's good with me,” Randall said. He went down into the smelly cabin and wrote out three travelers checks. “I'd like to leave tonight I can return here within the hour. Have to explain this to my wife. You see, she's a poor sailor and could hardly take a trip like this.”

     “I'm sure she couldn't,” I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. “Let's try to leave before midnight. We have a long sail ahead of us.”

     “Yes sir, Captain!” Randall said, excited as a kid.

     There was only one place I could cash the checks and I practically ran all the way to Olin's, doing a little broken field running among the drunken tourists. Olin was going over his books and didn't ask where I'd got the money from but only how much did I want to pay on what I owed him?

     “Nothing. I merely ask you to do me a favor and cash these. Most of this money isn't mine.”

     Olin gave me a flat noncommittal look as he opened a desk drawer and counted out thousand franc notes. He said, “I know. You keep very odd company, even for a cockroach trader. Although I did not hear you had a fight.”

     “That's something. I didn't think a man could change his socks here without the whole town talking about it.”

     He handed me a stack of bills, telling me, “I say this as a friend: a fool can never see himself in the mirror of life.”

     “I feel too good to argue with you.”

     “Drunk?” Olin asked.

     “Yes, but not on wine. I have erased a ghost of my past who's been spooking me. Look, I need this at once—two baskets of assorted fresh fruits, vegetables, a case of beer, good Australian export beer, a few tins of rice, coffee beans.”

     “They will be at your boat before you return,” Olin said, figuring the bill. “Some rice wine and cookies?”

     “No time, but thanks,” I said, paying him and heading back to the Hooker. I wasn't used to having my pockets stuffed with francs, even if they weren't mine. I stopped to have a beer and a couple of sandwiches, wondered where Barry was, and by the time I reached the Hooker, the supplies were neatly piled on the deck. I put them away and the stars were out bright and clear, so I knew the weather would be okay. I went to get a drum of gasoline and when-I came back a taxi was waiting. Randall was there, along with Henri and a fat old woman who had the skin and figure of an uncooked jelly doughnut.

     It wasn't necessary for Henri to hiss in my ear, “This monster is his wife!”

     Randall said, “Captain, I want you to meet my better half, Erestine.”

     I shook her damp hand for a second and she asked, “Is that little boat of yours safe?” Mrs. Randall must have thought her lips were too large so she only painted part of them which gave her mouth an odd look.

     “Don't worry, this cutter could take you to California.”

     “You are an American although I don't know why any sane man would want to hang around this dirty place. My —you have a black eye.”

     “Now, Erestine, the Captain enjoys living here. As I have often tried to tell you, we are all not made of the same molecules. You go back to the