“ Ngaarara’s secret,” Jim thought.
“ Precisely,” Donna thought. “The Gecko Man’s secret.”
Mahina and all the villagers thought that her husband had the power to turn into a giant gecko whenever he wanted, like she’d thought he’d done in the smoke that day he’d come to take her away. But that afternoon, when she’d come to fetch him from the outskirts of the village, Ngaarara told his young wife his secret and it was this. The giant gecko and the man with the slitted eyes, were one and the same, but not the way she had thought. They were two parts, bound to each other, the same and different, never far apart.
Kill the man and the gecko finds a replacement by anointing another, whose mind is then taken over. Kill the gecko and the man finds a replacement by anointing a small green tree gecko which is transformed into a man- sized giant. This way the evil pairing goes on forever.
Unfortunately Mahina didn’t get a chance to tell her father this before they burned Ngaarara. He was not one, but two. They hadn’t killed him. They just made him angry. Very angry.
“ You see, Jim Monday, I know this to be true, because that young girl stolen by Ngaarara was my grandmother’s grandmother. This story has been handed down on the female side of my family for generations, because we know that someday he is going to come back and seek his revenge.”
“ And you think that thing that killed Roma is the Gecko Man coming after you?”
“ I do.”
“ Your mother told you that story to put you asleep?”
“ Among others.”
“ Was she trying to scare you to sleep?”
“ No, she was trying to make me aware,” Donna thought. “Now lay back and think about what I have told you.”
“ Excuse me sir.” He felt a squeeze on his shoulder and almost screamed.
“ You’ll have to raise your seat for the landing.” It was the stewardess with the freckles. “Did you enjoy the flight?”
“ You’re kidding. I’ve been on edge ever since we left L.A.”
“ I guess I was kidding. I did see that you were pretty anxious, but you made it.”
“ Yeah, I did.” He smiled. “The plane didn’t fall out of the sky, I didn’t flip out. All in all, I guess I’m pretty pleased with myself.” Then he asked, “What’s the local time?”
“ It’s 10:45.” She squeezed his shoulder again. “I hope you enjoy your stay in New Zealand.”
“ Me too.” He started to adjust his watch.
“ Oh, and it’s Wednesday. We lost a day when we crossed the date line.”
He thanked her and she continued down the aisle, checking seatbelts and seatbacks.
“ We lost a day,” he thought. “I hadn’t counted on that.”
“ And I don’t know anything about Whangarei. It seems so hopeless.”
“ I thought you were from there?”
“ No, I’m a city girl, from Auckland. Never been to the North Country, till this.”
“ Why did you go and what’s the last thing you remember?” He asked, trying to keep his mind off of the descending plane.
“ My older brother lives in Whangarei. He and his fiancee just moved up, and they were getting married. We came for the wedding. We arrived Tuesday night and we stayed at the Park Side Motel. I had my own room. I remember going to sleep. I don’t remember waking up.”
“ Your parents must be sick with worry.”
“ I know. I thought about asking you to call them, but that would only complicate things.”
“ It seems the logical place to start looking is the motel. It’s the only clue we have.”
“ You’ll find me. I just know it.”
“ First we have to get through customs,” he thought, and they both began to worry.
The plane bucked and he grabbed on to the armrests with white knuckles.
“ Just a little turbulence,” the stewardess said as she made her way back down the aisle, “nothing to worry about.” But Jim worried all the way to the ground. He was still worrying when he was in line at Immigration and Passport control.
“ I don’t look a bit like Eddie Lambert,” he thought.
“ It feels like your heart is going to beat right out of your chest. If you don’t calm down, you’re going to have a heart attack.”
He tried to control his breathing.
“ And stop sweating. It feels like I’ve just stepped out of the shower.”
“ Next,” a voice called.
Jim looked up. He was at the head of the line. The voice wanted him. He walked ahead, presented his passport. The man opened it, glanced at the photo, turned to a middle page, stamped and returned it.
“ Next,” he said again, through with Monday.
“ He barely looked at the picture,” Monday thought, as another control officer passed with a sniffer dog. The dog passed his nose over Jim’s carry-bag and kept going. “The dog even okayed me.”
“ Let’s go,” Donna thought.
Fifteen minutes later they were driving out of the airport in a red Toyota, rented with Eddie Lambert’s Visa Card. The eye patch was back in Jim’s pocket.
“ Get over!” The thought was a screech going through his brain. “You’re on the wrong side of the street.”
“ Forgot.” He jerked the car to the left side of the road.
It was two hours later and 2:00 in the afternoon when they stopped at a Mobil Station just outside Whangarei for directions to the Park Side Motel and petrol. Jim remembered the last Mobil Station he’d stopped at, just outside of another small town, and he thought of Glenna. He was glad she was going to be okay. Then he looked in the side mirror and watched as the attendant put petrol in the car. The last time a gas jockey put gas in his car in California was sometime back in 1975.
Five minutes later he shut off the engine, grabbed his bag, locked the car and entered the lobby of the Park Side Motel.
“ Do you have a room for a few days?” he asked the man behind the desk.
“ Sure do, we’re mostly empty. It’s early.” The man had a nervous tick in his left eye and he smelled like fresh earth. “Excuse the clothes.” He handed Jim a registration card, “but I’m the gardener too.”
“ I’m looking for someone who checked in last Tuesday.” Jim noticed the dirty corner on the card as he filled it out. He used Eddie Lambert’s name.
“ And who would that be?” the man asked as Jim watched him pick at the dirt under his nails with a clean card.
“ I’m looking for some friends that came up for a wedding.”
“ The Tuhiwais?” The man set the folded card aside, tick going crazy.
“ Yeah. I was supposed to meet them here four days ago, but I missed my flight,” Jim lied. “I called their home in Auckland and there was no answer. I was wondering if they’re still in town?”
“ You don’t know?”
“ What?” Jim thought he knew, but he wanted the man to tell him.
“ Their daughter Donna went missing the night they checked in. At first they thought she might have been kidnapped, but the parents don’t have much money. Now they think she ran off.”
“ Ran off?”
“ Who knows why kids do what they do today. If you want to know anything more, you’ll have to ask the police.”
“ I’ll do that.” Jim thanked the man, whose eye was batting up a storm now.
“ Here’s your key. You have her room.” The man was trying to force his eye to stay closed and not having much success.
