Aaron Elkins - Where there's a will

“I’ll call them now,” Malani said, rising.

“At seven o’clock at night?” Hedwig asked.

“These are not the most formal people in the world. They won’t mind.”

“The salad’s on the table,” Inge said as Malani left. “We might as well start before the flies find it.”

Over a simple but wonderfully fresh lettuce-and-tomato salad, the conversation turned to everyday topics.

“Axel,” Inge said, “one of your calves got onto my property again this morning. You’re going to have to do something about that fencing.”

“Sorry about that, Inge. Did it scare any of your Indonesians?”

“Worse than that,” Inge told him. This was a young bull that had somehow found its way to the dude ranch petting farm, had managed to get in, and had tried to mount one of the female calves, traumatizing not only the calf but a school group from Hilo who witnessed the whole thing.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Hedwig said, “it’s as good a way as any for them to learn about sex.”

“This wasn’t sex, it was rape.”

“Inge,” Axel said in the midst of general laughter, “he isn’t capable of rape. He’s been castrated.”

“Well, he sure didn’t seem to know it. Maybe you should tell them when you castrate them.”

“Do you suppose we might change the subject?” Dagmar interjected with a shake of her head. “I’m trying to eat my dinner. Felix, when exactly can we expect to see your land turned into Happy Harbor Estates?”

“Now, Auntie, you know they haven’t decided on what the name’s going to be,” Felix said patiently. “And I promise you, it’ll be very nice when it’s finished. They’re preserving the landscape as much as possible. They have a great deal of respect for the land.”

“Tell us another one,” Dagmar said.

“It’s not a joke, you’ll see. And as to when, they’re hoping to start in the fall, but the Environmental Quality Control Board is still haggling over the impact statement.”

“Hey,” Keoni said. “How many Haoles does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

“I have no idea,” Felix said with an air of stolid resignation. “How many Haoles does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

“Six. One to call the electrician, and five to write the environmental impact report.”

John laughed, Gideon smiled, and the Torkelssons glowered.

“You like that?” Keoni said. “Okay, how does a Haole show his racial tolerance?”

Before anyone could reply, Malani came in, taking the seat that had been kept for her next to Axel, across from Gideon and John. “All right, it’s tentatively arranged. They gave me a price, and if I get back to them within the hour, they can do it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” Felix exclaimed. “I see what you mean about rapid response.”

“Yes, well, you see, since the plane is only in a few feet of water, and since all we want are the remains, and not the plane itself, they say it won’t take a great deal of work or much in the way of equipment. And if they leave first thing in the morning, they ought to finish up and be back by the end of the day.”

“Wait a minute, now,” said Axel. “How in the heck are they going to land a Cessna 310 on Maravovo, let alone take off again? Is there a nice, big, two-thousand-foot landing strip on this deserted atoll? That’s what it would take. Fifteen hundred feet at the absolute minimum.” As the only person with flying experience in the room, Axel’s word carried weight. He had learned to fly fifteen years or so ago, briefly serving as the ranch pilot before discovering that, as much as he enjoyed the navigational calculations, he didn’t much like flying itself. “I think maybe Felix is right, sweetheart; we’d better find an outfit in Honolulu.”

But this Cessna, Malani triumphantly explained, didn’t require any landing strip at all. It had been converted to a float plane. It could land in the lagoon.

“Really? I didn’t know there was anybody on the Big Island who could do that kind of work.”

“They did it themselves,” Malani explained. “They also serve as their own pilots, which saves considerably on the cost.”

“Oh, brudda,” Keoni said, “I’m just glad nobody’s asking me to fly in it.”

Undeterred, Malani went on, meticulously referring to the neat, columnar notes-she wrote in tiny uppercase letters-that she had made on a note pad. “The Cessna’s cruising speed is about two hundred miles an hour, so to be on the safe side they’re allowing a total of five hours for the eight-hundred-mile round trip, plus an hour for landings and takeoffs, and five hours for the work itself. Eleven hours altogether.”

At this point, the grilled steaks, brought in by a perspiring, aproned cook, drew everyone’s attention. There were no inquiries as to rare, medium, or well-done; the perfectly charred, two-inch-thick tenderloins were simply plopped onto the plates (all except Hedwig’s) with a simple accompaniment of spinach and baked potato that was served in bowls, family style. No steak sauce, ketchup, or mustard; the only condiments on the table were salt and pepper. Gideon was surprised to see that the steaks were all medium-well-done, a barely pink-tinged brown at the center, and said as much to Axel.

“Oh, yeah,” Axel said. “You won’t find too many ranchers who like their steaks rare.” He wrinkled his nose. “Smells too much like cow.”

“You don’t suppose,” said Hedwig, digging into the plate of couscous, kohlrabi, and gingered squash that the cook had plopped in front of her with undisguised contempt, “that might be because it is cow? And am I the only one able to see that the very fact that you try to hide it from yourselves proves my point? You prefer to avoid dealing with your own innate self-knowledge of the ethical consequences, to say nothing of the karmic consequences, of eating our brothers and cousins; things with faces, things with mothers. I know I’ve probably said it before-”

“ ‘Probably’?” Dagmar said loudly. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“-but it’s impossible to reach any kind of higher consciousness-”

“Oh, put a cork in it, Hedwig,” Felix shouted amiably, his jaws grinding audibly away on flesh and fat.

“Cannibals,” sighed Hedwig. “Surrounded on all sides by ravening carnivores.”

“You can thank ravening carnivores for everything you have,” Dagmar said, chewing.

“Actually, I’d have thought Marti would get along pretty well with Hedwig,” Gideon whispered to John.

“Actually, she does.”

Over coffee and a dessert of baked apples and cream, Malani gave them the rest of the details: Ocean Quest’s plane was loaded with equipment and ready to go, but it was currently hangared at the Honolulu airport, where it had just gotten a new paint job. In the morning they would put two of their salvage divers, who would double as the Cessna pilot and co-pilot, on the first Aloha inter-island flight from Kona to Honolulu, where they would pick up the Cessna and take off for Maravovo, hoping to touch down in the lagoon by nine or ten A.M. They would expect to finish up by two in the afternoon at the latest and be back in Honolulu with the remains in time for one of the commercial evening flights to Kona. The estimated fee would be $16,000. “They think that’s a maximum. It’ll probably be less.”

Keoni pretended to choke on a chunk of baked apple. “Sixteen thousand dollars for one day’s work? And I thought Felix was the expert on screwing his clients.”

“Damn it, Keoni,” Felix said, “if that’s supposed to be humorous-”

“The largest single cost is the plane,” Malani cut in. “Nine hundred dollars an hour flight time and three hundred dollars an hour wait time. Add that to the divers’ hourly rate of five hundred dollars, the air fare to and from Honolulu-”