Paul Theroux - Mr. Bones - Twenty Stories

Her hundred-and-first she spent in her room. We were away a lot after that, and each time we got back, we were surprised to see her still alive. Her other friends were less attentive too, even a little irritated when they had to run an errand for Mrs. Springer. We missed her hundred-and-second birthday. That year I saw her once. It seemed inconvenient and somewhat unfair, her living into another century. Her nurse called and complained that no one bought her medicine anymore. Her son died, not of any specific cause. “He was getting on,” someone said.

We forgot about Mrs. Springer, we guessed she had died, and we were astonished to hear that she had a hundred-and-fourth birthday. We were not invited. Only her nurse, her cleaning woman, and — somehow — the plumber were there. She kept to her room. People said she was alert, that she asked about elections and the weather. No one visited her. We were embarrassed and, I’m sorry to say, a bit bored by her, and none of us saw her again until her funeral.

It was my first winter cruise. I was a waiter on the Allegra, most of the passengers well-to-do people who spent part of the winter cruising in the warm waters of the Pacific, from Puerto Escondido to Singapore and back, including stops in Australia and New Zealand. That winter we stopped along the South American coast too, from Guayaquil to Santiago, and then to Hawaii via Easter Island. Often the passengers did not bother to go ashore — just stayed on deck and looked at the pier and drank and made faces.

Ed and Wilma Hibbert avoided the others. They were in their mid- to late seventies, from Seattle. Always dined alone, did not socialize, Ed very attentive to Wilma, who seemed the frail type. I heard whispers. “Snobs,” “Stuffed shirts,” “Pompous,” “Cold.” They must have heard them too.

Wilma fell ill at Callao, stayed in her suite, and was taken to a hospital in Lima, where she died. Ed Hibbert left the Allegra but did not vacate his suite. His table was empty until Honolulu, where he rejoined the ship.

And then the invitations began, one widow after another inviting him to dinner, to drinks, to the fancy-dress ball. They were not amateurs but persistent and alluring seducers.

Amazingly, Ed obliged. He seemed to welcome the attention, not like a bereaved spouse at all but like the most discriminating bachelor. The same women who had made demeaning remarks now praised him and competed for his affection. And I had the feeling that in obliging them, dallying with them, without committing himself, he was having his revenge, perhaps revenge on his wife, too.

He went on two more cruises, same routine, didn’t remarry.

I did not know Dennis Concannon. I was invited to his funeral by a friend of his son’s who needed a ride. As it was a rainy day and I had nothing else to do, I stayed for the service, sitting in the back. The whole business was nondenominational, according to Mr. C’s wishes. The turnout was very large — the church was filled. A reading of his favorite poem, by Robert Frost, with the memorable line “That withered hag.” Several sentimental songs. Then the eulogies. One man got up and said, “I never met anyone else like Dennis. I worked for him for almost twenty-five years, and in all that time he didn’t even buy me a cup of coffee.” He went on — people laughed.

A woman: “I used to tremble whenever I was called to his office. I never knew whether he was going to make a pass at me or fire me.”

Another man: “The salesmen put in their expense reports that they’d had their cars washed. ‘Salesmen have to have clean cars.’ But Dennis said, ‘This was the fourteenth of last month. I compared the car washes to the weather report. It was raining that day. I’m not paying.’”

Someone else: “His partner, George Kelly, would be sitting next to him at some of the meetings. One would talk. Then the other, but saying the same thing. It was terrible. We called it ‘Dennis in Stereo.’”

There were more speakers, with equally unpleasant stories of this man. At the end of the funeral I knew Dennis Concannon as a mean, unreasonable, bullying bastard who had gotten rich by exploiting and intimidating these people, the attendees at his funeral — not mourners but people who were having the last word.

This was all twenty-some-odd years ago. What I remember is the sound from my front door, which was shut, just off the lanai, the underwater murmur of voices from a TV set inside the house, and my thinking, We don’t have a TV set.

I’d been making the run to Hanalei to see my deputy there, on a weekly basis, always on the same day, a Thursday. He was an officer named Barry Moniz, the chief’s cousin, the one who had fished the key of coke out of Hanalei Bay. Usually we talked sports and went over his paperwork. But his voice sounded strange.

“Ho, get flu, brah. No can talk.”

So I was home three hours early. From where I stood, hearing those gurgly voices, I could see across the sitting room that Kanoa’s door was shut, the kid probably asleep. Even though I’m trained to be suspicious, I was at my own front door, which smacked when I closed it. The voices stopped. Normally I slipped off my shoes to enter the house, but instead I took out my service revolver.

The house was very quiet with a holding-your-breath stillness, and the ticking of Verna’s auntie’s old clock was like timing the silence. I kept to the carpet for stealth reasons and walked through the sitting room to our bedroom door, which was not completely shut but ajar, just a crack of light showing.

I waited about eight seconds, hearing nothing, considering my options, then took a defensive position by the doorjamb and kicked the door open. There on the bed was Verna with two individuals, both men, all of them naked, and they froze like statues.

The overhead light made their skin very pale, except the men’s forearms, indicating to me they were employed out of doors. This was also a warning of their physical strength, in the event of resistance. They were half hiding their faces in fear, but I could see — studying them, because I had the gun — that they were a lot younger than Verna.

With those stacked-up bodies of this crazy pile, like kids, and my Glock on them, I could have let off one round and gotten all three, like a 9-millimeter toothpick, right through the human sandwich, all hamajang, except that was my wife in the middle.

Not a sound came from them. They were barely breathing. I didn’t say anything — didn’t have to. I was aiming at them and in my uniform, even wearing my hat, thinking, This is at least fifteen years in Halawa maximum security before all my appeals are heard and I finally explain my way out. And who are these guys? I’d have to take out all three, unless I separated them and killed them execution style, an idea that was going through my head, with my story, “I saw the hapa-haole guy move his hands in a manner consistent with going for one weapon,” but their nakedness weakened the alibi.

And I loved this woman. She was weak, always saying “I so kolohe,” such a fool, and younger than me, but up to that time my best friend.

In police work, in a tight spot, with no backup and not sure of your ground, or don’t want to hurt bystanders, you shout, curse, threaten, “Let me see you hands, you fricken lolo!” and all that. But I was not in a tight spot. I was home, looking at my naked wife with two naked men, and smelled — what? — dope smoke and that sex smell of funky sashimi. Since I had the gun, and they were silent and I wasn’t talking, I had time to think.