Christopher Moore - Island of the Sequined Love Nun

Malink, the high chief of the Shark People, was late rising. He awoke shivering and afraid, trying to figure out how to interpret a strange dream. He rolled off of his grass sleeping mat, then rose creakily and ambled out of the hut to relieve himself at the base of a giant breadfruit tree.

He was a short, powerfully built man of sixty. His hair was bushy and gone completely white. His skin, once a light butterscotch, had been burned over the years to the dark brown of a tarnished penny. Like most of the Shark men, he wore only a cotton loincloth and a wreath of fresh flowers in his hair (left there by one of his four daughters while he slept). The image of a shark was tattooed on his left pectoral muscle, a B-26 bomber on the other.

He went back into the hut and pulled a steel ammo box out of the rafters. Inside lay a nylon web belt with a holster that held a portable phone, his badge of leadership, his direct line to the Sorcerer. The only time he had ever used it was when one of his daughters had come down with a fever during the night. He had pushed

the button and the Sorcerer had come to the village and given her medicine. He was afraid to use the phone now, but the dream had told him that he must deliver a message.

Malink would have liked to go down to the men’s house and discuss his decision for a few hours with the others, but he knew that he couldn’t. He had to deliver the dream message. Vincent had said so, and Vincent knew everything.

As he pushed the button, he wished he had never been born a chief.

The High Priestess was also sleeping late, as she always did. The Sorcerer

jostled her and she pulled the sheets over her head.

“What?”

“I just got a call from Malink. He says he’s had a message from Vincent.”

The High Priestess was awake now. Wide awake. She sat upright in bed and the Sorcerer’s eyes fell immediately to her naked breasts. “What do you mean he’s had a message from Vincent? I didn’t give him any message.”

The Sorcerer finally looked up at her face. “He was terrified. He said that Vincent came to him in a dream and told him—get this—to tell me that ‘the pilot was alive and on his way, and to wait for him.’”

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t get it. How did he know about a pilot coming? Did you say something?”

“No, did you?”

“Are you kidding? I’m not stupid, Sebastian, despite what you might think.”

“Well, how did he find out? The guards don’t know anything. I haven’t said anything.”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” she said. “Maybe he was just having bad dreams from the storm. Vincent is all he thinks about. It’s all any of them think about.”

The Sorcerer stood and backed away from the bed, eyeing her suspiciously. “Coincidence or not, I don’t like it. I think you need to have an audience with the Shark People and give them a direct message from Vincent. This whole operation depends on us being the

voice of Vincent. We can’t let them think that they can reach him directly.” He turned and started out of the room.

“Sebastian,” she said and the Sorcerer paused and looked over his shoulder at her. “What about the pilot? What if Malink is right about the pilot being on his way?”

“Don’t be stupid, Beth. The only way to control the faithful is to not become one of them.” He turned to leave and was struck in the back of the head by a high-velocity whiskey tumbler. He turned as he dropped to the floor grasping his head.

The High Priestess was standing by the bed wearing nothing but a fine golden chain at her hips and an animal scowl. “You ever call me stupid again and I’ll rip your fucking nuts off.”

Watching the sharks circle the boat, Tuck felt as if he was being sucked down the vortex of a huge bathroom drain.

“We need a better weapon,” Tuck said. He remembered a movie once where Spencer Tracy had battled sharks from a small boat with a knife lashed to an oar. “Don’t we have any oars?”

Kimi looked insulted. “What wrong with me ?”

“Not whores. Oars !” Tucker pantomimed rowing. “For rowing.”

“How I know what you talking about? Malcolme always say oars. ‘Bloody oars,’ he say. No, we don’t have oars.”

“Bail,” Tuck said.

The navigator began scooping water with the coffee can as Tuck did his best to bail with his hands.

A half hour later the boat was only partially full of water and the sharks had moved on to easier meals. Tucker fell back onto the bow to catch his breath. The sun was still low in the morning sky, but already it burned his skin. The parts of his body not soaked with seawater were soaked with sweat. He dug into the pack and pulled out the liter bottle of water he had bought the day before. It was half-full and it was all they had.

Tuck eyed the navigator, who was bailing intently. He’d never know if Tuck drank all of the water right now. He unscrewed the cap and took a small sip. Nectar of the gods. Keeping his eye on Kimi, he a took a large gulp. He could almost feel his water-starved cells rejoicing at the relief.

As he bailed, Kimi sang softly in Spanish to Roberto, who clung to his back. Whenever he tried to hit a high note, his voice cracked

like crumpled parchment. Salt was crusted at the corners of his mouth.

“Kimi, you want a drink?” Tucker crawled onto the gas tank and held the bottle out to the navigator.

Kimi took the bottle. “Thank you,” he said. He wiped the mouth of the bottle on his dress and took a deep drink, then poured some water into his palm and held it while Roberto lapped it up. He handed the bottle back to Tucker.

“You drink the rest. You bigger.”

Tucker nodded and drained the bottle. “Who’s Malcolme?”

“Malcolme buy me from my mother. He from Sydney. He a pimp.”

“He bought you?”

“Yes. My mother very poor in Manila. She can’t feed me, so she sell me to Malcolme when I am twelve.”

“What about your father?”

“He not with us. He a navigator on Satawan. He meet my mother in Manila when he is working on a tuna boat. He marry her and take her to Satawan. She stay for ten years, but she not like it. She say women like dirt to Micronesians. So she take me and go back to Manila when I am nine. Then she sell me to Malcolme. He dress me up and I make big money for him. But he mean to me. He say I have to get rid Roberto, so I run away to find my father to finish teach me to be a navigator. They hear of him on Yap. They say he lost at sea five year ago.”

“And he was the one that taught you to navigate?” Tucker knew it was a snotty question, but he had no idea what to say to someone whose mother had sold him to a pimp.

Kimi didn’t catch the sarcasm. “He teach me some. It take long time to be navigator. Sometime twenty, thirty year. You want learn, I teach you.”

Tucker remembered how difficult it had been to learn Western navigation for his pilot’s license. And that was using sophisticated charts and instru-ments. He could imagine that learning to navigate by the stars—by memory, without charts—would take years. He said, “No, that’s okay. It’s different for airplanes. We have machines to navigate now.”

They bailed until the sun was high in the sky. Tuck could feel his skin baking. He found some sunscreen in the pack and shared it with Kimi, but it was no relief from the heat.

“We need some shade.” The tarp was gone. He rifled the pack, looking for something they could use for shade, but for once Jake Skye’s bag of tricks failed them.

By noon Tuck was cursing himself for pouring out the gallon of fresh water during the storm. Kimi sat in the bottom of the boat, stroking Roberto’s head and mumbling softly to the panting bat.