Christopher Moore - Island of the Sequined Love Nun

He would get the whole crew drunk and they would toast the generosity of Jefferson Pardee.

The Lear 45 was a working corporate issue, the seats upholstered in muted blues and grays, facing each other over small worktables. For some reason Tucker had expected something more unusual: bright carnival colors with a monkey in a flight attendant outfit perhaps; a stark metal interior stripped for cargo; maybe stainless steel over enamel with a lot of complicated medical gizmos. Nope, this was the standard, run-of-the-mill station wagon model of your basic four-million-dollar jet.

He slid into the pilot’s seat and a rage of adrenaline coursed through him, as if his body was reliving the crash of the pink Gulfstream. He fought the urge to bolt, let the adrenaline jag settle to a low-grade nausea, then started his preflight checklist. Everything looked normal; the instruments and controls were in place. He snapped on the power for the gauges and nothing happened: no lights, no LEDs, nothing.

He felt the plane move as someone came up the retractable steps and suddenly one of the guards reached around him and inserted a cylindrical key into a socket on the instrument board. The guard turned the key several times and the cockpit whirred to life.

“This thing has a main power cutoff?” Tuck said to the guard.

The guard removed the key and walked off the plane without saying a word.

“Nice chatting with you,” Tuck said. He’d never seen a plane with an ignition key and he was sure that this one was not factory-issue. Why? Who would steal a jet airplane? Who could? I could, that’s who. The doctor had installed the key to keep him from re

peating his performance in Seattle. The missionary bastard didn’t trust him.

Tuck checked the navigation computer. It was, as Beth Curtis had told him, set for an airfield in southern Japan. He watched as the LEDs on the nav computer came on, indicating that it was acquiring the satellites it needed to locate his position. When three were lit, his longitude and latitude flashed on the screen; when a fourth satellite was acquired, he had his current altitude: eight feet above sea level. He thought of Kimi navigating by the stars and felt a twinge of guilt for not trying harder to find him. He resolved to look for the navigator personally when he got back to Alualu.

He ran through the checklist and threw the autostart switches for the engines. As the twin jets spooled up, Tuck felt his anxiety float away like an exorcised ghost. This is where he was supposed to be. This is what he did. For the first time in weeks he felt like his head was clear.

He pushed the controls through their full range of motion and checked out the window to make sure that the flaps and ailerons were moving as well. Beth Curtis was coming across the compound toward the plane. At least he thought it was Beth Curtis. She wore a sharp, dark business suit with nylons and high heels. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun and she wore wire-frame aviator sunglasses. She carried a small plastic cooler in one hand and an aluminum briefcase in the other. She looked like one of Mary Jean’s corporate killer attorneys. Her third identity in as many days.

She walked into the plane and the guard pushed the hatch shut behind her. She stashed the cooler and briefcase in the overhead, then climbed into the cockpit and strapped herself in the copilot’s seat.

“Any problems?” she said.

“You look nice today, Mrs. Curtis.”

“Thank you, Mr. Case. Are we ready?”

“Tuck. You can call me Tuck. I need you to look out the window and tell me if the flaps and ailerons move when I move the controls.”

“They look fine. Shall we go?”

Tuck released the ground brakes and taxied out onto the runway. “I need to pick up some sunglasses while we’re in Japan.”

“I’ll get you some. You won’t be leaving the plane.”

“I won’t?”

“We’ll only be on the ground for a few minutes, then we’ll be coming back.”

“Look, Mrs. Curtis, I know you think that because of the circumstances that brought me here that I’m a total fuckup, but I am really good at what I do. You don’t have to treat me like a child.”

She looked at him and took off her sunglasses. Tuck wished he had sunglasses so he could whip them off like that.

She said, “Mr. Case, I’m putting my life in your hands right now. How much more confidence would you like?”

Tuck didn’t really know how to answer. “I guess you’re right. Sorry. You could be a little less mysterious about what’s going on here. I know that we’re not flying supplies, not with this plane and the kind of money you’re paying me.”

“If you really want to know, I can tell you. But if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

Tuck looked from the instruments to catch her expression. She was grinning, a deep silly grin that crinkled the corners of her eyes.

He looked at the instruments. “I’m going to take off now. Okay?”

“And I haven’t even shown you the best way to fight boredom on our little island.”

Tuck concentrated on the gauges and the runway. He said, “What church do you and your husband work for?”

“Methodist.”

“You’ll have to tell me about it.”

“What’s there to tell? Methodists rock!” she said, then she giggled like a little girl as Tuck pulled the plane into the sky.

Malink joined the drinking circle late, hoping that everyone would be drunk enough to forget what had gone on that day. He’d spent most of the after-noon at Favo’s house, afraid even to face his wife and daughters, but when the sun was well boiled in the sea, he knew he had to join the other men or face the consequences of tuba -poisoned theories and rumors aspiring to truth. He sneaked into an open spot in the circle and sat on the sand, even though several younger men moved so he could sit on a log with his back to the tree. He threw an open pack of Benson & Hedges into the center of the circle and Favo divided up the smokes among the men. Some lit up, others broke them into sections to chew with betel nut, and a few tucked them behind their ears for later. The distraction was

short-lived and one of the Johns, an elder, said, “So why did Vincent send the Japanese into our houses?”

Malink waved him off as he drank from the coconut shell cup and made a great show of enjoying his first drink before handing the cup to Abo, who was pouring. Then he stalled another few seconds by lighting a Benson & Hedges with the Zippo, making sure everyone saw it and remembered, then after a long drag he said, “I’m fucked if I know.” He said this in English—English being the best language for swearing.

“It is not good,” said John.

“They came to the bachelors’ house,” said Abo, who, as usual, was angry. “They looked at our mispel’s thighs.”

“We should kill them,” said one of the younger men who had been named for Vincent.

“And eat them!” someone added—and it was as if the air had been pulled on the circle before it could inflate to well-rounded violent mob.

Everyone turned to see Sarapul walking out of the shadows. For once, Malink was glad to see him. The old cannibal seemed to have a spring in his step, seemed younger, stronger.

“I need an ax,” Sarapul said. The men who owned axes all stared into the sand or examined their fingernails.

“What for?” Malink asked.

“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”

“You’re not going to start headhunting, are you?” Malink said. “We’ve put up with your talk of eating people, but I draw the line at headhunting. No headhunting while I’m chief.”

Everybody grunted in agreement and Malink was glad to have been able to assert his authority in a way that no one could dispute. An anthropologist had once come to the island and given him a book about headhunters. Malink felt very cosmopolitan discussing the topic.