Christopher Moore - Island of the Sequined Love Nun

Sarapul looked confused. He’d never read the headhunting book, had never read any book, but he did have a Classic Comics version of The Count of Monte Cristo , which a sailor had given him in the days before the Shark People were forbidden to meet visiting ships. He’d made Kimi read it to him every night. Sarapul liked the thread of revenge and murder that ran through the story.

Sarapul said, “What is this headhunting? I just want to cut a tree.”

“Cutting trees is taboo,” said one of the younger men.

“I will get special dispensation,” Sarapul said, using a term he had learned from Father Rodriquez.

Malink shook his head. “We don’t have that anymore. We only had that when we were Catholics.”

“I need an ax,” Sarapul said, as if he might do better if he started over. “And I need permission from the great Chief Malink to cut a tree.”

Malink scratched a mosquito bite and looked at his feet. It was true that he could give permission to break a taboo, and Sarapul had distracted the circle before they ganged up on him. “You may cut one tree, on your side of the island, and you must show it to me before you cut it. Now, who has an ax?”

Everyone knew who owned axes, but nobody volunteered. Malink chose one of the young Vincents. “You, go get your ax.” Then to Sarapul he said: “Why do you need to cut a tree?”

Sarapul considered holding out, but decided that a credible lie would be better. “My house is falling down from the girl-man climbing in the rafters.”

It was the wrong answer to give in front of a group of men whose houses had been rifled only hours ago. Malink cradled his head in his hands.

The toughest part of the landing for Tuck was restraining himself from leaping out of the seat and demanding high-fives from the woman. It was perfect. He was back. Never mind the ghosts, the talking bats, the three-hour flight with a woman who could have been the model for the new Multiple Personality Barbie. She’s elegant, she’s fashionable, and she’s the reason that Ken has no genitals! Have fun, but remember to hide the sharp stuff!

Never mind all that. He was a pilot.

They were somewhere in southern Japan, a small jetport, probably private, with no tower and only a few hangars. Tuck had gotten them there by following the nav computer, which, he found in midflight, had only two coordinates programmed into it: Alualu and this airfield.

“What happens if we have a problem and have to divert?” he asked Beth.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. She had spent most of the flight grilling him about the navigational instruments, as if she wanted to

know enough to be able to check the course herself. He complied, feeling insulted by the whole conversation.

Another Lear was spooling up on the tarmac and Beth Curtis instructed him to taxi to it. As the jet bumped to a stop and he prepared to shut down, she pulled her briefcase and cooler out of the overhead and turned to him. “Stay here. We’ll take off in a few minutes.”

“What about loading supplies?”

“Mr. Case, please just prepare the plane for departure. I won’t be long.”

Two men in blue coveralls crossed the tarmac from the other jet and lowered the hatch for her. Tuck watched out the window as she met a third Japanese man in a white lab coat. She handed him the cooler and a folder from the briefcase, then traded bows with him and quickstepped back to the Lear. One of the men in blue coveralls followed her into the plane with a cardboard box, which he strapped into one of the passenger seats.

“ Domo ,” Beth Curtis said.

He bowed quickly, left the plane, and sealed the hatch. She stashed the briefcase in the overhead again climbed into the copilot’s seat.

“Let’s go.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Let’s go.”

“We should top off the fuel tanks while we’re here.”

“I understand why you might be a little nervous about that, Mr. Case, but we have plenty of fuel to make it back.”

“One box. That’s all we’re picking up?”

“One box.”

“What’s in it?”

“It’s a case of ’78 Bordeaux. Sebastian loves it. Let’s go.”

“But I have to use the bathroom. I thought…”

“Hold it,” Beth Curtis said.

“Bitch.”

“Exactly. Now don’t you need to do your checklist thingy?”

The itching started a week after the first flight. It began on his scalp and a few days later, as the wounds on his arms, legs, and genitals healed, Tucker would have stripped off his skin to escape it. If there had been some other distraction, something to do besides sit in his bungalow waiting to be called for a flight, it might have been bearable, but now the doctor came only once a day to check on him, and he hadn’t seen Beth Curtis since they landed. He read spy novels, listened to the country western radio station out of Guam until he thought that if he heard one more wailing steel guitar, he’d rip the rest of his hair out. Sometimes he lay under the mosquito net-ting, acutely aware of his comatose member, and tried to think of all the women he had had, one by one, then all the women he had ever wanted, including actresses, models, and famous figures from history (the Marilyn Monroe/Cleopatra double-team-in-warm-pudding scenario kept him dis-tracted for almost an hour). Twice a day he cooked himself a meal. The doctor had set him up with a double hot plate and a pantry full of canned goods, and occasionally one of the guards dropped off a parcel of fruit or fresh fish. Mostly, though, he itched.

Tuck tried to engage Sebastian Curtis in conversation, but there were few subjects about which the missionary was not evasive, and most re-minded him that he had left some pressing task at the clinic. Questions about Kimi, the guards, the lack of cargo, his personal history, his wife, the natives of the island, or communication with the outside world evoked half-answers and downright silence.

He asked the doctor for some cortisone, for a television, for access to a computer so he could send a message back to Jake Skye,

and while the doctor didn’t say no outright, Tuck was left empty-handed except for a suggestion that he ought to go swimming and a reminder of how much money he was making for reading spy novels and scratching at scabs. Tuck wanted a steak, a woman (although he still wasn’t sure he could do anything but talk to her), and a chilled bottle of vodka. The doctor gave him some fins, a mask and snorkel, and a bottle of waterproof sunscreen.

When, one morning, Tuck spent an empty hour trying to will his member to life by mentally wrapping his fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Nelson, in Saran Wrap, only to find his fantasy foiled by her insistence that he had no lead in his Number 2 pencil, he grabbed the snorkeling gear and made his way to the beach.

Two of the guards followed at a distance. They were always there. When he looked out the window, if he tried to take a walk, if he wanted to check on the Lear, they clung to him like stereo shadows. They stood over him as he sat in the sand, pulling the fins on.

“Why don’t you guys go put on some trunks and join me? Those jumpsuits have to be pretty uncomfortable.” It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to talk to them, and it wasn’t the first time he’d been ignored. They just stood there, as silent as meditating monks. Tuck hadn’t been able to discern if they understood a word of English.

“Okay, then, I’m going to do the Cousteau thing, but later let’s get together for some raw fish and karaoke?” He gave them a wink.

No reaction.

“Then let’s play some cards and talk about how you guys recite haiku while blowing each other every night?” Tuck thought that might do it, but still there was no reaction.