Chapter Eleven
Arris had spent the rest of the afternoon bored out of his skull in Onorien’s study, picking books off the shelves and flipping through them, not at all interested in reading. He’d spent some time poking around the mansion, certain that there had to be a phone line somewhere, or an Internet connection, or some modern-day way of communicating with the outside world, but hadn’t found anything. Well, not nothing, in any case. The house was well-lit with wall sconces and overhead chandeliers in the rooms and hallways, but Arris had noticed there were no electric plug outlets anywhere. The mansion was fully electrified but, so far as Arris could tell, there was no evidence of electrical wiring.
This is when it had dawned on Arris to wonder how a remote island not connected to anything had electricity at all. He searched through the study for an “on/off” switch for the overhead light and found none, which led him to determine that there were no wall outlets, either. But each time he left the study to try to look around the house, Nereika somehow appeared from around a corner or from some room and asked him if he needed something, and no matter how politely and insistently he said he was fine, she remained nearby, attending to some non-essential activity that led Arris to believe she was tasked with keeping tabs on him.
Finally, frustrated with his inability to snoop around, he had pulled a copy of The Last Patriot by Brad Thor from a shelf in Onorien’s study, retreated to the guest room he’d been assigned and spent the afternoon reading it, wondering who in their right mind believed covert operations worked the way thriller writers depicted them. If only it were that exciting, Arris thought. Covert work was tedium mixed with boredom, most of the time, with the occasional two minutes of action. And, the guy never got the girl because there was never a girl to be gotten. Not in real life. Arris put the book down and, for a moment, wished his life were half-as-interesting as that of Scot Harvath’s.
Nereika fetched him for dinner, and led Arris into a different dining room than the one he had eaten in at breakfast. This one was larger and more ornate, which baffled Arris, given the size and grandeur of the other. Not to mention the fact that Arris wondered why there was a need for two such rooms.
“Can I get you a drink, Mr. Arris?” asked Onorien from behind Arris.
Arris turned and smiled. “How’s your martini?”
“Not as good as Nereika’s, though I won’t give you the opportunity for comparison,” Onorien said, nodding to Nereika, who quickly made her way to a bar cart in a corner of the room. “How was your afternoon?”
Arris shrugged. “I spent the day in your library trying to find something to read. Dickens and dead Russians aren’t exactly the kind of books you take to the beach, and I’ve never been much of a thriller reader, at least not the ones about spies.”
Onorien made a slight face indicating weariness. “I don’t read much fiction anymore, at least not the newer writers, I find most of the stories they tell to be mundane or trite. So, I read thrillers just to pass the time because they’re quick to get through and don’t linger afterwards, begging bigger questions about the world.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got quite the collection of Stephen King,” Arris said.
“I find his take on the supernatural world to be, shall we say, incurious?” Onorien said with a smile.
Arris made a gesture off the walls of the room, but indicating more than just the room. “So, what is this place?”
“My retreat from the modern world. A place I can go to get away, clear my head and concentrate on real life without the hassles of automobiles, crowded sidewalks and strip malls,” Onorien said.
“You get much peace here with neighbors like the ones you’ve got?”
Onorien waved his hand dismissively. “They are not all like that. Most of them, like the one’s who found you, are peaceful, ordinary people eking out a living by fishing and enjoying the bounties a tropical island can provide.”
“Still–“
Onorien made tiny shake of his head. “Even the malcontents pose no danger to you here, and, when I am out and about on the island, they are little more than a trifle.”
Arris thought that was an odd thing to be told, and was curious to follow up on it when Nereika bore a silver tray over to them with a pair of ice cold martinis on it. They each took one and Arris, grateful for the alcohol, took a long, sustained sip of the chilled liquor. Suddenly, the world was civilized and right.
“How long have you been here on the island?” Arris asked. “This building is quite the structure.”
“Yes, well, the island has been in my family’s hands for about two-hundred years. Who knows why they came here and settled it, there’s really not much to it and no way to farm it in any meaningful way. Initially, this area where the mansion is was a collection of small houses, a compound, if you will, that the first few generations used as a base of operations for what I assume were fishing trips,” Onorien said.
“This mansion was actually built at the end of the 1800s by my great-grandfather, after all of the rest of my ancestors had given up on island life.”
“It’s kind of big for just you and Nereika,” Arris said.
“Yes, it is, although there are a few others here on staff when we’re here,” Onorien said. “It was used as a normal home by my family until about thirty years ago, when the last of my immediate family died and it was left to me.”
“You don’t have family of your own?” Arris asked.
“No, I do not. You?”
Arris felt a twinge inside at the question. He had only been making small talk, not trying to extract personal information from Onorien, but he had just set himself up to answer a question that he normally worked assiduously to avoid having to talk about.
“I had a family,” Arris said plainly. “My wife and kids died a couple of years back … it made me realize the urgency of life.”
“I’m sorry to hear of your loss. How did your life change?”
Arris took a long sip from his drink, felt the icy liquid drain down his throat, and looked at Onorien. “I bought a helicopter and started doing island tours. I fly honeymooners around the islands and let them see the stunning waterfalls, lush jungles and the scores of sharks swimming in the shallows just off the beaches. At least I did until yesterday.”
Dinner turned out to be a rather ostentatious collection of dishes, including a roasted pheasant, saffron-infused risotto, a tasting menu featuring some artisan parmesan cheese Arris had never heard of and a handful of bottles of various Barolo wines, none of which registered with Arris. He wasn’t a fine foods type of man, although he certainly liked to eat well. It was just that his life had centered around simple, quick foods that could be poured out of a box or scooped out of a can, plus grilled or fried meat. If Onorien were trying to impress Arris, it was lost on him.