Fires of Eden

  Cordie put her finger to her lips, pulled the pistol out, motioned Eleanor aside, and stepped into the hale, flicking on the lights as she did so. A second later she said, “Come on in. I didn’t mean to get melodramatic, but it’s been a weird day. I figured if something was gonna jump somebody, it might as well try jumping somebody carryin’ a gun.”

  Eleanor moved past the shorter woman and turned on the lights by the bed. The hale was small but very comfortable-looking, as neat as she had left it hours earlier. No…neater…someone had turned down the bed and left a flower on the pillow. Eleanor picked up the blossom and waved Cordie over to a wicker chair on one side of a small desk by the shuttered windows. Eleanor sat in the other chair and laid the flower on the desk. “Did you want to talk?”

  “Yeah,” said Cordie, and put the pistol away again, pulling something larger from her bag. She set the bottle on the desk between them and went down the short hall to get glasses from the vanity.

  “Sheep Dip,” said Eleanor, reading the label. “Is this for real?”

  “Damned straight it’s for real,” said Cordie, setting down two glasses and dropping into her chair. “It’s an eight-year-old single-malt Scotch that the locals pot-distill in England. Do you drink whiskey?”

  Eleanor nodded. She’d enjoyed single-malts in Scotland during her trips there and had developed a taste for expensive whiskeys while she was seeing a pilot friend years before. She had never heard of Sheep Dip.

  “It and Pig’s Nose are my favorites,” said Cordie. “Better’n Glenlivet and those better-advertised brands.” She poured three fingers for each of them and handed Eleanor her glass.

  “No ice?” said Eleanor. “No water?”

  “With single-malt?” said Cordie, and snorted. “No way. Bottoms up, Nell.”

  They both drank. Eleanor felt the smooth whiskey spread a warm path to her stomach. She nodded. “What do you want to talk about?”

  Cordie sat back in her chair and looked out through the shutters for a moment at the vegetation crowding the window. When she turned back, she raised her glass and said, “I’m ready to talk about why we each came here. Not the bullshit reasons, but the real ones.”

  Eleanor looked at the other woman for a moment. “All right,” she said at last. “You first.”

  Cordie swallowed whiskey and smiled. “My reasons are sorta stupid. To catch some of my childhood, I guess.”

  Eleanor was surprised. “Your childhood?”

  Cordie laughed. “I had a weird childhood, I guess you might say. Part of it had a…sort of an adventure. When I heard about the weird stuff going on here at the Mauna Pele…well, maybe I thought I could have some more adventure.”

  Eleanor nodded. “But you found that you can never go home again.”

  “Thomas Wolfe,” said Cordie, and refilled their glasses. She looked up at Eleanor’s startled expression. “Well, maybe I read some of those Great Books. And yeah…you’re right…it isn’t the same. But that’s not the only reason…” She stopped and stared into her glass.

  “What?” Eleanor said softly.

  “I’ve been working pretty hard since I was a kid,” said Cordie Stumpf, stirring the amber whiskey in its glass. “You see, I grew up almost living in a garbage dump, so it was sorta natural that my first job was driving a garbage truck in Peoria. I married the guy who owned the company.” She paused a moment. “When he died, I took over the business and my second husband married me because of the company. We expanded it together. When we got divorced, Hubie got the house and a big chunk of money, and I kept the business. My third husband…well, he had his own disposal business, and I guess you might say that we sort of merged.” Cordie smiled, drank the glass empty, and poured more Sheep Dip. “Come on, Nell. I’m way ahead of you.”

  Eleanor drank and listened.

  “Well, the last few years, what with the boys grown and all, it seemed like running the company was all there was to life. You know what I mean?”

  Eleanor nodded.

  “Three months ago I sold the business. And then, two months ago, I got cancer,” said Cordie. “Ovarian cancer. They said they had to take my ovaries out. I said, ‘Go ahead… I don’t have any more use for them.’ And they did.”

  “Ahhh,” said Eleanor.

  Cordie rubbed her lower lip and then ran her finger around the rim of the glass of whiskey. “I recovered real quick from the surgery. I’ve always had a strong constitution. They said they thought they’d got it all. They thought I’d beat the odds. Then I won this Vacation with the Millionaires contest and I figured that luck was still with me. That same day, I went in for my checkup and my doctor said that they’re afraid the cancer’s spread. I was supposed to start the chemotherapy and radiation treatment this week, but I got them to hold off six or seven days while I came here.”

  Eleanor looked at the other woman in the dim light. She knew the poor prognosis for ovarian cancer patients once the cancer had spread. Her mother had died of the disease. “God damn it to hell,” Eleanor said carefully, and drank the last of her Sheep Dip. Cordie nodded and poured three more fingers.

  “So I was sort of hopin’ that the Mauna Pele’d have some monsters,” continued Cordie. “Or at least an axe murderer or something. You know, something scary but…outside. Something you could fight the way I…well, something you could fight.”

  “Yes,” said Eleanor.

  “You know, today when I was looking at this place, I was thinking…why not a hospital like this for cancer patients to take their treatments and relax and recuperate on the beach? Most of the hospitals I know are like the one in Chicago I’m goin’ to…prisons under snow.”

  Eleanor said, “You mean a luxury hotel like a hospice?”

  Cordie shook her head. “Hospice? Uh-uh, that’s like a place to die while the dyin’ specialists tell you what stage you should be on, ain’t it? You’ve had your denial, now get on to acceptance, kid, we got others waitin’. Well, fuck that. I’m just talking about a cancer hospital where you can watch your hair fall out and get a tan at the same time, that’s all.”

  Eleanor nodded and moved the shutters aside. The vegetation outside was still dripping. The smell of wet jungle was sensuous and a bit sad. “It would be expensive,” she said. “It would have to be a hospital for rich people.”

  Cordie laughed. “Naww. Cancer is expensive. Do you believe those bullshit hospital bills? This place would just cost airfare…and maybe there’d be some…like scholarships to get the poor schmucks here. A cancer-vacation-of-the-month lottery. Something like that.”

  Eleanor held her glass out to be refilled. The Scotch had spread through her like a slow flame. “I think Mr. Trumbo has other ideas. It appears that the Japanese shall inherit this patch of earth.”

  “Yeah.” Cordie rubbed her lip again. “Just what the world needs, more golf condos.” She looked up suddenly. “Nell, you ever been in love?”

  Eleanor was startled but tried not to show it. “Yes,” she said. She did not offer to elaborate.

  Cordie nodded slowly, as if satisfied with the simple answer. “Me too. Once. Oh… I’ve loved people. Two of my three husbands. All of my boys. That’s a sort of love that either is there or it ain’t. But I’ve only been in love once. When I was just a kid.” She was silent for several moments and the only sound was the soft dripping of rain from the palm fronds outside. “I don’t think he even knew it,” she said at last.

  “You never told him?” Eleanor sipped the Scotch.

  “Uh-uh. He was another kid in this little town we lived in. He went away to Vietnam, got himself hurt real bad, and then became a priest. A Catholic priest. One of the kind that doesn’t get married or screw.”

  “Oh,” said Eleanor. Have you checked the headlines? she wanted to say There’s been more screwing than we might have thought. Out loud she said, “Have you talked to him since he became a priest?”

  “Naw,” said Cordie. “I haven’t even been back to that town in years. Somebody told me
that he’d quit being a priest a few years ago and got married, but it doesn’t matter, does it? The reason I mentioned it was, the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about all the things people with serious cancer think about. Missed chances…wasted lives…all that shit.”

  “Your life hasn’t been wasted,” said Eleanor.

  “Damn straight,” agreed Cordie. “My boys’d agree with you. Raising them while runnin’ the garbage business kept me busy.” She set down her empty glass. “Okay, Nell, what about you. Why’d you come here?”

  Eleanor rotated her glass in her hand. “You don’t think I came here just on vacation?”

  Cordie’s lank hair moved as she shook her head. “I know you didn’t come here just on vacation. You’re not the type that hangs around mega-resorts in your time off. I’d say you’re more used to trekking in Nepal and doing eco-tourist shit up the Amazon.”

  Eleanor grinned. “Guilty as charged. Nepal trekking two years ago and three years before that. Amazon eco-tourist shit in ’87.”

  “So?” Cordie poured the last of the Sheep Dip. “Why are you here?”

  Eleanor reached into her bag and pulled out Aunt Kidder’s diary, setting it carefully on the table, avoiding any moisture there. With two fingers she slid it across to Cordie.

  Cordie hesitated. “Can I open it?”

  “Yes.” Eleanor watched the other woman fish a pair of glasses from her purse and flip through the ancient journal, skimming at first, then reading entire paragraphs.

  Cordie whistled softly. “This ties in to a lot of the weird shit going on now.”

  “Yes,” said Eleanor.

  “This Lorena Stewart,” said Cordie. “Is she somebody important that I should know about? Like, was she Abe Lincoln’s second wife or something?”

  Eleanor laughed easily. “No, not that important, although she wrote some wonderful travel books that are all but forgotten now. Lorena was a distant relative of mine. When she grew older, everyone knew her as Kidder because of her sense of humor and the fact that she always wore white kid gloves.”

  Cordie touched the book gently with her fingertips. “So why are you here?”

  Eleanor paused, amazed even through the whiskey glow that she was talking about all this. “There are several mysteries in that book,” she said at last. “The easier mystery…the outside mystery…of what Aunt Kidder wrote about. And the more difficult mystery of why she did not marry Samuel Clemens.”

  “Samuel Clemens,” said Cordie. “That’s Mark Twain, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I went to Hannibal once,” said Cordie. “Sort of a pretty little river town.”

  “Yes, I’ve been there as well,” said Eleanor. Once every two years, she did not add. Visiting the writer’s childhood home and the dusty museum there as if there would be some clue about Aunt Kidder’s decision.

  “And Mark Twain wanted to marry this Lorena Stewart?”

  “Well…” Eleanor paused again. “You may read it if you wish.” Since Aunt Beanie had given her the journal…the talisman…when she was twelve, Eleanor had shared it with no one, loaned it to no one.

  Cordie nodded slowly, as if she understood. “I’m much obliged, Nell. I’ll read it tonight and get it back to you tomorrow, safe and sound.”

  Eleanor glanced at her watch. “My God, it’s after one o’clock in the morning.”

  Cordie stood, steadied herself with one hand on the table, and put the journal in her bag. “Hey,” she said, “it doesn’t matter. We’re on vacation.”

  “I hate for you to walk back to the Big Hale by yourself.”

  “Why?” said Cordie Stumpf. “The rain’s stopped.”

  “Yes, but…” said Eleanor. “But there are…”

  “Monsters,” said Cordie, and grinned. “I hope so. Goddammit, I hope so.” She pulled the revolver out, hefted it, and put it back as she moved to the door. “I’ll see you around tomorrow, Nell. Don’t worry about Aunt Kidder’s diary. Anything that wants it will have to get me first.”

  “See you tomorrow,” called Eleanor as the other woman disappeared into the jungle down the curving path.

  FIFTEEN

  Fire-split rocks strike the sun;

  Fire pours on the sea at Puna;

  The bright sea at Ku-ki’i.

  The gods of the night at the eastern gate,

  The skeleton woods that loom.

  What is the meaning of this?

  The meaning is desolation.

  —Hi’iaka’s chant to Pele

  It was after five when Byron Trumbo got to bed, tumbling in beside Maya for an hour of half-sleep before getting up and showering. He had a seven o’clock working breakfast with the Sato Group.

  The scene at the construction shack had been out of one of his adolescent fantasies. Bicki had met him at the door—naked—and had leapt for him even before he could close the door or window shutters. The hot tub had been bubbling on the seaside veranda, and Trumbo had carried the diminutive rock star to the tub and dropped her in, peeling off his clothes to join her. She had pulled him in before he’d gotten his undershorts off.

  Trumbo never underestimated his own libido or stamina, but ninety minutes of Bicki passion on top of the evening with Maya and the trying day had him ready to slip beneath the hot tub bubbles. Finally he had extricated himself, dressed himself, given Bicki the spiel about Caitlin trying to ruin the Sato deal—a spiel lost on the young singer: Bicki took no interest in Trumbo’s dealings—and tried to convince her to leave in the morning.

  “Awww,” pouted the seventeen-year-old, “I just got here.”

  She draped one long, mocha leg over an oversized pillow and said, “Did ah surprise you, T?”

  “You surprised me,” said Trumbo, buttoning his Hawaiian shirt. “And don’t call me T.”

  “OK, T,” said Bicki. “Ah won’t call you T. Why do you-all want me to leave?”

  Trumbo paused. Bicki was from Selma, Alabama, and he usually enjoyed her unself-conscious southernisms. Tonight they grated on him as badly as had Caitlin’s damned New England vowels and Maya’s fake British accent. And, in the height of passion, he’d forgotten her goddamned pierced tongue and tried to French-kiss her and almost leapt out of the hot tub when he’d encountered two tiny metal balls in there. “You distract me, kid,” he said. “I need my wits about me for this deal.”

  Bicki ran her thigh up and down the pillow. “Ah’m not interested in your wits, T.”

  It’s mutual, thought Trumbo. He said, “I know, kid, but this is a sensitive deal.”

  Bicki ran long fingers up his thigh. “But ah know about sensitive things, T.”

  Trumbo intercepted her fingers, kissed them, grabbed his radio and the 9mm Browning from the floor, and went for the door. “I’ll check in on you in the morning, kid. But tomorrow you head back to Antigua.” At least Bicki preferred sleeping alone.

  “Tomorrow,” drawled Bicki, “is anothah day.”

  Trumbo paused at the door, shook his head, and jogged through the dying drizzle toward the golf cart, where he jumped half a foot in the air and reached for the Browning in his belt as a figure as dark as the night stepped out of the jungle and seemed to float toward him.

  “Shit,” said Trumbo, sliding the Browning back in his waistband with shaky fingers. “Don’t scare me like that.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Trumbo,” said Lamont Fredrickson. The African-American assistant security chief was dressed all in black. Trumbo had forgotten he had given orders for the man to meet him here almost an hour earlier. Trumbo glanced back at the unshuttered windows, through which Bicki was more than visible as she lounged on the bed in a pool of yellow light.

  “Enjoy the show?” asked Trumbo.

  The security man had enough sense not to answer or grin.

  “What’s the word on Dillon?” asked Byron Trumbo.

  Fredrickson touched his earphone and shrugged. “Mr. Bryant hasn’t said.”

  “Briggs?”

  “Haven’t h
eard.”

  Trumbo sighed. “All right, here’s what I want you to do. If Dillon’s out of it, you take over security.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Your first priority is still to keep Sato and his boys from being killed by whoever’s chopping up guests and staff.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Your second priority is to keep Ms. Richardson and the young lady in the construction shack here alive and well and away from each other and my ex-wife. Got that?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Your third priority is to keep your men as much out of sight as possible. We don’t want Sato thinking that this is an armed camp. And don’t say ‘Yessir.’”

  “Yessir. I mean…” Fredrickson nodded.

  “Your fourth priority is to find the fucks that are doing this to our people and stop them. Do you get my meaning on that?”

  “You mean work with the police and Five-O, sir?”

  Trumbo mimicked the man’s tone. “No, I don’t mean work with the police and Five-O, sir. I mean stop them. Shoot them.”

  Fredrickson frowned. “Yessir. Uh, Mr. Trumbo…shouldn’t there be a fifth priority? I mean a first one, really.”

  “What are you talking about?” Trumbo had settled into the golf cart. The seat was wet. He switched on the power and squinted back toward the Big Hale, visible across the curve of dark bay as a glow of lights above the palms. Somewhere up there Caitlin was probably in bed with that bloodsucking Myron Koestler.

  “I’m talking about you, sir,” said Fredrickson. “If Mr. Briggs is gone, who’s going to watch your back?”

  Byron Trumbo sighed. “I’ll watch my own back. You just keep on your toes and keep your men on theirs.” Trumbo left the security man standing in the rain and drove back to the main building alone, through the carefully planned jungle of the “South 40” where the lower rent hales stood dark and silent on their stilts, past the small pool and the large pool and the Shipwreck Bar, and then up the winding path past the Whale Watching Lanai and into the belly of the Big Hale.