Fires of Eden

  “What old woman?” said Paul. “You mean Molly Kewalu?”

  Eleanor turned into the resort road. The security guard recognized them, snapped a friendly salute, and lowered the chain. They drove into the black a’a fields. The coast was less than two miles away, but it and the resort were lost in the smoke. “No,” said Eleanor, “the old woman in the trailer with your uncles.”

  Paul looked at her strangely. “What old woman? There was no old woman in the trailer.”

  “Bra and panties are off,” said Byron Trumbo. “Foreplay’s over. Where’s the fuck?”

  Will Bryant winced at the vulgar metaphor. “Mr. Sato is concerned about Sunny.”

  “Shit,” said Trumbo. Even through all the insanity, the negotiations had progressed pretty well according to plan. At three o’clock that afternoon, after a wonderful lunch on the private dining lanai on the seventh floor and a demonstration of the hula by five professional dancers Trumbo had flown in from Oahu, they had gotten back to bargaining. By four-fifteen, the price had been settled at $312 million and the papers had been drawn up. Sato had brought his phalanx of lawyers with him;

  Byron Trumbo had eight lawyers on retainer but he hated traveling with them so much that he had Will Bryant do the vetting for his side. Will had a law degree, as did Bobby Tanaka, and the two spent a busy hour checking the fine print on the deal. By five-thirty the contracts lay ready to be signed on the gleaming teak-and-mahogany desk in the conference annex of the Presidential Suite.

  But Hiroshe Sato was worried about Sunny Takahashi.

  “Shit,” said Trumbo for the twentieth time that long day. “Any word from Fredrickson on finding Sunny?”

  “No,” said Will Bryant. He was still going through a copy of the contract that would turn the Mauna Pele Resort into a Japanese golf club and bail his boss out of serious financial trouble. His tortoiseshell glasses and tied-back hair gave Bryant the look of an earnest law student. His three-thousand-dollar Donna Karan suit worked against that image.

  “Any word on Briggs?” Trumbo had liked the bodyguard.

  “No.”

  “Any word on Dillon?”

  “No, still missing.”

  “Did you talk Bicki into leaving?”

  “No. She went swimming.”

  “How about Maya?”

  “She also insists on staying.”

  “Caitlin?”

  “She and Mr. Koestler have been calling New York. Evidently they still think that they can leverage you into selling at their price. She’s tried twice to get in to see Mr. Sato, but our security has kept her out.”

  Trumbo lay back on the couch and set his high-top sneakers on the cushion. “I’m tired.”

  Will Bryant nodded and turned to the next page of the contract. “You’re sure you want the Sato payment to come through our Miami Entertainment holding company?”

  “Yeah,” said Trumbo. “The taxes will be easiest that way; we’ll declare the loss through Miami Entertainment Inc. and then liquidate it, I’ll shift the bulk of the capital through the twin Cayman accounts, and we’ll sell off the two casinos as part of the same deal. We’ll amortize the whole mess that way for tax purposes and I’ll have all the loose money to put into the Hughes Satellite Cable Service merger and refinance the Ellison deal.”

  Bryant nodded. “It could work.”

  “It will work.” Trumbo sat up. “You don’t think Hiroshe bought the story that Sunny was partying hard all night and is drying out somewhere with the girls?”

  Will Bryant set the contract on the coffee table. “Well, Sunny’s famous for partying. But he’s also famous for being on time the next morning. Mr. Sato is all bent out of shape.”

  “Has Bobby been monitoring the tapes?” As a matter of course, Trumbo had bugged Sato’s suite and phone lines. As a matter of course, Sato’s security people had swept the rooms and phones and removed the bugs. Trumbo had used parabolic mikes from a hundred meters out to pick up voice vibrations on the windows of the suite and computers had reconstructed the conversations. He also used state-of-the-art fiber-optic video and audio devices no thicker than a human hair, hidden among the riot of plants in Sato’s suite, and that information was also sent to tape recorders in Trumbo’s suite. Bobby Tanaka and two security men had been monitoring the conversation all afternoon.

  “Bobby says that Mr. Matsukawa is for dropping the deal,” said Will, sipping ice water in a tall glass.

  “That old fart,” muttered Trumbo. “I wish the thing that got Sunny had grabbed Matsukawa.”

  “Inazo Ono is still hot for it,” said Will. “And he is Mr. Sato’s closest friend and chief negotiator.”

  Trumbo closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “For four million of my hard-earned dollars, that bastard Ono had better be hot for the deal. And Hiroshe will probably give him a big bite of the golf resort here as a reward for all the tough negotiating.”

  “Yes,” said Will. “Well, everything’s in order except for the signing.”

  “It’s got to be today,” muttered Trumbo, his eyes still closed. “That damned smoke from the volcano is getting worse and I don’t think that we can hold things together another day. How many guests are left?”

  “Hmmmm,” said Will, checking his notebook. “Eleven.”

  “Eleven,” said Trumbo. He sounded close to a laughing fit. “Five hundred fucking rooms and we’ve got eleven paying guests.”

  “Mr. Carter did warn people…”

  “Carter!” said Trumbo from behind closed eyelids, “Is that fruit still around?”

  “Yes, well…” said Will, finishing his ice water. “Technically, you haven’t fired him yet.”

  “I may just have him killed,” said Trumbo. “Which reminds me. What happened to that fat Hawaiian with the axe…”

  “Jimmy Kahekili.”

  “Yeah,” said Trumbo. “Did he leave?”

  “No,” said Will. “The last I heard, he was down in the kitchen eating pastries. He still has the axe. Michaels is watching him.”

  “Good. I’m glad he’s still around. With people like Caitlin and Myron Koestler and Carter still around here, we may have use for Mr. Kahekili.” Trumbo smiled as he massaged his brow.

  “Do you have a headache, boss?” asked Bryant.

  “Does the pope shit in the woods?” Trumbo sat up as his radio buzzed. It was the security frequency. “Trumbo here.”

  “Mr. Trumbo,” came Fredrickson’s voice, “good news. I’ve found Sunny Takahashi. Over.”

  Trumbo jumped to his feet, gripping the radio hard. “Is he alive?”

  “Yessir. Not even hurt as far as I can tell. Over.”

  Byron Trumbo grabbed Will Bryant by the arms, pulled the younger man to his feet, and danced a jig. Then he released his assistant and thumbed the send button. “Great…get him here, Fredrickson. Pronto. You’ve got a bonus coming, kid.”

  Static rasped for a moment. “I think you’d better come here, Mr. Trumbo. Over.”

  The billionaire frowned. “Where are you?”

  “In the petroglyph field. You know, where the jogging trail goes through the rocks south of…”

  “Goddammit,” shouted Trumbo, “I know where the fucking petroglyph field is. Why should I come there? Is Sunny with you?”

  “Yessir. He’s here. So’s Mr. Dillon. Over.”

  Trumbo exchanged looks with Will Bryant. “Dillon’s there?” he said into the radio. “Look, Fredrickson, I just want Sunny Takahashi back here as soon as possible, so don’t fuck around with any other…”

  “I really think you need to see this, Mr. Trumbo,” came the security man’s voice. It sounded strange, hollow, as if he were speaking from a barrel.

  “Look, goddammit, just get that little Jap back here as soon as… Fredrickson? Fredrickson? Shit!” The frequency had gone to static. Trumbo headed for the door, picking up the 9mm Browning and checking its clip as he went. Will Bryant jumped to his feet to follow.

  “No,” said Trumbo,
waving the other man back. “You stay here and get Sato and his people in the conference room and ready to sign. I’ll be back with Sunny in ten minutes. I don’t care if Takahashi has been lobotomized, we’re going to get him presentable, give Sato a peek so that he knows his golden boy is all right, and then get those fucking papers signed.”

  “Roger, wilco,” said Will. He headed for Sato’s wing while Trumbo took the elevator downstairs.

  Trumbo paused on the lobby floor and then hurried into the restaurant, then through it to the huge kitchen. Jimmy Kahekili was sitting at a stainless-steel counter eating cakes with one hand while holding the axe in the other. Michaels, the security man, was watching him like a hawk.

  “Mr. Trumbo!” cried Bree, the chef, throwing his hands up in a flutter. “This…this…excrescence of fat…has been getting in my way for hours. Thank heavens you’ve come!”

  “Shut up, Bree,” said Trumbo. Then: “Look, I’ve got to go run an errand out in the petroglyph field and I want you to come as security.”

  “Sure, chief,” said Michaels, buttoning his linen jacket over his gun.

  “Not you,” said Trumbo. He pointed at the five-hundred-pound Hawaiian. “You.”

  Jimmy Kahekili continued to eat cake with his pudgy hand and to hold the axe at counter height with the other. He ignored Trumbo.

  “It’s worth ten thousand more dollars to you,” said Trumbo, turning on his heel to head for the door.

  Jimmy Kahekili wiped cake from his fingers onto his bare chest with a dainty gesture, pivoted off the stool which had been hidden by the mass of his body, and waddled to catch up.

  Kahekili could not fit into a golf cart. Trumbo decided to walk. The Hawaiian followed at a brisk waddle, his shadow falling over the billionaire as they hurried through the garden and turned south past the Shipwreck Bar.

  They had just reached the large pool when Trumbo stopped so suddenly that Jimmy Kahekili almost ran over him. The billionaire’s shoulders sagged.

  Standing in the walkway ahead of him were Caitlin Sommersby Trumbo, Maya Richardson, and Bicki. Myron Koestler lounged against a coconut palm and smirked. All three women had been talking rapidly until Trumbo had turned the corner. Now all three folded their arms across their chests and tapped their fingers against their elbows. Evening sunlight glinted on long nails.

  “Byron Trumbo,” said Caitlin in her slow, perfect New England accent. “Just the man we want to see.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Night is at Pana-ewa and bitter is the storm;

  The branches of the trees are bent down;

  Rattling are the flowers and leaves of the lehua;

  Angrily growls the god Pana-ewa,

  Stirred up inside by his wrath.

  Oh, Pana-ewa!

  I give you hurt.

  Behold, I give the hard blows of battle.

  —Hi’iaka’s incantation against Pele’s enemies

  June 18, 1866, In an unnamed village along the Kona Coast—

  The creature of fog and night chose Reverend Haymark as its victim and fell on him so quickly that even if Mr. Clemens could have moved—and I could see that he was still held down by invisible forces—it would have been too late to help. The fog-man that had been the boy Halemanu leapt like a panther pouncing and then seemed to surround the hapless cleric. Reverend Haymark cried out, but it was a weak noise and seemed to come from very far away. I tried to rise, to rush to the cleric’s side, but found myself held in place by the same sorcery that had kept my two companions in check. Now there arose from the thrashing silhouette of fog a growling and gnashing sound such as I never hope to hear again. It was as if some foul beast had been turned loose on a haunch of meat there in our midst.

  Finally Reverend Haymark’s struggles ceased and the fog-creature—Pana-ewa?—seemed to solidify, although the solid was a blackness deeper than night. The growling and gnashing turned to the sounds of a foul beast drinking deeply, as if lapping water from some great gourd. Then the noise ceased.

  The old man who had been sitting next to Reverend Haymark chanted something in ancient Hawaiian. The fog-beast seemed to slide away from our friend’s lifeless body and suddenly…shift…until something large and scaly, not fully reptilian but far from human, squatted in the dark corner.

  The old men continued to chant in their liquid language. I recognized the name Pana-ewa repeated frequently. The reptile-man seemed to sway with the chanting. Its human eyes shifted left and right in the candlenut light to watch Mr. Clemens and me almost mockingly. Its sharp teeth were moist. A long tongue flicked out to taste the air. I looked to Mr. Clemens for reassurance, but the correspondent had eyes only for the reptilian horror; the correspondent’s mouth hung slack beneath his mustaches and his eyes were wide. I looked back at Reverend Haymark, but the cleric was absolutely motionless. I feared the worst.

  Finally the old men ceased chanting and rose, one by one, to file out of the hut until only the old lady in the shadows, Mr. Clemens, myself, the body of our companion, and the thing called Pana-ewa remained.

  It spoke. “Your ssssoulssss are mine, haole. I ssssshall return for them.” And with that, the creature seemed to dig into the soft soil of the hut until it had disappeared from sight. As if released from invisible bonds, I almost pitched forward, so intense had been the restraints and so insistent my unconscious straining.

  Mr. Clemens and I moved to the minister’s side. While I felt for a pulse, the correspondent peered down the large hole the creature had used as an exit. “Curious,” said the California reporter. “Very curious.”

  I looked up at him in shock. “Reverend Haymark is dead,” I said. “There is no pulse.” More shocking than the lack of pulse was the temperature of our former companion’s body: the cleric’s skin was as cold as ice. Frost could have formed on the poor man’s staring eyes and his skin was as hard as frozen beef.

  Mr. Clemens stepped closer and confirmed my diagnosis. “Dead as a cod,” muttered the writer.

  “He is not dead,” said the old woman in the shadows. Her English was slow and accented, but proper.

  I believe we both started at the sound. The crone had been so still and silent during the amazing events of the past half hour that we had all but forgotten her presence.

  Mr. Clemens smoothed his mustaches. “I hesitate to disagree with a lady,” he said to the old woman in the shadows, “but our friend is not only deceased, he is as cold and stiff as a frog in a Minnesota winter.”

  “He is not alive,” the old woman said slowly, “but he is not dead.”

  Mr. Clemens exchanged glances with me. “Who are you?” I asked the crone.

  She did not deign to answer. Outside we could hear the old men beginning their chanting once again.

  “Why did your friends kill our friend?” I asked the woman. “Why have they called this demon forth?”

  The woman made a rude sound in her throat. “These kauwa kahuna—these landless, brainless, pizzleless sorcerers—are not my friends. They are little men. They cannot see me. Only you can see me here.”

  Again I exchanged glances with Mr. Clemens. The old woman’s statement was absurd, but everything that had happened this endless day and night was beyond sanity as we knew it.

  “Are they going to kill us?” I asked Mr. Clemens.

  It was the woman who answered. “They are trying to pray you to death even as we speak. Hear them? Their chants are useless.”

  Mr. Clemens looked at the rigid body of our companion. “Their summoning of a demon worked well enough.”

  The old woman made the rude noise again. “Summoning demons is child’s play. They are children. Pana-ewa could steal the soul of only one of you, and they chose your friend, thinking him the most powerful because he was your kahuna.” She spat into the dust. “They are fools.”

  I looked at the wide hole where the reptile creature had disappeared. “Will he…will it…return?”

  “No,” said the woman. “It is afraid.”

  “Afrai
d of what?” asked Mr. Clemens.

  “Of me,” said the old woman. And then she rose. She did not stand. She did not straighten. She simply rose, still in a sitting position, until she was floating some three feet above the earthen floor.

  I stared and knew that Mr. Clemens’s expression must mirror my own.

  “Listen to me,” said the old woman. “You must leave this place. Leave your friend’s body here…”

  “No, we cannot do such a…” began Mr. Clemens.

  “SILENCE!” I was sure that the volcanic mountain must echo to the old woman’s shout. It silenced Mr. Clemens, but outside I could hear the chanting continue in old men’s wavering voices.

  “You will leave your friend’s body here,” she said. “No harm will come to it. I shall watch over it myself. It is important that you retrieve his soul.”

  “His soul…” began Mr. Clemens, but then silenced himself.

  “To do this,” said the old woman, “you must go to the opening to the Underworld that these kauwa fools have opened in their arrogance and ignorance. They do not know how to close it. In their stupid attempts to drive off the haole kahuna, they have unleashed terrible forces.

  “You will go to the opening to the Underworld and you will descend into the Underworld,” she continued, her voice as rhythmic in its own way as the chant going on beyond the grass walls of our hut. “When you reach the entrance to the Ghost World, you will rid yourselves of the absurd haole raiments which you have draped upon your bodies…”

  I glanced down at my skirt and vest and blouse and gloves and boots. What was absurd about this raiment? I had bought them in Denver at the finest stores.

  “When you have rid yourself of your haole rags,” said the old woman, “you will anoint yourselves with the oil made from rotten kukui nuts. Ghosts do not like this smell.”

  Mr. Clemens raised his eyebrows at me but wisely held his tongue.

  “Then you will make a rope of ieie vines and descend into the Underworld,” said the floating crone. She held one finger up in admonition. “You must not let the ghosts and demons and gods there know that you are not ghosts yourselves. If you do reveal that you are living, Pana-ewa or his ilk will steal your souls and there is nothing I can do to help.”