Fires of Eden

  Trumbo sighed. “Which one? Caitlin?”

  “No, sir,” Michaels said hurriedly. “One of the guests. Mrs. Stumpf.”

  Trumbo paused. “One of the guests? I thought they’d all lit out.”

  “Not quite, sir. Mrs. Stumpf was the contest winner who…”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Trumbo. “Well, tell her I’ll catch her tomorrow after breakfast sometime.”

  Michaels shifted uncomfortably. “Well, sir, she says that it’s very important. She says it’s about the dog and the shark and the pig. She said you’d understand.”

  Trumbo looked back toward the dining room. Waiters were bringing around the dessert—ice cream made with local mangoes, chocolate mousse pie, and Kona espresso—and it looked as if his guests would be preoccupied for a few minutes. “OK,” he said. “Where is she?”

  She was in the suite’s tiled anteroom. Trumbo had met this stocky little woman with the moon-shaped face when she and the curator and the other woman had reported the dog carrying human remains, but he was surprised at how much worse she could look with wet hair and dripping clothes.

  “Mrs. Stumpf!” he said expansively, opening his arms but not actually hugging the dripping apparition. “We’re so pleased you accepted our invitation to enjoy the more comfortable seventh-floor suite until the storm is over! What can we do to make your stay even more enjoyable?”

  Mrs. Stumpf grunted. “Send your bodyguard away,” she said.

  Michaels bristled but Trumbo just smiled again. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Stumpf, my associate is a trusted colleague. Anything you say will be held in confidence.”

  “Tell him to fuck off,” said the little woman.

  Trumbo blinked, his smile fading only slightly. “Fuck off,” he said to Michaels. The security man blinked but disappeared out the door onto the mezzanine where the other security men waited.

  “Now,” said Trumbo, “what’s this about sharks and pigs and whatever?”

  Cordie Stumpf grunted again. “Byron, babe, you’ve got two problems. The first one is that your hotel is being overrun with mythological beasties right now. Before I parked my Jeep in the empty lobby, I saw wild pigs rooting through the gardens and that dog with the human teeth on the second-floor mezzanine.”

  “You parked your Jeep in the lobby?” said Trumbo. Regaining his composure, he said, “There is nothing to worry about, Mrs. Stumpf. I admit that things have been a bit…ah…unusual the past day or two, but they will be back to normal by tomorrow. I’ll have my associate see you safely back to your suite.” He set his hand on the woman’s back, feeling the wet blouse and the solid muscles there, and began escorting her to the door. She did not resist.

  “Oh,” she said. “I did say that there were two problems.”

  Trumbo resisted the impulse to sigh. “Yes?”

  Cordie Stumpf stopped, turned slightly, reached into her cheap tote bag, and came out with a long-barreled .38, which she jabbed into Byron Trumbo’s ribs. “This is the second problem,” she said softly, and cocked the hammer.

  Trumbo regarded the problem without moving. “OK,” he said at last. “How do we solve it?”

  Cordie nodded toward the inner door. “We go in there, out the back way, and downstairs. You’re going with me. You’re keeping your mouth shut. You’re not signaling to your lackeys. If you make any sign or give me any grief, I pull the trigger.”

  “You realize that you’re fucking insane, don’t you?” said Byron Trumbo.

  “Yes,” said Cordie, and pushed the barrel tighter against the billionaire’s ribs. “Look at me.”

  Trumbo looked into those small, washed-out eyes. Earlier that day he had faced down a revolver in the hands of his outraged wife, but he had known the limits of her insanity. He saw no limits to whatever gleamed in this woman’s eyes. “All right,” he said. “I’m not going to cause any trouble. We’ll go out through the back door. Just lower the hammer, would you?”

  “I’ll lower it when we get where we’re going,” said Cordie. Her voice was tired and flat, but firm. “Or when I have to squeeze the trigger.”

  Trumbo felt his flesh crawl at that, but he turned and led the way back through the suite, down the interior hall to avoid the banquet in the dining rooms. Cordie pulled the revolver out of his ribs, but only to set it in her tote bag. Trumbo could feel the muzzle poking him through the straw of the bag.

  They went out the back door to the terrace. Trumbo nodded at the security men at the outer door and again at the elevator.

  “Want us to go down with you, Mr. T?” asked a huge man at the elevator.

  Trumbo shook his head and stepped into the elevator car with the little woman. The tote bag stayed against his ribs. “Which floor?” he said.

  “Six.”

  Trumbo was surprised. He had expected the lobby. On the sixth floor, they walked to Mrs. Stumpf’s complimentary suite.

  “Paul Kukali got hurt real bad,” said the woman in her mid-western drawl. “I left him with a couple of your security guys, who took him to a doctor up on your seventh floor.”

  “Dr. Scamahorn,” Trumbo said automatically. “He’s moved the infirmary up there to…”

  “Yeah,” interrupted Cordie, unlocking the door of her suite and motioning Trumbo through. She swept a flashlight around the interior and then opened the door to the bedroom. A woman’s body was there under the handmade Hawaiian quilt.

  “Jesus,” said Trumbo, touching the cold wrist. It was the other woman who had reported the dog—Dr. Perry. Her skin was so cold that Trumbo thought she must have been dead for hours, perhaps in the sea. “What happened?” he said, and thought, The fucking pig. Somehow it was the pig.

  “It was the pig,” Cordie said tiredly, as if reading his mind. “But the pig couldn’t touch her himself because of Pele’s 1866 injunction, so he sicced Pana-ewa on her.”

  Trumbo looked at the little woman as if she had begun speaking Swahili.

  “Never mind,” said Cordie, leading him out of the room again. “I just wanted to check in on her. I think she’ll be all right here. The critters don’t think I’ll return here. Actually, I don’t think the critters give a shit about me.”

  “Critters?” said Trumbo. He was irritated and frustrated that this dumpy little housewife was leading him around at the point of a gun when he should be upstairs finishing the deal with Sato, but this development was enough of an absurd cherry on the surreal sundae he’d been eating the past few days that he was enjoying it in some bizarre fashion.

  “Never mind,” said Cordie Stumpf. On the dark mezzanine, she locked the door and listened for a moment. Trumbo listened as well, acutely aware of the pistol in his ribs again. There were scurrying sounds from the lower floors and once he thought he heard a low growl.

  She moved him to the stairway. “Walk light,” she whispered. Trumbo did so, his high-top sneakers making almost no noise.

  This time they stopped on the first floor and moved through the dark lobby to the restaurant. It was locked. “Hope you got a key to this thing,” whispered Cordie. Something moved in the shrubs beyond the kneeling Buddha figures across the lobby.

  Trumbo considered denying that he had keys, but the noise in the shrubs decided him against that. He unlocked the door and locked it behind them when they slipped into the restaurant. Cordie scanned the long room with her flashlight beam, but her attention never wandered so far that Trumbo felt he could make a grab for the gun. Soon.

  “Is that the kitchen?” she whispered, holding the light on a doorway.

  “Yeah.”

  She motioned him forward and they moved through the swinging door into the kitchen. Stainless-steel counters and cabinets gleamed in the flashlight beam. “Pantry,” she whispered. Trumbo led the way, wondering if the woman was some sort of crazed bulimic who was going to eat herself to death while holding him at gunpoint. As long as she did it quickly enough that he could get back to the Sato party, he didn’t really care.

  In the pantry, Cordie tri
ed to switch on the lights but the electricity was still off.

  “Anything I can help you find?” asked Trumbo, eyeing the row upon row of canned goods and other delicacies befitting a five-star restaurant. Arsenic? he thought. Ground glass?

  Cordie hesitated only a second. “Anchovy paste,” she said, holding the light on a lower shelf.

  Trumbo blinked but obediently fetched the dark tube of paste when she waggled the revolver barrel at him.

  “Better get two tubes,” said the dumpy little woman. “And that long tube of garlic paste up there…yeah, that’s it.”

  Trumbo pulled down the heavy commercial tube of liquid garlic. He felt like a henpecked husband in a supermarket.

  “What’s it say on that little black jar?” she asked.

  Trumbo leaned closer and read it in the flashlight beam. “Marmite,” he said. “It’s this paste that some of our British guests like for breakfast on their toast and…”

  “I know marmite,” said the woman. “I had me some in London once. It’s this black yeast stuff that smells like a mouse crawled in the jar and died a year or two before. And it tastes worse. Better take that jar, too.”

  Whatever kind of sandwich she’s making, he thought, I’m not eating it.

  “Cheese,” said Cordie, and they moved to the cooler.

  “Look,” said Trumbo as they stood in front of the racks of dessert cheeses, “if you’re hungry, come on back upstairs with me and you can join the banquet…”

  “Shut up,” said Cordie. She gestured with the revolver. “Some of that Limburger. And that blue.”

  “I’ll need a knife to cut it,” said Trumbo. He turned toward the kitchen.

  “Cute,” said Cordie, waving him back. “Use your hands. Better yet, bring the whole wheel of Limburger.”

  “This must weigh ten pounds,” said Trumbo, still juggling the anchovy paste and garlic tubes while wrestling the stinking circle of cheese off the rack.

  “You’re a strong guy,” said Cordie. She held the door open for him and kept the pistol trained on him as they crossed the dark restaurant again.

  She paused by the door, holding it open a crack.

  “Where now?” whispered Trumbo. He thought, If she comes two steps closer, I can conk her with this fucking cheese. The stench from the giant wheel of Limburger made him want to throw up.

  Cordie was listening to a scraping sound from the second-floor mezzanine. “We’ll take the stairs,” she said. “Your security guys will come down to check if we use the elevator.”

  She started through the door and then stopped. “Heck and spit,” she said softly.

  “What?” said Trumbo, holding the garlic tube in place atop the cheese with his chin. The fumes made his eyes water. “You forget the bread?”

  Cordie shook her head. “I don’t have a coconut.”

  “Pity,” muttered Trumbo. “Does that mean the picnic’s off?” She ignored him. “Where’s the wine cellar? A fancy place like this has to have a wine cellar.”

  Trumbo nodded toward a door by the kitchen.

  The wine cellar was set into stone behind the kitchen and although it was refrigerated, it had kept its cool temperature when the power failed. Cordie moved from rack to rack, shining the flashlight on corks and labels. “What’s your best wine?”

  Trumbo shrugged. “I have no idea.” He peered at the exclusive racks she was illuminating. “This Lafite-Rothschild ’48 is worth more money than you’ll ever see.”

  “Okey-dokey,” said Cordie Stumpf, and pulled the priceless bottle from its cradle. Reaching into her tote bag she removed a Swiss army knife, extruded a corkscrew, said, “Stand back there,” and while Trumbo stood ten paces away, fuming, she held the bottle between her knees and uncorked it with one hand while holding the pistol on him with the other.

  “Hey,” said the billionaire, “that bottle’s worth…”

  “Shut up.” Pulling the cork free and sniffing it, Cordie nodded like a wine connoisseur and took a swig. Then she poured the remaining wine onto the floor.

  “Jesus!” shouted Trumbo. He was furious again. He started to set the cheese down and looked up into the flashlight beam and the black muzzle of the .38.

  “Oh,” said Cordie. “Did you want some?” She tapped the cork back in place.

  “I’m going to put you in a looney bin for the rest of your miserable, fucking life,” said Byron Trumbo in a tone he reserved for serious contractual arrangements.

  Cordie nodded. “I’d welcome the rest, Byron old buddy. Pick up your cheeses.” She whistled two bars of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” while Trumbo hoisted his load.

  “Just a minute,” she said at last. “Paul Kukali said that you had people missing. You might want to bring a bottle.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” said Trumbo.

  “Ghosts,” said Cordie. “Transporting ghosts. This bottle’s for mine. You might want to bring something if you have somebody you want to bring back.”

  “Transporting ghosts,” repeated Trumbo. “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever…” He stopped. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe I do need a bottle.”

  “Just one?” said Cordie, passing her light over the shelves.

  “Yeah. My hands are busy. Can you grab one?”

  “Sure,” said Cordie, and reached for one while keeping the pistol trained on him.

  “Not the expensive ones,” snapped Trumbo. “That cheap Gallo will do.”

  Cordie shrugged, retrieved the Gallo, and set the full bottle under his chin with the garlic and the anchovy paste. “Let’s go,” she said.

  They took the stairs to the basement level.

  “Fuck this,” said Trumbo. “There’s nothing down here but the…”

  “Catacombs,” finished Cordie. “Yeah, I thought it might be easier than trying to hike the mile or two through the storm up there. My guess is that all these lava tunnels connect, and I suspect that your guys got chewed up by something tunneling in here.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Trumbo.

  “Go,” said Cordie, nodding toward the pitch-black corridor.

  “Fuck that,” said Trumbo, backing against the corner. “I’m not going down there.”

  “Yes, you are,” said Cordie Stumpf, and raised the pistol.

  Trumbo stared. “You’ll have to shoot me,” he said. “There’s no way I’m going to…”

  The shot was unbelievably loud in the echoing space. The bullet nicked Trumbo’s ear, taking the tiniest piece of earlobe with it, and ricocheted away down the concrete tunnel. The noise and the stink of cordite seemed to fill the world.

  Trumbo dropped the tubes, the cheeses, the jar of marmite, and the bottle, frantically holding one hand in front of himself while feeling his ear with the other. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, don’t shoot…”

  “You ain’t hurt,” said Cordie. “Not yet. I figure I can aim at two or three soft spots and still have you function for a while. Now pick up the stuff.”

  Trumbo scrambled to pick up the food.

  “Good thing for your ghost friend that the wine bottle didn’t break,” said Cordie, holding the light on him.

  Trumbo made a noise.

  “Let’s go,” she said, waving him down the dark tunnel. “It gets better.”

  Trumbo muttered something into the stinking Limburger.

  “What was that?” said Cordie. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

  “I said,” said Trumbo, “I don’t see how.”

  Behind the glare of the flashlight, the woman’s voice was soft. “When we get to the place where the cave starts,” she said, “we’re going to strip ourselves naked and rub this stuff on us.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  It requires small play of the imagination to see these lava beds all peopled with strange forms, such as antediluvian monsters built up for our instruction at the Crystal Palace. All manner of creeping crawling things seem to be here: gigantic lizards and monstrous, many-armed cuttl
efish.

  —Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming “Fire Fountains,” 1883

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

  I knelt next to the Reverend Haymark’s body while the old woman sat across from me. Mr. Clemens watched. The pig god and other unspeakable things thrashed through the village in wild frustration at being barred from this hut by Pele’s command.

  The old woman handed me the coconut holding our friend’s uhane. “You must be stern,” she said. “The spirit will not want to return to its body. It has become used to its freedom and will not wish to be caged again. You must slap it into submission.”

  “Slap it,” I said.

  “Slap it,” said the old woman. “And then you must slap the spirit back into the body and keep it there until the body grows warm. If it escapes while you are trying to do this…” The old woman gestured toward the open door. “It will be eaten by Kamapua’a or Pana-ewa and you will never see the spirit again. Even now my lava fills the Underworld. In moments, my enemies will have to leave this place. But the ghosts also will be entombed.”

  “Slap it,” I said. Holding the coconut, glancing at Mr. Clemens for support, I asked, “Where does the spirit…how does it…”

  The old woman touched the corner of Reverend Haymark’s eye. “This is the lua-uhane, the ‘door of the soul.’ It is where the spirit departed the body…where Pana-ewa drew it out as you might suck milk from a coconut. The spirit will wish to return this way. Do not allow it! The spirit must return through the body’s feet and be coaxed upward until it resides everywhere. Now take off your kahuna’s foot coverings.”

  I reached for Reverend Haymark’s boots but stopped in confusion. I had never undressed a man, not even to remove my father’s boots when he had imbibed too much, and it seemed wrong to do so now. Luckily, Mr. Clemens saw my confusion and leaned forward to remove the cleric’s high boots and socks. In a moment, our friend’s ten toes pointed skyward like pale grave markers. The thought of touching those cold, dead feet made my skin shudder.

  The old woman set strong hands on my head and shoulder. “From this moment you are anointed as a priestess of Pele,” she half spoke, half chanted. “You join the sisterhood of sorcery for Pele. You speak for Pele. I shall put the words in your mind. Your voice shall be my voice. Your hands my hands. Your heart my heart. Pele has spoken.”