The Curse of Lono

  There was also the problem of Mr. Heem, the realtor, who wanted the rent for the compound -- at least two thousand in cash, and questions would certainly be raised about the crust of red scum on the property. Once it hardened, only an industrial sandblaster could get it off.

  I liked the color, myself. It brought back oriental memories. There was a strange red glow on the whole property in the afternoon hours. I drove past it a few times and noticed that even the grass on the lawn seemed to glitter. The swimming pool appeared to be full of blood, on some days, and the dense green foliage on the lemon trees seemed about to burst into flame. The place had a different look now, an air of mystery and magic. Strange and powerful things had happened here. And perhaps they would happen again. There was a certain beauty to it, but the effect was very unsettling and I could see where Heem might have trouble renting it to decent people.

  "Pay him off and don't argue," Ackerman advised. "Two thousand is cheap to get rid of swine like Heem. He can cause you a lot of trouble. A lawsuit could drag on for years."

  Heem was a powerful figure in local politics. He had once been the president of the Kona Real Estate Board, but a scandal caused him to quit. "He was selling nonexistent condos to pension funds," Ackerman explained. "Xeroxing deeds in triplicate, stealing from old people. Jesus, half the dead construction projects on this island are Heem's work. He's so crooked that he has to screw his pants on every morning, but he's rich and he keeps gangs of lawyers on retainer to put people like you in Hilo Prison."

  I agreed that it would be a far far better thing to pay Mr. Heem off at once, but I didn't have the money. I had given him two thousand up front, and the rest of the debt was Ralph's.

  "Good luck," said Ackerman. "We're both in trouble now. Our only hope is the crop. All I have to do is put it in garbage bags and get it to the airport."

  "Why not?" I said.

  It made no sense at all, but my mood was getting loose and my fiancée had gone off to China for a few weeks, leaving me alone in a weird situation. I relaxed on Ackerman's deck with a thermos of margaritas while he supervised the last few hours of the harvest, and came up with a foolproof plan. He was talking about a lot more than two hundred thousand dollars. It was more like a million. We would bag the whole crop and mail it to a post office box in rural Texas, where a man who'd once cheated me maintained an abandoned ranch. A load like that, I figured, would attract either a massive amount of attention or none at all, and I could live with it either way. If we got there in two weeks and found people hanging from telephone poles, we would know not to go to the post office. But if the coast was clear, we'd be rich. I knew people in Houston who would pay a hundred thousand just for the rights to pick it up. There are people who wait all their lives for one chance to do something like that:

  "Howdy. I'm DeLorean, new foreman at the Triple Six. Any mail for me?"

  The next few seconds are the ones people pay for, a high wild rush in the nerve ends and your whole life hanging. Whatever happens next will be serious. There is nothing in Vegas or even drugs that comes close to that kind of high, they say. There are only two ways to leave a post office in east Texas, once you've signed for a hundred Primo beer crates filled with Hawaiian marijuana. Some people get ambushed by G-men, hauled off in chains or gunned down in a public shootout, and others buy stamps or read the wanted posters while the hired hands load up the truck, under the watchful eyes of the postmaster.

  Ackerman said the risk seemed acceptable to him, so we drove down the mountain to the King Kam Hotel and checked in. Ralph had made all the proper arrangements for the care of his dog, but he hadn't mentioned keepers and the desk clerk was nervous when I said we'd be moving into Mr. Steadman's suite for the duration of the crisis. I had already spoken to the hotel doctor, who said he'd been drinking when he signed a statement of Medical Responsibility for the animal and now regretted it. "This is not your normal poi dog," he told me. "It's a monster chow of some kind. When I weighed it today it was five pounds heavier than it was yesterday. The body is growing like a mushroom but the whole central nervous system is gone."

  "Don't worry," I said. "I raised the beast from a puppy. It was my Christmas present to Mr. Steadman's daughter."

  "Ye gods," he muttered. "What did she give you?"

  "Nothing half as valuable as Rupert," I said. "This dog will sire a whole line when we get him to England."

  "That's a horrible thought," said the doctor. "If I had a dog like this, I'd have it put to sleep."

  "The decision is out of our hands," I said. "Mr. Steadman has left his instructions. Our job is to carry them out."

  The doctor agreed. And so did the desk clerk, but some of the details eluded him. "Somebody's going to have to sign for this," he said, "and it can't be the dog." He looked down at the bill in his hands. "Who is 'Rupert'?" he asked. "That's the only billing signature I can authorize."

  Who indeed? I thought. I stared intently at the bridge of his nose. Rupert was the dog's name, but I knew the clerk wouldn't stand for it. Ackerman was out in the parking lot with ten garbage bags of raw marijuana, ready to load it onto the elevator and up to Ralph's room on a dolly. There was no going back now. "Don't worry," I said. "Mr. Rupert will be here soon. He'll sign whatever you want."

  Just then Ackerman appeared in the lobby, gesturing angrily as he came toward the desk. "Ah ha," I said, "Mr. Rupert." He looked puzzled.

  "You'll have to sign," I said. "The dog is too sick."

  "Of course," he replied, "I have the cure for the poor beast right here." He reached into his shopping bag and brought out a handful of red and yellow flea collars -- Alii colors. The clerk's voice took a different tone.

  "Ah yes. . . the dog. I remember now. Of course. Dr. Ho was very concerned. The animal in 505." He checked the computer. "And also 506," he said quickly, with a hint of bad nerves in his voice.

  "What?" I said.

  "That animal should be put to sleep!" the clerk yelled suddenly. "He's covered with millions of red fleas! We can't even go in those rooms, much less rent them out! That stinking animal is costing us three hundred dollars a day!"

  "I know," said Ackerman. "I have to live with the poor brute. Mr. Steadman made me swear, just before he went back to London. He wants that dog on a plane just as soon as it's fit to travel."

  "Rupert is our responsibility now," I said to the clerk. "All of us."

  "Rupert?" said the clerk.

  "Never mind," Ackerman snapped. "Dr. Ho has arranged for special care. Don't worry about the cost. Money means nothing to Mr. Steadman."

  "That's right," I said. "He's the richest artist in England."

  The clerk nodded respectfully. . .

  "And we're the ones who made him that way. . ." I pulled Ackerman up to the counter.

  "This is Mr. Rupert," I said. "Mr. Steadman's personal manager. He'll handle any red tape."

  Ackerman smiled warmly and extended his hand, which was still a faded blue color. The clerk hesitated, clearly disturbed by the corpse-like coloration of Mr. Rupert's flesh . . . but there was blond hair on the arm, and it was wearing a gold Rolex. The clerk's eyes were wary but I saw his nerves relaxing. We were clearly people of substance, despite fits of eccentric behavior.

  "My pleasure, Mr. Rupert," he said, reaching out to shake Ackerman's hand. "We'll help you in every way."

  "Thank you," said Ackerman. "We'll have a real tragedy on our hands if this animal can't be cured."

  "Don't worry," said the clerk. "Dr. Ho is highly respected. That's why we chose him to be the hotel physician."

  "Indeed," I said. "He's still treating my infection from the wasp stings."

  The clerk nodded blankly, then reached under the counter for an American Express form, which he preferred discreetly to Ackerman. "Now if you'll just sign this," he said.

  Ackerman scrawled quickly on the form and accepted two keys from the clerk.

  "505 was Mr. Steadman's room," the man said. "But we'
ve opened the connecting doors to 506 -- so now you have the whole Queen Kalama suite, with a wet bar and all the room you need for that filthy dog."

  We thanked him and walked away toward the elevators, but he called after us: "You understand, of course, that the entire Queen Kalama suite is off limits to hotel personnel."

  Ackerman stopped in mid-stride, then turned slowly around on his heels like a robot, not smiling this time.

  "What do you mean -- off limits?"

  The clerk was shuffling again. "Well. . . ah. . . I think it's a medical problem, Mr. Rupert. Red fleas are a health hazard. We can't have our employees exposed to infectious disease." He was getting excited again. "Those goddamn things carry germs!" he shouted. "Red fleas are worse than rats! They carry smallpox! They carry cholera! They carry syphilis!"

  "What about our room service?" I asked.

  The clerk hesitated. His eyes were not focused. "Room service?" he echoed. "Ah yes. . . well. . . ah. . . don't worry about room service. That's no problem at all, Mr. Rupert. You'll have all the room service you need -- we'll just have to leave everything outside the door." He nodded happily, clearly pleased with his own quick thinking. "That's right," he went on, "the rooms are off limits; but the hallway, of course, is not -- so I'll simply advise our room service people never to enter your rooms, for any reason. They can bring anything you want to your doorway, but not across the threshold -- is that all right?"

  Ackerman nodded thoughtfully, as if pondering grave medical implications. . . Then he smiled at the clerk and said, "Of course. That's our only solution, isn't it? We'll do business at the door -- no risk, no responsibility."

  It sounded very precise, and the clerk nodded eagerly.

  So did I, as we moved once again toward the elevators. "A basic canon of all English-speaking jurisprudence," I muttered. "Nobody would argue with that logic!"

  "Right," said Ackerman. "Oxford Law, one of the first things they taught us."

  "Very clean," I replied. "Very legal -- Mr. Steadman would want it that way."

  Ackerman shrugged. "We'll see," he said quietly. "We could run up a hell of a bill before this thing is over -- maybe five hundred dollars a day with room service and doctors. Hell, I just laid out forty-eight dollars in cash for these flea collars. We should have put them on Steadman's plastic."

  "How many did you get?" I asked as we stepped into the elevator.

  "Two dozen," he said. "Twelve for you and twelve for me. We can wear six on each arm, like bracelets."

  "That's good thinking," I said.

  They led Cook and Phillips straight to Terreeoboo's house, a thatched hut built without ostentation or decoration and little larger than its neighbours. The two officers waited outside for the king to appear, and when he failed to do so after some minutes, Cook said, "Would you please investigate, Mr. Phillips. It would not be suitable for me to do so, and I doubt the old gentleman's being inside."

  Phillips ducked into the house. "I found the old gentleman just awoke from sleep," said Phillips later. He then told the king that Cook was outside and wished to see him. Slowly, hesitantly, because of his age and condition, the king arose and put on a cloak. Phillips helped him outside, where Terreeoboo showed every sign of pleasure at seeing god Lono, and betrayed no evidence of guilt. . .

  [Cook] turned to Phillips and said in English, "He is quite innocent of what has happened, of that I am convinced." Then he asked the king in Polynesian if he would come on board the Resolution with him. King Terreeoboo at once agreed and got to his feet again, with the aid of a son at each elbow, and the party began the walk to the shore. . .

  Events now moved forward at an accelerating rate towards a disaster for which only Cook himself appeared unprepared. His first reaction to the detention of the king was one of anger -- a fierce outburst which neither the king nor his wife had ever witnessed before. The king himself had in fact suddenly become a pathetic and un-regal figure -- "dejected and frightened" were the words Phillips used.

  At the same time the news of the death of Chief Kalimu off Waipunaula arrived with the four canoeists who had witnessed the shooting, and spread with the speed of sound through this emotionally charged gathering. They closed in, two or three thousand already, the sound that had once been like a distant murmur now rapidly growing in volume and undisguised hostility, and with a new sharpness now added to it -- the mournful shriek of conch-shells being blown. Even Cook could no longer disregard the great press of numbers about them, and their menacing mood. Not one of them even the nearest, was now prostrated. On the contrary, they were waving clubs and spears, and some of them held high the newly-acquired and prized pahoas from the ships' forges, some with blades as long as 20 inches.

  Richard Hough

  The Last Voyage of Captain James Cook

  The elevator door opened and we stepped inside.

  "What name did you sign?" I asked him.

  "Rupert," he said.

  "That's all?"

  "Yeah, but I put a lot of long swirls in it, plenty of old English filigree." He shrugged. "What the hell? It's a dog's signature anyway. My name's not Rupert."

  "It is now," I said. "You are Mr. Rupert and the first time you forget it we'll be in Hilo Prison for defrauding an innkeeper. That's a felony."

  He nodded, turning the key in the lock of 506. "Okay," he said finally. "You're right. That dog just got a new name -- what is it?"

  "Homer," I said. "The dog's name is Homer. I'll have Dr. Ho put it on some kind of affidavit."

  "That's right," he said. "Those bastards down at the desk don't care what our names are, anyway. They'll give us whatever we want if Ralph's plastic checks out."

  "Jesus," he added. "Is Ralph the kind of guy who pays his bills on time?"

  "Probably not," I said. "How much time do we need?"

  "Not much," he replied. "I can bag the whole crop in three days -- and I like that 'off limits' gig; we won't have to worry about the maids coming in."

  I nodded. This was a whole different side of the coin and it worried me. We could deal, I felt, with the Dog Problem -- or even the risk of signing a young chow's name on Ralph's credit card, but I was not entirely at ease with Ackerman's plan to use the best suite in the King Kamehameha Hotel, in the heart of downtown Kona, as a bag-house for his whole marijuana crop. He wanted to hire a garbage compactor and crush a whole orchard of marijuana trees into fifty-pound cubes about the size of a TV set.

  "How much do you have?" I asked him.

  "Not much," he said. "Maybe five hundred pounds."

  "What?" I said. "Five hundred pounds! That's too much. They'll smell it. We'll be busted."

  "Don't worry," he said. "The whole suite is off limits. They can't cross the threshold."

  "Balls," I said. "They can cross anything they want for five hundred pounds. The last thing we need right now is a parade of dope dealers in and out of this place. The whole town would come down on us. It would be a civic outrage; red fleas are one thing, but. . ."

  "Never mind," he said. "I need the fleas. We couldn't ask for a better cover."

  I thought for a moment, then put my worries aside. This was, after all, Mr. Rupert's suite, not mine -- and it was Mr. Rupert who would be signing all the room service chits. I was only here as a personal favor to my old friend Steadman, the rich and famous British artist. He had flown back to London on short notice and left us to care for his dying dog. The beast was too sick to touch. Its brain had shorted out a long time ago from the constant plague of red fleas that it had obviously picked up in Hawaii -- perhaps in this very hotel. We had no choice, as I saw it, and I knew Dr. Ho would agree.

  "Don't worry about that crazy little quack," Ackerman assured me. "He's the worst coke whore on the island. I've known him for years. He works for me."

  "What? Dr. Ho?"

  "Yeah. He has friends in Waikiki. They ship a lot of dog medicine." He smiled. "And they ship it in real big crates."

  Big cr
ates? I thought. Dog medicine? Indeed. Ralph would want it this way.

  By the end of the second week at the hotel, it was clear that we needed a break. The tension was running high. We had been there too long and the locals were getting nervous. The real estate bund had been worried from the start about the harmful effects our story might cause in their market, and our horrible experience in the Jackpot Tournament had done nothing to ease their fears.

  And neither had we, for that matter. My own mood, in the aftermath of the fishing tournament, was too foul to hide. Captain Steve was drinking heavily, Norwood had gone into hiding, the beach thugs were still chasing Laila, and Ralph's sudden departure for London -- leaving, as he did, in a highly visible wake of shame, failure and public humiliation -- was a sure sign to even our friends that whatever we finally published would not be good for business.

  Which was, after all, the whole point. That had been understood from the start -- although not properly, by some people -- and the business of Kona is business. Specifically, the selling of real estate. There are 600 registered realtors in the Kona Coast alone, and the last thing they need right now is an outburst of bad publicity in the mainland press. The market is already so overpriced and overextended that a lot of people are going to have to go back to fishing for a living, if things don't change pretty soon. The bull market of the early Seventies is just another Hawaiian legend now, like the hubris of Captain Cook.

  DRIVING THE SADDLE ROAD

  When Ackerman got back from Honolulu we decided to lie low for a while. Even our fishermen friends at Huggo's were getting nervous about why I was still hanging around, three weeks after Ralph left.

  The rumors filtering down -- or up, as it were -- from the real estate bund were beginning to take root all around us. I knew we had reached a breakpoint when even the bartenders at the Kona Inn began saying "I thought you left last week" every time I came in; or, "What kind of story are you really writing?"