The Curse of Lono

  "I've heard it," I said. "The girl who got pushed off the cliff?"

  "Right," he said. "It scared the shit out of everybody." He lowered his voice and leaned closer to me. "I knew her well," he said. "She was beautiful, a senior stewardess for Pan Am."

  I nodded.

  "For no reason at all," he went on. "She was just standing there on the edge, with her boyfriend -- up there on that peak where they take all the tourists -- when all of a sudden this crazy nigger just runs up behind her and gives a big shove. Whacko! Right off the edge and a thousand feet down to the beach." He nodded grimly. "She bounced two or three times off a waterfall about halfway down, then she went out of sight. They never saw her again, never found the first trace of her body."

  "Why?" I wondered.

  "Who knows?" he replied. "They never even put him on trial. He was declared 'hopelessly insane.' "

  "Yeah," I said. "I remember it -- the black fiend who wore earphones, right? The same guy who got busted a few weeks earlier for trying to run naked in the Marathon?"

  "Yeah, the fastest crazy nigger in the world. He ran about half the race stark naked, before they finally caught him. The bastard was fast," he said, smiling slightly. "It took ten cops on motorcycles to run him down and put the net on him. He was some kind of world-class runner before he flipped out."

  "Balls," I said. "That's no excuse. These brainless murdering freaks should be castrated."

  "Absolutely," he said. "It's already happened."

  "What?"

  "The Samoans," he said. "The traffic jam on the freeway. . . Jesus! You never heard that story?"

  I shook my head.

  "Okay," he said. "This is a wonderful story about how your worst nightmares can come true at any moment, with no warning at all."

  "Good," I said. "Let's hear it. I like these stories. They speak to my deepest fears."

  "They should," he said. "Paranoia pays, over here."

  "What about the Samoans?"

  "The Samoans?" He stared into his drink for a moment, then looked up. "All six of them went free. Nobody would testify. . . Some poor bastard got caught in one of those Sunday afternoon traffic jams on the Pali Highway behind a pickup truck full of drunken Samoans. His car heated up like a bomb, but there was nothing he could do -- no exit, no place he could even park it and flee. The Samoans did things like kick out his headlights and piss all over the hood of his car, but he hung on for almost two hours -- with his doors locked and all his windows rolled up -- until he finally passed out from heat exhaustion, and fell on his horn. . .

  "The Samoans went instantly crazy," he continued. "They bashed out his windshield with tire irons, then they dragged him out and castrated him. Five of them held him down on the hood, while the other one sliced off his nuts -- right in the middle of the Pali Highway on a Sunday afternoon."

  I was watching the bartender very carefully now. The muscles on the back of his neck seemed to be bunching up, but I couldn't be sure. Skinner was still slumped on his stool, not ready to do anything fast. The stairs to the lobby were only about twenty feet away and I knew I could get there before the brute got his hands on me.

  But he was still calm. Skinner ordered another round of margaritas and asked for the tab, which he paid with a gold American Express card.

  Suddenly the phone behind the bar erupted with a burst of sharp rings. It was my fiancée, ringing down from the room.

  Sportswriters were calling, she said. Word was out that Ralph and I were entered in the Marathon.

  "Don't talk to the bastards," I warned her. "Anything you say will get us in trouble."

  "I already talked to one of them," she said. "He knocked on the door and said he was Bob Arum."

  "That's good," I said. "Bob's okay."

  "It wasn't Arum," she said. "It was that geek we met in Vegas, the guy from the New York Post."

  "Lock the door," I said. "It's Marley. Tell him I'm sick. They took me off the plane in Hilo. You don't know the name of the doctor."

  "What about the race?" she asked. "What should I say?"

  "It's out of the question," I said. "We're both sick. Tell them to leave us alone. We are victims of a publicity stunt."

  "You fool," she snapped. "What did you tell these people?"

  "Nothing," I said. "It was Wilbur. His mouth runs like jelly."

  "He called," she said. "He'll be here at nine with a limo to pick us up for the party."

  "What party?" I said, waving my hand to get Skinner's attention. "Is there a Marathon party tonight?" I asked him.

  He pulled a piece of white paper from one of the pockets in his bush jacket. "Here's the schedule," he said. "Yeah, it's a private thing at Doc Scaff's house. Cocktails and dinner for the runners. We're invited."

  I turned back to the phone. "What's the room number? I'll be up in a minute. There is a party. Hang on to the limo."

  "You better talk to Ralph," she said. "He's very unhappy."

  "So what?" I said. "He's an artist."

  "You bastard!" she said. "You'd better be nice to Ralph. He came all the way from England -- and he brought his wife and his daughter, just because you said so."

  "Don't worry," I said. "He'll get what he came for."

  "What?" she screamed. "You drunken sot! Get rid of that maniac friend of yours and go see Ralph -- he's hurt!"

  "Not for long," I said. "He'll be into our luggage before this thing is over."

  She hung up and I turned to the bartender. "How old are you?" I asked him.

  He tensed up, but said nothing.

  I smiled at him. "You probably don't remember me," I said, "but I used to be the Governor." I offered him a Dunhill, which he declined.

  "Governor of what?" he asked, dropping his hands to his sides, and turning to face us.

  Skinner quickly stood up. "Let's have a drink for old times," he said to the bartender. "This gentleman was the Governor of American Samoa for ten years, maybe twenty."

  "I don't remember him," said the bartender. "I get a lot of people in here."

  Skinner laughed and slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. "It's all bullshit anyway," he said. "We lie for a living, but we're good people."

  He leaned over the bar and shook hands with the bartender, who was happy to see us leave. On the way to the lobby Skinner handed me a mimeographed copy of the Marathon schedule and said he'd meet us at the party. He waved cheerfully and signaled the bellboy to bring up his car.

  Five minutes later, as I was still waiting for the elevator, I heard the nasty cold-steel roar of the GTO outside in the driveway, then the noise disappeared in the rain. The elevator came and I punched the button for the top floor.

  HE WAS NOT ONE OF US

  Ralph was being massaged by an elderly Japanese woman when his wife let me into the suite. His eight-year-old daughter was staring balefully at the TV set.

  "Now you mustn't upset him," Anna warned me. "He thinks his back is broken."

  Ralph was in the bedroom, stretched out on a rubber sheet and groaning piteously as the old crone pounded his back. There was a bottle of Glenfiddich on the sideboard and I made myself a drink. "Who was that vicious thug you introduced me to in the lounge?" he asked.

  "That was Skinner," I said. "He's our contact for the race."

  "What?" he shouted. "Are you mad? He's a dope addict! Did you hear what he said to me?"

  "About what?" I asked.

  "You heard him!" he yelled. "The White Death!"

  "You should have offered him some," I said. "You were rude."

  "That was your work," he hissed at me. "You put him up to it." He fell back on the rubber sheet, rolling his eyes and baring his teeth at me, wracked by a spasm of pain. "Damn you," he groaned. "Your friends are all sick, and now you've picked up a bloody dope addict!"

  "Calm down, Ralph," I said. "They're all dope addicts out here. We're lucky to meet a good one. Skinner's an old friend. He's the official photographer." br />
  "Oh my God," he groaned. "I knew it would be like this."

  I looked over my shoulder to see if his wife was watching, then I slapped him hard on the temple, to bring him back to his senses.

  He collapsed on the bed. . . and just at that moment Anna came into the room with a pot of tea and some cups on a wicker tray that she'd ordered up from room service.

  The tea calmed him down and soon he was talking normally. The twelve-thousand-mile trip from London had been a fiendish ordeal. His wife tried to get off the plane in Anchorage and his daughter wept the whole way. The plane was struck twice by lightning on the descent into Honolulu and a huge black woman from Fiji who was sitting next to them had an epileptic seizure.

  When they finally got on the ground, his luggage was lost and a cab charged him twenty-five pounds for a ride to the hotel, where their passports were seized by a desk clerk because he had no American money. The manager put the rest of his pounds in the hotel safe, for security, but allowed him to sign for snorkeling equipment at the surf shack on the beach by the Ho Ho Lounge.

  He was desperate for refuge at this point, he said, wanting only to be alone, to relax by himself in the sea. . . so he put on his flippers and paddled out toward the reef, only to be picked up by a wave and bashed on a jagged rock, punching a hole in his spine and leaving him to wash up on the beach like a drowned animal.

  "Strangers dragged me into a hut of some kind," he said. "Then they shot me full of adrenalin. By the time I could walk to the lobby I was pouring sweat and screaming. They had to give me a sedative and bring me up in the service elevator."

  Only a desperate call to Wilbur had prevented the manager from having him committed to the jail ward of a public hospital somewhere on the other side of the island.

  It was an ugly story. This was his first trip to the tropics, a thing he'd been wanting to do all his life. . . and now he was going to die from it, or at least be permanently crippled. His family was demoralized, he said. Probably none of them would ever get back to England, not even to be properly buried. They would die like dogs, for no good reason at all, on a rock far out in the middle of an utterly foreign sea.

  The rain lashed against the windows as we talked. There was no sign of a break in the storm, which had been raging for many days. The weather was worse than Wales, he said, and the pain in his back was causing him to drink heavily. Anna cried every time he asked for more whiskey. "It's horrible," he said. "I drank a litre of Glenfiddich last night."

  Ralph is always gloomy on foreign assignments. I examined his wound briefly and called down to the hotel gift shop for a ripe aloe plant.

  "Send it up right away," I told the woman. "And we'll need something to chop it up with -- do you have any big knives? Or a meat hatchet?"

  There was no answer for a few seconds, then I heard sounds of shouting and scuffling, and a male voice came on the line. "Yes sir," he said, "were you asking about a weapon?"

  I sensed at once that I was dealing with a businessman. The voice was Samoan, a deep croaking sound, but the instinct was universal Swiss.

  "What do you have?" I asked him. "I need something to pulverize an aloe plant."

  There was a pause, then he was back on the line.

  "I have a fine cutlery set -- seventy-seven pieces, with a beautiful butcher knife."

  "I can get that from room service," I said. "What else do you have?"

  There was another long pause. In the background I could hear a woman yelling something about "crazy. . ." and "chopping our heads off."

  "You're fired," he screamed. "I'm tired of your stupid whining. It's none of your business what they buy. Get out of here! I should have fired you a long time ago!"

  There were more sounds of brief scuffling and a babble of angry voices, then he was back.

  "I think I have what you need," he said smoothly. "It's a carved Samoan war club. Solid ebony, with eight power points. You could pulverize a palm tree with it."

  "How much does it weigh?" I asked.

  "Well. . ." he said. "Ah. . . yes, of course, could you wait just a moment? I have a postage scale."

  More noise came through the phone, a sharp rattling sound, then the voice.

  "It's very heavy, sir. My scale won't handle it." He chuckled. "Yes sir, this thing is heavy. I'd guess about ten pounds. It swings like a sledgehammer. There's nothing in the world you couldn't kill with it."

  "What's the price?" I asked.

  "One-fifty."

  "One-fifty?" I said. "For a stick?"

  There was no reply for a moment. "No sir," he said finally. "This thing I have in my hands is not a stick. It's a Samoan war club, perhaps three hundred years old. It's also an extremely brutal weapon," he added. "I could break down your door with it."

  "Never mind that," I said. "Send it up to the suite immediately, along with the aloe plant."

  "Yes sir," he said. "And how should I bill it?"

  "However you want," I said. "We're extremely rich people. Money means nothing to us."

  "No problem," he said. "I'll be there in five minutes."

  I hung up the phone and turned to Ralph, who was having another spasm, writhing soundlessly on the greasy rubber sheet. "It's all taken care of," I said. "We'll have you on your feet in no time. My man from the gift shop is coming up with an aloe plant and a vicious Samoan war club."

  "Oh God!" he moaned. "Another one!"

  "Yeah," I said, pouring myself another beaker of Glenfiddich. "He had that sound in his voice. We'll probably have to humor him." I smiled absently. "We'll get into your stuff sooner or later, Ralph. Why not right now?"

  "What stuff?" he shouted. "You know I don't use drugs."

  "Come on, Ralph," I said. "I'm tired of your hoary lies, where is it?"

  Before he could answer there was a knock on the door and a giant Samoan bounded into the room, shouting "Aloha! Aloha!" and waving a huge negro shinbone. "Welcome to the islands," he boomed. "My name is Maurice. Here's your weapon."

  It was an awesome thing to behold, easily capable of smashing a marble toilet bowl.

  "And here's a present." Maurice smiled, pulling a fat, ripe marijuana pod out of his pocket. "There's plenty more where this came from."

  "Anna!" Ralph screamed. "Anna! Call the manager!"

  I tapped Maurice on the shoulder and led him out to the hall. "Mister Steadman is not himself today," I told him. "He went snorkeling and broke his back on a coral head."

  Maurice nodded. "Let me know if you need any help. I have many relatives in Honolulu. I know many doctors."

  "Me too," I replied. "I am a doctor."

  We shook arms again and he bounded off toward the elevator. I went back to the bedroom and pulverized the aloe plant, ignoring Ralph's senile complaints. His wife watched nervously as I carefully packed his wound with green mush. "There's nothing wrong with his back," I told her. "It's only swollen. He picked up some poison off the fire coral, but this aloe will cure it."

  Ralph passed out after the aloe treatment, but twenty minutes later he was raving again and I persuaded him to eat a bag of valerian root, which calmed his nerves instantly. The spasms tapered off and he was able to sit up in bed and stare at the evening news on TV, unfazed by scenes of hoodlums kicking chunks of flesh off a tourist on a public beach near Pearl Harbor. His eyes were dim and his face was sickly pale. Drops of spittle ran down his chin. His speech was slow, and when I told him about the limo that would be picking us up in three hours to take us to a party, he seemed happy. "It will give us a chance to meet people," he said. "I want to make a deal with Budweiser."

  I let it pass. That's the valerian root talking, I thought. Maybe I gave him too much.

  He was drooling again, and his eyes were beginning to cross. He tried to roll a cigarette, but spilled tobacco all over the bed and I had to take the rolling machine away from him.

  He seemed not to notice. "Is it still raining?" he muttered. "I can't stand this terribl
e weather. It's killing me."

  "Don't worry," I said. "This is just a freak storm. All we have to do is have a look at this race, then get over to Kona and relax. The weather's fine over there."

  He nodded, staring down through the heavy rain at a tiny red golf cart moving quietly along the fairway of the Wailalee Country Club.

  "Kona?" he said finally. "I thought we were going to Guam, for the politics."

  "What?"

  "Guam," he said. "Some chap in Oregon rang me up. . ."

  "That's Perry," I said. "From Running."

  "That's right. The editor. He said we'd be off to Guam, to have a look at the bloody election."

  "What?"

  "Next Sunday."

  "No, Ralph," I said finally. "The Honolulu Marathon is next Sunday. That's why we're here."

  "Marathon?"

  I stared at him. His teeth were jutting out of his mouth and his eyes were red slits in his face. The valerian root would be wearing off soon, but maybe not soon enough. In the meantime, he might die without some kind of stimulant.

  I offered him the Glenfiddich bottle, which he eagerly grasped with both hands, whimpering softly as he raised it to his lips. He swallowed once, then uttered a low animal noise and vomited all over the bed.

  I caught him as he was rolling off onto the floor and dragged him into the bathroom. He crawled the last few feet on his own, then collapsed on his knees in the shower stall.

  I turned on the water, both knobs up to maximum, and closed the door so his wife and daughter wouldn't hear his degenerate screams.

  The party that night was awkward. We arrived too late for dinner and there were "No Smoking" signs everywhere. Ralph tried to mingle, but he looked so sick that none of the guests would talk to him. Many were world-class runners, fanatics about personal health, and the sight of Ralph made them cringe. The aloe had half-cured his back, but he still walked like a stroke victim and his physical presence was not cheerful. He limped from room to room with his sketchbook, still deeply confused on valerian root, until a man wearing a silver Nike jumpsuit finally led him outside and said he should check himself into the leper colony on Molokai.