Dead Island (2 page)

‘Why don’t you stop giving the nice lady a hard time?’ he rumbled.

Mohawk guy turned to look at him, sticking his jaw out pugnaciously. ‘Who the hell asked you?’

‘Nobody asked me,’ said the black man. ‘I’m jus’ sayin’.’

‘Yeah, well, butt out, brother. This has got nothing to do with you.’

The black man grinned, displaying a gold-plated upper canine among a mouthful of clearly expensive dental work. ‘“Brother”? Is that some kinda racial slur?’ he enquired.

Mohawk guy rolled his eyes. ‘What is this? Character assassination week? First she accuses me of being a sexual deviant, now you accuse me of being a damn racist.’

‘I didn’t accuse you of sexual deviancy, sir,’ the stewardess said.

‘Molestation, you said. Pretty much amounts to the same thing.’

‘Well, you
did
grab the lady’s butt,’ said the black man.

‘I was trying to attract her attention is all,’ mohawk guy protested. ‘All I wanted was a damn drink.’

‘How about I get you a drink and we say no more about it?’ suggested the stewardess. She eyed the array of miniature scotch bottles on the passenger’s fold-down table, all of them empty. ‘Same again, sir?’

Mohawk guy hesitated. For a moment he looked as though he wanted to prolong the argument. Then finally he nodded. ‘Yeah, sure. And take these empties away, will ya?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said the stewardess politely.

When she had gone, mohawk guy turned to the black man, who was eyeing him as if he was a weird and particularly repellent form of pondlife. ‘What?’ he said.

The black man shook his head slowly and deliberately. ‘Nothin’. Nothin’ at all.’

He reached for his headphones again, but before he could put them on mohawk guy said, ‘Hey, don’t I know you?’

The black man winced slightly. ‘Probably not.’

‘Yeah, sure I do. You’re that rapper. Sam something.’

‘Sam B,’ the black man conceded with a sigh.

‘Sam B! That’s right! You had that song, didn’t you? Back in the nineties. What was it now? “Voodoo Hoodoo”?’

‘“Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch,”’ Sam corrected him.

Mohawk guy gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘That’s the one! Jeez, I loved that song when I was at school.’ He paused, his eyes – the whites pink from the alcohol – narrowed shrewdly. ‘So what happened to you, man?’

‘Nothin’ happened to me,’ replied Sam. ‘I’m right here.’

Mohawk guy laughed, as if he had made a joke. ‘Sure you are. But how come you didn’t do no more music after that one song?’

Sam closed his eyes briefly. He had answered this question so many times that he had grown to dread being asked it.

‘I was young,’ he said. ‘Young and stupid. At nineteen I thought I knew it all. Took me a long time to realize I didn’t know shit. That song was a blessing and a curse, y’know? It was a hit all over the world, made me an instant star, but it was too much fame too quickly.’ He tapped the side of his skull with his forefinger. ‘I was just a dumb kid from New Orleans and success went straight to my head. I lost track of my roots, deserted the friends I’d grown up with to party with the rich and famous.’

‘And you stopped writing music?’ asked mohawk guy.

Sam shrugged. ‘I couldn’t take the pressure. The more people told me I needed to come up with another hit, the more it paralysed me. I started off playing big hotels in Vegas, then seedy lounges in Reno, then third-rate cruise ships.’ He shook his head. ‘But why the hell am I telling you this?’

‘Because you recognize a kindred spirit?’

Sam snorted a laugh. ‘Yeah, right.’

The stewardess returned with mohawk guy’s drink. ‘Anything for you, sir?’ she asked Sam.

Sam shook his head. ‘I’m good, thanks.’

The stewardess smiled and walked away. Mohawk guy opened the miniature bottle and took a swig. Smacking his lips, he turned back to Sam. ‘You don’t recognize me, do you?’

‘Should I?’

Mohawk guy paused and said, ‘I’m Logan Carter.’

Sam looked at him blankly.

The other man, Logan, looked a little put out. ‘The football star, Logan Carter? First round
NFL
draft pick?’

Sam shrugged. ‘Sorry, man. I don’t follow sports.’

Logan gaped at him. ‘You don’t follow sports? That’s like saying you don’t follow life.’

Sam shrugged again. ‘Sorry.’ He was silent for a moment, and then, almost reluctantly, asked, ‘So … you still play?’

Logan’s face darkened. He drained the rest of the bottle in one gulp. ‘No, I … er … had to retire.’

‘Why don’t you tell him why?’ said a voice from the seat in front.

Logan blinked and jerked upright as though someone had slapped him. ‘Excuse me?’

The passenger turned and knelt on her seat, her head rising above the seat back. She was startlingly beautiful, her skin the colour of teak, her hair a silky black waterfall. She had a snub nose, plump, almost purple lips that Sam guessed could be wide and smiling but were currently pursed in something like disapproval, and wide, dark, penetrating eyes.

‘I said why don’t you tell him why you had to retire?’ the girl repeated, her voice husky and warm.

‘What the hell has it gotta do with you?’ Logan asked.

The girl pointed at him. ‘He didn’t recognize you, but I do. I know what you did.’

‘What I did? I didn’t do anything.’

‘You killed a girl.’

The accusation was so blunt that for a moment nobody moved or spoke. Then Logan, his face reddening with anger, spluttered, ‘I didn’t kill nobody.’

‘No?’ said the girl, tilting her head to one side. ‘So what would
you
call it?’

‘I’d call it an accident. And that’s what the judge called it too. So get out of my face, lady!’

For the first time the girl turned her attention to Sam. He felt a stirring in his gut as her dark-eyed gaze swept over him, a sensation somewhere between desire and unease. The girl was incredibly beautiful, but in the way a panther was beautiful. Sam had a feeling she could be predatory, dangerous.

‘
You
ever killed anyone, Sam?’ she challenged.

Sam’s first instinct was to ask her how she knew his name, but then he realized she must have been listening in on their conversation. He shook his head. ‘Nope.’

‘Glad to hear it. The guilt of it twists you up inside. Isn’t that right, Mr Carter?’

Logan glared at her. ‘What part of “get out of my face” didn’t you understand?’

Sam raised his hands. Peacemaker wasn’t a role he was accustomed to, but then again he wasn’t often in the presence of people who seemed even more fucked up than he was. ‘Let’s just cool it down a bit here, OK?’ he said, turning to Logan. ‘Listen … Logan. Why don’t you tell me what happened?’

Logan gave a bad-tempered sigh, glancing balefully at the girl. She smiled.

‘Yeah,
Logan
, why don’t you do that?’

‘I don’t have to justify myself to you,’ Logan said to the girl.

She shrugged as if she couldn’t care one way or the other, a faintly amused expression on her face. Sam touched Logan’s arm briefly.

‘Hey.
I’d
like to know, man. I’m interested. And I got an open mind here. Hell, I’d never even heard of you till ten minutes ago. No offence.’

Logan almost smiled at that. Then he pushed himself upright in his seat and said, ‘I need another drink.’

‘Why don’t we
all
have one?’ proposed the girl. ‘On me. Sam?’

Sam shrugged. ‘I’ll have a soda, I guess.’

‘Nothing stronger?’

He nodded at the empty miniature scotch bottle on Logan’s table. ‘I had enough problems of my own with that stuff. I ain’t going there again.’

The girl attracted the attention of a stewardess and ordered their drinks – same again for Logan, a soda for Sam, a white wine spritzer for herself.

When the drinks arrived, she said, ‘So, Mr Carter?’

Logan squinted at her. ‘What are you, a cop?’

‘Used to be,’ she admitted.

‘That figures.’ He took a small sip of his drink – having poured the scotch into a plastic cup this time – and said to Sam, ‘I guess, like you, I was young and stupid. Unlike you, though, I had it all. I was a football star in high school and college, so I was … protected.’

‘Spoiled, you mean?’ said the girl.

Logan scowled. ‘Look, who’s telling this story? Me or you?’

The girl held up her hands, as if allowing him the floor.

Still scowling, Logan said, ‘We don’t even know who you are.’

Shrugging as if it was no big deal, the girl said, ‘My name’s Purna.’

‘Purna?’ repeated Logan. ‘What kind of a name’s that?’

‘It’s Australian,’ said the girl. ‘Aborigine actually.’

‘You’re an Aborigine?’ said Sam, interested.

‘Half – on my mother’s side.’ She turned her attention back to Logan – and suddenly smiled. Sam almost gasped. Her smile was every bit as radiant as he’d imagined, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. ‘You were saying, Mr Carter?’

For a moment Logan looked bemused, as if he’d been bewitched by her smile too. Then he nodded briefly and said, ‘So … er, yeah. Like I say, I was protected. I had pretty much whatever I wanted – fame, money, women, fast cars.’ He grimaced. ‘That last one was my downfall. Well … those last two, I guess. I shoulda looked after myself more, but well … there were a lot of parties back then. A
lot
of parties. Anyway, this one night, I’d had too much to drink, snorted some coke … you know how it is. And this one guy, he started ragging me about my car, calling it a piece of shit, all that.’

‘What kind of car was it?’ Sam asked.

‘Porsche Spyder. Like James Dean used to drive. Classy car, man …’ For a moment Logan’s face softened and he looked almost as if he was going to cry.

Sam nodded brusquely. ‘Sure thing. So what happened?’

Logan took a deep breath. ‘I challenged him to a race. His fucked-up old Buick against my Spyder. I mean, he had no chance, but the dumb fuck took me on.’ He shrugged. ‘I wanted to teach him a lesson. Not just beat him, but
really
beat him, you know.’

‘But you ended up beating yourself, didn’t you?’ said Purna softly.

Logan snorted a laugh, but it was hard, without humour. ‘You could say that. Took a bend too quickly. Lost control. Hit a wall at … I dunno … eighty, ninety miles an hour?’ He shuddered, took a drink. ‘Shattered my knee. End of my career. But that wasn’t the worst part.’

Sam glanced at Purna, and then back at Logan. ‘The girl?’ he asked.

Logan nodded. ‘Her name was Drew Peters. She came along for the ride. She took the full impact …’

‘But you got off,’ said Purna, her voice unreadable.

Logan nodded and glanced at her, his face almost defiant. ‘Yeah, I got off. What can I say? I had a good lawyer.’

‘Money talks,’ she said, and this time there was a definite bitterness to her tone.

‘It’s what makes the world go round, baby,’ Logan murmured. ‘Always has, always will.’

Before Purna could respond, there was a crackle from the intercom and the voice of their pilot, who had introduced himself earlier as Captain Avery, announced, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be beginning our descent to Banoi Island airport. Could you please now return to your seats, put on your seatbelts and return your tables to the upright position. It’s a beautiful day on the island today, with temperatures in the region of 27 degrees Celsius, that’s 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the local time there is currently 11.52 a.m. In a few moments we will be descending through cloud cover, whereupon those of you on the right-hand side of the plane will be able to see the island as we begin our approach. I hope that you have all had a pleasant flight, and on behalf of New Guinea International Airlines, I thank you for flying with us today.’

The pilot’s voice clicked off, and a few seconds later the engines began to rise in pitch. Purna, Logan and Sam strapped themselves in, Sam gripping the arms of his seat and looking out of the window as wispy white clouds billowed past the aircraft. He was not a nervous flyer, but he was anxious about what awaited him on the island. The gig at Banoi’s top resort hotel, the Royal Palm, had fallen into his lap like manna from heaven and he was determined not to blow it. This could be his last chance to prove he was not a joke, maybe his
only
chance to showcase his new material in front of a sizeable audience. And who knew, if even one or two of the record executives his manager had informed about the gig made the effort to turn up, it could even lead to a new record deal, his first in over six years. He was desperate to show the world he was not a one-hit wonder, that there was far more to him than ‘Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch’. He swallowed to clear the pressure in his ears as the plane swooped towards the ground, but his mouth was dry.

‘Hey, would you look at that!’ said Logan beside him, craning forward as far as his seatbelt would allow. Sam followed his gaze and saw a lush tropical paradise below, surrounded by an ocean so placid and clear it seemed to sparkle like a plain of blue-white diamonds. On the nearside of the island was the resort area – hotels, restaurants, bars and stores clustered around a vast beach of pristine white sand. Beyond that, covering a good seventy per cent of Banoi, was dense tropical jungle, which eventually gave way, on the far side of the island, to a bare and jagged mountain range, rising up from the greenery like the gnarled back of some prehistoric beast.

‘Looks like paradise, all right,’ Sam said, though he still couldn’t quell the nerves in his belly.

Logan pointed to the right of the island. ‘What’s that?’

Maybe a couple of miles offshore was a much smaller island, little more than a rock maybe half a mile in circumference, with a grey rectangular building situated on a plateau in the centre. The building resembled a huge but grim-looking office block, and was dominated by a flat-roofed tower at one end that jabbed up into the glorious blue sky like an accusatory finger.

‘Looks like a prison,’ Sam mused, noting the high electrified fence that encircled the building.

Purna’s face appeared in the gap between the seats. ‘It’s Banoi high-security prison,’ she confirmed. ‘Full of psychos and terrorists. The locals call it … well, I can’t remember the actual word, but it translates as “hell in heaven”.’