EQMM, May 2012 (21 page)

"In that case, how about trying me?” He put two twenties in the corner pocket.

"Sure, why not?” Leland said, and put his forty back in as his new opponent went to the blackboard and signed in: Frog.

Frog for Frenchman, Leland thought. And Brit for an Englishman. Cute.

Two undercover agents, one from the Police Nationale, the other from Scotland Yard.

My, how the plot does thicken.

Frog won the break for the second game. He made the 9 and 13 on the break, then ran the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 balls, for a score of 37. Leland decided to catch up quickly and dropped the 15 off the 6, then made the 6, 7, and 8, for 36. Frog made the 10 and the 11, but scratched on the 11. Leland made the 11, 12, and 13 to end the game with 72 points and the 14 ball left on the table.

From across the room came a solitary clapping of applause. It was the white-haired man in the cushioned chair, Mr. Tamu. He rose and walked over to Leland. “You're very good,” he said, then glanced at the blackboard and added, “Bill. I presume you have a last name."

"Garson. Bill Garson."

"Well, Bill Garson, no one has ever beaten Frog in just two shots before. You've won what now, sixty dollars? Would you care to shoot a game against me for sixty?"

"I think I'll quit while I'm ahead,” Leland said.

"That's not very sporting of you. By the way, my name is Simon Tamu. I own this hotel and the bar and the pool table—everything."

Leland glanced around to see everyone in the room staring at him, unsmilingly. In the doorway, even Domi, the waitress from the bar, was staring at him. Leland wet lips suddenly gone dry.

"Well, I wouldn't want to insult the owner of everything,” he said. “I'll play you for sixty.” He noticed that Mr. Tamu did not bother to sign in on the blackboard.

The balls were racked and Leland won the break. He purposely made a sloppy break, sinking no balls and leaving Simon Tamu in a good position on the table. The tall, white-haired man ran the 1, 2, and 3, then the 10 off the 4, and the 4 and 5. Leland shot and made the 6, 7, 8, and 9, but scratched on the 9. Tamu made the 9 and 11 to make the score 45-21. Leland made the 12 and 13 to take the lead 46-45. Tamu tried to run the 14 down the rail but missed. A quiet groan rippled through the spectators. Two balls, the 14 and 15, were left on the table. Leland could tie with the 14 and win with the 15. Taking his time, he sprinkled a little talc on his left hand, chalked his cue tip, aimed, tried to bank the 14 into a side pocket—and missed. Tamu sank the 14 to up the score to 59-46. Once again the game ball was the 15. Tamu tried a bank shot into a corner—and missed. The room was now deadly quiet. Leland had a straight shot into the same corner pocket that Tamu had missed. He shot a slow cue ball on the 15 that nicked the corner rail of the pocket—another miss. Tamu was left with a sleepwalker's shot four inches straight in, which he easily made to win the game.

The spectators cheered and applauded. Leland dug the twenties out of the pocket, took one for himself, his original bet, and handed the rest to Simon Tamu, who in turn handed one to Brit and two to Frog.

"Good game,” Leland complimented. He hung up his stick and walked back to a small bathroom in the rear. As he was washing his hands, Simon Tamu came in and leaned against the wall to wait his turn at the sink.

"You could have made that last shot,” he said quietly.

"Can't win ‘em all,” Leland said.

"You could have won that one. Why didn't you?"

Leland shrugged. “Your place. Your people. Anyway, I broke even.” He dried his hands and Tamu took his place at the sink.

"Come have a drink with me,” Tamu said.

A perfect opportunity, but Leland did not want to appear too anxious. He grinned. “No offense but I've got other plans.” He winked at Tamu. “That little waitress in the bar. Domi. I thought I'd try my luck with her."

"Maybe some other time then,” said Tamu.

Back out in the bar, Leland sat at the same little table and Domi came over to him again.

"Sorry you lost that game,” she said.

"Can't win ‘em all,” Leland quoted himself.

"You want another cold Tahiti beer?"

"Please.” Instead of walking away immediately, Domi stood staring at him curiously. “What's the matter?” he asked.

"Nothing.” She smiled what he thought was an impossibly beautiful smile. “People who come in here don't usually say please."

When she came back with his beer, he asked, “How late do you work?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I was wondering if I could see you after work."

Her expression tightened. “If you're looking for sex, you can easily find it on the street."

"That's not what I meant. I just thought it would be nice to talk to you. I thought you might find it pleasant to talk to someone who said please."

Domi stared at him as if she were searching his mind. He had nice eyes, she thought. Blue like lagoon water. And he was so deeply tanned that they were almost the same color.

"My shift ends at ten. The customers tend to become rowdy later at night and Mr. Tamu won't allow any women to work those hours."

"Where shall I meet you?"

"To the left down the street on the corner is a fish-and-noodles shop called Teeley's. You can wait for me there."

"Thank you."

She smiled her lucent smile again. “More nice words. I think I will enjoy talking with you."

After drinking his beer, Leland left the hotel and strolled along the busy waterfront street, which was teeming with American sailors from a U.S. destroyer anchored offshore, and tourists from two similarly anchored cruise ships, as well as merchant seamen from multinational cargo ships from around the world. Tahiti was one of the most popular islands anywhere on earth, and Papeete its most popular port of call.

As he passed Teeley's fish-and-noodle shop, he thought of Domi and tried to determine why he had asked her out. He tried to account for it as simply part of his assignment, an excuse not to accept Simon Tamu's offer of a drink, and an easy way to assimilate himself into the community, the better to infiltrate the black-pearl smuggling activity. But his trained agent's mind rejected that reasoning as lame. Which forced him to wonder whether it was a physical attraction. He and Abigail had been intimately playful during their relationship but had never had intercourse. Abigail was old-fashioned that way. She recognized his needs and found ways to relieve them, not as frequently as he desired, and not as satisfyingly, and Leland suspected that after the nuptials their married life would be, while not passionate, at least adequate. In a missionary sense.

Why then this abrupt invitation for a lovely young Polynesian woman to join the mixed morsels already on his plate? Steeling himself to decide how to proceed from this unsettling point, he suddenly realized that he had walked farther than he had planned, and that more time had passed, and it was already several minutes after ten. Silently cursing his inattentiveness, he hurried back in the direction from which he had wandered.

Domi was just leaving the fish-and-noodle shop when Leland rushed up.

"I thought perhaps you had changed your mind,” she said. “Or maybe found a street girl."

"No,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I was walking around and got lost,” he lied easily, with a smile.

"Are you hungry?” she asked, nodding toward the entrance to Teeley's.

"Yes, very. Those two beers I drank have given me an appetite."

They went inside and Domi ordered for both of them: hot sesame noodles in not quite enough liquid to be called soup, with crispy deep-fried triangles of white fish—ono, wahoo, mahi-mahi, whatever had been caught that morning—all washed down with an ice-cold, freshly squeezed mixture of guava-mango-kiwi juice. It was some of the tastiest food Leland had ever eaten. So much better than the canapés and hors d'oeuvres served at the cocktail parties Abigail insisted they attend.

"How long have you worked for Mr. Tamu?” he asked as they ate.

"Two years. I am from Makalea, one of the outer islands where Mr. Tamu has his pearl business. My husband was a lagoon diver for him, but one day he went into the water too late in the day and a blacktip shark got him. It was his own fault. All the divers know that the sharks come after the sun goes down and the waters become dark. But we had a daughter and he wanted to earn extra money to send her to the private French school on Rangiroa, so he foolishly made a habit of taking his oyster net down later every day. One day he did it for the last time."

"So you have a daughter. What's her name?"

"Marama. She is eight and an auntie takes care of her on Makalea four days a week when I work here for Mr. Tamu."

"He gave you work after your husband was killed?"

"Yes. He is a very kind man; he does much good for the people of Makalea, which he owns: jobs, supporting a school for the young people, operating a food store without profit, providing housing and care for the old people."

"He owns other businesses besides the Tiki?"

"He has a few fishing boats, but most of his business is in his pearl shops here in Papeete and on the other islands."

"Where does he get all his pearls?"

"From the lagoon divers, mostly, here and on Makalea and up and down the island chain."

Domi studied him for a moment, again liking his eyes. “I'm told you are a deep-water diver."

"Yes, I scuba dive. And I'm looking for dive work."

"Perhaps Mr. Tamu will hire you."

"Yes, perhaps he will."

Later, they walked along the waterfront, not talking much now, listening to the muted laughter and music coming from the clubs and bars, hearing the tide slap against the pilings of the dock, and the crunch of moored ships moving against their wooden berths like restless, caged pachyderms. Above, the Southern Cross dominated the night sky like a scimitar guarding its vast bed of stars. The moonlit ocean had turned an odd purple, causing Leland to think: This is the
real
South Pacific.

"I like you, Bill,” the young woman said. She pronounced his undercover name “Beel."

Her words resounded in Leland's heart; he suddenly wished he could be honest with her and tell her his real name. But all he could say was, “I like you too, Dominique."

They walked back to the Tiki and she said, “This is where I live during the week."

"It's where I'm living too,” Leland said, surprised.

"I know. You are just down the hall from me."

What the hell was going on here? Leland wondered. The taxi driver. Brit. Frog. Simon Tamu. And now Domi. Did everybody know everything about him, already, in just a few hours?

And exactly how much was
everything?
He decided that he had to be very, very careful about what he said and did from this point on—much more careful than in an ordinary assignment. Very
extra
careful. Two men had disappeared.

Walking up the stairs off the Tiki lobby, where there was no one on duty at the desk, Leland became intensely aware of Domi's presence, her person, her body, much more so than when they had been walking outside. Out there, they had been in the vast outdoors; inside it was close quarters in a stairwell. There was a difference, one that he could perceive but not define.

On the second floor, at the door to his room, Domi put a palm on his cheek and again said, “I like you, Beel."

Leland watched her continue down the hall to her own room and unlock the door. She went inside, but she did not close the door behind her.

Leland walked down to her room.

He would begin being extra careful tomorrow.

The next morning, when Leland came downstairs, he looked in the bar for Domi but she was nowhere to be seen. He walked up the waterfront until he found a café with a sign in the window that read: WE SERVE AMERICAN BREAKFASTS, and he went inside and ordered scrambled eggs on sourdough toast. The Tahitian coffee that came with his food was called
taofe noanoa,
and was the best Leland had ever tasted, better even than the Hawaiian brew to which he was accustomed. While he was eating, Simon Tamu came in and sat down across the table from him.

"Good morning, Mr. Bill Garson."

"Good morning, Mr. Simon Tamu."

"May I ask if you were successful in your pursuit of Dominique last night?"

"Afraid not,” Leland lied easily. “She is a very lovely, very proper young lady. She advised me to go find a street girl."

"And did you?"

"No. I do not patronize street girls."

"Very prudent of you. I understand that you are a deep-water diver."

"I scuba dive, yes."

"And that you are seeking employment in that field."

"I am, yessir."

Tamu's expression softened a bit and Leland concluded that he appreciated being addressed as sir. “Would you be interested in deep-water diving for oysters?"

"I'll dive for anything if the pay's right,” Leland said. That seemed to please Tamu even more.

"I have an island just north of the archipelago chain where I harvest oysters for my pearl business. The island is very beautiful. It is called Makalea."

Makalea. Where Dominique came from.

"How many divers do you have there?"

"Deep-water divers, none. Only lagoon divers. But the harvests from my lagoons are slowly diminishing. The tides that sweep oysters into the lagoons are not dredging deeply enough for the lower oyster beds. I need someone to dive to the deep beds."

"How deep?"

Tamu shrugged. “I'm not sure. My lagoon divers have gone down thirty feet without touching bottom. How much deeper it is than that can only be determined by a deep-water diver."

"Like me."

"Exactly. Like you. If you are willing."

"How much will you pay?"

"Five hundred for the first dive. And I will adjust that amount depending on how deep you have to go, how many dives you make, and the quantity of oysters you harvest in your net with each dive."

Leland swallowed the last bit of his breakfast and finished his coffee.

"When do I start?"

The following morning, standing on the bow of Simon Tamu's forty-foot Suncraft fiberglass cabin cruiser, Leland saw that Makalea did indeed look like it must be very beautiful.