Blame It on Paradise (2 page)

Jack had eyes only for the nearest taxi. “I need to get to the Warutara Hotel.” He took off his double-breasted Burberry trench coat, which was no longer necessary now that he’d left the brutal New England January on the opposite side of the Earth. He pushed back the cuff of his left sleeve to set his watch to Darwin time, which was nineteen hours ahead of Boston.

“The Warutara, Mr. DeVoy?” The hostess returned his passport and visa before gently taking his arm, much to the envy of the other male travelers who had been on Jack’s flight. She guided him toward the compact terminal attached to the small airstrip. “Are you sure that’s where you—”

Speaking over her, Jack tactfully extracted himself from her grasp. “I’m in something of a hurry and I’m quite sure of my itinerary. If you could just point me in the direction of the rental car center, I’d really appreciate it.”

The pretty native’s mouth tightened before relaxing into its former welcoming smile. “Well, then, Mr. DeVoy, if you have any items to declare, you may do so at the customer service center inside the terminal. You’ll find transportation waiting at the front of the terminal, Mr. DeVoy. I’m afraid if you need assistance with your luggage, you’ll find that—”

“I have everything I need right here.” He impatiently indicated the leather garment bag slung over his shoulder and the valise and briefcase gripped in his hand. “This won’t be a long stay.”

Jack’s helpful hostess seemed relieved. “Even so, welcome to Darwin Island, and I trust you’ll have a memorable visit.”

Jack grunted his thanks and hurried into the terminal, shouldering his way through a colorful mix of tourists and locals as he searched for the customer service center. There had been a mere ten passengers on his flight from Christchurch, New Zealand, to Darwin, and Jack spared little more than a glance as the arms and smiles of chattering family and friends swallowed his fellow passengers.

With his travel-rumpled business suit and his decidedly pale Boston pallor, Jack stood out as he paced in front of the terminal, wondering which vehicle and driver could possibly be his. He was accustomed to seeing stone-faced drivers bearing placards with
DeVoy
printed on them, but here and now, forced to choose among an open-topped Jeep with bald tires and no passenger seat, a wooden cart drawn by two extremely bored yet diabolical-looking long-haired goats, a rusting Stingray with a flat rear tire and a minivan already filled to capacity with cheerful, laughing locals, Jack decided to retreat into the bustling terminal to find customer service.

At the far end of the terminal, between a humming vending machine and the men’s lavatory, Jack spied a high counter manned by a portly fellow wearing a splashy shirt printed with exotic birds. Jack’s long, hurried strides carried him there quickly, and he marched directly to the front of the long line. “Excuse me. My name is Jackson DeVoy and I have an important business meeting in the city in less than an hour and I need to get to my hotel. I just flew in—”

“Your arms must be tired!” the desk clerk cut in. His golden-brown cheeks puffed with laughter at his own goofy humor as he slapped the desktop.

“—and I was told that transportation would be waiting for me.” Jack clenched his jaw. “Where might I find my car and driver?”

“Do you have a reservation for a car and driver?”

The clerk’s accent was odd, something between Australian English and something Jack couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was, “reservation” came out as “riversation.”

“Of course.” Jack withdrew an envelope from his inner breast pocket. He opened it and yanked out his itinerary, which included the confirmation numbers for his flight, transportation and lodging. He set the paper before the counter clerk, who studied it as though he were auditing an income tax return.

The clerk smiled and cheerfully handed the paper back to Jack. “This reservation is no good. Next!”

The short woman who’d been first in line stepped forward, making a point to give Jack a small shove, and set a live chicken on the countertop. The bird escaped the woman’s grasp and frantically scrambled across the counter before leaping at Jack, who jerked himself clear of the bird’s awkward flight path. The frenzied fowl hit the tile floor and began zigzagging through the terminal, much to the counter clerk’s amusement and Jack’s annoyance.

After shunting aside the next person in line, Jack again stood directly in front of the clerk. “Look. I need transportation. Why is my ‘riversation’ no good?”

The counter clerk watched the chicken’s mistress chase her charge. “You booked Nathan’s Limousine Service. Nathan himself drives the one car, but Nate will be on his back for the next few weeks. He slipped a disc yesterday, trying to land a striped marlin out on his boat. She was a beauty, about seventy kilograms, but she got the best of our Nate.”

Jack drummed his fingers on the desktop. “What’s the fastest way I can get to the city?”

“What city?”

“Wautangua, the capital.”

“Wautangua’s more of a town than a city, kiddo,” volunteered a petite, dark-skinned woman in a Kansas City Royals T-shirt. She was standing at the nearby postal desk. “Christchurch is a city. Wellington is a city. Boston is a city, and I’m guessin’ that’s from where you’re about, given your accent and your attitude. But Wautangua…that’s a town.”

Jack turned to the woman. “You’re American.” He approached her, daring to hope for a quick resolution to his transportation problem. “Finally, someone who speaks regular English.”

The woman slipped on a pair of thick glasses that had been hanging from her neck by a fine braided leather cord. “Levora Wilkins Solomon.” She offered her hand. Jack took it and she gave his hand two hard pumps that shook his garment bag from his shoulder to the crook of his elbow. “I came to Darwin twenty-five years ago to study the Moriori. I went and fell in love with one of them, and I’ve been here ever since.” She crossed her arms over her nonexistent bosom. “So tell me, son. What brings you to Darwin and how can I help you get to it?”

“I’m here on business.”

She stared at him, clearly waiting for him to elaborate.

“It’s confidential.”

She stood frozen a moment longer, but then tossed her hands up. “Good enough. Come on.” She started for the exit, waving Jack along behind her. “My business here is finished, so I can ride you into Wautangua.”

Jack offered a silent prayer of thanks as he fell into step beside Levora. They exited the terminal to see that the chicken was still kicking up a ruckus. Several laughing young boys darted after it in half-hearted pursuit, but the chicken always skipped out of reach, stopping just short of crossing the wide dirt road. Then it turned and ran erratically, skidding to a stop beneath the goat-drawn cart. The devilish-looking goats spooked and took off in a cloud of dust, clattering wheels and terrified bleating.

Mindless of the scene before him, Jack scanned the area for the practical four-wheeled vehicle he imagined Levora would drive. “Where’s your car?”

“That was it.” She pointed to the goat-powered speck disappearing into the horizon. “BeBe and CeCe don’t like chickens. Never have, never will.” Levora began walking in the direction her goats had taken.

Jack’s shoulders fell. He stared at the sky, seething as he contemplated the nature of God, man and just how much pleasure he would take in sucking J.T. Marchand dry.

“Hey, you.” Levora, her hands on the hips of her loose-fitting blue jeans, had doubled back for him. “Are you comin’ or not?”

He glanced back at the airstrip, but he resisted the temptation to return to the plane and fly right back to Boston. Taking a firmer grip on the handle of his bag, he quickly caught up to Levora. “How far is Wautangua?”

“Mmm, ’bout ten miles.” She kicked at a few broken oyster shells with the toe of her worn hiking boot. “Shouldn’t take more than a couple hours to walk it. ’Course, we should catch up to BeBe and CeCe long before then. Unless they decide to go all the way home this time.”

“Why do you drive a goat cart?”

“You got something against goats?”

“No. I just think it’s unusual in this day and age to travel by goat-driven cart.”

“A lot of things on Darwin are unusual. It’s the nature of the place. Not too many folks drive cars here. We’ve got ambulances and fire trucks and all, but there was a law passed twenty-some years ago banning most other vehicles. It’s never been enforced, really, considering who made the declaration, but most everybody abides by it. The only folks who drive are the ones who absolutely need to.”

Jack fished out his cell phone. “I have to call my hotel and let them know that I’ll be checking in late.”

“Where’re you staying?”

“The Hotel Warutara.”

Levora slowed her step to closely examine a stand of tiger lilies growing on the side of the dirt road. “That’s too bad.”

Dread settled in Jack’s belly. “Why’s that?”

Levora snapped off one of the pale lemonade-colored blossoms. She handed the lovely bloom to Jack, who scarcely looked at it. “It really wasn’t that great of a hotel. Of course, that’s neither here nor there, since the Warutara collapsed in a typhoon three months ago.”

The tiger lily fell from Jack’s hand as he scowled and readjusted his bags. Grumbling under his breath, he again fell into step behind Levora, inadvertently crushing the delicate flower under his heel.

* * *

Wautangua was more of a village than a town, with no automobile traffic on the roads, which alternated between hard-packed dirt and gravel. Jack allowed Levora to lead him past well-kept, sprawling, single-story stucco homes and smaller, cozy stone bungalows set far from the main road to the center of Wautangua. Foot traffic picked up as they entered Wautangua, and Jack was only mildly surprised to see that Levora seemed to know every person she encountered by name. An even mix of tourists and natives ambled in and out of one-story storefronts with colorful plate glass windows, rough plank market stalls and a single gas station that doubled as a visitors’ center. A three-story brick building, the one oasis of urban “civility” on the island, rose on the edge of town.

“This was the factory.” Levora sat on the topmost of three stone stairs leading to the long walkway to the building’s entrance. She took off one of her hiking boots. Gripping it by its heel, she hung it upside down, pouring sand and pebbles from it. “Back when the North and South were at war in America, they used to make commercial fishing nets here at the Marchand factory. It’s been the governor’s house, a hospital and a warehouse in the past, but now the place is used for offices. The Marchand family’s owned the whole island since Methuselah came off the mountain. Are you here for the tea, Jack?”

Levora had single-handedly kept the conversation flowing during their long trek into town. She had told him all about her childhood in Kansas City, Kansas, her scholarship to Berkeley and the decision to study anthropology, her marriage to Moriori tribesman Errol Solomon, her daughter Louise and son Ben, who were currently enrolled at MIT and Penn respectively, and the small oyster farm her husband currently ran. She hadn’t inquired further about Jack’s business on the island, so he was more inclined to answer her question. In part.

“I won’t say no. But I can’t say yes.”

“How old would you say I am, Jack? Even if you didn’t know that both my babies are in college, how old would you think I was?”

“That’s a loaded question, Levora, and you know it.”

“Go on and answer. I promise, I won’t kill you.”

“Well, you’ve been on Darwin for twenty-five years, and you came while you were working on a graduate research project. Given those facts, I’d guess that you were fifty years old, even though you don’t look a minute over forty.”

Levora’s eyes sparkled, their color rivaling a rich, dark, home-brewed coffee. “I worked for ten years before I started graduate school, Jack. I was thirty-four years old when I came to Darwin. I’ll be sixty next week.”

Jack studied Levora a little closer. She had maintained a good pace, never once stopping to rest or to catch her breath, even though she had been speaking incessantly. Tiny lines fanned from the outer corners of her black eyes, but only when she laughed or smiled, which had been often. Her teeth were bright, almost too white against her ebony skin. Jack noted a few strands of silver hair at her temples and in her stubby ponytail, but they complemented the twinkle in her eyes. Levora was slender, and she carried herself with such a lively step that it was hard for Jack to believe that she was closer to sixty than forty.

“A lot of people have come here to get their hands on the tea, Jack.”

“Is it the fountain of youth? Is that why you stayed on Darwin?”

Levora laughed and tied her bootlaces. “It’s just tea, kid.” She stood and patted the front of his jacket, raising a puff of road dust. “And I stayed because of my hot island lover. Goodbye, Jack. And good luck with J.T.”

As he traveled the lengthy stone path to the front of the building, Jack brushed off his clothes and stamped his feet to remove as much dust from himself as he could before he swung open the lobby doors. He was instantly comfortable in the elegant, if not luxurious, surroundings. Traces of the island were still evident, despite the corporate setting: with her silk blouse and headset phone, the receptionist wore a skirt made of brightly colored, papery Masi cloth.

Jack dropped his valise and briefcase at his feet and leaned over the tall counter wrapping around the receptionist’s desk. “I’m from Coyle-Wexler Pharmaceuticals and I’m here to see J.T. Marchand. I had an appointment this afternoon, but I was unavoidably detained at the airport.”

Without looking up at him, the receptionist removed a glossy magazine from atop a large appointment book. “Well, let’s see here, Mr.…” Her eyes followed the path of her long red fingernail as it moved down the left side of the appointment book before coming to an abrupt stop. “You must be ‘Coyle-Wexler rep.’ ” She peered at the large clock affixed high on one wall. “You’re very late.”

Jack scowled, but he managed to suppress the Bostonian instinct to snap, “No kidding, Einstein.”