Gargantua (4 page)

“Australia,” Paul said without missing a beat. At Jack’s aghast look, he quickly added, “No, I’m kidding. We’ve got a clinic on the island that’s pretty complete. C’mon, I’ll take you there.”

He lead the pair to the edge of the beach, where Jack had a quick conversation with a young man regarding the boxes. The young man nodded—Paul was pretty sure he worked at the Ritz—and went off to take care of it.

The walk to the clinic was a short one down the island’s main street. Brandon spent it holding his injured hand at the wrist and biting his lip. Jack asked, “Just a clinic? What happens for real emergencies?”

“Like I said, the place is pretty complete. For major surgery, or stuff like that, there’s a big hospital on Kalor. Just a helicopter away. Don’t worry, though, the clinic’ll be fine. Actually, it’s also run by an American—woman named Alyson Hart.”

Jack looked like he was going to say something in response to that, but they had arrived at the clinic. Like most of the buildings on Malau, it was a modest, one-story wooden structure, with the ground floor about half a foot above the earth as a caution against flooding. A Malauan nurse greeted Paul by name, asked Jack and Brandon some questions while putting a bandage on Brandon’s finger, then told them to wait.

“What, no forms to fill out?” Jack asked as he took a seat on one of the couches.

Paul laughed. “They’re not real big on forms ’round these parts. Back when I applied for permission to live here, the paperwork was minimal. The guy who put it through just shrugged and said, ‘paperwork gives us gas.’ ”

Even Brandon smiled at that; prior to this, he’d been focusing on his finger.

The waiting room was empty when they arrived, but five more people came in right after them. The nurse dealt with each of them in turn. Within a few minutes, two women came out of the door adjacent to the waiting room, and then the nurse showed Paul, Jack, and Brandon into that same door.

It led to an examination room that had all the usual accoutrements: exam bed; scale; drawers full of various drugs, needles, medicines, and rubber gloves; various posters providing useful information on weight loss, the Heimlich maneuver, and anatomy on the wall; and a doctor, in this case a very attractive blonde in her early thirties.

As Alyson examined Brandon, Paul looked over at Jack and tried very hard to hide a grin. He recognized the look on Jack’s face; it was the same one Paul had when he first met Dr. Alyson Hart. Paul had been completely smitten with her then. She was charming, bright, witty—and also completely uninterested in Paul Bateman, to his dismay. Not one to beat a dead horse, his pursuit of her stopped before it started, and he hoped they could at least be friends. Sadly, her lack of interest extended even to that; she was willing to talk to him professionally as a journalist, and respected what he was doing with the
Weekly News,
but refused to connect to him personally.

He wondered if Jack would have better luck.

After treating the wound itself, she prepared a needle for the tetanus shot. Brandon had spent the entire exam looking desultory and unhappy, though he answered all of Alyson’s questions with clear answers and didn’t act in the least bit surly. She dabbed a cotton ball in alcohol, rubbed it on his arm, and said, “Okay, this is gonna hurt a bit.” Putting the cotton down, she picked up the needle and gave him the shot.

Brandon didn’t even flinch. This time, Paul didn’t bother to hide the grin.

“Didn’t hurt?” Alyson sounded almost disappointed. “Must be losing my touch.”

This, finally, got a rise out of the kid, and he smiled.

She continued, “Have your mom change the dressing tonight—”

“My mom’s dead,” Brandon said in a matter-of-fact tone that belied the information presented. He may as well have said she was back home in the States. Paul filed this bit of information away in the ever-growing compartment of his brain that he had labelled
ELLWAY FAMILY.

“I’m sorry,” Alyson said with inevitable awkwardness.

“Don’t worry,” Jack said lightly, “I know how to peel a Band-Aid.”

Alyson looked almost relieved, which was obviously Jack’s intention.
Good move,
Paul thought.

Jack continued, “How much do we owe you?”

Paul chuckled.

“Medical care’s free on Malau,” Alyson said.

Paul put in, “And worth every bit of it.”

Alyson gave him a withering look. Paul just grinned.
So easy to get the good doctor’s goat.

“Okay,” Jack said, “if we can’t pay you, how about buying you lunch?”

Damn,
Paul thought,
even I didn’t move that fast.
He also noticed that Jack’s posture had improved. On the beach and in the waiting room, he stood only moderately straight, but ever since he came into the exam room, he had practically dislocated his shoulders throwing them back.

To Paul’s combined amusement and consternation, Alyson seemed to actually consider it, but then she looked out through the still-open door to the waiting room. Jack followed her gaze and nodded—and his shoulders returned to the slump of before.

“Some other time?” Alyson said.

The shoulders went back again. “Okay.”

Alyson turned to Brandon. “And you be more careful with what you pick up on the beach, all right?”

Brandon nodded.

“Thanks, Doctor,” Jack said, extending his hand.

“Please, it’s Alyson,” she said, returning the handshake. Father and son then went out to the waiting room. Paul noticed a moderate spring to Jack’s step.
Better not tell him that Alyson tells everyone to call her by first name, whether she likes them or not. It’ll just burst his bubble.

“ ’Bye, Alyson,” he said with a jaunty wave to the doctor. Alyson simply nodded at him. Shaking his head, Paul followed the marine biologist and his assistant/intern/kid.

As they exited the air-conditioned clinic into a blast of hot arid humid tropical air, Paul said, “I realize that I’m no Alyson Hart, but since she turned you down for lunch, mind breaking bread with me instead?”

“We probably should get back to work.”

“Dad,” Brandon said, managing to make it a three-syllable word. “The last meal we had was on the
plane.”

Paul grinned. Inviting Alyson to lunch obviously had more to do with wanting to spend time with Alyson than actually eating anything. Just as obviously, that fact had gone completely over Brandon’s prepubescent head, and he had gotten his hopes up for a real meal.

“As it happens,” Paul said, “I can take you to the best restaurant on the island.”

Jack glanced down at Brandon, who gave his father a pleading look, then grinned. “All right, then, let’s eat.”

“Great. Follow me.”

They started down the main street toward Manny’s. Paul had introduced many a new person to Malau in his time here, and he always made sure to at least direct them to Manny’s Fine Food and Spirits, if not take them there himself. It was always worth it to see the looks on their faces when they found out who ran it. Besides, it really
was
the best food on the island.

“So,” Jack said, “what’s your story?”

Paul shrugged. “It’s not much of a story. I graudated from Berkeley—degree in journalism—came here to do a little surfing before hitting the job market, and never left.”

“ ‘Just came down for the weekend / But that was twenty-five years ago.’ ” Jack sang the words in a quiet voice.

Paul blinked. “Excuse me?”

Jack shook his head. “Sorry—just a lyric I heard in Key West a while back. How’d you end up running their newspaper?”

“They didn’t
have
a paper when I got here. They thought, ‘What’s the point? Everybody already knows everybody’s business.’ But now they’re real into it—everyone subscribes.”

“They don’t mind that you’re American?”

Paul couldn’t help but laugh at that. “See that over there?” He pointed at a flagpole in an intersection half a block away, on which flew not just the Malauan flag, but the stars and stripes of the American flag right under it. “They
love
Americans. We liberated them from the Japanese.”

“Really?”

Jack seemed genuinely surprised, both by the flag and the information, which amazed Paul.
Geez, this stuff is all over the brochures.
Then he remembered that Jack was here to work, so he might’ve missed that.

“We still protect them,” Paul said, using
we
to refer to the United States despite his not having lived there for years, “but from far enough away that they don’t feel Uncle Sam is breathing down their necks. There’s not even a military presence here—just one small unit stationed over on Kalor.”

“That why Kalor rates a hospital?”

Paul laughed at that.

They arrived at Manny’s shortly thereafter. A rhapsody in rattan, the centerpiece was the gorgeous teakwood bar, with rattan tables and chairs festooned around it. Nothing about it said
fancy restaurant,
so newcomers were always surprised, and initially dismayed, when Paul brought them here. It looked for all the world like a glorified pub.

A very distinguished-looking man in his sixties approached. “Hello, Paul,” he said.

“Hiya, Manny. This is Jack Ellway and his son Brandon.”

“Welcome.” He grabbed three menus and led the trio to a table. “We have an excellent grilled grouper today, and—”

A voice with a heavy New Zealand accent interrupted. “Tell ’em who caught it, Manny.”

Paul sighed as he took a seat opposite Jack.
Derek. Great. Just great.
Had he known the brash expat would be here, Paul would have suggested going to the Flying Fish instead. But Paul had expected that Derek Lawson would be out with his two cronies, Kikko and Naru, on their little fishing trawler, showing tourists the finer points of netting lobster.
But then, after what happened yesterday, tourists are probably staying away from the water.
Instead, the three of them sat at the teakwood bar, sipping pints of beer.

“Derek caught it,” Manny said unnecessarily while placing the menus on the table. “Our best catch is usually from Derek.” Typically, Manny sounded completely neutral, neither praising Derek’s skills nor condemning the fisherman’s arrogance. Paul had always admired and envied that particular talent.

Derek hopped off his barstool and came over to the table, ignoring Paul completely—which suited the reporter just fine—and handed Jack a business card. “Welcome to Malau. If you’re lookin’ for the best deep-sea fishin’ of your life, come out with Derek Lawson and crew.” He gestured back at Kikko and Naru, who tipped their pints in acknowledgement.

Jack took the card and nodded politely. To Paul’s glee, and Derek’s apparent confusion, Jack seemed completely uninterested in what Derek had to offer. Paul, not a little smugly, said, “Mister Ellway is a marine biologist.”

To his credit, Derek recovered well. “A man who knows his fish—even better.” He tousled Brandon’s hair, a gesture that, based on the kid’s half-frown, half-snarl, he didn’t appreciate in the least. “Kids’re half-price.”

He retreated to the bar and his crew. Manny then asked Jack, “You are staying on Kalor?”

“No, here on Malau. At the Ritz.” As he spoke, a bus-boy placed three glasses of water on the table.

Manny nodded. “Our accomodations are modest by comparison . . .”

“This is where the tremors are. We prefer to be where the action is. I’m here to examine the effects of these tremors on the local marine life,” he explained.

“Yes, well, we feel differently here. Our last ‘action’ was World War II.” He smiled a tiny smile, taking the edge off his statement. “When you are ready to order, Tari will take good care of you. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

Paul noticed that Tari was taking someone else’s order. “Thanks, Manny,” he said.

Manny went off to a corner table, where various bits of paper were laid out.

“Nice old guy,” Jack said as he reached for his water glass.

This was Paul’s favorite part. “President Moki’s a great father figure.”

Jack did a spit-take with his water. Brandon started to laugh.

Paul grinned, and elaborated: “Manny’s the President of Malau.”

Dutifully wiping his chin with his napkin, Jack said dryly, “I’ll leave a nice tip.”

Before Paul could get into the rather interesting story of how a restaurant owner came to run the island, a tremor hit. The whole building started to shake. Most everyone tried to find something solid to hold onto, even if it was just a table. Paul himself didn’t bother—a native Californian, he’d lived through much worse than this, and he could walk a straight line during a genuine quake, much less a comparatively wimpy tremor like this.

Naru, Paul noticed, wasn’t so skilled; he fell off his stool. Kikko helped him back up just as the tremor died down.

“Cool,” Brandon said.

Paul grinned.
Kids . . .

TWO

R
alph Hale, Ph.D., bolted upright as the alarm on his watch sounded with an insistent
beep-beep
noise that would not cease until he pushed the tiny button on the watch’s side.
Hell and damnation, but that thing’s annoying,
he thought as he felt on his right wrist for the watch.

He couldn’t find it.

Then, as awareness slowly penetrated his sleepy haze, he remembered that he had put the watch across the room precisely so he couldn’t just switch it off and fall back asleep.

Gotta stop outsmarting myself,
he thought with a chuckle as he clambered off the sofa where he had taken his nap. After a moment, he located the watch on the sideboard that served as his liquor cabinet and switched it off.

He gazed at the watch’s digital display: 12:30. He still had half an hour before it was time to take the seismograph out from its underground—or under
sand,
really—hole.
Why would I set the alarm early and spoil a perfectly good nap, when—?

Then his eye caught his battered old computer.
Right. Haven’t checked the e-mail in almost two days.

After switching the machine on—it took almost a full two minutes to boot up—he walked the short distance to the kitchen to turn on the burner under the kettle. He didn’t really need the caffeine. Ralph Hale was a napper; he could go full-bore for four or five hours, crash for two, then be ready to go for another four hours. He had attained enough prominence as a geologist to be able to set his own peculiar hours, which is just how he liked it. Smiling as he dumped some herbal tea leaves into a strainer, he remembered his undergraduate days in Sydney, driving his roommates up the wall with his odd sleeping habits.
’Course, then there were the grad school days in Boston where everyone kept calling me “Oz,” and that lovely tenure at Emory when everyone was browned off ’cause I didn’t sound like Paul blasted Hogan.
Not that it was any better when he returned home to Australia. All the endless rules and regulations were enough to drive a man mad.