Fires of Eden Read online

  “Oh,” said Eleanor, “there’s someone you might enjoy meeting. Shall we see if she wants to join us?”

  “By all means,” said the curator with a grin, as if relieved by Eleanor’s suggestion.

  Cordie Stumpf squinted up at them. Her nose was sunburned. “Yeah, why don’t you sit down with me? Hey, do you believe they serve dolphin here? I was just wonderin’ if I should have a Flipper sandwich.”

  Things really fell apart for Byron Trumbo on the fourteenth hole.

  His second drive put him onto the green while Sato was still chipping from the rough and then out of the sand trap. The Japanese billionaire’s game had gone to shit. Both Bobby Tanaka and Inazo Ono were also having problems, so Trumbo just stood there on the edge of the green with Gus, his caddy, watching Sato get more and more pissed off. Trumbo wished he’d just sliced the goddamn ball into the lava fields and had done with it.

  Finally Sato chipped onto the green and walked over to his elderly caddy, who offered the young man a silk handkerchief with which to mop his now florid face. “Please putt in, Byron-san.” Preez purtt ih.

  “You’re back, Hiroshe,” said Trumbo with a friendly smile. Will Bryant had just informed him that Caitlin’s plane was indeed headed for the Keahole-Kona airport and that she and her lawyer had made reservations at the Mauna Pele. Trumbo felt like throwing up, but after he bent his putter around a palm tree. “Please,” he said, hand out in the universal you first gesture.

  Sato shook his head with the first sign of petulance Trumbo had seen. “No, please, putt in while I contemplate whatever sins of mine have made me deserve this punishment.”

  Trumbo grunted and addressed the ball. He had about a ten-foot putt. Gus walked over to the flag, started to lift it, and then froze, looking at his shoes.

  “Pull it, Gus.”

  “But Mr. T…” Gus’s soft voice sounded strange.

  “Pull it and get out of the way.”

  “But Mr. T…” The caddy was staring at the pin and his shoes as if he were frozen to the spot.

  “Pull the fucking flag and get out of the fucking way,” said Byron Trumbo in a command voice he rarely used.

  Gus pulled the flag and moved back, his walk strange. Trumbo idly wondered if the little caddy was having a coronary and made a mental note not to send flowers if that was the case. The last thing Trumbo needed today was attitude, advice, or problems from his fucking caddy.

  It took only a second for Trumbo to focus. He putted smoothly and watched it roll in. He looked up to get Sato’s approving smile, but the other billionaire was whispering to Inazo Ono, who had managed to get his ball onto the edge of the green in four. Fuck you, thought Byron Trumbo, and walked over to retrieve his ball.

  At first, when his fingers touched the other fingers in the cup, Byron Trumbo had no reaction at all. It was as if someone were underground, trying to shake hands with him, and the sensation was so weird that—except for the wild prickling on the back of his neck—he had no response at all but to freeze, still leaning over, arm extended to the hole.

  Then Trumbo leaned forward and looked into the cup. His ball was there, just under the level of the green, perched delicately on the four upraised fingers and thumb of the dismembered right hand.

  Still bending over, noticing peripherally that Sato and Ono were turning back to look and that Bobby Tanaka’s last chip shot had brought him onto the green, Trumbo turned his head to look at Gus Roo. His caddy, still holding the flag, raised the other hand helplessly. For a Hawaiian, Gus’s face was very pale. Trumbo noted that the base of the flag pin had been stained red.

  Trumbo looked back at Sato and grinned, his own fingers still inches from the upraised fingers holding the ball. What if the thing’s alive down there and is going to come bursting up through the sod?

  “Nice putt, Byron-san,” said Sato with little enthusiasm.

  Trumbo smiled again, still frozen in his uncomfortable posture. He could see Will Bryant staring at him, obviously wondering what was wrong, perhaps concerned that his boss had thrown his back out.

  Trumbo reached for the ball again, holding his breath at the thought that the severed hand might fight to keep the ball.

  Straightening up, Trumbo tossed the ball, put it nonchalantly in his pocket, and said, “Who’s for a drink?”

  Sato and the others frowned. “Drink, Byron-san? We are at only fourteen hole.”

  Trumbo walked between them and the hole, shrugging expansively. “Hey, it’s hot, we’re working hard, I thought we might take a break for a few minutes and have a cold drink in the shade there.” He pointed above the sand trap to where several palm trees rustled.

  “I must putt,” said Hiroshe Sato, obviously put off by his host’s cavalier attitude toward golf.

  Trumbo shook his head, still grinning stupidly. “It’s a gimme, Hiroshe.”

  “A…gimme?”

  “Sure,” said Trumbo, throwing his hands up. “You’d make it anyway.”

  Sato’s frown deepened. “I am twenty-eight feet from the hole, Byron-san.”

  “Yeah, but you’re hot today, Hiroshe,” said Trumbo. With his eyes and eyebrows he was beckoning Will Bryant over. The assistant walked out on the green, ignoring the Japanese guests’ frowns at Bryant’s walking shoes on the grass. Trumbo leaned close. “There’s something in the cup,” he hissed into Will’s ear. “Get a fucking towel from Gus, get the fucking thing out of the fucking cup, and do it so Sato and the others don’t see. Got it?”

  Will Bryant looked at his boss, nodded slightly, and walked over to the caddy.

  Trumbo went over to the billionaire and put his arm around the smaller man, feeling Sato flinch slightly as he did so. “Hiroshe, let me show you something.” Trumbo led the party over to the parked carts, where he fumbled open Will’s briefcase and pulled out the prospectus and site maps they had been referring to over breakfast. He smoothed out the map of the golf course on the backseat of the cart as if the paper held some huge surprise. Sato, Tanaka, and Ono were gathered around, as was Sato’s old caddy, and Trumbo sensed them all staring at him as if he had lost his mind. Maybe I have, thought the billionaire, and stabbed a blunt finger down on the fourteenth hole. “I’m sorry, Hiroshe, but I’ve been thinking about this for the last few holes and just had to say something. Have you realized the potential for luxury condos if your people build here…and here…and here. I know you’re considering the Pele for an exclusive golf club, two-hundred-thousand-dollar Tokyo memberships and all that…”

  Sato stared at his host as if he were frothing at the mouth. That the Japanese wanted to close the Mauna Pele as a resort and plant condos for golfers was the subtext that was to remain unsaid by both sides in these negotiations. “Yes, but I must putt,” said Hiroshe Sato, and started to turn back to the green.

  Trumbo caught a glimpse of Will Bryant bent over the hole, towel gingerly extended. Gus Roo had sat on a lava boulder and was holding his head in his hands.

  “Just consider this,” said Trumbo, putting his arm around Sato and turning him back to the map. He could feel the Japanese tycoon’s skin rippling in revulsion at the invasion of his person.

  “I mean, bulldoze this area east of the links here…see?…put in trees and lagoons and all that shit we did to the west…and how much would it lease for, Hiroshe? Two million each?”

  “Byron,” said Bobby Tanaka. “I think we…”

  “Shaddup,” said Trumbo. Sato was looking at the map sadly, his body hunching away from Trumbo’s hug. Trumbo glanced over his shoulder, saw Will Bryant moving into the a’a with the heavy towel.

  “Hey,” said Trumbo, “just something I had to get off my chest. OK, let’s get back to the game.” He glared at Tanaka. “Took you a while to get onto the green, didn’t it?”

  Inazo Ono was saying something to his boss. “I suggested that Mr. Sato putt next,” he translated.

  Trumbo nodded. He had heard the words for “foreigner,” and “crazy.” He didn’t give a shit. From beh
ind the palm trees and the lava boulders, there came the faintest of retching sounds.

  Sato hunkered over his putter. Trumbo saw Will Bryant emerge from the rocks. No one else seemed to notice. Incredibly, Sato sank his twenty-eight-footer. Everyone applauded except Gus Roo, who still sat with his head in his hands.

  On their way to the carts and the fifteenth hole, Bryant walked close to his boss and whispered, “I expect a bonus for this.”

  NINE

  …there existed in [Polynesian culture] a binary world view whereby categories were set in opposition to each other. The most common and potent was the male-female dichotomy where “male” qualities represented goodness, strength, light, and “female” qualities were mostly weak, dangerous, dark (but paradoxically also essential as the givers of life).

  —William Ellis, “Polynesian Researches”

  After lunch, Eleanor, Cordie, and Paul Kukali leisurely toured the petroglyph field. The jogging track moved through the a’a boulders like a smooth ribbon laid on a pebbly beach. To their right were the ocean cliffs, to their left the palm trees and sprinklers and lushness of the southernmost of the two golf courses. Eleanor could hear the occasional exclamations of golfers, but other than that it was peaceful except for the wind and waves.

  “When Trumbo and his consortium planned to develop this area,” Paul Kukali was saying, “we went to the state supreme court to preserve these ancient Hawaiian fish ponds and petroglyphs.”

  “What fish ponds?” said Cordie, her head swiveling.

  “Precisely,” said the curator. “Before we could get a restraining order, his people had bulldozed the ponds. I threatened to create an international stink if he destroyed the petroglyphs, so these few acres were preserved…except for where the jogging path cut through them, of course.”

  They stopped where a plaque pointed out a low rock with small holes and a faded drawing of a male figure. “These are the petroglyph thingies?” said Cordie.

  “Yes,” said Paul.

  “How old are they?” Cordie had crouched next to the rock, her heavy legs wide apart. She set a blunt hand on the rock.

  “No one’s sure,” said Paul. “But these are amongst the oldest sites on the islands…probably dating back to about the time my Polynesian ancestors first landed here, perhaps fourteen hundred years ago.”

  Cordie whistled and touched the stone. “What are these little holes?”

  Paul and Eleanor both crouched next to Cordie. “Those are piko holes,” said the curator. “Umbilical cord holes. Tradition says that when the newborns lost that little stump of their umbilical cords, the cords were placed in these piko holes and covered with small stones. Families had to travel long distances with a child’s piko in a gourd to deposit it here. We have only a sketchy idea why this place was thought to hold so much mana.”

  Cordie raised her thick eyebrows to question the word.

  “Mana is spiritual power, isn’t it?” said Eleanor.

  Paul nodded. “Everything in the natural world was a matter of mana for the ancient Hawaiians,” he said. “Some places, like this, seemed to be especially powerful.”

  Eleanor rose and walked to a rock where several painted figures filled the space between piko holes. She looked at one figure with bird feet, spiked hair, and a prominent penis.

  Cordie stepped over. “This little guy’s got a dick sorta like an arrow. Is that supposed to mean more mana?”

  Paul Kukali laughed. “Probably. Everything the Hawaiians did or thought revolved around mana or kapu.”

  “Taboos?” said Eleanor.

  Paul sat on the rock and laid his hand just above the male figure Cordie had admired. “Kapus were not just rules on what could or could not be done. For thousands of years, the Hawaiians were obsessed with mana—with this spiritual power that flowed from the earth and the gods and each other—and kapu helped keep the power where it belonged…helped to keep it from being stolen.”

  Cordie rubbed her nose. “They thought you could steal the power?”

  The curator nodded. “To the point that when the ali’i—royalty—passed, commoners like you and me would have to lie on the ground and hide our faces. Even to allow our shadow to fall on them would be punishable by death. Mana was a rare commodity and the life of the village or people often depended upon it. Punishments were harsh.”

  Cordie looked out across the lava field. “So there was…like…human sacrifice going on here?”

  Paul folded his arms. “Almost certainly. This area of the coast is rich in heiaus—old temples—where sacrifices were made. Even the great posts they set in the ground demanded the body of a slave in each hole.”

  “Yech,” said Cordie.

  “But there were other heiaus such as the Puuhonua O Honaunau just down the coast,” said the curator. “The so-called City of Refuge where the weak could flee to be safe from such terror.”

  Eleanor stepped closer. “Wasn’t there a heiau somewhere around here…on this bay perhaps…which tradition said was built in one night by the Marchers of the Night?”

  Paul Kukali looked at her with some surprise. “Precisely,” he said. “Exactly this place, although no sign of the actual heiau has been found. It was one of the reasons we tried to bring the environmental impact statement to court to put some teeth behind the preservation here.”

  “Marchers of the Night?” said Cordie.

  The curator turned to the short woman and smiled. “Processions of the dead…ali’i, royalty, if you’re to believe the tales…if you see them, you’re generally believed to be in some trouble. One legend had it that the heiau at this spot was built on a single night in 1866 by the Marchers of the Night.” He turned to Eleanor. “Where did you run across that tidbit?”

  She hesitated only a second. “Mark Twain, I believe.”

  Paul nodded. “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten his letters from Hawaii. He was on the Big Island the summer the heiau was built by the walking dead, as I remember from some research I did. But I didn’t think that particular letter was ever published…it’s still in his papers, isn’t it?”

  Eleanor said nothing.

  “Are you full-blooded Hawaiian?” asked Cordie, her curiosity as straightforward as a child’s.

  “Yes,” said Paul Kukali. “There aren’t that many of us, to be truthful. I read somewhere that a hundred and twenty thousand people on the islands claim Hawaiian blood, but ethnologists think that there are only a few hundred pure Hawaiians left.” He paused a moment. “I think that’s a good sign, don’t you?”

  “Diversity usually means strength,” said Eleanor.

  “Shall we see the rest of the petroglyph field?” he asked. “The golf course took a big part of it, but there are some good examples of a hawk-headed figure that no one has a theory about.”

  They strolled down the jogging path, chatting as they moved deeper into the a’a tumble.

  Trumbo thought that the goddamned golf game was going to last indefinitely; he sent Gus back to the clubhouse, the caddy was so shaken. Gus’s teenage nephew, Nicky Roo, caddied the last few holes for Trumbo, who was shaken enough himself to send Will Bryant ahead, for the last few holes, checking the remaining cups and sand traps for…anything.

  “We have to report this,” Bryant had whispered before humming off in his golf cart.

  “Report what?” Trumbo had hissed back at him. “That we’ve got fucking severed hands lurking in our holes on our twelve-million-dollar golf course? Or that you tossed homicide evidence into the lava fields so that Hiroshe could putt? The local fuzz will love that.”

  Will Bryant did not flinch. “We’ll have to report it.”

  “First you have to go back and find it,” Trumbo had whispered, glancing over to where Sato and his cronies were cackling at something in Japanese. The last few holes had been very good for the duffer.

  Bryant did flinch at the thought of that. “Now?”

  “No, not now. First I want you to check out the next few holes. I don’t want Hiroshe o
r his pals having to par in past a fucking severed head or uncover somebody’s foot when they blast out of a sand trap.”

  Pale, his lips thin, Bryant nodded.

  “Then I want you to find Stevie Carter and tell him that we think we found one of the New Jersey guys…part of him.” Trumbo hesitated. “It was a man’s hand, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Bryant. “Right hand. Manicured nails.”

  Trumbo shivered slightly. “For a second it didn’t register, you know? It seemed natural that someone was handing me the ball when I bent over to pick it up.”

  “We’ll have to call the cops,” whispered Bryant.

  Byron Trumbo shook his head. “Not until this fucking deal is done.”

  “Concealing evidence…”

  “Will cost me a lot less in lawyers’ fees to fight than keeping this goddamn resort will cost me. A lot rides on this, Will.”

  Bryant hesitated only a second. “Yessir. What shall I tell Carter when he insists we call the cops?”

  “Tell him that he promised me twenty-four hours and that the clock’s still ticking,” said Trumbo. He glanced over at the waiting businessmen. “Get going. Don’t forget to check the bushes. Three guys are missing…there might be twenty or thirty little surprises like that waiting for us between here and the clubhouse. I don’t want to lean over to putt in on the eighteenth and find some guy’s dick lying between me and the cup.”

  Bryant blinked. “Yeah. Got it.” His cart hummed away.

  Now, having a cool drink with Sato and Bobby Tanaka, Inazo Ono, Masayoshi Matsukawa, Dr. Tatsuro, Sunny Takahashi, and Seizaburo Sakurabayashi around the big, round table looking out over the Mauna Pele’s prize-winning gardens, the “thatched” roof of the Big Hale rising above coconut palms to the west, Trumbo allowed himself a sigh of relief.

  The relief did not last long. Stephen Ridell Carter appeared at the table, still in a tan tropical suit, his gray hair as impeccable as always, but there was something frazzled and urgent about the manager’s appearance.