Then he looked down at his withered member, stitched and scarred as if it had been patched from the Frankenstein monster. A wave of anxiety passed through him, bringing sweat to his skin even in the electric chill. He realized that he had really never done anything in his adult life that had not—even at some subconscious level—been part of a strategy to im-press women. He would have never worked so hard to become a pilot if it hadn’t been for Jake’s insistence that “Chicks dig pilots.” Why fly? Why get out of bed in the morning? Why do anything?

He rolled over to bury his face in the pillow and pinned a live cockroach to the spread with his cheek.

10

Coconut Telegraph

Jefferson Pardee dialed the island communications center and asked them to connect him to a friend of his in the governor’s office on Yap. While he waited for the connection, he looked down from his office above the Food Store on the Truk public market: women selling bananas, coconuts, and banana leaf bundles of taro out of plywood sheds; children with bandannas on their faces against the rising street dust; drunk men languishing red-eyed in the shade. Across the street lay a stand of coconut palms and the vibrant blue-green water of the lagoon dotted with outboards and floating pieces of Styrofoam coolers. Another day in paradise, Pardee thought.

Pardee had been out here for thirty years now. He’d come fresh out of Northwestern School of Journalism full of passion to save the world, to help those less fortunate than himself, and to avoid the draft. After his two years in the Peace Corps were up—his main achievement was teaching the islanders to boil water—he’d stayed. First he worked for the budding island governments, helping to write the charters, the constitutions, and the re-quests for aid from the United States. That work finished, he found himself afraid to go home. He’d gone to fat on breadfruit and beer and become accustomed to dollar whores, fifty-cent taxis, and a two-hour workday. The idea of returning to the States, where he would have to live up to his potential or face being called a failure, terrified him. He wrote and received a grant to start the Truk Star. It was the last significant thing that he’d done for twenty-five years. Covering the news in Truk was akin to taking a penguin census in the Mojave Desert. Still, deep inside, he hoped that something would happen so that he could

flex his atrophied journalistic muscles. Something he could get passionate about. Why couldn’t the United States nuke a nearby island? The French did it in Polynesia all the time. But no, the United States nukes one little atoll in Micronesia (Bikini) and they go away, saying, “Well, I guess that ought to do for twenty-five thousand years or so.” Wimps.

Then again, maybe there was something going on out on Alualu. Something clandestine and dirty. Jefferson Pardee had lost his ambition, but he still had hope.

“Go ahead,” the operator said.

“Ignatho, how you doing, man?”

Ignatho Malongo, governor’s assistant for outer island affairs, was not in the mood to chat. It was lunchtime and he was out of cigarettes and betel nut and no one had come to relieve him on the radio so he could leave. His office was in a bright blue corrugated steel shed tucked behind the offices of the governor. It housed a military-style steel desk, a shortwave radio, a new IBM computer, and a wastebasket full of tractor-feed paper stained with red betel nut spit under a sign that emphatically declared NO SPITTING. He was round, brown, and wore only a loincloth, a Casio watch, and a Bic pen on a string around his neck. He was sweating into a puddle that darkened the concrete floor around his desk.

“Pardee, what do you need?”

“I was wondering if you’ve heard anything going on out on Alualu?”

“Just the same. Occasionally the doctor radios for supplies to be sent out on the Micro Trader. They’re not officially in Yap state, so they don’t go through my office. Why?”

“You hear any rumors, maybe from the Micro Trader crew?”

“Like what? The Shark People don’t have contact with anyone since I can remember. Just that Dr. Curtis.”

Pardee didn’t want to be in the business of starting rumors. More than once he’d had to track down a story to find out that it had started with a drunken lie he’d told in a bar that had circulated through the islands, changed enough to sound credible, and landed back on his desk. Still, Malongo wasn’t giving anything today. “I hear they have a new aircraft out there. A Learjet.”

Malongo laughed. “Where did you hear that?”

“I’ve heard it twice now. A couple of months ago from a guy who said he was going out there to fly it for them and just now from another pilot on his way.”

“Maybe they’re starting a new airline. Be serious, Jeff. Are you that desperate for a story? I’ve got some grants you can write if you need the work.”

Pardee was a little embarrassed. Still, he had no doubt that Tucker Case had been contacted by Dr. Curtis. Something was up. He said, “Well, maybe you can ask the guys on the Trader to keep an eye out. Ask around and call me if you hear anything.”

Suddenly Pardee had a flash of motivational inspiration. “If someone’s buying jet airplanes, there might be some untapped government money out there that you guys don’t know about.” He could almost hear Malongo snap to attention.

Malongo was thinking air conditioner, laser printer, a new chair. “Look, I’ll ask out at the airport. If someone’s flying a jet off of Alualu, then they have to use the radio, right?”

“I suppose,” Pardee said.

“I’ll call you.” Malongo hung up.

Pardee sighed. “And once again,” he said to himself, “we lead with the ‘Pig Thief Still at Large’ story.”

A half hour later the phone rang. The phone never rang. Pardee picked it up and could tell by the clicking that he was being connected off-island. Ignatho Malongo came on the line. He sounded like he was in a better mood. Pardee guessed that he was in a state of foreign aid arousal.

“Jeff, the Trader is in the harbor. Some of the crew was having lunch at the marina and I asked them about your Learjet.” Malongo was smoking a Benson & Hedges and chewing a big cud of betel nut. He was in a better mood now.

“And?”

“No one’s seen it, but they did see some Japanese on the island the last time they were there.”

“Japanese? Tourists?”

“They were carrying machine guns.”

“No shit.”

“Do you think this means there’s some military money coming our way?” Malongo was thinking air-conditioning, a case of Spam, a ticket to Hawaii to go shopping.

Pardee scratched his two-day growth of beard. “Probably the crew off of a tuna boat. They’ve been threatening to shoot some of the islanders off Ulithi if they keep stealing their net floats. I’ll check with the Australian Navy, see if they know about a Japanese boat

fishing those waters. Meantime, I owe you a bag of betel nut.”

Malongo laughed. “You owe me about ten bags by now. How you going to pay if you never leave that shithole of an island?”

“You’ll see me soon enough.” Pardee hung up.