The police jeeps seemed to part for the jet as it headed back to the runway. For all the guns there, no one seemed interested in firing a shot. Tuck looked back and saw the Shark People waving as Mary Jean made her takeoff run.

When they were airborne, she said, “Tucker Case, when you make a turnaround, boy, you don’t do it half-twiddle, do you?”

Tuck laughed. “Did you really know James Dean?”

“Sounded good, didn’t it?” She turned to him. Not surprisingly, her makeup was done perfectly to complement her outfit and the Gulfstream’s headset. She let out a little yelp. “Tucker, there’s a varmint in your shirt.”

“That’s Roberto,” Tuck said. “He no like the light.”

“Darlin’, if I had a face like that, I’d gravitate toward dim and unlit territories myself. Remind me to give your friend a sample of our new depilatory.”

“What was that all about back there?” Tuck asked.

“Heroics, son. I told you on the phone, I believe in redemption and I thought it was time I practiced what I preached. Were they really selling those poor heathens’ organs?”

“Beg your pardon, Mary Jean, I really do appreciate the rescue, but don’t bullshit me. Any one of those cops could have shot out the tires of this plane and we’d still be on the ground.”

She smiled, a knowing smile with a hint of mischief, the Mona Lisa in a big blond wig. “Media event, son. You’d be surprised how far a little palm grease goes in the Third World. Why, I couldn’t buy the media coverage my company’s going to get on this with a year’s profits. And of course you’re going to reimburse me for the bribes. Jake says you’ll be able to. The tax boys frown on taking bribes. as a deduction. Although we could take it as advertising expense. Never mind, you don’t owe me nothing.”

“So that’s the only reason you did it, the media coverage?”

“I was shabby to you, Tucker. Not that you didn’t deserve it, but I wasn’t feeling so good about myself for doing it. I aways kinda looked at you like my wayward little lamb. Course, I’m from cattle folk.”

Tuck smiled. “Whatever. Where are we going?”

“Little place of mine in the Cayman Islands. Jake’s going to meet us there with your little friend.”

67

The Cannibal Tree Revisited

The Sky Priestess awoke with a terrible pain in her head. She couldn’t feel her arms or legs, and something was cutting her between her breasts. She and the Sorcerer had been living in the deserted village for two weeks. The last thing she could remember was the Sorcerer going into the dark for more firewood and hearing a thud. When he didn’t answer her call, she had gone to look for him.

She opened her eyes and blinked to clear her vision. The world seemed to be spinning and for a second all she could see was a green blur that was the jungle. Then things popped into focus. She was slowly turning at the end of a coconut fiber rope, suspended six feet above the ground. The harness was digging in between her breasts and cutting off the circulation to her limbs. She lifted her head and saw an ancient native tending a long earthen oven that was spouting smoke from either end. The Sorcerer’s clothes were piled nearby.

The old native looked up and ambled over to her on spindly legs. There were chicken feathers stuck in his hair and his eyes had a rheumy yellow cast to them.

He grinned at her with teeth that looked as if they had been filed to points, then reached up and pinched her cheek. “Yum,” he said.

Epilogue

Due to the influence of Mary Jean Dobbins, who opened a manufacturing plant in the capital, and a large land purchase by an anonymous buyer, the Shark People were accepted as Costa Rican citizens and their land was set aside as a national reserve. Malink remained chief for many years, and when he became too old to carry the responsibility—since he had no sons—he appointed Abo his successor. Abo learned to preside over the ceremonies in honor of Vincent and led the prayers for his return, for they all believed that he would return, but as time passed and history grew to legend, they believed that this time Vincent would return in a pink jet and at his side would be the prophet Tuck—who had delivered them from the Sky Priestess—and the great navigator Kimi, without whom, it was said, the prophet Tuck couldn’t find his ass with both hands.

Every morning before breakfast, Tucker Case walked his bat on the beaches of Little Cay. Actually, the bat flew on those mornings. Tuck usually flew in the afternoons. He owned a five-passenger Cessna that he tied down on the airstrip next to the small house where he and Sepie lived. With what was left of his half of the money from the Swiss bank accounts—after buying the house and the plane and ten thousand acres of Costa Rican coastal rainforest, which he gave to the Shark People—Tuck was able to buy Sepie a satellite dish and a thirty-two-inch Sony Trinitron, which was all she asked for besides his love, loyalty, and that the bat stay out of the house. Tuck gave

her all she wanted, and in return asked her to love him, respect him, and to turn down “Wheel of Fortune” when he was doing his books.

He chartered his plane out to fishermen and scuba divers who wanted to island-hop and made enough money to keep them in food and Sepie in perfume, lipstick and Wonder Bras, the latter a new obsession she had picked up and more often than not the only item of clothing she ever wore.

One morning, just before sunrise, after they had been on Little Cay for a year, Tuck spotted a figure standing alone on the beach. He knew who it was before he was close enough to see him. He could feel it.

As he got closer, he looked at the sharp dark features, the flight suit shot with starch and free of wrinkles, and he said, “You look pretty good for a dead guy.”

Vincent took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, tapped one out, and lit it. “You did good, kid. I’d have to call it even.”

“The least I could do,” Tuck said. “But can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,” said Vincent.

“Why’d you do it?”

“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t move a thing, I didn’t touch a thing, I didn’t change a thing. Believers do everything.”

“Come on,” Tuck said. “I deserve a straight answer.”

The flyer turned away for a moment and looked at the corona over the water where the sun was about to rise. “You’re right, kid. You do. You re-member that speech the dame gave you about losers doing good on islands because there’s no competition?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it ain’t the case. Islands are like, you know, incubators. You got to start things and let em grow. Isolate ’em. That’s why all your loony-toon cult guys have to get their people out in the boonies somewhere where no one can talk any sense into ’em. Just nod if you’re gettin’ any of this, kid. Good.

“Well, I had this bet with these guys I play cards with that my little cult could go big-time if I could get enough citizens. I told ’em, ‘Two thousand years ago you guys were just running cults. Get me to the mainland and give me a thousand years and I’ll give you a run for your money.’ All the conditions were right. You need some pressure, I got the war. You need a promise, I got the promise I’ll come back with cargo. I’m on easy street. Then this crazy dame and the doc come along and start selling me up the river and I’m thinking

it’s my chance to make the bigs. You’ve got to have some bad guys so your citizens can recognize who the good guys are, right? So I says to myself, ‘Vincent, it is time you got yourself a Moses. Get a guy who can get your people out of trouble and give them some stories to build a reputation on.’”

“And that was me?” Tuck said.

“That was you.”

“Why me? Why did you pick me?”