“Run a tab,” Pardee said. Then to Tuck: “I assume you’re a diver?”
“Why would you assume that?”
“It’s the only reason Americans come here, other than Peace Corps or Navy CAT team members. And if you don’t mind my saying, you don’t look idealistic enough to be Peace Corps or stupid enough to be Navy.”
“I’m a pilot.” It felt good saying it. He’d always liked saying it. He didn’t realize how terrified he’d been that he’d never be able to say it again. “I’m supposed to meet someone from another island about a job.”
“Not a missionary air outfit, I hope.”
“It’s for a missionary doctor. Why?”
“Son, those people do a great job, but you can only get so much out of those old planes they fly. Fifty-year-old Beech 18s and DC3s. Sooner or later you’re going into the drink. But I suppose if you’re flying for God…”
“I’ll be flying a new Learjet.”
Pardee almost dropped his beer. “Bullshit.”
Tuck was tempted to pull out the letter and slam it on the bar, but thought better of it. “That’s what they said.”
Pardee put a big hairy forearm on the bar and leaned into Tuck. He smelled like a hangover. “What island and what church?”
“Alualu,” Tuck said. “A Dr. Curtis.”
Pardee nodded and sat back on his stool. “No-man’s Island.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It doesn’t belong to anyone. Do you know anything about Micronesia?”
“Just that you have gangs but no regular indoor plumbing.”
“Well, depending on how you look at it, Truk can be a hellhole. That’s what happens when you give Coke cans to a coconut culture. But it’s not all that way. There are two thousand islands in the Micronesian crescent, running almost all the way from Hawaii to New Guinea. Magellan landed here first, on his first voyage around the world. The Spanish claimed them, then the Germans, then the Japanese. We took them from the Japanese during the war. There are seventy sunken Japanese ships in Truk’s lagoon alone. That’s why the divers come.”
“So what’s this have to do with where I’m going?”
“I’m getting to that. Until fifteen years ago, Micronesia was a U.S. protectorate, except for Alualu. Because it’s at the westernmost tip of the crescent, we left it out of the surrender agreement with the Japanese. It kind of got lost in the shuffle. So Alualu was never an American territory, and when the Federated States of Micronesia declared independence, they didn’t include Alualu.”
“So what’s that mean?” Tuck was getting impatient. This was the longest lecture he’d endured since flight school.
“In short, no mother government, no foreign aid, no nothing.
Alualu belongs to whoever lives on it. It’s off the shipping lanes, and it’s a raised atoll, only one small island, not a group of islands around a lagoon, so there’s not enough copra to make it worth the trip for the collector boats. Since the war, when there was an airstrip there, no one goes there.”
“Maybe that’s why they need the jet?”
“Son, I came here in ’66 with the Peace Corps and I’ve never left. I’ve seen a lot of missionaries throw a lot of money at a lot of problems, but I’ve never seen a church that was willing to spring for a Learjet.”
Tuck wanted to beat his head on the bar just to feel his tiny brain rattle. Of course it was too good to be true. He’d known that instinctively. He should have known that as soon as he’d seen the money they were offering him—him, Tucker Case, the biggest fuckup in the world.
Tuck drained his beer and signaled for two more. “So what do you know about this Curtis?”
“I’ve heard of him. There’s not much news out here and he made some about twenty years back. He went batshit at the airport in Yap after he couldn’t get anyone to evacuate a sick kid off the island. Frankly, I’m sur-prised he’s still out there. I heard the church pulled out on him. Cargo cults give Christians the willies.”
Tuck knew he was being lured in. He’d met guys like Pardee in airport hotel bars all over the U.S.: lonely businessmen, usually salesmen, who would talk to anyone about anything just for the company. They learned how to make you ask questions that required long windy answers. He’d felt sympathetic toward them ever since he’d played Willie Loman in Miss Patterson’s third-grade class production of Death of a Salesman. Pardee just needed to talk.
“What’s a cargo cult?” Tuck asked.
Pardee smiled. “They’ve been in the islands since the Spanish landed in the 1500s and traded steel tools and beads to the natives for food and water. They’re still around.”
Pardee took a long pull on his beer, set it down, and resumed. “These islands were all populated by people from somewhere else. The stories of the heroic ancestors coming across the sea in canoes are part of their reli-gions. The ancestors brought everything they need from across the sea. All of a sudden, guys show up with new cool stuff. Instant ancestors, instant gods from across the sea, bearing gifts. They incorporated the newcomers into their religions. Sometimes it might be fifty years before another ship showed up, but
every time they used a machete, they thought about the return of the gods bearing cargo.”
“So there are still people waiting for the Spanish to return with steel tools.”
Pardee laughed. “No. Except for missionaries, these islands didn’t get much attention from the modern world until World War II. All of a sudden, Allied forces are coming in and building airstrips and bribing the islanders with things so they would resist the Japanese. Manna from the heavens. American flyers brought in all sorts of good stuff. Then the war ended and the good stuff stopped coming.
“Years later anthropologists and missionaries are finding little altars built to airplanes. The islanders are still waiting for the ships from the sky to return and save them. Myths get built around single pilots who are supposed to bring great armies to the islands to chase out the French, or the British, or whatever imperial government holds the island. The British outlawed the cargo cults on some Melanesian islands and jailed the leaders. Bad idea, of course. They were instant martyrs. The missionaries railed against the new religions, trying to use reason to kill faith, so some islanders started claiming their pilots were Jesus. Drove the missionaries nuts. Natives putting little propellers on their crucifixes, drawing pictures of Christ in a flight helmet. Bottom line is the cargo cults are still around, and I hear that one of the strongest is on Alualu.”
“Are the natives dangerous?” Tuck asked.
“Not because of their religion, no.”
“What’s that mean?”
“These people are warriors, Mr. Case. They forget that most of the time, but sometimes when they’re drinking, a thousand years of warrior tradition can rear its head, even on the more modernized islands like Truk. And there are people in these islands who still remember the taste of human flesh—if you get my meaning. Tastes like Spam, I hear. The natives love Spam.”
“Spam? You’re kidding.”
“Nope. That’s what Spam stands for: Shaped Protein Approximating Man.”
Tucker smiled, realizing he’d been had. Pardee let loose an explosive laugh and slapped Tuck on the shoulder. “Look, my friend, I’ve got to get to the office. A paper to put out, you know. But watch yourself. And don’t be surprised if your Learjet is actually a beat-up Cessna.”
“Thanks,” Tucker said, shaking the big man’s hand.
“You going to be around for few days?” Pardee asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, just a word of advice”—Pardee lowered his voice and leaned into Tucker conspiratorially—“don’t go out at night by yourself. Nothing you’re going to see is worth your life.”
“I can take care of myself, but thanks.”
“Just so,” Pardee said. He turned and lumbered out of the bar.
Tuck paid the bartender and headed out into the heat and to his room, where he stripped naked and lay on the tattered bedspread, letting the air conditioner blow over him with a welcome chill. Maybe this won’t be so bad, he thought. He was going to end up on an island where God was a pilot. What a great way to get babes!