Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

favored by tropical tourists. The wig that went with the clothes was black and breast length. A stiffened straw pith helmet—again, a tourist favorite—and black-rimmed sunglasses completed Hannah’s outfit. He added a handful of makeup for the finishing touches. Ruthlessly he stuffed everything into the pith helmet.
    “Have you ever worn a wig?” he asked, holding helmet and all out to her.
    She stared at the black hair trying to crawl out of the pith helmet. “No. It looks hot.”
    “It is.”
    She glanced around. The coffee shop they were in held a few hardy tourists whose vacations hadn’t coincided with Broome’s cool, dry season. The rest of the people were locals who apparently had nothing better to do than smoke cigarettes and drink coffee or beer until the sun gave up its grip on the land. Seashell ashtrays overflowed, testament to the patrons’ grim dedication to killing time.
    “Bathrooms are back and to the left,” he said. “I’ll meet you out on the sidewalk.”
    Silently Hannah got up, leaving her coffee and a half-eaten roast beef sandwich behind. Archer stretched lazily, though his gray-green eyes searching the room were anything but indolent. No one so much as glanced in Hannah’s direction. He stood up, paid the bill, and went outside to wait.
    A flock of sulfur-crested cockatoos burst from a nearby tree and swooped upward, spinning and swirling like noisy white leaves on a storm wind. After a few minutes the birds vanished into the part of the sky where the sun’s burning disk transformed humidity into a blinding curtain of light.
    “The hat is too big,” Hannah said from behind him.
    “When my turn comes it will be too small.”
    She was still thinking that over when Archer led her to the front window of a tourist store, straightened her wig with a tug, and smiled at her haphazardly applied makeup. “You don’t wear makeup much, do you?”
    “In the rain forest, men wore the paint, not women.”
    He smiled. “And after the rain forest?”
    “Why bother? Makeup lasts about two minutes in the tropics.”
    “Not this stuff,” he said, holding up the duffel. “It’s waterproof.”
    “Miraculous,” she said with a total lack of interest. “How do you get it off?”
    “Oil. When we go in, pretend to be interested in the junk. But keep your sunglasses on. Your eye color is too unusual. Someone might remember it.” He thought of giving her the contacts now, and rejected it. There would be time enough later to introduce her to the tearful joys of contact lenses.
    Not to mention the basics of using makeup as both art form and disguise.
    Before Hannah could ask Archer why she was wearing bad makeup, a wig, and pith helmet, he walked two doors down—another bar—and vanished inside. He took the duffel with him.
    Dutifully she walked into the tourist trap and looked through the goods. There were the usual kangaroo and koala designs on everything from T-shirts to teaspoons. There was a heap of tropical shells gleaming in shades of white, cream, peach, vague gold, and every tone in between. Though many of the shells were quite beautiful, she wasn’t tempted to buy any. The shells were perfect, which meant they had been taken from living animals. She would rather find her shells on the beach, imperfect.
    The only thing that interested her even slightly was a display of pearls from Pinctada maxima, the most common Australian pearl oyster. The shell was as big as a turkey platter and colored inside like a gentle tropical dawn. The choker necklace resting on the shell was made of pearls as big as a thumbnail. And like a thumbnail, these pearls lacked the satin iridescence of a quality gem.
    On first look the necklace was flashy and a tremendous buy. On second look it rather resembled a tiny version of china eggs, the kind women once used for darning socks or fooling hens. On third look, the necklace was way overpriced. The pearls were big and fairly round, but their luster was dismal. Like chalk.
    “Need any help, luv?” asked the shopkeeper.
    Hannah turned around and saw a woman wearing hair an unlikely shade of red, a T-shirt proclaiming the joys of camel riding in the moonlight, and the kind of skin that came from fifty years of sunbathing. “Uh, well . . . ”
    “Oh, no,” Archer said from behind her. “You aren’t going to start whining about me buying you pearls again, are you?”
    The voice wasn’t like his usual one. It was higher, long-suffering, and grudgingly