Island of the Sequined Love Nun

to talk and smelled tobacco smoke from their cigarettes. Then he tiptoed to the bathroom and made his escape.
    He half-expected the shower bottom to be nailed down. Beth Curtis had used it to escape only this morning. Maybe she hadn't figured that he knew about it. No, she was nuts, but she wasn't stupid. She knew he knew. She even knew that he knew she knew. So why hadn't she told Sebastian? And she hadn't said anything about their little detour to Guam either-or maybe she had. Sebastian hadn't sent a big post-flight check like before. Tuck made a mental note to ask the doc about the check the next time they were on the golf course.
    For now he snatched up his flippers and mask and headed for the beach. Before entering the water, he pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket-antibiotics left over from his dickrot-and made sure that the cap was on tight. This might be the only chance he'd have to get medicine to Kimi.
    He swam around the minefield and went straight into the village and down the path toward Sarapul's house. Women and children were still sitting around outside their houses, the women weaving on small looms by kerosene lantern, the children playing quietly or finishing up dinners off banana leaf plates. Only the smallest children looked at Tuck as he passed. The women turned away, determined, it seemed, not to make eye contact with the strange American. Yet there was no alarm in their actions and no fear, just a concerted effort to not notice him. Tuck thought, This must be what New York was like before the white man came. And with that in mind, he stared at a spot in the path exactly twelve feet in front of him and denied their existence right back. It was better this way. He never knew when he might have to fly one of their body parts to Japan.
    He made his way quickly up the path and soon he could see a glow near Sarapul's house. He broke into the clearing and saw the old cannibal and Kimi sitting around a fire, working on something. Sewing, it looked like.
    "Kimi," Tuck said, "you shouldn't be up."
    Kimi looked up from his work. There was a huge piece of blue nylon draped over his and Sarapul's laps. "I feel better. You fixed me, boss."
    Tuck handed him the pills. "Take two of these now and two a day until they're gone."
    "Sarapul give me kava. It make the hurt stop."
    "These aren't for the hurt. These are for infection. Take them, okay?"
    "Okay, boss. You want to help?"
    "'What are you guys making?"
    "I'll show you." Kimi started to rise and his face twisted with pain.
    Sarapul pushed him back down. "I will show." The old cannibal snatched up the kerosene lantern and gestured for Tuck to follow him into the jungle.
    Tuck looked back at Kimi. "You take those pills. And don't move around much, I'm not sure how well those stitches will hold. You had a big hole in you."
    "Okay, boss."
    Sarapul disappeared into the jungle. Tuck ran after him and almost ran him over coming out of a patch of small banana trees into an area that cleared into walking trees, mangroves, and palms. About fifty yards ahead, Sarapul stopped near the beach. He stood by what appeared to be a large fallen tree, but when Tuck got closer he saw it was a long sailing canoe. Sarapul grinned up at Tuck, the light from the lamp making him appear like some demon from the dark island past. "The palu-the navigator-he make. I help." Sarapul ran the light down the length of the canoe. Tuck could see that one of the tall gunwales was darkened and glazed with age, while the other had been hewn recently and was bright yellow. He could smell the fresh wood sap.
    There was an outrigger the size of a normal canoe and a platform across the struts. As canoes went, it was a huge structure, and hewing the hull from a single piece of wood with hand tools had taken an incredible amount of work, not to mention skill.
    "Kimi did this? This is gorgeous."
    Sarapul nodded, his eyes catching the fire of the lamp. "This boat broken since before the time of Vincent. Kimi is great navigator."
    "He is?" Tuck had his doubts, given the storm, but then again, as Kimi had said, they had survived a typhoon in a rowboat. And this craft was no accident; this was a piece of art. "So you guys are sewing a sail for this?"
    "We finish soon. Then palu will teach me to sail. The Shark People will go to sea again."
    "Where'd you get the nylon for the sail? I can't see Dr. Curtis thinking this is a good idea."
    Sarapul climbed into the canoe and dug under a stack of paddles and