Island of the Sequined Love Nun

find out a little more about this doctor before he went running out to this remote island. Maybe the reporter, Pardee, knew something.
    Tuck dressed quickly and went down to the desk, where Rindi was listening to a transistor radio with a speaker that sounded like it had been fashioned from wax paper. Someone was singing a Garth Brooks song in nasal Trukese accompanied by an accordion.
    "It sounds like someone's hurting animals." Tuck grinned.
    Rindi did not smile. "You going out?" Rindi was eager to get into Tuck's room and go through his luggage.
    "I need to find that reporter, Jefferson Pardee."
    Rindi looked as if he was going to spit. He said, "He at Yumi Bar all the time. That way." He pointed up the road toward town. "You need ride?"
    "How far is it?"
    "Maybe a mile. How long you be gone?" Rindi wanted to take his time, make sure he didn't miss any of Tuck's valuables.
    "I'm not sure. Do you lock the door at midnight or something?"
    "No, I come get you if you drunk."
    "I'll be fine. I'll be checking out in the morning. Can I get an eight o'clock wake-up call?"
    "No. No phone in room."
    "How about a wake-up knock?"
    "No problem."
    "Thanks." Tucker went out the front door and was nearly thrown back by the thickness of the air. The temperature had dropped to the mid-80s, but it felt as if it had gotten more humid. Everything dripped. The air carried the scent of rotting flowers.
    Tuck set off down the road and was soaked with sweat by the time he reached a rusted metal Quonset hut with a hand-painted sign that read YUMI BAR. The dirt parking lot was filled with Japanese beaters parked freestyle. A skeletal dog with open running sores, a crossbreed of dingo and sewer rat, cowered in the half-light coming through the door and looked at him as if pleading to be run over. Tuck's stomach lurched. He made a wide path around the dog, who looked down and resumed concentration on its suffering.
    "Hey, kid, you're not going in there, are you?"
    Tuck looked up. There was a cigarette glowing in the dark at the corner of the building. Tuck could just make out the form of a man standing there. He wore some kind of uniform-Tuck could see the silhouette of a captain's hat. Anywhere else Tuck might have ignored a voice in the dark, but the accent was American, and out here he was drawn to the familiarity of it. He'd heard it before.
    He said, "I thought I'd get a beer. I'm looking for an American named Pardee."
    The guy in the dark blew out a long stream of cigarette smoke. "He's in there. But you don't want to go in there right now. Wait a few minutes."
    Tuck was about to ask why when two men came crashing through the door and landed in the dirt at his feet. They were islanders, both screaming incomprehensibly as they punched and gouged at one another. The one on the top held a bush knife, a short machete, which he drew back and slammed into the other man's head, severing an ear. Blood sprayed on the dust.
    A stream of shouting natives spilled out of the bar, waving beer bottles and kicking at the fighters. Earless leaped to his feet and backed off to get a running attack at Bush Knife, who was rising to his feet. Earless hit him with a flying tackle as Bush Knife hacked at his ribs. A pickup truck full of policemen pulled into the parking lot and the crowd scattered into the dark and back into the bar, leaving the fighters rolling in the dirt. Six policemen stood over the fighters, slamming them with riot batons until they both lay still. The police threw the fighters into the bed of their truck, climbed in after them, and drove off.
    Tuck stood stunned. He'd never seen violence that sudden and raw in his life. Ten more seconds and he would have been in the middle of it instead of backpedaling across the parking lot.
    "Should be okay to go in now," said the voice from the dark.
    Tuck looked up, but he couldn't even see the cigarette glowing now. "Thanks," he said. "You sure it's okay?"
    "Watch your ass, kid," said the voice, and this time it seemed to come from above him. Tucker spun around, nearly wrenching his neck, but he couldn't see anyone. He shook off the confusion and headed into the bar.
    The skeletal dog crawled from under a truck, seized the severed ear from the dust, and slunk into the shadows. "Good dog," said the voice out of the dark. The dog growled, ready to protect its prize. A young man, perhaps twenty-four, dark and sharp-featured, dressed in a gray flight suit, stepped out of the shadows and bent to the