Island of the Sequined Love Nun

and Palau States. What are you going all the way over there for?"
    "Like I say, special order. Moen has jet fuel, we here in Moen, doctor wants jet fuel soon, so we go. I like it. I never been Alualu and I know a girl on Ulithi."
    Pardee couldn't help but smile. This was a story in itself. Not a big one, but when the Trader or the Spirit changed schedules it made the paper. But there was more of a story somewhere in those barrels of jet fuel, in the rumor of armed guards, and in the two pilots that had passed through Truk on the way to No One's Island. The question for Pardee was: Did he want to track it down? Could he track it down?
    "When do you sail?" he asked the mate.
    "Tomorrow morning. We get drunk together tonight Yumi Bar. My boys carry you home if you want. Hey?" The mate laughed.
    Pardee felt sick. That was what they knew him for, a fat, drunken white man who they could carry home and then tell stories about.
    "I can't drink tonight. I'm sailing with you in the morning. I've got to get ready."
    The mate removed the betel nut cud from his cheek and tossed it into the sea, where tiny yellow fish rose to nip at it. He eyed Pardee suspiciously. "You going to leave Truk?"
    "It's not that big a deal. I've gone off-island before for a story."
    "Not in ten years I sail the Spirit."
    "Do you have room for another passenger or not?"
    "We always have room. You know you have to sleep on deck?"
    Pardee was beginning to get irritated. He needed a beer. "I've done this before."
    The mate shook his head as if clearing his ears of water and laughed. "Okay, we sail six in morning. Be on dock at five."
    "When do you come back this way?"
    "A month. You can fly from Yap if you don't want to come back with us."
    "A month?" He'd have to get someone to run the paper while he was gone. Or maybe not. Would anyone even notice he was gone?
    Pardee said, "I'll see you in the morning. Don't get too drunk."
    "You too," the mate said.
    Pardee made his way down the dock, feeling every bit of his two hundred and sixty pounds. By the time he made it back to the street, he was soaked with sweat and yearning for a dark air-conditioned bar. He shook off the craving and headed for the Catholic high school to ask the nuns if they had any bright students who might keep the paper running in his absence.
    He was going to do it, dammit. He'd be on the dock at five if he had to stay up all night drinking to do it.

29 – Safe in the Hands of Medicine
    "How are you feeling today?" Sebastian Curtis pulled the sheet down to Tuck's knees and lifted the pilot's hospital gown. Tucker flinched when the doctor touched the catheter. "Better," Tuck said. "That thing is itching, though."
    "It's healing." The doctor palpated the Iymph nodes in Tucker's crotch. His hands were cold and Tuck shivered at the touch. "The infection is subsiding. This happened to you in the plane crash?"
    "I fell back on some levers while I was trying to get a passenger out of the plane."
    "The hooker?" The doctor didn't look up from his work.
    Tuck wanted to throw the sheets over his head and hide. Instead, he said, "I don't suppose it would make a difference if I said I didn't know she was a hooker."
    Sebastian Curtis looked up and smiled; his eyes were light gray flecked with orange. With his gray hair and tropical tan, he could have been a retired general, Rommel maybe. "I'm not really concerned with what the woman was doing there. What does concern me is that you had been drinking. We can't have that here, Mr. Case. You may have to fly on a moment's notice, so you won't be able to drink or indulge in any other chemical diversions. I assume that won't pose a problem."
    "No. None," Tuck said, but he felt like he'd been hit with a bag of sand. He'd been craving a drink since he'd regained consciousness. "By the way, Doc, since we're going to be doing business together, maybe you should call me Tucker."
    "Tucker it is," Curtis said. "And you can call me Dr. Curtis." He smiled again.
    "Swell. And your wife's name is?"
    "Mrs. Curtis."
    "Of course."
    The doctor finished his examination and pulled the sheet back up to Tuck's waist. "You should be on your feet in a few days. We'll move you to your bungalow this afternoon. I think you'll find everything you need there, but if you do need anything, please let us know."
    A gin and tonic, Tuck thought. "I'd like to find out what happened to the guy who was piloting my boat."
    "As I told you, the islanders found you and a few pieces of your