Island of the Sequined Love Nun

saw Tucker standing in the window in his pajamas. He had given up waving to them after the fist hour of being ignored.
    He'd been in the one-room bungalow for four days now, but this was the fist time he'd felt well enough to get up and move around, other than to use the bathroom, which to his surprise, had hot and cold running water, a flush toilet, and a shower stall made of galvanized metal. The walls were tightly woven grass between a sturdy frame of teak and mahogany logs; the floor was unfinished teak, sanded smooth and pink; and the furniture was wicker with brightly colored cushions. A ceiling fan spun languidly above a double bed that was draped with a canopy of mosquito netting. The windows looked out on the compound and hangar on one side and through a grove of palm trees to the ocean on the other. He could see several bungalows perched near the beach, a small dock, and the cinder-block hospital building, its tin roof arrayed with antennae, solar electric panels, and a massive satellite dish.
    Tuck backed away from the window and sat down on the wicker couch. A few minutes on his feet and he felt exhausted. He was twenty pounds lighter than when he had left Houston and there wasn't a six-inch patch of skin on his body that didn't have some kind of bandage on it. The doc had said that between the cuts on his arms, knees, and scalp, he had taken a hundred sutures. The first time he looked in the little mirror in his bathroom, he thought he was looking at a human version of the mangy feral dog he'd seen on Truk. His blue eyes lay like dull ice in sunken brown crates and his cheeks were drawn into his face like a mummified bog man's. His hair had been bleached white by the sun and stuck out in straw-dry tufts between pink patches where the doctor had shaved his scalp to stitch him up. He took small comfort in the fact that there were no women around to see him. No real women, anyway. The doctor's wife, who came several times a day to bring him food or to change his bandages, seemed robotic, like some Stepford/Barbie hybrid with the smooth sexless carriage of a mannequin and a personality pulled out of an Eisenhower-era soap commercial. She made the straight-laced cosmetic reps from his past seem like a tribe of pillbox nympho hose hunters.
    There was a tap on the door and Beth Curtis breezed in carrying a wooden serving tray with plates of pancakes and fresh fruit. "Mr. Case, you're up. Feeling better today?"
    She set the tray down on the coffee table in front of him and stepped back. Today she was in pleated khaki pants and a white blouse with puffed shoulders. Her hair was tied back with a big white bow at the back of her neck. She might have just walked out of a Stewart Granger safari movie.
    "Yes, better," Tuck said, "But I wore myself out just walking to the window."
    "Your body is still fighting off the infection. The doctor will be by soon to give you some antibiotics. For now you need to eat." She sat on the chair across from him.
    Tuck cut a divot out of the stack of pancakes with a fork arid speared it through a piece of papaya. After the first bite, he realized how hungry he really was and began wolfing down the pancakes.
    Beth Curtis smiled. "Have you had a chance to look over the manuals for the airplane?"
    Tuck nodded, his mouth still full. She'd left the operations manuals on his bed two days ago. He'd leafed through them enough to know that he could fly the thing. He swallowed and said, "I used to fly a Lear 25 for Mary Jean. This one is a little faster and has longer range, but basically it's the same. Shouldn't be a problem."
    "Oh, good," she said, sporting one of her plastic smiles. "When will you be able to fly?"
    Tucker put down his fork. "MB. Curtis, I don't mean to be rude, but what in the hell is going on around here?"
    "Regarding what, Mr. Case?"
    "Well, fist, regarding the man I came to this island with. I was sick, but I wasn't hallucinating. We were strung up in a tree by an old native guy and cut down by a bunch of others. What happened to my friend?"
    She shifted in her chair, and the wicker crackled like snapping rat bones. "My husband told you what the islanders told us, Mr. Case. The natives live on the other side of the island. They have their own society, their own chief, their own laws. We try to take care of their medical needs and bring a few souls into the fold, but they are a private people. I'll ask them about your friend. If I find out anything, I'll let you know." She