Island of the Sequined Love Nun

island, and you must show it to me before you cut it. Now, who has an ax?"
    Everyone knew who owned axes, but nobody volunteered. Malink chose one of the young Vincents. "You, go get your ax." Then to Sarapul he said: "Why do you need to cut a tree?"
    Sarapul considered holding out, but decided that a credible lie would be better. "My house is falling down from the girl-man climbing in the rafters."
    It was the wrong answer to give in front of a group of men whose houses had been rifled only hours ago. Malink cradled his head in his hands.

    The toughest part of the landing for Tuck was restraining himself from leaping out of the seat and demanding high-fives from the woman. It was perfect. He was back. Never mind the ghosts, the talking bats, the three-hour flight with a woman who could have been the model for the new Multiple Personality Barbie. She's elegant, she's fashionable, and she's the reason that Ken has no genitals! Have fun, but remember to hide the sharp stuff? Never mind all that. He was a pilot.
    They were somewhere in southern Japan, a small jetport, probably private, with no tower and only a few hangars. Tuck had gotten them there by following the nav computer, which, he found in mid-flight, had only two coordinates programmed into it: Alualu and this airfield.
    "What happens if we have a problem and have to divert?" he asked Beth.
    "Don't worry about it," she said. She had spent most of the flight grilling him about the navigational instruments, as if she wanted to know enough to be able to check the course herself. He complied, feeling insulted by the whole conversation.
    Another Lear was spooling up on the tarmac and Beth Curtis instructed him to taxi to it. As the jet bumped to a stop and he prepared to shut down, she pulled her briefcase and cooler out of the overhead and fumed to him. "Stay here. We'll take off in a few minutes."
    "What about loading supplies?"
    "Mr. Case, please just prepare the plane for departure. I won't be long."
    Two men in blue coveralls crossed the tarmac from the other jet and lowered the hatch for her. Tuck watched out the window as she met a third Japanese man in a white lab coat. She handed him the cooler and a folder from the briefcase, then traded bows with him and quickstepped back to the Lear. One of the men in blue coveralls followed her into the plane with a cardboard box, which he strapped into one of the passenger seats.
    "Domo," Beth Curtis said.
    He bowed quickly, left the plane, and sealed the hatch. She stashed the briefcase in the overhead again climbed into the copilot's seat.
    "Let's go."
    "That's it?"
    "That's it. Let's go."
    "We should top off the fuel tanks while we're here."
    "I understand why you might be a little nervous about that Mr. Case, but we have plenty of fuel to make it back."
    "One box. That's all we're picking up?"
    "One box."
    "What's in it?"
    "It's a case of '78 Bordeaux. Sebastian loves it. Let's go."
    "But I have to use the bathroom. I thought…"
    "Hold it," Beth Curtis said.
    "Bitch."
    "Exactly. Now don't you need to do your checklist thingy?"

37 – Bombs and Bribes
    The itching started a week after the first flight. It began on his scalp and a few days later, as the wounds on his arms, legs, and genitals healed, Tucker would have stripped off his skin to escape it. If there had been some other distraction, something to do besides sit in his bungalow waiting to be called for a flight, it might have been bearable, but now the doctor came only once a day to check on him, and he hadn't seen Beth Curtis since they landed. He read spy novels, listened to the country western radio station out of Guam until he thought that if he heard one more wailing steel guitar, he'd rip the rest of his hair out. Sometimes he lay under the mosquito netting, acutely aware of his comatose member, and tried to think of all the women he had had, one by one, then all the women he had ever wanted, including actresses, models, and famous figures from history (the Marilyn Monroe/Cleopatra double-team-in-warm-pudding scenario kept him distracted for almost an hour). Twice a day he cooked himself a meal. The doctor had set him up with a double hot plate and a pantry full of canned goods, and occasionally one of the guards dropped off a parcel of fruit or fresh fish. Mostly, though, he itched.
    Tuck tried to engage Sebastian Curtis in conversation, but there were few subjects about which the missionary was not evasive, and most reminded him that he had left