The Heist

tropical island for fifty years from a destitute tribe that had dwindled in number to just a few dozen people. He paid most of the tribe to leave the island in favor of condos in Sulawesi, but he kept a few of them around to take care of him and fulfill his halfhearted promise to maintain their ancient burial grounds.
    Under the guise of developing the island as a resort, a requirement of the lease, he’d mowed down most of the tribe’s village and built a luxurious compound that architecturally mimicked the traditional Tongkonan style, which featured sharply curved bamboo roofs that looked like the top of Batman’s head.
    Griffin prominently displayed a stack of fifty water buffalo horns, a symbol of wealth and status in the Torajan culture, on the front of his house to let everyone know he was loaded. It was the Torajan equivalent of parking a Ferrari in the driveway. So the horns were a must, as was having a herd of living water buffalo around, just to remind everyone who was boss and inspire the requisite envy. It was like parading around Beverly Hills with a twenty-two-year-old trophy wife, or top model girlfriend, or both.
    He’d been well into the process of quietly moving his mostprized possessions from Los Angeles to the island, including his library of first editions and his collection of modern art, when Neal Burnside alerted him that his arrest was imminent. Griffin fled within the hour, and now here he was, halfway around the world, the king of his own tropical island, half a billion dollars tucked away in a secret bank account.
    Unfortunately Burnside’s paradise was missing a key ingredient. There were no women on the island, except his chef’s wife and the plain-looking tribeswomen who tended to his home and grounds, and they didn’t count. This sad state of affairs was very much on Griffin’s mind that morning as he sat on his veranda, eating his rice flour pancakes embellished with fruit, brown sugar, and coconut milk. He gazed out at the carved jackwood effigies of the dead that stared wide-eyed at him from their hand-chiseled alcoves in the mountain beside his house, and he felt his manly urges percolating. So much so that even the tribeswomen, who tended his fields in their caftans and straw hats, their lips scarlet with betel nut stain and their faces white with rice powder, were beginning to look desirable to him.
    That’s when Dumah, his property manager and head of security, came lumbering out onto the deck. He was a fierce-looking Torajan, part of a tribe that, in the not too distant past, were known as headhunters and slavers.
    “There’s a yacht dropping anchor in the cove,” Dumah said, and offered his boss a pair of high-powered binoculars.
    Griffin looked out at the cove. The yacht was new and nicely designed, but it had been strafed with bullets and the mast was missing its antennas. Some dumb, rich tourists who’d run into trouble, he thought. He was about to tell Dumah to send them away when he spotted the woman on the flybridge. She haddrastically bleached blond hair pulled up into a frizzed-out ponytail, a set of fun bags that could knock your eye out, and it looked like her ass was okay too. She was sort of wearing a crew uniform. He felt a stirring of desire, but not strong enough to risk letting whoever was on that yacht come onto his island.
    Griffin was ready to tell Dumah to give them the heave-ho when Kate walked into his line of vision, and it was like someone had just jolted him with defibrillator paddles. His heart nearly exploded out of his chiseled chest. She was wearing a thin red silk dress that was translucent in the bright sunlight, showing Griffin everything he’d been yearning for and more. And this creature of erotic delight had just been delivered to his door like a Domino’s pizza. He lowered his binoculars, licked the brown sugar from his lips, and thanked God for answering his unspoken prayers.
    “These people are in trouble,” Griffin said. “We’re going to help them.”
    Nick released the motorized dinghy that was attached to the stern and helped Kate and Willie get on board. Once they were settled, he fired up the outboard and steered them toward the beach. He could see some natives gathering on the white sand in their hand-woven straw hats and bootleg Ralph Lauren shirts. At least he hoped for Ralph’s sake the shirts were bootleg, because the oversize and misproportioned insignia looked like a monkey on a camel.
    Kate saw Griffin