A blazing sun glinted from a cloudless cobalt sky on the broad sweep of the gray ocean, and spread out below was a sizeable portion of the island of Tahiti. The city of Papeete and its U-shaped harbor nestled at the foot of the hills off to my left, and to my right rugged mountains reared high into the sky. The volcanic peaks of the sister island of Moorea a few miles across the channel dominated the horizon, looking as artificial as a movie lot’s backdrop, or as jagged as a stegosaurus’s back, depending on your flight of fancy. A fresh breeze caressed my face, and the mountain’s smell of eucalyptus was everywhere.
It was hard to credit the reality of the events of the night before. But my shirt still hung from the branch where I’d left it, and I stood on the roadside where I’d held Mareta in my arms. Except now I could see the dried pool of blood where she’d been kneeling when I found her.
I couldn’t locate the spot the car had gone over, or where she’d climbed back up, but it didn’t make much difference. Her feat was breathtaking wherever she’d done it. It was hard to judge because of the tangle vegetation and the occasional tree growing precariously out from the hillside, but it looked as if the mountainside plunged off at a 50 or 60-degree angle at the very least. It would have been a hard, dangerous climb for a fit man in broad daylight. In the dark, concussed and in shock, with broken ribs and shoulders, it must have been a nightmare. The gendarmes had figured that it had taken her at least three hours to claw and fight her way perhaps fifty yards up to the road. I tried to put myself in her place, and I could feel the hairs suddenly standing up on my arms as my flesh goose-pimpled. I marveled anew at the human spirit and the wonders it could perform.
I walked back to the car. It was time for a drink.
* * * *
My bungalow was one of a dozen or so scattered around the tropical gardens of the Hotel Taaone. It was built of bamboo, had a high thatched roof, and a lot of screening, evidently to keep in the mosquitos the maids enticed in every morning when they made up the room. I changed into my bathing suit, slapping at random at the infuriating mosquitos, grabbed a towel, then walked through the banana trees and hibiscus and bougainvillea and coconut palms to the black sand beach of the Commune of Pirae.
The hotel’s main buildings were next to the beach, more bamboo and thatch structures. There was a large sunny terrace with tables between the restaurant and the bar, which was a small building nearly hidden by crotons and hibiscus. A couple of coconut trees grew on the terrace, their fronds swaying gently in the sea breezes. The nearly nude figures of half a dozen lithe young local girls of various racial origins lay stretched out tanning in the sun. I glanced at them wistfully. Their bare breasts were varying shades of white, gold, brown, and café-au-lait. All of them were pleasant to contemplate. The life of an expatriate American hotel owner no longer seemed as trying as it had the night before.
I saw the owner in question sitting at a corner table in the shade of some bamboo plants and sketched a greeting. He was talking with two attractive women in scanty bikinis, so I continued on my way to the beach. He waved me over. I exchanged cautious smiles with the ladies as Bob bounced lightly to his feet and pulled out a chair.
“Come and join us. This is my wife, Susan, and this is a friend of ours, Hinano. This is Mr. LaRoche, pronounced ‘LaRock.’”
“Alain’s the first name,” I added, “pronounced ‘Alan.’ Just to confuse it further.” I reached over to shake hands with Susan and Hinano. “Most people just call me Rocky—it’s simpler.”
“Rock-y,” said Susan slowly, chewing over the syllables as if they were sounds of an unknown language. “How nice. You look familiar, Rocky. Do I know you from somewhere?” She stared at me with the directness of a child, a tall, thinnish blonde in her late thirties with enormous brown eyes and a wide sensuous mouth. Her ash-blond hair was long and straight, in the fashion of the sixties. My first impression of her was that she was slightly simple. Or spaced out, as the kids said these days. Something about her nagged at the back of my mind.
“I hope you don’t know me,” I bantered. “I used to be a policeman, and I didn’t meet very many nice people that way.”
“A…policeman?” Her eyes widened. “How…exciting. In…Philadelphia?”
“Philadelphia?” I cocked my head at her, perplexed. “No. San Francisco. Why Philadelphia?” I kicked myself mentally and held up a hand. “Sorry. That’s just a policeman’s old habits: asking questions. It’s hard to stop. I won’t do it again.”
She looked at me seriously. “It’s just that I’m from Philadelphia. I thought if I’d seen you before it must have been there.”
I smiled what I hoped was disarmingly. “Of course. I’m slow today.” Bob ordered a beer from a passing waitress, and I raised my eyebrows at the other girl, Hinano, who was sipping delicately at a lemonade.
“Is that a coincidence?” I said to her in French. “The beer’s called Hinano, and so are you. Or are all lovely things in Tahiti called Hinano?” You can say things in French that would leave a stevedore blushing with embarrassment in English.
I could hear Bob snort into his drink, but Hinano smiled readily. “I suppose it must be simple coincidence,” she said mock-seriously. “The hinano is the flower of the fara, which is the pandanus tree. The roof of the restaurant there is made from the leaves of the pandanus.”
I didn’t know whether she was pulling my leg or not, so I grinned fatuously. “Now I’ve learned something. I knew it would be educational coming to Tahiti.”
“Is that the only thing you’ve learned in Tahiti?” she asked roguishly. Our eyes met and held. She was a good-looking girl somewhat younger and shorter than Susan West, with a lush figure. She seemed to be in her late twenties. She had skin the color of old ivory and brown hair cut short page-boy fashion, but spoke educated French with a Tahitian accent, so I judged her to be of mixed French and Tahitian blood. She wore a tiny blue bikini that left none of her assets to the imagination, and I have a good imagination.
“With the right teacher,” I said, “I think I’d be ready to learn any number of things.”
She laughed coquettishly. The waitress brought my beer, and Susan West leaned across to grip my wrist with long, delicate fingers. “Bob was telling us about your horrible experience last night. How terrible it must have been for that poor girl. Do you know how she is? Did they find her husband? What are they going to do to him?”
I told them what I knew, and described what I’d seen earlier that morning, high in the hills. Susan shook her head somberly. “How really terrible. How can people do those things?”
We sat silent for a moment. “Do you know their names?” asked Hinano.
I thought back. “Patrick is the name of the guy, no trouble there. The girl’s name is something Tahitian, and their last name is something Tahitian I didn’t get at all. Let’s see. Mateta?”
“Mareta?” said Hinano. “That’s a Tahitian name.”
“Mareta.” I turned it over in my mind. “That’s it.”
Bob West turned to look at his wife. “Didn’t we meet a couple named Patrick and Mareta once? She was sort of a slim, good-looking half-Tahitian?”
“With sort of a sexy face?” said Susan. She looked at me.
“Could be,” I admitted. “Her face wasn’t in very good shape when I saw it.”
Hinano shuddered. “That’s awful. It sounds to me like it could be Patrick and Mareta Atatia.”
“It does,” agreed Bob. “Wasn’t she from the Marquesas?”
“Oh dear,” said Susan. “She’s probably all alone there, with no one to look after her. You know what that hospital’s like. I’m going to go find out if it’s really her.” She stood up decisively and I followed suit. “Bob?”
He climbed to his feet reluctantly. “Yeah, maybe we should. Sorry to leave you, Rocky, but visiting hours are at noon.” He patted his belly. “I can afford to skip lunch once in a while. Can you take care of Hinano for us?”
I raised my brows at her. “Do you need taking care of?”
She giggled. “Lots.” She stood up, and I felt a pang of disappointment. But it was only to kiss Bob and Susan on both cheeks. “If it is Mareta, say hello to her for me,” she said. “I’ll be by sometime to see her. Tell me how she looks. I just couldn’t stand seeing her all bloody and sewn up, with pieces of thread and tubes sticking out of her. Ugh!” She gulped her lemonade.
“Nice meeting you,” I said to Susan as she gathered up her things. “You remind me of someone too, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“I…do?” Her eyes seemed startled.
“But it can’t be anyone I’ve met,” I said gallantly. “I’d remember anyone as beautiful as you.”
Her eyes disappeared behind polarized sunglasses. “Just as long as it’s not one of your awful criminals,” she said seriously.
Bob smiled indulgently and patted her arm fondly. “Let’s go, dear. Bye, guys.”
Hinano and I were still standing after the Wests had left.
“I think you like finding naked girls on the road,” she said.
“Not nearly as much as I like finding half-naked girls on the terrace.” We looked over each other’s body appraisingly. “How about a swim? There’s not much else we’re dressed for. You can give me my first lessons in the dangers of the lagoon.”
She smiled in the direction of the bare-breasted girls sprawled on the terrace and black sands. “The biggest danger is the man-eaters. I’ll try to keep them away from you.”
I took her by the elbow. Her bare flesh glowed with heat. “Maybe after lunch we can find a beach with less of a crowd on it and get to know each other a little better,” I suggested.
She considered this. “It is Saturday, and I guess I could teach you to body-surf,” she conceded. “So why not?”
After lunch we drove halfway around the island to a secluded beach that was hidden from the road by fifty yards of thick growth. There was no protective barrier reef beyond, and the long Pacific waves rolled in languidly to crash against the grainy black sand. Further down the beach a couple of sun-blackened Tahitian boys rode the surf in on homemade boards.
We spread out brightly colored pareo cloths, and Hinano slipped matter-of-factly out of her bikini top. The firm, sharply pointed breasts were the same lovely ivory as the rest of her body. She handed me the bottle of perfumed coconut oil and stretched out on her belly. “Oil me,” she ordered. “All over. Then I’ll do you.”
I took a long time rubbing the clear oil deep into the warmth of her back and buttocks. When I reached the soft yielding flesh of her upper thighs she wriggled sensuously and made no move to avoid my hands. I massaged her shoulders until she murmured lazily, “If I were a little pussy cat now, I’d be purring like crazy.” She rolled over.
I poured more oil into my hands and placed them firmly on her breasts. As I worked the oil in, I could feel her nipples stiffen against my palms. She bit her lip and moaned softly. My hands moved down to her taut belly. She sat up with a smile and took the bottle from me. “I better finish it myself, before I faint and leave you with another body on your hands. We came here to go body-surfing, remember? Maybe after dinner and dancing I’ll let you finish what you started.”
“It’s never too late,” I agreed.
“I’ve never gone dancing with a policeman before. I can see now that you really are one.”
“How’s that?” I asked, puzzled.
She grinned slyly at the tautness of my trunks. “You brought your nightstick with you.” She reached over to pat it lightly. “Don’t misplace it so you can’t find it again.” She laughed happily and ran down to plunge fearlessly into the surf.