Jackie Laurent had an office in the middle of town, just beside the cathédrale. Out of curiosity I went by and poked my head into his waiting room. There were half a dozen people fidgeting, so I backed out hastily. I called Tamara in Punaauia. She’d found her mother’s American passport, and an insurance policy for her car. It was a dark blue Mercedes diesel sedan, with year-old plates. I looked at my watch. It was only three o’clock, so I had the rest of the afternoon to kill. For two hours I walked up and down the streets of Papeete trying to spot a dark blue Mercedes. There were two of them in the parking lot that ran along the waterfront, but their plates were wrong and neither of them was a diesel.
At quarter after five I found my own Fiat and headed out to Faaa International Airport. Airport parking lots always have cars sitting around for long periods of time without attention being drawn to them. Parking at Faaa was directly in front of the terminal, with no attendants and no fees. In the middle of the parking lot there was the usual thatched-roof building, this one for the Tahitians who sold flower-and-shell leis to drape around the necks of airline passengers.
The blue Mercedes was parked about twenty feet away. It was locked. I peered inside but could see nothing useful. Tamara and I would have to locate some keys and come open it up.
I drove back to town, and a little beyond, to the suburb of Pirae where Dr. and Mrs. Laurent lived not far from the Hotel Taaone. I wondered gloomily if he were the house doctor.
Marie-France Laurent was a small girl with large breasts, a tiny waist, dead-white skin, raven-black hair, and a beaky nose. She would make a good witch when the boys and girls got tired of their straightforward swings and moved to Black Masses. Her husband the doctor seemed to be at least part-Tahitian. He was slim and delicate, with fine features and long brown hair that fell to his shoulders. They were both in their early thirties.
“This is most upsetting,” said Jackie in highly cultivated French with just a trace of the Tahitian manner of rolling the R’s. “Naturally we’ll tell you anything we can to help you. Danielle is simply so wonderful!” His hand held me firmly by the shoulder.
“Very kind of you,” I said uncomfortably. If Jackie was a little gay for Chatoune Tchen’s advanced tastes, he was way too gay for poor old LaRoche’s benighted ones. I turned to Marie-France, who was sitting on the other side of me on the sofa, and managed to disengage his hand. “You’re close friends with Mrs. Payton?”
“Oh yes,” she said softly. “We’re like that. That’s why I know that this is no joke.”
“Exactly,” said Jackie. “The three of us are like sisters. Danielle would never do such a thing, even to torment that husband of hers, without telling us all about it.”
“She isn’t a secretive woman?” I asked.
Jackie cocked his head to consider. “Secretive? No, not at all. On the contrary, very open, especially with us. She and Marie-France share everything.” Marie-France smiled wanly at the memories. Jackie frowned, as if I’d questioned his word. “But she is discreet, of course. All of us…in our little circle are discreet, you know. Even in Tahiti there are standards.”
“Don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.”
His laugh tinkled. “Oh you! What was I saying, dear?”
“That something must have happened to Danielle,” said Marie-France soberly. “You say you’ve found her passport, so she hasn’t left Tahiti. She is…well, frankly, too much of a blabbermouth to keep any kind of a hoax like that a secret.” She leaned forward, and her gaze held mine. She was obviously genuinely concerned. “We love Danielle very dearly, Monsieur LaRoche, even if she is a little…flighty on occasions. Something here—” she placed a hand on her breast “—tells me she is in trouble. Very serious trouble. Find her. Please.”
It was over-dramatic, even ridiculous, but convincing. I spread my hands helplessly. “I’m a former policeman, Mrs. Laurent, not a storybook private detective. As soon as I’m just a touch more certain there might have been a kidnapping I’ll advise her daughter to go to the authorities at once. This is a small island, crawling with police of one kind or another. It would be impossible to hide a kidnap victim for very long.”
“If she’s alive,” said Jackie judiciously. “A body is a lot easier to hide.”
“Oh, Jackie!” wailed Marie-France, and burst into tears. She ran from the room. Jackie shook his head dolefully but made no move to follow. For the fortieth time I wondered what their relationship was.
“Chatoune said Mrs. Payton might have a Tahitian boyfriend she didn’t bring around to the parties, Dr. Laurent. Do you know who that might be?”
He frowned delicately. “Hiro? Of course she has a boyfriend: Hiro. A very handsome fellow, very, very handsome.”
“You know him then?” I asked, wondering just whose boyfriend Hiro actually was.
“Of course! He’s come here several times with Danielle for…intimate little evenings, just the four of us, you understand?” He smiled reminiscently.
“That’s very helpful,” I said. “What’s his last name?”
“Oh dear. He’s just Danielle’s…animal: young, large, muscular, dumb. He can hardly talk. Purely a…sexual object, you know what I mean?” He blinked at me inquiringly.
“I think so,” I said wearily. “So you don’t know his name. What about where to find him?”
He pondered. “Well,” he said at last, “I really shouldn’t tell tales out of school, but this Hiro brute is more than a little gay. I mean, aside from our own little evenings together, I know I’ve seen him around with some of the gay crowd.”
“Hrmph.” I considered. “Is there a gay bar in Tahiti? Or a place where they hang out?”
He told me where to go, and after thanking him I took my leave. Once in the car I shook my head in wonder. So Hiro was servicing Mrs. Payton on the one hand and swishing around with the gays on the other: it was almost beginning to seem normal to me. No wonder they say that travel is broadening.
* * * *
I had a question of two for Bob West and I drove by the hotel but the Wests had already left for the night. So I went back to the car and drove through the night to Danielle Payton’s home in Punaauia.
The servants had returned home for the night, and I found Tamara sitting alone and depressed in the dark. I switched on a table lamp. The floor around her was covered with shredded Kleenex. I sat down beside her and patted her hand. “Let’s go out to the kitchen,” I said, “and you can make me the world’s largest drink, and I’ll cook us the world’s greatest dinner.”
“You can cook?” she asked without any great interest.
“I grew up in a three-star French restaurant, there’s nothing I don’t know about French food.” Which didn’t answer the question of whether I could cook or not.
At least I can burn an omelet as easy as the next fellow, so while I fiddled with eggs I drank whiskey and gave her an abridged edition of the afternoon’s events, tried to answer her questions, and finally listened to her tell me about growing up with Charles Wentworth Payton and his wife Danielle. Mostly it seemed to be twenty-two years of traveling, from their duplex apartment—and later their town house—in New York to the ranch in New Mexico, to the pied-à-terre in Rome, to the house in Tahiti, and back again, with stops in between. “Now he’s even got his own 727,” she said without relish.
“Which reminds me: where’s that passport?” I asked, flipping the first omelet over in the pan. She padded off to get it, and while we ate the eggs and French bread I browsed through it. Danielle Payton, I learned, was 43 years old, born in Traverse City, Michigan, and female. She had written in her address as B.P. 451, Papeete, Tahiti, and in case of emergency asked that her daughter, Tamara, at Stanford University, Stanford, California, be notified. The pages were crowded with immigration frankings from all over the world, and there were annual multiple-entry visas from the local Tahitian authorities for the past three years.
I studied her black-and-white photograph, but like most passport pictures the harsh lighting exaggerated her features. It was hard to tell whether she was attractive or not, and whether she somehow seemed familiar to me.
I tapped the passport on the table. “She lists you as the person to notify.” Tamara gulped noisily.
“I…I saw that. I told you…she hates my father.”
“Well, that’s none of my business. I think. Will you be all right here alone? We could get you a room at the hotel.”
“Alone?” Her eyes widened.
“There’s some people I want to track down,” I said evasively. “It may be very late before I find them. If I don’t call you by eleven tonight I’ll call early tomorrow morning. All right?”
She nodded, her eyes lowered. “What do you really think, Mr. LaRoche?” she asked in a mournful voice.
“Rocky,” I said automatically, studying the remains of my half-eaten omelet. “I don’t think it looks too good,” I said after a while. There was a long silence.
“But it’s not hopeless,” I added. “We know her car is at the airport, and you don’t need a passport to go to Moorea or any of the other islands. So there’s always the chance she could have hopped over to Bora-Bora for a couple of weeks and the guy on the phone is just making a bad joke. Maybe I’ll learn something tonight. I’m going to ask Bob West to contact all the hotels in all the outer islands.…” I got to my feet.
“So maybe…maybe…?” Her eyes glistened.
I nodded fractionally. She rose blindly to her feet and came to me. Her head burrowed into my chest. Her back trembled beneath my hands. After a moment she pushed herself away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Find her, Mr. LaRoche. Please.”