The Paradise Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  It was early afternoon when he reached the old temple, although he would not have recognized it as such if it hadn’t been for a pair of landmarks given him by Bannister—a stunted kukui tree growing atilt between two spike-like rocks, and the arrowhead-shaped ledge jutting out into the sea. There might have been cliffs here at one time, but molten lava had flattened them down into a long, wide slope ridged and humped and strewn with huge black boulders.

  From the road he could see the blowhole in the ledge’s outer end, and below that a sandy beach neither black nor white but a dark gray. A strong offshore wind blew here and the sea had roughened under its lash; tidewater mixed with air boiled into the seaward end of what Bannister had described as a blowhole—a funnel-like tube on a wide flattened section beneath the ledge—and sent spray geysering a hundred feet into the air. The falling water drenched the rocks there, made them glisten like black glass.

  Quincannon ground-hitched the donkey near the kukui tree. Nearby was an ancient trail leading down to the temple, but it was barely discernible; some exploration was required before he found it. The descent was gradual, but the sharp-edged lava rock made for poor footing and slow progress. As he neared the ledge, the roar and gurgle of the spouting blowhole was thunderous.

  A flattish, inland extension of the ledge serpentined in among the overhanging rocks. There, hidden from the road, was where he found the ruins of the heiau.

  All that remained standing were sections of the outer walls. Entry forbidden to natives by Polynesian law, Bannister had told him. Ancient superstitions meant nothing to Quincannon, or nothing to which he would admit in the light of day. He discovered a passage between two of the sections, followed it into an open expanse some fifty rods in diameter. The ground was uneven, littered with sharp rocks. Flat volcanic slabs, cracked and broken, appeared to have been arranged by hand at its rear—the old sacrificial stones. Nothing remained of the huts or idols that had once been displayed here.

  He prowled the ruins for a time, finding nothing to have inspired the crude map or the cryptic word “auohe.” There were several narrow, tight-fitting openings into the maze of rocks, one or more of which might have been man-made, but attempting to explore them with no more than a packet of lucifers was a fool’s errand. He would need a lantern or a supply of candles for that chore. And exploration wouldn’t be necessary if he could get his hands on Lonesome Jack Vereen without incident at the Millay ranch.

  He climbed back up to the road and into the wagon, gigged the Kona nightingale into a fresh trot. It was a short distance to where the ranch road, marked by a weathered sign and a track worn smooth by countless wheels and hoofs, wound upward through a desolate landscape toward the brooding presence of the volcano.

  The ascent was sharp and steady, curling through lava beds where the wagon’s wheels churned up a powdery black grit that clogged Quincannon’s nostrils and streaked his sweating face. Then it passed through the kiawe forest, a long jungly stretch in which the trees, none more than dozen feet in height, were so closely packed that their bare, thorn-laden branches had interwoven to form an impassable tangle on both sides of the road.

  Once he emerged from the forest, the grasslands began. The wind that blew at this higher elevation was cooler by several degrees and carried the smell of grass and mountain instead of the sea. Quincannon’s spirits rose. The lethargy produced by the long, hot ride began to ease.

  Eventually the road debouched into a small, verdant valley. The pastureland here was spotted with longhorn cattle, lean and somewhat stunted by comparison to the burly variety raised on California and Southwestern ranches. At the far end, set among a broad half circle of trees, he spied the ranch buildings. He adjusted the holstered Navy on his hip, smiling thinly in anticipation, when the Kona nightingale clattered him into the ranch yard. The prospect of action, especially after a long trek, always had a limbering effect on his liver.

  The ranch house, he saw as he drew near, was a long, low structure of native lumber with hand-squared log walls and a palm-thatch roof; its porch, open on three sides, was green-shadowed by the branches of a huge monkeypod tree. The visible windows had glass panes that caught the lowering rays of the sun and threw back a fiery dazzle. Several cattle pens and a corral constructed of thick bamboo poles stretched south of the house. Several outbuildings were also visible, among them a stable, dairy barn, and what was likely a bunkhouse for the hands.

  Two Hawaiian cowboys clad in sweat-soaked shirts, chaps, and boots were working a pair of horses inside the corral, both animals small and wiry like Indian mustangs and marked with white pinto splotches. Another paniolo stood inside the open doors to a blacksmith’s shop next to the stable, using a pair of heavy nippers on another horse’s hoof. There was no sign of anyone at the main house.

  Quincannon drew up at the far end of the yard, nearer the stable. The two paniolos in the corral stopped their work and came over to stand silently watching from the fence. The one in the smithy looked up but did not lower either the nippers or his animal’s hoof as Quincannon approached him.

  The cowhand was middle-aged, sinewy, with an expressionless face sunburned to the hue of old mahogany. Quincannon stopped at a sidewise angle in the doorway so that he could see the corral and the house beyond.

  “Aloha,” he said. This seemed to be the standard Islands greeting. “You wouldn’t be the luna, by any chance? Sam Opaka?”

  “No. You want Sam?”

  “My business is with James Varner.”

  The name produced no reaction. The paniolo finished cutting away heavy cartilage, then picked up a wood rasp to smooth the edges and keep the hoof from splitting.

  “James Varner,” Quincannon said again, more sharply.

  “Don’t know him.”

  “Mr. Millay’s friend from San Francisco. Arrived with him on Sunday.”

  “Mr. Millay got no malihini friend here.”

  “Tall man, slender, with a mane of silver hair.”

  The paniolo shrugged. “Never see nobody look like that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure. Nobody with Mr. Millay when he come back Monday.”

  Quincannon stared at him. What was this, now? A lie or evasion, for some reason? If it was the truth, where the devil was Lonesome Jack Vereen?

  16

  QUINCANNON

  Scowling, he asked the paniolo, “Is Mr. Millay here now?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where would I find him?”

  “Main house, maybe.”

  “And his sister?”

  “Miss Grace out riding with Sam Opaka. Back pretty soon.”

  Quincannon left him to his chore and crossed the yard to the ranch house. It was almost tolerably cool in the shade of the monkeypod. The front door stood open behind a fly screen; he rattled his knuckles on the screen’s frame. When this produced no response he used the heel of his hand to make a louder summons.

  A voice from the gloom within called out thickly, “Mele! See who that is!”

  Quincannon waited. After a minute or so, when no one appeared, he pounded on the frame again.

  “Mele!” Then: “Dammit, who’s making all that racket out there?”

  “Stanton Millay?”

  “… I don’t want to see anybody. Go away.”

  Quincannon did the opposite: he opened the screen and stepped inside. Once his eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, he saw that he was in a large room whose rough-hewn walls were decorated with tapa cloth on which were displayed notched war clubs and a pair of crossed spears with polished wood shafts and ivory barbs. An assortment of other pagan objects—carved idols, feathered fetishes, calabashes made from coconut husks—were arranged on pieces of furniture made of native lumber and on woven mats that covered the floor.

  In one of three chairs a young, medium-sized man with a mop of wheat-colored hair sat slumped on his spine, a glass propped on his chest. Judging from the bleary squint he directed at Quincannon, the glass contained okolehao
or its equivalent and had been emptied and refilled several times from the decanter on an adjacent table.

  “Who in blazes are you?” he demanded.

  “My name is Quincannon.”

  “Quincannon? Scotsman, eh? I don’t know any Scotsmen. Get out of my house.”

  “Not until I have what I came here for.”

  “And just what would that be?”

  “Jack Vereen.”

  A blank stare. “Who?”

  “All right, then. James A. Varner.”

  That name produced a twitch that nearly upset Millay’s glass. “Who?” he said again.

  “Don’t try my patience, Mr. Millay. You crossed the ocean from San Francisco with him and his partner, Simon Reno. Spent a night drinking and carousing with them in Honolulu last week.”

  “By Christ!” The exclamation startled a young Hawaiian girl, barefoot and dressed in a long flowered garment, who had just entered the room. “I don’t want you any more, Mele,” Millay snapped at her, and immediately she disappeared again. Then he said to Quincannon, “Casual companions, nothing more. What’s your interest in them? Who the devil are you?”

  Quincannon laid one of his business cards on the arm of Millay’s chair. The rancher picked it up, squinted at the wording. A muscle flexed twice in his cheek, shaping his mouth into a grimace. He fortified himself with a deep draught from his glass before saying, “Detective? What’s Varner and Reno done to bring a San Francisco detective all the way out here?”

  “You have no idea?”

  “No. I hardly know them, just a couple of businessmen I happened to meet.”

  “In San Francisco on your recent trip there.”

  “So what? What difference does that make?”

  “The fact that they shared your passage back to Honolulu makes a great deal of difference.”

  “Why the hell should it? Listen—”

  “No, you listen, Mr. Millay. Whether you know it or not, those two are not businessmen—they are thieves and swindlers.”

  This was no revelation to the cattleman. The muscle flexed again; his gaze shifted away from Quincannon’s. Man under a severe nervous strain. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “That is what I want to know,” Quincannon said. “What kind of fabulous scheme did they present to you?”

  “Scheme?”

  “Something to do with a clock or cloak, wasn’t it?”

  The muscle flexed again. “You don’t make any sense, man. Clock, cloak … mumbo jumbo. I had no business with those two. I told you … good-time companions, that’s all.”

  Quincannon didn’t believe him and said so.

  “I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe,” Millay said. He drank again. “Not one damn bit.”

  “Where is Varner now?”

  “How should I know?”

  “He came here with you on Monday.”

  “The hell he did.”

  “You left Honolulu with him Sunday morning.”

  “… How do you know that?”

  “How I know isn’t important. Do you deny it?”

  “No,” Millay said. “We happened to take the same steamer, that’s all. Last I saw of him was five minutes after we docked at Hilo. He was meeting someone there, he said.”

  “Did he, now? And who might that someone be?”

  “He didn’t confide in me. And I didn’t ask. I keep my nose out of other men’s business.”

  Quincannon had had enough of this verbal sparring. He growled, “Varner’s true name is Vereen, Lonesome Jack Vereen. His fat partner’s real name was Nagle, also known as Nevada Ned.”

  “… What do you mean, his name was Nagle?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” The cheek muscle danced this time. “How? When?”

  “Three days ago of a morphine overdose. Possibly administered by Vereen before he departed.”

  “Why would—” Millay broke off, wagged his head in a confused way. “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “That is what I intend to find out.”

  “Does Varner … Vereen know you’re after him?”

  “If he doesn’t,” Quincannon said, “he soon will. I’ve come almost three thousand miles to take him prisoner and I won’t leave until I do. If you’re hiding him on this ranch, you’re guilty of aiding and abetting a dangerous fugitive.”

  “Hiding him? Why would I do that?”

  “Why, indeed.”

  “Well, I’m not hiding him. Dammit, he was never here!”

  “You had better not be lying to me, Mr. Millay.”

  In a convulsive movement the rancher drained his glass, slammed it down on a side table hard enough to knock it over, and shoved onto his feet. “I’ve heard enough about matters that don’t concern me. And I don’t like to be threatened.” The bluster was still in his thickened voice, but underlying it now was a current of fear. “Either you rattle your hocks out of here or I’ll throw you out.”

  Quincannon’s answer to that was a feral grin. In the tense moment that followed, there was the sudden pound of boots on the porch outside. Two pairs, one heavy, one light. A woman’s voice called “Stan? Are you in here?” just before the screen door clattered open.

  Quincannon moved a few paces to one side as the newcomers entered the room. The woman, in the lead, was an older, slimmer version of Millay—fair-skinned, her sun-bleached hair tucked inside a cowboy hat decorated with a hibiscus band. The hard-eyed man behind her was native-dark, bulky, dressed as she was in rough range garb. Grace Millay and Sam Opaka.

  The woman glanced at Quincannon, said to her brother, “Keole told me we have company. Who is this man?”

  “His name’s Quincannon,” Millay said. He seemed calmer now that reinforcements had arrived, but no less defensive or truculent. And the undercurrent of fear was still present in his voice. “Detective from San Francisco. He thinks we’re harboring one of a pair of swells I met on my trip, supposed to be a confidence man.”

  “Jack Vereen,” Quincannon said, “alias James A. Varner.”

  “I told him I haven’t seen the man since Sunday in Hilo but he doesn’t believe me.” To Quincannon he said, “This is my sister, Grace. And our luna, Sam Opaka. Go ahead, ask them if Varner’s here or been here.”

  “My brother is telling the truth,” Grace Millay said. Opaka said nothing, but his eyes, black and hard as volcanic rock, never left Quincannon’s face. “There is no one on this ranch named Varner or Vereen. Nor has there ever been, so far as I know.”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “What makes you think this man came here?”

  Quincannon said cannily, “The auohe, among other things.”

  “Auohe? What auohe?” She sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “On the coast near here.”

  “I have no idea what you’re referring to. Sam? Do you?”

  Opaka gave a short, sharp headshake.

  “Neither do I,” Millay snapped. He had picked up the decanter from the table and was about to replenish his glass. “By God, this has gone far enough. Talking nonsense, implying we’re liars—I won’t stand for it!”

  His sister said warningly, “Be quiet, Stan.”

  “Why should I? I don’t want anything more to do with this damn flycop. I think we ought to kick his okole off our land. Sam and me, right now.”

  “I told you to be quiet. And put that decanter down. You’ve had enough to drink.”

  “The hell I have.”

  “More than enough.” She nodded to Opaka. “Sam.”

  The luna moved for the first time. He caught hold of Millay’s arm with one hand, the decanter with the other. He said softly, “Miss Grace say pau, Mr. Stanton.”

  Millay started to argue, but when Opaka tightened his grip, the handsome features went lax and he subsided. He ran his tongue over dry lips, his gaze lowering, and allowed the luna to prod him from the room.

  Grace Millay said, “We’ll go out on the lanai, Mr.
Quincannon. It’s cooler there.” And when they were outside in the shade of the monkeypod, “You must excuse my brother. He is … high-strung and inclined to be belligerent when he drinks too much.”

  Weak and easily manipulated were more apt descriptions of Stanton Millay. All fuss and feathers, with very little sand; anyone who showed him strength, man or woman, could back him down. Prime prey for the likes of Vereen and Nagle. It was little wonder, Quincannon thought, that Millay chose to leave the ranch for long periods whenever he could. Only in the vice dens of Nuuanu Avenue, Chinatown, and the Barbary Coast would he be able to convince himself and others of his manhood.

  He asked, “Does he always drink so heavily during the day?”

  “No. At least, not here on the ranch.”

  “Why now, then?”

  “I have no idea, unless it has something to do with the man you’re looking for. He hasn’t drawn a sober breath since he returned on Monday.”

  “Returned alone?”

  “Alone, yes. What sort of criminal is this man Vereen?”

  “The opportunistic sort,” Quincannon told her. “He and his partner suit their chicanery to the person or persons they’re aiming to fleece. Their specialty is confidence games involving stocks and bonds.”

  “That doesn’t apply to Stanton. He has neither, nor any interest in such matters. Nor have I.”

  “It isn’t clear yet what kind of swindle they tailored to your brother. Something to do with a cloak or clock, perhaps. Does that suggest anything to you?”

  She shook her head. “Were they able to fleece him?”

  “I can’t say yet. He claims he had no business dealings with them.”

  “But you think otherwise.”

  “I have good reason to,” Quincannon said. “You seem to have a strong influence with him, Miss Millay. Can you convince him to be candid with you?”

  “Not if he’s done something illegal or immoral and a substantial amount of money is involved. The amount would be substantial, I suppose?”

  “Yes. Vereen and his partner would not have traveled all the way to Hawaii otherwise.”

  “Isn’t it possible my brother was not their … target? That they had another, someone who resides in Hilo?”