The Anything Goes Girl (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 1)

by Barry Knister

  She found Ehrlich’s suitcase, an aluminum model stowed in a drawer under the bunk, put the case on the bunk and opened it.

  Packed on one side were more sets of color-coordinated shorts and knit shirts, a cotton sweater. Everything bore the Ralph Loren Polo logo, even the socks. The mark of a joiner: he wanted to belong and was willing to pay for social acceptance.

  But the bag’s other side seemed to indicate Ehrlich was in conflict. Packed there were silk shirts, and some goofy male equivalent of harem pants. Buried under everything else was a folded brown shopping bag.

  She opened it and emptied the contents on the bed. “Crotch Master String Bikini Briefs.” There were three of them, still in the packages. She picked one up and read the label: “Guaranteed to shape and present the male body to best advantage.”

  Brenda smiled. A male version of the Wonder Bra. A mounded outer crescent to guard whatever nature had given, whatever needed help with enhanced shape and “presentation.”

  She put the briefs back in the paper bag and replaced it under the harem pants and Via Milano silk shirts. Don’t worry, Ehrlich, she thought. Your enhanced presentation is safe with me. Just so long as you get me to Pirim.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  Around eight, a crew member brought a tray with fried fish and rice, and a cup of red pop. Brenda ate in the room at an all-purpose fold-down table, then took the tray out and went up on deck.

  The ship’s bell sounded the hour. The night was cloudless and warm, the ocean crinkled with moonlight. Crewmen squatted on the stern deck, one of them with a guitar. Bunches of bananas and baskets of coconuts swung lazily from ropes. The sound of the singing was broken only by the thudding engines. Prop wash marbled out from the stern.

  Ehrlich was either in the wheelhouse or captain’s cabin. Brenda looked up at the bridge but didn’t see him. She stayed on deck until well after midnight, then went back down, locked the cabin door and stretched out nude.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  Cool enough when she dozed off, the cabin was oven-like in the morning. Bright sun streamed from the open portholes. She felt dazed, the sheet under her a damp bandage. The cabin smelled of diesel fumes.

  Someone knocked. Brenda put on her robe and unlocked the door. The same sailor who had brought dinner now offered her some kind of fried cakes, and more of the red soda pop. She took the tray, tried the donut, found it greasy, and drank the soda. Two small fans shoved the odors of fish and disinfectant at her, the riveted walls shiny from countless layers of paint. She stepped to the tin sink and splashed her face, then got fresh clothes from her bag.

  Blinding sun was frying the stern when she went up. The sailors were now seated under a billowing canvas tarp. They were lacing new webbing on fishing floats, and nodded to her.

  She lurched along the thin starboard walkway. What had looked from a distance yesterday like small pennants she now discovered were shark fins. Hundreds of them, gray and flapping, had been strung like laundry along the railing. It was what they hunted when the tuna weren’t running.

  The first mate had seen her and stepped down from the bridge. “You like see ship now?” he asked. “Very small, but very strong.”

  She followed him to a broad loading hatch. He pulled it aside and cold air poured out. Looking down through fog, she saw the tuna stacked like cordwood, filling perhaps twenty percent of the hold.

  “Leave two months,” he said. “Not so lucky. Not go back until full.”‘

  “But many sharks,” she said.

  “Yes. Chinese on Taiwan pay big price.”

  “How long do you stay at sea?”

  “One year, maybe more. We go north to Palau soon. After contract.”

  It was designed for extended voyages and built like a steel drum. Sealed bulkheads made it virtually unsinkable. He showed her the crew’s quarters, the engine room aft. He explained that coral reefs were the biggest worry. “Company lose many ships,” he said. “Reef change at all islands. You see at Mokil.”

  What company, and what contract? She didn’t ask.

  The captain sent word she could come to the wheelhouse. Ehrlich must be avoiding her. Brenda hadn’t seen him since leaving, and he wasn’t there when she went up.

  She raised and adjusted her binoculars. It was only a blip, but gradually the blip broadened and assumed definition. As she watched, other spots of land rose into view, forming the rounded outline of the atoll. Gradually she could see palm trees, the coral reef forming a loose outer ring. In places, the reef was visible and craggy, but otherwise hidden, treacherous. Between the reef and shoreline lay half a mile of placid water, lapping quietly at pink beaches.

  The ship began a slow starboard turn; moments later, it passed the lagoon’s channel entrance. More than a mile away stood a row of pitched roofs on stilts, along the safe inner beach of the main island. Through the binoculars she saw people running to the shoreline, small boats being dragged to the water. They believe it’s the Kasalehlia, she thought. The piston finally arrived.

  As the Nauro Maru curved around the separate islands, Brenda lost sight of the village. They reached the far side and headed south again, and she stepped outside the wheelhouse, training her binoculars behind the trawler. Many people had run through the main island’s interior and now stood on the southern beach, handkerchiefs fluttering.

  Captain Ibachi stepped out next her, and pointed. To the east, a ship much like the Nauro Maru stood motionless and very high, seeming to float on air. She raised the glasses, adjusted them, and saw the rust and decay. Training them down, she saw the waterline and the barely visible reef crag on which the wreck would rest until storm or time finally freed it. She lowered the binoculars. The captain shook his head and said something that needed no translation. He stepped back inside.

  Mokil Atoll sank from view. All that remained were gulls following the ship—diving and crying, afloat like so many handkerchiefs.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  Five minutes later, Ehrlich appeared on deck with his aluminum suitcase and started up the stairs. With wet hair and fresh clothes he looked like a summer-camp counselor. He passed Brenda without speaking and entered the wheelhouse, stepped behind the helmsman and opened a door. She glimpsed a chart room before the door closed.

  Ehrlich was avoiding her, convinced she was looking for a story. She hoped he hadn’t discovered her snooping. The helmsman was saying something, and she watched him move away from the ship’s wheel. Captain Ibachi placed his hands on it. He stood looking out for several seconds, then came out on the platform and went below.

  A minute later the chart-room door opened, and she motioned to Ehrlich. He crossed behind the helmsman and joined her, reeking of a different cologne. Like the clothes, there was something touching about it to her, a humorless man in the middle of nowhere, free at last to indulge in styles and scents outside the control of his logo.

  “Sorry about yesterday,” she said. “As a rule I’m not a ball buster, but I have to get to Pirim.”

  “Right.”

  “A Peace Corps Volunteer died there. We went to school together. People in Washington had no details. Whatever your business is, I’m not here to make trouble.”

  “Right.”

  “You know about it?”

  “Calvin Moser works for us, so I know,” he said. “His name was Soublik. He drowned.”

  “How did it happen?”

  For the first time, Ehrlich smiled. Hands in his pockets, he shook his head, looking out. “You people,” he said. “Nobody gave you the runaround. If there’s no story, so what? You make one up. Nose around, tape people without permission. Pretty soon, you’ve got ‘anonymous sources’ and clues. Someone can’t just screw up and drown—hell, that’s no story. He has to be part of some giant conspiracy. You’d call it ‘Pacificgate’ or ‘the Pirim-Contra Affair,’ something like that.”

  “You’re wrong, Ehrlich. No one said anything about being given the runaround.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re So
ublik’s fiancée, his sister. You just want to throw a wreath on the water and go home.” He turned to go back inside. “The shower’s the door opposite your cabin. We’ll reach Pirim in four hours.”

  Ehrlich went back in and closed the chart-room door. He seemed to be afraid of her, and had thrown the videocassette very hard, thinking he was on it. Cal Moser works for us. She remembered the name. The entomologist. The bug expert.

  She felt sticky and went below, found the shower stall and rinsed off. Back in her cabin, more of the red pop was waiting on the fold-down table. It was in a beer bottle this time, with no label. She drank it as she dressed, smelling fish on the glass.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  As they approached Pirim, the atoll looked different from Mokil. Smaller.

  Back up on the bridge, Brenda could see five islands without using the binoculars. The lagoon itself resembled a big pond, not the lake at Mokil. Like the first atoll, people were already crowding the main island’s beach. As the Nauro Maru neared, outrigger canoes began leaving the shore.

  More islanders kept emerging from the thick wall of coconut palms. Like the Mokilese, they waved handkerchiefs—a bullfight crowd. Boys pulled more sharp-prowed canoes to the beach. Their T-shirts were like moths, the women in windblown dresses. A bell began—a big one, not like the Nauro Maru’s. In answer, the helmsman blew the ship’s horn.

  Brenda raised the glasses and scanned the main island. The bell was banging away in a tin church steeple, a three-sided tower that rose above trees to the right of the island’s center. She watched the bell working, going like crazy, like Easter Sunday—

  At some point she realized the captain and helmsman were both talking at once. She lowered the glasses and looked inside as the sailor surrendered the wheel. Captain Ibachi took it, talking to himself.

  The clang of bells rang out and the helmsman took back the wheel as Ibachi yelled into a mouthpiece. Seconds later the engines shut down. The wheelhouse was quiet, flooded with light. Chromed instruments glinted. The church bell continued to clang and fade on the breeze.

  Brenda looked to the bow and caught her breath. No longer under power, the trawler lazily rose and fell. Forward motion had slowed, but still they moved. Ehrlich was there, looking up at the bridge. He began working his way back along the starboard catwalk. Amidships, the first mate met him and said something.

  Ehrlich seemed to think a moment, then ran to the wheelhouse stairs. He pounded up, stopping halfway to look out toward the lagoon. Inside, the helmsman was spinning the wheel, doing what the captain ordered.

  Ibachi came out now. He shoved past Brenda and began yelling down at the crew.

  When Ehrlich reached her, she grabbed his arm. “What is it?”

  “Get below.” He ran into the chart room. Brenda watched as he swept the papers from the chart table with his forearm, dumping them into his briefcase.

  The helmsman kept spinning the wheel clockwise, then counter-clockwise with alarming ease.

  She stepped into the open map room. “What’s happening?”

  Ehrlich kept packing papers, tearing down sheets taped to the wall. Stuffing them in his case, he looked at her with resentment. “Suit yourself,” he said. “Stay up here.”

  He shoved past, the case pressed to his chest. She followed, the wheelman behind her. Ibachi remained, shouting from the bridge. She saw a crewman begin lashing the loading boom on the forward deck. Two others at the railing were calling to the islanders. Feeling sick, Brenda faced the bow and watched their slow progress. The ship’s prow rose and fell toward the exposed coral reef as the church bell went on ringing. The first mate approached, a heavy rope looped around his neck.

  “What is it?” Brenda asked.

  “Rudder cable slip off pulley,” he said. “Very bad, no fix in time.”

  “Where’s the channel?”

  He pointed. “No matter, drift not good.”

  She looked out and understood. You could try drifting through the narrow channel a hundred times and never get it right. “Can’t they tow us?”

  “No time.”

  What then caught her attention were the reef’s brilliant hues of coral, very precise below the sucking water. More shouting. Everyone was getting down, taking positions, grabbing fittings and booms. She ran back to the steps leading to the bridge and grabbed a stair support with both hands.

  No one spoke as the ship continued to rise and fall. She closed her eyes as she felt a last lazy dip. The ship shuddered under her, the air torn by a loud grating. Her hands slipped and she was thrown flat.

  Staying down, she felt the deck lift on the next wave, nosing up. Everyone waited. Afraid to stand, she opened her eyes and looked for the captain. Shouts came from the water, and the bell stopped ringing.

  When she stood and looked out, half a dozen outriggers had reached the reef. The islanders thrust their canoes forward as the waves spilled over. She still had the binoculars, but as she raised them a swell struck the stern and the ship shuddered upward another notch. She braced for the next wave, but this one lifted gently beneath the hull.

  Sailors were now tumbling up from their quarters with junk—cameras, boom boxes. They timed their movements, watched and counted, moving with the waves’ rhythm. The islanders floating inside the reef began shouting.

  Perhaps twenty minutes passed—watching, waiting, counting. The canoes were manned by young men, but Brenda saw each boat had an older islander, probably people who knew Japanese from the war. Some of the islanders paddled back to shore and returned with larger canoes.

  She was shaking, but saw they had a plan. This was not a first-time thing for them. A line was thrown out to a big canoe that bobbed just inside the reef. Each swell that swept over the coral threatened to swamp the narrow boat. Between waves, the coral lay perhaps three or four feet beneath the surface. Like a spillway, the lagoon’s channel passage flowed and sank. In that time, wave motion inched the Nauro Maru more firmly on the reef, until at last it stopped moving.

  The first mate came down from the bridge. “Why do this?” Brenda asked. “Why don’t we swim through the channel?”

  “No good swim close to reef.” He struck his head. “Swim wrong, you lost. Pirimese canoe only come out at high tide. Stay inside reef.”

  Ibachi called to him, then went halfway up to the wheelhouse. The first mate gathered the crew amidships, where they’d secured the rope to the ship’s windless. Ibachi spoke again, and then one of the men—more a boy, not eighteen—stepped forward. He bowed, moved abruptly to the railing and grabbed the rope, testing it.

  Ehrlich appeared from below, multiple life jackets slung over both arms. He gave one to the young sailor, then handed out the rest. Without speaking he held one for Brenda to shoulder into, crossed the canvas cords, stringing them back and between her legs before tying them tight in front.

  Confined in the life jacket, helpless, useless, Brenda gripped the railing and watched the young sailor go over the side. The two men in the big canoe pulled to tighten the rope and the outrigger’s prow sank. Two other canoes came alongside, helping to steady it. The crewman was working his way across, legs in the water, inching toward the submerged coral. A wave swept him up, dragging him over the coral heads before sucking back, sinking the canoe’s prow.

  He was hurt but held on, and the islanders grabbed him. “Yes!” she yelled as the sailor clawed at the hollow, bobbing outrigger. It rocked from his weight until he was pulled backward, away from danger. Others helped him through the water, to a canoe waiting in the quiet lagoon.

  They repeated this with the remaining crewmen until only Ibachi, Ehrlich and Brenda were left. She understood they had wanted her to watch before going.

  “See what to do?” Ehrlich, sweating, retied his life jacket.

  Watching the others, she had stopped shaking. “Doing it’s something else.”

  “The tide’s coming in, that’s why they can’t come out and take us off. At high tide there’s no telling what will happen
. Ibachi says we have to do this now.”

  “I understand.”

  “Make sure you time it. Watch the stern.”

  She grabbed the rope. All but the first man had managed to miss hitting the reef. Breathing hard, she held the rope where the rail gate was tied open and waited. Watching the ocean and the ship’s stern, the islanders in the big canoe had shouted the signal each time. At last they yelled and jerked hard.

  She jumped and felt the wet rope give. Hand over hand she went down, water foaming between hull and coral wall. She kept her eyes on the islanders, saw they were shouting. Before she understood she was raised up, weightless an instant, then dragged down with the wave’s forward motion.

  Wet shorts and life jacket binding her, she lost the rope. She kicked, and then she was on the surface, blinded by salt. Vision blurred, she was facing the ship and saw the next peaked wave slap the ship’s stern. The crest raced along the hull. Don’t tense, she thought. Go limp.

  The wave bellied under her and swept forward. Her side rammed the coral. Gagging, Brenda was washed back into the swell’s trough. Like bricks, the hard cork panels of her life vest had both saved her and bruised her ribs. It happened again, and this time her head hit. Fuzzy and coughing she surfaced, seeing the next wave beginning its curl, just under the ship.

  This one sucked her up. Like driftwood she was gathered and thrown. All was slow motion now, time lapse. She came down in different water, bath-like and tepid, a kiddy pool. She wondered if she had peed. Hands grabbed at her, pulling her clothes, the sun warm on her face. Listening to a babble of languages, she wondered vaguely if she had packed sunscreen.

  She felt herself being lowered, and everything came to rest along her spine, in the methodical clap of water against hollow wood.

  “Watch the ribs!”

  Narrow and deep around her, the canoe’s hull had been hollowed from a tree trunk. Her teeth were chattering, and she fought to focus on the wood next to her face. It was gouged in a pattern of precise, concave scoops. Like a coffin. Something soft was put under her head, and she could feel the motion of paddles firmly shoving the thing forward.