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

by Barry Knister

  She dressed in Vince’s shirt, smelling plain soap and mold. When she stepped into the front room, Moser stood waiting with an old man and Nauko. Vince’s girl was unmistakable, her beautiful hair forming a black shawl around her shoulders. She held a basket, and the old man motioned for it. Standing very erect, he in turn handed it to Moser. The chief was dressed in faded shorts and frayed shirt, but looked dignified.

  “His name’s Karl with a K,” Moser said. “He hopes the wini helped your ribs.”

  “It did. Please thank him for me.”

  “This is his granddaughter, Nauko.”

  The young woman smiled shyly. She could be anywhere from fourteen to twenty-five. She looked at Brenda’s face, studying hair wildly different from her own. Greetings, Brenda thought. I’m a member of the Martian scientific community.

  Moser lifted a big leaf from the top of the basket and Brenda smelled food.

  “Thank her for me,” she said.

  “Thank her yourself.” He handed her the leaf. “Here’s your plate. Nauko went to school on Pohnpei, she teaches here. She helps me in the lab.”

  “Sorry.” Brenda reached out and Nauko shook her hand. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  Moser moved the lantern on the table, then began setting out food on the leaf. “A little fried parrotfish,” he said. “Some taro, breadfruit, mangoes.”

  Starving, Brenda sat and began stuffing in food as they watched. It embarrassed her, but she was ravenous. A minute passed, marked only by the sounds of her eating.

  “Is this a custom or what?” she asked between mouthfuls. “The watching.”

  “They serve, you eat,” Moser said. “When they come to your house, you do the same.”

  Chief Karl spoke in Pirimese and Nauko nodded. “He apologize for no rice,” she said, her face serious. “We run out after Vince die.”

  In the awkward silence that followed, Brenda went on eating. She saw that Nauko and Karl had blue eyes, eyes both non-committal and expressive.

  The woman looked to her grandfather and turned back. “We leave now.”

  Brenda got up, wiping her hands on her pants. “Is it all right to thank the chief personally?” she asked.

  When Moser translated, the chief smiled, a piano-key model. He reached out and shook her hand, then bowed slightly and backed out the door. Nauko followed.

  “That was very good,” Moser said. “Asking permission. Ceremony’s big around here.” He stepped behind the divider and came back with two broad-brimmed hats.

  Once she finished eating, he watched while she applied the lotion. “How’s the head?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  They stepped out and he helped her down the porch steps to the narrow trail. At the main path, he pointed and they began walking toward the beach. The Pirimese were still toting gear from the Nauro Maru. The savory aroma of frying fish floated through groves of palms.

  Brenda stepped carefully, watching for roots and fallen coconuts. It was hard to do, the lure of the trees kept demanding attention. They were big ones of breadfruit, others drooping with bunches of banana varieties she had never seen. A rat scampered up the shaggy spine of a palm. Now and then, she heard canned laughter and applause.

  “How did Pirim come by the TV?” she asked.

  “We got them that,” he said. “The dish and the rest of it was part of our deal with them. Bob negotiated the contract. He says they’re pretty shrewd. Forget about Manhattan for a handful of costume jewelry.”

  Birds sang, and wherever it penetrated, the sun accomplished art. All about them the interior lay at rest in swatches of green and yellow, ocher, blues and browns. Brenda felt as though she was walking through a hologram, a painting of x-rayed fronds and leaves. Rough-textured trunks held up the canopy.

  The pink beach shone ahead. “Coral gives it the color,” Moser explained as they stepped onto it. Fine as sugar underfoot, the sand held heat that came through the soles of her still-wet boat shoes. She looked out at the water. Men in canoes were at work beyond the reef, the ship static and old in the morning sun. The scene’s utter calm was hypnotic. Large coral heads protruded from the lagoon’s surface like a Dali vision.

  “Later,” Moser called, waiting for her. She caught up to him, and they followed the beach’s arc. As they moved between water and trees, small islands floated into view. Together they sidestepped massive logs upended in the sand.

  “So what exactly is your deal with Pirim?” she asked.

  “That’s what I’m going to show you.”

  They reached a narrow isthmus, both shorelines densely backed by coconut palms. Moser took her hand. “I usually come by canoe, but I thought you’d like the walk.”

  They entered water that felt as warm as the air; small fish and crabs darted before their feet. Perhaps thirty yards separated the two beaches.

  On the opposite side, Moser checked his watch and raised his head, listening. All she heard was the hiss of the reef. He looked at her and smiled. “Wasps,” he said. “But don’t worry, the stuff you have on isn’t water-soluble. You’re still protected. We had a problem at first. Everyone got stung. The company screwed up and sent out the wrong species, very aggressive. We told the people there might be some of that, but it was bad here for a week. Most of that first group are gone now. My wasps are only interested in aphids on taro leaves.”

  He stepped up the beach, passed between trees and disappeared. She thought of the photo, and the lotion Moser had made her use.

  “Wasps are not my thing,” Brenda called. Seconds passed. He appeared again between trees, hands in his pockets.

  “I’m afraid,” she told him. “Bugs love me, they feed off me.”

  “If there was any risk, I wouldn’t bring you here,” he said. “We can leave any time you want.”

  He was wearing nothing but the straw hat and shorts. It reassured her, so Brenda followed. Once off the beach, there was no path, just jungle. A short distance from shore, she saw a rounded hump of cement covered with vines.

  “A Japanese bunker,” Moser said. “They built a few fortifications here, but didn’t really plan to defend it.”

  She stepped clear of creepers, ducked vines and low-hanging fronds. Off to the left stood a group of collapsed buildings. “What’s that, Japanese ruins?”

  “Karl says it was a leprosarium. The missionaries built it just after the war. There’s no more leprosy out here, but the people are superstitious about it.”

  He turned and started walking. As she followed, Brenda watched her feet, listening for the hum of insects. The heat of full sunlight hit and she looked up to find herself facing a broad clearing, with a garden almost a hundred yards across. Huge leaves clattered softly in a sudden breeze, moving in a wave from left to right—shining, glistening. It was roughly circular, bounded by palms—a uniform, perfect tropical mass of green.

  “Amazing,” she said. “Beautiful. ‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.’”

  “What’s that from?” Moser asked.

  “Wordsworth. He was talking about daffodils, but this is just as good. I never saw anything like it.”

  “Taro, not flowers,” Moser said. “It’s what we pay the Pirimese for, the right to conduct our work here. Other crops figure, but this is the principal one.”

  “I’ll never forget it, Calvin. Thank you.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty. I get a lot of pleasure out here.”

  As they stood looking out, Brenda heard and saw the wasps above the plants. It must have been the beauty; she was no longer frightened.

  “The leaves give off a chemical that attracts wasps like radar,” he said. “Like a call for help. The wasps sting the aphids or worms, whatever’s attacking the crop. My work’s aimed at synthesizing the chemical, so it can be sprayed on any crop. If we’re successful, Third World countries will be able to improve yields without poisoning soil or water supplies.”

  They followed the circle
’s rim. Halfway around, Brenda spotted his lab, a low shed. She could hear another generator.

  “There’s no way to keep instruments accurate without air conditioning,” he said. “Fairly complicated stuff for a field lab. Field-gas and high-pressure liquid chromatographs, microscopes, photographic gear.”

  It was impossible not to share Moser’s happiness. She kept tripping, too focused on looking out over the garden.They reached the lab and he unlocked the door. Inside were racks of jars, and on the right a counter extended the length of the room. It was splattered with lumpy globs of hardened wax.

  “Messy, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s the embedding equipment. I spend a lot of time making paraffin blocks for tissue sectioning. That’s how I dehydrate wasp tissue. It’s a drag, but the only way. I move the samples from bath to bath. Each one’s a higher concentration of solvent. When that’s done, I immerse them in melted paraffin.”

  There was something called a microtome with a crank, a device that sheared off thin slices from the paraffin blocks. Moser explained he floated them in a warm-water bath, enabling him to pick them up on glass slides. The shelves and counters held stainless steel racks. Like a Pollack painting, the floor and walls were splashed with paraffin.

  “Here’s all my data.” He pointed to a shelf of cloth-bound notebooks and took one out. Each page had a duplicate with carbon paper. Where the book fell open, she saw ‘V. Soublik’ next to Moser’s signature. “You sign every day’s work and get a second signature for patenting purposes,” he said. “Vince or Nauko signed. She’s helped a lot.”

  Rack after rack held vials of captured insects, both wasps and the pests being evaluated for changes as the experiment developed.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  “A little. I’m impressed, Calvin.”

  He took down another notebook and leafed through. “Can you keep a secret?”

  Brenda smiled. “Better hope so, I’ve seen a lot.”

  “This is true.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “I isolated a chemical analogue to the natural plant attractant that makes campoletis sonorensis horny as hell.”

  It amused her, how science types often assumed that civilians would understand them. “I take it this is a good thing,” she said.

  “Very good. Wasps don’t have to deposit eggs every time, but they do have to sting the parasite in order to introduce the virus that shuts down the parasite’s immune system. In nature, this means you need a hell of a lot of wasps, more than most farmers would tolerate. My compound you spray on the crop. It replicates the natural attractant of the plant. Plus, it causes the wasp’s reproductive impulse to become very aggressive.”

  Clearly he was pleased, and Brenda found herself admiring the man.

  “The best part is, the compound breaks down readily,” he said. “It’s not toxic to mammals. It’s UV-sensitive, has a half-life of only a little over a month. You can apply it to a crop and it degrades in sunlight. It never has a chance to enter the food chain.”

  “I guess this will mean big money for your company,” she said.

  “And lots of good will. That’s mostly why they funded this particular Blue Sky project.”

  “Blue skies coming your way,” she said.

  Moser laughed. “‘Blue Sky’ is what we call a project other than regular work. If the company thinks you have a good idea, they give you time and resources to work on it. I was very surprised when they told me I could pursue mine full-time.”

  On the walk back, Brenda felt a little light-headed. They reached the Japanese bunker and sat a moment.

  “Jet lag and the climate,” he said. “You need a few days to adjust. Get some shuteye this afternoon, I’ll show you more tomorrow.”

  When they reached his house, Moser took a shower. Brenda made some quick notes, then stretched out on the bed and fell instantly asleep.

  At dusk, she woke to savory smells of cooking and Moser coming through the door. “They made progress on the ship,” he said. “They have scuba gear. The first mate told me he thinks they can get her off and fix the rudder cable.”

  To celebrate, the crew was throwing a party. Islanders were now cooking fish from the ship’s hold, ferrying in extra wood from nearby islands.

  Brenda showered again. Under the tepid spray, she felt disappointed about the ship. Too soon, she thought. Leave that tub right where it is.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  A little after six they walked to the village. The cooler evening air was feathery with smoke and voices, every tree and leaf at rest. In the main clearing, pots of the ship’s rice had been cooked and heaped up on banana leaves, with steaming breadfruit and taro. Pigs had been killed and were roasting in shallow pits covered with more big leaves. Most important was the supply of rice wine taken off the ship.

  The islanders called it a kama dip, and it started just after dark, in the big meeting house. The huge Sony with its five-foot screen divided the space. Behind the set, the islanders sang songs and hymns with gusto, while the Japanese sailors answered with their own music.

  On the other side, perhaps a hundred children sat mesmerized in front of the big screen. First, a documentary on toxic waste, then a Dallas rerun, then a Japanese movie about giant sea cucumbers flattening cities.

  Ehrlich sat with the ship’s captain and first mate; Moser sat with Brenda. He kept getting up to fill his coconut shell with rice wine. Shouting over the din, he told her about growing up in Phoenix. After his mother’s death when he was seven, Moser and his younger brother had been raised by their father. The father had not remarried.

  “When he started out, he was the only black pharmacist in Phoenix,” Moser said. “He always wanted his own store. He never got his dream, because of my brother and me. Pop socked everything away for our education.”

  “Don’t you think that was his dream?” she asked.

  “You know what I mean. Everyone wants to make his mark. Owning his own store was Dad’s plan.”

  “Does that put extra pressure on you?”

  Moser’s handsome face lost the vague look of someone remembering. “Yes, it does. I got a lot of breaks,” he said. “I wasn’t just a good student, I was a good black student. Doors opened because of it. What I want now is to make it on my own. I want kids to know you can make it in this life without being God’s gift to the NBA or NFL.”

  When Brenda looked at him, there were tears in his eyes. It caught her off guard. Nothing that had gone before explained his change of mood. “Vince was my friend,” he said suddenly. “We worked together out here. Anything I accomplish, Vince Soublik’s name goes on it. You tell his family.”

  “I will.”

  “Vince Soublik made a contribution.”

  Brenda felt both touched and embarrassed. She stood. “Maybe we should go now,” she said.

  Moser blinked up at her, then shook his head as if to clear it. He stood quickly and led her to Chief Karl. They did as custom required—bowed and thanked him, spoke softly. Behind them, Japanese cities were still being reduced to rubble. Brenda looked above the set and saw a hundred pairs of eyes dancing with light.

  They passed down the broad main path and began working their way through the island’s interior. Crowd sounds receded. It was a travel poster to her, the ocean black beyond the trees. Crabs scuttled in front of them; somewhere a coconut fell with a thud.

  She felt the need to make small talk. “Does anyone ever get bashed?” she asked.

  “Not since I came out.”

  “The singing kind of gets to you after a while.”

  Back in charge of himself, Moser laughed. “Tell me about it.”

  “I heard someone shooting baskets this morning.”

  “That was me. Vince and I used to go one-on-one. I had a pretty good jump shot in college.”

  “But it’s not what you want to be known for—”

  Just then, screaming split the quiet night air. They stopped.

  “It’s Pretro,” Mose
r said. “I have to help him. I’ll take you home first.” He guided her in the dark, over creepers and thick tree roots. The screaming grew worse.

  “What’s happening?” The suddenness of it, the ugly violence breaking through the night’s calm made it scarier to her.

  “Maybe too much wine.”

  Now the sound was twofold, a man yelling, a woman screaming. “She sounds frightened as hell,” Brenda said. “Is he beating her?”

  “He may be having an attack.”

  “Like Vince?”

  “Something like it.”

  It didn’t sound like any effect of alcohol she had ever heard. They entered the house, and Moser went to one of his footlockers. He got out a box of disposable syringes and vials, took one of each, and checked his watch. “Back in fifteen minutes,” he said.

  “I don’t like being here alone.”

  “Better if you stay. Believe me, it’s safe here. The kids will keep you company.”

  She looked to the windows. Again, children’s faces filled the screens. There was something displaced and wrong about it, the sudden shift of mood. Curious, whispering children had followed them to see the tall, strange woman with freckles and red hair. At the same time, someone was going insane a hundred yards away. The kids didn’t even notice, it was normal to them.

  “What’s the drug?”

  “Phenobarbital,” he said. “That and TV chills them out. I’ll give Pretro a shot and sit him down in front of the set. He’ll be fine.” He started to leave, but turned at the door. “Put on more lotion,” he said. “I saw some of the old wasps in the meeting house rafters.”

  The screen door slapped shut, and Brenda heard Moser say something to the children. It made her nervous, the yelling coming from the dark, being told to put on more lotion. She got the bottle from the table, rubbed it on her face and neck, then sat on the bed and waited.

  Ten minutes later, the yelling stopped. Once again there was silence; she could hear the hum of the generator, the hiss of surf coming from the barrier reef.

  Her nerves still shaky, Brenda took the lamp and carried it behind the woven divider into Moser’s workroom. On the counter stood a clear, glass-stoppered bottle labeled Lab Alc. Next to it was a jar of Tang. She found a glass, rinsed it and filled it halfway with rainwater. She dumped in Tang, topped it up with alcohol and stirred with her finger, then drank the sour, un-dissolved grit.