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

by Barry Knister

  “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  “Good question. Maybe me. But Preto doesn’t know that. He’s sick now and you just showed up. It’s you and Ehrlich he wants, not the Japanese. They aren’t mehn wei—whites. Just you and Bob.”

  “Why don’t you set Pretro straight?”

  “I tried to. He didn’t buy it.” Moser limped to them and looked down at the photos. “I would’ve told you,” he said. “I did the sectioning three days before you came.”

  Brenda stared. His shorts were soaked, blood running down the back of his left leg.

  “Nice clean shot through the left cheek,” he said. Stiff-legged, he went to a tin cabinet next to his lab table and forced it open. “I can’t bend.” He motioned to Brenda. She got the first-aid kit from the bottom and gave it to him.

  “Nauko—” He handed her the kit. “Okay, like Vince taught you.”

  Moser undid his shorts and shoved them down. His briefs were bright with blood, and these too he shucked to his knees. The bullet had entered his left buttock and exited from the side. Brenda felt sick and dizzy looking at the two holes. The pulse beat on her neck was throbbing.

  “Sulfa powder, then a dressing.”

  Nauko did as he asked, hands shaking. As she worked, he stared at Brenda.

  “Tell me, Moser,” she said, wanting to look away.

  “Brain inflammation. Encephalitis, or something like it.”

  “You said he died of drinking.”

  “I thought so, until this week.”

  “Why lie about it?”

  “I didn’t lie, I don’t know what it is. Demyelination in the basal ganglia fits with chronic alcohol abuse, but he was too young, he didn’t—”

  “Skip the jargon. You know it has to do with what’s going on out here. People having fits, drowning. What the hell’s the matter with you? These wasps you’re so worried about. They must carry something, these people are guinea pigs.”

  “If that’s true, they never told me. If there’s some other kind of test being run, I don’t know about it.”

  “Now you do.”

  “Put more powder in—no, more. Not the bandage yet, this has to dry up.” Moser closed his eyes as Nauko worked on him. “Vince wasn’t the type to get crazy drunk,” he said. “That’s why I kept the head, when we buried him. To section it. I put it off. I had a lot of work, but that’s not why.”

  “You put it off because of what you might find,” she said.

  Picking up a glossy from the counter, Moser studied it before looking at her. “You’re right.”

  Hands shaking, Nauko was tearing surgical tape and pressing it to a gauze pad.

  Moser looked again at the glossy. “Something, that’s for sure,” he said. “The tissue was too damaged to learn much. Okay, now tape hard, tape it all around.” He looked over his shoulder to check Nauko’s work. “Good, still more.” He looked back at Brenda. “Edema of the mid-brain, but no tumor. Just inflammation.”

  “The headaches.”

  He patted Nauko. “Good, thank you.” He tried to bend but stopped.

  Brenda stooped and pulled up his bloody shorts. He buttoned them and turned on the good leg to Nauko. “I did it to learn, it’s not part of all this—” He swept his hand at the lab. “He was my friend. If something I’m doing made him sick, I want to know. I shouldn’t have waited.”

  In obvious pain, Moser limped to the end of the room and pointed to one of the file drawers. “Get a freezer bag, put the slide box in it.”

  Brenda opened the drawer and found a roll of standard freezer bags. She got the slide box.

  “And that canister—no, the phosphorous. Dump it, and put the bag in.”

  Brenda did as he ordered, while Moser hobbled to the door and opened it. Maybe there was shooting; she couldn’t hear over the air conditioner.

  “You don’t know where to hide,” he said, looking out. “What you do, Nauko, is wait here with her. Don’t leave, keep watch.” He turned back to them. “If anyone comes, go to the leprosarium. They won’t look there. Just before dark, take her back. Don’t go near the village, follow the beach. I told Ehrlich where to hide. He’ll get my canoe and meet you opposite the ship. Paddle out to the Nauro Maru. If Ehrlich doesn’t show, swim if you think you can make it. Or hide. It’s not windy yet. You can get out to the ship and stay on it, the ladder’s still down. When you’re on board, pull the ladder up. Nauko, you bury that canister. I don’t want Ehrlich getting it.”

  “Why not?” Having emptied the phosphorus, Brenda now stuffed in the freezer bag. The canister had a rubber gasket to seal the lid.

  “Do you know Ehrlich at all?” he asked.

  “The way I know you,” she told him.

  “Good enough. You don’t want him to have this data. If the sea gets too rough you’ll have to come back. Go to the leprosarium. Follow all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pretro won’t look there.”

  Or it’s where he would look first.

  By six, the sun had dropped. The taro garden lay shadowed by coconut palms.

  All afternoon, the two women had shivered in the windowless lab. When it got too cold, they crawled out and down among the taro plants. The hum of insects came and went on the breeze.

  Very frightened, Brenda tried to focus on what she knew. Drinking, headaches, insects. Vince had trained in Hawaii, on Molokai. A year later, people on that island were getting sick, being quarantined at a research facility owned by GENE 2. Now it was happening at their research site on Pirim.

  Twice when they were hiding in the plants, Brenda heard the calm conversation of women who had come to dig taro. It was crazy to her, islanders going about daily routine while someone was shooting people. After the women left, Nauko explained they had been talking about a meeting of the island’s elders. Pretro had taken the rifles to the church and wouldn’t leave. The elders were deciding what to do.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  A half hour later, they worked their way to the leprosarium, buried the canister, and began walking back to the narrow isthmus.

  It was fully dark when they stepped from the dense jungle onto the beach. The band of water rippled with moonlight. It looked dangerous now, opaque and threatening. They waded across quickly, stopping on the far side to listen. The wind had picked up.

  “You go,” Nauko said. “I will come when safe.”

  “Please, Nauko, don’t tell.”

  “No.”

  “Not even your grandfather.”

  “No.”

  Those were their last words.

  Brenda had never felt so isolated and alone. She ran along the shoreline, most of it now underwater. She neared the place opposite the ship, and slowed. Ehrlich stepped from the trees, spotted her and ducked back. When she reached him, he was pulling an outrigger down the path. Together they dragged it to the water. She saw his aluminum suitcase in the bow, his precious stuff and attaché case.

  “Go on, get in,” he said.

  “Real smart, Ehrlich, bringing guns on the island.”

  “Don’t talk, get in the bow.”

  When it was afloat, she splashed down and climbed in. He brought her a paddle, shoved off and jumped in back. “Other side, other side!”

  She got her paddle going and found the rhythm. They crossed the shallows. The Nauro Maru was still floating free. The wind direction had changed, and the ship was riding parallel to the reef. Most of the barrier was now covered, exposed only when the ropes sank and tightened between coral and ship.

  They reached the reef and skimmed over. The canoe dipped in a shallow swell, a wide, lazy depression. The shift in motion, the foreignness of it—

  Brenda looked back at Ehrlich and saw he had felt it. Paddling a hundred and fifty yards from shore had put them in the Pacific, in a canoe.

  Facing forward, she looked out at absolute zero, water without end. “Ehrlich! We have to go back!”

  “It’s all right. We’ll get on board, it�
��ll be safer.”

  “Safer!”

  “We’ll be off in a few hours. They’ll sort it out and come get us.”

  “You’re crazy! Come get us, they want us dead!”

  Ehrlich swung the canoe in an arc. She couldn’t look out at the ocean. The bow dipped and they were facing the ship’s hull. As Moser had said, the ladder was down. Ehrlich got them to it; the canoe tapped the hull. The ship seemed like home to her, solid and rusty, bolts in rows holding it together.

  She grabbed the ladder and hoisted herself up. Once on deck, she looked down as Ehrlich tied the canoe. “If we need it we’ve got it,” he said, checking the rope.

  “That’s great, really great, we have a canoe.”

  “If it gets rough we’ll paddle back.”

  “Sure, we’ll just paddle back—you’re out of your mind!”

  He swung to the ladder and started up. “The reef’s covered,” he said. “We’ll just paddle our way to the lab. Calvin will come get us, he’ll know we’re there. We’ll be fine.”

  “They shot him, he can’t help anyone!”

  Ehrlich stopped climbing the ladder and looked up at her. He hadn’t known. He looked back down at the canoe a second, then climbed up and swung over the railing.

  “If he’s shot, how’d he reach you?”

  “Ehrlich, do you want to argue? We have to go back.”

  “We will, in a minute.”

  “What minute? The wind’s blowing, this thing’s gone, it’s nothing.”

  She looked to the beach, and was startled. Pale shirts and dresses were blowing among the trees. The islanders had come and watched them paddle out beyond the barrier reef. She felt exposed.

  Ehrlich pointed, and she saw a canoe crossing from the eastern tip of the beach. It was just one man, paddling hard. The outrigger lifted free and slapped down.

  “Relax,” Erhlich said. “All right, this is not the best situation, but that’s help. They’ll take us off. We’ll get this ironed out, everything’s fine. You get a great story, and Calvin and me will hold up our end.”

  Wrong—Brenda shook her head, staring at the approaching canoe.

  “We have an understanding with these people.” Ehrlich was almost casual now, leaning on the teak railing. “Okay, some trouble, it happens. They know we’ll make it right, we’re good for it. See?” He pointed. “That’s Chief Karl coming out himself. He wants to do this personally. Probably he feels a loss of face. This is a shame rather than a guilt culture.”

  She could just make him out, hatless, hair thick and white. It seemed to draw moonlight as he worked the paddle. He was aiming for one of the ropes looped around coral heads. She saw his face—impassive, bony.

  When he stopped paddling, she looked back to the shore. More people were there, hundreds now, some in the shallows. Still no one spoke or moved. With a sinking feeling, she understood. They hadn’t come to watch. They had come to bear witness.

  Karl was in the water, swimming to the reef.

  Ehrlich sucked air. “Jesus, Karl, what—”

  The chief grabbed a line and pulled, but couldn’t loosen it. He swam back to the bobbing canoe and took something out. As he swam again for the reef Brenda saw it flash. A machete. He reached the jutting coral and struggled up. A wave bellied under the ship and rolled toward him. He hacked at the line, severed it, and was swept away.

  “You don’t want to do this!” Ehrlich was slapping the railing, shaking his head as the old man swam to the second line.

  Somehow the chief again managed to pull himself up. Never looking at them, he waited for the tight rope to relax, and threw off the knotted loop. The next wave reached him and he let himself be taken with it, washed back into the lagoon.

  As the island seemed to drift away, Brenda kept watching the Pirimese. They never moved. This is what it means to be hated, she thought. To be wished dead.

  The night was breezy, with a full moon. All they needed was some music. Racing with the Moon or Moon River or Moon over Miami. The clouds were doing that—skimming over the sky, glazing the main island’s treetops—until they dropped from sight.

  How much time had passed? Her hands felt like ice. She was aware Ehrlich had left the railing and gone down to the canoe for his bag and briefcase. He scuffed back up the ladder, and without looking at her took his things up to the wheelhouse. A minute later he returned with a cotton sweater from Brenda’s own suitcase and held it out.

  “You took this when you searched my things,” she said. She snatched it from him, staring at Ehrlich a moment before pulling the sweater on. She came up through the neck and shook her head. “You’re running away from someone with a gun, but take time to search my things. To make sure I didn’t steal some super-sensitive data from your fucking company. Oh, yes, and maybe she’ll need a sweater.”

  “I was right to do it.” He pulled her small notebook from his hip pocket, wagged it in front of her face and flipped it over the side. “You didn’t come out here just to ‘get the facts’ on Soublik. Everything in there had to do with Cal’s research.”

  “Soublik was no drunk,” she said. “He died of encephalitis. He went nuts from inflammation of the brain, like the poor fool back there with a rifle.”

  Ehrlich said nothing. He had brought down a sweatshirt for himself and pulled it on. Like everything else, it had the Polo logo, and seeing it filled her with rage. She had never hated anyone more, and as he came up through the neck she slapped him hard.

  He blinked. “Think that’s a good idea? Out here, right now, slapping people?”

  “You are a low thing, Ehrlich. Coming out here with your money, your deals. Conning these people, getting them to sign contracts. Covering your company’s ass while you sign them up to kill themselves.”

  “I’m not talking to you,” he said. “There’s no point, you’re hysterical. You know nothing.”

  “I know the bug study out here is not the main event. They signed on for agriculture studies, they didn’t know what else they were buying. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “Wrong.”

  “Really? These people knew everything you had planned for them? Getting stung, going crazy?”

  “There were risks, they knew that. They’re independent. They can make a decision, and they made it.”

  “All of them?” Brenda asked. “They all got together and you made a presentation? PowerPoint, flip charts, overhead projector? Had everything translated so they knew the deal? Sure you did. They took a vote and decided. ‘Great concept, Mister Bob, great offer. Where do we sign? When do we get the satellite dish? Tell us about Pokémon.’”

  But Ehrlich had turned away and shut himself off. He walked toward the stairs to the bridge, tidying his collar above the sweatshirt, tugging down the sleeves.

  “Get some rest,” she called. “Big day tomorrow. Lots of moving and shaking to be done.”

  He didn’t answer and started up. She wanted to punish him, to get to him. “Hey Bob, did you bring your Crotch Masters? There’s a presentation for sure. You’ll look great, the new you—”

  He stopped halfway up, gripping the railing. She looked around for something, a fishing globe or tool, anything to protect herself. The deck was clean, stripped. Even the shark fins were gone.

  “We’re even,” he said finally, still looking to the bow. “Your notes, my underwear.”

  He went up and entered the wheelhouse. Freezing at the rail, Brenda heard the trawler creak under her and went down to the cabin. It was too stifling, and she returned to the deck. Just after curling up beneath the awning, she heard a splash.

  She hurried to the railing and looked down. Something was floating thirty feet away, undulating on the waves. She watched until a cloud cleared the moon, then recognized the shopping bag.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  Exhausted but unable to sleep, she lay on the deck. You wanted to get away, she thought. You wanted to think. Here’s your chance.

  She kept seeing Moser in the lab, his bloody short
s. Had he come to help, or set her up? After getting shot, maybe he had made his own deal with the islanders.

  Hours before sunrise, stiff and hungry, she went down to the galley. The lights worked. Smelling grease and soy sauce, she drank some water. Nothing had been left. The food-locker doors hung open; stainless steel counters reflected the ceiling. She searched the captain’s cabin, finding nothing but rolls of toilet paper and straw mats from the Pohnpei craft shop.

  Topside, the swells of the night before had flattened out. The ship seemed hardly to move. Brenda stood at the railing and saw something far out break the surface, then break it again. She squinted. Dolphins in tandem, bigger whales, debris. Somehow, it was worse than nothing. She turned away.

  At sunrise, she spotted Ehrlich standing outside the wheelhouse, looking down at her. She turned away. For two or three hours, she alternated walking the deck and lying under the tarp. Cloud cover made the morning seascape a monochrome gray; sky and ocean fused at the horizon.

  The emptiness made it easy to concentrate on Calvin Moser. She reviewed every detail, from his hand on her head as she lay in a swaying canoe, to the precise holes in his left buttock. Ehrlich went below for water. When he came up he was looking at her.

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  “The plane? I don’t know. Moser would give them our approximate location, tell them we’re drifting. They must have tables of currents.”

  “Assuming he’s still alive.”

  “If he reached you at the lab, he’s alive, he radioed. We just have to wait.”

  “I’m glad you know that.”

  Ehrlich came over. He had on an Oakland Raiders cap over a hand towel, to cover the back of his neck.

  “It was someone named Pretro,” Brenda said. “He shot Moser through the butt.”

  “Cal was fine when I saw him.”

  “I don’t think you have a clear picture of what’s going on. How well do you know him?”

  “He’s tight with the Pirimese.”

  “Fine, he’s tight with them. Now he has two more holes in his ass. He also wants to be famous. He wants to be the next George Washington Carver. I’m not so sure he wants us found.”