18mm Blues

by Gerald A. Browne

  Julia loathed that. She felt like punching them or at least kicking them (she only momentarily considered the balls) in the shins. Instead, she told herself to just bide her time. She stopped trying to make suggestions, sat there in the stern and silently approved on cue while they conspired.

  When they had it worked out, her part in it was to hire a car in Na Yang to take them to Bang Wan and, when they got to Bang Wan, she was to go to Kumura’s and remain in the room well out of the way until it was over. Typical shit, she thought as, apparently, she accepted her role.

  They arrived at Na Yang at dusk. Had it been any later they probably wouldn’t have been able to tie up because the dock there wasn’t much of a dock and most of it was occupied by small overused commercial fishing boats. Grady just did manage to slip the ketch in between two and attach a bowline.

  While he and William tended to the sails and to making sure the ketch was otherwise in order, Julia went ashore as she was supposed to.

  She found that Na Yang was much less of a village than she’d expected. That was good, she thought. It consisted of one everything store, with a single weathered gas pump out front and no more than a dozen congenially situated makeshift houses in the tropical growth out back. Other than a couple of motorized bicycles left outside the houses, the only vehicle seemed to be a 1967 Ford station wagon missing three fenders and one headlight. It was parked on one side of the store. A tiny Thai woman was loading slotted crates almost as large as herself into it, shoving the last crate in when Julia, with a U.S. twenty in hand, approached her.

  A ride to Bang Wan? The woman snapped the twenty from Julia’s fingers. She said she was in a terrible hurry. The crabs in the crates had already been out of the water too long. She was taking them to the Coral Beach Hotel in Phuket. The more life there was in the crabs when she got there the more she’d be paid for them.

  The old, one-eyed station wagon started obediently, and within a minute or two was the ultimate rattler on paved Highway 4 headed south. Another thing missing from the wagon was its floorboards on the passenger side. Julia hunched down and placed her feet up on the dashboard. The texture of the highway visibly zipping by at close range beneath her and the frantic scuttling of the crabs in the crates just behind her made it an even stranger ride.

  Julia expected she’d be let off at the private road, but the woman asked her where to turn and took her all the way in to Kumura’s house.

  Julia went in and up to her room. She took a quick shower, shampooed and conditioned her hair. Did her makeup, her more natural version, included no real red but skillfully applied an artful, dark, wicked look bordering on evilness to her eyes. She’d already decided on what she’d wear. The pale yellow silk organza trousers she’d bought in Bangkok. Wide-legged, floaty trousers, precisely transparent enough so only her fanciest bikini panties would do. No blouse. Instead, a snug tank top of silk in a more chrome yellow. The combination was right, she thought, as she simultaneously slipped her feet into a pair of light scaled heels and appraised herself in the mirror: a susceptible show-off below, a bit tough above. She remembered to decide against perfume. (Hadn’t it been said that her natural scent was provocative?) Neither would she wear any jewelry, not even ear clips. Bare eared would be better. She grabbed up an appropriate shoulder bag and, repressing another look at herself, hurried out.

  William’s red Porsche was parked off the drive. She borrowed it and within a few minutes was at the main entrance of Lesage’s house. A servant answered the door. Julia was told to wait. The servant reappeared and showed her in and up to the second floor.

  Lesage and Paulette were in the spacious study. Playing ennui, telling each other how bored they were there in Bang Wan and volleying with places they’d rather be. Lesage was sprawled on one of the sofas. He had on a white flannel, double-breasted suit with engraved mother-of-pearl buttons. No shirt or undershirt and no shoes or stockings. His feet were as knubby and ugly as his hands, Julia thought. Paulette was on the sofa opposite. All she had on was loose-legged, lace-edged silk panties and a matching camisole. Neither Lesage nor Paulette got up to greet Julia. Lesage did a minimal temporary smile around his hello. Paulette threw her a kiss. Rather than throw one back, Julia went directly to Paulette and from the back of the sofa tilted Paulette’s head up and brought her lips down upon Paulette’s for a kiss that was more than brief and obviously aggressive.

  That didn’t make Lesage sit up but it definitely got his attention. “Brisant,” he remarked, but with restraint.

  Paulette accepted the kiss as though it were expected. She patted the sofa cushion next to her as if Julia were an adoring pet to have come sit. Julia disobeyed, helped herself to some of the good blanc de blancs they were drinking. She noticed a round magnifying mirror and a pair of gold tweezers on the arm of the sofa. Evidently Paulette had been plucking her already perfectly shaped brows. From that Julia gathered that Paulette was truly bored, so the distraction she’d provide would be most welcome.

  “Daniel and I were just agreeing that it’s time to get away from here for a while,” Paulette said. “I’m badly in need of some Paris.”

  “And some Côte d’Azure,” Lesage said.

  “Pas moi,” Paulette said doing a moue. “I’ve had enough of seaside for the moment. I need some shopping. Alice Condolle must think I’ve died. I ordered two dozen panties and camisoles like this months ago and she hasn’t heard a word from me. Look,” she tugged at a single loose thread at a seam of the camisole, “I’m down to wearing tatters.”

  Now Julia sat beside Paulette, who, too lazy to reach for her own glass, took a sip from Julia’s, leaving an unctuous pink lip print. From that spot on the glass exactly Julia took a sip.

  Paulette was pleased. Her eyes let Julia know that. She was grateful for Julia, that Julia had been the sort that could be converted into a worshipper. Paulette had nearly everything she could want. Above the level of nearly was her need to corrupt, to test the effectiveness of her beauty in the most extreme and therefore more reassuring ways. Such as, in this case with Julia, foiling a romance.

  “Where’s Grady?” Paulette asked.

  “Up the coast a ways, in a place called Na Yang,” Julia replied indifferently. “He had a problem with the boat, the steering mechanism or something.”

  “You didn’t stay out pearling long.”

  “No.”

  “The enjoyment is in the idea of it,” Lesage said. “After a few unrewarding dives comes discouragement.” Having submitted that fragment of wisdom, he rolled over onto his side, putting his back to them. No concern about how he was punishing the flannel suit.

  “I sense that you and Grady had une bisbille, a little tiff,” Paulette said.

  “Not really,” Julia told her. “I’ve just arrived at the point where I’ve had enough of him. As it turned out he’s not rich enough for me nor does he have any prospects.”

  “Poor, poor darling,” Paulette sided. “So you’ve come to us.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you’re entirely right. Contrary to what’s often said being rich is most important. Sometimes, when my imagination has it in for me, I envision myself without a sou. Believe me it’s devastating, but also, believe me, if that were really the case, I wouldn’t be poor for long.”

  Julia nodded soberly. She waited a beat, sat forward and said, “I saw you in the helicopter.” Her words were intended, of course, for Lesage. It seemed she threw them at him and they went over the hump of his back and turned him over. “What did you say?” he asked.

  “This morning you were aboard that helicopter. You were trying not to be seen, but I saw you.”

  “Are you telling me you were stopped by a Burmese patrol?” Lesage asked.

  “Not an authentic Burmese patrol.”

  “I take it you were up in Burmese waters.”

  “Yes.”

  “You shouldn’t have been up there. No telling ever what the Burmese are apt to do.”

  “I recognize
d your hands when you reached for the wine bottles,” Julia told him levelly.

  Lesage did a bewildered face followed by an amused scoff. “My hands? They couldn’t have been mine.” He held his hands up, as though they proved that.

  “I also saw your face,” Julia told him. “At least I saw the reflection of it in the window opposite from where you were seated.”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  “No. It was definitely you.”

  “It was not,” Lesage said firmly.

  “You don’t have to admit it. It’s only important that you realize that I saw you.”

  “Saying that you did, why would it be important?”

  “So you’d know where I stand,” she replied.

  “Which is where?”

  “You have fifty-eight blue pearls. You could have ten times, twenty times that many.”

  At last Lesage was made to sit up.

  Paulette had remained silent throughout, entertained by Julia’s assertiveness and Lesage’s wiggling denials. She placed her always appreciated legs upon the low glass-topped table, crossed them at the ankles and pointed her pampered toes ballerinalike. Gave Julia’s back three encouraging pats as Julia told Lesage, “I know where that island is. I’ve been there. I know its exact position. I’ve seen the oysters in that lagoon. An incredible number just lying there waiting to give up their pearls. By comparison the fifty-eight you have now is a pittance.”

  Lesage lighted a cigar.

  “What I have in mind is a three-way split,” Julia said, “a third for each of us. We’d spread the pearls out and each take a pick in turn so there’d be no quibbling.”

  Lessage pictured it.

  Julia could practically see his imagination working. She fed it. “A thousand, more likely two thousand natural blue pearls, hundreds of them eighteen-millimeter size, and we’d have our pick.”

  “D’accord,” Lesage said, “you tell me the location of the island and I’ll send some divers there.”

  “Sure you will,” Julia said sarcastically. “And I’ll be lucky to get one tiny pearl as a souvenir.”

  “I’d be fair,” Lesage told her.

  “Spare me,” she told him.

  “So, what do you propose?” he asked.

  “For certain we shouldn’t make a big thing out of it, involve a lot of divers and all. Once they know the island … well, you can imagine the consequences. I say we go there, just the three of us. The oysters are in the shallows, easy to get at. We could clean it out in practically no time.”

  What an audacious cunt, Lesage thought, and to think she now knew where the island was, that which had eluded him all these years. She knew all right. The fifty-eight blues he had in his possession attested to that. She wasn’t all that smart, though greedy cunts like her never were, thought they were but weren’t. Couldn’t she see that she was asking for it? Sure, he’d let her take him to the island, but when they got there and he’d determined that the blue pearls were there, he’d kill her. Maybe he wouldn’t also have to kill Paulette. That would depend. No, he decided, better, neater that he killed Paulette too. He’d almost had enough of her anyway. Only almost because a good time for him was being worked up between Paulette and this Julia. It would all come loose when they were out on the water.

  He forced his mind back to the less ephemeral aspect. What would it be like to have such a huge cache of blue naturals, he wondered, to have the corner on a precious anomaly? Wouldn’t he be famous? Wouldn’t articles be written about him? His Lesage identity could stand up to such fame, he believed. Every now and then from his hoard he’d contribute a blue to a museum. His reputation would soar. He’d sleep in royal beds, deliver food to his mouth with royal forks, be able to thumb his ass at Kumura.

  That was the clincher.

  He brought out from behind one of the sofa cushions the tan chamois bag of blue pearls he’d brought home from Kumura’s only a couple of hours ago. No word yet from Kumura. He’d been edgily waiting for the call and maybe could use the hundred million, but it didn’t matter nearly as much now.

  He opened the sack and allowed the pearls to roll across the glass top of the table. They collided with Paulette’s feet, ran up the exquisite line of her calves. It was a cavalierish gesture by Lesage, intended to amuse and demonstrate his decision to go along with Julia’s proposal.

  Julia ignored the pearls.

  “We’ll set out first thing in the morning!” Lesage said enthusiastically.

  “Tonight,” Julia contradicted, “soon as possible.”

  “Why tonight?” Lesage asked.

  “To get the jump on Grady and William. Remember, they also know where the island is. Had it not been for the problem with the boat they would have gone right back to it.”

  “Do they know I was in the chopper?”

  “I kept that to myself. They swallowed the whole Burmese illusion.”

  “Then it must have shook them. I think you’re wrong. It’ll be a long time before they risk going back into Burmese waters.”

  “You don’t know Grady,” Julia said. “He’ll be back there gathering up blues in no time.”

  Lesage retrieved the pearls from the table, some had rolled over the edge onto the carpet. He didn’t count them, didn’t know whether or not he’d found them all. From the heft of the chamois sack it felt as though he had. If he’d overlooked a few, to hell with them. “What do you think, Paulie?” he asked.

  “I’m all for tonight,” Paulette replied ambiguously.

  “It’s just that I don’t like being at sea at night, never have.”

  A loud, intolerant sigh from Paulette.

  “Once we’re out of the bay you’ll have nothing to be uneasy about,” Julia assured. “We’ll set the heading and let the boat sail itself on autopilot. Then, if you’re still uneasy … well, you can shut your eyes if you want.”

  “Like hell,” Lesage declared, with a lascivious grin.

  He and Paulette went from the study to get whatever personal items they might need for a few days at sea.

  Julia, left alone in this room that was so overbearingly Lesage, took stock of the circumstances she’d created. Ever since she’d gone ashore at Na Pang with the purpose of hiring a car she’d been only slightly herself. Most of her felt as though she were on a path between two walls, infinitely high, invisible walls that hemmed her in, refused her any other course. This same sense of being directed, steered, influenced, however it could be described, was something she’d experienced at various times during the past few months. To a lesser degree than what she was undergoing now but nonetheless the same. She’d traced it back to soon after the night when she’d decided against life and consumed those saved-up Nembutals. The first manifestation of it had been in her lawyer’s office when she couldn’t resist breaking her strand of pearls.

  Initially she’d attributed that instance to her attraction to Grady. Hadn’t it been nothing more than an assertive approach on her part? Wasn’t it only that she’d wanted to meet him, broken the ice, so to speak, by breaking her pearls? Only much later on, when she reflected upon it, did she admit that she was compelled beyond herself to break the pearls. And she certainly didn’t accept that it was merely a coincidence he happened to be a pearl dealer. No, that day in the lawyer’s office had been like the obligatory opening scene in a melodrama.

  Also along the line there’d been numerous other instances, little things, such as sudden contradictions in what she’d come to believe were her settled tastes, established dislikes, that for no apparent reason all at once became preferences.

  And what about the more extreme, inexplicable occurrences? The way she’d temporarily lost the use of her arms on two occasions. Her knowing there was an island where nothing was indicated on the chart. Her swimming. She’d never been more than an average swimmer, but for that one afternoon she’d swam as though she’d been brought up in the water. And not just any water, the sea. Where had she gotten all that breath? All that courage and st
rength?

  She couldn’t chalk those things up to Grady’s affect on her. She’d wanted to mention them to him but hadn’t for the same reason she hadn’t told him of her attempted suicide. For fear it would complicate their relationship, might even cause him to question her sanity. It was, she felt, absolutely essential that he love her, but why was it so essential? And what of her love for him? Was she genuinely capable of it or was that capability a transient accommodation like her swimming?

  How confusing it was. She couldn’t count on anything.

  It seemed, she thought, she’d grasped a somewhat substantial thread of explanation from what William had divulged at one point during the sail back.

  “My mother…” were the two words that got William started. “My mother was an ama. Her name was Setsu, Setsu Yoshida. She was a great ama. Given more of a chance she would have been an even more revered ama than my grandmother’s grandmother, Amira, who is still to this day considered a legend.”

  “I take it that contrary to what you said, your mother knew how to swim.”

  “She more than merely knew how.”

  “What did you say her name was?”

  “Setsu.”

  “Say it again.”

  William said it. Julia watched it come from his lips. The sibilant sound of it hung in the air between them for a long moment and then it seemed to go to Julia’s eyes, causing them to tear. She blamed that on the wind. After a recovering moment she remarked: “Sometimes even the best swimmers drown.”

  “She didn’t drown,” William admitted.

  “Oh?” Julia was aware that she had to pretend surprise.

  “She was murdered. Both she and my Aunt Michiko were murdered.”

  Apparently William wanted to let it go at that, however Julia felt compelled to draw him out, and soon the awful truth came pouring from him. An account of the entire episode from the day when he and Setsu and Michiko first met the Frenchman named Bertin in Ban Pakbara to when they happened upon the uncharted island shaped like a shoe.