Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 54~55

54Selling pull to aimhererThe Sky Priestess threw the straw touch on into across the room, so tore at the high- plainlyt aced collar of the fresh execute. She was losing him. She dis homogeneous(p) that more than anything losing control. She ripped the work down the appear and wrestled out of it.She stormed across the room, the dress mollify trailing from peerless foot, and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. She pou loss herself a roll and drank half of it wrap up mend still holding the bottle, then re make full the fruitcake while her temples throbbed with the cold. She carried the bottle and glass to a control in front of the television, sat down, and turned it on. zero(prenominal)hing alone static and s flat. Sebastian was using the air dish. She threw the vodka bottle at the screen, but missed and it bounced away the case, taking a small chip out of the plastic.Fuck She k midriffd the intercom abutting to her hot seat. Bastian DammitYes, my sweet. H is voice was calm and oily.What the fuck are you doing? I want to re main TV.Im beneficial finishing up, sweet union and soul.We motivation to talk. She tossed pricker another slug of vodka.Yes, we do. Ill be up in a moment.Bring rough vodka from your house.As you wish. 10 minutes later the Sorcerer walked into her bungalow, the picture of the patrician physician. He transfer her the vodka and sat down across from her. Pour me one, would you, darling?Before she could examine herself, shed gotten up and fetched him a glass from the kitchen. She handed it to him a dour with the bottle.Your dress is torn, dear.No shit.I same(p) the calculate, the Sorcerer verbalize, although Id cede preferred to tear it moody you myself.Not now. I think we pick out trouble.The Sorcerer smiled. We did, but as of tonight at midnight, our troubles are oer. How was your walk this morning, by the way?I took aimcase to represent the shark hunt. I apprehension it would keep him from acquire island fever, something different to break the boredom.As opposed to fucking him.She wasnt release to fate any surprise, not after hed laid a trap give care that. No, in addition to fucking him. It was a mis excise.The shark hunt or the fucking?She bristled, The shark hunt. The fucking was fine. He saw the boy whose corneas we harvested.So.He freaked. I shouldnt have allow him connect the people with the procedure. sternlyly I ideal you could handle him.He was enjoying this inherently too much for her taste. Dont be smug, Bastian. What are you going to do, lock him in the back room of the clinic? We need him.No, we dont. Ive hired a new pilot. A Japanese.I thought wed agree thatIt hasnt worked using Americans, has it? He starts tonight.How?Youre going to go pick him up. The corporation assures me that hes the best, and he wont ask questions.Im going to pick him up?We have a heart-lung order. You and Mr. Case need to deliver it.I cant do it, Bastian. I cant do a performance a nd a heart-lung tonight. Im too jangled.You dont have to do each, dear. We dont have to do the surgery. Well instal less money on it, but we whole have to deliver the sponsor.But what or so doing the choosing?Youve done that already. You chose when you went to bed with our intrepid Mr. Case. The heart-lung donor is puckerer Case. enter needed a drink. He looked just about the bungalow, hoping that mortal had left a stray bottle of vanilla extract or aftershave that expertness go well with a slice of mango. Mangoes he had, but anything containing ethyl alco-hol was not to be make. It would be hours forward darkness could covering his escape to the drinking circle, where he intended to go bad gloriously beat if he could look any of the chisel volume in the eye and keep his stomach. Sorry, you guys. Just had to take the edge off of the guilt of flagrant a child to get my own airplane.He well-tried to guide on off himself by reading, but the moral certainties of the literary spy guys only served to establish him feel worse. Television was no help either. Some sort of Balinese darkness puppet show and Filipino news special on how sheik it was to make American semiconductors for three bucks a day. He punched the remote to off and tossed it across the room.Frustration leaped out in a line of curses, followed by exclusively near, Mr. Ghost Pilot, where in the hell are you now?And in that lo com confideed axial tomographyion was a knock on the door.Kidding, pucker said. I was kidding. striptease iner, can I come in? Beth Curtis said.Its open. It was always open. on that point was no lock on it.He looked away as she entered, afraid that, wish the search of the Medusa, she talent turn him to stone or at least that part of him unmoved(p) by conscience. She came up behind him and began kneading the muscles in his shoulders. He did not look back at her and still had no idea if she might be naked or wearing a clown suit.Youre upset. I be lowstand. But its not what you think.Theres not a lot of room for misinterpretation.Isnt at that place? What if I told you that that boy was covert from birth. His corneas were healthy, but he was born with atrophied middle nerves.I feel much better, thanks. Kid wasnt using his eyes, so we ripped them out.He felt her nails dig into his trapezius muscles. Ripped out is hardly appropriate. Its a very(prenominal) delicate operation. And because we did it, another child is equal to see. You seem to be abstracted that aspect of what were doing here. Every time we deliver a kidney, were saving a life.She was right. He hadnt thought closely that. I yet navigate the plane, he said.And take the money. You could have this same job back in the States. You could be flying the organs of accident dupes on Life Flight jets and accomplishing the same thing, except you wouldnt be making enough to pay the taxes on what you make here, right?No, not exactly, he thought. Back in the States, he couldnt fly anything but a hang glider without his license. I guess so, he said. But you could have told me what you were doing.And have you thinking about the teensy blind kid at five hundred miles per hour. I dont think so. She flex over and kissed his earlobe lightly. Im not a monster, rumple. I was a myopic girl once, with a mother and a father and a cat named Cupcake. I dont blind low kids.Finally he turned in the contain to face her and was grateful to see that she was wearing one of her ultraconservative Donna Reed dresses. What happened to you, Beth? How in the hell do you get from Here, Cupcake to the Murdering Bitch Goddess of the Shark People? He immediately regretted recounting it. Not because it wasnt true, but because hed given up away the fact that he knew it was. He braced himself for the rage.She moved to the throw up and sat down across from him. Then she curled into a ball, her face against the cushions, and covered her eyes. He said nix. He just watche d as her luggage compartment quaked with silent sobs. He hoped this wasnt an act. He hoped that she was so offended that she would take his absent accusation for hyperbole.Five full minutes passed before she looked up. Her eyes were red and shed managed to smear mascara across one cheek. Its your fault, she said.Tuck nodded and tried not to allow a smile cross his lips. She was roleplaying another part, and she didnt do the victim nearly as well as she did the seduction queen. He said, Im sorry, Beth. I was out of line.She seemed surprised and broke character. Evidently, hed stepped on her line, the one shed been thinking of while pretending to cry. A second for composure and she was back at it. Its your fault. I only wanted to have a friend, not a lover. All men are that way.Then you essential not have gotten the newssheet Men Are Pigs. Next issue is Water Is Wet. Dont miss it.She cast off out of character again. What are you saying?You might have been a victim once, but now thats just a distant entrepot you use to rationalize what you do now. You use men because you can. I cant bet out what happened in San Francisco, though. A woman who looks like you should have been able to find an easier way to fuck her way to a fortune. The doc must have been a cakewalk for you.And you werent?Tuck felt as if someone had injected him with a truth serum that was lighting up his mind, and not with revelations about Beth Curtis. The light was shining on him.Yeah, I guess I was a cakewalk. So what? Did you think for a minute that you might try not to go to bed with me?Other than when I ready out that youd close torn your balls off, not for a minute. She was gritting her teeth.And how big a task do you think you took on? Its not like you were corrupting me or anything. Ive been on the other end of the game for years. I know you, Beth. I am you.You dont know anything. She was visibly trying not to scream, but Tuck could see the blood rising in her face.He pushed on. Freud says Im this way because I was neer hugged as a child. Whats your excuse?Dont be smug. I could have you right now if I wanted. As if to prove her point, she laid her feet at either end of the coffee table and began to pull up her dress. She wore white stockings and vigour else underneath.Not interested, Tuck said. Been there, done that.Youre so transparent, she said. She crawled over the table and did a languid cat stretch as she ran her hands up the indoors of his thighs. By the time her hands got to his belt buckle, she was face-to-face with him, most moving noses. Tuck could quality the alcohol on her breath. She flicked her tongue on his lips. He just looked in her eyes, as cold and blue as crystal, like his own. She wasnt fooling anyone, and in realizing that, Tuck realized that he also had never fooled anybody. Every Mary Jean lady, every bar bimbo, every secretary, escape valve attendant, or girl at the grocery store had seen him coming and let him come.Beth un zipped his pants and took him in her hand, her face still only a millimetre from his, their eyes locked. Your armor seems to have a weak spot, tough guy.Nope, Tuck said.She slid down to the floor and took him into her mouth. Tuck suppressed a gasp. He watched her head moving on him. To keep himself from touching her he grabbed the arms of the chair and the wicker creaked as if it was creation punished.Thats a pretty convert argument, said the male voice. Tuck looked up to see Vincent sitting on the set up where Beth had been a minute ago.Jesus Tuck said. Beth let out a muffled moan and dug her nails into his ass.Wrong Vincent said. But never play cards with that guy. The flyer was smoking a fairy, but Tuck couldnt smell it. Oh, dont worry. She cant hear me. Cant see me either, not that shes looking or anything.Tuck just shook his head and pushed up on the arms of the chair. Beth took his figurehead for ebullience and paused to look up at him. Tuck met her gaze with eyes the siz ing of golf balls. She smiled, her lipstick a bit worse for the wear, a string of saliva trailed from her lips. Just enjoy. You lost. Losers flourish here. She licked her lips and returned to her task.Dame makes a point, Vincent said. I give you three to one she brings you around to her way of thinking. Whatta ya say?No. Tuck waved the flyer off and shut his eyes.Oh, yes, Beth said, as if expressing into the microphone.Vincent flicked his cigarette butt out the window. Im not distracting you, am I? I just dropped in to take up on the dames stead, as she is unable to speak for herself at present.Tuck was experiencing the worst case of bed spins hed ever had in a chair. Sexual vertigo.Of course, Vincent continued, this is kinda turning into a religious engender for you, aint it? Go with what you know, right? You let her run the show, you got no decisions to make and no worries ever after. Not a worry in the world. You got my word on that. Although, if it was me, Id differentiate out her story just to be safe. Look in the docs figurer maybe.Beth was working her mouth and hands like she was pumping water on an inner fire that was consuming her with each second that passed. Tuck comprehend his own breath rise to a pant and the wicker chair crackle and creak and skid on the wooden floor. He was component her now, wanting her to quench that flame and that was all there was.You think about it, Vincent said. Youll do the right thing. You owe me, remember. He faded and disappeared.What does that mean? Tuck said, then he moaned, arched his back, and came so hard he thought he would pass out, but she kept on and on until he couldnt stand the intensity and had to push her away. She landed on the floor at his feet and looked up like an angry she-cat.Youre mine, she said. She was still breathing hard and her dress was still up around her waist. Were friends.It came out like a command, but Tuck heard a note of desperation below the gasp and the ire, and he felt a wr enching pain in his authority like nothing hed ever felt before. I know you, Beth. I am you, he said. But not anymore, he thought. He said, Yes, were friends.She smiled like a little girl whod been given a pony for her birthday. I knew it, she said. She climbed to her feet and smoothed down her skirt, then bent and kissed him on the eyebrow. He tried to smile.She said, Ill see you in a few hours. Were flying out at nine. I have to go see to Sebastian.Tuck zipped up his pants. And get ready for your performance? he said.No, this isnt a medical flight. Just supplies.Tuck nodded. Beth, was that little boy blind from birth?Of course, she said, looking offended. She was more convincing as the Sky Priestess.You go see to Sebastian, Tuck said.After she had left, Tuck looked at the ceiling and said, Vincent, just in case youre listening, Im not purchase your bullshit. If you want to help me, fine. But if not, stay out of my way.55 wage No Attention to That Man Behind the ComputerTuck went into the gutter and washed his face, then combed his hair. He studied his face in the mirror, looking for that scary glint that hed seen in Beth Curtiss eyes. He wasnt her. He wasnt as smart as she was, but he wasnt as crazy either. He cringed with the realization that he had spent most of his adult life being a jerk or a patsy and sometimes both simultan-eously. And it was no small irony to have had an epiphany during a blow job. Vincent, some(prenominal) he was, had been playing some kind of game from the beginning, mixing lies and truth, support him only to get him into trouble. There was no grand bailout coming, and if he was going to find out what was really being planned for him, he had to get into the computer.The best time to sneak into the clinic was right now, in broad daylight. He hadnt seen any of the guards all day and Beth was seeing to Sebastian. If he got caught, hed simply say he was trying to get the weather for to-nights flight. If the doc could e-mail and fac simile machine all over the world, then surely he would have opening to weather services. It didnt matter he didnt think hed have a hard time convincing the doc that he was just being stupid. His entire life had set up the cover.He grabbed some paper and a draw from the nightstand and stuffed them into his back sac. While he was in there, he might as well see if he could pick up the coordinates for Okinawa. If he could sneak them into the nav computer on the Lear, he might just be able to get the military to force the jet down there. He didnt have a chance in hell of getting there on his own navigational skills.He stepped out on the lanai and gave a aspectlong glance to the guards quarters to make sure no one was just inside the door watching his bungalow. Satisfied, he walked to the clinic and tried the door. It was unlocked.He examine the compound again, saw nothing, and slipped into the clinic. He was immediately met by the buy the fartherthermostm of voices coming from th e back room. Male voices, speaking Japanese. He tiptoed through the door that led into the operating room and opened it a crack. The door to the far side was open. He could see all the ninjas gathered around one of the hos-pital beds playing cards. It was visiting day for Stripe. He palmed the door shut and went to the computer.There had been a time when Tuck was so ignorant of computers that he thought a mouse pad was Disneys brand of sanitary napkin, but that was before he met Jake Skye. Jake had taught him how to access the weather maps, charts, and how to commit his flight plans through the computer. In the military operation Tuck had also learned what Jake considered the most important computer skill, how to hack into someone elses stuff.The three CRTs were all on, two green over black and one color. Tuck focused on the color screen. It was friendlier and it was displaying a screen saver he recognized, a slide show of dolphins. He moved the mouse and the familiar Windows scre en appeared. There was a treasure from the back room and Tuck nearly drove the mouse off the top of the desk. Must have been a good hand.He anticipate to see obscure medical programs, something hed never figure out, but it looked like the doc used the same stuff everyone in the States did. Tuck clicked on the database icon and the program jumped to fill the screen. He opened a file menu there were only two. One was named SUPPLIES, the other TT. Tissue types? He clicked it. The ENTER PASSWORD field opened. Shit.Jake had always told him that people used intelligible passwords if you knew the people. Something they wouldnt forget. Put yourself in their place, youll figure out their passwords, and dont eliminate the possibility that it may be written on a Post-it note stuck to the computer. Tuck looked for Post-it notes, then open the desk drawers and riffled through the papers for anything that looked like a password. He pushed out the chair and looked under the desk. Bingo There we re two long numbers written on tape on the bottom of the desk drawer. He pulled the paper and pencil from his air hole and copied them down, then entered the first one in the password field.was the responseTuck typed in the second number. Look for the obvious. Tuck typed SKY PRIESTESS. The guards were laughing in the other room. Tuck typed in VINCENT. DOCTOR. It would be something that the doc would be sitting here thinking about. It would be on his mind.Tuck typed BETH. BETHS TITS.Wait a minute. This was the doc thinking. He typed BETHS BREASTS.The file ringleted open, modify the screen with a list of names down the left side followed by rows and columns of letters and numbers. All of the names Tuck could see were native. crosswise the top were five columns that must be the tissue types and blood types, succeeding(a) to those, kidney, liver, heart, lung, cornea, and pancreas. Christ, it was an inventory sheet. And the heart, lung, liver, and pancreas categories convertd him on ce and for all that there was no gracious intention behind the Curtises plan. They were going to the meat market with the Shark People until the village was empty.Tuck typed in SEPIE in the FIND field. An X had been placed in all the organ categories except kidney. There he found an H and a date. H? Har-vested. The date was the day they harvested it.He typed in PARDEE, JEFFERSON. No xs in any of the columns, but two Hs under heart and lungs. Of course the other organs werent marked. Theyd been donated to the sharks and were no longer available. There was nothing under SOMMERS, JAMES. That too made sense. How would they get the organs to Japan without a pilot. Tuck wished hed gotten the little blind boys name. He couldnt take the time to scroll though all three hundred or so names looking for missing corneas. He typed in CASE, TUCKER. There were Hs marked under the heart and lung category. The harvest date was today.You fuckers, he said. There was a shuffling in the back room and h e stood so quickly the chair rolled back and banged into a cabinet on the other side of the office. The database was still up onthe screen. Tuck reached out and punched the button on the monitor. Itclicked off as Mato came through the door.What are you guys doing here? Tuck said.Mato pulled up. He seemed confused. He was supposed to be doing the yelling.Were flying tonight, Tuck said. Do you guys have the plane fueled up?Mato shook his head. Then get on it. I wondered where you were.Mato just looked at him.Go Tuck said. NowMato started to walk toward the door, obviously not comfortable with leaving Tuck in the clinic. another(prenominal) guard came into the office and when Mato looked up, Tuck snatched his paper and pencil from the desk. He dropped the pencil and when he bent to pick it up, he hit the main advocate switch on the computer. The computer would reboot when turned on and the reanimate would only know that it had been turned off. Hed never suspect that someone had been into the donor files.Lets go, you guys.Tuck pushed erstwhile(prenominal) Mato out the office door, shoving the paper in his pocket as he went.Tuck made quite a show of the preflight on the Lear, demanding three times that the guard with access to the key to the main power cutoff turn it on so he could check out the plane. The guard wasnt buying it. He walked away from Tuck snickering. Tuck checked under the instrument panel. Maybe there would be some obvious way to hot-wire the switch. Hed been lucky with the computer. The switch and all the wires atomic number 82 into it were covered by a steel case. He couldnt get into it with a blowtorch, and frankly, he had no idea which wires did what. It probably wasnt fifty-fifty a truthful switch, but a relay that lead to another switch. Thered be no way to wire around it.He left the hangar and went back to his bungalow. Unless he found some way to get off the island, he was going to be short a couple of lungs and a heart come midnight. Beth would have at least one guard on the plane with her, probably two, given the circumstances. And he had no doubt that shed vote down him in the crotch andmake him fly to Japan anyway. There had to be another way. Like a boat. Kimis boat. Didnt these guys travel thousands of miles over the Pacific in canoes like that? What could the doc do? Hed been so careful about safeguarding the island that the guards didnt even have a boat to chase him with.Tuck put on his shorts and took his fins and mask to the bathroom. He knotted the ends of his trouser legs and started filling them with supplies. A shirt, a light jacket, some disinfectant, sunscreen, a short kitchen knife. He found a small jar of sugar in the kitchen, dumped the sugar into the sink, and filled the jar with matches and Band-Aids. When he was ready to seal it, he saw the slip of paper hed written on in the office sticking from the pocket of the trousers and shoved it into the jar as an afterthought. He topped off the pa nts nucleotide with a pair of sneakers, then pulled the webbed belt tight to play it all up. He could swim with the pants legs like water wings. The stringent clothing would get heavy, but not until he hit the rim on the far side of the minefield. To Tucks way of thinking, once he was past the minefield he was halfway there. Then all he had to do was convince the old cannibal to give him the canoe, enough food and water to get somewhere, and Kimi to navigate. Where in the hell would they go? Yap? Guam?One step at a time. First he had to get out of the compound. He checked the guards positions. Leaning out the window, he could see three no, four at the hangar. He waited. Hed never tried to make the swim while it was still light. Theyd be able to see him in the water from as far away as the runway. He just had to hope that they didnt look in that direction.The guards were rolling barrels into the hangar to hand-pump the jet fuel into the Lear. Two on each barrel, four out in the compound, bingo. One guy had to be in the hangar cranking the pump. And Stripe was in the clinic. ShowtimeTuck went into the bathroom, displace the hatch, threw down the pants bag and his swimming stuff, and followed it through.He weighed sneaking against running, theft against speed, and decided to go like a newborn turtle for the water. The only people who might see him were the Doc and Beth, and they were probably in the process of pushing the twin beds together and doing the Ozzie and Harriet double-skin sweat slap or any(prenominal) sort of weird shit they did. He hoped it was painful.He broke into a dead run across the gravel, feeling the coral dig at his feet and the ferns whip at his ankles but keeping his focus onthe beach. As he passed the clinic, he thought he saw some movement out of the corner of his eye, but he didnt turn. He was Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, and Edwin Moses (except he was white and slow), a single head turn could cause him to lose his dance step a nd the race and boy, does that beach seem farther when youre running than when youre sneaking. He almost tumbled when he hit the sand, but managed a controlled forward stumble that put him face-first in four inches of water. The baby turtle had made it to the water, but now he faced a whole new set of dangers at sea, not the least of which was trying to swim with a pair of stuffed khakis around his neck.He kicked a few feet out into the water, put on his fins and mask, and began the swim.Hed been barbarian from the moment he heard the pilots voice in the clinic and he had fought the drove of painkillers and the pressure in his head to get to him. Yamata watched the pilot stumble into the water before he tried shouting for the others. The shout came out little more than a grunt through his wired jaw, and his crushed sinuses allowed little sound to pass through his nose. His gun was in the guards quarters, the others were at the hangar, and his scorned enemy was escaping. He decide d to go for his gun. The others might want to take the pilot alive.