Tuck lit up at the mention of the patrol boat. Maybe he could catch a ride. “You have a patrol boat?”
“Seventy-footer. Some of the boys are out with it now, tuna fishin’ with the CIA. Don’t mention it, though. Secret, you know.”
“What’s the CIA doing down here?”
Frick raised a blond eyebrow. “Keepin’ an eye on the Yapese Navy.”
“I thought you were doing that.”
“Well, I am, ain’t I? And when they come back, it’s my turn to go fishin’. Lovely, us bein’ allies and all. Cuts the work in half. Want to suck some piss?”
“Pardon?” Tuck wasn’t ready for any kind of bizarre native customs.
“Drink some beers, mate. If you keep an eye on the Yappies, I’ll run down to the store and grab some beers.”
“Sounds good.” Tuck was ready to take the edge off his headache. Besides, there was still a chance for a ride out to the island.
Frick put his hat on Tuck’s head. “Right then. By the power invested in me by the Australian Royal Navy, et cetera, et cetera, I hearby deputize you as official intelligence officer until I get back. Do you swear?”
“Swear what?”
“Just swear.”
“Sure.”
“There it is.” Frick started walking off.
“What do I do if they make a move?”
“How the bloody hell should I know?”
Tuck watched the Yapese Navy for an hour before they all stood up and left the boat. He was pretty sure that this did not constitute a defense emergency, but just in case he decided to walk up the street to see what had happened to Frick. The pack felt even heavier now, and he guessed that it was the responsibility for Australian people that weighed him down. (A woman had once offered Tucker a goldfish in a bowl, and Tuck had graciously declined it on the basis that it was too much responsibility and would probably die anyway. He felt the same way about the Australians.)
The concrete streets of Colonia were bleached white and stained with three-foot red strips of betel nut spit on either side and lined with thick jungle vegetation. Off the streets Tuck could see tin hovels, children playing in the mud, women passing the hottest part of the day combing lice from each other’s hair in the shade of a tin-roofed porch. The women wore wraparound skirts, black with brightly colored stripes, and went topless. All but the youngest of them were enormously fat by Western standards, and Tuck felt his idealized picture of the beautiful island girls fade to a lice-infested, rotund reality. Still, there was something in their gentle grooming and in the quiet concentration of the children that made him feel sad and a little lonely. If only he could run into a woman he could talk to. A Western woman—she wouldn’t have to know he was a eunuch.
He broke out of the jungle into the open street of Colonia’s main “business district.” On one side was a marina with a restaurant and bar (or so the sign said), on the other a two-story, stucco minimall of shops and snack bars. Around it, in the shade of the modern portico, stood perhaps a hundred Yapese, mostly women, some
young men in bright blue loincloths, all shirtless. The islanders all had bright red lips and teeth from chewing betel nut. Even the little children were chewing the narcotic cud and spitting periodically into the street. Tuck walked in among them, hoping to find someone to ask about Frick’s whereabouts, but none made eye contact. The women and girls turned their backs to him. The men just looked away or pretended to pay attention to sprinkling powdered coral on to a split green betel nut before beginning a chew.
He went into a surprisingly modern grocery store and was relieved to see that the prices were in American dollars, the signs in English. He picked up a quart of bottled water and took it to the checkout counter, where a woman in a lavalava and a blue polyester smock rang up his purchase and held out her hand for the money.
“Do you know where I can find Commander Brion Frick?” Tuck asked her.
She took his money, turned to the cash drawer, and turned back to him with his change without uttering a word. Tuck repeated his question and the woman turned away from him. Finally he left, thinking, She must not speak English.
He ran into Frick coming out of the store. The spy had a six-pack tucked under his arm.
“I was looking for you,” Tuck said. “The Yapese Navy took off.”
“You could have asked inside. They knew where I was.”
“I did. The woman wouldn’t talk to me.”
“Not allowed to,” Frick said. “It’s bad manners to make eye contact. Yapese women aren’t allowed to talk to a man unless he’s a relative. If a woman and a man are seen speaking in public, they’re considered married on the spot. Shame too. Ever seen so many bare titties in all your life? Tough grabbin’ a snog if you can’t talk to them.”
Tucker didn’t want to talk about it. “You were supposed to come back to the wharf.”
Frick looked affronted. “I was on my way. Didn’t think you’d desert your post. I hope you’re a better pilot than you are a spy. Letting them sneak off like that.”
“Look, Frick, I need to get to Alualu right away. Can you take me in your patrol boat?”
“Love to, mate, but we’ve got a mission as soon as the boys get back from fishin’. We’ve got to tow the Yapese patrol boat down to Darwin for repairs. Won’t be back for a fortnight at least.”
“Doesn’t it make more sense to leave it broken? I mean, in the interest of watching them?”
The spy raised an eyebrow. “What threat are they with a broken boat?”
“Exactly,” Tuck said.
“You obviously don’t know a wit about maintaining job security. Mis-sionary Air might take you out, but I hear their plane is down for a while. Fishing boats are all Chinese. Buggers wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. You might charter a dingy, but I doubt that you’ll find anyone willing to take you across four hundred kilometers of open sea in an out-board. There’s fellows do it off Perth, but the West Coast is full of loonies anyway. Get yourself a room and wait. We’ll take you out when we get back.”
“I don’t know if I can wait that long.” Tuck stood up. “Where should I go to charter a boat?”
Frick pointed to a large Mobil oil tank at the edge of the harbor. “Try heading down to the fueling station. Should be able to find someone down there who needs the gas money.”
“Thanks, Frick, I appreciate it.” Tucker shook the spy’s hand.
“No worries, mate. You watch yourself out there. I hear that doctor’s a bedbug.”
“Good to know.” He waved over his shoulder as he walked down to the edge of the harbor. A group of women chewing betel nut in the shade of a hibiscus tree turned away from him as he passed.
He walked along the bank and looked into the cloudy green water at the harbor’s edge. Tiny multicolored fish darted in and out of the shallows, feeding on some kind of shrimp. Brown mud skippers, their eyes atop their heads like a frog’s, walked on their pectoral fins across a small mudflat that had formed around the roots of a mangrove tree. Tucker stopped and watched them. They were fish, yet they spent most of their time on land. It was as if they had evolved to a certain point, then just couldn’t make a decision to leave the water, grow into mammals, and finally invent personal stereos. For sixty million years they had been hanging out on the mudflats, looking at each other with periscope eyes and goofy froggy grins and say-ing: “What do you want do?” “I don’t know. What do you want to do?” “I don’t know. Want to go up on the land or stay in the water?” “I don’t know. Let’s hang out on the mudflat a little longer.”
Tuck completely understood. Although if he had been a mud skipper, after a couple of million years of dragging himself around the mudflat, he would have lost his patience and yelled, “Hey, can I get some feet over here!”, thus moving evolution along.