The Last Good Paradise (34 page)

“You don’t have to turn over the hotel now,” Titi said. “It can wait.”

“I’m cheating you two out of your inheritance. Ill-gained as it was.”

“We aren’t ready.” This was the truth she had been avoiding.

“Sometimes events force you to be ready.”

“I want to change the name of the hotel,” she said.

Loren looked surprised. Change came so fast, so hungrily.

“A name in our own language.”

He nodded.

“Mara ‘amu.”

“Trade winds. Yes, I like it.”

Titi got up to leave. “I thought you should know—another guest has landed on the beach without permission.”

*   *   *

When the outrigger pulled away from the beach, Cooked would not look back at his and Titi’s relatives singing and throwing flowers in the water, a hero’s send-off. In spite of his baseball cap and T-shirt, he felt like one of those ancient warriors the old people told stories about who went out to do battle against the enemy. For a proud moment, suspended over the lagoon, the sun reflecting off the water, he felt his presence in the boat was destiny. He felt brave. But when a paddle jabbed him in the back, it all disappeared. He was again scared of reaching their destination.

“Moruroa” was the spelling used by native people for the island. It meant, ironically, Big Lies. The French misspelled it “Mururoa” on purpose to make it obscure and secret. That whole corner of the archipelago was off the map for tourists, as off-limits as a locked room in a house.

Cooked knew of an old man who used to work there for the government, sorting out the three or four pieces of mail delivered each week for the foreign workers. It was a long day filled with nothing, which suited him fine. He used to swim each day in the lagoon, then catch a fish for his lunch. The day before the planned detonation, the island was evacuated, the scientists leaving behind instruments to measure the power of the blast. The explosion registered at least ten times bigger than Hiroshima before the instruments were destroyed. The old man went back with officials three days later and was shocked. All the plants gone. The little secondary island with the barrier reef disappeared. The metal tower behind the bunker on the atoll melted and lying flat like an oil slick. Not believing their claims that the island was safe, he quit his job. Those who stayed on had long since died.

The outrigger made it through the pass, surrounded by motorboats filled with paparazzi hanging out at all angles like uncouth savages, yelling at them, furiously trying to get a picture of Dex or the mystery lady’s face. No one was much interested in Cooked’s presence.

They pulled alongside the yacht; Ann, Cooked, and Dex climbed up a ladder. The crew’s captain, Shawn, came and shook hands with them. He was young and blond, a surfer from Southern California turned captain. His job was to be ready whenever his billionaire boss got the urge for the boat. Which wasn’t often. Luckily the boss was on a rare family trip, and had the boat docked while they stayed on Bora-Bora. Shawn’s clothes were pressed. He and the ship were immaculate, and in comparison, Ann felt the three of them looked a little ragged. They must appear much like Loren had first appeared to her weeks ago, weathered and a bit disreputable. They stood on deck and waved good-bye to the crew of the outrigger; Shawn revved the engine and left the paparazzi in a cloud of fuel exhaust.

Cooked could not believe what he saw on the boat. Everything was trimmed in shining teak. When they went into the cabin, there was air-conditioning and a flat-screen TV with 346 channels. A refrigerated wine cellar. A full bar. A steward came and served them champagne. Dex and Ann collapsed on the white leather sofas. At first Cooked was intimidated by these surroundings, especially being waited on instead of serving. He had to remind himself that Titi and he were now owners of a resort. He would have to get comfortable in the world of guests. He downed the champagne in one gulp.

“I’d like a beer, too, please,” he said.

“Coming right up, mate.”

“And a Coke. With ice.”

“Righto. Do you have a preference for lunch today?” the steward asked.

“Chocolate milk shakes,” Cooked said. “Hamburgers, fries, and more beer.”

“Could I shower first?” Ann asked.

“I’ll show you to your suite. And Mr. Cooper, Mr. Garrett expressed the desire for some autographs as a memento of your stay on board. For himself and his kids. He says the autographs might make them listen to music from
his
youth for a change.”

A jab, but Dex rolled with it. “You got it.”

They were just sitting down for lunch when a siren went off. They went to the window to see a military speedboat approaching. Shawn came inside. There was a definite cloud on his former imperturbable sunniness.

“They’re ordering us to stop.”

“Ignore them,” Dex said.

Shawn’s voice was quavery. “They said in no uncertain terms—
torpiller
—is that ‘torpedo’? They want to sink us?”

“Unbelievable!” Dex’s eyes glittered. He was having perverse fun. Deep down he didn’t believe they’d dare mess with him. The strength of a superstar was the ability to both mock and believe in one’s own legend.

Cooked, on the other hand, was struck silent. All his life the French had bullied his people. The police could mean only one thing—bodies would be beaten and bruised, his most likely. A jail cell in Papeete probably already had his name on it.

Ann was angry. She didn’t know their rights exactly, but it was clear they were being intimidated.

Shawn closed his eyes. “Between us—and I’m trying not to be a downer—the baddies always win out here.”

So Cooked, Ann, and Dex were taken into police custody, regretfully before getting to eat lunch, and transported to a trawler that had been pressed into service for police use.

“I’ll be here waiting for you,” Shawn yelled theatrically after them.

In the meantime, the paparazzi had intercepted radio messages and caught wind of what was going on. They raced after the police boat as it pulled up to the trawler, photographing the three of them climbing the rope ladder up to the two-story-high deck. They took the dramatic footage of Dex frowning, a police officer holding his arm.

“Handcuff me,” Dex said to the officer.

“There is no need for that.”

Dex stopped walking.

“Come along.” The policeman nudged.

“Handcuff me,” Dex growled.

The policeman glanced over at the paparazzi flotilla. “
Pute
for publicity, eh?”

The paparazzi below were feasting on the dramatic showdown, which would make front page twice in one week in several papers in Australia and the United States.

“Easy, Dex,” Ann said.

The pictures of the babies were in the forefront of Dex’s mind. The stories of all Cooked and Titi’s relatives and their cancers. He was fighting for them, but this force of oppression, this lowly policeman, was trying to stop him.
The baddies always win
, like his father, who got paid to make sure of it, but not this time. No. Dex’s arm moved of its own volition, more as an extension of this line of thought than a premeditated act of violence. As he punched the policeman smack in the nose, what he really connected with was his father’s legacy of deceit. No! Not this time!

The paparazzi were having the feast to end all feasts, the mother of all photo ops, living off the fat of the land. Beyond their wildest hopes, this was a career milestone. A few contemplated having the colossal amount of money they were sure to get wired into their accounts and taking the month off to stay in the South Pacific. And then it got even better.

A policeman who was restraining Cooked lifted his baton and, with a balletic half-pivot, clubbed Dex.

Dex disappeared from view as Ann started screaming.

Unscripted emotion was pure gold.

When Dex rose a minute later, a trickle of blood ran down the side of his hairline—he refused the handkerchief to wipe it off—and, yes, he was a publicity slut, playing this for all it was worth because publicity was the mother’s milk of public opinion:
You know me; therefore, I am.
Maybe in the far dark past people actually did value the perfect rose blooming unseen on a deserted mountainside, maybe just its existence was enough, but in the modern age every perfection, every event, big or small, significant or not, only counted if others knew of it. Dex faced the paparazzi head-on like an inspired preacher confronting his inflamed congregation. This time his face wasn’t the face of Dex Cooper, Rock Star; his face was now a banged badge of solidarity with the Polynesian people,
Ma ‘ohi
, and not only with
them
but with the oppressed all over. He was the self-anointed new Bono. He was stoked, and as the police pushed him inside, away from the PR disaster this was becoming for them, he raised one skinny, tattooed arm and gave the paparazzi the peace sign.

*   *   *

The commandeered trawler had huge freezers belowdecks filled with thousands of frozen-solid tuna awaiting their long voyage to the grocery stores of the world. The decks were brownish and slippery, and a smell permeated the boat—a mix of public bathroom, fertilizer, and freshly opened cans of cat food.

They were held in a kind of Soviet-style conference room, with dingy Formica tables nailed to the floor and bare lightbulbs in wire cages overhead. Within the closed room, the air heated and expanded the dead-fish smell to toxic levels. The police ignored Cooked and started questioning Dex and Ann.

Cooked was used to being snubbed in his own land, a second-class citizen in his place of birth. Even during civil protests, he didn’t count. Foreigners controlled them, and other foreigners, benevolent ones, championed them, but they themselves were treated like children or pets, incapable of participating in their own emancipation. Cooked turned his back on the whole proceedings, and stared at the blank scuffed wall instead.

After an hour of haranguing back and forth, Ann determined that there was no point in going farther on their trip. If they approached the off-limits zone, the police informed them, they could be legally arrested. If they resisted, their very nice borrowed yacht would be either impounded or sunk.

As the police conferred about what to do with them now, Ann noticed Cooked staring at the wall in a trance. Something had come over him—he was acting strangely.

A sailor came in from outside and whispered in the police chief’s ear. He frowned. “Mr. Cooper, it appears you have a visitor.”

Dex said nothing, thinking it was a trick. Sneaky police. He was thinking of various scenarios from
Casablanca
and
Blade Runner
.

“Where is the visitor?” Ann asked.

“In a boat below. We’re denying boarding.”

“Nice.”

Dex, Cooked, and Ann went back outside under escort and looked over the side of the ship.

“Robby?” Dex yelled.

Ann saw a blond, muscled version of Dex. Robby was the golden boy of the band, the heartthrob of the good girls while Dex appealed to the bad ones.

“Thought you needed some help,” Robby yelled up. “I’ve got our lawyers here.”

“I’ve got my lawyer here already. Go on to the island and wait for us.”

No denying it—Ann was proud.

Cooked felt a strong wind wash over him. This was what he had waited for in vain the night of his vision quest on the rock, his hoped-for, Laura Vann–inspired statement. The truth was nothing had happened that night other than his own determination. Now he was literally inspirited. The ancestors entered him in the form of a shark. Without another thought he sprang up on the railing and dived overboard in a perfect arc that the paparazzi captured for all time, and that would be used for the cause of independence and later as a promo poster for the resort, and even later for tourism to the islands, and that his and Titi’s children, and then their grandchildren, would hang proudly in their living rooms.

The police, shocked, stood paralyzed for a moment—did this qualify as an escape attempt?—before unholstering their guns and firing into the water.

Luckily they were poor shots.

Cooked bobbed up a few hundred yards away with only a nick on one ear. He was pretty sure he could swim all the way back to the island he felt so pumped. That lasted until he realized he was bleeding and then he began to flail as Robby’s boat raced to pick him up. The police, spooked and demoralized, released Dex and Ann with a warning, and they hitched a ride with the paparazzi back to the yacht.

“You guys missed lunch,” Shawn said, as if this was the most ordinary of days. “Hungry?”

Cooked, at peace after having done his bit for the ancestors, lay bandaged on the sofa, eating from a bag of potato chips while watching a ball game on the big screen.

Ann was the one who now trembled. “You could have been killed.”

Cooked shrugged. “Cheeseburgers.”

“You got it,” Shawn said. “Where we headed to?”

“Back to the island,” Dex said.

“Too bad the outrigger is gone,” Ann said.

“
No problemo
,” Shawn said. “I’m teleconferencing with a sweetheart named Wendy over at the resort. She said she’d order it up.”

Dex sized up yet another potential rival.

Hours later, as a Technicolor sunset plastered the sky in gaudy oranges, reds, and purples, a tired Dex, Ann, and Cooked were paddled to shore. Loren had relented and allowed the paparazzi to land, and they had been partying with the wedding guests. The story was over. The reporters had been thrilled when Robby showed up earlier, and he had already done dozens of interviews talking about the band’s evolving role in world humanitarian crises.

“Because we’re about more than the music, right? We’re about the people.”

Now, the paparazzi, drunk and stoned, full of roast pork and breadfruit, dutifully marched down to the water at Wende’s request (coupled with the threat of expulsion) to record the victors’ landing.

As the outrigger came closer to shore, Cooked stood in the boat, an undignified wad of cotton gauze on one side of his head, to wild cheering, drum beating, and flower throwing. Even Wende approved the spectacle. When Dex made a move to stand also, Ann reached out and held him back. This was Cooked’s day.