The Flaming Luau of Death (6 page)

T
he phone in my hotel room rang. I pushed a hand out from under the fine Italian linen sheet and swiped for it. Mid-second-ring I got it off the hook, my eyes still closed.

“Miss Bean?” said a lovely lilting voice. “It’s seven o’clock. This is your wake-up call.”

“But I didn’t leave instructions,” I said, my voice so low and raspy it would make gravel sound perky, “for a wake-up call.”

“My most humble apologies, Miss Bean,” she said, sounding truly sorry. “I believe Mr. Westcott requested the call.”

My brain was foggy, but I did recall that the always early-to-rise Wesley had been my roomie until I rearranged our group. Great.

“I also have a note to remind you that your entire party has been scheduled for our Day of Beauty package in the Sports Club and Spa. All complimentary, as you are guests of the hotel manager. The first appointments start at eight o’clock.”

Eight? What sadist came up with this blasted crack-of-dawn schedule? I took a breath to reply, but it may have sounded something more like a snore.

The lilting voice continued, gently, helpfully. “If you’d like to inquire about changing these times, I can put you through to the spa.”

The thing was, if I had to wake my brain up enough to think about rescheduling aloe vera wraps and frangi facials for eight people, I might as well get out of bed right now. I was done sleeping. Besides, I meant to dig around and find out more about what was going on around the hotel, maybe get some information that would make sense of the break-in in Holly’s room. And I felt I had a shot if I could talk one on one with some sympathetic hotel employee.

“No, that’s okay. We’ll be there. Thanks.” My eyes still closed, I tried to put the receiver back on the hook. I missed. The handset of the phone clattered off the bedside table.

“What’s up?” came a pillow-muffled voice beside me. I was sharing one queen-size bed with Holly. Liz was on the other.

“We’re getting up,” I said. “Rise and shine. Our day of beauty awaits.”

I heard a groan from the direction of the other bed.

“Or,” I said, finally opening my eyes and propping myself up on one elbow, “if you both want to sleep in, you can. This is not mandatory beauty. No one will hold a gun to your heads and insist you exfoliate.”

“Free massages,” moaned Holly into her pillow. “I cannot pass that up. It’s against my religion. I think we should just throw on clothes and get some breakfast. We can shower and whatever at the spa, right?”

“I’m with you,” I said. “Liz?”

From the other bed we heard a long groan. The covers were pulled up over her head.

I turned to Holly. “I believe that’s a pass.”

I picked up the phone and dialed Holly’s original room, the room where Wes had stayed for the night.

“Wes?”

“Yes, Mad.”

“Did you get a wake-up call?”

“At five-thirty, as I requested, yes. And I asked them to call all of our rooms at seven, which is now.”

“You woke up at five-thirty? Are you insane?”

“Honey, five-thirty in Hawaii is
eight-thirty
in L.A.”

“Oh.”

“Are you awake enough to do the math?” he asked.

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you. That means it’s really ten o’clock California time right now.”

“Oh.”

“Feeling a little less tired?”

“Yeah. I am. Are you coming to the spa with us?”

“Of course,” he said. “Who can say no thanks to a free salt scrub?”

“That’s what Holly and I have been asking ourselves. Liz seems to be able to resist.”

“I’ll round up the sisters and meet you for breakfast,” he said and rang off.

It turned out only five of us could manage to get it together for the eight o’clock beauty spa treatments. Daisy and Marigold could not be roused. Liz was still motionless under the down comforter when Holly and I tiptoed out of the room. But lined up in front of the spa reception desk at the appointed time were Azalea, Gladiola, Holly, Wes, and I, all a little luau-ed out, but present and accounted for. The receptionist had us each add our names to the sign-in book and then handed each of us a key to our assigned lockers. We split up at that point,
Wes going off to the men’s locker room and the four women going along to our own changing room.

The interior of the changing facility was like a tropical retreat. There were mirrors on almost every wall. Indirect lighting and thick pale-green carpet added a luxuriously muted note to the light-colored wood lockers. Restful New Age music flowed around us, coming from tiny speakers hidden in every corner of the spa. Down the hallway were showers and also a separate area for putting on makeup and blow-drying one’s hair after one’s treatment was over. A door led to the steam rooms. Another led outdoors to a palm-shaded lanai area with a large whirlpool. Here again the decor was uniquely Hawaiian, reflecting the aloha spirit of the islands’ golden age. The lap pool, whirlpools, saunas, steam rooms, and cold plunges were all set amid lushly landscaped tropical gardens.

I found my locker, number 22, and quickly undressed. I put on the brown and black batik-print cotton robe and disposable black flip-flops that were waiting for me. The key to my locker was on a sort of coiled plastic bracelet, so I put that on as well.

The four of us were the only women present in the locker room at the time, but our lockers were spread out throughout small elegant rooms, designed for privacy.

“I am so loving this,” called out Gladdie. “We’re like ancient Hawaiian princesses.”

“Princesses who had access to peroxide,” chirped up Holly from another corner of the locker room, fluffing her hair in a nearby mirror.

We met up in the inner waiting room, each of us in our identical batik robes, wearing our identical flip-flops, and our key bracelets.

“Do you think Wesley is wearing the same thing?” asked Azalea.

Just then, a door opened and a few of the spa’s aestheticians entered the waiting room. They were young women of various cultural backgrounds, but each wore a long sarong in a pale-green-and-tangerine-colored jungle print and a fresh flower lei. One by one, they called our names, and we split up and followed them out to our individual treatment areas.

“Okay,” I instructed. “Nobody panic. When next we see each other, we shall be beautiful or we get our money back.”

“Madeline?” A soft-spoken island woman who looked to be in her early thirties spoke up. She pronounced it correctly,
Mad-a-line,
like the little girl in the storybooks.

“Yes, hi,” I said. It was my first time in a spa, and I was intrigued by all the manners and rituals.

“Good morning. My name is Pualani. In Hawaiian it means ‘heavenly flower.’”

How lovely. And my name, Mad, means completely off one’s rocker. Could anyone need relaxing spa treatments more than me?

“We have you starting out today with our Dead Sea Mud Mask Body Treatment. Is that correct?”

“It sounds fascinating,” I said. “But to be honest, I’m not sure what I’m signed up for.”

“Oh, you’ll love this one,” Pualani said. “It’s my favorite. It’s a total body treatment designed to detoxify and tone the skin. Very luxurious. Very restful. You’ll see.”

I so needed this. Wes had been addicted to luxury spas for years, but I had resisted. The idea of strangers and massages had turned me off. But that was just silly. Look
at Pualani, my first masseuse. She was darling. She was wearing hibiscus flowers around her neck. This was all too great.

Pualani asked me to follow her to my individual treatment room, and we went down a small hallway, past several identical doorways, and entered a room that was kept dimly lit by a dozen scented candles and very low lighting. The New Age music was also piped in here, coming from hidden speakers.

Pualani continued speaking in low, soothing tones. “We’ll start with a dry brush exfoliation, is that okay with you?”

“Sure.”

“Wonderful. And after we rid your body of any traces of dead skin, the body will be painted with a rich mixture of mud. The mud mask is followed by a warm wrap and a neck and scalp massage. How does that sound?”

“Dreamy.”

“Wonderful,” said Heavenly Flower. She held up a giant leaf green–colored towel. “Please take your time. You may take off your robe and hang it on this peg. Then get onto the table and cover yourself with this towel. I’ll be back in just a few minutes. All right?”

I nodded.

It occurred to me, a few minutes later, that I, Madeline Bean, was lying naked on a table, under a piece of terry cloth, on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, waiting to be painted with mud that had been flown in from the Dead-freaking-Sea, and I felt wonderfully sanguine about the prospect. I went on listening to the gentle string music and breathing deeply the candle-fragrant air, truly letting my mind go blank for the first time in, well, years. When Pualani noiselessly reentered the treatment room, she adjusted a small pillow under my head, carefully
arranging my wild curly hair so I was comfortable, and then she took out a brush with short, soft bristles. All her movements were careful and graceful, like a dancer in slow motion. With a light touch, she took my right arm out from under the cover sheet, and with a circular motion, she began to briskly rub the brush over my shoulder, working her way down my arm to my wrist.

“Is the pressure too hard?” she asked, her voice filled with concern for my comfort.

“It feels fabulous.” And really, how often in the last few years has anyone been so happily dedicated to my comfort? It was generally the other way around. I was the one putting on parties for everyone else, worried about their comfort. I was surprised to find how quickly I could relish this turnabout.

Pualani finished with the brush-down, having carefully withdrawn each arm and leg from beneath the green terry cloth drape, one at a time, and then, holding the large towel just so to preserve my modesty, had me flip over onto my stomach. She then worked on the back of my legs and over my shoulders, each step professionally designed to treat me like royalty while sloughing off all this alleged dead skin. I felt a warm glow as my blood began circulating in the past half hour as never before.

Next, Pualani got out a thick paintbrush, the size you might use to paint the molding strips around your door, and began laying on thick, warm, dark gray-brown mud in smooth strokes down my back. She was tidy and didn’t miss a spot. This is definitely the woman you’d want to call if your armoire needed a quick coat of varnish. The smell of the mud was earthy but clean. How did they manage that?

“Our brushes are made from sable hair,” she explained.

Of course. I allowed myself to breathe deeply, relax further, concentrate on the sensations. The brush felt smooth and silky, while the mud was rather hot and thick and wet.

“What exactly does the mud do?” I asked, my eyes closed, so relaxed at this point that I didn’t even think twice about the brilliance of my conversation.

“Mud is wonderful,” Pualani said, sounding perfectly happy to talk about the goo. “We are all part of the earth, of course. So this takes us back to nature’s elements. Mud has curative properties, you know, Madeline. It’s all the minerals that are contained in it. This morning, for your treatment, I’m using mud from the Dead Sea, which is the highest quality mud available; very mineral rich.”

And to think, before this morning, I’d had no idea there was a hierarchy of mud.

Pualani went on. “It actually has a nice anti-inflammatory action that helps to draw out any impurities and metabolic wastes,” she explained, going through her spiel. “As it heals and soothes sore muscles, the mud replenishes the body with nutrients and minerals.”

“Ahh.”

For most of the next fifteen minutes, that was about all I could respond. But as Pualani was wrapping me in a warm sheet and beginning the scalp massage portion of the treatment, I began to feel a little chattier.

“So have you been working here since the Four Heavens opened?”

“Oh, yes. We’ve been open a year. It’s a beautiful hotel, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Is this your first time with us, Madeline, or have you stayed here before?”

“First time,” I said. “We are having a party for my assistant, Holly. She’s here somewhere too. We’re celebrating her upcoming wedding.”

“How nice!” Pualani said. “This is a special treat, then.”

“Yes.”

“You have chosen the right spot. All of our staff are trained to make sure you are pampered here.”

“Everyone has been fantastic. Do you know Keniki Hicks? She works at the resort, I believe, during the day?”

“I know a Keniki,” Pualani said and stopped rubbing my scalp for a second.

How quickly one can go into spa withdrawal. More scalp massage, please. “She works as a waitress,” I added. “Out by the Orchid Ponds.”

Pualani went back to rubbing my neck. Heaven regained.

“Yes. All the staff get to know one another like a family,” Pualani said, but her voice had changed. Her breathing had become audible, and her hand was shaking a little bit.

“Pualani, what is it? Something is wrong.”

“It’s nothing,” she said quietly. “I can’t go into it here. This isn’t permitted.”

“What isn’t permitted?”

“The guest must not…I’m so sorry, Madeline. I must step away for just a minute.” Pualani stopped rubbing my neck.

“No. Tell me. What is going on? Is something wrong with Keniki? I am really concerned. She helped us run the party last night,” I said.

“That was your party?”

I was lying on a table, slathered in a coating of mineral-rich mud, wrapped tightly in hot, wet sheets,
and yet I felt a sudden chill. “Please tell me what has happened to her.”

“Nothing happened to Keniki, thank God. But it’s her boyfriend. He works at an orchid ranch down the coast. He works there at night. I think he’s a watchman, but I’m not sure. They found him very early this morning. He’s a very good swimmer. Everyone knows that. But how did he get in the water?”

In my mummified configuration, I couldn’t prop myself up on the table. I could barely move. I simply had to ask again, “What happened to Keniki’s boyfriend?”