The Web
THE
WEB
Jonathan
Kellerman
Ballantine Books • New York
To my daughter, Aliza.
Such pizzazz, such intellect,
flashing eyes and a smile that lights up the galaxy.
Wonderful things come in tiny packages.
Chapter
1
The shark on the dock was no monster.
Four feet long, probably a low-lying reef scavenger.
But its dead white eyes had retained their menace, and its
jaws were jammed with needles that made it a prize for the
two men with the bloody hands.
They were bare-chested Anglos baked brown, muscular yet
flabby. One held the corpse by the gill slits while the
other used the knife. Slime coated the gray wooden planks.
Robin had been looking out over the bow as
The Madeleine
pulled in to harbor. She saw the butchery and turned away.
I kept my hand on Spike’s leash.
He’s a French bulldog, twenty-eight pounds of bat-eared,
black-brindled muscle and a flat face that makes him a drowning
risk. Trained as a pup to avoid water, he now despises it,
and Robin and I had dreaded the six-hour cruise from Saipan.
But he’d gotten his sea legs before we had, exploring the old
yacht’s teak deck, then falling asleep under the friendly
Pacific sun.
His welfare during the trip had been our main concern.
Six hours in a pet crate in the baggage hold during the
flight from L.A. to Honolulu had left him shell-shocked. A
pep talk and meatloaf had helped his recovery and he’d taken
well to the condo where we’d stopped over for thirty hours.
Then back on the plane for nearly eight more hours to Guam,
an hour at the airport bumping shoulders with soldiers and
sailors and minor government officials in guayaberas, and a
forty-minute shuttle to Saipan. There Alwyn Brady had met us at
the harbor and taken us, along with the bimonthly
provisions, on the final leg of the trip to Aruk.
Brady had maneuvered the seventy-foot vessel through the
keyhole and beyond the barrier reef. The yacht’s rubber
bumpers bounced gently off the pilings. Out at the remote
edges, the water was deep blue, thinning to silvery green as
it trickled over creamy sand. The green reminded me of
something—Cadillac had offered the exact shade during the
fifties. From above, the reef’s ledges were coal-black, and
small, brilliant fish flitted around them like nervous birds.
A few coconut palms grew out of the empty beach. Dead husks
dotted the silica like suspension points.
Another bump and Brady cut the engines. I looked past
the dock at sharp, black peaks in the distance. Volcanic
outcroppings that told the story of the island’s origins.
Closer in, soft brown slopes rose above small whitewashed
houses and narrow roads that coiled like limp shoelaces. Off
to the north a few clapboard stores and a single-pump filling
station made up the island’s business district. Tin roofs
glinted in the afternoon light. The only sign I could make
out read
AUNTIE MAE’S TRADING POST.
Above it was a rickety
satellite dish.
Robin put her head on my shoulder.
One of Brady’s deckhands, a thin, black-haired boy, tied
the boat. “This is it,” he said.
Brady came up a few seconds later, pushing his cap back
and shouting at the crew to start unloading. Fiftyish,
compact, and nearly as blunt faced as Spike, he was proud of
his half-Irish, half-islander ancestry and talkative as an
all-night disc jockey. Several times during the journey he’d
turned the wheel over to one of the crewmen and come up on
deck to lecture us on Yeats, Joyce, vitamins, navigation
without instrumentation, sportfishing, the true depth of the
Mariana Trench, geopolitics, island history. And Dr.
Moreland.
“A saint. Cleaned up the water supply, vaccinated the
kids. Like that German fellow, Schweitzer. Only Dr. Bill
don’t play the organ or no such foolishness. No time for
nothing but his good work.”
Now Brady stretched and grinned up at the sun,
displaying the few yellow teeth he had left.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it? Bit of God’s own giftwrap—go easy
on that, Orson!
Fray-
gile. And get the doctor-and-missus’
gear out!”
He glanced at Spike.
“You know, doc, first time I saw that face
I thought of a monkfish. But he’s been a
sailor,
hasn’t he? Starting to look like Errol Flynn.” He
laughed. “Too many hours on water, turn a sea cow into a
mermaid—ah, here’s your things—lay that
gently,
Orson, pretend it’s your honeybunch. Stay there,
folks, we’ll unload it for you. Someone should be by any minute to
pick you up—ah, talk about prophecy.”
He aimed his chin at a black Jeep coming down the center
of the hillside. The vehicle stopped at the beach road,
waited for a woman to pass, then headed straight for us,
parking a few feet away from where the shark was being
butchered. What remained of the fish was soft and
pitiful.
The man with the knife was inspecting the teeth. In his
late twenties, he had small features in a big, soft face,
lifeless yellow hair that fell across his forehead, and arms
embroidered with tattoos. Running his finger along the
shark’s gums, he passed the blade to his partner, a shorter
man, slightly older, with heavy beard shadow, wild curly
brassy hair, and matching coils of body fleece. Impassive, he
began working on the dorsal fin.
Brady climbed out of the boat and stood on the dock.
The water was flat and
The Madeleine
barely bobbed.
He helped Robin out and I scooped up Spike. Once on
solid ground, the dog cocked his head, shook himself off,
snorted, and began barking at the Jeep.
A man got out. Something dark and hairy sat on his
shoulder.
Spike became livid, straining the leash. The hairy
thing bared its teeth and pawed the air. Small monkey. The
man seemed unperturbed. After shaking Brady’s hand, he came
over and reached for Robin’s, then mine.
“Ben Romero. Welcome to Aruk.” Thirty to thirty-five,
five six, one forty, he had a smooth bronze face and short, straight
black hair side-parted precisely. Aviator glasses sat atop a
delicate nose. His eyes were burnt almonds. He wore pressed
blue cotton pants and a spotless white shirt that had somehow
evaded the monkey’s footprints.
The monkey was jabbering and pointing. “Calm down,
KiKo, it’s just a dog.” Romero smiled. “I think.”
“We’re not sure, either,” said Robin.
Romero took the monkey off his shoulder and held it to
his cheek, stroking its face. “You like dogs, KiKo, right?
What’s his name?”
“Spike.”
“His name is
Spike,
KiKo. Dr. Moreland told me he’s
heat sensitive so we’ve got a portable air conditioner for
your suite. But I doubt you’ll need it. January’s one of
our prettiest months. We get some rain bursts, but it stays about
eighty.”
“It’s lovely,” said Robin.
“Always is. On the leeward side. Let me get your
stuff.”
Brady and his men brought our luggage to the Jeep.
Romero and I loaded. When we finished, the monkey was
standing on the ground petting Spike’s head and chattering
happily. Spike accepted the attention with a look of injured
dignity.
“Good boy,” said Robin, kneeling beside him.
Laughter made us all turn. The shark butchers were
looking our way. The shorter one had
his hands on his hips, the knife in his belt. Rosy-pink
hands. He wiped them on his cutoffs and winked. The taller
man laughed again.
Spike’s bat ears stiffened and the monkey hissed.
Romero put it back on his shoulder, frowning. “Better get
going. You must be bushed.”
We climbed into the Jeep, and Romero made a wide arc and
headed back to the beach road. A wooden sign said
FRONT
STREET.
As we drove up the hill, I looked back. The ocean
was all-encompassing and the island seemed very small.
The Madeleine
’s crew stood on the dock, and the men with
the bloody hands were heading toward town, wheeling their bounty in a
rusty barrow. All that was left of the shark was a stain.
Chapter
2
“Let me give you a proper welcome,” said Romero.
“
Ahuma na ahap—
that’s old pidgin for
“enjoy our home.’ ”
He started up the same central road. Winding and
unmarked, it was barely one vehicle wide and bordered by low
walls of piled rock. The grade was steeper than it had
appeared from the harbor and he played with the Jeep’s gears
in order to maintain traction. Each time the vehicle
lurched, KiKo nattered and tightened his spidery grip on
Romero’s shirt. Spike’s head was out the window, tilted up
at the cloudless sky.
As we climbed, I looked back and caught a frontal view
of the business district. Most of the buildings were closed,
including the gas station. Romero sped past the small, white
houses. Up close, the buildings looked shabbier, the stucco
cracked, sometimes peeled to the paper, the tin roofs dented
and pocked and mossy. Laundry hung on sagging lines. Naked
and half-naked children played in the dirt. A few of the
properties were fenced with chicken wire, most were open.
Some looked unoccupied. A couple of skinny dogs scrounged
lazily in the dirt, ignoring Spike’s bark.
This was U.S. territory but it could have been anywhere
in the developing world. Some of the meanness was softened
by vegetation—broad-leafed philodendrons, bromeliads,
flowering coral trees, palms. Many of the structures were
surrounded by greenery—whitewashed eggs in emerald nests.
“So how was your trip?” said Romero.
“Tiring but good,” said Robin. Her fingers were laced
in mine and her brown eyes were wide. The air through the
Jeep’s open windows ruffled her curls, and her linen shirt
billowed.
“Dr. Bill wanted to greet you personally, but he just got
called out. Some kids diving out on North Beach, stung by
jellyfish.”
“Hope it’s not serious.”
“Nah. But it does smart.”
“Is he the only doctor on the island?” I said.
“We run a clinic at the church. I’m an RN.
Emergencies used to get flown over to Guam or Saipan
till . . . anyway, the clinic does the trick for most
of our problems. I’m on call for whenever I’m needed.”
“Have you lived here long?”
“Whole life except for Coast Guard and nursing school in
Hawaii. Met my wife there. She’s a Chinese girl. We have
four kids.”
As we continued to climb, the shabby houses gave way to
empty fields of red clay, and the harbor became tiny. But the
volcanic peaks remained as distant, as if avoiding us.
To the right was a small grove of ash-colored trees with
deeply corrugated trunks and sinuous, knobby branches that
seemed to claw at the sky. Aerial roots dripped like melting
wax from several boughs, digging their way back into the
earth.
“Banyans?” I said.
“Yup. Strangler trees. They send those shoots up
around anything unlucky enough to grow near them and squeeze
the life out of it. Little hooks under the shoots—like
Velcro, they just dig in. We don’t want them but they grow
like crazy in the jungle. Those are about ten years old.
Some bird must have dropped seeds.”
“Where’s the jungle?”
He laughed. “Well, it’s not really that. I mean,
there’re no wild animals or anything else for that matter
except the stranglers.”
He pointed toward the mountaintops. “Just east of the
island’s center. Dr. Bill’s place butts right up against it.
On the other side is Stanton—the Navy base.” He shifted
into low, got the Jeep over an especially steep rise, then
coasted through big open wooden gates.
The road on the other side was freshly blacktopped.
Four-story coco palms were set every ten feet. The piled
rock was replaced by a hand-hewn, Japanese-style pine fence
and rows of flame-orange clivia. Velvet lawns rolled away on
all sides and I could make out the tops of the banyan forest,
a remote gray fringe.
Then movement. A small herd of black-tailed deer
grazing to the left. I pointed them out to Robin and she
smiled and kissed my knuckles. A few seabirds hovered above
us; otherwise the sky was inert.
A hundred more palms and we pulled into a huge, gravel
courtyard shaded by red cedar, Aleppo pine, mango, and
avocado. In the center, an algae-streaked limestone fountain
spouted into a carved basin teeming with hyacinths. Behind
it stood a massive two-story house, light brown stucco with
pine trim and balconies and a pagoda roof of shiny green
tiles. Some of the edge tiles wore gargoyle faces.
Romero turned off the engine and KiKo scrambled off his
shoulder, ran up wide stone steps, and began knocking on the
front door.
Spike jumped out of the Jeep and followed, scratching at
the wood with his forepaws.
Robin got out to restrain him.
“Don’t worry,” said Romero. “That’s iron pine, hundreds
of years old. The whole place is rock solid. The Japanese
army built it in 1919, after the League of Nations took the
territories away from Germany and gave them to the emperor.
This was their official headquarters.”
KiKo was swinging from the doorknob as Spike barked in
encouragement. Romero said, “Looks like they’re already buddies.
Don’t worry about your stuff, I’ll get it for you later.”
He pushed the door open with the monkey still holding
on. It had been a long time since I’d left a door unlocked
in L.A.
A round white stone entry led to a big front room with
waxed pine floors under Chinese rugs, high plaster walls, a
carved teak ceiling, and lots of old, comfortable-looking
furniture. Pastel watercolors on the walls. Potted orchids
in porcelain jardinieres supplied richer hues. Archways on
each side led to long hallways. In front of the right-hand
passage was an awkward-looking, red-carpeted staircase with
an oiled banister, all right angles, no curves. It hooked
its way up to the second-floor landing and continued out of
view.
Straight ahead, a wall of picture windows framed a
tourist-brochure vista of terraces and grasslands and the
heartbreakingly blue ocean. The barrier reef was a tiny dark
comma notched by the keyhole harbor, the western tip of the
island a distinct knife point cutting into the lagoon. Most
of Aruk Village was now concealed by treetops. The few
houses I could see were sprinkled like sugar on the hillside.
“How many acres do you have here?”
“Seven hundred, give or take.”
Over a square mile. Big chunk of a seven-by-one-mile
island.
“When Dr. Bill bought it from the government, it was
abandoned,” Romero said. “He brought it back to life—can I
get you something to drink?”
He returned with a tray of Coke cans, lime wedges,
glasses, and a water bowl for Spike. Trailing him were two
small women in floral housedresses and rubber thongs, one in
her sixties, the other half that age. Both had broad, open
faces. The older woman’s was pitted.
“Dr. Alexander Delaware and Ms. Robin Castagna,” said
Romero, placing the tray on a bamboo end table and the water
bowl on the floor.
Spike rushed over and began lapping. KiKo watched
analytically, scratching his little head.
“This is Gladys Medina,” said Romero. “Gourmet chef and
executive housekeeper, and Cheryl, first daughter of
Gladys and executive vice-housekeeper.”
“Please,” said Gladys, flipping a hand. “We cook and
clean. Nice to meet you.” She bowed and her daughter
imitated her.
“False modesty,” said Romero, handing Robin her drink.
“What are you after, Benjamin? A ginger cookie? I
didn’t bake yet, so it won’t do you any good. That’s a
very . . . cute dog. I ordered some food for him on
the last boatload and it stayed dry.” She named the brand Spike was
used to.
“Perfect,” said Robin. “Thank you.”
“When KiKo eats here, it’s in the service room. Maybe
they want to keep each other company?”
Spike was belly down on the entry floor, jowls spreading
on the stone, eyelids drooping.
“Looks like he needs to nap first,” said Romero.
“Whatever,” said Gladys. “You need anything, you just
come to the kitchen and let me know.” Both women left.
Cheryl hadn’t uttered a word.
“Gladys has been with Dr. Bill since he left the Navy,”
said Romero. “She used to work for the base commander at
Stanton as a cook, came down with scrub typhus and Dr. Bill
got her through it. While she recuperated, they fired her. So
Dr. Bill hired her. Her husband died a few years ago.
Cheryl lives with her. She’s a little slow.”
He led us upstairs. Our suite was in the center of the second-story landing.
Sitting room with a small refrigerator, bedroom, and white-tiled
bath. Old brown wool carpeting
covered the floors. The walls were teak and plaster.
Overstuffed floral-print furniture, more bamboo tables. The
bathtub was ancient cast-iron and spotless with a marble
shelf holding soaps and lotions and loofah sponges still in
plastic wrap. Fly fans churned the air lazily in all three
rooms. A faint insecticidal smell hung in the air.
The bed was a turn-of-the-century mahogany four-poster, made
up with crisp, white linens and a yellow wilted-silk spread.
On one nightstand was a frosted glass vase of cut amaryllis.
A folded white card formed a miniature tent on the pillow.
Lots of windows, silk curtains pulled back. Lots of sky.
“Look at that view,” said Robin.
“The Japanese military governor wanted to be king of the
mountain,” said Romero. “The highest point on the island is
actually that peak over there.” He pointed to the tallest of
the black crags. “But it’s too close to the windward side.
You’ve got your gales all year round and rotten
humidity.”
He walked to a window. “The Japanese figured the
mountains gave them a natural barrier from an eastern land
assault. The German governor built his house here, too, for
the same reason. The Japanese tore it down. They were
really into making the place Japanese. Brought in geishas,
teahouses, baths, even a movie theater down where the
Trading Post is now. The slave barracks were in that field
we passed on the way up, where the accidental banyans are.
When MacArthur attacked, the slaves came out of the barracks
and turned against the Japanese. Between that and the
bombing, two thousand Japanese died. Sometimes you still find
old bones and skulls up along the hillside.”
He went into the bathroom and tried out the taps.
“You can drink the water. Dr. Bill installed activated
carbon filters on all the cisterns on the island and we take
regular germ counts. Before that, cholera and typhus were
big problems. You’ve still got to be careful about eating
the local shellfish—marine toxins and rat lungworm disease.
But fruits and vegetables are no problem. Anything here at
the
house
is no problem, Dr. Bill grows it all himself.
In terms of outside stuff, the bar food at Slim’s isn’t much but the
Chop Suey Palace is better than it sounds. At least my
Mandarin wife doesn’t mind it. Sometimes Jacqui, the owner,
cooks up something interesting, like bird’s nest soup,
depending on what’s available.”
“Is that where the shark’s fin was headed?” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Those two guys down at the harbor. Was it for the
restaurant?”
He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Oh, them. No, I
doubt it.”
A gray-haired, gray-bearded man brought up our bags. Romero
introduced him as Carl Sleet and thanked him.
When he left, Romero said, “Anything else I can do for
you?”
“We seem to have everything.”
“Okay, then, here’s your key. Dinner’s at six. Dress
comfortably.”
He exited. Spike had fallen asleep in the sitting room.
Robin and I went into the bedroom and I closed the door on
canine snores.
“Well,” she said, taking a deep breath and smiling.
I kissed her. She kissed back hard, then yawned in the
middle of it and broke away, laughing.
“Me, too,” I said. “Nap time?”
“After I clean up.” She rubbed her arms. “I’m crusted
with salt.”
“Ah, dill-pickle woman!” I grabbed her and licked her
skin. She laughed, pushed me away, and began opening a
carry-on.
I picked up the folded card on the bed. Inside was a
handwritten note:
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
R. L. Stevenson
Please make my home yours.
WWM
“Robert Louis Stevenson,” said Robin. “Maybe this will
be our Treasure Island.”
“Wanna see my peg?”
As she laughed, I went to run a bath. The water was
crystalline, the towels brand-new, thick as fur.
When I returned, she was lying on top of the covers,
naked, her hands behind her head, auburn hair spread on the
pillow, nipples brown and stiff. I watched her belly rise
and fall. Her smile. The oversized upper incisors I’d
fallen for, years ago.
The windows were still wide open.
“Don’t worry,” she said, softly. “I checked and no one
can see in—we’re too high up.”
“God, you’re beautiful.”
“I love you,” she said. “This is going to be
wonderful.”