The Paradise Affair

7 Quincannon

Lonesome Jack Vereen and Nevada Ned Nagle, who were still using the aliases James Varner and Simon Reno under which they’d sailed, had procured a small bungalow on the lower slope of Punchbowl Hill, not much more than a mile from Nuuanu Street.

According to Fenner’s investigation, the pair had not indulged their vices by frequenting the Fid Street saloons or the Chinatown brothels during the past week. But they had spent one evening shortly after their arrival in one of Honolulu’s better resorts, in the company of a Big Island (the local name for the island of Hawaii) ranch owner named Stanton Millay, the three of them ruining their gizzards with large quantities of a potent Hawaiian liquor called okolehao.

The fact that the two thieves had mostly chosen a sub-rosa lifestyle was a sure sign that they were involved in another large-scale swindle. Millay might be their new mark, but if so, the game must be something other than one of their favorite stock grifts; the rancher, according to Fenner, was not the sort to have anything to do with the stock market. Well, the nature of the flimflam, whatever it was, would be revealed soon enough.

Quincannon rented a roan saddle horse at the same livery that had supplied Vereen and Nagle with a horse and buggy, and rode to Punchbowl Hill following the directions Fenner had given him. The fat man had offered to accompany him, but Quincannon neither wanted nor needed assistance in putting the arm on his quarries. Besides, he was loath to pay Fenner another forty-dollar day wage.

It took him nearly an hour to find Hoapili Street and the right bungalow, for the streets in the area had been laid out in a confusing hodgepodge and not all the dwellings bore clearly numbered addresses. Once he was certain he had the right address, he rode slowly past with the brim of his hat pulled down low to shield his face.

The bungalow was half hidden behind tall hibiscus shrubs and a cluster of stubby palms. There was no sign of the rented horse and buggy. One of the grifters might still be here, however, the other off on some sort of errand; it would make his task easier if so. If both were absent, he would wait for their return no matter how long it took.

He picketed the horse behind the concealing branches of a thorn-laden tree, wiped his dripping face with an already damp handkerchief. The heat was intense again today, the sticky air dead still, the sky once more coated with a milky, shimmering radiance that burned the eye. Riding in the open squeezed out a constant trickle of sweat that itched his beard, plastered his shirt to his skin. Even the grip of the Navy Colt felt moist when he touched it.

He paused beside the tree to once again examine the area. Two other bungalows were within sight, these also roofed with palm-leaf thatch and hemmed in by jungly vegetation. The only sign of life anywhere was a scruffy mongrel dog panting in a patch of shade across the roadway. Vereen and Nagle were both night creatures by nature and preference, not unlike the vampires of legend; if one of them were to be in residence at this hour of morning, likely he would be asleep or half comatose with drink or drug.

Quincannon adjusted the Navy’s holster until it rode more comfortably on his hip. Then he set off down the road, keeping to pockets of shade wherever possible. The line of hibiscus along the rear side of the bungalow afforded enough cover that he was able to approach it on a more or less straight trajectory. When he reached the shrubs he moved along parallel to them, through tall grass, until he came to a point where the flowered tangle grew thinly enough for him to see through.

Unrolled bamboo blinds covered a single window in the side wall. Along the front, part of an overgrown lanai was visible. He stood listening. The stillness remained unbroken.

He made his cautious way around to the rear, past the bushes to where a privy leaned and a grouping of mango trees overpowered the hibiscus with the odor of overripe fruit. The back entrance had two doors, the outer one screened and the inner one open for ventilation. He allowed a brief, feral grin to split his whiskers, then drew the Navy and waded quietly through a patch of high grass to the screen door.

It was not latched. He eased it open an inch or two; the hinges made no sound. He widened the gap just enough to edge his body through, let the door whisper shut again behind him.

He was in a small kitchen all but filled by a table and chairs and a primitive cast-iron stove. The table and the stovetop were littered with unwashed dishes and remnants of food a-crawl with insects; the two thieves were of the type who maintained personal tidiness while permitting their surroundings to descend into chaos.

Trapped heat made the place a sweatbox; Quincannon’s face and body were dripping again as he entered the empty and equally disarrayed room beyond — a small sitting room that opened into a screened side porch. The stale air in there reeked of a combination of cheap tobacco — Vereen was fond of long-nine cigars — spicy food, a sweetish flower essence, and unwashed bodies. Among the clutter he spied the wilted remnants of a flower lei, and on the arm of a rattan chair, a length of brightly colored tapa cloth such as he’d noticed native women used to bind their breasts. The cloth was the source of the flower essence. Vereen and Nagle might not have sampled the fare in the Fid Street brothels, he thought sardonically, but arrangements had evidently been made for them to be serviced here.

Opposite the porch entrance was a bead-curtained doorway. Quincannon parted the beads, being careful to keep them from rattling as he stepped through into the short hallway beyond. A pair of bedrooms opened off it, their entrances also curtained. He eased his head through the beads on the left. That room was empty, neither clothing nor luggage in evidence. He crossed to the other bedroom.

The smell that assailed him when he neared the curtain there was far more unpleasant than those elsewhere in the bungalow — one from past experience he knew all too well.

He said aloud, explosively, “Damnation!”

There was no longer any need for stealth; he shouldered through the curtain, causing the beads to click violently. The source of the smell lay atop a bamboo-framed daybed — Nevada Ned Nagle, eyes like blue-glass prisms staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

Holstering the Navy Colt, Quincannon covered his nose and mouth with his handkerchief as he approached the bed. Nagle’s plump, fully clothed body had a bloated look, the slack lips and spiky imperial a nest of feeding insects. Dead at least a day. The corpse bore no marks of violence. A fatal coronary? Possibly, but the faint bluish tint to the facial skin was indicative of a morphine overdose.

Nagle had fed his addiction by injections of morphine sulfate; one ampoule lay on the bed next to him, a syringe and two ampoules on the bedside table. Accidental overdose, if that was the cause? Or had Vereen done away with him? The two had been partners for some time, but for men like them there was no such thing as loyalty or lasting friendship. The spoils from the Anderson swindle had not been enough to trigger mayhem in California, but if the potential profit in the new swindle was great enough, Lonesome Jack was not above a lethal double cross in order to claim all the spoils for himself.

Searching the remains was a disagreeable but necessary task. Nagle’s trouser pockets contained a filigreed gold pocket watch with a heavy gold chain and elk’s-tooth fob, the watch’s inside lid bearing an inscription that read TO HAROLD FROM HIS LOVING WIFE (Nagle’s given name was Edwin and he had never been married); a leather case in which was another vial of morphine ampoules; and a purse with a few small coins but no specie or greenbacks. The shirt pocket was empty. A frock coat, much too heavy for this tropical climate, was draped over a chair at the foot of the bed. Its pockets yielded nothing of interest.

As Quincannon was about to re-drape the coat, his fingers encountered something that crinkled in the lining of one of the tails. An examination of the lining revealed a hidden pocket into which a folded piece of paper had been sewn — a map, crudely hand-drawn in india ink.

The map depicted the outline of an island with an irregular coastline. One of the Hawaiian islands, evidently. It was not named, but printed in a crabbed hand along the left-hand edge were several labeled X’s: Kawaihae, Puako, Auohe, Waimae Pt., Kailua. The X that bore the name Auohe was heavily inked and circled.

Quincannon pocketed the map. The odor of decay was having a nauseous effect on his stomach. Quickly he looked through the two carpetbags in the room, both of which belonged to Nevada Ned. Neither contained anything of importance.

He went across to the other bedroom. Nothing belonging to Vereen remained there. A quick search, then, of the bungalow’s other two rooms. Nothing. The stock certificates and bearer bonds belonging to R. W. Anderson, and however much stolen cash was left... gone.

One thing was certain: whether or not Lonesome Jack was responsible for his partner’s demise, he would not be returning here — not even to dispose of the corpse, were he so inclined, because of the risk involved. Wherever he’d gone, he was sure to be in a hellacious hurry to complete the swindle that had brought them to Honolulu and make his escape.

Glowering, Quincannon left the bungalow as he’d entered it and made his way along deserted Hoapili Street to where he’d left the horse. The glower held fast during the ride back to the city center. An affront, that was what this investigation had become — a continual, galling, personal affront. Vereen must not get away from him again!