HOW TO DO IT

Jim Crawford felt someone shaking him. In the darkness of the hut he couldn't see who it was. Coming from his nightmare, falling off the cliff, down, down into the dark abyss below, he reached back and swung out at the person. But his hands were trapped in the thin blanket. Furiously he struggled to free himself so he could strike. Then the person grasped his shoulders.

“Jim! Calm you!”

It was only Byi-Byi. He relaxed on the straw-packed mattress. “I'm sorry, Byi.”

“You have bad dream,” she said, worriedly.

He couldn't see her but he felt her soft hands on his forehead, soothing him. A bad dream, he thought: a really bad dream. Now he could smell the rotten liquor from last night. It was an ugly smell: a smell of distilled garbage, of rotten orange peels and infested coconuts; it stood out against the aroma of the clean floor of the hut, against the soft woman odor of Byi-Byi and he felt ashamed.

Feeling suddenly warm from his shame he threw off the blanket. “I didn't hit you, did I, Byi?”

“No, but you shout like crazy.” She squatted on the floor beside him. “You shout, 'Bull, Bull' then you moan, 'Ooh ooh'.”

He could remember only parts of the dream. He had to catch these parts and piece them together before they disappeared as so many other dreams had.

In this dream he had finally trapped Bull Sultan on the edge of a cliff. Jim remembered staring hard at him. But Bull wasn't afraid; he rolled his heavy shoulders forward as he always did before a fight. The thick muscles bulged where they blended into his neck which was no neck at all, but a continuation of his shoulders. He wore that smile, that sneaking smile as though he were aware of some menace as yet unknown to Jim. But Jim was sure he had him trapped. They would fight until one of them was thrown to his death on the rocks below.

He dreamed he had advanced slowly toward Bull. Suddenly Bull's smile burst into roaring hollow laughter. The ground broke from under Jim. He struggled to remain on his feet. Bull laughed. The laughter was distant as though Bull were at the far end of a cave. Jim lost his balance. He fell backwards into the chasm. Going down he grabbed at objects. A shrub. He tore at the stem. He held it, but it fell away from the side of the cliff as though it were made of paper. He heard the resounding laughter coming from above. Again he grabbed at something, a rock. The rock was alive. Like rubber it averted his clutching hands and he fell. At that moment Byi had begun to shake him, ripping him from his nightmare of frustration.

“You go sleep again?” she asked.

Jim lay still so that he could listen to the sounds around him. He could hear the straw mat under him wheeze as he breathed. A loose bamboo pole rattled in the rear of the hut. A wind-blown palm frond brushed the thatched roof. The presence of the breeze meant that it was not yet time for daybeak but Jim sensed that it wasn't far away.

“You go sleep?” Byi repeated.

“No, it's too late.” He slid his folded hands under his head.

“You afraid dream Bull?”

“No, it's too late I said.”

“Why you think of Bull all time? Why you no think of me? Me, Byi. Me good you. Bull no good. He kill.”

“How'd I get here?” Jim asked. All he could remember from last night was when he had opened the screen door of the Bamboo Tavern and saw Tom Lorris, the man from Bull's boat.

And he had been too upset to pay any attention to that other man in the tavern—that other man with the strangely familiar face. Why, it looked just like his old Army buddy, Don Morrel. But that was absurd; Don had gone to the University of Minnesota with his G. I. Bill. Now what the hell would he be doing way out here in the Pacific?

“You in tavern. You drunk. Oh, much drunk.”

Jim could imagine Byi holding her head with both hands and moving it from side to side to exclaim how much alcohol he had consumed.

“Much, much drunk. You try fight Tom Lorris. He got knife. He no drunk. Me take you. Me bring you here. Me, Byi, good you. We make love. Oh, we make love. You remember?”

“Light something,” Jim told her. He felt the raw flesh on his shoulder where a scab had formed. He wanted to see how serious it was.

“Lantern? Candle?” She got up silently and her feet whispered across the floor to the table.

“A candle will do.”

She struck a match. The wick sputtered and caught. The wax at the top of the candle glowed white as though it were alive. She brought it to him shielding the wick with her hand. While she held it close he inspected his shoulder. There were three long scrapes in the skin, the middle one being the longest. They were not serious but they burned.

“How'd I get these?”

She smiled in the light. “We make love. Remember?”

Oh, Goddamn it, he thought. He had had a good lay last night and he had been too drunk to appreciate it. What an ass! Not only did he start a fight with Tom Lorris, who had nothing to do with the murder, but he had a good lay and couldn't even remember it.

“Sure, I remember,” he told her. She was nude. Her breasts hung heavy and they hobbled when she changed her position. Soft light from the candle cast exciting shadows on her dark skin. By god, he was an ass. Her long black hair tumbled in soft waves to her shoulders where it divided over the tender brown skin.

She stopped smiling and glared at him. Two dark creases formed on her forehead. If Jim were to draw a line through the points of her black eyes he would see that they slanted up on the outside, giving her an Oriental look. “You no remember,” she hissed. “You no remember nothing. You think Bull all time. Bull, Bull, Bull. You no make love good. You think all time Bull, murder. You bad.”

Jim inched back so he could lean against the wall.

“Me good you. Byi watch, take care. You care? No. You care kill Bull. That's all.”

Byi-Byi frowned and her features strained in anger. Jim wondered at the strangeness that attracted him to Byi-Byi. When she was gentle and patient she had that naive quality Jim had admired so strongly in Ming, that simplicity which had enmeshed Jim's affections ever since he and Ming had first held hands in the afternoon sun many years ago. But now ... Byi-Byi's frustration wrung her flat nose and thick cheeks in a weird contortion resembling nothing he had ever seen in Ming, who contained nothing of violence in her whole being. Jim's tired eyes sought some part of Byi-Byi which would take his mind from the tragically saddening remembrance of Ming. And they found Byi-Byi's voluptuousness.

She was facing him with her legs crossed under her, the candle on the floor between them. In the dancing light he could see long shadows on her thighs. All he could make out in her crotch was a small mass of black hair. The flame danced in the draft making the light shift. He could see the lips of her vagina. The flame danced again. The meaty lips were hidden in darkness, becoming just a dark mysterious splotch. The flame danced. He could see the moistened lips glistening. It seemed as though the candle were tempting him on, showing him just a bit of the prize, then concealing it in darkness, making him want to see and have it all.

“I'm not good at making love, huh?” He didn't move, wanting to make her ask him to lay her.

“No. You no good. You think all time kill Bull Sultan.”

“Suppose I told you that you were wrong, that the only thing I ever think of is getting on top of you and sliding my stiff prong into your wet snatch.”

Jim had to bring his knees up to hide his growing penis from her.

She inched closer to him along the floor. She set the candle carefully on the mat where Jim had been sleeping. “You should stay alongside me,” she said in a half-whisper, the anger from before all gone now in an anticipation of explosive passion. You me stay here. You forget death and Bull. Good life. Eat, sleep, make love. You me. Byi belong to you.”

She laid her trembling hand on his leg and moved it back and forth, advancing toward his throbbing penis then retreating, coming and going. Jim reached out, grabbed her shoulders and threw her backwards to the floor. Her whole body shuddered as he flashed up on her, grasped her swelled breast and sucked the inflamed nipple into his mouth. As he licked and drew on the velvety redness she rolled slowly from side to side like a ship on a summer sea, heaving up and thrusting the protrusion deeper into his anxious mouth.

Her hands groped desperately over his stomach, the fingers like so many tentacles, searching, reaching, stiffening in their hunger. The already wet hand struck his tense penis and clung there. She pulled and his body followed. Up to her head. The arch of his body forced him off her breast. Spittle flowed over the swollen nipple and trickled down from the peak. His head was at her navel as she pulled his organ to her quivering lips. For one brief moment the stiffness hovered there, the saucy lips twinkling around the smooth tight head. In a flash it bulged into her cavernous mouth.

Jim's face lay on her soft spongy belly. He licked the brown skin and edged down toward the dark mass of pubic hair. The smooth underside of his tongue caressed the tender vortex of her groin; the skin shivered and the belly under his head sunk and rose convulsively.

The tips of her teeth were working over the lower part of his penis as she tried to swallow it. Jim's hardened knob probed the back of her throat and her pleasure pulsed through her body.

Jim slipped his two hands under her buttocks and braced the hips. Slowly, carefully, temptingly, he inched his tongue closer to the patch of dark hair. The outstretched legs jumped about nervously and gradually extended to the side, opening the crevice at the point of the V. He flicked his tongue like a snake, darting at the inside thigh, tempting her whole being, edging closer and closer to the glistening mark. He raised her hips higher. The legs flashed out all the way and her vagina seemed to cry to him to come with his tongue and satisfy its longing. He heard and understood. Lifting his head from all contact he made his way toward the silky velutinous lips. Her body seemed puzzled at the loss of contact and cried more anxiously for him to touch and satisfy. He was careful not to let his chin brush the thigh as he protruded his tongue and glided down onto the shining aperture. A quivering flicker gave first meeting. The body froze in its acceptance and sudden realization that it would be satisfied. The opening thrust up to join his efforts. He held his tongue stiff, the satiny cleft rolled up and down over it, from the aperture to the clitoris, back and forth over the clitoris then down to the opening again.

Meanwhile, since he had begun his movement to satisfy her and she now knew this, she worked extra hard to devour his tool. Each worked in a fury as though wanting to out-do the other and in this competition Jim felt his penis reach the bursting point. He whisked his tongue more rapidly, so that she might be ready, too. Her body tightened and became rigid. He knew the moment was now. He hastened his pace. The hips jerked again, this time with a sudden haste and desperateness that smothered his face and efforts. His penis swelled in her mouth, she jerked her head up and down violently. The sperm came up inside him, carrying strength from the tense muscles in his legs, came and budded in the head and burst forth sprouting again and again and again into her stuffed mouth. She took it and gave back with her hips as she quivered, became rigid and convulsed in a near fit, thrust her hips high into the air, carrying his head with them, the tongue forever flickering, the climax reached together in a wild spasm of mouth and hip and leg and clitoris and penis.

The rigidity held itself off the floor for a moment then it suddenly crashed down, carrying with it the spent emotion and exhilarating sensation of fulfillment.

CHAPTER TWO

LATER, WHEN THEY LAY QUIET AGAIN ON the straw mat, Jim wondered if Byi weren't right. Maybe he should stay with her instead of running after Bull Sultan. Maybe he should forget about the whole thing. Byi could take care of him and make him forget. But an image came to him, an image of himself on a small rotten boat three days without water, three days without food. There was no sight of land, just the waves building and breaking on the gunwales of his boat and a pounding memory of Bull laughing at him from the deck of the Southern Star.

Jim lit a cigarette in the candle flame. He leaned his head back on his bent arm. The breeze coming through the hut dried the smeared perspiration under his arm, making him chilly. There was something comforting in the bright red glow of his cigarette in the darkness. He puffed on it; the glow flared up and illuminated the bamboo rafters and his face. A narrow scar, long but clean, ran like a pencil line from his left eye to his unshaven chin. Blond bristles, a shade darker than his too-long unkempt almost white hair, grew awkwardly around the scar at the points where it touched his beard. It seemed as though the bristles avoided the scar, either from respect or fear of reminding Jim of the violence that once was and soon would be.

Byi-Byi rolled onto her side. The candle was between them. She reached out like a kitten after a ball of paper and touched the long scar on Jim's cheek. He winced and retreated from her touch. Her finger hadn't hurt, but the scar was still fresh and sensitive and it felt strange to be touched. She approached with her finger. He didn't move away this time. Her finger glided along the scar from the comer of his eye to his chin. It felt as though the skin weren't his, as though it belonged to someone else and had been glued there to cover the gash from Bull's razor.

“That hurt?” Byi-Byi asked tenderly. “No, the scar doesn't hurt,” he said. “But the memory does.”

“That only little alongside what Bull do.” She caressed the whole side of his face. “He kill you. You crazy. You stay alongside me.”

Jim didn't pay attention to her words. His mind was elsewhere. First, he remembered racing to the ship. The gangplank was just going up. He jumped on it and the winches brought him to the rusty deck. The men, his ex-shipmates, looked at him and gathered around the forward hatch. He brushed past them. Bull was in his cabin. Jim knocked and smelled the filthy boat, the results of months at sea without being washed in fresh water. No answer. He tried the door; it was not locked. Bull had a native girl on the bunk; he was fondling her breasts while she drank some Tuvo coconut wine. Hatred blinded Jim. He rushed at Bull knocking him to the floor. Bull jabbed from under him. Jim paid no attention to the blows but battered his fists into Bull's face, the rage exploding in barrages. Someone grabbed his arms and jerked him to his feet. Two Kanakas had surprised him. He should have locked the door but it was too late now. Bull stood before him, swinging a tremendous blow which hammered into Jim's gut. He couldn't breathe. He wanted to lie down, but the strong hands pinned his arms and held him off the steel deck of the cabin. He managed to block Bull's knee, glancing it off his thigh, catching him too high in the crotch to ruin him. The blows fell again on his stomach. He stiffened his muscles for protection, but the hammering came too often. He relaxed just once and it was over. Now he was too tired to resist. The hammers continued, never in the exact same spot. He hoped he would pass out, but he couldn't. He concentrated on falling limp in the arms of the Kanakas. Unconsciousness could protect him from the pain, but for some reason he couldn't pass out. He was dazed, a heavy film clouded his eyes. He couldn't resist the blows that belched into his stomach. He could feel them in different places with each swing. Sometimes Bull's hammer fist was too high, sometimes too low; now to the right, now to the left. Dead center. God, Bull! he wanted to shout: hit my plexus. Knock me out. Hit my jaw. Do what you want, but knock me out.

Through his weak daze Jim wondered why Bull never hit his face. His stomach was a numb wall of rubber accepting Bull's harass. Suddenly Bull ceased hitting him and strode to his bunk. Now, Jim thought, he's going to kill me. But all Bull did was come to him and slap him across the face with the flat of his hand.

The Kanakas released Jim; he sagged helplessly to the cold deck. As he lay there his dulled mind wondered about the strangeness of Bull's slap. Suddenly he felt blood pouring under his cheek, making it warm and sticky wet. At first he thought the blood came from his nose. But the pain started in his cheek and he hadn't been hit in the hose. The flesh stung at first in little tingles, spreading gradually over the whole side of his face until it glowed and throbbed. He wished he had the strength to touch his cheek and massage it. The pain sharpened, growing in a long line from his eye to his chin. His dulled mind grasped an idea and hung on: Bull had put a razor between his fingers before slapping him.

He was being slapped again, but it was a gentle pat this time and on the other cheek. “Jim. Jim.” It was Byi. She hugged him, burying his face in her ceding bosom. “Jim. Jim. Don't think. Forget.” She rocked back and forth clenching him to her breast. “Please don't think.” He calmed down a bit, concentrating on the soft flesh before him. He sunk his nose in the upper part of her breast and moved his head from side to side. His hands ran over her smooth oily back. “I'm all right,” he told her. “I'm all right now.”

She relaxed and let him go. He leaned against the wall. His cigarette had gone out, so he relit it with the candle.

“Oh, this Bull is bad man,” she said. She put her face in her hands, hiding her dark eyes. “He do all that to you. He give you bad memories. Bad dreams. Bad scar. He kill you. You no look for him. You stay alongside me. Forget.”

Jim rose and walked across the room to the window. “Don't leave,” she pleaded.

“I'm not leaving,” he assured her. “Not now, anyway.”

He leaned his forearm on the moist bamboo sill; it felt smooth and cold. He gazed thoughtlessly through the window opening. The ground was moist with heavy dew. The leaves of small plants just outside the hut glimmered in the hazy gray light of early morning. A wispy mist hung along the ground in streams, encircling plants and trees, clinging low over the path that lead down the hill.

A mina bird called shrilly in the jungle. As if in answer a chirrup came from a small lost snipe. The mina called again.

Down the hill the other half of the island jutted out over the bay. The water was still and gray. Small white breakers rolled onto the beach. There, too, a mist clung to the water and hovered above it, making the bay seem as calm as pebbly glass. A breeze drifted by, scraping a palm frond over the roof above him.

“Jim.” Byi's voice came wallowing to him. She sounded as though she were whispering in the night. There was something tender and thoughtful in it. “Jim. Me love you.”

Jim didn't answer. He peered through the gray, seeing nothing, focusing on some distant object that made everything around him seem like a dream. You're a bastard, he told himself; Byi loves you and what do you do? You lay her. You let her take care of you when you get drunk. You eat her food. You sleep in her bed but what do you do for her? You don't do a damn thing. When morning comes, you stand here for a while watching the bay, hoping the Southern Star will come in. When it doesn't you amble down to the village to drink and lounge around the tavern waiting, waiting, waiting.

Her hands pressed lightly on his shoulder and she put her head through the window alongside his. Strands of her long black hair brushed against his good cheek, tickling him—but not the kind of tickling that would make him want to scratch; it was a tickling that was pleasant to feel, a comforting brush against the skin.

“When you work alongside Bull on ship me watch from here look your boat. Me have binoculars, Navy kind. Me watch while washing dry. You no come me sad. You come, me very glad. Me sing. Me work. Me clean good. Go town maybe see you.”

Go ahead, he thought; rub it in. Make me feel like a bastard. “Why don't you go sit over there?” He pointed to the chair by the table.

“Jim, be good Byi-Byi,” she purred in his ear.

“Aw, shut up,”

She withdrew her head from the window. He didn't turn but he knew what she was doing: she was standing with her hands on her full hips and staring at him with a frown on her face.

What a son-of-a-bitch! he thought; you get so mixed-up with this idea of killing Bull that it makes you sour. You bite everything good in your life; you're killing yourself, Jim; you'd better watch out.

“You no love me,” she said. “Because me Chamorro, native girl. Just native girl.”

“You're nuts,” he said. “I'm just as much a native as you are.”

“You no native blood,” she said. “You white native, no native like Byi-Byi. Me Chamorro. You no love Chamorro.”

“Don't be dumb,” he told her, trying to be nice. “It isn't that. It's got nothing to do with you being a Chamorran or not. You know how I feel about that. Wasn't I in love with Ming before I met you? And Wang Li, the man who raised me, who has been like a real father to me—is he a white man? You are not just, Byi-Byi.”

After a silence, she asked, “What make you not love Byi-Byi, Jim?”

“I didn't say I didn't love you. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. I don't know. If I don't love you, it's got nothing to do with your being a native. It's something else.”

“Me know,” she said. “You think all time kill, kill, kill. That make you bad. You think bad all time. No room love.”

If she weren't so goddamn right he would turn and slap her across the face. That would shut her up. Why did she have to dig in those claws, to keep reminding him of what a bastard he had become?

“Me right,” she said. “You know me right. Look your father. You never see. You never go. He 'lone plantation. What you do? You go tavern all day. You dream Bull Sultan all time. No room love. Poor father. Him become old. Him 'lone. You? You no 'lone. You got dream. You dream kill Bull Sultan.”

Suddenly he spun around and grabbed her shoulders. “Shut up!” he shouted into her face. “Shut the hell up!” He shook her violently. As suddenly as he had started, he stopped. Her hair hung, loosely down covering her bowed face. He held her shoulders while she started whimpering. “Oh, what the Christ!” he said. He released her and stalked from the hut.

She didn't come after him. When he was outside he could hear her sobbing in the hut. What a louse, he thought; what a no-good lousy son-of-a-bitch.

The ground was hard and wet under his bare feet as he stood on top of the knoll and looked out over the bay.

Off on the horizon heavy gray clouds had formed. The upper part of the sky was lighter. A dog howled from far away. He felt a breeze come up behind him, lifting a swirl of mist around his feet. The mist rose, then disappeared into nothingness.

Everything became still: the wind stopped; no sound came from the jungle. The wisps themselves stopped shifting while all life froze. The only movement was far off on the horizon where the heavy clouds edged off the end of the world. Everything was waiting for the birth of day. Then it happened; the first ray of light burst through the bank of clouds. Another breeze awakened. It was already a different breeze, warmer than the refreshing night air. Day had taken over. A high-pitched bird called through the jungle, shattering night. Another dog howled. A cock somewhere down below on one of the farms crowed a greeting to the new morning. The miste started a gradual movement which terminated in evaporation. New smoke rose from below: the smoke of morning fires, the smoke of damp bread-fruit wood, clear and sharp and sweet in the morning.

Far off at the other end of the island, reaching down almost to the bay, Jim could make out the extent of his father's plantation. The palm trees were in regular rows, swaying like soldiers in the breeze. There's good copra in those trees, Jim thought; good rich copra.

Down at this end of the plantation, so far away from the houses and administration buildings, Jim often came to go fishing. He remembered when he would tell Wang Li that he was going out to inspect the trees. Surely, Jim thought, the old man knew what he was doing, that he wasn't going to inspect any trees, that he was going fishing and swimming. But even so, Wang Li, standing majestically with his hands hidden in the sleeves of his smock, would look down at him and smile and say something like, “It's a big responsibility for a little boy. You need someone to help you.” He would send for Ming. She would come with her pigtails plaited and pinned on top of her head. Wang Li would send them both off to inspect the trees, knowing full well that they would return later in the afternoon with a string of fish.

He had even known the truth when Jim would lie to him saying that a fisherman had given him the fish. He even knew before Ming, who never lied, told what really had happened and Jim would blush and look at his bare feet in shame.

He smiled when he thought of himself, so naive and awkward, He knew he could never fool old Wang Li, but just the same, he would make up some fantastic ' story again the next day.

Suppose Wang Li had been his real father, Jim wondered; would he still have been so lenient? He tried to remember what his real father looked like, but he couldn't. He had been too young to remember. And his mother? That would be even more difficult. All he could evoke as an image were the two framed pictures in his bedroom at the plantation.

He remembered, too, that his real parents had been missionaries. The older natives still spoke of Reverend and Mrs. Crawford with a certain air of respect in their voices. They must have been wonderful people, Jim thought; really wonderful.

The authorities wanted to send him back to the States and place him in an orphan asylum, or else to the home of strange relatives. Jim had cried over that. Wang Li, the friend of his father's, came when he heard how Jim was so upset. He asked Jim some questions about the islands and how he felt about staying there. Even though Jim was only eight at the time, he knew what he wanted, so Wang Li adopted him.

, As Jim looked out at the golden sun growing in the East he realized how wise a decision he had made. These islands were his home. This is where he belonged. Sure, he was an American; but, even so, he felt at home here with the jungle, the plantation, the beach and the sea. This is where he belonged. He hadn't been absolutely sure of that until he had gone back to America to serve in the Army. Then he knew. America was all right for someone who had lived there all his life, but it wasn't home to Jim. The islands were home and that was all there was to it...

Byi-Byi came out of the hut and stood beside him. She didn't say anything but looked out over the bay.

The sun was well above the water's edge now. The clouds had dispersed and the day promised to be clear and warm.

The beauty of the day—the bright sun, the deep colors of the bay, the bustling palm fronds around him, the chatter of wild animals deep in the jungle— brought nostalgia to Jim, a sad nostalgia for wonderful things that had been but could never be again for him.

He thought of his carefree days with the house-boy Kalo and his beloved Ming, childhood sweetheart, companion and sister. Of course, she was only his sister because he had been adopted by her father, Wang Li. Now there was a real princess, he thought; probably the last of a long line of Oriental royalty. He almost chuckled when he thought of how, when he had been a young pupil, all the princesses and stately queens in his books appeared to him as young as Ming and gifted with her silken long, black hair. Even though they were European royalty in his history books, every one of them had Chinese faces and Ming's soft brown eyes.

But he wasn't far from being wrong; he remembered how majestically she carried herself, how beautiful and pure her face was.

Yes, he thought; though not a true princess, she was the only true girl he had ever known—virginal and sweet—Wang Ming. They were to be married and Jim was to have her purity to carry him through life, her simplicity and strength as a foundation for his own hectic temperament.

Suddenly, the shocking image of Ming lying in a cold grave, dirt-covered and alone, lost to Jim forever, quickened his breath and narrowed his eyes in despair.

“Murderer!” Jim muttered between clenched teeth. Bull Sultan, he swore to himself; Bull Sultan, you'll pay for your crime. You'll pay with your life in my hands! You took her to bed, to corrupt every pure thing you ever saw, Sutan; to put your filthy mark of garbage on something clean and decent—my fiancee, Ming. Yes, Bull; you did that, but I'm going to kill you. Revenge will be mine.

Jim fists strained tight as a guillotine's knife. Anger and frustration trembled in his stomach. If Byi-Byi hadn't moved at that instant he would have vomited up hatred in a splashing stink of last night's drinks.

She stood suddenly on her tip-toes. She gasped for a moment and froze. Swiftly she turned to Jim. “Come into house!” she half-shouted.

“What's the matter?” Jim pushed her hand off his arm.

“Come into house. We eat.”

“What are you so upset about?” He pushed her away again and peered out over the bay.

“You hungry. We eat.” She patted his stomach. “You hungry.”

Apparently she had seen something with her sharp eyes that Jim, affected by last night's drinking, couldn't see. He strained. What he saw was only a tiny speck bobbing in the water. His eyes watered, he stared so hard. He could make it out. It was a ship. Maybe it was Bull's shop, the Southern Star.

He grasped her shoulders. “Where are the binoculars?” he asked her.

“I don't know. Lost binoculars. Lost last week.”

He raced into the house; she was just behind.

“Where are they?” He tore open the trunk.

“Lost. No more. Last week.”

They weren't in the trunk. He stood up and turned. Byi-Byi was edging herself toward a corner of the hut while facing him, “No more. All lost. We eat. You hungry.”

He went to the corner. There was a small box. He tore open the top. Inside there was a lot of junk.

“You no watch ship. You eat. You hungry.”

Finally, in the bottom of the box Jim found the glasses wrapped in a piece of cotton print. He ran outside with them and focused on the ship. Byi-Byi came to him. She grabbed for the binoculars, knocking them to the ground. Jim swiftly picked them up. They weren't broken; there was just mud on one eyepiece. He wiped it off and focused again.

He had to hold Byi-Byi off with one hand. She fought against him. “You no look. You come eat.” She pounded on his arm with her fists. “You no leave Byi-Byi. I make you no leave.”

As the boat bobbed in the waves Jim could make out the single smoke-stack. It was set so far back that Jim knew right away the name of the boat: The Southern Star!

He lowered the glasses. It wouldn't be long now, he thought. In a few hours the boat would dock. He would go to the tavern and meet Bull Sultan there. He smiled to himself when he thought of Bull's face when he would see Jim alive and waiting.

Byi-Byi snuggled close to Jim. She placed her hand on his stomach and rubbed it lightly. “You stay make love Byi-Byi.”

“Get away from me,” Jim said. “I got things to do.”

“Boat no come now. You make love.”

He looked down into her black eyes, set out sternly against the ivory whites. He thought he saw a premonition: She was telling him that he should make love now for it might be the last time in his life. Why not, he said to himself; why not make love to her?

Suddenly he picked her up and carried her into the hut. He set her on the mat, then went to the little box in the corner. He wrapped the binoculars in the cotton and replaced them in the bottom. He rummaged through the souvenirs and paraphernalia until he found the bottle he wanted.

Byi-Byi was lying on the mat, her arms and legs spread out casually. When he opened the bottle a sharp musty odor penetrated the room. Byi-Byi smelled it, too; she smiled up at him.

He poured some of the oil into the palm of his hand and spread it lightly over her skin, starting with the crevices at her collar bones, down lightly over both heaving breasts, down on her stomach, a tweak in the navel, into her crotch, on the smooth insides of her thighs. He recapped the bottle and set it aside.

Lightly he massaged the oil into the skin. The perfumed aroma, a smell of tropical flowers, a smell of the sea, a smell of animal woman wafted into his nostrils. His breath quickened. His hands trembled. But he continued with his work. Her breasts were heaving more violently as he caressed the oil into them. The skin was smooth and hot under his palms. The oil soaked into the flesh. The body itself began to absorb the aroma and to shine with a luster that accentuated the round smooth curves of her flesh. Up to the edge of her nipples he worked, then down again, down to where the breasts melted into her chest.

Her hands reached for his arms. He grabbed them and pinned them to the mat, admonished her for being impetuous and returned to his work.

Down on the inside of her thighs, the legs quivered as he massaged up toward the vagina. Its lips were moist. He could see them open and tremble as he worked. The legs jerked aside. The vagina peered hotly at him. The aroma of the oil worked into Jim's brain, intoxicating him. She rolled her head from side to side. “Jim. Jim,” she moaned. “Jim, please, please.”

He worked lightly with his finger-tips practically touching her clitoris, working to the edge of the hair line and away.

“Please, please,” she said.

He knew what she wanted now, so he brought his head lower and lower, the aroma driving sense before it. He approached. Her legs spread wider. Her whole crotch began to leap up at him convulsively. The lips were red and smooth and wet. The spasms almost touched his protruding tongue.

“Please, Jim. Please.” Suddenly her hands came down. She grabbed his head and thrust his face into her warm vagina. He trembled and relaxed into the smooth wet lips. The convulsions became violent. Unvoiced screams stifled in her throat. Her nails dug into his neck. She pressed his face into it. “Oh, Jim,” she moaned. “Do it. Do it.”

He did it. This time he let his tongue glide over the unguinous slot and delve into the chasm. He pursed his tongue and rolled it about, feeling the excited tissue become hot from the flow of tempered blood. He curved his hands round the hard cheeks of her buttocks and slipped one finger down along the crack toward her anus. At the same moment he puckered his lips to encircle the organ, the upper lip resting on the gelatinous clitoris. Once he had created the necessary vacuum he began to suck away, rolling his tongue and forcing it in and out slowly, smoothly. Her hands pulled at the hair on his head as she writhed from side to side like a possessed woman. She begged him to speed it up, but he only slackened his pace and tempted and sucked and rolled his tongue keeping his haste down and prolonging her ecstasy.

When the time was right and he could sense that she was at the point of fainting he withdrew his lips and sprung on top of her. As he fell on her slithering body, his erect hardness slipped stealthily and expertly into the already excited walls of her vagina.

The sucker muscles of her organ were activated beyond imagination. They clung to his penis and drew on it, working from the hilt to the head, not finishing one spasm before beginning another. No effort was needed from Jim's part; he had done his work well. Her body rolled on those waves again and he relaxed, into her sleek flesh, closed his eyes and felt the ecstasy being milked from his body by the never-tiring convulsions of the sex muscles which worked on his erection like a python devouring a greased pig.

She reached her climax, stiffened, drew him with it, arching up while his sperm tumbled into her, burst after burst.

A full hour later they lay quiet and relaxed on the mat. Jim's side was against her still warm stomach. Her deep breathing made her pulsating breasts press around his arm.

He thought about what had happened. Maybe she didn't know. Maybe she was too excited to notice his change of mind. What kind of a thing is that, Jim wondered, that can take hold of you and shock you even when you're making love? What kind of evil obsession did he have rotting in his stomach, that would rise like bile even in the height of ecstasy?

Damn, if only it was over, finished, done with. Even if he were killed, it would be better than having this gnawing inside his guts, this gnawing that turned his dreams into garbage, like an animal deteriorating in the hot sun. Well, today would see the end of it; today Bull and he would face each other and only one of them would live to see the setting sun. He felt ashamed of himself for ruining a good lay for Byi-Byi. But maybe she hadn't noticed.

She eased her finger-tips over his shoulder. “Jim. You feel good?”

“Yeah, Byi-Byi.” He felt the gliding finger-tips relaxing his tense skin. “I feel all right.”

“Something happen, Jim. What happen? Was it because Byi-Byi?”

“No, it wasn't you, Byi.”

“What then, Jim?”

“Something else, something far away.”

“Bull?”

He didn't answer at first. He wondered if he should lie to her. Finally he said, “Yes, it was Bull.”

She stopped caressing him. She sat up and crossed her legs under her. “That Bull.” Her voice was no longer soft and quiet, but she wasn't shouting yet. “That Bull. He all time your head. Me hope you he meet today. Me hope finish idea.”

“Take it easy, Byi-Byi.”

“Me no take it easy.” She stood up. “You make love. You no think Byi-Byi. You think Bull Sultan. What kind love that?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake!”

“Why you no listen me? Why you no stay alongside Byi-Byi?”

He put his hands under his head and looked up at her. She was getting more and more angry. What the hell, he thought; she's got it coming to her. Let her get mad. Let her get crazy. It's all you deserve.

“One tune you good man. You no care Byi-Byi, but Byi-Byi she wait. Not important for then. Me know you love Ming and me no care. Me jealous, you bet. But me think you not good enough Ming. Me hope you realize Byi-Byi more your kind of girl. Me wait. But after Bull you no good man. You miserable. You put bad on all people. You no good.”

She reached down and smacked him on the shoulder with her fists. He grabbed for her arms. She wriggled free. She scratched at him. Her teeth bared in anger. Her finger-nails caught his collarbone and tore the skin.

“That's enough,” he shouted. He brought the back of his hand fast and across her cheek.

Everything froze. His hand was still in the air. Her palms were flat on her cheeks. She stared at him. He had never hit any girl so hard before. The tears welling in her eyes suddenly burst and streamed down her cheek over her hand. She spun and ran to the corner of the hut where she sat down and rubbed her cheek. “You no good,” she shrieked. “You son-um-bitch!” Saying the words released the tears. She sat in the corner with her face in her hands and cried, frequently gasping for breath.

Jim turned from her and lay on his side. She's right, he thought; you're a no good son-of-a-bitch. All you think of is killing; all you dream of is avenging your anger on Bull Sultan. And look what it's made of you. You beat a nice girl like Byi-Byi. What's she ever done to you? She loves you; she does everything for you. And what do you do? You rap her in the face. Even the natives in the village shy away from you now. What ever became of the old Jim? The old Jim Crawford who could get a smile from every living soul on the island? He's gone, Jim told himself; he's gone, buried under a rotting hate. “If only this goddamn business had never started!” he exclaimed aloud.

CHAPTER THREE

JIM KNELT ON ONE KNEE TO TIE THE laces of his tennis shoes. Byi-Byi was still crouched in the corner of the hut. Although her hands still covered her face, she wasn't crying any more.

A distant clattering came to Jim from the back road. He froze and listened.

“Jim, you want eat?” Byi-Byi asked.

“Ssh.”

It was a cart and horse coming slowly up the back road toward the hut. He listened to the creaking of the dried hubs. Who could it be? he wondered.

He finished with his lacing, grabbed the red cotton print dress from the table and threw it to Byi-Byi.

“We've got company. You'd better get dressed.”

She slipped the dress on over her head and smoothed it down. By peering through the rear window she saw who it was and scampered across the floor toward the front door. Jim grabbed her arm. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Byi-Byi go now.” She broke from his grasp and rushed out the door.

The cart pulled up in front. Kalo held the horse—a spotted Manchurian, no larger than a pony—while Wang Li climbed slowly down from his seat. Jim wanted to go out and help him but he knew how his adopted father would resent the insinuation that he was too old to get down by himself.

Instead, Jim prepared a seat for him. He took a chair away from the table and set it in the middle of the room, thinking about how angry Wang Li must be with him for not coming home, for living like a drunken sot on the island. But how could Jim explain his desire for revenge and his fear that if he implicated Wang Li in his plans it would expose the old man's life to an unnecessary danger of being an object for Bull Sultan's retaliation if Jim somehow failed to kill Bull and was the dead loser?

The old man stood waiting at the door.

“Come in, Wang Li,” Jim said in polite Chinese, as though the hut were his own.

Wang Li entered and sat in the chair when Jim indicated that he should.

The old man had aged, Jim noticed. His long thin beard was completely white now. Heavy puffy lines sagged under his eyes, pulling the skin with them, narrowing his eyelids even more than they used to be.

When Jim had known that it was Wang Li coming up the back road his first impression was to leave. He was ashamed to see the old man, especially here, in the hut of a native girl where Jim had undoubtedly spent the night. But he knew if he ran it wouldn't prove anything. The old man was too wise, he had too many friends in town who could have told him that Jim had been living with Byi-Byi. Running away would be nothing but an act of cowardice.

Jim shifted uneasily before the old man. Perhaps Wang Li wouldn't have aged so much if Jim had gone home instead of letting himself be carried away by this obsession to kill Bull Sultan. He imagined the old man all alone in his big house, walking sullenly over the thickly-carpeted teakwood floors, staring blindly at the polished brown mahogany walls, all alone except for memories of time when there had been laughter in the big house, when Madame Wang was alive, when Ming had walked majestically over the thick carpets which were now hushed under Wang Li's sullen steps.

“How are things at the plantation, Wang Li?” He spoke in Chinese to show Wang that he still respected him, although his sense of shame for having ignored his father crept uncontrollably into his speech.

“Things at the plantation go well, my son. But I have not come to discuss the plantation. I have come to take you home.

“Jim, I allowed you to be raised in the religion of your people. As with all religions there is the story of the Prodigal. But this time it is the father who has come to the Prodigal—it is I who have come to ask you to come home.”

Jim leaned against the table and lit a cigarette. The old man was still wearing his black mourning robe. The solid black cloth was embroidered with emblems of arches: the Arches of Heaven. He wore a small black skull cap to show just how much he had suffered for his dead daughter.

“I can't come home, Wang Li.” Jim found the words hard in his dry throat. “I have something to attend to first.”

“Come home and forget it, my son.”

“I don't wish to defile your house with my dreams of vengeance.”

“My house is your house, you carry it with you wherever you go. To defile my physical house is no worse than to defile my moral house.”

“I have to do it,” Jim pleaded. “I'll not sleep peacefully until I do.”

“You want to kill him?”

“Yes.”

“Kill him morally, then. Don't carry through your design of physical violence. Let him die inside himself. Let him live with the memory of the terrible thing he has done.”

“That slob?” Jim blurted in English, startling even himself- The poor old man, Jim thought; he thinks everybody has a moral conscience as he does. “Bull Sultan worries about what he does as much as a donkey,” Jim said in Chinese. “He has no moral life to kill. He has only his physical life and that's what I intend to take from him.”

“Every man has a moral soul,” Wang Li said. “Let his own conscience take that life from him. You don't have to be the instrument; the act itself can do the deed.”

Poor old Wang, Jim thought; he still maintains that everyone is like him, filled with spirits and consciences. If he only knew Bull as Jim knew him: Bull the drunkard, Bull the thief, Bull the sadist whipping his native workers. “When I think of that fat slob putting his dirty slimy hands on Ming I almost puke,” he exclaimed to himself. When he imagined the act, he pictured Bull with his perpetually chewed spit-swollen cigar between his puffy lips and the spittle running down the side of his chin. Loathing and abhorrence filmed Jim's eyes and his mouth screwed up at the sour image he had formed. Quickly he controlled himself and stared at the sorrowful down-cast eyes of his father.

Maybe he could appeal to the old man's sense of honor. “It's a question of honor to our family, ,Wang Li. Our honor has been tread on and it's up to me to avenge this defilation.”

“It isn't honor to kill, my son. Honor is a man who is honorable—not vengeance.”

Jim shook his head .in amazement of Wang Li's purity, built on centuries of Chinese culture. It had to be something powerful to maintain his equilibrium when such a disaster had stricken his life. Such a faith in his fellow man! It all went back to his Confucian idea of Jen, the brotherhood of mankind, the univer sality of the soul. This is the twentieth century, Jim wanted to say; this is the time when many men have no souls, when their hearts are filled with greed and lust, lust for money, for power, for filth ... and, in his own case, a lust for satisfaction, the satisfaction of killing Bull Sultan.

“I'm a product of the Twentieth Century,” Jim told Wang Li. “A product of the Twentieth Century mixed in with the influence 6f your cultural centuries. I showed that to you when first I refused to marry Ming just because you had arranged it. I showed it to you when I left the plantation to work on my own, to get my own money, then to come back to win Ming's hand on my own terms. I believe in you, I think you're good, almost too good for these days, but I am a product of a different age. I must act differently than you believe. I know only two things: my beloved Ming is dead and Bull killed her. How can I act differently?”

The old man didn't answer. His head was bent and he stared at the earthen floor. Jim knew what he was thinking: If Jim had stayed on the plantation and had married Ming then all of this wouldn't have happened.

“Don't make me more ashamed than I am,” Jim suddenly said.

“It is not I who makes you ashamed; it is your soul.”

“I have only done what I thought I had to do.”

“What your mind thought or your heart?”

“My heart is troubled now,” Jim said. “It is troubled because Ming is dead. It is troubled because laws of man cannot touch him. It is a case of suicide, they say; suicide is not murder. There are some things that the law cannot understand, that only the heart can grasp and the heart must react.”

“My heart is troubled, too, Jim. It is troubled from fear that the thing you are about to do might bring shame and disaster.”

“Please don't continue, Wang Li, I've thought about it and I've made up my mind.”

“Wait my son. Wait and see what time can do to soothe your disturbed heart. Three weeks is not time enough.”

Three weeks! Had it been only three weeks since it happened? Why, it seemed like twenty years. It seemed as though this idea of killing Bull was born with him.

Only three weeks since he ran aboard the ship? That makes only four weeks since he was left off at Saman to prepare copra for shipment.

And one morning on Saman he was awakened by Kalo, the house boy from the plantation who had come with the grievous news.

“Your sister Ming is dead,” Kalo informed him. “You are to come with me.”

Jim's sleep-grogged mind tried to grasp the meaning of Kalo's words. It was only a dream, he tried to make himself believe. He even rolled over in his blankets and tried to close his eyes. But it was real. He couldn't convince himself otherwise. Kalo's hand shook his shoulder slightly. A tear came to Jim's eyes; another. His body shook tremulously as the realization of his future without Ming despaired him. To hide his sorrow he rolled his face into his sand pillow and released his grief into the tiny grains which tried to clog in his nostrils and cling to his wet eyes. Only when he had regained his composure did he turn to Kalo and arise.

They went in a small boat across the quiet sea to the island. At the house everything was in mourning. He had been too late for the funeral. Everyone sat around the house. Jim grew fidgety. He had been told that she died accidentally. He had gone to the tavern for a drink hoping that the alcohol could quiet his sorrow-inflamed brain.

At the Bam Bam Tavern Byi-Byi whispered to him to be careful, that Bull's men might kill him. An American from the ship was sitting at the corner table behind a post. Dressed in a dirty blue jumper, Jim spotted him for one of those derelict seamen who frequently came to the island, thrown off a ship, loafing around the island, getting drunk, brawling, until another ship would take them on to fill a manpower gap. His dark brown hair was unkempt, sticking up in tufts and hanging over his ears down to the edge of his unshaven face.

An open knife lay within easy reach on the table before him. A couple near the back got up and swiftly left the tavern—the man looked like Don Morrel, Jim's old Army buddy and Jim caught a quick glance of the girl, an attractive American blonde. But this was no time to dawdle. Something was wrong and Jim had to find out what it was.

Jim grabbed Byi-Byi's arm and demanded of her: “Why do they want to kill me?”

“Me know nothing.”

He pushed her aside and stalked to the seaman who now held the knife menacingly before him.

As Jim approached, the seaman sprang to his feet. He inched around the table, keeping it between Jim and himself, his frightened eyes darting at Jim's every movement.

Suddenly Jim grasped the edge of the table lifting it and heaving it over the seaman. In a flash Jim was on top of the startled sailor, wresting the knife from his gripping fingers. It clattered to the floor. Jim swiftly retrieved it and held the blade to the seaman's throat.

“Why are Bull's men after me?”

“I don't know.”

“Tell me.” Jim moved the edge of the knife closer, touching the skin of the trembling throat. He gulped; The Adam's apple plopped against the blade and remained there, unable to pass under again.

“Because Bull's afraid you want to kill him.”

“Why should I want to kill Bull Sultan? He's never done anything to me.”

The seaman squirmed.

“Why?” Jim shouted at him.

“You don't know?” His eyes closed slowly in desperation, then opened again.

“Tell me why.”

“Because Bull raped Ming Li.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Bull raped Ming Li.”

“You'd better not be lying.”

“I'm not. Honest. I saw it. I was watching through the port hole. I was supposed to be chipping paint and I saw it.”

“Tell me what you saw.”

“Ming came into his cabin. She was all worried and scared. You know, I could tell by the way she looks around the cabin and shakes so nervous-like. Bull's on this here bed, see, with one of his cigars in his mouth. He throws it on the floor by Ming's feet. He laughed because she jumped away from the cigar like it was a mouse or something filthy like that.”

“Then what? What did Bull do to her?”

“He gets up and locks the door. Ming starts to hit him, but it only makes him laugh some more. He unbuttons his pants and lets them flop to the deck. When he stepped out of them she scratched him down the front. I could see the blood! He stops laughing then grabs her shoulders.”

“What did she do?”

“She tried to knee him. But he blocked her knees with his fat legs. Then he holds her with one hand. You know how fragile she was. He holds her and puts his hand between her breasts. He tore the dress all the way down the front. I saw it! Right down the front! Then he snaps the brassiere right in two like it was paper. So, then he lets her go. She runs to the corner and tries to cover herself up as best she can with her hands. But Bull comes to her. He was laughing again —like a madman.

“I was looking in the window. I didn't know what to do. Nobody was around, so I watched, hoping he wouldn't kill her.”

“Why? So maybe you could come in after it was all over and get some for yourself?”

“Oh, no. No!”

“You filthy bastard!” Jim slapped him across the face.

“No, no,” he pleaded. “I didn't want to see him kill the broad; that's all. He could of, you know.”

“Go on with the story. What happened next? Tell me what you saw with your filthy eyes before I cut your throat.”

“Don't kill me, Jim. I didn't do it. It was Bull, not me. Holy Christ!”

“All right; go on with it.”

“She's in the corner with nothing on but her panties. Bull takes his knife and in one swift swipe he rips them off. I never saw nothing like that. He just came out with his knife and 'swish', the panties were cut in two and he didn't even touch her skin. Anyway, he's got this here single bunk in his cabin. He picks her up like a sack of rice and throws her on it. She tries to get off, but he holds her down with his meat hooks. I could see he had a big hard-on. My god, you should see the size of it; it's as big as a marlin spike and as round as your wrist. She was struggling, rolling this way and that Bull grabs her legs and spread them wide open for him. Then he jams his finger up into her snatch. To break her cherry I guess, 'cause I heard her scream right through the bulkhead. Then he gets up on top of her and pushes his prick into her cunt. He had a rough time of it, too; because he was pushing and cursing. Finally she gave up, relaxed sort of. Too tired out, I guess. The big prick goes in. Her head was rolling limp and she had a queer look on her face like he was ripping the insides of her belly out. I never seen nothing like that before. He must have half-killed her right then and there.

“Anyhow, he was this look on his face, too. Only he has a look like he's crazy. Each time he pushes in a little bit and she screams, he smiles real big and pushes some more. Then he grabbed her tits in those big hands of his and squeezed so hard I could see the veins stand out on his wrists. He pushes some more and then he came. He came like I saw a horse once do it. You know, his big ass going up and down and it seemed like the whole boat shook when he did.”

“Okay, that's enough.” Jim was mad—cold mad. The blood left his head for a second and returned with a gush. The knife trembled against the seaman's throat.

“Don't kill me, Jim. Please don't kill me. Bull's on board the ship. Don't kill me.”

Jim stood. The seaman glanced up at him with fearful eyes. He had seen her nude, Jim thought. The son-of-a-bitch! What did he do to stop Bull? Nothing. Just stood there and watched. Jim swung out with his foot. The toe of his boot caught the seaman right behind the ear. The head rolled limp. It wasn't enough to kill him, but he'd have a splitting headache every time he twisted his head around.

Afterwards Jim had run from the tavern and down to the Southern Star.

And that was only three weeks ago. Three weeks; it seemed impossible. Now, in the hut, he felt himself tremble against the table. He grasped the edge of it and let his cigarette fall to the floor. The old man arose, picked up the cigarette and put it in the ash tray.

He came to Jim at the table and put his arm around his shoulder. It was a strange thing for Wang Li to do-he lost some of his dignity ... Jim felt more ashamed First, if he hadn't left the plantation this thing never would have happened. Ming would still be alive. If they had married, Wang Li would still have all his dignity. But to come to Jim and put his arm around his shoulder to comfort him was a strange undignified thing for the old man to do. Ordinarily, he would have eased Jim's tension with smooth words and well-thought ideas; but now, Jim's hatred had even taken away some of Wang Li's pride and power.

“Is it because of this?” Wang Li traced the scar on Jim's cheek with his finger.

“That's part of it, but hardly all.”

Through the window across the room, the bay lay peaceful in the morning sun—as peaceful as it had that day when he was lying on the deck of the ship while they readied the skiff.

They threw him into the bottom of the small boat, all broken and bruised. As they lowered it to the water, Jim remembered the impression of Bull leaning over the rail and shouting to him.

“I could kill you now,” he called. “But I'm going to let the sea do that. It'll give you a lot of time to think about what you tried to do to Bull Sultan. Remember this: nobody crosses Bull Sultan and lives to tell about it.”

The skiff rolled free in the water. The lines were released. The waves battered the boat against the side of the ship, then drifted it away. Already, water gurgled into the bottom of the boat through the chopped-out hole.

Bull cupped his puffy hands to his mouth, elbows on the rail. “Oh, Jimmy-Boy. Jimmy-Boy. I forgot, you can't hear me. You're half-dead already. Anyhow, I just wanted to say 'Bon voyage'.” He burst out in a peal of laughter. The ship continued on its way, leaving Jim to the sea.

Yes, Jim thought now; but I did live. The strength of my desire for revenge brought me from my stupor and made me cram my shirt into the hole. And thanks to some friendly winds and some well-timed rain, I made it; I lived. But not only did I live to tell about it; I lived to come back and kill Bull—Bull Sultan, the man nobody crosses.

“There's nothing more I can say,” the old man said. “Something evil has taken hold of you and there's nothing I can do about it.”

He walked toward the door, stopped and turned around. “If you change your mind, come to the plantation and be my son again.”

He turned to leave. “Just a minute, Wang Li. How'd she ever go on board his ship in the first place?”

“A Kanaka came to the house. He said that you were ill and were asking for her to come to you on board the Southern Star.”

Then the old old man was gone. Jim looked through the window and watched him climb into the cart.

How he's really changed, Jim thought; he's lost everything he ever had and what's he doing? He's crying. The tears are rolling down his cheeks but he's looking straight ahead. He won't wipe his face. He won't even admit that the tears are there.

Kalo turned the cart around and started it creaking down the hill.

For the second time in my life, Jim thought, I've refused to do what he wanted; the first time was refusing to marry Ming under his conditions and this time, the second, refusing to forget about Bull Sultan.

By now the Southern Star would be in port. Jim tightened his belt and stepped to the door. He would go down the hill to the town, enter the Bam Bam Tavern and wait. Sooner or later Bull would come in and when he did Jim would be ready for him.

Byi-Byi was waiting on the knoll of the hill.

“Jim,” she said. “Jim. Listen your father. You no go kill Bull. Return plantation. Stay here along Byi-Byi.”

Jim pretended he hadn't even heard.

She wrapped her hands around his chest from behind.

“Stay, Jim.”

He broke her grip. She ran after him. She rubbed his neck and back. “Stay, Jim.” She undid her blouse and took out one of her tits. She grabbed his wrist and placed his hand on the smooth flesh. “Please, Jim. Stay make love Byi-Byi.”

He withdrew his hand and raced down the knoll toward the bay. Byi-Byi dropped behind and shouted to him. “Stay! He kill you!”

Soon he was out of hearing distance and well on his way to town.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL THE PATH turned and meandered through an unkempt grove of wild coconut palms. The ground was drier here; little clouds of dust raised up from Jim's feet and clouded the path behind him. There was no breeze to drive the dust puffs away so they suspended in the air for a while until they settled from their own weight.

There were no currents of air to drive away the heat, either. Sweat on Jim's back made his white cotton shirt stick to him in a long stream up the center. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the back of his neck where his too-long blond hair curled and clung to his wet skin.

Up ahead a native girl was leaning against a tree to one side of the path. She wore a red cotton dress, with a pattern of large white flowers printed on it. She wore no shoes or sandals; her bare feet rested in little mounds of powdery dust.

Farther down the path an old man approached slowly, laboriously toting a cumbersome load of bamboo piled high on his bent back.

“Jim,” the girl called sensuously to him. He recognized her now; she was Natati, a girl who sometimes went on board Bull's ship to provide Sultan with his sexual necessities.

Jim kept right on walking; he wouldn't stop for anything now. She pushed away from the tree lithely and stood in the middle of the path.

“Get out of my way,” Jim commanded. He brushed her brutally to one side.

But she grasped his arm and asked, “Where you go?”

Jim spun around and knocked her hand away. “To town!”

“What you do in town?” Her frock heaved with her breathing. It was open in a large V down the front exposing the tantalizing edges of her bulging breasts' heavier than Byi-Byi's but apparently softer. She had the long hair of Byi and the full face, but her cheeks were pressed in as though her mother had pinched the full flesh every day when she was a baby, making the puffy indentations which seemed like small craters and which deepened when she smiled. Thick thighs pushed against the light fabric of her skirt. Byi's legs were much more thin and thus more active than Natati's could ever be.

When she noticed him looking she put her arms in back of her and swung from side to side. The tension from her stretched arms made her breasts stick out even more; the swinging of her torso bobbed the heavy weights back and forth.

“You no go to town, Jim.” She had a sweet soft voice. “You come my hut. You me make tea, talk about Bull Sultan. Maybe yes?”

On the name of Jim's sworn enemy, his eyes went up and he hesitated in his haste to get to town. “What do you know about Bull? Something I should know?”

“You come my hut and me tell you something very important if you want to kill him.”

“Why your hut's way over on the other side of town.”

“Me got hut here for few days, Jim. Me think you like know something. You come, no?” She lay her hand on his forearm and stroked it.

“You don't know anything.” Jim didn't turn away to leave.

“Me know something all right, but you have to fuck Natati to find out.” She smiled at him; volcanoes formed quickly in her puffy cheeks.

“Oh poor Jim! You have mud on pants.” She brushed the front of his trousers with her hand as though she were rubbing mud off. He felt his penis crowing. Her hand was smooth and warm even through his trousers. He wanted to take her and lay her on the dusty path to get this information from her. Maybe it was something he had to know.

The girl ripped open his fly, toyed around, then grasped his erection. “How you like if me suck you, Jim?” she asked with a wink.

“Great! Then you tell me what you know.” He tried to force her head down, but she hesitated and motioned her eyes toward the walking man.

“Later,” she said. She whipped it out of his trousers into the bright sunlight and, while the man passed by, she turned her back to Jim, protecting him from sight and at the same time masturbating him where the old man couldn't see.

Jim put his hands on her shoulders and slipped one down into the opening of her dress. He enfolded the soft breast tenderly while she continued massaging his penis.

The old man shuffled down the path and soon was lost to sight behind a bend. Jim knew there was no time to waste. He would lay her right here and find out what she knew. She might be saving his life.

He grasped her shoulders and struggled to throw her to the ground. She wriggled out of his hands and turned to face him, grinning savagely. Jim pulled her to him and sunk his teeth into her warm thick shoulder. She clasped his body close to hers and gasped excitedly. Her knees started to give.

Just as Jim arched over her, forcing her down, he heard a sudden noise behind him. Startled, he p around. But too late. The cold barrel of a military rifle pressed menacingly into his stomach. From the look in the man's eyes he knew there was no sense resisting.

Jim had never seen the man before. He replaced his penis inside his trousers. On first glance, the man looked like a native; he was browned and he wore the casual clothes of the island. But there was something about him that struck Jim as being peculiar. He found it: he was too tan to be a native. His black silky hair was combed too neatly. He was an American!

The rifle was menacing enough, but not so much as a pistol would be; for it would take more time to aim and fire a long-barreled rifle, so Jim would wait for a chance to do something about it. If the man had wanted to kill him outright he could have done it from the bushes. Apparently, he had something else in mind. Jim would play along for now, until he saw a chance for making a break.

“I think you'd better do as she says, mister.”

He was an American. He had what Jim remembered from his Army days to be an Eastern Seaboard accent —New York, perhaps.

Jim followed Natati up the side path; her hips swung heavily and determinedly with each step she took. Just behind Jim, trodding carefully along, was the man with the rifle. Straining his ears for the sign of a clumsy movement on the man's part, Jim realized his own futility for the man was too wary, stepping with precision in Jim's tracks. Anger and fear surged from his stomach and raced up his spine. If only he had had a chance to defend himself. But there was none. Why had he stopped to listen to Natati! He could kick himself, but it was too late for that.

And why was he being led back here away from everything? Why didn't they kill him out there on the path? Maybe this man wasn't with Bull. But who could he be?

They came to a hut. It was one of those deserted huts far from the town and native by-paths.

Jim chuckled lightly. Here he was, being forced into the clearing of a hut by the long arm of a rifle and he had a sudden remembrance of the personal significance of such a hut as this. He stopped chuckling; perhaps this peculiar nostalgia was a retracing of his life and a premonition of death.

In spite of his present danger Jim couldn't keep his memory from darting back to that day, years ago, when, in a deserted hut like this one, he had had his first sexual experience with a strange native girl from the north.

She was from British Samoa and she had come to the island as a servant girl for one of the island's traders. Jim had met her as she was returning from an errand over one of the back trails.

He was alone and for some reason he felt courageous. He had never been to bed with a girl before and he saw that now he had his first opportunity. He saw it in the way she walked as she approached, in the way she smiled and ambled stiff-legged so that each hip protruded through her tight flimsy dress at each step. When she drew close to Jim he reached out daringly and grabbed her breast.

She was eighteen and he was only fifteen. She must have known about his inexperience, but she pretended that he was a great seducer because of his bravado.

She stopped and turned to him. He expected her to slap him or cry out, but all she did was reach down and grasp his penis and say, “You and me will go some Place and make love.”

He led her up a back path to a deserted hut. Inside he threw her violently to the floor, for he supposed that was the way it was done. When she lifted her dress and revealed that she had no clothes on underneath and showed him her vagina he became frightened and didn't know what to do next.

He pretended to be indifferent and very suave. He rolled a corn-silk cigarette and lit it while she pleaded with him to mount. Finally she reached up and drew him down to her body. She knew now that he was inexperienced; so she whispered to him that it was necessary for him to lick the lips of her dripping sex.

Reluctantly he bent his head to the task. It was peculiar to see that part of a woman for the first time. He began to suck on her and she moaned in ecstasy. He felt himself to be the great lover then and, although he didn't like putting his tongue into the strange looking object at first, he began to relish his manly powers to thrill a woman.

After a while, and he was convinced that this was all there was to making love, that there was nothing for him in the way of pleasure but to please the woman, she suddenly grabbed him and drew him over her body. Her deft fingers groped and found his organ, inserting it with precision into her liquid aperture, and he delighted in the new act so much that he screamed for joy. It was a natural thing for him to begin pumping away; no one had to teach him that.

And when they reached the climax and she had her hands on the cheeks of his buttocks and was pulling him taut into her, cramming the hilt up against the coccyx bone, he spurted his youthful juice into her and they raised their voices in a chorus of passion which resounded in the jungle and came back to him in a strange garble which he couldn't believe he had caused.

The flash of memory faded. He wondered how many years had passed since then. Eleven? Perhaps. And how did this sudden nostalgia come to him in the presence of a danger—a danger he could do nothing bout: a strange man with a rifle and a native girl who could betray him to his enemy. Was it a premonition? His eyes glided to the hut to detect the possibilities of more danger.

The hut was like so many others on the island. Stout bamboo poles formed the supports for the thatched roof. Thinner strips made the windows and door frames. The walls of the hut were fabricated from a thin reed-like plant which turned a pleasing yellow when dried. Something was different about this hut, though; dark curtains covered the door and window openings.

They entered the clearing before the hut. The man eased his vigilance, probably because he was so close to friends. His rifle sagged and pointed to the ground.

Now! Jim's only chance. He swung around violently and swept the rifle away from his body. Cocking his right fist he threw his body forward behind the punch. The target dodged effectively and dropped the rifle to which Jim had paid most of his attention. Powerful hands clasped on Jim's right wrist and, as deftly as a tiger, twisted it. Beefy, calculated weight lurched into Jim's mid-section as his enemy's hip came forward. A lever! It was too late. Jim felt himself being helplessly lifted from his feet as he sailed over the man's back. He met the ground flat on his stomach. He lost his breath and yet he knew he. had to get up and fight back; but for that moment he couldn't help himself. He grasped his sides and gasped for breath. A sudden unexpected pain lanced up through his shoulder; the too-accurate twist of the wrist! Jim cursed himself as he spat out chewed-up saliva; he should have known not to fight this man as though he were a bum in the Bam. Not this man; he had all the markings of a trained and skilled rough-and-tumble expert.

Desperation dragged his hands forward to brace himself on the ground. His shoulders lifted! Pain in the right one made him stop for a second. He raised his eyes and glared directly down the cavernous barrel of the rifle. So close was it that he could see the man's slightly leering smile behind an almost contemptuous face. “Sorry, Buster,” the man behind the smile said as though he were apologizing.

Jim didn't even make a move to get up. This was it and he had had it. Too late now for regrets over careless moves. The man would squeeze the trigger and the last thing Jim would hear in this life would be the outrageous explosion.

But the man seemed to be waiting for someone. Orders, perhaps. Jim turned his head, forgetting for now the danger of the rifle and the man behind it; there was nothing he could have done about it anyhow. Three people came out of the hut; they didn't rush, but walked slowly and casually over the sun-baked clearing toward Jim. Who were they, friends of Bull's? But they didn't seem like the type of people Bull associated with. One man and two women: the man with a blond crew-cut; one woman dark and powerfully built; the other, blonde and with what could be taken for daintiness if she weren't so stern in her steps, so sure and steady, so direct and jolting as each heel hit the ground.

As they drew closer, the new man called out, “What happened?”

“Nothing much,” Jim's assailant answered with a slight laugh.

Jim was soon encircled by the staring group. Contempt turned the lips of some of them. Jim looked at himself; he was a mess. His clothes were dirty and some vomit from the night before when he had been so drunk still remained on his shirt front. He suddenly became conscious of his too-long hair, of his unshaven face, of his stockingless feet; but he managed to turn back to the people and return frown for frown, leer for leer and smile for ... Don! It was Don Morrel! Smiling at him as though he had been caught stealing watermelons. Jim shook his head thinking his mind was playing tricks on him.

“Come on, Jim,” he said. “Get up.”

Jim rose slowly to his feet, not quite sure of himself. “Are you really Don?” he asked, brushing his hands on his trousers.

“Yes, Jim. It's me. Your old buddy.” He put his hand on Jim's shoulder and added; “Damn, you haven't changed a bit. I can smell alky all over you.”

Jim smiled at his old friend and punched him lightly in the stomach. “Why you old son-of-a-bitch. I thought you went back to college. Weren't you going to get in the F.B.I. or something like that?”

Don looked about cautiously and nodded his head when he noticed Natati far enough away from the group. “I'll tell you about that later. But for now, what have you been doing with yourself?”

“Not much. This clown here has a gun stuck on me and he says 'let's go', so I go.”

“Oh, yes. This is Al Semick; Jim Crawford.” The man put out his hand. Jim hesitated for an instant, wondering if he should try to punch him. He remembered the last time he had tried that and took the hand gratefully. “Hi, Al. Glad to know you.”

“Sorry about the rifle, Jim,” Al said, gesturing with it as though it was never dangerous.

“That's all right! forget it.”

“Jim,” Don continued; “This is Laura Cullen and Sheila Williams.”

Jim shook hands with them, first, Laura. A short brunette, built strong and sturdy, a quick grip. She nodded; her short brown hair barely budged with the movement. As the sunlight was in the clearing she had to squint her eyes. The high cheekbones almost covered her eyelids—Jim even wondered how she could see when she laughed, And to the other girl—Sheila—offered a find-boned hand to Jim. He missed when he stuck out his own; his eyes lighted on her face and he couldn't see what he was doing. What was it about that face? It wasn't the blonde hair that draped slightly over her forehead; it wasn't the fine, chiseled features, nor was it the way the sharp bone of her nose drew the skin taut across it leaving a trace of two white lines running from the bridge to the fine tip of her nose. It had nothing to do with that, the odd magnetism that blinded Jim for those seconds. There was something her eyes, her clear blue eyes, as blue as the bay in the morning, but something beyond those eyes. Jim could sense that and he suddenly shuddered down somewhere inside himself as he stared at her and caught his breath. He shook his head and wondered what had come over him. But then a strange remorse built up inside and it had some peculiar relationship with his feelings for Ming, only something vaguely different about it. What was it! He took her firm hand and shook it. To avoid her eyes, he scanned her body, but that was a mistake. Slender? Sure, she was slender. But the curves were there, directly and pointedly busted. The tight but casual clothes seemed to grow around her shape down to where the hem stopped and her tanned legs contrasted with her bright-colored dress.

“Let's get inside,” Don suggested.

Jim turned to him, glad that he had interrupted his survey of this Sheila, this girl who had attracted him in some strange way. “Anything you say, Don, old boy.”

As they walked across the clearing, Jim asked, “I thought you were going to stay in Minnesota and then get in the F.B.I. Now what the hell are you doing way out here in the islands?”

“Later. I'll tell you inside.”

Jim held the curtain aside so Sheila could enter. She didn't say anything but she looked at him in such a way that Jim thought she was ready to blush.

Inside the hut there was no furniture except for two cots with Army blankets on them, a large round table with a lot of loose papers spread all over it and six cheap wooden chairs set around the table.

“Natati!” Don called. She came rushing in.

“Wait a minute,” Jim interrupted. “I've got some business in town. I'm glad to see you and all that, but I really got to go to town.”

“Shh,” Don said. The others had taken chairs and were sitting in them. “Tell me about it later.”

Natati came to Don. “You wish me?”

“Yes, I want you to go down town and buy some white candles ...”

Jim interrupted again; “Listen, Don; I don't have much time. I have to be running off.”

“You just wait a minute, Jim. Natati, I want two dozen white—”

“I can't wait a minute,” Jim blurted out. “I got to get going.” He heard a knock against the table. When he turned he saw the rifle pointed at his chest. Al shook his head from side to side as though to say, “You never learn, do you?”

So Jim pulled up a chair and sat down.

“A dozen white candles and some kerosene,” Don said, handing her some money. A few minutes later, after Natati had left the hut, Don stepped to the door. He drew the curtain aside to make sure she had gone.

“Okay.” He turned back to the table, selecting a chair by Jim. “Now we can get down to business.”

“It's about time,” Jim said. “You got me all con fused.”

“Sorry we had to use a rifle to get you here,” Don apologized.

“Whose idea was the girl playing around like that?”

Al leaned back and smiled. “That was her own idea. I just told her to hold you up until the old man passed.”

Don was sifting through the papers on the table. He chose several and clipped them together. “Jim, do you know a man around here named Bull Sultan?”

“Bull Sultan! You bet I do.”

“Take it easy, Jim. Don't get so riled up.”

“Okay, Don. But as soon as I leave this place, Bull Sultan won't be around any more; he'll be dead.”

“Yes, I understand you have a quarrel with him.”

“Let's not talk about that,” Jim said, impatience fraying his nerves.

“Okay, this Bull Sultan is a man we want to keep loose. By that I mean we don't want anything to happen to him for some time. You worked with him, didn't you?”

“For about a year.”

“Ever go to China with him?”

“Just Singapore and Shanghai. We went there pretty often.”

“What did you usually pick up?”

“Oh, just about everything. Glassware, rice, bamboo, cotton bales — “

“And heroin?”

“Heroin?”

“Yes, we think he's been responsible for the picking up and distribution of heroin, not only in the South Pacific but on the West Coast, too.”

“I never knew anything about any heroin.”

“Probably not, but we're pretty sure it was there.” Sheila interrupted; her voice was steady and sure. “When we stopped the flow from Europe, the dope started coming from West China, for instance. Our experts can detect the origin of heroin by test. The new heroin in America has definitely been linked to Asia.”

Don explained; “An international gang sells it and earns America dollars that way. We think Bull is the man who ships it out.”

“He won't be shipping any more,” Jim said. “I don't think so, either,” Don agreed. “But not for the same reason as you think. He's mixed-up in something bigger than heroin right now, and if we get the goods on him he'll be on ice for a hundred years.”

“What's he doing?”

“Did you ever hear of a man named Steiner?”

“Steiner?”

“Professor Steiner, medical scientist.”

“No, what about him?”

“I'll give you some history. Jules Steiner escaped from Nazi Germany in 1937, but we never knew for sure if his reasons were political or not. He's not Jewish, so it wasn't that, either. At that time we accepted almost everyone who had left the Nazi State. He's such a big man in the medicine field that we were glad to have him with us.

“He was one of the first to work on a new medical project America had undertaken since the war. It involved about ten of our top medical scientist. They were all working on new drugs for the Army—all of them except Steiner. He was busy using Government time, equipment and money to develop a new drug for his own use. There wasn't much difference between what he was doing in the way of experiments and what the others were doing. So no one knew what was up until he bugged out.

“We had checked Steiner for security and he w cleared, but not completely because of some shad dealings that were attributed to him long ago. If we could have had more information about that, he would never have been allowed to work on the project. But as it was, we arranged for Sheila here to work as his secretary. Sheila is a Secret Service Agent.”

“Secret Service?” Jim's eyes went up.

“Oh, I may as well tell you, Jim, as long as we're going to be working together, that we're all working for the government. Al here is our radio operator. Sheila is along because she can identify Steiner no matter which disguise he wears. Laura has just been assigned to the case, to double with Sheila as an American Tourist.”

“Women in the Secret Service?”

Sheila frowned at him and blurted out, “What's wrong with women?”

“Not a damn thing,” Jim smiled. “But they should keep their noses stuck in a pot.”

“You think so, do you? Well, let me tell you, Mister Smart-Britches, a girl can do everything you can do.”

“Almost everything,” Jim retorted, staring obviously at her trim waist. For some reason he wanted to hit out at this girl, to lay her low with words and avenge himself on her for making him feel this way about her, this way that he had felt for no other girl but Ming and even then it had been different, not so strong and filled with longing and desperation as this mood which struck him every time he glanced at Sheila's blue eyes and smooth sensuous body. “You should be home raising a family,” Jim continued. In fact, that's what he thought she was when they had first met, someone's sweetheart, someone's fiancee, not an F.B.I. girl fighting against vicious people such as Bull Sultan and his crowd. He wanted to be nice to her, to reach out and touch her arm and say that he was sorry if he had offended her, but he didn't. He leered at her and asked, contemptuously, “What do you do, let the suspects lay you so you can get information?”

Her lips tightened in vexation, drawing the skin over the nose, making the bones seem ready to burst through. Her eyes glared hard at him, sending shivers up his back. He shouldn't have said that, he knew; but that was how he felt.

“You didn't have to say that, Jim,” Don admonished him. Even Al leaned forward expectantly. The atmosphere was tense.

“I'm sorry,” Jim apologized to Sheila, lowering his eyes for a moment. “Go on with your story, Don.”

“Sterner was with the group in Hawaii and all of a sudden he disappeared. We searched the island but we couldn't find him. Then they ran an investigation on what he had been working on. He had developed a drug, all right— a drug capable of driving its user insane for twelve hours and making him an addict with just a pin-prick of the stuff. The soil he had used for growth is a kind found in abundance in Asia. We put two and two together and came up with the solution that he was in with the gang which works out of Shanghai, Bull Sultan being one of them.

“We know he's in the islands some place. He couldn't have taken a plane; we checked that. We know he's working his way slowly across the Pacific, from island to island, trying to get to Singapore where he'll have the protection of that international band he's working with. We've come to this island because we know this is the best spot for him to make a pick-up to continue his trip. This island and the group are the crossroads of China traffic.”

“So you think Bull's going to make the pick-up?”

“He left this port three weeks ago bound for the Philippines; but he never got there. We figure he turned around the moment Steiner escaped. In mid-ocean he picked up a man from an amphibious airplane. That man wasn't Steiner. We think it was a Chinese member of the gang with instructions for Bull.”

“So, you're here to get Steiner, playing cops and robbers.”

“We have to get Steiner. There's no question about it.”

“What's all that got to do with me?”

“For one thing, we know you've got a fight with Bull Sultan; we want you to leave him alone, let him walk around a free man until he makes contact with Steiner. For another thing, we need help among the natives, I checked you out with Washington. You have a clean Army record so they gave me the okay to ask you to help us. We want you to pick some friendly natives to mount a look-out for Steiner. We can watch Bull's ship all right, but we can't watch the whole island. Suppose we're wrong about Bull's ship. Suppose Steiner comes in here and gets out some other way. We want to know. We have to know.”

“That's easy. How many do you want?”

“I figured twenty watchers with relief would do.”

“Twenty? All right. What else do you want?”

“We want Bull to be left alone. We want him to think he's safe and free. That way he'll be more careless. If the gang knows he's being watched they'll find another way to get Steiner out. We've got this pretty well set up and we don't want to ruin it.”

“You want the natives—all right; but to leave Bull alone ... no, sir: that's out.”

“What?” Al leaned forward some more. “You mean you still want to have your scrap with Bull Sultan?”

“It's not going to be a scrap, AL One of us is going to be dead in a few hours—Bull or me.”

“Jim, now be reasonable. I know you have an argument with him, but we have to ask you to leave him alone.”

“Are you kidding? Me leave him alone? Not on your life.”

Sheila interrupted. “Do you realize how important this is to your country?”

“Bull isn't the one you want. It's Steiner, isn't it?”

“Without Bull we'll probably never find Steiner.”

“Well, you're going to have to.”

Al got up from his chair. He leaned on the table with his fists. “How can you think of a private fight when so much is at stake?”

“I didn't ask you in on this. You're the ones that asked me. If you'd have let me go, Bull would be dead now.”

And what the hell was he doing here? He wanted to get up and stalk out of that hut, far from them and their attempts to dissuade him from his drive to slay his sister's killer, far from their talk of Governments and drugs and F.B.I, business, far from Sheila and her ... and her eyes and her ... just far from her. He glanced at her face and relaxed into the seat.

“Jim, be reasonable,” Don argued. “Think of what this means to us!”

“I don't give a damn about you. Think of what it means to me!”

“But, Jim,” Don continued, “if he manages to get this dope going in Asia and can grow enough of it, he can ship it to the States and once a section of the country gets infected with this wild craze it'll spread like wildfire. Just a pin-prick, I said. Think how they can introduce it: in cigarettes, chewing-gum, even mix it in with marijuana to get at the teen-agers. There are millions of possibilities. And we've got to stop it right here and now. We have to get Steiner!”

“Steiner. Steiner. Steiner. You take your Steiner. I only want Bull Sultan.”

“Damn it, don't you see that Bull is our link?”

“Sure I see it. I also see that you can get Steiner without Bull.”

“Where's your sense of patriotism?” Sheila asked.

That made Jim mad. “Have you ever sat in a boat half-dead for six days? Have you?”

“Your sitting in a boat is nothing compared with what those medicines mean to America.”

“That's Steiner. Not Bull.”

“Don,” Sheila said, “we'll have to lock up Mister Crawford and send him somewhere until this is finished.”

“You lock me up and you'll have hell to pay.”

“What can we do?” Don said to no one. “Jim, I never thought you would be a coward.”

“A coward? Are you nuts? Tell me, Don, what would you do if a guy raped your sister and she committed suicide?”

“I'd probably do the same thing you're doing.”

“Exactly.”

“Except that if this happened to be in the interest of America I'd leave him alone. I'm sure of that.”

“He's not an American,” Sheila said. “He's gone native. He lives on savage laws.”

“Not an American? I'm just as much an American as you are. This isn't a question of being an American. This is a question of being a man and accepting responsibilities.”

“Is vengeance a responsibility?” she asked.

“Yes.”

There was no hate in her eyes. Jim sat down and tried to relax. Oh, damn! why the hell did they have to come along with their story about Steiner? And that Sheila! What the hell was she doing working with the Secret Service? She should be home raising kids.

Jim eyed her appreciatively and cautiously. Cautiously, for he realized the hold she had on him already and he didn't want to increased his present frustration. He had enough despair. Ming was dead; Sultan walked the earth a free man. To build another despair onto these two, another more powerful and overcoming than the others, one built on a deep love and an overbearing sexual attraction, would pull his mind apart if he lingered on it too much. But he couldn't help himself. He had to look into her eyes to see if that sympathy was still there. It was; it hid behind the suaveness and hardness that made her a Secret Service Agent. But it was there. He knew it and she knew he did. Jim almost felt that she tried to pucker her mouth to cover the weakness that he was drawing out of her being. Perhaps ... perhaps she felt the same way toward him.

What a woman she would make for him! The slight tender body, the lovely hair, the subtle sensuous curves —all that combined with the shadow of love in her eyes. Who knows? Jim asked himself, maybe he could work on a girl like her and be the right kind of guy and she would end up sticking it out with him for life. A woman like her could keep you in line, Jim told himself; she could make you stop drinking, make you want to do things and make something out of yourself.

“I think we should forget about Mister Crawford here,” Sheila said. “He's nothing but a drunkard, a bum, a man with no country, a man who lives on vengeance. We'll have to lock him up and do everything on our own. When I first saw him I thought there was a possibility. But now I see there's no hope. I can smell the rotten alcohol on his clothes way over here. He's a nothing; a bum, a tramp, a drunkard.”

“Take it easy, Sheila,” Don said. “Jim, think it over. We really need your help. Won't you try to give us a break?”

So! Jim thought, she thinks I'm a bum and a drunkard. Okay I'll show you who's the bum. “Don,” he said, “it's a deal; I'll play along with you. I'll leave Bull alone and I'll get you some trustworthy natives.”

The tension about the table suddenly relaxed. Al sat down. Sheila smiled across to Jim and it wasn't a smile of conquest, but a tender sympathetic smile. Laura hadn't changed from her attitude of seeming disinterest in the whole affair.

They outlined their plans. Jim showed them the best look-out spots on a map of the island. They would need twenty-two men to man these posts; Jim would get them and keep in touch with them. He asked about Natati. He didn't say anything about her being a friend of Bull's because he thought he might be wrong. After all, Bull and she had never lived together. She sometimes visited him on the ship but nothing more than that.

Don said that Al had cleared the girl and that she didn't know much about what was going on; so there was no danger. Jim thought for a moment about the possibilities of them making the same mistake as so many other Americans had made in underestimating the intelligence of the natives. Maybe she would spy on them; Jim would keep his eyes open.

He suddenly turned to Laura. “Oh, by the way,” he said. “Is your name really Laura Cullen?”

“Of course it is.” She looked flustered.

“I don't know,” Jim said. “You look Slavic. I had a White Russian girl friend in Shanghai. You look something like her. I thought you were Slavic and the name Cullen isn't Slavic, is it?”

“No.”

“I thought that working with the Secret Service maybe you took on false names.”

The statement passed. Jim felt a little ashamed for having asked the question. He thought he still had movie ideas about spies and secret agents going around in disguises. It's the twentieth century, he reminded himself.

Don unfolded some of their plans. Al had his radio shack set up on top of the hill. Jim would stay in the hut to keep in touch with the native team. Don himself had to go to another island to make sure Steiner wouldn't come there. The two girls, Sheila and Laura, would go into town and set up residence as two American tourists who had come to the islands for a long vacation. There, they would keep an eye on Bull's activities.

Jim was to stay in the hut all day today. They thought it best that he shouldn't come to town to enlist the natives until tomorrow, for too much strange activity during the same day, with the two girls getting rooms, with Don taking a boat out, would arouse unnecessary suspicion. The following day would be time enough. Meanwhile he would sit tight in the hut.

He didn't ask anything about where Natati was supposed to sleep, and he didn't ask anything about his chances of getting a bottle of Tuba or Aggie wine.

When everyone had gone and Natati had not yet returned from town Jim thought about what had happened. It was strange that so much importance could be attached to his part in the drama. It was even strange that so much excitement could take place on his peaceful island.

And that thing about accepting their conditions: what had made him accept? Was it because they had accused him of being unpatriotic? Or was it because Sheila said he was a drunken bum? Maybe it was that. But he should have been more careful: maybe she suspected he had done it for her. If so, she might try to take advantage of him. He should have waited until Don or Al said something else. Then he would have agreed to leave Bull alone and it would have seemed to be the direct result of their statements and not because a girl had called him a drunken bum.

He was seated alone at the table. All the papers were packed into brief-cases and sealed. Al had gone up to the top of the hill to his radio. The girls had gone to town to rent a house. And Don had gone to the bay to hire a boat to take him to the other island where he would pose as a buyer for copra.

Because so many of the large openings in the hut were covered with blankets there was not much of a breeze coming through. The air was heavy and thick. Sweat formed on Jim's body and didn't dry, causing him to feel uncomfortable. He went outside into the clearing before the hut

It was senseless to put up the blankets; the hut was off the beaten path. Even if someone would wade through the narrow game trail just to see what was going on, the hut occupants would be able to hear them coming and make arrangements in time. Besides, visibility was difficult from a long way off because of the tall wild coconut palms that surrounded the hut just beyond the clearing. So much secrecy seemed ridiculous to Jim.

He walked across the sun-drenched clearing to a small clump of grass under a tall shading palm. He lowered himself heavily to the ground, lit a cigarette and waited.

What was he waiting for? He was waiting for a lot of things: he was waiting for tomorrow, for Natati, for the end of the hot day, for the end of his new problem of waiting for a chance at Bull after Steiner would be caught.

Soft feet padded on the path. They were bare feet and they walked slowly, so Jim knew it was a native.

Even so, he knew he would have to lay low to surprise this person. Maybe he could watch and keep hidden. Maybe the person would go away soon after learning that no one was in the hut.

Christ! It was only Natati coming back from town with the kerosene and the candles. He remained in his hiding place so he wouldn't make a fool out of himself.

Her soft brown legs passed right before his eyes. The ankle had a graceful curve to it, arching with each step she took. From the rear, her calf disappeared tantalizingly into the bottom of her skirt.

Jim waited until she was in the hut before he came out of his hiding place and walked inside.

She was standing by the table. She looked up as he came in.

“Where people?” she asked.

“They all went away.”

“Good. Me-you alone?” The pinched-in dimples sank into her cheeks as she smiled.

“Yes.” Jim sat in a chair and leaned back.

Her red white-flowered cotton dress was drawn across her stomach and tied with two ends. A large flower bulged out over one breast. There were no buttons to the dress. From the way her breasts jiggled and from the tightness across her buttocks Jim could tell that she wore no brassiere and no panties. Her long black hair was curly and shiny. She unpacked the bag and laid the contents on the table.

“You stay?” she asked, not looking at him.

“I think so,” Jim said. “Looks like you and I are ' going to finish that little business you started out on the road, and we'll have plenty of time to do it.” But somehow, although this was what he would have ordinarily said in the situation, he felt that this was wrong.

He turned swiftly in his chair and glared at the door but Sheila's eyes were not there. He relaxed and turned around again, thinking that he had nothing to do with Sheila yet, so why should he let something like that bother him. What the hell, wasn't it enough that he had agreed to play along with them? His heart didn't have to keep him from getting a good lay, did it?

“You stay alongside me few days? Natati like.”

“Let's go outside,” Jim suggested, rising from the chair. “It's hot in here.” If he started fast enough perhaps he could forget Sheila.

The sunlight outside affected his eyes; he had to squint for a while.

“Let's go in the shade.”

He led her to a place where the grass was thick and shaded by the palms above. They sat side by side.

“What you want?” Natati asked.

“I want to finish what you started,” he answered simply. He reached over and put his hand inside her blouse. Her breast was warm and soft. It gave way under his caresses and hung heavy in his hand. He untied her dress. It fell open. Her huge breasts hung like pendants from her skin. The sunlight was on one of them making it look like a fresh chocolate cone. He edged across the grass and put the nipple into his mouth. As he sucked tenderly on the hardening nipple, the breasts itself heaved with her quickened breathing. She lay back on the grass and pulled the flaps of her dress away from her delightful body.

Her skin was as warm as a hot roof. She squirmed eagerly when he put his finger on her moist vagina. She grasped his penis through his trousers and jerked it up and down.

He kissed her belly. It heaved convulsively. Frantically she ripped away the buttons. She took the pulsating baton between her thick fleshy lips and began sucking on it. Jim arched himself over her head. He put his knees on both sides of her neck and under her shoulders. She raised her head so she could suck better. Suddenly she stopped her vacuous action, held the stiff dripping organ in her hand and continued masturbating it while she looked up at him with a smile and asked, “What people talk about, Jim?”

So! he thought, she wants information. “Oh, they talked about the sunny tropics and America.”

“They no talk about Bull?” she asked.

“Bull who?”

She smiled at him again. It was a smile of recognition, recognition that he knew what she was doing and that he wasn't going to be so easily won.

She went back to her slow work on his penis. Jim, on his hands and knees above her, rocked backward and forward rhythmically, meeting her raised head with each thrust. Until now she had gone smoothly and evenly, but suddenly she changed her tactics and became almost violent, lightly brushing over the skin of his tool with her teeth, taking a fast short stroke, then a deep, deep, full one, working fast and furiously. As Jim watched he felt the pressure build up inside him while her head darted almost too fast for his eyes to follow.

Her hand groped up over his back and grasped his trousers. She jerked them down to his bent knees so they rested on her chest. Her second finger felt its way down the crack of his rear until it found the anus. Up inside it delved, twirling, searching, darting, finding and stimulating the prostate gland. This, combined with the sucking, caressing motion of her mouth on his penis brought blood rushing to Jim's head with such force he thought he would pass out. He lifted his head and drank in the ecstasy of the weird moment. But just at that second, the pent-up power within him splayed forth and gushed into the back of her throat.

Jim's head sank to the ground as the spasms of sperm were sucked from his body until just at the point of collapse. She continued her withdrawing movements, slowing them down gradually until there was no more sperm. Her lips massaged the body of the penis as she allowed it to slip from her mouth fragment by fragment. Finally she licked the last tiny drop from the head and let it sag. Jim rolled to one side and dropped to the ground.

CHAPTER FIVE

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING JIM WAS violently awakened by a high-pitched shriek. He jerked upright on the cot, the khaki blanket falling to the ground. His sleep-grogged mind told him it was an animal. Again the scream shattered his nerve fibers. It was human: a woman!

He glanced quickly over to Natati's cot; it was empty. In a flash he was outside the hut, standing dismayed in the gray morning light.

There in the clearing the two of them—Natati and Byi-Byi—thrashed entwined together, screaming and clawing, kicking and biting, bathed in a heavy cloud of dust. A knife lay nearby.

Byi-Byi had Natati's hair: she yanked, jerking her head back. The veins swelled in Natati's neck as she screamed. Byi-Byi's brown dress was torn down the middle; the sides flapped around. She clutched Natati's throat and squeezed, baring her ivory teeth at the same time.

Afraid for Natati's life, Jim grappled with Byi-Byi. He tore her from the ground. She bared her teeth and shouted at him: “Son um bitch!” Natati rose, dived for her and yanked her long black hair. Byi-Byi turned from Jim's hands, knocked Natati to the ground with a sinking punch to the stomach. Her dress waving, she dived on top of Natati and began to beat her head against the ground, shouting: “Bastard, bastard, bastard!”

Jim wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and Pulled her free. Natati lay there for a while, glaring up at Byi-Byi who was still trying to kick out at her.

At the right moment Natati scrambled up and raced off behind the hut.

Jim set Byi-Byi on the ground. “Now, what's this all about?”

“Oh, you son um bitch!” she cried out. She rushed at him with both fists flying, dress open down the front and baring her bounding breasts. Jim grabbed her wrists. She kicked at him with her bare feet.

“Hey, take it easy,” Jim said, shaking her. “What's this all about?”

“Woman in town tell Byi-Byi you captured by man with gun. Byi-Byi come save you with knife. You no captured. You make love Natati.”

Jim laughed. “Okay, now take it easy.” He released her wrists. She ran for the knife, picked it up and came charging at him like a crazy horse. Jim reached for her and missed but managed to dodge her knife thrust. She ran past him and turned around. Jim grabbed the wrist with the knife in it. He squeezed hard. “Let go!” he shouted. Soon the knife dropped to the ground, but she was unabashed. Savagely she launched her head at him. Her teeth sunk in the flesh of his arm and he felt the skin tear.

She drew her head back. Her teeth were bared; blood ran down the side of her lips: his blood! Strangely enough Jim could feel his penis swelling. This is what he liked, this snarling wildcat, resisting civilization, and it was his job to tame her. She tried again with her head but Jim held her far enough away so that she couldn't reach. In frustration she hissed at him: “Son um bitch!”

She struggled to be free. Her too-large breasts wobbled back and forth frantically. Her legs, bared by the stripped dress, trembled and the muscles quivered stiffly.

Jim put his foot behind her calf and threw her to the ground. In a flash he pounced on top of her. She was still scratching and trying to bite him. He held her off and pinned her arms to the dusty ground. His love rod danced alert and hungry.

In one swift motion he had ripped open his fly, allowing the imprisoned tool to burst forth into freedom. As his body pressed down on her resistant and angered form, Jim wedged his leg between her thighs and tried to force them apart. But she gritted her teeth and resisted. Excitement and wrath flushed the veins on her forehead. Her eyes stared defiance—wild and frenzied defiance.

He tendered his head slowly to her neck to kiss, to soothe. Suddenly her face flashed up to him, mouth open. She sunk her teeth deep into his tense shoulder and tore the skin brutally. As he jerked his head back at the pain she struggled to close her legs. But he was too securely entrenched.

Head back now he frowned down at her for one brief second, infuriated at his pain, not knowing if he should strike her in retaliation for the wound which was now dripping crimson blood onto her tendon-strained neck. Instead of slapping her, pleasure and passion brought a deep virile laugh from his drawn-back lips. The savagery of overpowering her ire with the use of his manhood provoked a cold irony at the base of his stomach. Now it was sport, a question of domination and submission. Her barbaric resistance made the “game” worth capturing.

He grasped her wrists above her head, pinning them to the light brown dust so her elbows formed the sharp corners of a square. With one thigh already in place he veered his other knee flush against her leg, and, by squirming and wriggling, succeeded in settling between her warm taut legs.

Only then did he notice Natati squatting beside the hut and watching them. Her hands were tucked up around the thick part of her thighs and her fingers worked over her anus and played with her cleft. It was strange the way her fury had changed her features into something now passionate and vicious.

His proud_ hungry shaft bobbed up and down on Byi-Byi's crop of pubic hairs. He backed off toward her feet, edging the bulbous knob down toward her slit. Her knees came up; making him think she had given in. So he waited until the bulb bounced down and then gave a wild lunge forward to pierce her orifice. But the knees had risen for another reason. Her feet pushed her body upward and away from him. The assault ended disastrously. The tender head jabbed forward and, instead of meeting the warm nest it had supposed it would encounter, it stabbed into the dry earth below her buttocks. The abrasive plowing flashed pain through his spine and body. Jim howled in agony and backed off for another attack.

Undaunted, but cautious, he inched the dust-covered penis forward until the soft-skinned knot found the first touch of her sex cleft to be torrid and slimy. Patience and experience warned him not to charge. He waited, slowly and playfully allowing the viscous juices from her passion to flow freely and wantonly from the exciting pressure of his weapon temptingly half-hidden in the black mass at her crotch.

She moved her legs as though to push away again. For punishment Jim broke contact with her yawning nook. The legs hesitated, then trembled from frustration and indecision. Suddenly her feet lifted behind him and, where a second ago they had motioned to save her from invasion, they clapped onto the tense cheeks of his rear and attempted to pull his body forward so the instrument would penetrate her embracing core. Jim resisted for a moment to increase her desire then permitted himself to be carried forward.

The head entered slowly. Just as the ridge at the rear disappeared Jim thrust wildly. The horn gushed in so suddenly the bones at the vortex of their crotches jarred one against the other.

Now it was she who wanted and desired to be fulfilled. No longer did she snarl in vexation over Jim's having slept with Natati. Her teeth bared, the lips drawn back tight, her eyes closed as though in agony and her head rolled from side to side as he entered and withdrew from her thick-walled passion tunnel with increasing regularity and efficient rhythm.

Her hands struggled to be free. Jim released his grip. Tense fingers found his buttocks and squeezed the flesh in scarlet frenzy.

Jim turned his head back. Natati was now lying in the dust, a banana wedged up into her inside; and she stared back at him with hungry eyes as she thrust the fruit deep into her womb and writhed on the ground, keeping her eyes peeled on Jim and his prone companion.

On and on Jim plunged and retreated, stimulating her clitoris with the back of his penis; exciting her flow of gummy oil so much that it ran down onto the skin of his testicles and dripped to the ground.

“Push hard, Jim,” she moaned. “Push. Push.”

He did. His own violent exaltation built up within him, tensing all the muscles of his body, cramping his calves until, with tight fingers wringing pleasure from his buttocks, with a rising and falling stomach pressing and retreating from his own, the hardness of his poker became concrete-like and in a twisting, screaming, colloidal outburst they climaxed together. Round after round of sperm squirted into her sheath and was there met by sucking, vibrating sensitive flesh.

The phantasmagoric mystery of united sex had been breached. Both of them collapsed into a spent stupor and lay, joined and satisfied, in the unsettled dust for an infinitely long while.

A half-hour later, though exhausted, they moved out of the sunlight and onto the grass. Natati had gotten up and stolen away without Jim noticing when. The soft green blades felt cool against his back, cool from the dew and shade, Drowsiness and grogginess from the exciting climax gradually disappeared in relaxation.

He turned on his side. Byi-Byi was sitting spread-legged and nude, her straight jet-black hair flattened in little curls against her sweat-drenched forehead and temples. She picked a blade of grass, squeezing the green chlorophyll from it and sucking it from her fingertips.

“How'd you know where I was?” Jim asked.

“Washer-woman told me gun and you not no place. Me guess this hut.”

“Did you see Bull in town?”

“Yes. Him with strange Chinee man. Walk around town. He know you here. He come today, tomorrow.”

Well, that wasn't in the bargain. If Bull came looking for him and he was forced to kill him in self-defense, then there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Maybe that'd be the best way. It would make everything legal-like. Now, making that deal with Sheila, Don and Al wasn't so bad after all.

“Why you not dead?”

“What do you mean, 'not dead'?”

“Me think you dead this morning. You Bull fight, you dead.”

She said it matter-of-factly while sucking on the end of a squeezed blade of grass.

“I didn't go to town yesterday.”

“Why not? You no stop for Byi-Byi. You no stop for Wang Li. Why you stop then?”

“Something else, Byi-Byi. It's very complicated and I'm not even sure exactly why myself.”

“Because girl?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Me see two girl in town. Two yankee girl. One pretty-pretty, bonita palawa. Me think you-girl, big thing.”

“You think too much.” He gave a little laugh, but he knew he was concealing nothing from Byi-Byi's sensitive perception.

“Maybe you love girl, no?”

“Maybe I do, Byi-Byi,” Jim said. “But maybe I don't. I've only been in love once before and all I know is that I feel something very strong about her—almost too strong. Because of her I agreed to leave Bull alone and help her do a job.”

“What job, Jim?”

“I can't tell you, Byi-Byi. Not just yet, anyway.”

“Jim?”

“You promise?”

“Promise what?”

“Promise you be careful what you do?”

“Sure, Byi-Byi, I promise.”

Later, at about twelve o'clock, Jim went to town. He knew he could find most of the men he wanted for the guarding job at that time. It was Saturday. The men would come in from their half-day in the fields or at the docks and he would meet them while they took their lunch or lounged around the Bam Bam tavern. He knew Bull would probably be in town, too, but there was no way he could avoid meeting him. The only thing he could do, he figured, would be to ignore him, maybe even play the coward just to keep his end of yesterday's bargain. But he knew that if he should meet Bull and Bull would press matters to a head, he would kill him, agreement or no agreement, patriotism or no patriotism, Sheila or no Sheila.

It was dark inside the Bam Bam. The only light that came in entered through the screen door or the small window in the rear. Jim stood by the packing-case bar facing the door. He hoped he could make his contacts and leave town without meeting Bull. Now that he was so close to Sultan, he was afraid of the temptation to break his bargain and kill him.

Set back from the bar, tables and chairs reached to the other side of the room. There splintery, square wooden pillars supported the heavy slatted roof. Lanterns were hung on the pillars but they were lighted only at night, even though it was dark enough in the tavern to warrant their use in the daytime.

An odor of stale beer, slopped onto the floor by the bar at one time or another and never cleaned up, hung heavy in Jim's nostrils. It had been so long since he had been drunk that smelling the putrefaction made him wonder just what pleasure he could ever have found in becoming a sot. It reminded him of the many times he had been sick-drunk 'in the early morning hours, lying in his own filth in some back alley of the town. But those times seemed to have vanished—for now at least. Would he return to drink if Sheila turned him down? He wondered.

Boja came through the screen door. His eyes were unaccustomed to the darkness from having squinted in the bright sunlight. He didn't see Jim right away. He went to the bar and ordered a bottle of warm beer.

“Boja,” Jim said to him. He was leaning against the packing-case bar.

Boja turned and smiled at him. He picked up his glass and walked over to his side.

“Hafadai, Jim,” he said.

“Hafadai, Boja. I have something to talk to you about.”

“Boja listen.”

“I have a job for you,” Jim said. “It's very important but I can't tell you too much about it for now.”

“Me work you. No questions.”

“It's nothing like that, Boja, but it's pretty dangerous.”

Boja apparently thought Jim had some dishonest scheme cooking in his mind. There was always something going on in the islands, some little thing that was just outside the law.

Jim took a paper from his pocket and a stub of a pencil. He drew a map of the island, using the plywood top of the bar as a table, and indicated where the hut was that would serve as his headquarters.

“Here, Boja.” He showed him the map. By now his eyes were accustomed to the light, and Boja could understand the markings all right. “I want you to come here tonight, just after it gets dark. Then I'll explain what we have to do.”

Boja looked at the map. He pointed at the landmarks Jim had noted. “You bet. Boja there.”

“Another thing, Boja. I don't want this to get around. You have to keep it secret.”

“Promise.” Boja raised his opened hand which meant that he would never tell the secret. His smile troubled the hump in his nose.

“I want you to bring some people with you.”

Jim gave him the names of seven men whom he could trust and whom Boja knew well enough to bring to the hut. The other necessary men would have to be scouted out from among the fishermen and dock workers. Jim had in mind certain individuals he could trust and others he knew he couldn't.

Boja downed the dregs from his glass and set it on the bar. Silently he turned from Jim and started toward the screen door. But, just as he put out his hand to push it open, he stopped dead and started taking slow steps to the rear, his arm outstretched and forgotten.

Jim froze to the bar and squeezed his glass, his eyes anticipating the next few moments.

The screen door jerked open and slammed against the woodwork. In stepped that hulk of a man, the doorway barely large enough to allow him to pass through. Bull! Bull Sultan!

His dirty shirt, open in front where several buttons were missing, showed the curly, matted black carpet of hair. His puffy face, battered and perpetually swollen from too many fights, pulled back into a contemptuous sneer as he pushed Boja to one side and stepped into the tavern. An unlit stub of cigar, the end chewed and rechewed black with saturated spittle, protruded from his face and matched the color of his dark unclean skin.

A small wiry Chinese man was just behind him. He was typical of the young underworld enthusiasts of Asia: small, thin, dressed in a dark blue double-breasted pin-stripe suit which needed a pressing and black pointed shoes. Jim couldn't see his eyes but he knew the contemptuous look they would have hiding behind a falsely polite grin. He had seen too many of their type lounging around the docks in-Shanghai not to tell what they looked like at a glance. The Chinese turned to eye Boja who was hastily stuffing the map into his pocket. Boja passed through the door without raising any suspicion.

The screen door slammed shut. Jim turned his back to Bull, taking advantage of the darkness and Bull's sun-blinded eyes.

Bull could make out the larger objects already. He went to the tables and selected one right near the bar. He threw the excess chairs toward the back. They clattered and crashed one on top of the other and he laughed. He wanted privacy but yet to be near enough to the bar and the screen door so that he could see who passed by and who entered. He sat down and the Chinaman sat beside him.

“Waiter!” Bull called out. He slammed his meaty fist on the hollow table.

Jim hunched over the bar so he wouldn't be recognized. He wanted to edge over toward the door and walk out quickly. “Oh my God,” he thought, “how could I have ever accepted those conditions of Don's?” What he wouldn't give to turn around and show his face to Sultan. He was ashamed; he was acting like a coward, but he had to. Maybe he wouldn't be seen; maybe he could get out. With his back to Bull, Jim started edging down the bar toward the door. He advanced a step and stopped, drank some beer and took another small sidewise movement with his foot.

Thwack! Jim could feel the vibration through his elbows on the bar. He glanced down to the source of the sound. The handle of a knife quivered in the wooden face of the bar.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Bull roared.

Jim turned. It was too late to do anything now. He had to control himself. Oh, my God, what a coward he would have to be. Don't push me too far, he said to himself, imagining he was saying it to Bull.

Bull was rocking back and forth in his chair. He pounded on the table with his fist. His dirty shirt was Open at his chest where matted black hair stuck out like wet wool on a sheep.

“Isn't that something!” Bull exclaimed. “If you think that was close you watch the next one.” He pulled a knife out of his boot and flicked it back in his hand.

The Chinaman moved so quickly that all Jim could see was a blur. Now he had the knife. He shook his head and said something to Bull too low for Jim to hear.

“Aw, I wasn't going to kill him,” Bull said to the wiry man. “I just wanted to rough him up a bit.” He stood, knocking his chair backward with a bang. The suave little man lay his hand on Bull's arm. Sultan stared at him hard for a minute then he brushed the brown hand aside and approached Jim.

“How'd you like your little trip, Jim old boy?”

“Fine. Just fine.” Jim shouldn't have spoken; his anger made the words come thick and heavy.

Bull clamped his hand hard on his shoulder. “I knew you'd make it, pal.” He punched him in the stomach.

“Little weak from your trip, ain't you?” He hit him again in the same spot as he had that day in the cabin.

Pain shot through his guts and whacked him in the back of the head. Word or no word, once more and he would kill this stinking ape.

Bull smacked him with the back of his hand in the solar plexus. Jim caught his breath, and held on tight to the lip of the bar.

“I wouldn't want any hard feelings to keep old buddies like us apart, Jim old boy.” He picked up Jim's half-filled glass of beer. “Have a drink on me.” He threw the contents into Jim's face and burst out laughing. Jim's blood surged into his head; his knees trembled, he wanted to kill Bull so much.

The beer was too much; the liquid running cooly over his hot face, Jim stared at Bull and watched him laugh. Bull's head was back, the cigar stuck up in the air. His hand was on the bar, slapping it monotonously. “Suddenly Jim lashed out with his right, catching Bull flush in his thick neck, knocking him off his balance. He staggered back against a table. The table rocked over. Bull and the table clattered to the floor. But Jim didn't follow through. He stood by the bar waiting. Well, this was it, he thought; to hell with promises.

But the man in the dark blue suit interfered. He stepped swiftly to Bull's side, slid a small calibre pistol from his pocket and pressed the muzzle against Bull's temple. Bull's angry eyes glared from Jim to the pistol, from the pistol to Jim, while he made a decision. Finally he relaxed and the Chinaman helped him to his feet.

Jim turned on his heel and walked through the screen door; it slammed against the frame building. He walked out and down the steps to the dirt road. His head drooping from frustration, he looked at the road before him as he walked away. He couldn't look up; he couldn't look into anybody's eyes for fear the anger and will to murder would show and he would run back into the tavern to kill Bull and spoil everything. He had gone this far with the promise, so he might just as well go all the way no matter what it cost his pride.

But something puzzled him. Why hadn't Sultan killed him right off with that knife? No one else was there except the Asiatic hoodlum, the frightened bartender, Bull and himself. Bull could have killed him and there would have been no witnesses. He could have done it; he had a knife, didn't he?

And the Chinaman: why had he interfered? Maybe he had something to do with Bull's not killing him. And that little trick with the pistol? What was that all about?

Jim looked up. On the other side of the dirt street, walking in the opposite direction were Laura and Sheila. Jim couldn't signal any recognition. After all they weren't supposed to know each other yet.

They were dressed in practical tourist clothes; Laura wore a light blue cotton jumper that made her black hair shine. The bright afternoon sun forced her to squint her eyes, bringing still higher her prominent cheek-bones, giving her an even more highly accentuated Slavic look. And Sheila . . . Christ! she looked good... she wore white, a while dress with a full fluffy skirt that rustled when she walked. The white reflected the sunlight up under her chin and nose, so she looked as if she were on a stage—making her skin even lighter, making her short blonde hair transparent.

All right, Jim thought; so she is good looking. That doesn't change your opinion of her, out here on the islands running around playing cops and robbers and spies. She should be in a house, keeping some guy happy.

Jim wished he could walk over to her and tell her just how much of a commotion she had caused him by coming into his life this way, forcing him to make promises that were to hard to keep. There was another thing he would like to have told her: just how pretty she was.

But deep inside him, Jim sensed something more than all that—something he didn't want to admit to himself, as though admitting it would only drive him to greater despair. In spite of his restraint, the knowledge that his body craved to take her body in a vise of sexual lust lingered in the base of his stomach for a moment, fluttered, then raced up his spine and crashed into his brain, driving sense before it. He stopped in his tracks and stared after her, watching the subtle curves sweep from side to side as she ambled on. He caught his breath and his mind, filled with the realization that his physical being was craving after impossible flesh, tore his eyes from the curves and forced himself to walk on and try to forget. Head bent low at his powerlessness Jim trod forward, desperation wringing his insides in crazy torment.

CHAPTER SIX

ALL AFTERNOON JIM WENT ABOUT THE island, going to the fisherman's wharves, to the plantations to visit men and get them lined up for the meeting in his hut when he would unfold his plan for keeping a twenty-four hour look-out for Steiner.

By six o'clock he had “Okays” from as many men as he needed; so he returned to the blanketed hut to eat supper and wait for nightfall.

In the hut he went over a large map of the island checking off the best locations for look-outs. The island was pretty large for the Micronesian archipelago, but counting vantage points from cliffs and over bays he could surround the island with a network of seven posts. That would put three men on each post, four hours on and eight off. He could have one supernumerary who would act as message relay. Perfect. And there would still be one man left to plant on the Southern Star.

Jim cooked his supper on the alcohol burner and started eating. Outside, the sun hovered an hour away from the meeting time, but, even though he expected no one to be coming, he heard someone's foot stumble carelessly on the path.

He dropped his tin cup of beer, almost spilling it. Rushing to the door, he jerked back the curtain. He felt all flustered in his stomach as he anxiously scanned the clearing and the path. As he peered out and saw no one he wondered at himself: why did he run like that practically upsetting his supper and beer? Whom did he expect to see? The natives? It was too early for them. Bull? God no! Sheila? Was it Sheila? Well, maybe ... maybe he had hoped it was she. Anyhow, he saw no one there.

That's funny, he thought; he could have sworn ...

oh, well.

He returned to the table and started to eat again. He ate slowly, still suspicious of what he had heard before. He chewed and stopped, listening so hard that the blood pressed in his ears. Suddenly the sole of a shoe scraped on some pebbles. Someone was snooping around the hut.

Jim rose from 'his chair stealthily. His sneakered feet stepped softly across the dirt floor toward the back door. He eased himself between the blanket curtain and the bamboo wall working his way toward the door opening. Outside, the shadows were long; the sun lay far in the west, already cut by the tallest palms. He dropped to his knees and peered around the corner of the hut.

It was Laura. She had her eyes cupped to the wall of the hut, trying to see between the cracks.

Jim stood up. “Laura!” he called.

She spun around. There was fright in her eyes, but it passed into a smile, an awkward smile that covered her shame. Her black hair glistened and stuck out where her hands had covered it. The high cheekbones tinged a quick red, then faded.

“Hello, Jim,” she said, not a trace of emotion in her voice.

“What the hell are you doing there?” Jim leaned on the wall with one hand on his hip.

“I wanted to come and see you,” she said. She approached him coyly. “But I was afraid you might be having a visitor or something and I didn't want to come barging in on you.”

Jim led her into the hut. She sat across from him and watched while he ate. She had on the same blue jumper as that afternoon. Her black bangs were still messed-up in the front. Gray eyes almost disappeared into her cheekbones when she smiled.

“Well, what did you want?”

“I thought I'd come out to see how things were going.”

“Things are going swell.”

“What does that mean?”

“Why?” Jim asked. “What's it to you?” He sucked at an imaginary piece of meat stuck between his teeth just to impress upon her that he was at ease and not in the least suspicious of her true identity.

“That's no way to be, Jim. If you're going to work with us you should cooperate.”

“I'm cooperating, ain't I?” It was no longer stuffy in the hut; the evening breeze had started and it found its silent way through the cracks in the walls of the hut.

“Not so much as you should.”

“Humph.” Jim took a big bite of fish and chewed.

“For example, that fight you had with Bull.”

“How'd you know about that?”

“The bell-boy told me.” She had answered too quickly to suit Jim. “You know you almost upset our plans with that little episode.”

“Go on. You think I was going to stand there and get myself killed?”

“He wouldn't have killed you.”

“What do you mean 'he wouldn't have killed me'?”

“Just that. He doesn't want to raise a commotion any more than you do. Not with his big job coming up. It probably means a quarter of a million to him.”

Jim whistled. “A quarter of a million! That's a lot of cabbage.”

“And don't get any ideas about cashing in on it.”

“I didn't say anything, did I?”

“Just to keep things straight.” She brushed back her hair and leaned on- her elbow, showing the glisten of her freshly-polished nails. “Jim, we shouldn't argue like this. We should trust each other.”

“You're the one that doubted me, remember?” Jim complained.

“I'm sorry. You wouldn't want to try to sell Steiner. I know that. But I couldn't help saying it. It's just that we have to be so careful in this game. Steiner's so important to us. You understand, don't you?”

Jim wiped his plate clean with a piece of bread and pushed it aside. “What exactly did you come out here for?”

“I think one of us should know about the look-out network.”

“Why?”

“Well, suppose something happens to you. Suppose you get killed. Who would know how to operate the system?”

“And so you figured you should be the one.”

“Why not?”

Jim could answer but he wouldn't. “Do you want some beer?” She nodded; so he poured a cupful for her. “But suppose you get some ideas about cashing in on Steiner yourself?” he suggested.

Her right hand flashed too swiftly for Jim to defend himself. His cheek, warming smartly where her palm had slapped onto the scar, tingled and flushed red with pain. Jim grasped her shoulders and shook her violently. “You bitch!” he shouted. He rubbed his cheek then, and was all set to cock his fist and send her sprawling. But he held himself back, knowing that would only spoil his plans.

“I don't know,” Jim half-apologized, “You said yourself it's hard to tell who you can trust in this thing.” As she leaned forward to caress his cheek Jim could see through one half of her opened jumper. Almost all of her right breast showed all the way down to the nipple, where a dark red rim protruded above the brassiere cup.

“Let's not be suspicious of each other, Jim.”

She looked into his eyes. Now Jim could smell her perfume; it was mixed with her animal smell, her smell of woman brought out by the heat of the day.

Jim put his hand on hers and started to caress it. He edged his chair until it was beside hers but facing in the opposite direction.

“I don't want to be rough with you, Laura. You're too sexy for that.”

She smiled at him. “Do you really think so?”

He put his hand on her shoulder and moved it up to her graceful neck. His hand glided gently over her delicate skin. Suddenly he grabbed her head and drew her to him. He kissed her. She resisted for an instant, then gave in. His tongue darted in and out, touching the smooth underside of hers. He pulled her off the chair! They both stood up. His penis was throbbing. He, pressed it against her crotch. She retreated from the touch, then slowly, slowly came back, edging her body hard against his stiffness. She started rolling against it, rolling from side to side, on and off.

Jim worked his hands up her back, unbuttoning her jumper until it was free. He pulled away from her and eased it over her arms. She let it slide out without taking her eyes from his. He let the blouse drop to the floor, then pulled her to him. Her back was warm and smooth, the skin almost hot to the touch. Her body trembled against his. The excited legs tightened, then spread apart. His penis pressed into the space between her thighs. Both bodies worked back and forth tantalizingly. He placed his hand under her skirt and securely on the cheeks of her ass.

Suddenly, like an alarm clock going off, Jim heard a noise and some people chattering outside. Laura froze. Jim broke contact.

“Get dressed.” He picked up her blouse and threw it at her. She put it on while he forced his hard-on into his trousers.

“I can stay, can't I, Jim?”

What could be the harm of it? Maybe he was wrong for being so suspicious of her. In a way, it would be better if someone did know about the set-up in case he were killed.

“Sure. You sit over there and listen. But for God's sake let me run this show. The natives respect me. If they hear someone else putting in his two cents they might become a little fidgety.”

A knock sounded on the wooden door frame.

“Come in,” Jim said. He had to sit down quickly so they wouldn't notice the remnants of unfinished sex protruding from the front of his trousers.

Seven men trooped in. Jim told them to sit around and wait until the others got there. They talked and smoked and tried not to pay any attention to Laura sitting in the comer. But once in a while Jim would see one of them glance at the girl, then smile knowingly. Jim passed it off and pretended nothing had happened.

Soon everyone was present. He outlined the plan, showing them where they would mount their posts. He tried to assign each post so it would be near the watcher's home. Three men were stationed at each vital point. Boja, the man from the tavern, was selected as supernumerary along with another man. Later, Jim would send the other man to find work on Bull's ship, so he could keep Jim informed of the crew's activities. He was still too suspicious of Laura to make such an assignment in her presence. He informed them of Steiner's general description: 145 pounds, 5' 10", forty-seven years old, graying hair and so on. Although he was a white man, he might come in a disguise. The watchers were to keep their eyes sharply open.

In a way, Jim hoped Steiner would try to come in a disguise, for, if he did, the natives would spot him right away. They had a way of telling whether a person was a native or not just by the way he carried himself when he walked. It had something to do with the way a native walks—casually, almost lazily—while a white man walks with an anxious, nervous step.

After Jim had finished giving his instructions and the natives had gone, some to their posts, some to their homes to wait until it was their time to mount the watch, Jim told Laura to come over to him.

Already he had his belt undone and his fly unbuttoned. He stood up and let his trousers drop to the ground. It was dark in the hut, except for the lantern. Jim liked to make love by lantern light. There was something exciting about the way the lantern cast shadows on the nude body of a woman.

Laura didn't wait either. She slipped from her clothes and stood before him clad in just a bra, smiling viciously, drawing the thick skin of her high cheeks up around the gray eyes, almost hiding them.

Jim undressed completely. He pulled Laura to him and held her tight. His penis throbbed freely against her crotch. She put her hand on it and caressed it lightly. He snapped her brassiere and she slipped it over her arms. It fell to the floor. Her breasts didn't budge from the loss of support; she didn't need a brassiere except to hide her burgundy-colored nipples and to keep them from protruding excitingly through her blouse.

They stood that way, nude, for a moment, just standing and feeling the blood build up inside them with desire.

Jim was the first to approach. He grabbed her around the waist and threw her brutally to the floor. Once there, he lunged on top of her. She tried to force his head down to her sex but he refused; there was something else he wanted. He wanted to know more about this strange girl and he knew of only one way to learn it.

He balanced on top of her and edged his rock-hard tool against the tender lips of her silken vagina. But he didn't enter. He just let the head touch the humid lips and then he humped clear, building up her suspense. He touched again. She grabbed his buttocks and tried to force his prick into her. He resisted, but touched her again. She quivered. Her whole bottom jerked into the air. Her eyes were closed; she moved her head from side to side in agony. When her head was all the way over, her hard breathing blasted up little clouds of dust from the dirt floor. Then her head would roll the other way and more dust would come up.

When he thought she was ripe, he edged himself off her. He lay beside her and tapped her on the back. He gave her a little push—not enough to roll her onto her stomach but enough to give the suggestion. If she followed through he knew he would be right in his suspicions. He edged her over. She was lying on her side facing away from him. He suggested again with his hand. She did it! In the dancing dull light of the lantern Jim watched her roll slowly on her stomach and draw her knees up under her, so that the nipples of her dangling breasts scraped on the dirt floor. She wanted it dog fashion, just like all the Slavs Jim had ever made love to.

As Jim had nothing against dog fashion, he mounted over her and edged his sturdy stanchion up into her already sucking vagina which seemed to draw him in with cyclical suctions.

As he went in slowly he put his hands on her trembling hips and pulled her back onto it a little ways.

Her hands were flat on the ground where they grasped and relaxed monotonously with the rhythm of her excited blood. The long black hair lay over the side of her face, almost concealing the frantic rapture on her lips and in her glaring eyes. Though one cheek lay on the abrasive earth she made no effort to move or raise her head.

With objective interest Jim watched his shaft appear and disappear into the confines of her dark-mouthed sheath. His crop of pubic hairs brushed her ass each time he lunged forward.

Now he lost himself in his work. His hands slid along her satin body, down along the sides until they grasped, her dangling mammilla. He squeezed, but not too hard. One of her hands came up and pressed his firmly to her breast, informing it of her desire. So, as he pumped steadily, filling her fiery gorge from behind, he clung to her breasts and tightened his powerful hands so furiously the muscles in his forearm ached. Her lips drew back tightly from her clenched teeth, showing the effects of his violence. Terror and enjoyment, a strange mixture, squinted her eyes, and she moaned loudly, half-begging him to stop, half-pleading with him to continue until she was dead.

But he was too involved to satisfy all her wishes. His pipe swelled in her marrow and, by friction and heat and softness and slimy moistness his passion built up. Untempered power and the wanton desire to be fulfilled brought their motions to such a speed that if he withdrew and missed in one lancing he would pierce a new hole in her thigh or buttocks, whichever he would strike first in his blindness.

But Laura and Jim were too expert for something like that to happen. Precision and experience brought their motions together, her backward and he forward at just the right moments.

Torrid lacteous slime covered his organ and drenched her tense thighs from where he rubbed against them in his fury.

Pressure grew in Jim's penis and his testicles hardened into maturity.

The moment was NOW! He plunged; she pushed. Hot juices squirted from his knob and mingled with her own lubrications. Strokes shortened. Her body became stiff as it accepted and gave all it could.

But it was too much for Laura. Her knees gave way and she sagged flat to the ground, withdrawing her protective sheath from Jim's exploding rod.

Jim hadn't finished. Instead of pursuing her already gone warmth, he knelt between her spread thighs and watched his flashing sperm spurt wastefully down onto the small of her back and into the crack of her ass. Convulsively, the after-effects of Jim's passion made her hips rise and fall in short strokes for several minutes, raising small clouds of dust around her body until the involuntary spasms stopped and Jim's juices ceased spilling onto her.

Exhausted, Jim flopped forward onto her soft back, his lower abdomen slapping into the gummy muck puddled at the small of her back. But he wouldn't move; he was too fatigued for the moment. So he just lay there until he drowsed off to sleep as she had already done before him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Several days had gone by with nothing unusual being reported by Jim's coastal watchers. A few small boats had come in from other islands. Once, an American had been spotted coming ashore. He was watched carefully and his presence raised a little stir for a while but it turned out that he was a tourist “going native” with a pocketful of money to hire natives to take him from island to island.

Now Jim sat at the table, looking over the reports from his watchers. Boja, his runner, lounged by the door.

“Boja,” Jim said, glancing up from his papers, “how about taking a run over to post six? We haven't heard anything from them in twenty-four hours. Maybe something's up.”

“Sure,” Boja said with a grin. “Me go, boss.”

“Knock off that 'boss' crap.” The natives had started calling him 'boss' since the job had begun. They did it in fun, from being pleased that he was back in his old good humor, instead of walking around the island drunk and waiting for Bull Sultan to land.

“Sure, boss.” He ducked out of the hut and was gone.

Jim had put a coffee pot over the alcohol burner on the turned-up locker box. The only hard thing he drank now was a few bottles of beer when the sun was hottest. He had convinced himself that some beer was absolutely necessary. But he was through with getting drunk for the time being. In truth the beer kept him from going to pieces. No man can cut off a solid supply of alcohol in one big jump; cooling down has to be done gradually.

The coffee started percolating. Jim got up to turn down the fire so it would simmer. When he was crouched over it, the blanket at the front door brushed aside; Al stepped in. And behind him was... Sheila! Jim's heart seemed to stop beating as he froze, staring at her with his hungered, half-crazy eyes. He caught his breath and tried to look away from her.

Al, lithe but sturdy, wore khaki trousers and Army boots. His tan was darker from the sunning he gave himself by his radio shack in the afternoons. Blonde, pale Sheila contrasted heavily with Al's dark skin and black hair. She, too, was dressed casually—a white jumper and a blue cotton skirt. Her thin nose tweaked, making the two narrow bones stand out ivory-white when she sniffed the heavy fumes of the kerosene lamp and alcohol burner. The lamp threw their shadows on the wall of the hut, making them dance as they stepped to the table.

“How's it going?” Al asked after the two of them had sat down.

“Okay.” Jim inspected the cooking coffee. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he felt he should investigate the coffee so he wouldn't have to stare into Sheila's eyes in front of Al. “Okay, but a little slow.”

“It's always like that,” Al said, drumming his fingers on the table top. “You sit around and wait The waiting gets buggy. Nothing happens. You think you made a mistake and then 'Whammo,' the whole thing blows up.”

The coffee seemed okay, but Jim didn't know why it shouldn't. He was forced to come to the table and sit down, trying to conceal his feelings for Sheila.

“Got enough coffee for all of us?” Al asked.

“Sure.” Jim jumped at the chance of cleaning some cups which would keep him occupied. He got up and took the cups to go outside to clean them. When he pulled back the blanket he felt a hand on his arm. “I'll do that,” Sheila said.

He stood petrified for a moment, then he handed the cups to her. For a brief second she stood beside him while he stared into her pale blue eyes and tried to keep from shuddering. Then she went outside and he didn't have to speak to her. He felt lucky in a way, because he didn't know how it would sound coming out of his tightened throat; but in another way, he wanted to say something to her, something like, 'You know you look pretty walking in the sun?' or 'Your eyes are terrific' or 'I love you.' But he didn't say anything.

He went to the table and sat down. “Say, Al, what do you know about Laura?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“I don't know; I just wondered what you knew about her, about her past, who she is, that sort of thing.”

“All I know is her name's Laura Cullen. She's from New Jersey. Hackensack, I think.”

“What about her being legitimate?”

“You mean if she's a real agent and all that?”

“Yes, something like that.”

Al laughed. “This spy stuff is going to your head. Laura's straight. She has to be. She's got credentials, an 'okay' from Washington, an assignment to work with us on this case and everything else. No, she's okay.”

“I was just wondering, that's all.”

Soon they were drinking coffee, all of them sitting around the table, not saying much, talking about the weather, about the job, about home.

Suddenly, Al looked at his watch. “Damn!” he said. “I got five minutes to get up to the radio.” He snuffed out his cigarette in the ash tray. “Got a check-through coming in at nine-thirty.”

After Al left, Jim watched the blanket fold back into its position. There was something graceful about the movement that he hadn't noticed before.

While Sheila stared at her coffee cup, Jim, taking advantage of his momentary courage, rose and stepped beside her chair. She hadn't moved. Jim glanced down at the pale blonde hair cut short and flat to her head. It was so transparent he could see light through it. Funny, Jim thought, there was nothing about her that he had always associated with frantic sex. She wasn't built big and powerful. Her breasts protruded against the flimsy white juniper without being excessively large. But they were proud and firm, suggesting a hidden passion filled with the ecstasy of subtlety and fine delicateness, the kind of sex which could drive a man wild. She had curved, smoothly round thighs, the strength of a mastered, intricate but fiery passion. This subtle sex excited Jim so much that he felt almost ashamed to talk to her.

“Sheila,” he said. It didn't sound right. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Sheila, what the hell are you doing in the F.B.I.?” Saying 'hell' gave him a little comfort and a false feeling of ease.

“It's a long story.” She looked up at him. The two lines from the bones in her nose stretched white. The lantern played tricks with her shadows, making them soft and strange, making her face seem long and angular and sculptured.

“Why aren't you the hell home raising kids?” The 'hell' didn't sound right but he felt he had to say it for defense.

“I've got a job to do. When the job's finished I'll start thinking about families.”

“What's the job?”

She looked at her coffee cup again. Her blonde hair was neat and at the same time had been carelessly messed by the wind.

“It started a long time ago. My father was in the F.B.I. before the war. When he was home he brought me up on the idea of secret service. He gave me the bug. I guess it's like a disease. You stay around it long enough and you catch it. In 1939 my mother died from cancer; so, when the war broke out, Dad volunteered for the O.S.S. He went overseas. They flew him into France to organize resistance. He made several trips, then one tune he didn't come back. That's all that happened; he just didn't come back. There was no record of his death; but there was no doubt about what had happened to him.

“When the war was over I was alone. He left enough money for me to go to college. I thought about this thing for a long time while I was there and, when I found out they were taking women into the F.B.I., I volunteered. Nothing heroic, or anything like that, no, not me. I get awfully frightened sometimes, but, you know, I enjoy those frightening periods. Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I get terribly excited over the adventurous part of working with the Secret Service. There's something inside me that just drives me on and on, looking for this sort of thing.”

This wasn't going the way Jim wanted. He thought it would be something simple, like she just needed a job or maybe she read too many books and saw too many movies. But it was nothing like that. This girl had a physiological need for excitement. She had it all figured out. So did Jim. But Jim didn't figure her to remain with the secret service. He would have to try another tack.

He reached out and put his hand on her hair. As he ran his hand through it he could smell her perfume wafting up to him.

“Don't do that, Jim.”

“Why not?”

“It makes me nervous.”

He leaned on the table so his face was just before hers, so close he could make out the soft blonde hair on her upper lip. He put his hand on the back of her neck and caressed it.

“What do you mean: 'It makes you nervous'?”

“I don't know, it just does.”

“What's the matter? Hasn't anyone done that to you before?”

She wriggled, trying to withdraw from under his hand.

He grabbed her neck tight. “No one?”

“In college,” she said. “Of course, there was someone. There's always someone.”

“Did it always make you nervous?”

She didn't answer. She avoided his eyes.

“Did it?”

“No.” She looked at him now. He could see in her eyes that she was pleading with him to stop. “No, never. But now it does and I don't know why.”

She had it too. Just like a contagion-diseased bug. Well, you can't run away from it.

He pulled her head to him until his lips touched hers. She put her hands to his face and tried to push him away. Jim put his other hand around on her back and felt the tremendous passion lying dormant in her being like a volcano ripening for an eruption.

She stopped resisting. She opened her mouth slightly. He slid his tongue in, but slowly. There was going to be nothing violent about it when he made love to her. He was going to go slowly and carefully. She accepted his tongue. He couldn't hear her breathing. She was tense and she trembled.

Jim stopped kissing her. He got up from the table and without saying a word, picked her up and carried her to the cot. He laid her on it gently and sat on the edge beside her anxious, frightened body.

“I wish you wouldn't,” she said. The words came slowly and sounded half-chewed as her head wrenched from side to side.

He put his hand over her mouth and edged closer to her. He grabbed her cheeks and kissed her lips. He kissed her very softly and tenderly. She was breathing fast now. She put her arms around him, pulling him to her, almost violently. He worked his way on top of her. He pressed his penis into her abdomen. She didn't resist. He put his tense hand slowly and lightly on her stomach and worked it gradually down into her crotch. He felt there was something wrong in what he was doing, that he was committing something sacrilegious. If he layed her here, he would do it slowly, carefully in spite of the wildness that made his muscles rigid as steel. But he would lay her as he worshipped her, gently and tenderly.

His hand touched the small crop of hairs at the lower triangle of her abdomen. Cautiously, the finger edged over it and down between her tightened thighs, forcing its way up, against the clitoris and the dry lips of her vagina where he applied gradual pressure and began to caress.

Suddenly she pushed him away from her and rolled off the cot. She straightened her clothes and dashed out the front door. Jim ran after her.

He caught her by the edge of the path. She turned to him. In the moonlight he could see the fright in her eyes.

“Jim,” she said weakly. “Not here. Not like this.”

He understood. Although it was the last thing on earth he thought he would do, he released her. She turned and started to run. But she took only two steps then stopped. She came rushing back to him, threw her arms around his neck and held him close. “Jim,” she whispered in his ear, “I'm afraid... We can't do it like that. We can't. Not yet. I want to, but I never have... Let me think about it tonight, will you?”

He held her away from him. A smile gradually formed on his lips. “Sure, Sheila,” he said. “Sure, you think about it. I don't want you to do anything against your will. When you think you want me, you come back, all right?”

She nodded her head and turned.

Soon she was gone. Jim stood on the edge of the path and watched the distant obscurity. He stood that way, staring at nothing, thinking, remembering how she felt in his arms, how she had smelled, how excited he had been in a new way, a strange way. She was right, he thought; she was right. Just let her go think about it for a while; she would come back and then it would be all right. She would be prepared for it and she wouldn't be so tense. Maybe she actually, really and truly was in love with him. He walked back to the hut and went inside, a broad smile on his lips. He was in love!

He drank coffee waiting for Boja to return. He had that ache inside him from being frustrated but it was a good frustration. He didn't mind it so much. In the morning the ache would be gone, but he would awaken to know that Sheila would be waiting for him some day. What a wonderful thing, he thought.

Jim was watching the front door thinking about how long it had been since Sheila passed through when suddenly he detected a slight movement in the blanket. It was stealthily being pulled aside. He waited, ready to spring to defend himself. Byi-Byi stuck her round face through and grinned, “You alone?”

He relaxed. “Sure, Byi-Byi. Come on in.”

She came directly to him. Her feet scraped noiselessly on the dirt floor. She stood by him with her arms folded behind her back, pushing her heavy breasts forward, and asked, “What you do?”

“Nothing. I'm just sitting here waiting for you.”

“You wait Byi-Byi?”

Frustration still ached inside, now localized in his stomach. Everytime he moved he expected to hear a loud creaking noise in his joints. “Byi-Byi, come here.”

It wasn't nice, but at least it would get rid of that terrible ache; it was better than a cold shower.

Byi-Byi inched forward and waited. Jim stood up and pulled her to him. The fire stored within him burst. He threw her roughly to the floor and didn't even bother taking off her clothes.

He lifted her dress and crawled on top. She didn't resist; but she didn't help. He inserted the hard-on Sheila had given him.

Although Jim suspected she realized his flaming body had been stoked by someone else she accepted him gracefully and unquestioningly. At first her gap was dry and difficult for Jim's unbending poker to penetrate, but after a few desperate strokes, heat and fluidity came to the fleshy walls and enveloped his sex with soothing mucus.

His passion and shame drove him into a frenzy. Clumsy hands groped for the top of her dress and tore it free from her bold breast, exposing it to his sadistic eyes. As though he were punishing himself, Jim launched onto the brown nipple with mouth open and teeth bared. Ferociously he bit into the spongey tissue and clung there, not drawing blood but wounding and painfully inciting the innocent Byi-Byi. A scream resounded from her tense throat, a scream of both agony and ecstasy which became a palpitating moan surging rhythmically from the base of her stomach.

Though Jim had been pumping his tusk into her cradle with vehemence, it wasn't until now that she joined his motions and matched him effort for effort, thrust for thrust.

Hands groped and enclosed both breasts in delirious power as the too-quick climax arose in Jim's body and swirled from his head to his stomach to his hips to his testicles out over the length of his immersed phallus where it squirted deep into the farthest recesses of her flushed cavity, filling her prematurely with spasmodic sprayings of sperm.

Soon quiet again on the damp floor and side by side, the ache gone, replaced by a new ache, an ache of guilt for having fucked someone else with the results of Sheila's passion, for betraying Byi-Byi and using her as a good right hand or a cold shower.

“Jim,” she murmured, turning to him and laying her hand gently on his cheek. “What happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“You different.”

“You're imagining things.”

“No, me right. You make love different. Something happen.”

Jim didn't say anything. He focused his eyes on the dried grass roof and the large ominous shadow of the lantern handle.

“Tell me, Jim. You in love?”

The shadow grew larger the longer he stared at it.

“You in love. But no Byi-Byi. You in love with American Sheila.”

“You're pretty smart, Byi-Byi.” There was a flood of tears in her eyes ready to burst forth and inundate her thickly-fleshed cheeks with her sorrow and regret. “But don't take too many things serious.”

“Me no care you love Sheila.” Her voice sounded far away as if it came from her stomach and not her throat. “Me love you, Jim.” She put her head alongside his. Her tears were wet and tepid against his cheek but she didn't sob.

“I'm sorry, Byi-Byi.” He patted her back as if she were a dog or something, but he didn't know what else to do. “I'm really sorry it wasn't you. Perhaps it would be better if it were, but it isn't.”

“Me no care. Maybe American Sheila go away. You come back Byi-Byi”

“Maybe,” Jim said. “Maybe you're right.”

They lay that way for a while. Outside the hut the night breeze was blowing and whispering through the trees. Once Jim thought he heard his name being whispered. The palms whished. It was only the wind and his imagination, he thought. Then he heard it again. It sounded weak and far off.

“Jim,” Byi-Byi started to say.

“Shh.”

She lay tense and listened. It came again. Someone was calling his name weakly. Jim pushed Byi-Byi aside and raced from the hut. She was just behind. Outside they stood immobile and listened. The weak call came again. It was coming from the path. Jim dashed headlong into the darkness.

About thirty yards up the path he found a native lying on his stomach. It was Boja. Jim lifted his head and rolled him on his back. In the palm-filtered moonlight Jim could see the dark splotch of blood on the native's stomach which was spreading over his white shirt.

“Jim,” Boja gasped. “Jim, Steiner here. Post six.”

“Don't talk.” He lifted the native onto his back and carried him to the hut. He laid him carefully on the cot and sent Byi-Byi for water. He opened the native's shirt and inspected the wound. Pieces of flesh were torn out and dangling loose around a gaping hole he could have put his fist in. Blood slowly pulsated out. It had started to clot so there was still a chance.

“Roll on your stomach, but keep the skin above the blanket.”

Boja tried to roll, but he lacked the strength. Jim helped him over. He was even too weak to hold himself off the blanket. Jim took the blanket from the other bed and fixed it under his Chamorran friend in such a way that it kept the fibrous wool free of the wound. Scarlet blood dripped down regularly.

“Listen, Boja. You have to stay that way. If you roll over you may get peritonitis. Byi-Byi and I will carry you on the cot to the hospital so just take it easy.”

“Yes, Jim. Water. Please some water.”

Byi-Byi came with a gourd filled with water. She started to give it to Boja. But Jim grabbed the ladle and knocked it to the ground.

“Sorry, Boja; no water. It'll run out of you like a sieve and break the clotting.”

He wet a rag and wiped the wounded man's lips with it.

“Can you talk?”

“Yes.” He managed a smile.

“Take it easy but try to tell me what happened while we take you to town.”

Byi-Byi took one end of the cot while he took the other. She was strong so they would make it all right.

CHAPTER EIGHT

JIM LEARNED WHAT HAD HAPPENED FROM fragments of Boja's sentences. Boja had gone to post number six. No one was there. Loob, a friend of Boja's was supposed to be on the post at this time. He searched through the brush around the look-out but didn't find him. He chanced suddenly to look on the beach. Loob was lying there his face in the sand. Boja ran to him, crying his name.

When he rolled him over, he saw the whole upper part of his face had been blown away. He heard feet running in the sand. He turned around. There was an American with a rifle and two strange natives, each carrying pistols. The natives shouted something but he didn't understand. He bolted up and started to run. The American, probably Steiner, fired. The searing bullet caught Boja in the back and came out through his stomach. He fell. They inspected him, but taking him for dead, they left without sealing his fate.

He managed to crawl and limp all the way to Jim's hut to give the alarm instead of going directly to the hospital or trying to get help.

The doctor at the hospital said there was a good chance for Boja to live.

With that in mind, Jim returned to the hut and summoned all the native watchers. Though he said nothing of the pangs of regret he felt inside for the two natives who had given so much for him, he couldn't prevent the emotion from creeping into his voice.

When they were assembled in the hut he listened to their comments and information before deciding on how to go about searching for Steiner on the island. It wouldn't be long, Jim thought; it wouldn't be long before Steiner would be located and he could have his own private revenge on Bull Sultan. Then he would see about Sheila and what she had in mind about her future and her decision to make love.

The native Jim had planted on Bull's ship now reported what he had learned.

The Chinese, Pun Yin, was sent from Shanghai by the gang to cover Bull and make sure the job was done as it was supposed to be. He gave orders to Bull and made sure that he carried them out. It was he who was responsible for Bull's not killing Jim that day in the tavern. They, Bull and Pun Yin, had an argument in the cabin after the tavern incident. Pun Yin impressed on Bull the importance of capturing Steiner and taking him and his information to Shanghai. There was no tune for private squabbles, like his trouble with Jim. Killing Crawford could raise some suspicion and cause unnecessary inquiries which would bungle the deal.

Since Sterner had come to the island the Chinaman had become extra nervous. Apparently they had not yet been in contact with Steiner. Pun Yin grew suspicious of Bull, probably because of Bull's treacherous possibilities—thinking he had kidnapped Steiner and was making a deal with the Americans for more money. But, according to the plant, Bull himself didn't know where Steiner was.

Jim guessed that Steiner was making absolutely sure of his contacts and awaiting further investigation to ascertain the identity and trustworthiness of Bull and his ship before boarding.

Another thing the native thought important was the fact that Pun Yin made frequent reference to a “Katya”. It seemed that this Katya was among the Americans and relayed information to those on board the ship.

A spy, Jim thought; and a woman. When he heard this he caught himself short—terror raced through his brain as he remembered what Sheila had told him about her need for seeking excitement. But no! His mind argued; it could just as well be Laura.

Jim organised the natives into a search party which would work out from the middle of the island to both ends. When Steiner was located some natives were to remain in hiding nearby to survey the scientist's movements while a raiding party would be organized back at the hut.

Under no circumstances were they to try to take Steiner without consulting Jim first.

He figured it would take a couple of days to locate him and then he would have to talk things over with Sheila and Al before they made their move. Steiner was part of what they wanted on the island, the other part being Bull. If they could work it some way so that they could catch Bull in an illegal act, so much the better. And Jim knew they probably had something definite in mind concerning this facet

After the natives were instructed and teamed off, they left the hut to search through the jungle trails and by-paths.

Al had been seated at the table while all the information had come across. When they were alone in the hut he heated the coffee.

“Looks pretty good,” he said.

“I think it'll work out all right,” Jim confirmed.

Al sat down again to wait for the coffee to heat. Did I tell you Don's coming back.”

“No.”

“As soon as he heard about Steiner he radioed that he was tickled pink. At first he was going to take a plane but he decided to try to get a patrol boat from the Navy in case Bull makes a break.”

“A patrol boat?”

“Yes, a Navy boat. There's a lot of high-level cooperation in this deal. It's bigger than you think.”

The coffee boiled over and sizzled on the hot burner before Al could get to it. He poured some of the burned drink for himself and for Jim.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait. It seems that's all we do,” Jim complained, smelling the acrid coffee before him.

“I told you so. You'll get used to it.”

They drank and smoked and talked for a while. Sometime after nine-thirty Laura came in. Sheila was not with her; Jim was disappointed.

“Where's Sheila?” Al asked. Jim was glad Al had asked it before he did; there was no use tipping his hand in front of everyone:

“She stayed in the hotel room to write up some reports.”

Laura sat across the table from Jim. Al offered her some coffee which she took, the steam rising out of the cup and in front of her face, making her squint. She reminded Jim of a gypsy fortune teller with her jet black hair and the mist rising in front of her, distorting the broad lines of her face.

“Anything new?” she asked with a slight smile.

“Nothing much,” Jim told her. Oh, damn, he thought; he should have said something of his suspicions to Al.

“Lots new,” Al said. “Don's coming back.”

At least he didn't say anything about the destroyer.

“I thought he would,” Laura said. “What else?”

“Jim here has organized a search party. The way they know the island it can't be long before they find Steiner. When they do, we'll move in from there.”

“Good.” She smiled almost too happily for Jim.

What could he do? Jim felt around with his foot and found Al's leg. He kicked it lightly; maybe he would understand that.

Al moved his leg and said, “That Chinaman's name is Pun Yin. He's from the gang in Shanghai.”

Jim found the shin again and kicked it harder this tune.

Al looked under the table. “What's the matter?” He moved his legs again. “What the hell are you kicking me for?”

Jim thought there was something suspicious in the way Laura looked at him then.

“Oh, was that your leg?” Jim asked. “I thought it was the table.”

“If you don't have enough room, I'll move.” Al edged his chair farther around the table away from Jim.

Laura was sipping her coffee. She kept her eyes pealed on Jim so he smiled at her, trying to preserve an unsuspicious front.

Al continued; “Jim pulled a pretty smart deal for an amateur. He managed to get one of his men working on the Southern Star. He's been relaying information to us. The latest,” he chuckled, “the latest is, this native tells Jim that Bull has a spy in our midst —a woman named Katya. Can you imagine!”

She froze with the cup to her lips. She frowned for a minute, then put the cup down and smiled suavely, concealing her gray eyes in folds of flesh. “A spy? Really?”

“Funny, isn't it?” Al said. “They're taking their work a little too seriously.”

“What do you think, Jim?” Laura spoke softly to him across the table. “Do you believe there's a spy around named Katya?”

For him to say “no” would be stupid. The best way would be to say, “You know we might have a spy with us. Maybe one of those natives is working for the other camp- And too, there's always Natati.”

“Natati? Who's Natati?” she asked, seeming to be interested.

“That native girl from the first day we met.”

“Oh, did I tell you what Don's bringing from Navy?” Al injected.

Jim interrupted, “Al, didn't you have to send a call at ten? It's almost that now.”

“No,” he said. “I never said anything about a call at ten. What makes you say that?”

Laura was really suspicious now. She watched Jim with a queer look in her eyes as though they were playing cards and she was trying to guess his hand.

“I thought you said you had a call to put through,” Jim explained. “Maybe I was wrong.”

“What's Don bringing from the Navy, Al?” She kept her eyes glued to Jim's face ready to detect the first glimmer of distrust.

There was another way to get Al to keep quiet; that was to make him leave.

Jim got up from his chair and walked around to where Laura was sitting. He stood behind her. She turned halfway around in her chair.

Al said, “He's bringing a patrol boat.”

Laura spun her head back to look at Al. “A destroyer?”

“Just in case Bull manages to get out of the port.”

When she had her back to him, Jim winked at Al. He pointed to Laura, then to himself. He cradled his arms and pretended that he was hugging someone. He pointed a finger at Al and jerked his thumb toward the door. Al smiled and glanced at Laura.

Laura turned around. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Al stood up. He stretched and yawned. “I think I'll go see what I can pick up on the radio. Might be something new going on.”

Laura glared at Jim to show her anger. Al left and they were alone.

“Listen, Jim,” Laura said, “if you're suspicious of me for some reason, I think you should tell me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The way you've been carrying on.”

“Now wait a minute, why should I be suspicious of you? What have you done?”

“I haven't done a damn thing, but I can tell when someone's suspicious of me.” She frowned sternly.

“Listen, doll,” Jim put his hand on her neck and caressed it, “all I wanted to do was to get rid of Al so we could be alone.”

She smiled at him. Her tenseness eased away under his gliding palm.

“There's nothing wrong in that, is there?” Jim asked, sure that he had found a way to cover up.

“No.” She smiled and wriggled her neck slowly against Jim's hand. “I was thinking of it myself.”

Jim took her hand and led her to the cot. When they were seated side by side Jim kissed her. He kissed slowly and calmly at first, his tongue sliding tamely over her smooth full lips. Suddenly her mouth opened and his tongue dived in so far that it strained his throat. Jim's hand found its way through the opening in her blue blouse and enfolded her right breast. It was full and warm and soft as satin to touch. He worked his fingers up to her nipple and toyed with the sensitive flesh until it hardened and swelled. Through the material of his trousers her hand soothed his upright boldness. Frantically, she suddenly ripped through his fly buttons and grasped his billowing head, hurting him almost savagely.

Suddenly she stopped and pushed him away from her. She unbuttoned her pale blue cotton blouse and slipped it through her arms. Jim was faster than she. He stood nude while she was just stepping one curvaceous ankle out of her pink panties.

Briskly he pulled her to him. Anticipation cut her breath short; she was gasping and panting. Her body smelled musky and warm in his nostrils perched above her bare shoulder. Under his slow-moving hand her smooth lithe back trembled.

She whispered in his ear, but the words were not words of love. “Jim,” she murmured. “You are working with us, aren't you?” Her hand slid behind their pressed bodies and probed under his testicles.

“Of course; what makes you ask that?” He backed off to give her more freedom of movement.

“I don't know. I just got the funny idea that maybe you had Steiner already and you were holding onto him to sell to the highest bidder.”

“The highest bidder?”

“Yes, you know damn well that he and his information are worth at least a quarter of a million dollars to the gang.”

“And to the Americans?”

“I don't know about that. But I do know that the people in Shanghai would pay you cash for him in good Yankee dollars.”

“That sounds interesting.” Jim could play this game too. She had both balls cupped in her hand and was working one finger cleverly up to his anus.

“I hope you wouldn't sell him. Would you?”

“I can't sell something I don't have.” Her finger delved into the cleft and tingled all his nerves.

“Have it your own way,” she responded.

Jim thought he might just as well take advantage of his situation. He put his hands on the back of her head and pushed it down slowly.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I want you to blow me, Laura. I love to be blowed.”

She raised her head and sighed, “Oh Jim.”

He sat on the edge of the cot. She knelt before him and put her head on his thigh. He grasped the back of her hair and edged her face closer and closer toward his crotch and the upraised obelisk which was his manhood.—

But she still wanted to talk business. She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes, with a little more docility than before, being now under the influence of a kindled passion. “If you did have him now, you'd tell me wouldn't you?”

“Sure I would, Laura. But blow me. Put my prick into your mouth and suck me off.”

She eased her head down. She grasped the base of his stout pole up flush with his crotch with her right hand and slid her left under his thigh and slipped it between his testicles and the mattress. Her hot wet lips eased down over the crimson knob of his hardness and started to suck on it very slowly.

After a few moments she stopped. She continued jerking it up and down while she raised her head to him. Spittle tricked onto her chin and stained about her lips. “Jim, when you find him you'll tell me right away, won't you?”

“Sure, of course, Laura. But for Christ's sake, suck me hard right now.”

She bent her head to the task, apparently subdued from her clever questioning attempts to get Jim to betray the others, being now completely wrought in the frenzy of the sexual moment. This time she took as much of his robust tool into her gaping mouth as she could hold. Jim thought she was going to swallow it whole. He lay back against the wall and watched her head bob up and down while he felt the soft sliding walls of her mouth caressing the disappearing knot and the tense stem where a current of spittle traced a path down to his crop of hair and down along the loose skin of his balls, where, still warm from her throat, it dissolved onto her other hand.

The finger at the opening of his rectum swirled round and round, delving, probing deeper, searching for his prostate gland, finding it and stimulating it deftly which made his weapon rock-like and forced him to throw his head back against the wall and wean the utmost pleasure from her experienced mouth.

Her long black hair tickled his lower abdomen each time her head came down on his stem. The smooth back of her throat pushed against his knob at the depth of each stroke. And, as her head lifted to the uppermost, drawing the thick succulent lips to the bottom run of the inflamed tip, her hot liquid tongue flicked rapidly, circling the extra-sensitive flesh of the top, swelling it to the point of exploding. Her suctions were so” great Jim thought the top would burst into her mouth like a plum being drawn from its skin.

Excitement developed in his glands and raced out along invisible tubes, building up a terrible tension that shot Jim's legs out stiff and arched his back, throwing his head awkwardly away from the wall and down onto the rough blanket where it lay immersed in tough fibers and inflamed with gushing blood.

Her speed increased at just the right moment, bringing the desired juices over canals swiftly to a head in his organ. Now the tongue flickered incessantly, the fingers dived deep, the sucking throat vacuumed all air and sensibility from the throbbing spur.

“Hard,” Jim moaned. “Suck it hard and fast. I'm coming, I'm ...”

He never finished. Lust and fury ejected into her drinking, viciously pulsing mouth which tasted every oiled drop until none remained, then returned to lick the dripping dregs before they fell uselessly to the floor between her knees.

Every muscle in Jim's body ceased functioning as he expired onto the cot and lay unconscious and exhausted.

CHAPTER NINE

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON WHILE THE natives were still searching the island for Steiner, Jim walked to town and happened to run into Sheila.

Jim explained to her that it was only normal that they should know each other, both being American and on a foreign island, so it would raise no unnecessary questionings if they were seen together. Having convinced her, Jim led her to the Bam Bam tavern. They took chairs at a table near the counter to avoid suspicion that they were trying to conceal their acquaintanceship. The bartender brought two beers and returned behind his bar to load fresh bottles of beer into the case on the floor. He didn't have a refrigerator and, as there was no competition on the island, it wasn't likely he would get one. He wore a white apron and pretended he was just like a Stateside bartender, sometimes wiping the same glasses all afternoon with a damp rag, whorling round the rims, eyeing his customers for gestures of approval.

No one else was in the tavern except for Coul, the village drunkard with whom Jim had slept off many hangovers. Jim looked up at the old round clock on the wall by the door. It said five o'clock in the afternoon but meant three. Jim figured that Coul's wife would enter in half an hour to take him home.

“Besides,” Jim continued his persuasion with both elbows on the table, his hands wrapped around the warm bottle of beer, “if you think they don't know by now about the whole set-up we have, you're disillusioning yourself.”

“I suppose you're right,” she glanced up at him. In the hazy grayness her features took on a warm softness. “If what you tell me is true, it seems they learn everything we do, so there's no use hiding anything like us talking together in this tavern.”

Her arms extended, vaguely nebulous in the dim light. He wanted to touch her, to feel her soft skin and be sure that she was real.

“I wonder how they learn so much,” she mused.

“I have a good idea, but I don't want to say anything until I'm absolutely sure.”

“Who do you think it is?” she persisted.

“Laura.”

“Laura? Don't be absurd.”

“I told you I didn't want to say anything until I was sure, but do me a favor, will you?”

“What's that?”

“Don't tell her anything you don't have to about what's going on.”

She eyed him cautiously for a minute, looking at his nose and the healed scar on the side of his face. “All right, Jim. If you say so. But I think you may be wrong.”

“This whole thing's going to blow up in a few days; so I hope I can become certain about Laura before then.”

She put her finger on his nose. “Go ahead, talk.”

“What's the matter?”

“Your nose wobbles when you talk. Go ahead, say something.” She pressed her finger against the tip.

“How about 'You're my girl'?”

“That's fine.” She smiled. “Your nose wobbles to one side like it's drunk. You're not like other people, Jim.”

“Know why?” he asked.

“Why?” She put her hand on his chin and pulled it to a point, combing an imaginary goatee.

“Cause I got you for a girl.”

“You should grow a beard, Jim. A nice long goatee, for example.”

“So should you. Then you could get a job in the circus and support me for ever and ever.”

“I've got a job.”

“Yeah, but this would be a new one and you wouldn't have to go running all over the world.”

“There goes that nose again.”

“Seriously, now. Are you going to continue with this job after the Steiner business is all over?”

She released his chin and leaned her own in the palm of her hands. “Maybe. Maybe I will. It all depends.”

“On what?”

“On several things.”

“For example?”

“For example, whether or not you propose to me and...”

“And?”

“Whether or not I accept.”

The thought of Sheila refusing, the doubt she just expressed weighed down on Jim so that no words came to his mind. He brooded desperately over his beer.

They were silent for a few minutes. “You know,” she asked. “I've been thinking about the other night when you tried to...”

“Shh.” Jim put his finger across her soft lips. “Don't tell me about it. I don't want to know what you thought and what conclusion you arrived at. We're just going to go along with our lives the way things are. We can't plan to do something like that. It has to happen all of a sudden. Maybe some day we'll be in the jungle or in the hut and it'll just happen. We'll get all excited and either go at it or not, depending on the conclusion you reached. But whatever it is, I don't want to know about it beforehand.”

“All right, Jim. But can I tell you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“When the time comes the answer's 'yes.'“

Goddamn it! He wanted to pick her up and force the situation. He wanted to carry her all the way back to the hut, forget about this Steiner business and sleep with her for two weeks without leaving the shack, not even for food. But he knew he wouldn't do that. What he said was true. He wanted it to happen all of a sudden some day, some day when they weren't prepared for it.

A slight sense of remorse for the dead Ming trembled in his stomach. That love—that pure and childlike love would only be a pleasant memory for Jim now. He realized how lucky he was that this beautiful, courageous Sheila had taken his despair to herself and replaced it with a new kind of love, enfolding the old and bringing with it something sensuous and more complete.

If only ... if only he could succeed in replacing Sheila's need for excitement with his own passion. Oh, Goddamn, his whole future was at stake. And before he could get to it, to fight for it, to court it, to win it, he had to remove this burning hatred for Bull by revenge. He had to clear up this Steiner mess and kill Bull Sultan. Then, and only then, could he look to his future.

“You know, it's funny, Jim. I go along for twenty-three years never meeting a guy that moves me. Then all of a sudden I'm on some distant island where it's hot and uncomfortable. I meet a guy lying on the ground with a rifle pointed at him and whammo. I get it deep inside. I knew what it was right away. I didn't even have to ask. I just said to myself, 'So this is it. This is how it is.' And there you are.

“Don insisted that we needed you for this operation. I tried to talk you out of it and even tried to convince Don. I felt that I didn't want you risking your neck. I even made the suggestion to have you locked up safe on another island. But down inside I think I wanted you along with us. Something to do with feeling a sense of security—that I shouldn't be protecting you, that I should be looking to you for protection.”

“Why'd you call me a no-good drunkard?”

“That's what you were, weren't you?”

“I guess so.” His head bent low in shame. He studied her hands. The fingers were long and delicate and slender, the kind of hands he wanted caressing him.

“I said it to insult you into doing something for us and for yourself.”

At that moment, the screen door opened. Pun Yin, the Chinese gangster walked in. He stood in the doorway for a minute or two adjusting his eyes to the darkness. He wore the same dark pinstripe suit, looking more and more as though he had slept in it. He was short but his movements were quick and smooth.

Jim interrupted Sheila. “And how do you like the island at night?”

Sheila followed Jim's eyes to the figure silhouetted in the doorway. It turned to them and smiled. “I think it's just too marvelous for words.”

Pun Yin strode with sureness to their table. In the dim light Jim could see that he was grinning suavely, but he couldn't tell whether it was a gesture of politeness or of satisfaction.

“Good afternoon,” Pun Yin said to them. He stopped against the edge of the table.

Jim didn't answer.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked in perfect English.

“There's a lot of other tables around here,” Jim told him coldly.

“But I think I have something to tell you.”

He pulled up a chair and sat across from Jim. “You're Jim Crawford, aren't you?” His beady eyes flashed from Jim to Sheila.

“Yes.” What did he want? Jim wondered. “And this is Sheila Williams, an American school teacher here on vacation.”

“I'm Pun Yin,” he said, smiling coolly at her. Jim wanted to sink his fist into that grinning mouth. “So pleasant to meet a school teacher. Reminds me of my own school days at the University of California.”

In Chinese, Jim told him, “Please state your business or go elsewhere.”

“Oh, my dear boy,” he said. “It isn't polite to speak in a foreign tongue in the lady's presence.”

“All right, get to your point,” Jim said in English.

“We have time,” Pun Yin said. “Waiter!” he called. Then to Jim; “Tune is one thing we have plenty of.”

The waiter came. He wiped the table ineffectually with his white cloth then draped the dirty rag over his shoulder. “Yes, sir?”

“Some cognac.”

“Cognac? We have no cognac.”

“Whiskey, then.”

“American or island?”

“American.” He turned to Jim. “There are so many things in America that I like. Your whiskey is one of them.” He called the waiter again. “Three glasses of whiskey.”

“Just one,” Jim corrected.

The waiter put his hand on his hip, waiting for the problem to be solved.

“You won't drink with me? What a shame.” He told the waiter to bring only one whiskey. He folded his long thin hands on the table and bent the laced fingers back until the joints cracked.

“I'll tell you another shame,” Jim said to Pun Yin.

“What's that?” His eyebrows raised with his grin.

“It's a shame you like so many American things, because you're going to live one frustrated life doing without them.”

He laughed, not a loud laugh, but a slow calculated laugh. Jim was tempted to swing his fist across the table and shut him up.

“Time will tell,” the Chinaman said, baring a gold tooth. “And time we have plenty of.”

“You said that before, now get to your point.”

Sheila sat watching the happenings. She didn't make any attempt to interfere, for Pun Yin seemed only interested in Jim at the moment. Only her calm blue eyes followed his gestures as though searching for a weakness.

“All right, Mister Crawford.” He settled forward and spoke more quietly as though he were unfolding a secret.

The waiter came with the whiskey. Pun Yin waited patiently for him to leave. When he did, he turned silently and said, “You have a devoted friend who is like a father to you, I understand.”

He paused waiting for Jim to say something. When Crawford made no response Pun Yin continued, his gold tooth flashing on certain words; “I think you would be most anxious about his safety so I have come to bring you a message. The message says, 'Jim, cooperate with dear Mister Pun Yin so that I may be freed from my prison.'“

He didn't have to wait for a reaction this time. Jim blurted, “What have you done with Wang Li?”

“I know nothing about him, Jim. All I know is that I was told to bring you the message.”

“What did you bring the old man into this for?” Jim stood up. His chair tumbled over backward and clattered on the floor. “If you touch a hair on Wang Li's head I'll rip you apart.” He reached over and grabbed Pun Yin by the collar. Just as he tightened his grip he stopped and stared at the Oriental's lap.

“Please sit down,” Pun Yin gasped, keeping his pretence of politeness.

Jim glared at the barrel of the small caliber pistol and released the man's neck. He sat down stupefied, frustration and anger fighting to overwhelm his caution.

With one hand, the other holding the gun under the table, Pun Yin loosened the collar of his shirt.

“Please,” he said. “No violence. I distrust violence.”

Sheila put her hand on Jim's arm and stared at the little man. Her other hand crept slowly and stealthily toward the purse on the chair beside her.

“If you please, Miss Williams,” he said, obviously pointing the pistol under the table at her. “I should like you to place both hands where I can see them.”

She put her hands calmly on Jim's arm.

“That's better. It isn't safe for school teachers to carry guns in their purses.”

“Get on with it,” Jim half-shouted. “What did you do with Wang Li?”

“Patience, patience. You Americans are so impetuous. I told you before that I don't have Wang Li. I just brought you a message.” Awkwardly he readjusted his tie and collar, so he could keep his clumsy idea of neatness. “The message said you should cooperate with me. All right, I'll tell you how you may do just that. I know, or at least, I have reason to suspect, that you have in custody one Professor Steiner, lately of the United States Medical Research Headquarters on Hawaii. I would like to see this man. In fact, I would like to have him in my hands.

“I think you can deliver him to me. If you do, I'll see to it that Wang Li is released at once. If you don't, well ... I don't know what the people who now have him plan to do with him. But I don't think you'll ever see him again.”

Jim put his head in his hands. Wang Li! How could this thing touch him? He had nothing to do with governments and scientists. “But I don't have Steiner,” Jim said slowly. His voice was suddenly weak and cracked.

“Maybe you do and maybe you don't. That's your business. But I'm sure you could deliver him to us. That's why I came to you. I know you'd be the first one interested in helping a poor old Chinaman named Wang Li. Of course, Miss Williams, what I'm saying might be of interest to you; but, most certainly, for your part this would be a monetary affair.”

“You're nothing but a pack of vultures,” Jim told him, his voice more steady now. “Sucking on the lives of innocent people.”

“Dear, dear, you shouldn't be so impolite. Imagine saying such things in front of a lady, a school teacher at that.”

He smiled at Sheila who hadn't taken her eyes from his small face since he had first sat down.

“Oh, by the way,” Pun Yin said, touching his cheek with his forefinger as though he had just remembered a five o'clock tea engagement. “I also think the parties interested in Sterner could be persuaded to give you some money for your trouble, say ten thousand dollars.” He stood, picked up the drink and downed it in one swift gulp. He slid his pistol into the coat pocket but kept his hand on it. “If you'll excuse me, I have important business to attend to.” He turned around and walked casually out of the tavern.

Jim was tense. He started to jump up from the table but Sheila restrained him. “Take it easy, Jim,” she said, her sure hands pressing his arm. Anxiety quickened her voice.

Jim sat down and rubbed his hands briskly over his face. “Wang Li. Why'd they have to drag him into this?”

“We'll free him.”

“Yeah?” Jim stared at her. “How?”

“There must be some way.”

“With a storming invasion? The minute you got near him they'd pump so much lead into him he wouldn't float in the Dead Sea.”

“We'll find some way.”

“I know a way,” Jim said.

“You're not thinking of trading Steiner, are you?”

“Why not?”

“Jim!” She arose and glared down at him in distrust.

“Yeah, why not? That's what they want, isn't it?” Jim's fists pressed on the table top.

“I won't listen to you when you say things like that.”

“So they have your father locked up?”

“Jim! I'm warning you. You keep on and I'll walk out of here this instant. And I'll find a way to keep you from trading with that gangster.”

“How? How are you going to stop me?”

“Jim!”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Sit down. Let's talk this thing over. Maybe there is a way to get him out of there.”

She sat down. She put her gentle hand on his cheek and soothed it. “I understand why you're so upset, Jim. But we can't afford to trade Steiner. There's too much at stake.”

“All right, Sheila. What do you say to this? I get Steiner and I make the swap. Then when we have Wang Li free we make a raid and get him back.”

She bolted upright. “I warned you, Jim.” She spun on her heel and walked toward the door.

“No, listen. Listen, Sheila,” Jim called. But she went right on through the door. The screen slammed in Jim's face. He stood there watching her walk down the

street.

It was no use going after her, he thought. Later he'd explain things to her. But now, there was only one way to get Wang Li out of their hands. That was to trade Steiner. Any other way would mean death for the old man and Jim knew that. Maybe he could pretend to trade Steiner and arrange it so that he could keep the scientist and get the old man back. Now the important thing was to find Steiner before anyone else could get to him.

CHAPTER TEN

THAT EVENING WHEN JIM REACHED THE summit of the hill near Byi-Byi's hut he turned to the west and witnessed the last red cloud dissolving into blackness. A pale glow still hung on the horizon but that, too, would soon be black with night.

Through the window opening Jim could see Byi-Byi sitting at her table. A lantern was lit and placed nearby so she could see the material of her dress as she sewed. Her hair hung down over the sides of her round face, concealing her soft chin and neck. She pulled the thread through, leaned her head back to ease the strain and settled her hair. Again she bent her head forward and pushed the needle through.

Jim went to the window. He leaned his bare elbows on the already moist sill and waited. He was careful and quiet; he wanted to watch her while she worked, thinking the peacefulness would help him find a solution to his problem.

Byi-Byi was beautiful in her own way. But his feelings weren't governed by beauty. She didn't have that extra something Sheila had, that extra something that seemed to glow from her body and her character. Strange, Jim thought, how some small intangible thing makes the difference between love and affection.

He knew that if his plan didn't work and the gang got off with Steiner he would never have a chance with Sheila again. This thing was too important to her, more important than love. If his plan didn't work she would lose her respect for him, and with that once gone he would no longer be a man in her eyes.

Why had he come to see Byi-Byi? He thought perhaps if he did he would convince himself that he could love Byi-Byi another way and be content to remain on the islands without Sheila if everything failed. But now, as he watched her through the window, he realized that he was only kidding himself. Byi-Byi was nice; she was in love with him; she could take care of him; but it wouldn't be the same as love with Sheila.

Byi-Byi pricked her finger with the needle. She sucked the drop of blood and studied the tiny hole. Without raising her head she called, “Jim?”

He didn't answer. He thought she was just talking to herself for she made no sign of having seen him.

“Jim?” she repeated. “Why you stand window?”

Jim sighed and said, “Damn it, Byi-Byi, can't I do anything without you knowing about it?”

She lifted her head and smiled at him. Her brilliant white teeth glistened in the light like carved bits of ivory. “Enter.” She laid her sewing on the table and stepped to the door.

In the entrance Jim put his arms around her narrow waist. “You're cute when you work in lantern light.”

“And other times?”

“Then, too.” He led her inside. She returned to her seat while Jim took the other chair and sat beside her, straddling the seat and leaning his arms on the varnished chair back.

“I've come on business.”

“You no come see Byi-Byi make love?”

“Maybe, but first I want to ask you to help me.”

“Me help then we make love.”

“No, we'll make love then you'll help,” Jim corrected.

“Okay.” She put her arms around his neck.

“Wait a minute.” Jim freed himself, ducking out from under. “Let me explain. I'm going to bring a man here. Maybe I'll bring him tonight, maybe tomorrow. But I want you to guard him and keep quiet about it”

“Okay. Who man?”

“I won't tell you that, Byi-Byi. There's no use in your taking more risk than necessary.”

“Okay. No name.”

“But I want to tell you first that it might be very dangerous. People may come looking for this man. If Bull finds out I have him, he'll come to your place, knowing how close we are.”

“Okay. Make love.”

“Wait a minute. If Bull does come, let him take the man if there's no other way. You won't be able to defend yourself so just let him take him. Then I'll see about getting him away from Bull. But that's not the problem right now. I hope that there's no need to worry about Bull. The deal may go over very fast. We'll see.”

“No talk. Me say 'okay'. No talk. Make love.”

She turned slightly in her chair to face him. Her hand flashed out, touched his knee and glided lithely along his khaki-covered thigh until the stiffened fingers touched his limp cock. There, the fingers coaxed and kneaded the sagging instrument until robust strength pounded into it and lifted it high and proud, pressing in revolt against his fly. Nimble fingers unbuttoned the prison, allowing the boldness to burst into freedom only to be caught again in a clutch of a moist palm which began to fondle a new desire along the stem and tantalizingly onto the cherry-red top—the desire, a wanton hunger, not to be freed, but to be excited and caressed passionately until satisfied.

Beyond hope, she bent her head to aid her dexterous hand with the working confines of her succulent mouth.

But Jim still had a feeling of guilt over how he had acted the last time they had made love together. Revulsion came with the remembrance of how he had unfairly used Byi-Byi's love as a means of sating the frustration wrought up by Sheila's deep-seated and unfinished attraction that had carried him to the brink of madness. He thought of how cruelly he had thrown Byi-Byi to the ground and there committed his depression to the mercies of her constant-flowing passion for him. He wouldn't take advantage of her now. No. He would try to satisfy Byi-Byi with his utmost ability and thus make amends for his previous brutality. If only she would let him.

Grasping her long black hair just at that moment when her soft fluffy lips came into contact with the throbbing scarlet knob, Jim yanked her head up again. Amazement and distrust flashed in her black eyes as the eyebrows came together and trembled in puzzlement She struggled against his restraining hand, trying desperately to be free to return to her work of satisfying him with her sucking mouth. But Jim held fast.

He slid from his chair and knelt between her feet. With his nose he lifted the edge of her dress, baring her smooth curvaceous brown legs.

“No, no,” she moaned when she realized what he was about to do. “No, Jim. Let me!” She wrenched her head unsuccessfully against his clutching hand.

With his nose plowing up the dress Jim's tongue followed the cleared path, sliding gently along the inner flesh of her thighs. Halfway to the distant, still-covered goal, her resistance to his confining hand lessened and the smooth thighs began to part, ever so slowly at first, attempting momentarily to close as though in indecision, then gradually taking a steady outward course.

When Jim felt her head ease back, relinquishing the fight to be the satisfier, now straining over the impulse of a physical craving to have Jim perform his best, he released her hair and quickly placed the liberated hand under her buttocks, drawing them out toward his advancing tongue.

She lifted her bottom from the chair for one brief moment. Jim took advantage of the sudden movement to flick her dress up. By grasping the material she helped him remove the bothersome obstacle. She lifted it over her head and threw it in a heap at the other side of the room.

Now Jim returned to his form of payment for an injustice. He slipped both hands under her legs and caught the unseated rear of her buttocks where he could manipulate them.

He slid his head along her glistening warm thighs until his nose buried itself in the sharp thatch of hairs at her crotch. In one skilful movement he darted his tongue down and flickered warily at the top of her groove. She lifted her buttocks again and slumped down in the chair trying to trap his tongue in place where he would be forced to continue. But this wasn't what Jim wanted. He wanted to tease her to the point of torment. So, being prepared for her gesture, he retreated his tongue and waited for her to settle down again.

But she couldn't settle down. Imagination and promise had built up a strange desire within her being that manifested itself in tiny convulsions governed by spasms of the muscles in her buttocks which flashed her vagina up and down before Jim's searching tongue. Each time the jerking threw her bottom up the mucus-covered lips of her vagina would twinkle at him wetly.

In a sudden burst of fury Jim dove his head between her thighs, protruding his tongue and hoping to find the mark. But the mark found him. In a convolution the labia of her sex wiped across his tongue, bathing the brim of his mouth in a flux of hot viscous liquid.

Jim drank it in and began sucking, trying to draw out all this juice from inside her body. As the lubricating oils flowed into his waiting mouth, the tongue pampered her clitoris causing more of the balm to spring up.

But now it became another question. The fires of copulation were stoked in her body and they had to find an outlet. So Jim sensed this and changed his tactics.

He slid the tongue from the little hardened button, down along the lips until there was a dropping away of membranes. The sides of the hole felt like tense muscles but the resistance gave way under the pressure of his protruding tongue. Inside, the satisfier found pliable, soft, smooth flesh which responded to each darting thrust, causing her to moan and jerk her yawning breach up close against his mouth.

Suddenly the pace became furious. Her buttocks flew up so fast they would slap down again onto the seat of her chair. She went so rapidly Jim would have lost contact if her hands hadn't flashed down onto the back of his head and pressed him firmly into place.

As the pace reached supersonic proportions there arose a series of moans and cries in her throat which came out of her nose and opened mouth. Jim worked his tongue with frenzy bringing her to a climax which smothered him and inundated his face with blasting passion.

A loud wailing scream and a sudden freezing, tightening of her motions told Jim it was finished and that he had succeeded in repaying at least part of what he owed her for his disgraceful behavior of the other night.

It was after ten o'clock by the time Jim walked into the clearing around the headquarter's hut. The lantern was lit and nervous male voices jabbered inside.

When he drew back the curtain and stepped in, the men, three natives, excitedly told him they had spotted Steiner. He was holed-up in a deserted hut on the northern tip of the island.

Jim sent two of the natives south to locate the other search party and to bring them to Steiner's hut. The third native would go there directly with Jim. If there weren't too many men with Steiner, Jim would not wait for the southern party but would attack immediately.

They split up outside. Jim made his way along the paths and through the jungle with the native trotting beside him.

For almost an hour the pair tracked toward the north, meandering through the jungle. Jim was certain they would miss the hut and finish up by walking clear to the beach. But suddenly Jim's companion grabbed his arm and stopped him. The islander whistled a low long warble. A second later it was answered, the sound coming from somewhere to the left. The native pointed in the direction of the sound and led Jim farther on through the jungle undergrowth.

Soon they came upon another of Jim's men crouched behind a tree and barely visible in the darkness. He was just a moving shadow, an outline that showed round and soft against the sharp lines of the vegetation.

Jim stooped and flopped onto the ground beside the native. He could smell the peculiar odor of the man's perspiration brought out by lying in the breezeless hollow. It was different from a white man's; and yet different from a native woman's, lacking that intoxicating sweetness.

Peering out from the base of the tree, keeping low to avoid making a silhouette against the sky, Jim could see the hut all lighted up. A lantern was hung from the ceiling and the light projected an oblong brightness through the window and onto the clearing before the hut.

Jim's position was above the hut which was set in what could have passed for a large volcanic crater if there weren't so much vegetal growth around it.

Coming from inside the hut Jim could hear voices. Some of the occupants spoke pidjin English but the other spoke American with a European accent. A man passed before the window. It was a brown man stripped to the waist. He was different from the natives of Jim's island group. His hair was longer and dishevelled. Physically he was heavier and larger, his broad shoulders coming straight out to soft rounded points before dropping over a muscular upper arm. Jim guessed that they were from the Samoans to the East or maybe all the way into Micronesia. Perhaps they had been with Steiner from the start. They didn't carry their weapons with them but undoubtedly held them in readiness somewhere inside the hut.

“How many are there?” Jim whispered, turning his head and cupping his mouth.

“Two and white man. Three.”

“How many are there of us?”

“Seven. Me you him four others there.” He pointed to the other side of the crater.

“Call them over.”

The native whistled. There was silence. Another whistle answered. Good, Jim thought; they knew enough to hesitate before answering.

Silence. Jim strained his ears, fearing they might make a sound that would put the people in the hut on guard. He listened for a long time but heard nothing. The man tapped Jim on the shoulder. He spun around. Standing motionless not five yards away were the four natives. Jim nodded and felt glad he was on their side.

He motioned for them to follow him and left the first native on the ground to keep watch. About twenty-five yards from the hut Jim outlined his plans.

Everything had to happen fast so Steiner and his friends wouldn't have a chance to get their weapons. If they did, it would even Jim's numerical superiority in a hurry.

After telling his men what to do they dispersed. Jim returned to the first native's position and lay beside him to wait.

The first whistle came from Jim's right. It was soon followed by a second, then a third. When he had heard the fifth Jim gave a low-throated warble and started inching forward along the ground beckoning the other man to follow him.

He made it successfully and noiselessly to the clearing and started crawling along the ground. In the center of the clearing he stopped and looked about. A figure stood up and dashed to the side of the hut. Another. On the ground, breaking the line of foliage at the edge of the clearing Jim could make out several others. And there was not a single-noise except for the voices in the hut.

Suddenly a figure appeared in the doorway. His long shadow cast itself across the clearing. Inside, Jim heard the accented voice saying, “Go get some more water.”

Quickly Jim turned his head. He spotted the well. It was but five yards away. The first native lay flat against the ground behind Jim. Jim motioned for him to follow. Then he got up and dashed to the well, ducking behind the stone enclosure. He had to breathe through his mouth for he thought all his sounds were magnified in the night and could be heard for miles around.

The native from the hut stepped noiselessly across the dirt-packed clearing. Jim heard the bucket just behind his head scrape against the stones. Metal clanged against the sides of the well as the unsuspecting enemy lowered the pail into the well.

In a flash Jim slapped the native beside him on the arm. They rose with a shriek. Jim was on the startled stranger.

Jim's companion attacked him at the waist. A quick rabbit punch. He went slack in Jim's arms. The Chamorran hit the dark man in the face. He lay still.

“Watch him,” Jim commanded. He raced toward the hut. Bedlam had broken loose. A Chamorran was crawling through the window. A dark arm tried to push him out. Someone grabbed the dark arm and it disappeared.

When Jim dashed inside the hut it was all over. Steiner was lying on the floor, a grinning islander looming above him. The owner of the dark arm Jim had seen stood in a comer, one of Jim's men held a knife to his throat. His frightened eyes bulged and he trembled.

“Yes?” the man with the knife asked Jim.

“No, don't kill him, just watch him.”

When the knife was removed from his throat the frightened man slumped from relief to the floor and sat against the wall.

Jim stared at Steiner. A gray beard had started to form on his face. It was sparse and uneven from being uncared for. He wore a white shirt and white slacks and white tennis shoes, a common enough sight in the islands but he could never pass for an islander. Never, Jim thought; he didn't have the build, being too thin, and he didn't have skin that could be tanned. A deep sunburn masked his face, spreading under his beard and reaching down his neck until it disappeared suddenly into a pale ridge that showed above his twisted white undershirt His skin was old and clung loosely to his bones. He looked harmless enough, lying there with his eyes closed. Jim thought of that head, that limp head, sunburned from a long boat trip across perilous waters, and how it could be responsible for a drug which could change men into crazed maniacs for his singular profit. Jim turned from Julius Steiner in disgust and gave orders to his men.

Two of them were to keep guard over the two foreign natives. They would have the pistols and the darker men would be tied up so there would be nothing to worry about. Food would be sent to them. They were to stay until they were told to do otherwise.

They found a brief-case on the table, Jim opened it and, not understanding all the writing but certain this was the information of Steiner's evil research, he tucked it under his arm.

Steiner's arms were tied and he was gagged. When he regained consciousness he was helped to his feet and led along the jungle paths back to Jim's hut.

When they reached the clearing before the shack Jim sent all of the men to their homes. After they had left, Jim took Steiner and led him up the back trails to Byi-Byi's hut. Byi-Byi was asleep on her mat when they got there but Jim shook her awake. She lit the kerosene lamp immediately and stood dazed by sleepiness, rubbing her eyes while the light became brighter.

She was nude; her breasts bobbled when she rubbed her eyes. Jim smiled but turned to Steiner and saw him glaring at Byi-Byi. Jim grabbed his shoulder and spun him around so his back was to her.

Jim fixed a mat in the corner for Steiner. He bound his feet with an old dress and told him to go to sleep. Jim had to help him down for his hands were tightly tied in back.

It was too late to go down to see the Chinaman tonight so Jim decided to stay with Steiner and Byi-Byi until dawn. He slapped the brief-case on the table, wondering if he should take it to Sheila, but decided not to. Jim extinguished the lantern and took Byi-Byi to bed. He lay with his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. The noises in the jungle, the animals, the wind, seemed peacefully muted in the night. Even the howl of a wandering dog lost its shrillness.

Byi-Byi rustled on the mat. “You sleep, Jim?”

“No,” he answered. “I'll lay like this for awhile. If I get sleepy I'll wake you up and you keep guard until you think you may fall asleep. Then you wake me. All right?”

“Okay. We watch him. Maybe yes?”

“That's it. We don't want him getting away on us now.”

Byi-Byi rolled onto her side. The mat whispered under her. Jim lay watching the black ceiling, his eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness now. He

The mat wheezed again. Byi-Byi put her hand to the grass that covered the roof.

The captured scientist breathed heavily in slumber. All right, Jim thought; you've got Steiner now and so you're going to swap him off for Wang Li. If everything works out right you should be able to recapture Steiner. Maybe it could even be arranged so that he wouldn't have to give Steiner up. How could he do that? Let's see, maybe the wiry Asiatic gangster had some wrong ideas about Americans and how much they preferred money to anything else. Maybe something could come from that.

The mat wheezed again. Byi-Byi put her hand o his shoulder, groping blindly in the dark.

“Maybe we make love. Keep you awake.”

Jim smiled and turned to her. He ran his hands over her quiet form, down over her side and up on the smooth bulges of her buttocks. He slipped his hand down on the inside of her thigh and up until her legs spread out baring her warm, sensuous sex.

Already his stem throbbed and shot out firmly against her. She put her hand down and began to masturbate it.

His finger sank into the slimy substance of her aperture. She rolled on her back and jerked her body up against his vibrating digit. In and out he moved while her hand continued massaging his proud penis.

Suddenly Jim struck on an idea and leaped from the mat. When he found the lantern and lit it he gazed into the corner and saw Steiner, his eyes wide, a helpless frustration on his brow, struggling to communicate something to Jim.

But Jim understood and smiled. “All right,” he said. “I'm going to put this lantern in the middle of the floor and let you watch what goes on.”

Steiner groaned an unintelligible sentence.

“And I'm not going to free your hands,” Jim answered. “Just watch and suffer. You had no feelings for those humans who would have become infected with your dope. Now we'll even things up a little.”

He set the lantern on the floor and paid no more attention to the sound in the corner. Once again he lay beside Byi-Byi.

Slowly he slid his body over until he felt her warm thighs pressing taut against his. He removed his finger then and put it in the crack of her ass, prying the cheeks apart.

He eased over her. He didn't even use his hands, but let his hungry tool feel and grope in the dark. It found its mark. Slowly he let the head immerse in the liquid lips. Suddenly she grasped his buttocks and forced him all the way in to the hilt so far and so sudden their bellies slapped together and her slippery salve clung to his pubic hairs.

It would be different from the last tune. Instead of trying to vindicate a wrong by satisfying her and her alone, it would be an attempt to make both their pleasures mingle and bring simultaneous satisfaction to their weary bodies.

Slowly Jim penetrated her flaming depths, withdrawing and prodding the long length of his robust stub into and against the flaconed walls, stimulating desire and denial both within himself and Byi-Byi. And she reacted satisfactorily to his efforts, milking his shaft each time he withdrew by lowering her hips and drawing the inner muscles tight over the stem and head of, his potent prong, using these muscles artfully to suck excitement from the core of his being.

In the heat of the hut sweat poured from Jim's body making Byi's stomach slippery so that when he came down on a stroke he felt the slithery warm flesh beneath him and pressed his body against it to increase the sensation of giving and taking all.

His finger, lying dormant in the crack of her ass, began to grope towards the declivity. It probed for the opening then penetrated the anus to toy with the sensitive flesh, rousing moans and murmurings of rapture from Byi-Byi's panting mouth.

Though Jim had planned on prolonging the act for at least another half-hour, Byi's thrashings and active stimulation ripened his bliss to such a point that he could control it no longer.

Rising above her to gaze down at the results of their Passion in the form of Byi's head rolling crazily from side to side and becoming enmeshed in her carelessly strewn black hair, he felt the energy rush from the muscles of his body and gush into her fiery pulsating gorge, throwing her hips into a jerking frenzy which met his explosive thrusts and sucked every last drop of sperm from his cataleptic and straining body.

He withdrew his fingers from her winking rectum and his arms collapsed smashing his body down onto her wet abdomen.

Jim lay there and felt the trickling of pasty sperm and lubrication juices drip down from the base of his softening but still inserted shaft onto the skin of his testicles.

They lay that way for the longest while, neither of them saying anything, the joy of fulfillment in their warm bodies.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, AFTER MAKING sure Steiner was securely bound, Jim walked down the broad dirt road of the town toward the docks.

Bull Sultan's ship, the Southern Star, was riding at anchor. It was a fairly large ship for the general run of tramp steamers that made the island runs. Now its holds lay empty; the red Water markings showed high above the water line. The red paint was scaly and cracked but no seamen hung scaffolded over the side chipping it free. Not on Bull's ship. Jim mused over the idea of the Southern Star becoming so heavily rusted that it would fall apart some day far out at sea.

The cabins and bridge lay aft adding weight and plunging that part of the ship deeper into the water. It rode like a canoe with only one man, the bow sometimes dripping streams of water when it rose free of the waves.

A man was seated on a bullard repairing a damaged line. When he saw Jim approaching he dropped his marlin spike, jumped up, ran over the gangplank and boarded the ship.

Jim was not far behind. Just as he set foot on the deck the Chinaman ambled out of a cabin and beckoned him aft. Jim passed by the cabin bulkheads; he caught a glimpse of Bull Sultan coming around the other side, cigar stub protruding from his fat lips. Sultan stopped when he saw Jim. They froze and stared across the deck at each other.

Bull called a seaman to him. He mumbled something and the seaman went racing off in the direction of the foc's'l. Bull turned from Jim and paced toward the gangplank. He called another seaman; the seaman hopped over to him. They both descended the plank rapidly.

Pun Yin beckoned with his finger again. Jim continued his interrupted walk toward him. Three seamen came running up the ladder and burst through the hatchway. One of them was the seaman Bull had first called over. He had a pistol protruding from his belt. As he ran past, he tucked it farther inside and out of sight. When Jim saw the commotion he had caused by coming aboard his first impulse was to leave the ship and go directly to Byi-Byi's hut to move Steiner. But he felt secure that Bull had no way of learning where he had taken Sterner, at least for another day, so Jim stepped on toward the impatient Chinaman.

Inside Bull's cabin Pun Yin offered a seat to Jim, who moved the chair against the wall so his back would be covered then sat and faced the grinning trafficker.

“Well,” he said; “it certainly is a pleasure to see you so soon, Mister Crawford.”

“Skip the bunk,” Jim said. “I've come on business.”

“Oh, really? And here I thought it was just to pay me a visit.” He tamped a cigarette on his nicotine-stained thumbnail.

“How much can you pay?”

“Really? What for?” The gold-plated incisor bared as the lips drew back in a grin of confidence.

“For him. For Steiner.”

“Oh, you came to see me about that.” He fidgeted on the edge of the bunk where he was sitting cross-kneed and lit the cigarette.

Something smelled in the cabin; a suffocating odor of musty clothes and dirty sweat. Crushed and ripped cigarette butts lay strewn on the floor. The ash tray by the bunk was filled to the point where not even a wooden match would fit in. Jim thought about Bull and how lazy he was. He wouldn't even carry the ash tray to the rail and dump the contents in the bay, but would prefer throwing his butts on the deck. The door to his closet was open a trifle. Jim shuddered when he thought of what it would be like to walk over and jerk the door open so fast that the stagnant air inside would rush into his face.

“I've changed my mind about yesterday's proposition.”

“How's that?” Jim leaned forward. “You got it all backwards. And if that's the case, I'll sell Steiner to the Americans.”

“But I thought you were rather shocked when I told you about Wang La. I was led to believe it was he you were interested in.”

Jim laughed cynically. “Did you see who I was with?”

“What about her?”

“I didn't want Sheila to think I would trade Steiner just for money. It made the barter more ethical in a way, when you held Wang Li's life over my head.”

“Then you would have me believe you wouldn't care if we killed the old man?”

“You wouldn't do it, but I wouldn't give a damn in hell what you did to the old goat.”

“That's interesting.” Pun Yin stroked a. day's growth on his upper lip.

“If you would have waited another few days I would have come to you with the proposition without your going to the trouble of kidnapping Wang la.”

“Is that so?” His eyebrows went up and he smiled. The gold tooth sparkled.

“Yes. Now, how much will you give?”

“Well, if you put it that way, I think we can talk in terms of ten thousand dollars.”

“Listen, Pun Yin, I know Bull's getting a quarter of a million for delivering him to Shanghai. I want some of that; about one hundred thousand, for example.”

“One hundred thousand! My boy, I happen to know you won't get a dime if you turn him over to the Americans.”

“Maybe I won't; maybe I will. But I'll sure as hell get one nice girl out of the deal. Who knows? They might even donate a ship to me, besides.”

“Maybe I can get you twenty-five thousand.”

“A boat costs more than that.”

“You're a hard man to deal with, Mister Crawford.”

“Not only do I want a hundred thousand, but I want fifty thousand of it now.”

“Well, I suppose it could be arranged. I have the money for Bull. I suppose he wouldn't mind if I gave you part of it, now would he?”

He went out of the cabin and soon came back with a brief-case. He unlocked it and pulled out a pile of bills. He counted out fifty thousand dollars and opened a large manilla envelope.

“Do you want to count it?” Pun Yin added, raising the cash before Jim.

“I was counting it when you were,” Jim said, leaning forward, pretending to be anxious and impressed by the large amount of money. “Come on, hurry up.”

“How do I know I'll get him?”

“You'll have to take my word for it.”

“That's not good enough.” He gripped the bills in groups of ten and tore each group in half, putting one half in his brief-case and the other half in the envelope. When he was finished, he handed the manilla packet to Jim. “Here,” he said, “I think when you keep in mind the amount of money waiting for you, you'll remember Steiner is supposed to come here.”

Jim took the envelope and stuck it in his pocket. He appeared angry over the deal the Chinaman had just made.

But he was still worried about Wang Li. If only Pun Yin would follow through Jim's lead. For now he had to act as though he didn't care.

“Okay,” he said. He got up from the chair and started toward the door. “I'll be back in an hour or so.”

“Wait a minute,” said Pun Yin. “What about your poor old Chinese father?”

“You do with him what you want.” Jim put one hand on the door post and made ready to leave. “I don't give a damn.”

“No, I think it's better that he is seen leaving the ship with you. He's rather popular around here and the natives might become suspicious, knowing he's on board.”

“Okay, but snap it up. I feel rushed.”

Pun Yin went below. He returned with Wang Li and a seaman. Wang Li had to shield his eyes coming from the dark hold into the bright light. Jim acted as though he didn't care about seeing the old man.

“Come on,” he said. He grabbed the old man by the arm and half-dragged him to the gangplank.

When they were in town Jim sent the bartender of the Barn-Bam for Kalo, Jim eased Wang Li into a chair, brought him a glass of water and set it on the table before him.

“Jim,” Wang Li murmured in Chinese, his voice was cracked and dry. “I failed to recognise you on the Southern Star because of my eyes. Why did you not speak?”

“Try not to talk, Father.” Jim held the glass before his lips. “Here drink some of this.”

The old man drank, the glass trembled in his shaking hands. “Ah,” he said when he had finished half the glass. “Thank you, my son.”

“Kalo shall be along shortly,” Jim said in Chinese. “He'll take you home and protect you.”

The old man put his hand tenderly on Jim's shoulder. “You have ransomed my life, but with what?”

“I can't tell you now, Wang Li. Rest and relax. You're safe and that's all that matters for the present.”

The old man ran his unsure fingers through Jim's hair. “I hope you have not caused yourself any dishonor in the eyes of your people by freeing me.”

“Don't worry about it, father.” Jim held the old man's hand. “All went well, exceedingly well.”

Kalo burst into the tavern, the bartender just behind.

“Kalo will take you home. Go with him. You shall be all right.”

“Watch him,” Jim instructed Kalo. “Be especially careful of Bull's men. Perhaps you should remove him to another building on the plantation.”

“I do that, Jim” he said, helping Wang Li to his feet. Before they left Wang Li turned to Jim and asked, “Why is it that you do not wish to come home with me?”

“It is not a case of 'wishes', but something I must do.”

The old man nodded his head slowly. “If you must, you must. But when this affair is finished will you return to your aged father's side?”

“I don't know, Wang Li,” Jim answered. “I really don't know.”

“If you so decide you are still welcome.” Then Wang Li left the tavern supporting his old body on the anxious arms of Kalo.

Jim remained in the Barn-Bam for a little while waiting for Wang Li to be out of sight, for fear of being seen with him as that would raise too many suspicious aboard the Southern Star as to Jim's purpose in having gone aboard to make a deal with Pun Yin.

A quarter of an hour passed, so Jim went to the other edge of town to the hotel where Sheila was staying. She wasn't there so Jim left a message in her box for her to come to Byi-Byi's hut, with instructions on how to get there. He mentioned in the note that he had someone she might be interested in seeing.

Maybe it was a good thing Sheila wasn't at the hotel. Now, he would have time to arrive at the hut and send Byi-Byi away. There was no sense provoking a scene between the two of them.

It was better to bring Sheila to Steiner than to parade Steiner through the streets to Sheila's hotel.

He smiled when he thought of how Sheila would react to seeing Jules Steiner all tied up in a bundle for her.

He walked all the way up to Byi-Byi's hut. When he got near he called out for her, happy that he had so clea