WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (121 - 125)

121

Jared Mulligan

After breakfast I left the ship and proceeded to the pickup point for my tour. The bus was already there, and there were several passengers from the ship milling about, ready to get on with it.

Our tour guide was an attractive young local woman, dressed smartly in a maroon jacket and matching skirt, contrasted by a blouse with a floral design. She welcomed us and said that we would be waiting a few minutes past the scheduled departure time, for late arrivals, which I thought was a nice way of describing stragglers who had no sense of urgency or respect for other people’s time.

122

Jasmine

At some point during the flight, she had fallen asleep. Deep sleep. She was dreaming about a spider. Crawling up her leg. Under her skirt, up her thigh . . .

She awoke with a start, suddenly aware that something was wrong. She looked to her right, at the grinning face of the man in the seat next to her. His hand up her skirt. “Ever hear of the mile high club?”

With the quickness of a cat, she grabbed the thumb of the hand on her leg and twisted, fast and hard. With her other hand she slapped him in the crotch, grabbed a testicle, and pinched. He started to cry out in pain.

“Shhh,” she hushed him. “We don’t want to disturb the other passengers, now do we?”

He shook his head. No.

“Now you be a good boy the rest of the flight,” she whispered. “I won’t be so nice to you next time. Do we have an understanding?”

He nodded. Yes.

She released the pressure to the testicle, then, eventually, the thumb. The rest of the flight was very pleasant, but she did not sleep. Her thoughts returned to Raquel, back home, dealing with her grief—such as it was—in her own way.

After the memorial service, Jasmine had pressed Raquel, practically forced her to tell her why she felt contempt for her parents. Somehow, Raquel had found out that her father had an illegitimate daughter, named Shelby. And that although Raquel’s mother had known about it all along, Dianna Hamilton had chosen to pretend it had never happened.

Raquel was disgusted with her father for his betrayal of his wife and children—all of them, legitimate or otherwise—and with her mother for tolerating it. Raquel could be very unforgiving at times.

123

Jared Mulligan

Eventually, we boarded the bus and were on our way. The tour guide spoke to us over the microphone in a soft, sing-song voice as the driver, negotiated the city traffic and then the many curves on the narrow road in the countryside.

According to our guide, the city of Papeete was the hub of French Polynesian tourism. I was more interested in viewing the scenery than listening as she rambled on about how Tahiti had been formed by volcanoes, the history of the islands, and the city.

Apparently I was not the only one tuning out the canned speech. Couples were talking amongst themselves, and being none too quiet about it. Rude, I thought, so as a gesture I made an effort to listen more carefully although I confess to being distracted from time to time by a waterfall or one of the attractive young females walking along the side of the road.

I noticed a younger woman in the seat across the aisle from me taking notes. “Are you with the writers group?” I asked.

Her face brightened immediately. “Yes, are you?”

“Well, not officially,” I said, “but I am taking it up as a result of meeting some of the others in your group.”

“Great!” she said, offering her right hand. “I’m Bonnie.”

“Hi, Bonnie, I’m Jared,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

Eventually we wound up at the Hall home.  It was an appealing location, serene would be the word I’d say best described it. Bonnie and I stayed together, enjoying the beauty of the place. She asked if I had a work in progress, and I said I was kicking around a few ideas. “My main character is a pilot,” I said. “He delivers airplanes to buyers around the world, runs into shady characters. Solves mysteries, romances intriguing women, gets shot at.”

“That might have some potential,” Bonnie said. “You might want to be more focused on one particular storyline to start out, say like, he delivers an airplane that an oil sheik is selling, and halfway to his destination he discovers a stowaway on the airplane.”

“A stowaway?” I said. “Who would stow away on a private plane? And why?”

“Ah, yes!” Bonnie raised her eyebrows. “What if . . . and if so, what then . . . ? These are the questions a writer must ask—and answer!”

“So, what if one of the sheik’s wives, who had been kidnapped and forced to be one of his harem, wanted to escape? Something like that?”

“See, there you go!” she said. “You’re on your way.”

I nodded, thinking of the possibilities. “I’m thinking I like it. I like it a lot.” I whipped out my pen and notepad to jot down the ideas before they escaped me. “What about you?” I asked. “What are you writing?”

“I’m writing a story set during the Great Depression, about a haunted hotel on a Pacific Island.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sounds interesting.” Actually, it was. I’m not normally drawn in by tales of paranormal, but I have to admit, Bonnie’s plot hooked me.  Not to give it away—I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading it when it comes out—but it’s basically about a young woman from a wealthy family who is stranded on a Pacific Island when her father’s fortune was lost when the stock market crashed in 1929. With no funds to return home, she is forced to accept whatever work she can find on the island in order to survive. She ends up working as a chambermaid at a hotel that is rumored to be haunted by the spirit of a buccaneer, and eventually she—Wait a minute, I said I didn’t want to give away the plot, and I almost did. I won’t spoil it for you. Just look for it when it comes out. Bonnie told me her pseudonym—that means pen name for those of you not in the business—but I can’t remember now what it was. Just look for a book about a haunted hotel in the Pacific. She thinks it will be ready in another six to nine months. She already has an agent and an editor, and everything.

124

The house tour was self-guided, but there were a couple of ladies there to answer questions. I really didn’t know much about the authors, and had only booked the tour because I wanted to get off the ship for a while. I have a profound fear of sharks, so snorkeling wasn’t even a consideration.

Turns out that James Norman Hall and I had more than writing in common. We were both aviators. He was an army pilot back in World War One. As fate would have it, he struck up a friendship with Charles Nordhoff, himself a pilot in the Lafayette Flying Corps.  They soon began working together, writing novels, both moving in 1920 to Tahiti, where they wrote Mutiny on the Bounty. I never read the book myself, but I did enjoy the movie.

The museum was interesting enough, but I have to admit I was disappointed to learn that the house is a reconstruction and not the original. I remember the same feeling years before when I visited Osaka Castle. If it’s not the original, what’s the point?

We weren’t due to leave for a while, and several of our group enjoyed a cool drink sitting outside under a mango tree, soaking up the atmosphere. Bonnie and I joined them. I met some interesting folks, and they invited Bonnie and me to join them ashore for a Polynesian dinner. Apparently, they were of the impression that we were a couple.

I was reluctant at first, but decided to accept. Glad I did. We were welcomed with songs, punch, and a guided tour of the village. The buffet was great. Grills and salads, local fruits and pastries. The show featured traditional Tahitian dance, a fire dance, and Tahitian songs. I had a few too many drinks, but so what? I was on vacation. Jared Mulligan number one had booked the trip for pleasure, right? The least I could do was enjoy myself.

When we got back to the ship, I invited Bonnie to join me for a drink. We ended up talking until almost midnight. I walked her to her room and then she kissed me goodnight. I surprised myself when I pulled her closer to me, and returned the kiss. It felt good, embracing her. But I knew, even then, that it wasn’t her so much as it was the feeling of affection. Not to be confused with love, nor even lust. It just felt good to hold someone. Bonnie started to say something, but I gently pressed a finger to her lips and said, “Goodnight, Bonnie.”

125

Jasmine

The first time she killed another human being, she did it for free. That is to say, she did not receive monetary compensation. She did, however gain a great deal of satisfaction in having punched Brian Gosnell’s ticket to hell.

From having watched his house for a week, she knew that Gosnell left home every night between 10:40 and 10:50 to work the hoot owl shift at Peterson Manufacturing. If he left at 10:40, he would stop at the convenience store for coffee and cigarettes. If he waited until 10:50, it meant that he was set for smokes and had just enough time to slap his wife around a bit more. She could hear her screams from where she sat, hidden behind the shrubs of an empty house two doors down and across the street. If she could hear the screams, that meant that the neighbors could, too. She supposed that after the first few times, they had trained themselves to turn up the television sets and ignore any noise from the neighbors.

It was all she could do to refrain from walking up the sidewalk, ringing the doorbell and driving a knife through his heart. She knew, even then, that this sort of business could not be rushed. Mrs. Gosnell would not have to suffer many more beatings from her husband. What kind of guy she would later hook up with was beyond anyone else’s ability to control. Probably beyond hers, too. Women who tolerate abuse tend to not raise the bar too high next time around.

From listening every night for a week, she knew the sound of his old piece-of-junk pickup truck, hard to miss with its rusted-out muffler. From intercepting and following him in her own car for yet another week, Jasmine knew that it took Gosnell roughly seven and one-half minutes go get from his house to the curve in the road where she would lay in wait, less than a mile from the plant where he worked.  Allowing for the time he usually spent inside the store if he left at 10:40, or leaving the house ten minutes later, he would be coming by somewhere between 10:55 and 10:57 p.m., more or less.

It was a foggy Tuesday night, and she could hear his truck long before she saw its headlights. She stood ready at the top of the embankment, holding the semi-trailer tire standing upright beside her. From having practiced perhaps a dozen or so times, she knew that it would take roughly five seconds for the tire to reach the middle of the road—if it didn’t hit a tree and fall down or go off in another, undesirable direction. When you plan a murder, she soon learned, not everything will fall into place. You do what you can.

She made a best-guess estimate and released the tire. It rolled and bounced merrily, picking up speed all the way down the hill. Near the bottom of the slope, not more than a dozen feet from the edge of the road, it hit a medium-size boulder and bounced high into the air, sailing across the road. That had never happened during practice.

She had already accepted defeat when a small whitetail buck, apparently spooked by the tire landing next to it, jumped out in front of the truck. Gosnell swerved and ran head-on into the trunk of an oak tree. She walked down the bottom of the hill to the truck. Saw the blood coming from Gosnell’s mouth and ears. Felt his neck. There was still a pulse. His eyes fluttered open, widened in surprise and horror as she placed her hand on his nose and clamped it shut with her fingers.

She expected to feel sick, remorseful. But, no. None of that. She knew what he had done to his step-children, Krystal and Teddy. The world was better off with one less child molester. She would kill them all for free, if she could. Her only regret was that it had taken her so long to get the job done.

As she walked back to the movie theatre parking lot where she had left her car, someone else came along and saw the wreckage. Called 911. The police came, as did the ambulance. Gosnell was declared dead on arrival at the hospital. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Rot in hell, Brian Gosnell. She hoped the deer was okay.