Tucker
The Sky Priestess threw the straw hat across the room, then tore at the high-buttoned collar of the white dress. She was losing him. She hated that more than anything: losing control. She ripped the dress down the front and wrestled out of it.
She stormed across the room, the dress still trailing from one foot, and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. She poured herself a tumbler and drank half of it off while still holding the bottle, then refilled the glass while her temples throbbed with the cold. She carried the bottle and glass to a chair in front of the television, sat down, and turned it on. Nothing but static and snow. Sebastian was using the satellite dish. She threw the vodka bottle at the screen, but missed and it bounced off the case, taking a small chip out of the plastic.
"Fuck!" She keyed the intercom next to her chair. "'Bastian! Dammit!"
"Yes, my sweet." His voice was calm and oily.
"What the fuck are you doing? I want to watch TV."
"I'm just finishing up, sweetheart."
"We need to talk." She tossed back another slug of vodka.
"Yes, we do. I'll be up in a moment."
"Bring some vodka from your house."
"As you wish."
Ten minutes later the Sorcerer walked into her bungalow, the picture of the patrician physician. He handed her the vodka and sat down across from her. "Pour me one, would you, darling?"
Before she could catch herself, she'd gotten up and fetched him a glass from the kitchen. She handed it to him along with the bottle.
"Your dress is torn, dear."
"No shit."
"I like the look," the Sorcerer said, "although I'd have preferred to tear it off you myself."
"Not now. I think we have trouble."
The Sorcerer smiled. "We did, but as of tonight at midnight, our troubles are over. How was your walk this morning, by the way?"
"I took Case to see the shark hunt. I thought it would keep him from getting island fever, something different to break the boredom."
"As opposed to fucking him."
She wasn't going to show any surprise, not after he'd laid a trap like that. "No, in addition to fucking him. It was a mistake."
"The shark hunt or the fucking?"
She bristled, "The shark hunt. The fucking was fine. He saw the boy whose corneas we harvested."
"So."
"He freaked. I shouldn't have let him connect the people with the procedure."
"But I thought you could handle him."
He was enjoying this entirely too much for her taste. "Don't be smug, 'Bastian. What are you going to do, lock him in the back room of the clinic? We need him."
"No, we don't. I've hired a new pilot. A Japanese."
"I thought we'd agreed that..."
"It hasn't worked using Americans, has it? He starts tonight."
"How?"
"You're going to go pick him up. The corporation assures me that he's the best, and he won't ask questions."
"I'm going to pick him up?"
"We have a heart-lung order. You and Mr. Case need to deliver it."
"I can't do it, 'Bastian. I can't do a performance and a heart-lung tonight. I'm too jangled."
"You don't have to do either, dear. We don't have to do the surgery. We'll make less money on it, but we only have to deliver the donor."
"But what about doing the choosing?"
"You've done that already. You chose when you went to bed with our intrepid Mr. Case. The heart-lung donor is Tucker Case."
Tuck needed a drink. He looked around the bungalow, hoping that someone had left a stray bottle of vanilla extract or aftershave that might go well with a slice of mango. Mangoes he had, but anything containing ethyl alco-hol was not to be found. It would be hours before darkness could cover his escape to the drinking circle, where he intended to get gloriously hammered if he could look any of the Shark People in the eye and keep his stomach. Sorry, you guys. Just had to take the edge off of the guilt of blinding a child to get my own airplane.
He tried to distract himself by reading, but the moral certainties of the literary spy guys only served to make him feel worse. Television was no help either. Some sort of Balinese shadow puppet show and Filipino news special on how swell it was to make American semiconductors for three bucks a day. He punched the remote to off and tossed it across the room.
Frustration leaped out in a string of curses, followed by "All right, Mr. Ghost Pilot, where in the hell are you now?"
And there was a knock on the door.
"Kidding,"