Chapter 9

Of the nine guests at the Hale-Kaahumanu, only seven were of the paying variety. The other two were the owner's daughter, Evangeline Barrington-Phaff and the man who had changed her from a fun-loving, free-wheeling, jet-set playgirl-about-town to an other-worldly, mystic, religious nut--the Reverend Matthew Longworth. He had left his flock of converts in New York to follow her to the island of Maui... all expenses paid, of course. Let it not be supposed, however, that he was in it just for the free room and board and the several thousand dollars a month he managed to cozen her out of. Not at all. He was also quite madly in love with her. He was tormented by the fact that it was, as far as he knew, an unrequited love. Never having confessed this human weakness to her, he could not be absolutely sure that she would not be responsive. He was sure beyond any doubt that her father had no use for him whatsoever, either as a man or as a prospective son-in-law, and only tolerated him as a minister because of what the old man hoped was his daughter's temporary mental affliction.

Caught thus in a sticky web largely of his own making Longworth was not a happy man. Should he go on bended knee before Evangeline, plead his cause and try to beat McFarthingale's time with her, risking the chance that she would not only reject him but also be disillusioned with him as her spiritual leader? This could cost him a tidy bit of cash should she order him to split the scene. On the other hand, suppose she accepted him... what of Papa Barrington-Phaff? The old bastard was perfectly capable of booting them out into the cold, cruel world. What then? Work? He shuddered at the thought. No, better to let things go as they were for the time being at least, go on suffering in silence, hoping that Elmer McFarthingale would fortuitously expire from some loathsome and rare tropical disease and that Evangeline's father might then undergo a change of heart.

At the moment, he was sitting in Evangeline's room, watching her comb her long, golden-blonde hair. Well he was not really looking at her hair. His attention rather was centered on that place where the front of her dressing gown had been left carelessly open. He stared in breathless fascination as the movements of her arms opened and closed the gap in the gown, alternately revealing and hiding one full, gorgeously round breast and part of the other. If only she would brush just a bit more vigorously, or perhaps lean a little forward, he was sure he could catch sight of the nipple. Ah! There! This time for sure! Oh, hell! She had straightened her back the tiniest bit of an inch necessary to spoil the view he had so anticipated. Although the room was air-conditioned, his forehead was beaded with perspiration. In the crotch of his pants, gripped firmly between his legs to hide it, his cock was like a throbbing iron bar.

"Elmer has been after me again about entertainment," Evangeline was saying. "I suppose we should have something of the sort, but finding entertainers in this terrible, pagan, savage country is nearly impossible. All they know are their sinful, wicked, native dances and their coarse, vulgar songs. I just don't know what to do. What do you think?"

"Hunh?" Longworth grunted, the question taking him unaware. He had been only half listening to her chatter as he had allowed his mind to dwell on her body.

"Oh, yes," he said brightly and too loudly. "Yes, you are quite right, of course. Perhaps you can get Elmer to bring some talent from the mainland... a good choir." Damn the woman! Now she had crossed her legs and the gown had fallen open from the waist down. How could a man be in the presence of those creamy, perfectly molded thighs and keep his mind on her silly conversation? What the hell right did she have being so beautiful, anyway? He'd have to get out of there before he made a fool of himself.

He chatted with her another few minutes, then excused himself and went to his room. He fell across his bed, tearing frantically at his belt and zipper then shoving his trousers and shorts down to free his long, white cock with its pinkish head and the aristocratic, blue veins that laced the underside of it. He gripped it in his hand, closing his eyes and visualizing a vivid picture of Evangeline's beautiful breasts, her seductive legs and the coral-tinted flesh of her vulva, nakedly exposed and gasping with desire for his prick. He pictured himself kissing her all over, nuzzling and mouthing her perfumed flesh, then mounting her and raping her with cruel, savage thrusts of his cock. His hand began moving up and down on his organ, slowly at first, then faster and faster as he writhed and groaned.

He came after a while, the grayish yellow of his jism squirting up from the head of his cock to fall on the bedspread, then, as the pressure behind it decreased, to only ooze out, running down over the back of his hand to foul his own clothing to collect in his matted pubic hair.

"Goddamn you, Evangeline!" he muttered. "Goddamn you for making me want you this way." Then, still holding his now flaccid cock, he fell asleep.

On the beach, Wikiwiki lolled in the slender shade of a coconut palm. With him was his cousin, surfing instructor at the hotel.

"We got the best jobs in the world," Wikiwiki was saying. "Man, you can't beat big pay and no work. Too bad it won't last."

The cousin, a man named "Teo", looked at Wikiwiki with suspicion. He had learned as a child that his good-looking relative always had an angle and was not apt to make even the most innocent statements without being shrewdly motivated. Still, even knowing this, Teo had been falling into Wikiwiki's verbal traps all of his life. Curiosity was his undoing.

"How come?" he asked at last, cursing himself for a sucker even as he did so and wondering what kind of trouble Wikiwiki was going to get him into this time.

"Not hard to figure," Wikiwiki responded, idly tossing a handful of sand at a small crab. "You know how much it costs to keep a joint like this going for one day? Plenty. So we got seven customers. How long do you think old Euclid J. is going to stand for that? I'll tell you... about as long as it takes him to glance at the first month's balance sheet and then reach for a phone. Bang! The dump is shut down and we're all out of work. Auwe! It is a sad thing but, what the hell? That's life, I guess."

Teo nodded solemnly, relieved. Wikiwiki had said nothing that hadn't been discussed over an over again by all the employees. "Nothing we can do about it," he muttered.

"Maybe... and maybe there is," Wikiwiki replied. "We all know what's needed... some entertainment. Why, for chrissakes, did you know that the famous Kalola Kalikimaka, best and hottest hula dancer since before the missionaries came, is working right here in the kitchen? Did you know that Lynn Charles, the top public relations girl in San Francisco, is pushing a vacuum cleaner here? Do you think a dope like Elmer McFarthingale has got enough sense to see what is right under his nose? Hell no! Not when all his nose is good for is sniffing after Evangeline's pussy. Too bad the word can't get to him that he's got a couple of the hottest properties in the hotel business right on his own staff."

"Kalola Kalikimaka I've heard of," Teo admitted, "but who is this Lynn Charles chick?"

"You never heard of Lynn Charles?" Wikiwiki was shocked. "Boy, you guys who stay all of your life on Maui are sure provincial and dumb. Listen to this: Less than a month ago, the Pacific Paradise Hotel on Oahu was about to go to the wall. It was in pretty near as bad shape as this one. This Lynn Charles organized a luau that was the damnedest whingding Hawaii has seen this century. The publicity put the old Pacific Paradise back on its feet and took it out of the red. If you don't believe me, you can ask Joe Moto, the owner. And you say you never heard of Lynn Charles. Brother!"

Teo scratched his head. "So what?"

"It's simple," Wikiwiki said. "You're screwing the wife of the man in the personnel office. You get this information to her and she relays it to her husband. He wants to keep his job, just like all of us do, so he goes to Elmer with it. Elmer knows he has to do something, and do it fast. He'll grab at the chance. What he should do is make Lynn the new social director and build a regular night club-type act around Kalola. With those two kids working for him, this place will come to life. Will you do it, Teo?"

"I don't know," Teo muttered. "Remember the time you talked me into helping you start a whore-house in the old sugar mill building with all junior high school girls? We're lucky we didn't land in jail on that one."

"Aw, this is different. We were just kids then. How about your own job here? Don't you want to keep it?"

"Well..."

The hotel's personnel manager considered his wife a smart woman. He never questioned how she always seemed to know more about what went on concerning his own job than he did. He lost no time in going to Elmer McFarthingale with the news.

"Sounds great," Elmer agreed, "but what am I to do about Evangeline? You know she'd never stand for a hula dancer, and I imagine this Lynn Charles is quite ah... er... modern in her approach to publicity."

"You have to decide between Evangeline and your job... all of our jobs."

"I suppose so," Elmer agreed doubtfully. "I love her, but her father will shut this place down if some changes aren't made, and soon. If only there was something I could do about that Matthew Longworth character. She was a great girl before he came into her life."

"I know," the personnel manager agree unhappily.

These two men were worthy fellows, but they lacked Wikiwiki's pragmatic approach to life. The beach boy was not content with merely planting the seed of an idea in Teo's head, to be warmed in the bed of his lady love, the wife of the personnel manager, and then timidly bloom in the office of the hotel manager, Elmer McFarthingale. No, Wikiwiki was well aware that Evangeline, and her spiritual mentor, Matthew Longworth, were the grit in the fine cogs and rollers of progress and he meant to do something about them. His first move was to call on Ellen Canfield.