Read Online Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore - Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Moore
Tags: Humor
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sweat coming off the big man. "No, that's not what I'm saying. I don't know what's going on out on Alualu, but I'm sure it's no big deal. Evil tends to grow in proportion to the profit potential, and there's just nothing out there that's worth a shit. Go to your island, kid. And get in touch with me when you figure out what's going on. In the meantime, I'll do some checking."
Tuck shook the reporter's hand. "I will." He threw some money on the bar and started to leave. Pardee called to him as he reached the door.
"One more thing. I checked around. I heard that there's some armed men on Alualu. And there was another pilot that came through here a few months ago. Nobody's seen him. Be careful, Tucker."
"And you weren't going to tell me that?"
"I had to be sure that you weren't part of it."
13 – Out of the Frying Pan
Tuck's first thought of the new morning was I've got to catch a plane. His second was, My dick's broke.
It happens that way. One has a "private" irritation-hemorrhoids, menstrual cramps, swollen prostate, yeast infection, venereal disease, bladder infection-and no matter how hard the mind tries to escape the gravity of the affliction, it is inexorably pulled back into a doomed orbit of circular thought. Anything that distracts from the irritation is an irritation. Life is an irritation.
Inside Tuck's head sounded like this: I have to catch a plane. I'm pissing fire. I need a shower. Check the stitches. No water. It looks infected. Probably leprosy. I hate this place. I'm sure it's infected. When does the water come on? It's going to turn black and fall off. Whoever heard of a place with satellite TV but no running water? I'll never fly again. I'm thirty years old and I have no job. And no dick. And who in the hell was that guy in the parking lot last night? I smell like rancid goat meat. Probably the infection. Gangrene. I can't believe there's no running water. I'm going to die. Die, die, die.
Not a pleasant place to be: inside Tuck's head.
Outside Tuck's head the shower came on; brown, tepid water ran down his body in gutless streams; pipes shuddered and trumpeted as if trying to extrude a vibrating moose. The soap, a brown minibar made from local copra, lathered like slate and smelled of hibiscus flowers and suffering dog.
Tuck dried himself on a translucent swath of balding terry cloth and slipped into his clothes, three days saturated with tropical travel funk. He shouldered his pack, noticing that the zippered pockets had been tampered with and not giving a good goddamn, then trudged down to the front desk.
Rindi was sleeping on the desk. Tuck woke him, made sure that the room had been paid by the doctor as promised, then stood in the tropical sun and waited as Rindi brought the car around.
It seemed like a very long ride to the airport. Rindi ran over a chicken, then got out and fought an old woman who claimed the chicken, each tugging on a leg, testing the tensile strength of poultry to its limit before Rindi busted a kung fu move that secured his dinner and left the old woman sitting in the dust with a sacred chicken foot in her hand. (The old woman was from the island of Tonoas, where magic chickens were once called up by a sorcerer to level a mountain for a temple, the Hall of the Magic Chickens.)
At the airport Tuck gave Rindi a dollar for the cab ride, which was twice the going rate, and waved off the bloody handshake the aspiring gangsta offered. "Keep the peace, home boy," Tuck said.
14 – Espionage and Intrigue
Yap was cleaner than Truk and hotter, if that was possible. Here the beat-up taxis actually had radio antennas to identify them. The roads were paved as well. The airport, another tin roof over concrete pylons, was filled with natives: men in loincloths and topless women in hand-woven wraparound skirts. Tuck caught a cab at the airport and told the driver to take him to the dock.
The driver spat out the window and said, "The ship gone."
"It can't be gone." What had
Tuck shook the reporter's hand. "I will." He threw some money on the bar and started to leave. Pardee called to him as he reached the door.
"One more thing. I checked around. I heard that there's some armed men on Alualu. And there was another pilot that came through here a few months ago. Nobody's seen him. Be careful, Tucker."
"And you weren't going to tell me that?"
"I had to be sure that you weren't part of it."
13 – Out of the Frying Pan
Tuck's first thought of the new morning was I've got to catch a plane. His second was, My dick's broke.
It happens that way. One has a "private" irritation-hemorrhoids, menstrual cramps, swollen prostate, yeast infection, venereal disease, bladder infection-and no matter how hard the mind tries to escape the gravity of the affliction, it is inexorably pulled back into a doomed orbit of circular thought. Anything that distracts from the irritation is an irritation. Life is an irritation.
Inside Tuck's head sounded like this: I have to catch a plane. I'm pissing fire. I need a shower. Check the stitches. No water. It looks infected. Probably leprosy. I hate this place. I'm sure it's infected. When does the water come on? It's going to turn black and fall off. Whoever heard of a place with satellite TV but no running water? I'll never fly again. I'm thirty years old and I have no job. And no dick. And who in the hell was that guy in the parking lot last night? I smell like rancid goat meat. Probably the infection. Gangrene. I can't believe there's no running water. I'm going to die. Die, die, die.
Not a pleasant place to be: inside Tuck's head.
Outside Tuck's head the shower came on; brown, tepid water ran down his body in gutless streams; pipes shuddered and trumpeted as if trying to extrude a vibrating moose. The soap, a brown minibar made from local copra, lathered like slate and smelled of hibiscus flowers and suffering dog.
Tuck dried himself on a translucent swath of balding terry cloth and slipped into his clothes, three days saturated with tropical travel funk. He shouldered his pack, noticing that the zippered pockets had been tampered with and not giving a good goddamn, then trudged down to the front desk.
Rindi was sleeping on the desk. Tuck woke him, made sure that the room had been paid by the doctor as promised, then stood in the tropical sun and waited as Rindi brought the car around.
It seemed like a very long ride to the airport. Rindi ran over a chicken, then got out and fought an old woman who claimed the chicken, each tugging on a leg, testing the tensile strength of poultry to its limit before Rindi busted a kung fu move that secured his dinner and left the old woman sitting in the dust with a sacred chicken foot in her hand. (The old woman was from the island of Tonoas, where magic chickens were once called up by a sorcerer to level a mountain for a temple, the Hall of the Magic Chickens.)
At the airport Tuck gave Rindi a dollar for the cab ride, which was twice the going rate, and waved off the bloody handshake the aspiring gangsta offered. "Keep the peace, home boy," Tuck said.
14 – Espionage and Intrigue
Yap was cleaner than Truk and hotter, if that was possible. Here the beat-up taxis actually had radio antennas to identify them. The roads were paved as well. The airport, another tin roof over concrete pylons, was filled with natives: men in loincloths and topless women in hand-woven wraparound skirts. Tuck caught a cab at the airport and told the driver to take him to the dock.
The driver spat out the window and said, "The ship gone."
"It can't be gone." What had
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