But, there was another problem. Frankie had held her hand and told her, in the kindest way he knew, that she should take things further. She should hitch herself to his star. She could tell by that twinkle in his dark eyes that he would demand sex with her eventually. He once made a move for her when he was a boxer in Honolulu, the country kid going for broke in the territorial finals. She had somehow evaded him. But soon she might have to give it to him. It might be the only way.

Then her stomach flushed with warmth and her brain with the relief of clarity. She recognized: There might be a way to get all of what she wanted. She could get at the gold and get Wendell out, too. Just maybe. If Jock Quinn truly was as gung-ho as he said.

She was holing up at the Main House instead of her bungalow for now. But she needed Charlie Selfer to come back. She hadn’t been able to keep track of Selfer the last couple days. He had been rushing around camp on his own when he wasn’t disappearing possibly underground or locking himself in his office, always having just left the last place she tried. He could only keep moving so long. She waited for him in his bedroom, hunkered on his bed in his terry cloth robe.

The front door slammed shut. “Where is she?” Selfer shouted, even though old Yoshiko had been sent home long ago. The bedroom door flew open, and Selfer bounded in as if he’d just leapt from a sinking canoe onto the beach. He looked it, too. His khaki shirt was unbuttoned and his tank top underneath sweat-soiled, his hair in his face. To her surprise he was wearing a holstered Colt—yet this suited her plan well. Afternoon light from the louvered glass window illuminated a splotch on his neck. As he came closer she saw it was a bug, so smashed she couldn’t tell what kind—probably a mosquito, yet another plague the haoles had brought to the islands, from the bilge water in their whaling ships.

“What? What are you looking at?” he said.

“One bug on your neck all slimy.”

Selfer slapped at his neck and wiped, leaving a track of red. He landed on the wicker chair nearest the bed with a great creak and a sigh. She moved to the edge of the bed closest to him, braving a reek of stale sweat and whisky. He lit a cigarette, handed her one. And then she saw it. He had needle tracks on his forearm, close to his elbow.

“Where you get those? Doctor Lansdale?”

Selfer stared at his arm as if he’d never seen veins before. He waved away the notion. “Lansdale’s no doctor. This here? Just a little something to keep me calm.”

“I can see that.”

“Look. What do you want me to say?”