“My compliments to the big guy,” he said. “Sorry it ain’t more.”

“Things are tight all over, Slim Jim,” said Tui as he beamed and slapped a huge meaty paw on the white man’s shoulder.

They climbed through the gap in the ramshackle wall, entering a small wrecker’s yard on the other side. Tui slid the iron sheet back into place and picked up the shotgun he’d placed by the entrance.

“You see any of the action at Midway?” asked Tui as they walked through the yard to the office.

“My friend, I was up to here in it,” said Davidson, tapping his chin with the back of his hand. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Is it true what they’re saying about these visitors?”

“Depends what they’re saying, brother.”

Tui’s glance was almost furtive, like he thought they were under surveillance.

“That they’re from the future, and they’ve got death rays and super-rockets and they take their women with them when they fight.”

Slim Jim laughed.

“That’s closer than I thought you’d get. Yeah. I’ve met them, been on one of their ships. I’ll tell you about it when we meet Big Itchy, but you ain’t gonna believe a word of it.”

“And the women. I heard they got women of all colors with them.”

“Damn, boy, you are well informed. Yeah, they do, but here’s the hell of it. The dames aren’t just traveling pieces of ass. The ship I was on? The captain was a nigger woman. And the officers had black dames and Asians. Mexicans, too. I tell you, it turns a man’s head. God only knows how they keep out of the sack when they’re supposed to be working.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Not a word of it, brother. I brought some stuff. You’ll see.”

“The captain was a nigger you say,” mused Tui. “She the one got plugged on the beach, d’you think, with the Jap guy? Maybe the Klan did it. There’s a lot of southern boys on the island at the moment.”

Slim Jim shrugged. In the last twenty-four hours he’d heard about forty-three different versions of what had happened to Captain Anderson. It wasn’t his problem, so he didn’t care. They arrived at the office, a creaking timber cabin with threadbare towels hung for curtains in the broken windows. Tui pulled up to a full stop.

In contrast to the state of the yard, the interior of the cabin was uncluttered, clean, and comfortable. It was spacious, seeming larger on the inside than it should be. In fact the cabin jutted a few yards into the adjoining property, a lumberyard, which also formed part of Big Itchy’s fiefdom.