Tuck is a jet pilot who kills his career when he gets loaded and crashes the company jet while having sex with a prostitute. Desperate for work, Tuck takes a job as a pilot for a Pacific island-based medical charity.
The charity is run by a doctor and his nurse/wife. But it doesn't take Tuck long to figure out that these two are up to something unsavory. Like how can a small, local charity afford a Learjet? What is in the coolers that they transport via the jet to Japan? Something that is so special that the wife guards it with a gun.
Eventually Tuck figures out that the two Westerners are taking advantage of the natives' cargo cult and are using it to bamboozle the islanders into becoming organ donors and that the people don't really understand how they are being used. It all comes to a head for Tuck when he realizes the doctor removed the corneas of a little boy for transport to Japan and they justified it to him by claiming the boy was already blind and didn't need his corneas. He also realizes it is up to him to put a stop to their organ-harvesting operation.
This was a very amusing story and it has lots of funny moments. For example, two native men are talking about a People Magazine and what the one who could read is sharing from it:
"'But look!" Malink pointed to a picture of a man with unnaturally large ears, "This man is a king and he wishes to be a tampon. It is quoted."
Sarapul scrunched up his face . . . while he tried to figure out what, exactly, a tampon was. Finally he said, "I was a tampon once, back in the old days, before you were born. All warriors became tampons. It was better then."
"You have never been a tampon," Malink stated, although he couldn't be sure. "Only a king may be a tampon."'
This too, when Tuck gets grabbed by the locals and tied up:
'The native said something in his own language, which Tuck took to be "Cut him down," because a second later he found himself falling into the arms of four strong islanders who lowered him to the ground.
Tucker's arms and legs burned as the blood rushed back into them. Above him he saw a circle of moonlit brown faces. He managed to grab enough breath to squeak, "Soon as I'm on my feet, your asses are mine. You all might as well just go practice falling down for a while so you'll be used to it. Just order the body bags now 'cause when I'm done, you're going to look like piles of chocolate pudding. They'll be cleaning you up with shovels—you . . . " Tuck's breath caught in his throat and he passed out.
"Malink looked at his old friend Favo and smiled. "Excellent threat," he said.
"Most excellent threat," Favo said.
Sarapul pushed his way through the kneeling men. "He's dead. Let's eat him."
"He no like that," Kimi said. "Not even for free."'
And here, a reporter is musing on his job:
'The notes read: "They caught the pig thief. Now what?"
You could run down leads, pound the pavement, check all your facts with two sources, then structure your meticulously gathered information into the inverted pyramid form and what you got was: The pig's owner had gotten drunk and beat up his wife, so she sold his pig to someone on the outer islands and bought a used stun gun . . . The next time her husband got rough, a group of Japanese tourists found him by the side of the road, sizzling in the dirt like a strip of frying bacon. Mistaking him for a street performer, the tourists clapped joyously, took pictures of each other standing beside the electrocuted man, and gave his wife five dollars. The whole intrigue had been exposed when police found the pig-stealing wife in front of the Continental Hotel charging tourists a dollar apiece to watch her zap her husband's twitching supine body. The stun gun was confiscated, no charges were pressed, and the wife beater was pronounced unharmed by a Peace Corps volunteer, although he did need to be reminded several times of his name, where he lived, and how many children he had.'
It's a funny story, even if the subject matter is rather horrible and very sad.
Here is a review of the story by Kirkus Reviews.
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