"Oh, come on now, Raymond. The electricity between us-especially that first time, when you didn't tip me-it was magic."

Throw up inside my mouth.

"Oh look." She had come to the top of the stairs and was pointing at the sea. "I think I can see the yacht out beyond the reef. Imagine the fun they're having: amazing food, the best music, socializing and having a blast. But not nearly the blast you and I have been having all afternoon, my hunny-bunny-wunny."

Cardiac arrest.

"What exactly happened with us here ... LACEY?"

"Happened?"

"Uh, I mean, how long have we been in our magic pad?"

"Eight hours."

My body flinched as though ma.s.saged by a stun wand.

"But time has certainly flown. You may be three-eighths of an inch longer than Garcia, but it feels like three whole inches. Though you talk too much. Come back and do me over and over again and again."

Epileptic seizure.

Out in the lagoon, a 500-pounder with octuple beer t.i.ts was dumping the natural way. Christ, he could derail a train. Hate to imagine how much Spam went into making him.

I asked LACEY "But how did you even find me?"

"I asked Garcia to make some inquiries with Homeland Security. Lieutenant Jennifer Healey was more than happy to tell me where you were, and she even let me fly here free on a bomber headed to Guam that stopped at Bonriki Airport to refuel. I can't say I'm very happy about the global nuclear crisis, except that it's all the more reason to be marooned here with you, you, you and only you, possibly for the rest of our lives. Isn't that romantic, RayCEY?"

"RayCEY?"

"That's my couple's name for us. Half Raymond, half LACEY."

"Uh-huh. Do you have a phone?"

"A cellphone on Kiribati? Oh, you're just trying to be funny. Undertippers are always such bad jokers."

I had to escape. But how? And to where?

"Did Stuart happen to say which way the hotel was back out on the road?"

"You're not leaving me, are you?"

Good Christ, yes.

"Why would I leave a number like you?" Yet again, more cruel fate: point for point, LACEY's body was hotter than Sarah's, and yet to me, in my right mind, she was utterly unf.u.c.kable. I can see what historians mean when they tell us to learn the lessons of the past and how memory can haunt the single or the collective soul.

Wait ...

Wait ...

... Nuclear crisis.

Nuclear crisis!

"Tell me more about this nuclear crisis."

"It kind of came out of nowhere, really. Just after we took off for Guam, they closed LAX. The bomber flight crew that brought me here was really busy, but they told me a few things. There was a nuclear detonation in the Pacific, not far from Hawaii."

It was thousands of miles away, you chimp.

"And now North Korea's ten minutes from bombing South Korea. You haven't heard about any of this? It's a mess. The Americans say it was part of an idiotic scheme to get rid of the Pacific Trash Vortex, but n.o.body's buying it. And then a small bomb went off in the Azores, of all places. It's like the Hawaii of the Atlantic, but they think it might have been a Russian nuke headed for South America that got detonated because a deal to sell it went sideways."

Mrs. Peggy Nielson of Kendallville, Indiana, you certainly earned your paycheque this week. "Go on."

"So then Europe got paranoid because a nuclear reactor in Karlsruhe, Germany, melted down-a coincidence? n.o.body thinks so. And the Middle East won't let anyone in or out and, well, n.o.body's going anywhere until this thing cools down. It's like 9/11, except more James Bondy." She tried to look alluring by fluttering her eyelashes while going down on a corn nut.

I shuddered.

"It feels like fate," she said. "It feels like the universe conspired to get RayCEY together in the end."

Name-meshing: Two proper names can be used to create a portmanteau word in reference to a couple, especially in cases where both persons are well known, such as "Billary," referring to former U.S. president Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary.

An early and well-known example was supercouple "Bennifer," referring to film stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Other examples include "Brangelina" (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) and "TomKat" (the now split Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes).

Meshing a name says, "I am you and you are me," noted Denise Winterman in the August 3, 2006, issue of BBC News Magazine.

In 2009, the twins John and Edward Grimes followed the growing trend for celebrity portmanteau names when they entered the sixth series of The X-Factor (UK) under the name, "Jedward."

The whole thing is just stupid.

32.

Sometimes a person needs some time alone. While LACEY reclined in the merde-cloaked Melanesian f.u.c.k pad-a pad that rested, I noticed, atop six rusting Mobil oil drums, onto one of which was tethered a ferocious black pig that came alive only when I tripped over a nearby yellow nylon fishing net embedded in the sand and landed right in front of him.

f.u.c.k you, you oinking, amber-tusked chunk of doomed cannibal bacon, I am a free man in Paris, and I am now breaking free of this malarial c.u.mdump. Ha!

I scrambled like a crazy man for the road. Finding it was easy enough, as the island is barely 50 feet wide. On the other side of the road/island lay another coral lagoon that glowed with health. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be flecked with empty Pepsi cans, plastic water bottles and the cardboard remains of Swanson TV dinners. More artery-clogging s.h.i.t American food.

I could see the ghetto of Betio to the west, maybe a mile away.

I remembered Neal blathering earlier that the island was basically 25 miles of nodules linked by a long, thin path that at times became road-like. Well, at least I wasn't in handcuffs and/or a prison cell. Small blessings. I was, however, at least 20 miles away from the hotel.

Two stray dogs growled at me amid the swath of roadside litter. I growled back. They growled louder. f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, all I needed now was to be attacked by dogs. I decided to ignore them and, thank Christ, they decided the same.

My sunburned scalp was stinging like mad. I removed my Cure T-shirt, put it over my head and tied its corners together into a square that fit snugly on my cranium. Yes, I looked just like a Gumby from Monty Python, but the sun was like X-rays.

Gumbys are recurring characters in Monty Python's Flying Circus. They have toothbrush moustaches and wear handkerchiefs knotted at the corners on their heads, wire-rimmed spectacles, braces, Fair Isle knitted sweater vests, a shirt rolled up to the elbows, missing its detachable collar, trousers rolled up above their knees and Wellington boots. They usually hold their arms in an ape-like position, speak loudly and slowly, and p.r.o.nounce words syllable by syllable. A popular Gumby catchphrase is "My brain hurts!"

Where next? The hotel. Right. Two teenage girls approached carrying bundles of laundry.

I decided to lay on some Gunt charm. "Loves, can you tell me where I might find the main hotel around here?"

They stared at me in shock and began to shriek, "Vakubati! Vakubati!" They ran away from me.

Vakubati? What the f.u.c.k?

"Hey, come on-all I want is directions to the f.u.c.king hotel," I yelled, but they were gone.

From the direction of the pig, I heard LACEY calling, "RayCEY! RayCEY? Where are you, hunny-bunny?"

What would Jason Bourne do?

He would steal a car.

Where is a car to steal?

A car approached.

It was a 1986 Chrysler LeBaron, more oxide than metal, with its rear seat removed to make room for chicken hutches. Its front vinyl seats were, like most plastics on this island, disintegrating in the relentlessly destructive sun.

I waved frantically and the car pulled over. I began talking to the driver as I opened the door. "h.e.l.lo. I just need a lift to my hotel. If you like, I can pay you, but I really can't stay here much longer. I'm being followed by a woman with Bunuel's syndrome." By then, I was seated. "Chop-chop. Let's go," I said, then noticed the man behind the wheel: the driver we had left for dead. Mother of f.u.c.king G.o.d.

Dear The G.o.ds, What the f.u.c.k is wrong with you?

Yours, Raymond Gunt I launched a charm offensive. "Why, h.e.l.lo, good sir! It's you! How are you feeling?"

"Okay, mon. I'm good."

"It seems people on these delightful islands have a culture of forgiveness and peace," I responded awkwardly.

"Whatever you say. Next hotel is one hour away. I don't charge you, but instead you buy one of my fine hens."

"Delightful idea. Let's get going."

"Delicious hens. Nuclear fallout makes them extra-delicious."

"Doesn't it, though!"

As the driver stepped on the gas, I caught a glimpse in the side mirror of LACEY emerging from a cl.u.s.ter of sea grape leaves with a puzzled expression on her face. She was clutching her plastic tote bag of corn nuts.

"So," I said, "I take it you're feeling better after this morning's tiny b.u.mp?"

"b.u.mp? I no get b.u.mp. I pa.s.s out in shrub from drinking too much ceremonial tak-tak. Not really remember much before that. I need to limit the amount of tak-tak I drink these days."

"Well, don't we all, don't we all!"

Dear The G.o.ds, I take all that back.

Yours, Raymond Gunt We drove for a few miles or so. Lagoons. Litter. Stray dogs. Chickens in the back seat trying to peck my kidneys. I struggled to remember the name of the hotel Sarah had mentioned. The Douchewater? The Double-a.n.a.l? The Deet?

"Say, driver, have you heard of a hotel called the DEET?"

"Ah. The Deet. Nice place. Deet a proud part of island heritage. Hotel named to honour the mighty Deet."

"Really now!" I expected to hear lurid tales of Marilyn Monroe circa 1958 s.h.a.gging pretty much everyone alive in a popper-scented sling room in a rear bungalow. Or, maybe an international peace armistice signed behind the shed where they slaughter goats.

"DEET be a good chemical. It kills insects fast."

What is he babbling about?

"No more mosquitoes and many fewer flies. DEET be the chemical of progress."

Oh ... he meant DDT.

"Children on island no so bright as before we use DEET, but they no die from malaria. You want snack cake?" He held out a vile, crumbling yellow rhomboid on which a fly was actively laying eggs.

I was starving, and calculated that fly eggs must contain at least a bit of protein. "Actually, yes."

We drove for miles while I digested his tasty offering. I became chatty. "Quite a thing, this nuclear war, isn't it?"

"We used to nuclear war here in Kiribati. Nuclear war invented on our gracious islands."

Uh-oh. I felt a politically correct moment coming on-you know, having to make the empathetic face and show solidarity for these Spam-eating bozos kicked out of their gra.s.s huts when the Yanks or the Frogs did their H-bomb tests in the fifties. "Oh, really?"

"Yes. Most of the people on this island are atomic refugees of some sort."

Borrrrrrrrrrrrrrring.

"Our home islands too full of green glow to go back to."

I hate political correctness. One moment you're at the pub making a few biff jokes with some mates, and next thing you know, you're on trial for throwing an empty lager can at the village lesbian.

"We live a simple life here."

Will this bloke's plea for pity ever end?

"Rice. Delicious tinned food from Fiji and Australia. Satellite television. I like Detroit Pistons basketball team."

"Say, driver, there's a local word I'm wondering the meaning of. Maybe you can help me."

"My English be s.h.i.t."