My Kind of Town
Vol. 1: The Honolulu Soap Co.
>>Wilder Avenue at Clement, Metcalf and Farrington Come together,
right nowThe driver of the black SUV was looking for gasoline, coffee and a bathroom, not necessarily in that order.
The Arco/7-Eleven provided all of those.
As well as the guy his niece Kimmee had identified only as Mickey.
"That's him, the grey sedan!"
"Cuz!" his cousin in the passenger seat said. "Good eyes!" Kimmee was his daughter.
The driver was willing to risk an illegal U-turn. They were on a mission.
Lily Ah Sun had long ago forgotten about the flashing blue light. She was drawn into the big cop's brown hapa eyes and felt her insides doing flips and skips.
And then to find out he was her long-lost cousin Quinn!
She shrugged. It wasn't her fault, or his, that it had been 21 years since they'd seen one another. That's not an easy thing for first cousins to do on an island as small as Oahu. But because of the feud between their fathers, they had accomplished it.
And now Lily smiled. She couldn't believe how tall and handsome and muscular her cousin was, especially in that blue uniform with the tight pants and high boots.
Lily and Quinn, first cousins born exactly one month apart, were raised practically as siblings until they were 6. That's when their fathers, the brothers Ah Sun, Shitsuru and Mitsuru, had quit speaking 21 years ago. So did their families. Lily grew up in Kailua, Quinn in Pearl City, just 30 minutes apart if you were driving over Likelike in the days before H-3.
But the truest measure was in years apart.
"Long time," Lily said. "You sure grew up."
"You too."
The driver of the faded gray sedan that had followed Lily and the cop off the H-1 watched as he appeared to check the air pressure of his car's tires. He saw that look in the babe in the Beamer's eye as she looked up at the cop. And he saw something there he desired. Of course, he had desired her since he'd seen her jogging yesterday and tailed her. He'd lost her later at a light on Dillingham. But he knew where she lived.
Today he would find out where she worked.
>>Tomorrow: Catching up, waking up
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the
Star-Bulletin.
Send E-mail to dchapman@midweek.com.