My Kind of Town
>> Ala Moana Beach Park Incentives
Wearing a mask and shotgun snorkel, standing in shoulder-deep water where the beach curves toward Magic Island, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka watched HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes wade out into waist-high water, just 25 yards away. An easy shot. Gomes pulled on a pair of goggles and suddenly dove into the water, and started thrashing around so much it looked like an entire classroom of fourth-graders in a water fight. Gomes couldn't swim. Donovan moved in for the kill.
Shotgun snorkel really was the right term. An aficionado of blowguns, Donovan and turned his snorkel into a double-barrel blowgun, armed with two tiny steel-tip darts he'd soaked overnight in poison. Soon after he was hit by a dart, Gomes' muscles would stiffen, he'd go into convulsions. If Gomes didn't drown, the poison would kill him. Gomes had to go. If not, he would tell Donovan's girlfriend, Dr. Laurie Tang, that Donovan had fathered the child in the young woman who crashed Donovan's car off the Keeaumoku Overpass yesterday. Gomes was also the guy who busted Donovan at Serena's last night smoking ice.
Gomes came thrashing and flailing up out of the water, standing in waist-deep water, gasping for breath.
Appearing to adjust his snorkel, Donovan tipped his head toward Gomes, checked his aim, inhaled deeply through his nose and held the breath for a moment.
>> This was freaking ridiculous. Sherlock Gomes had watched Dr. Laurie Tang swim away so gracefully. But when he tried it, he sank like a chunk of lava. Damn. Gomes wanted to enter a triathlon, was a good runner and strong on the bike, but whoop-dee-damn-doo if you can't swim.
He was determined though. By the time Dr. Tang got back from her swim to the other end and back, Gomes wanted to at least appear comfortable in the water. Looking like a foolish klutz is no way to go into an interview in a criminal case. He suddenly plunged back into the water, unaware that a strychnine-laced dart had missed the back of his neck by two inches. The tiny dart barely made a ripple as it landed in water no thicker than pie crust and buried in the sand.
>> Dr. Laurie Tang was feeling strong in the water this morning. Actually, she knew she was just blowing out stress like TheBus blowing smoke. Stress is what happens when a pregnant girl crashes your boyfriend's car, and when an HPD detective wants to talk to you about it. But at least Sherlock Gomes would be fun to look at without a shirt. The guy was lean and buff. Laurie swam a little faster.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com