My Kind of Town
>> Aftershocks The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digestMuhammed Resurreccion's flower bomb attack on Pearl Harbor sent ripples surging far beyond the high tide mark.
>> In the Queen's ER, which received the worst injured, Dr. Laurie Tang couldn't help glancing at the clock as she worked on the broken wrist suffered by the pilot of boat No. 13. Laurie was supposed to be leaving now to go home and start dinner and pick up her condo. Including the bedroom. Sherlock Gomes was coming over.
>> In his room at Queen's, Quinn Ah Sun watched a tape of the attack on the Channel 2 news with off-duty nurse Nina Ramones. He saw his pop, Mits, an HPD sergeant, helping MPs escort a suspect into a Navy van. And he felt proud. But he also felt something that totally changed his desire for Nina.
"I'm getting kind of sleepy," he said honestly.
When Nina closed the door behind her, Quinn breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't know why, but when he heard that Hawaii had been attacked, his first impulse was that he needed to see his cousin Lily.
>> Watching the news in her comatose brother Lance's room, Lily Ah Sun felt tears gathering. Her heart ached for Quinn. But how could she go back to him after what she saw?
>> Some women might have been angry that they'd been lied to. But not a woman as patriotic as Fawn Nakamura.
When Chuck Ryan phoned her to say he was sorry, but he couldn't make dinner tonight, his client was taking longer than expected, Fawn said, "I know. I saw it on TV."
There was a long silence. "Chuck?"
"I have a confession."
"I'm not a priest," she teased.
"There's a reason I didn't tell you the truth."
"You were doing your job."
"Now that you know the truth, I wouldn't blame you if you changed your mind."
"You're kidding, right?" She was starting to fall in love with him before. And now, knowing that he was the man who caught the terrorist, the starting part of falling in love was in the past. "I respect you so much, Chuck. I'd be proud to be the one you want."
"I do." It would not be the last time he'd say those words.
>> Queen's Medical Center
Lily punched the button for Quinn's floor. He had questions and she owed him answers.
>>Makiki Heights
Machiavelli Wang hated thinking the media knew anything he didn't, but here he was checking the address printed in a Star-Bulletin story against the address on a mailbox.
Machiavelli walked down a steep driveway to a shaded bungalow. So this was where Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka disappeared to. The senator had been AWOL in the last days of the session. Thanks, however, to the mayor's sudden change of plans, the senator was back in the race for governor. As Machiavelli stepped inside the carport, a door to the cottage opened.
A semblance of the senator stepped outside carrying a blowgun.
>> H-1, Kokohead-bound
Sheets Ah Sun, en route to Queen's, punched the Cadillac's radio button. He heard local news, but his mind was elsewhere, on his son Laird's graduation from Stanford Business. He'd be flying out in two days. But then the magic words "illegal chemical dump site in Waimanalo" leaped from the radio and slapped Sheets back into the moment. HPD and Department of Health officials said they were pleased with the evidence already recovered.
If they'd found them, wouldn't the officials, anxious to show progress, have mentioned human remains or an old .38?
>> Queen's Medical Center
The average guy, when his wife or girlfriend is mad at him, doesn't have a clue about what set her off. Often it's just because he wasn't paying attention.
But Quinn Ah Sun really didn't know why Lily was so angry. And he didn't care. All he knew is he wanted Lily back in his life and was willing to apologize for just about anything. Just then, Quinn heard a knock at his door.
"Hey, cousin," Lily said, entering. "You had questions for me?"
"Lily, I don't know what the hell I did to get you so angry, but I'm sorry.
"All I know is that just before the painkillers knocked me out, you were going to search the library newspaper archives for references to the Ah Suns."
"Quinn, how can you not remember me throwing the papers at you?" His baffled look told her everything.
"You really were still knocked out, weren't you?" And suddenly, there was only clothing between them.
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