My Kind of Town
>> Punchbowl Street Crooks at the Capitol?
Lily Ah Sun and her younger brother Laird had just exited her teal BMW and Lily was feeding the parking meter so they'd have an hour for research at the State Library when they heard tires screeching pavement, then metal crushing metal.
Lily and Laird looked up, and behind them in the intersection with Beretania saw a van lying on its side and one, two ... five guys altogether scrambling out of the van's back window. They wore street clothes but their hands were cuffed.
The five glanced around, took off running toward the State Capitol. None looked like recent residents back for a reunion. As they ran they fanned out. Two big guys with wild hair angled directly at Lily and Laird.
"Oh s---!" they said in that delightful harmony heard only from siblings.
"Get in the car, you're driving us!" said a heavily tattooed con who's eyes were wilder than his hair.
"You gotta be kidding!" Lily said and kicked him hard in the shins and punched his nose.
The con yelped.
"Let's go, Laird!" She turned and ran back toward the intersection, where she saw a familiar green 1971 Barracuda.
But Lance followed the two escapees as they dashed through traffic on Punchbowl, heading toward City Hall. Looking, perhaps, for kindred spirits.
>> Myrtle Agena, driver of TheBus No. 688, froze when saw the van two lanes to her left get hit and knocked on its side. But the moment that the first guy in handcuffs emerged through the back window, she stomped the accelerator and sped across Punchbowl, wanting only to get her precious cargo of people away from danger. Later, Myrtle would be honored for her quick-thinking and decisive action. It would not be her only commendation of the day.
>> Swearing softly so God might not hear, HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes accelerated his Barracuda around TheBus he'd been following from 16th and Pahoa as it pulled away. He had no choice but to let it go. Gomes called dispatch, asked them to get a message to the driver of TheBus 688, route 1.
He wanted to be notified when a woman wearing black jeans and black T-shirt carrying a large, desert camouflage backpack got off. The Barracuda jumped the curb and took off across the Capitol lawn in pursuit of three of the escaping cons.
>> In the back of TheBus, Kate watched with relief as the green car that had been following her chased three men across the lawn. Two seats ahead, a young mother tried to calm her crying baby. Kate understood. Her new family in the backpack was crying to go home and meet the rest of the clan back in Kaimuki.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com