My Kind of Town
Dropping everything
>> State Capitol
Carrying a paper bag of personal effects, it took a while for Grace Ah Sun to get from the fourth-floor office of Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka down to the basement parking garage. She'd worked at the Capitol for years and everyone she saw wanted to ask how she was doing -- and ask what she'd be doing now that the senator was behind bars and apparently would be for some time. Oh, Grace replied, she was sure something would come along. Everyone said what a valuable person Grace would be for any employer and wished her well, and to themselves thought that with all of the illegal stuff that goes on at the Capitol it could have been them. There but for the grace of God ...
When Grace at last reached the Volvo and placed her bag in the trunk, she decided to leave the car there and walk across the street to Queen's to visit her son Lance. The circular parking structure at Queen's made her dizzy. And she was already half-dizzy from the dinner invitation she'd just received from the former president who was in town to stump for the Democrats.
Walking up the ramp, Grace was lost in wondering what she should wear. Really, she needed to go shopping this afternoon. One didn't wear old clothes to dinner with the president, did one? Well, Grace Ah Sun would not.
Catching a break in traffic on Punchbowl, Grace was hurrying through the crosswalk when her cell phone chirped the opening chords of "Hanalei Moon." She waited to reach the sidewalk safely before answering. And it was HIM.
"Oh, Mr. President!"
She listened as the man from Arkansas explained that there had been a change in plans, and might it be possible for her to drop by the Presidential Suite at the Hilton for lunch. Just the two of them. He had some things he wanted to discuss.
"Oh, my, well ..." Grace said, flustered, thrown off by the change in plans. But how do you say no to the president? "Well, of course, that would be lovely."
"Looking forward to it, Grace," the ex-president drawled softly. She wasn't the first person who'd dropped everything for the president. The question was what else she'd be dropping after lunch.
>> Waialae Avenue at 4th
HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes had seen a half dozen TheBuses go by. The woman dressed in black and carrying a large desert camouflage backpack didn't get off any of them. He couldn't wait forever. Watching TheBus 322 smoking up the hill, Gomes made a note to call Kona Weathers and ask him to keep an eye out. Chaminade was just a block away after all.
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