My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Card No. 2
Lily Ah Sun had to smile. Her cousin Quinn was so polite, he even said thank you to Verizon's computerized voice that gave him the phone number for Tony Martinez. Somebody had raised him right. She wondered where it came from -- his mother had left when Quinn was 11.
Quinn dialed the number, handed her the phone. "You talk."
An answering machine picked up after the fourth ring and Lily heard the opening bars of Mauka Showers' seasonal hit "I'm Working On My Buddhahood This Christmas."
Mauka Showers, of course, being Tony Martinez and an ever-changing cast of musicians. Not an easy guy to work for, she'd heard. And then the dulcet tones of Tony himself saying he couldn't come to the phone, please leave a message, especially if you had a booking.
"Mr. Martinez, this is Lily Ah Sun. I'm a big fan of your music, but that's not why I'm calling. It's about my uncle, Bobo Ah Sun. I know you were friends and ..."
"Bobo? That son of a gun! He's back in town?"
"Not that I know of."
And Lily explained how, in researching the Ah Sun family history at the State library newspaper archives, she'd come upon a Police Beat item from 21 years ago about Tony filing a missing person report for Bobo.
"Right, but then the postcards came and that was the end of that."
"Postcards? I read about the one to Donnelly."
"Right. And I got one too."
Lily tilted the phone away from her ear, motioned for Quinn to come closer and listen too, and they were forced to press their bodies together from cheek to thigh.
"Mr. Martinez, my cousin Quinn is here, we're sharing the phone. So what about this second postcard?"
"Yeah, came the same time Donnelly had the item in his column."
"Also from Miami?"
"Right. Bobo said he appreciated my concern, but partly because of some gambling debts and mostly because he'd met a rich wahine from Brazil who wanted him to run away with her, he'd quit the gig singing on a cruise ship but didn't want anybody to know because he planned to just disappear."
"Like that Filipino guy was in the news a while back," Quinn said. "Joined the Army, went AWOL, married a country girl in Georgia, lived there 30 years, his family never heard from him until he went to apply for veterans benefits and got arrested."
"Whatever. I figured Bobo got himself a gravy deal, eh, good for him."
"And that was it? The last time you heard from him?"
"Yeah -- more so I'm glad I saved it."
"Mr. Martinez, would you mind if I came over? I'd like to see your card."
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