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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Their Rodham Rights
>> Kona
"Drop it!" barked Nick Ornellas, the former Honolulu cop who these days was selling "a piece of the rock" in Kona, pointing a Glock 9mm pistol at Cruz MacKenzie's two new acquaintances, two large Polynesian gentlemen, one of whom held his LapFlex computer.
Cruz dropped the money clip he was about to hand over. It hit the ground an instant before the LapFlex computer and it crashed against the blacktop, chips and wires exploding across the parking lot.
"Jeez! Not you, you fricking idiot! And not you either, MacKenzie. You! Drop the blade, now!"
Machete Man raised the big blade.
Ornellas aimed the Glock at Machete Man's chest.
The blade clattered to the pavement.
"Hands up against that van, boys. And don't do anything sudden, I haven't blown anybody away for a couple years now and my finger is twitchy." He said it with a wry grin.
Cruz believed him. Apparently the other two guys did, too. They pressed their hands against the side of the van.
"MacKenzie, here's my cell, call 911."
"You must be Ornellas." Cruz retrieved the money clip with one hand, reached for the phone with the other.
He smiled vaguely. "Good guess."
"Once a cop, always a cop?"
"You got it. I still bleed blue."
Cruz punched in the emergency number. "We have, uh, a situation, an armed robbery, attempted armed robbery, and somebody is holding the two suspects, uh, not suspects, they did it, I saw it and ..."
"Sheesh. Gimme the phone, MacKenzie."
"Who's this?... Gracie, this is Nick. Yeah, long time. Sure, sure, I'd like that, too. But listen, we got a 601 at Dorian's. Can you give me a hand?"
As Ornellas turned to place the phone back on his belt, Machete Man spun away from the van and threw a round-house punch at Ornellas. In his sportswriter incarnation, Cruz had covered both Ali and Sugar Ray fights, and neither of them ever threw a punch quicker or more devastating than the backhand pistol whip that Ornellas unleashed. It caught Machete Man flush, from the temple down across the cheek, nose and lips. He dropped as the sound of a siren sped nearer, his blood splattering on computer parts. A squad car screeched into the parking lot with it blue-light spinning and a young Hawaiian cop bounced out, pistol drawn.
"Watch it, Keahi, they're both wired to the gills." Ornellas said to the cop. He added with a shrug, "Uh, this one took a spill." A second cop car pulled up.
"We'll be inside," Ornellas said as the cops handcuffed the pair and read them their Rodham Rights: "You don't have to say anything. We understand that society has failed you ..." and so forth.
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com
