My Kind of Town
The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday Digest>> Cartwright Field
The biggest crowd control concern for HPD Officer Quinn Ah Sun is quickly becoming the Makule League softball players. The senior citizens in their bright uniforms are "pretty darn teed off!" that their game is postponed due to a state senator's car lying upside down on the first base line. The Rego's Backhoe coach vigorously suggests calling any ball that hits the car out of play and waiving the must-run-in-the-baseline rule for this one game only."No," Quinn says quietly but absolutely. Rego's coach just nods. One of the world's shortest arguments. Quinn the 6-foot-3 weightlifter wins a lot of those. So the Makule League guys break out their folding chairs, coolers and pupus early.
Quinn can't see anything through the tinted windows and hasn't gotten to first base in his efforts to learn who's inside the senator's car. But when firefighters with the Amkus tool, better known as the Jaws of Life, cut open the passenger door, acrid smoke pours out.
"Ice," Quinn says, covering his nose with one hand and waving away crystal methamphetamine smoke with the other as he peers inside.
A young local woman lies unconscious on the roof, bleeding and naked. She is the lone occupant. No sign of the senator, the Democrats' great hope in next year's gubernatorial election.
Paramedics go to work on her immediately.
"How'd she get his keys?" Quinn says to nobody in particular. And where are her clothes? Where is the senator? And might this be the next first lady?
>> Honolulu Soap Co.
Lily's office phone rings with a single tone -- an inter-office call."Oh, Lily, I'm glad you're in." Her father. "If you have a couple of minutes..."
"Of course."
"I'll be right there."
"Wonderful!" Lily says.
But she isn't at all sure that it will be.
In her heart, which is now revving with a fuel-injected mix of adrenaline, hope and dread, she believes she is most qualified to assume control of the Honolulu Soap Co. now that her father is talking retirement. She's proven that she knows how to run a business from the way she's built up Ola Essences. She's the best thing for the parent company too.
Yes, her brother Laird is about to graduate from Stanford Business. And yes, one day he is going to be a businessman. But right now all he knows is books and theories. He doesn't know about the real world. But Lily does. She is a business woman. She's been a business woman for years. And have you checked the bottom line lately?
>> Eden Off Kuhio
Lance Ah Sun agonizes about his conflicted feelings for over an hour after Greg goes off to his practice. Lance just wants to live and love openly. And yet he lives with the fear of being found out, emphasis on out. Greg wants Lance to join him in a demonstration at the Capitol in support of the hate crimes bill. And Lance, though he hates politics, wants to make Greg happy.But they expect a big confrontation with the Gabbardites. So the media will be there.
Wouldn't that be a fine way for his parents to find out that he's gay, seeing it in full color on the front page of the Star-Bulletin?
>> Honolulu Soap Co. parking lot
The first time Mickey saw a book or a crayon was when the social worker registered him for kindergarten at Waikiki Elementary -- a year late. Strict as the teachers were, they were still the nicest people he ever met. But then every day he went home and was told he was stupid and to blame for every one of his parents' problems in life. He heard "I hate you" every night the way some kids hear "Sleep tight." The best teacher couldn't overcome that.Mickey turned out exactly the way his parents raised him. So he knows how to express hatred. And the thought of expressing his hatred excites him.
Putting the faded gray sedan into gear, he smiles darkly to himself because now he knows where the babe who drives the teal Beamer that is parked in a space reserved for "Lily" works and where she lives.
What he doesn't know as he pulls onto Democrat Street is that the black SUV with tinted windows in his rearview mirror carries three big guys on a traditional aufoga. For them it is a matter of family honor and justice. And Mickey doesn't know how close he is to trouble.
>> Tomorrow: Romantic distractions
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com