My Kind of Town
>> Portlock G-L-O-R-I-A!
The black SUV pulled over and parked in the shade of a banyan tree as the faded gray sedan cruised the block of posh homes. Red tail lights flared as the driver slowed to check out a home on the ocean side, then continued down the street and disappeared around a slight bend in the road.
"You going let him get away!" said Seth in the passenger seat. Seth's 16-year-old daughter Kimmee had been ripped off by the sedan's driver in a drug deal -- the drugs never materialized. That's why they were on this traditional vigilante aufoga. Why clog up the courts any more?
"No way, Cuz," said Tai, the driver. "Dead end up there. Da kine, cul de sac. We got him."
Moments later the gray sedan reappeared, once again cruising the block and slowing to look at a particular ocean-side home.
"So what you think, this guy Mickey is shopping for real estate?" said Wili, the big guy in the back, with a raucous laugh. "I don't think so, Brah!"
Tai -- Wili's brother, Seth's cousin -- kept the engine idling, ready to whip a U-turn if the sedan tried to run. Instead, the piece-of-bleep car stopped on the other side of the street, just 30 yards down from the SUV.
"We can hit him now," Wili said.
Then they could go home and see how Seth's wife and the pastor were doing with Kimmee.
"Nah, this is getting too interesting," said Tai. "I think you're right, Wili. That's gotta be the home of the chick in the teal Beamer he's been tailing. Let's see what he's up to."
Mickey slowly pulled himself from the sedan. In his early 30s, he wore black surf shorts that hung low to show off the tops of his BVDs and a navy "Eh!" T-shirt cut short to show off his stretch-marked beer gut.
"So what you think this guy is?" Tai said.
"Ethnic?" said Seth.
"Mm."
"Mongrel punk," said Wili.
>> Across the long-distance line, her late husband Jesus' cousin Muhammed Resurreccion sounded as happy as Rosalita was that they would be seeing each other again in just a few days.
Then she had a thought. "You're going to be here the same time as Gloria!"
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the new president of the Philippines, was coming to Honolulu for the meeting of the Pacific Rim Inter-Defense Coalition.
"Really?" Muhammed said. But of course he knew the leader of the Philippines would be in Hawaii. That was always his plan.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com