My Kind of Town
>> Portlock Time for a drink
Mickey was amazed at how many times he'd just walked up to a door, tried it and it opened. Dumb people who were supposed to be smart enough to afford expensive homes made his life so much easier. It had just happened again.
And now his heart was racing with excitement, not to mention the drugs. He patted his pocket, felt the pipe and lighter. Patted the other pocket, felt the .22 pistol. As far as he could tell, the babe in the teal Beamer who lived here lived alone. He hadn't seen any other cars or people.
But first he wanted something to drink. He was ready to get this party started.
>> Honolulu Iron Works
Waiting for his lunch -- and for Lily, Shauny and Fawn to get cleaned up after their workout -- Lt. Col. Chuck Ryan sat at the corner of the bar, sipping ice tea. He dialed the office on his encrypted secure line cell.
"What's the word from San Miguel?" Their contact's code name.
"It's a go," Sheila Jackson replied. "Airline reservations have been made. We're tracing the source of funds. The last stop was Indonesia, but who knows where it started."
"And on this end?"
"Our friend has been very quiet. Trying to rouse her as we speak."
"Sooner the better."
There was all kinds of intelligence, but nothing beat the human kind. And they had two very good ones,one on each side of the operation.
Unless something had happened to the one on this end. Code name Sandy. Once the plane was off the ground, she would be the most important.
>> Makiki Heights
At his unofficial campaign headquarters -- the hillside hideaway he kept for Serena, paid for with the help of campaign funds -- Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka was up, he was down. A puff on the ice pipe to get up. A puff on the pakalolo pipe to even things out. Now he was thirsty. But the fridge was empty. Not one beer. Oh yeah, they'd drunk them all last night.
"Serena?" Then he remembered. They'd fought because she was pregnant and didn't want to have an abortion, and she hadn't been there when he awoke this morning. "Damn."
He wasn't up to facing the world, so he called The Grocery Boy shopping service. It wasn't until he heard a knock on the door 30 minutes later and went out to pay the kid for a case of Bud longnecks that the senator noticed his canary yellow Town Car was missing. And Serena didn't know how to drive.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com