My Kind of Town
>> Portlock Let’s make a deal
Mickey was reclining on the unmade bed in the master bedroom and had just taken a puff on his ice pipe when he heard the screen door slide open in the back of the house. He'd heard that sound before, when he was in the kitchen, and he'd almost had a chance to jump the Filipina maid until a phone rang in the cottage in back of the big house and a kid's voice called out to her. This had to be the maid again. He could hear her approaching in the hall. Mickey jumped down from the bed, grabbed the bottle of red wine off the night table and hurried into the master bathroom.
>> That smell again! What was it doing in the hallway to Miss Lily's bedroom? Rosalita Resurreccion had smelled it earlier when she was outside checking on the sheets, which she was now hurrying to put on her employer's bed before she got home. Rosalita knew that smell too well. Batu. After her husband Jesus drowned when a ferry sank between Zamboanga and Cebu, Rosalita was desperate -- how could she support her daughter Elizabeth? So on a friend's advice, she made her way up to Angeles City, where she was hired as a hostess at the VooDoo Bar. But Rosalita wouldn't even talk with the customers let alone have sex with them, and after a week the papa-san fired her. Some of the girls, especially the dancers, smoked batu to keep up. Bad stuff, Rosalita could see, it made them crazy. But it couldn't be batu in Miss Lily's home. Her nose must be playing tricks on her again.
>> Makiki Heights
It happened so often, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka was never surprised to meet people who'd known his late father.
"Mr. Matsuda was a great man," HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes said. "I owe him everything. I'm just glad he's not here to see you now." The Democrats' best hope in 2002 was a sight, huddled in an oversize chair, obviously drunk, loaded on ice. Disheveled, matted hair, dull red eyes highlighting the dark circles under them. Hugging himself as his right foot jiggled a hundred miles an hour. "But I know what your father would have done, and I'm going to do it for him."
"What's that?"
"I'm going to give you one more chance, senator. But only one."
Sen. Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka let out a loud sigh, started to smile. "Thank you."
"Not so fast. I didn't say you're getting off. No no no. We're making a deal, senator, you and me."
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com