My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Where’s your Mama?
Grace Ah Sun instinctively reached for her husband Sheets' hand as they sat down across the desk from ER social worker Lin Matsuo. The same hand that caressed her so knowingly when they had made love barely over an hour ago. And Grace thought she would glow for days, but then she returned a call from Queen's, and here they were.
"So what happened to Lance and how is he?" Grace blurted, unable to muzzle her questions any longer.
"He fell and suffered trauma to the back of the head," Mrs. Matsuo said. "He is currently listed in critical condition."
Grace slumped against her husband.
"But the good news is that his condition has stabilized."
>> Portlock
Lily Ah Sun handed a Popsicle to Elizabeth and then put the box in the freezer compartment of the little refrigerator in her maid's cottage.
"You'd better eat that in a hurry," Lily's cousin Quinn said. "It's starting to melt already."
Indeed, the 6-year-old girl slurped the Popsicle as much as ate it.
Lily felt Elizabeth's forehead. "You still have a fever, Sweetie. Better go lie down on the couch some more."
The little girl dutifully obeyed. What a great kid, Lily thought. Yes, she was her maid's daughter, but she was the only child in Lily's life, and Lily was starting to love her like family. She knew Rosalita was grateful for the opportunity to leave the Philippines and work in Hawaii, but Lily was grateful to be around a little girl.
"So where's your Mama?"
"She went to put the sheets on your bed."
"How about a tour of the place?" Quinn said. His hyper-cop instincts were still pumping. He still believed it was no coincidence that the faded gray sedan he'd seen following Lily onto the H-1 this morning was parked two houses down from Lily's driveway when Quinn had brought her home.
>> Rosalita Resurreccion was a petite lady, even for a Filipina. Barely 5 feet tall in shoes and 98 pounds after Christmas dinner, she could not resist Mickey as he forced her down onto the bed. He stood 5-foot-10, weighed 235, much of it in a stretch-marked beer gut. Physically, this was no contest. And he was agitated and aggressive from the crystal methamphetamine he'd been smoking. At first, Rosalita was too shocked to resist or scream anyway. And then the sensation of the cold steel of a pistol on her temple froze her jaw in place.
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