My Kind of Town
>> Portlock Into the garden
Mickey straddled the tiny Filipina maid on the bed, her arms pinned to her sides by his legs, holding the gun to her head with one hand. The butcher knife in the other had just cut away her white blouse and then her bra, exposing her breasts. Rosalita Resurreccion knew her life was in danger, but at the moment she was more mortified than scared. The only man who had ever seen her naked was her late husband Jesus. She felt the big man on top of her begin to shift his weight.
He removed the pistol barrel from her temple, pointed it at her nose. "I told you," he whispered urgently, "as long as you keep quiet, you get to live. But make one tiny sound ..." He waved the gun in her face.
Rosalita nodded, she understood.
Still pointing the gun at her nose, he shifted off of her, now pinning her chest and arms with one big leg, sliding the huge blade between her soft brown skin and the beige linen fabric of her pants. Rosalita was helpless and all she could do was offer a silent prayer to Jesus -- either one of them -- as he started to slice down the right leg of her pants.
>> Having dropped the crucial Popsicles off with Elizabeth, her maid's daughter who had a sore throat and was running a fever, Lily Ah Sun was leading her long-lost cousin Quinn across the lanai from the maid's cottage to give him a tour of her home. Quinn seemed anxious to see the house. Or maybe she was just imagining it.
Maybe it was residue from their breathtaking, earth-moving kiss at Maunalua Bay just minutes ago.
What she didn't know was that the same faded gray sedan that Quinn saw following Lily onto the H-1 this morning was parked two doors down from her house when Quinn brought her home. She didn't realize that Quinn's hyper-cop instincts were at full alert, that he was keeping his eyes and ears open for a possible intruder, and that he wanted to check out the house as quickly and thoroughly as possible -- without alarming Lily.
Not knowing any of that, she stopped at the sliding screen door. "If you really want to know me, Quinn, as much as I love this house, you have to see the garden. That's where my soul is."
She took him by the hand, and hyper-cop instincts or no, he loved the feel of Lily's petal-soft hand in his. He would follow her anywhere to hold her hand. And he was still checking out the place. They'd get inside in a few minutes.
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