My Kind of Town
>> Portlock All flocked up
Later, Quinn Ah Sun would think how stupid it had been to pull the trigger with Rosalita lying inches from his target, who had been about to rape her.
But it was instinct. Things were happening very fast.
He'd had his Glock 9mm aimed at the guy's okole, and at that moment Quinn seemed to have things under control. But as the guy with the black surf shorts around his ankles rolled off of Rosalita, Quinn suddenly saw that she was unconscious and bleeding from a wound to her cheek. Quinn took a step toward her just as the guy whirled, brought up a silver pistol, firing from a supine position. Quinn was in the doorway, couldn't go right or left. His only move was to spin backwards to the right, pivoting away from the shooter, and try to limit his profile. But it was not enough.
An instant after Quinn got off his shot with the Glock, a slug from the .22 hit him in the right thigh. It spun him around and he went down, dropping his weapon.
Quinn's shot had been high and wide, the bullet entering the wall above the bed. The sound, and then bits of plaster flocking her face, roused Rosalita.
The second shot from Mickey's gun just inches from her brought her all the way back.
Holding his .22 on Quinn, the guy on the bed reached to pull up his black surf shorts, unaware that Rosalita Resurreccion was coming back to life. He was also unaware that at that moment, four HPD cars were speeding toward this address.
Quinn knew reinforcements were on the way. He just didn't know if they would arrive in time to do him any good.
>> Department of Health
There was something about the report that came over from the Board of Water Supply just before closing time that had DOH investigator Steve Tamura working late. Initial tests by BWS had shown a prospective well in Waimanalo to be full of promise. But then the chemists and microbiologists ran their water quality tests. What they came up with was an odd cocktail of at least a dozen chemicals. From there it didn't take much looking to find what had once been an illegal chemical dump site nearby.
It was just a hunch, but Tamura had an idea. From memory Tamura dialed the number for his old chemistry prof at UH. Tamura was betting the prof could tell him some of the more exotic uses of those chemicals. That might help tell him who had dumped them there, and why.
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