My Kind of Town
The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digest>> Portlock
Aiming at a mole on the back of the neck of the beast who attacked her, Rosalita Resurreccion just started to stab down with the 12-inch butcher knife when the phone on the nightstand beside the bed rang. It distracted Rosalita -- her maid's instincts said answer the phone -- and that gave the guy a fraction of a second, and a fraction of an inch.But it gave Quinn Ah Sun the same complex fractions, and he dove for his Glock 9mm and brought it up as Rosalita slashed at the guy.
Mickey thought she was still unconscious, but felt her movement, and out of the corner of his eye saw the gleaming blade coming, leaned away and threw up the pistol to block the knife. It saved his neck, but the blade bounced off the gun and sliced into his forearm, and the gun fell onto the bed.
With the other hand he hacked the petite Filipina's forearm, and the knife fell.
"Hold it!" Quinn shouted, limping into the doorway, light-headed from the gunshot wound in his thigh and the loss of blood , but a surge of adrenaline fighting back shock for the moment. He kept his Glock trained on the mutt with the stretch-marked beer gut whose black surf shorts were around his knees. He lunged for the silver pistol and Quinn fired.
At first Mickey didn't feel a thing. Which was odd, considering where he'd just been shot. It just took a moment for the pain -- and the tragedy -- to register in his brain.
>> In the maid's cottage, Lily Ah Sun and Elizabeth Resurreccion, her maid's 6-year-old daughter, heard the third gunshot in the past few seconds. Trembling, Lily reached for the phone, dialed 911. It seemed to ring forever, and then someone asked her if she needed police or fire.
"Police!"
Again it seemed to ring forever. As she held some more, it took all of Lily's willpower not to swear in front of Elizabeth.
Lily was so consumed that she did not notice the little girl getting down from the couch. She wasn't aware of Elizabeth at all for a few moments until she heard the sound of the door being unlocked and Elizabeth throwing the screen door open.
"Elizabeth, wait!"
But she was off and running across the lanai toward Lily's house, in a panic to see her mother alive and well.
Lily dropped the phone and ran out the door. "Elizabeth!"
>> Queens Medical Center
HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes recalled what Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka had said about Serena Kawainui. A fun girl. Former stripper. Grew up in a series of foster homes. The senator really liked her. But she was not First Lady material. Gomes also recalled that the senator had not inquired about her health when he learned that she'd crashed his yellow Town Car off the Keeaumoku Overpass. He'd been more concerned about the car and the political ramifications.Unlike the senator, she was ensnared in legal ramifications -- from the moment police discovered she was drunk and in possession of crystal methamphetamine, and that she did not own a drivers license. So Gomes could not make a clean-up-or-else deal with her, as he had with the senator. All he could do was ask her questions and wish her luck in finding a good plastic surgeon.
>> Portlock
Rosalita quickly rolled off the bed and pulled the top sheet around her. Standing on the other side of the bed, Mickey looked down and could not believe what he saw -- and what he couldn't."You shot m-m-my...!" he screamed, unable to say the word, his mind unable to accept the awful reality.
"Lucky shot" Quinn said with a shrug.
Keeping the Glock on this mutt, he spoke sideways to the maid. "It's OK, Rosalita. I'm Quinn, Lily's cousin. I'm also a police officer." He nodded at her attacker. "End of problem. I don't think he'll be bothering you or anyone else ever again."
>> Parked in a black SUV three doors down from Lily's home, Tai, Seth and Wili heard three gunshots.
"What I told you?" Wili said from the back seat. "I told you things was going get interesting, brah."
They had seen it all. They'd been following Mickey from this morning, on a traditional aufogo after he ripped off Seth's daughter. They'd seen him tailing a woman in a teal BMW, then followed him here, watched him enter a home and not long after saw the same woman come home with a guy. They were also the first to hear the approaching sirens.
>>2002 Wilder
It wasn't the usual ER, but it was a surgery room, the corners lost in mist, and Dr. Laurie Tang was wearing her scrubs and mask, and her favorite charge nurse Van Truong was there with her, and the woman on the table was screaming, but they still do in childbirth, and Laurie noticed that half the woman's face was covered with bandages, and then she gave a final push and there in Dr. Laurie's surgical gloves was a baby boy, and she wiped away a bit of blood and afterbirth from his face and nearly dropped him, because the baby had the face of Donovan and with his most charming smile said, "Hey, Laurie, I've been meaning to call, you know."Laurie awoke with a gasp. She could figure out the dream easily enough.
It went back to when the young woman who crashed Donovan's car off the Keeaumoku Overpass this morning was brought to the ER and whispered to Laurie, "Please save the baby."
Laurie could guess why, but she wanted to hear it straight from Donovan, her alleged boyfriend.
>> Portlock
The sweetest sound Quinn ever heard was the two tones of approaching sirens. As a cop, he heard sirens every day and took them for granted. Funny how a .22 bullet.Quinn wanted the paramedics to take care of Rosalita first. Her attacker had struck her twice with his pistol, to the cheek and temple, opening bloody gashes. And then there was the emotional trauma.
The mutt was going to need some work, too.
As reassuring as the sound of sirens was to Quinn, it was just as threatening to Mickey. He'd been locked up before, and he refused to go back. His car was parked two doors down.
"Elizabeth!"
The panicked sound of Lily's voice so near startled Quinn and Rosalita.
And then the little girl's voice: "Mama! Mama!"
They turned, saw Elizabeth sprinting down the hallway.
"Elizabeth!" Rosalita cried and swept her baby into her arms.
That's when Mickey made his move.
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