My Kind of Town
>> Ala Moana Beach Park The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digestSen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka moved in for the kill. Just 20 yards away, HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes was thrashing around, trying to swim. The moment Gomes came up for air, Donovan would blow into his shotgun snorkel. He was so close now, he couldn't miss with the last poison dart in the snorkel turned blow gun. And he couldn't dare miss, because Gomes would ruin everything, not only his relationship with Dr. Laurie Tang, but also Donovan's gubernatorial dreams.
>> Sherlock Gomes knew he looked ridiculous, flailing about, but he was determined to learn to swim. He'd have to do it another time, though. Dr. Laurie Tang would be back from her swim any moment, and he didn't want to look like a drowning idiot when she showed up. That's no way to go into an interview. And she looked so good in that swimsuit, he wanted to look his best.
Gomes began to stand up on the sandy bottom.
>> Dr. Laurie Tang was pushing now, the final 50-yard sprint to the beach. Laurie felt so strong it was like she was swimming on top of the water, as if she was being pushed along by an unseen force. And she was.
Swimming with her eyes closed, Laurie felt herself being lifted out of the water. Laurie looked down, saw that she was riding on top of a small submarine. She sat astride the sub, in the middle of a large red circle painted on the hull.
>> Gomes stood in waist-deep water, watching Dr. Laurie Tang rise from the sea astride what, at first, he thought was a whale.
>> Donovan was so preoccupied with Gomes, he didn't notice the sub that was rising out of the water. He blew into his shotgun snorkel.
The poison dart sliced through the morning air.
The steel-tipped dart pinged harmlessly off the nose of the submarine. The sub stopped in the sand, blocking his view of Sherlock Gomes.
Donovan yanked off his mask and snorkel, and retched into the water.
>> It was the damndest thing Jimmy Ahuna ever saw. But at least it proved the Pearl Harbor Shipyard retiree hadn't been imagining things. The WWII mini-submarine with the Rising Sun painted on top of the hull was real.
Jimmy grabbed his cell phone, called the Star-Bulletin, asked for Cruz MacKenzie. MacKenzie had all but laughed at Jimmy when he'd called after seeing the sub off Queen's Beach two weeks ago. MacKenzie's voice mail answered.
"Eh, mistah big shot reporter, you nevah believe me befoah when I tell you about seeing one Japanese sub, remembah? Hah! I hate to say I tol' you so, but you bettah get your okole ovah to Ala Moana, bruddah, an' PDQ. We got living proof heah."
>> Actually, the proof was not alive at all.
Laurie helped Gomes climb up on top of the sub. As she did so, the sub's engine shut off.
Gomes tapped a message on the hatch in Morse Code: "We're friendly, but come out with your hands up, pally." There was no response.
As a crowd gathered on the beach, Gomes twisted open the locks on the hatch, wishing he had the Glock 9mm he usually wore in an ankle holster. Laurie watched Gomes straining at the locks, his muscles bulging, and her heart fluttered.
Gomes lifted the hatch, peered inside the sub. "Oh my goddess!" he whispered.
"What did you say?"
Laurie knelt beside Gomes. The opening was so small, they had to press bodies and heads together to see inside.
Laurie gasped, and not from the sensuous jolt she felt from touching Gomes. She saw the back of a naked, brown-skinned woman leaning over a figure in the pilot's seat, appearing to kiss his head. She turned to them, glowing, floated up out of the hatch. "Shinjo Eiki is a good man," she said, her voice ringing like sacred music.
Gomes and Laurie looked inside the sub again. The figure in the pilot's seat was a skeleton. And the woman was gone.
>> As was his habit, extreme photographer Johnny B. Goo arrived early for his assignment to shoot a falun gong group that practiced every morning at Magic Island. He liked to scout the scene. Thus it was that Johnny B was walking along the beach, his digital Nikon at the ready, when the sub suddenly surfaced with a babe-ette riding it. Johnny B's motordrive whirred.
He jogged down to the waterline for a closer view and immediately recognized the guy who was climbing up on top of the sub with the babe-ette. Johnny B's photo of Gomes speaking with the wild-eyed, amped out Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka at a Makiki Heights home last night was on Page One of this morning's Star-Bulletin.
Johnny B continued to shoot as Gomes opened the sub's hatch. "Where'd she go?" Gomes asked the babe-ette.
She shrugged, looked baffled.
"Anybody see where that naked woman went?" Gomes asked the crowd that had quickly gathered.
"Bruddah, if was one naked wahine, I'd've seen 'um," Shiro Matsuda, part of the Dawn Patrol of seniors that had just finished their walk around the park, said with a sly chuckle.
Just then two uniformed cops hurried down to the waterline, started moving the crowd back.
Gomes jumped down from the mini-sub, then reached up and helped the babe-ette down, but she slipped and kind of fell into his arms. Johnny B fired and caught a look between Gomes and the babe-ette, their chests pressed together. There was more than mystery in the air. Hormones were on fire.
Johnny B walked over, said hi to Gomes.
Johnny B introduced himself to the babe-ette, asked for her name, learned she was Dr. Laurie Tang from the Queen's ER.
"You look pretty shocked," Johnny B said. "What did you guys see in there?"
Peering into the hatch, Johnny B gasped. "You gotta be kidding me."
"Name's Shinjo Eiki," Gomes said.
"How you know that?"
"The naked lady told us."
"What naked lady?"
"The one who was in there when we opened the hatch, and then climbed out past us."
"I shot everything," Johnny B said. "Trust me, Sherlock, there wasn't no naked lady."
"I saw her too," Dr. Tang said.
"Check your film," Gomes said.
"This doesn't make sense," Johnny B said.
"Tell me," Dr. Tang said. "The engine was running. Then after we hit the beach, the engine stopped."
"Somebody turned it off," Gomes said.
He didn't know it, but Johnny B's photos would provide a clue.
>> Everyone was so focused on the sub, nobody noticed one guy walking quickly out of the water and up the beach, cursing under his breath. Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka had also seen the look between Gomes and Laurie, who was supposed to be his girlfriend. Gomes still had to go, but now for a different reason.
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