My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Most of the story
Sgt. Mits Ah Sun had been shot at several time, but in his 30 years with HPD he'd never actually been hit. There were some close calls, like the night in his early days when he was on foot patrol in Chinatown. Mits was trying to peacefully break up a dice game on River Street, wasn't planning to arrest anyone or confiscate anybody's money, just tell the boys to move along and give them a warning, when one of them slipped a .22 pistol from a pocket and fired a shot that knocked Mits' hat off his head.
And now his son Quinn who had followed him into the department -- solo bike detail -- lay here with a gunshot wound to the right thigh. All Mits knew was that it happened at the home of Quinn's cousin Lily. And that made the situation worse, times about nine. Lily was the daughter of Mit's brother Sheets. The brothers Ah Sun had not officially spoken in 21 years, and there had been no contact between their families. Somehow, Quinn and Lily had reunited. Nothing good could come from that.
"So how did it happen?"
"Well, it wasn't exactly in the line of duty, Pops," Quinn said sheepishly.
Quinn told his father how he had pulled over a woman in a teal BMW yesterday and fell for her the moment he saw her, and he could tell she was feeling the same way. And then he took her license and she turned out to be his long-lost cousin. Later she'd called because she'd had a few drinks too many and needed a ride home.
Quinn left out a lot of details, like the part about stopping at Foodland in Aina Haina to buy Popsicles for the child of Lily's maid and how Lily needed to hang onto him as they walked and how good her breast felt pressed against his arm. And he left out the part about how they stopped to talk at Maunalua Bay and ended up in a kiss.
"So we're at her home in Hawaii Kai, in the garden, and we hear screaming from inside the house. It's her maid. I call for backups, run inside. Some guy had broken in, was trying to rape the maid. I stopped him, but he had a gun I hadn't seen." Quinn nodded at his bandaged leg.
"I went down, dropped my Glock. He was about to fire again when the maid, brave little Filipina, let me tell you, slashed at him with a knife. I grabbed the Glock, got off a shot. Then the maid's little girl ran into the room, distracted me, and the guy jumped through a window. I tried to follow and blacked out."
Quinn didn't mention that he blacked out in Lily's arms.
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