My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center The bad news first
"It's all over, Mits," Sheets Ah Sun blurted, not bothering with nice-to-see-you-agains when the brother he hadn't seen in 21 years walked through the door. "We need to talk." Ignoring his wife Grace, Sheets ushered his brother toward the door.
"Good to see you, Grace," Mits said, and as the door closed behind them managed to call, "I'm sorry to hear about Lance."
Grace had been wrong, by about 180 degrees. She assumed her husband's depression was because of Lance, who lay here in a coma, mixed probably with some guilt that he had not tried harder to relate to their youngest son, whom they just learned was probably gay.
But if it wasn't Lance's condition -- or even his gayness --that so upset Sheets, what could it be?
Grace shivered. She had never really known what happened between the brothers Ah Sun, but she didn't really think it had anything to do with money, as Sheets insisted.
At first she'd wondered if it was just coincidence that a week before Sheets and Mits quit talking, their cousin Clarence was reported missing.
But then a month later Eddie Sherman ran an item in his column about getting a postcard from Clarence in Acapulco, saying he was back performing on cruise ships, and that explained his absence.
A knock on the door startled Grace. Dr. Aeschylus Wong entered, smiling broadly. "I hear we have good news," he said.
That too, Grace thought. "Yes, Lance responded when I talked to him!"
>> Lily Ah Sun had never in her 27 years been so happy to be wrong about what a man was thinking.
"Come, lie down with me again before I zonk out," Quinn said.
This time Lily was careful not to bump the thigh where he'd been shot at her home last night.
"That pill is kicking in pretty good, Lily, and I'm about to get goofy on you. But I'm serious, I want you to go to the State Library, see what you can find in the papers having to do with the Ah Suns 21 years ago."
That would be easy. There aren't a lot of Ah Suns in the phone book.
He squeezed her hand, she kissed him softly on the cheek, saw that his eyes were glassy as a kaiolohia sea.
"Did you really see that naked woman who was in here earlier," he said, slurring.
"Sure, Ho'ola, the goddess of life."
"This, you gotta tell me about when I wake up," he said, and nodded off.
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