My Kind of Town
>> Makiki Heights Behind the scenes
"Thanks, Gwen, you're great," Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka said, and listened to her reply. "Hey, you don't have to remind me, I know how great you are at that too ... Sure, I'll give you a call. Bye."
God bless her, but Gwen Roselovich wasn't his type. Carrying a few too many pounds, Gwen tried to be attractive, but short skirts, clingy tops that spilled cleavage, heavy makeup and 20 pounds of Hawaiian heirloom jewelry jingling on each wrist combined to make her look like a hoochie mama. The strippers who the senator preferred were less revealing in their dress than Gwen. Heck, it was one of the things he liked about his girlfriend Dr. Laurie Tang.
But if the cost of an occasional favor from Gwen at DMV meant an occasional visit to her condo at the Contessa, it was worth a couple of hours of his time. Especially for a favor like giving him the address in Kaimuki that matched a license number he'd written down earlier at Ala Moana Beach Park.
"Whoa, that car belongs to Sherlock Gomes!" Gwen had said. The senator did his best to sound surprised. "No kidding."
>> Hawaii Convention Center
Looking very much like a winter-pale tourist, Navy Commander Chuck Ryan had walked up Atkinson Drive from Ala Moana Beach Park after the WWII Japanese mini-sub incident. His team, led by Martin Luther Washington, was on top of things. Ryan liked to linger on the fringe, keeping his eyes open. If they needed him, he was there.
So Ryan was mingling with scores of other people arriving for the big electronics convention and show when a silver-blue van pulled into the port cochere and Muhammed Resurreccion stepped out of the passenger side. Ryan's heart quickened, as it always did when he first spotted a target.
>> State Capitol
In the continuing absence of Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka, and with the senator's secretary Grace Ah Sun doing a hospital death watch over her son, Machiavelli Yang was manning the fort alone. Which was not his forte. Machiavelli was a man who preferred working behind the scenes. The power behind the throne.
But the throne was slipping away. Page One of today's Star-Bulletin featured a lovely photo of the senator, looking disheveled and wild-eyed, throwing a foaming bottle of beer at the photographer, and another smaller photo of the senator being questioned by HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes. The senator had been the front-runner in the race for governor even before the mayor hired the Marx Brothers to manage his campaign. Now they were probably neck-and-neck. So Machiavelli would have to assume another behind-the-scenes roles, Der Spinmeister.
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