My Kind of Town
>> State Library Such a cute kid
Because the last person to check out the microfilm of stories that appeared in the Star-Bulletin during 1981 failed to rewind it, Lily Ah Sun was working from back to front. So the fifth and final Ah Sun reference she came to was for her cousin Quinn, on April 29. The short story under a two-column photo brought tears to her eyes because it raised long-submerged memories.
In fact, Lily had been there at the State Capitol on the day when Quinn was honored as Pearl City Highlands T-ball Player of the Year, the award presented by Gov. George Ariyoshi. She remembered being so proud of her cousin. My gosh, he was such a cute kid in the photo, still carrying baby fat and a baby face, grinning through a missing tooth as he shook the governor's hand. It was Quinn alright, just the way she remembered him from those days. For 21 years, that image of Quinn was frozen in time -- so different from the tall, lean, muscled man he grew up to be. So no wonder she hadn't recognized him when he pulled her over for speeding! And so it couldn't be Lily's fault that she'd fallen totally heels-over-head for the handsome young motorcycle cop, and him for her, before she handed him her license and he gasped when he saw her name and they realized they were first cousins.
As she had with the other Ah Sun news stories, Lily printed out a copy of Quinn's photo. Waiting for it, she glanced at her watch. She really needed to get home, but was so excited about the research Quinn asked her to do, Lily just had to show him what she had found. She saw random stories, no pattern to speak of. Maybe Quinn, as a cop, would see things differently. And maybe he would be able to tell about the mysterious Clarence "Bobo" Ah Sun.
>> PanAm Building
HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes relished nothing more than matching wits with another fine mind. Machiavelli Yang would be a particular challenge. Gomes knew of Yang, but just vaguely. He was a shadowy figure in state politics who preferred working behind closed doors. Gomes did know that Yang signing on with the young Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka was significant because Yang helped get the past two governors elected and was going for a three-peat.
Could it be just coincidence that Yang was coming to visit Gomes' sister Donna at her Uku Miles Travel office at precisely the same time Gomes was there to pick up a ticket for the senator's flight to a Portland drug rehab clinic? No, Gomes didn't believe in coincidence. Coincidence, as he liked to say, is elementally coincidental.
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