My Kind of Town
>> PanAm Building The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digestHPD Detective Sherlock Gomes had his doubts. While it was possible that Machiavelli Yang was coming to visit Gomes' sister Donna at her Uku Miles Travel office because his employer, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka, told Yang about being busted by Gomes last night, that didn't seem right. The senator seemed the sort who preferred keeping his demons private.
And based on the facts, and a few logical assumptions, Gomes was betting that something other than the senator's new legal difficulty was on Yang's mind. The man was, afterall, a paid schemer.
"So Machiavelli Yang called to ask you to lunch, just to talk, and that his visit has nothing to do with travel plans?"
"That's what he said."
"I believe, then, that my presence would not be a positive contribution to your conversation. May I make a quick call on your phone?"
"Of course. But hurry, he's due here any time."
Gomes hit the speaker phone button, quickly dialed a number. His cell phone rang and he hit the answer button.
"See you later," Gomes said, stepping into the storeroom with his phone to his ear. Pulling the door closed behind him.
Listening on his phone, Gomes heard Donna exclaim, "So nice to see you again, Mr. Yang. To what do I owe this non-business visit."
"Oh, this is business. But also pleasure, I hope."
This guy, Gomes could tell, was smooth. But in the silence that followed Gomes could hear his sister seeing through Yang's veneer. "Please have a seat."
"Thank you. Actually, Donna, what I am proposing is a little old-fashioned matchmaking."
>> Queen's Medical Center
Though unconscious, Quinn Ah Sun was obviously responding to Gwen Roselovich's touch. Her fantasy required that she also kiss his lips. As she leaned down and touched her lips to his, her cleavage quit threatening to be liberated from her low-cut top and went for it.
That's when the door opened. But Gwen was too lost in the moment to notice the familiar visitor.
>> PanAm Building
"Excuse me? Matchmaking?" Donna said. "Not for me, I hope."
Machiavelli Yang smiled in an affected way. "Well, actually, yes. But please don't misinterpret my proposal as impertinence. I am here on behalf of my boss, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka. I'd like to set up an introduction for you two. Perhaps you could attend the East-West Center gala with him."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Not at all, Donna. I think you two would be a perfect match."
The perfect match would turn Machiavelli's employer into Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka-Gomes and guarantee the Portuguese vote in the senator's run for governor.
>> Queen's Medical Center
Carrying a few too many pounds around the middle, Gwen tried to be attractive, but short skirts, clingy tops, heavy makeup and 20 pounds of Hawaiian heirloom jewelry on each wrist merely combined to make her look like a hoochie mama. That was from the front.
The rear view -- which is what Lily Ah Sun got when she burst into Quinn's room to share the exciting research she'd done on their fathers in the State Library newspaper archives -- was disgusting. The short skirt had hiked halfway up the woman's okole, and she was kissing Quinn and touching him, and he was obviously responding, and not complaining one bit.
And in that moment Lily knew she could never trust Quinn. He was one of those guys, handsome, fit and charming, who women can't stay away from. And he was all too willing to oblige them.
"Damn you, Quinn!" she shouted. "Here's your freaking research!"
Lily hurled printouts of all the news stories, turned on her heel as sheets of paper flurried around her, and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
>> PanAm Building
"You're kidding, right?." Donna, who had just booked the senator's flight to Portland, knew he would be engaged at a drug rehab clinic there for at least two weeks.
Which meant, Gomes knew, that the senator had not told Yang about getting busted.
"I don't kid around, Donna. I truly believe that you and the senator would make a perfect match," said Yang. "Frankly," he added, lowering his voice as if sharing an intimate secret, "the senator has been involved in a relationship."
Two, Gomes thought. Serena Kawainui, the "kept" former stripper who crashed the senator's car off the Keeaumoku Overpass. And the official girlfriend, Dr. Laurie Tang -- with whom Gomes was having dinner tonight.
"But she is not the best thing for Donovan."
Gomes liked the sound of that. He very much wanted Laurie Tang to be the senator's former girlfriend.
>> Makiki Heights
Contemplating the concept of Sherlock Gomes' dead body, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka pulled six wood-tip darts from the household poison in which they'd been soaking.
>> Queen's Medical Center
It wasn't until she reached her teal BMW in the parking garage that the reality of Quinn's unfaithfulness hit her in the heart, and the tears started. Quinn, the love of her life, the man she wanted more than any other she'd ever met, turned out to be just another cheating schmuck of a guy, every bit as faithful as a salmon. And soon she was sobbing, the hopes of a lifetime and the emotions Quinn stirred so quickly all crashing down around her. She pounded the steering wheel. "Damn you, Quinn Ah Sun!" Pound. "Damn you!" Pound.
Ow! That was stupid. Lily's hand hurt. But nothing compared to her heart and her pride.
But if that's the way Quinn was, better to find out now. They'd gone 21 years without seeing one another, and as far as Lily was concerned they could go another 21 and it wouldn't be long enough for her. As for the feud between their fathers that caused the separation, Lily was all for it. The other side of the Ah Sun clan could not be trusted.
On that point, Lily was only half right.
>> Pearl City
HPD Sgt. Ah Sun was at his desk when the call came from Gwen Roselovich.
"Quinn was good," she reported. "I mean, he was sleeping, but doing well ... By the way, his cousin dropped off some papers, photocopies of old newspaper articles, all about your family ...Well, no, she didn't exactly drop them off. She threw them. She wasn't very happy to see me there ..."
That, of course, was the whole idea.
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