My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center The happiest terrorist
Quinn Ah Sun was tiring quickly on this first foray out of his hospital bed. Off-duty nurse Nina Ramones, who was pushing his wheelchair, could see it even from behind. Quinn slumped a bit, his voice sounded weary.
"Time to get you back," she said as they were leaving the ER.
"I know, but I need some fresh air and sunshine. Only a minute or two."
Nina had just wheeled him out into the ER parking lot when they heard the screech of brakes. Looking up, he saw a faded blue New Yorker taxi squeal into the lot tight on the tail of teal BMW. He knew that teal car. He'd pulled it over yesterday. His cousin Lily's car. Quinn's cop instincts kicked in.
"Faster, Nina! Over there!"
But cop instincts are 180 degrees from nurse instincts. While he was ready to leap into the fray, even with an IV drip in him and the gunshot wound to his right thigh heavily bandaged, Nina froze, wanting to protect him.
The BMW skidded to a stop in front of three people chatting beside an ambulance -- HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes and EMS guys Vic Lipman and Yvonne Morales. The New Yorker didn't brake and purposefully plowed into the back of the BMW with an awful sound of colliding, crumpling metal. The Beamer lurched forward, forcing Gomes and the EMS pair to scramble out of the way. In an instant the big Samoan cabbie was out of the New Yorker and running toward the BMW.
In the same instant Quinn was grabbing the rails of the chair's wheels, propelling himself forward with powerful thrusts.
"Quinn!" he heard vaguely behind him. "Stop!"
But his focus was straight ahead now. On his target.
>> Arizona Memorial
Standing at the top of the circular stairs outside the Visitor Center, meditating on the white structure across the water, Muhammed Resurreccion heard an announcement over the loudspeaker: everyone with ticket No. 19, the yellow ones, should form a line outside Theater Two. Smiling, with his left hand he waved at the three females out on the lawn to join him. With his right he caressed the radio-control device in his pocket.
As his driver Wilhemina Orlando, his late cousin Jesus' widow Rosalita and her little daughter Elizabeth made their way across the lawn, Muhammed glanced at his yellow ticket. It said that the "entire program (film, boat, Memorial) lasts 75 minutes."
In 75 minutes or thereabouts, his radio-control device would send a signal to the bouquet of flowers that Rosalita now carried. Muhammed smiled, so close now to fulfilling his mission. The happiest terrorist in the world.
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