My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Some kind of record
Two days, two visits to the ER. That has to be some kind of record, HPD solo bike Officer Quinn Ah Sun was thinking as two EMS techs wheeled him into Bay 1. And he wasn't on duty either time. He'd do his best to avoid going three-for-three. This was getting ridiculous. And painful.
A woman doc introduced herself, Laurie Tang, as her crew went to work on him. And it was like watching a NASCAR pit crew. Everybody had a responsibility, a place to be, and they moved quickly, gracefully, as if choreographed by some ballet lightfoot.
Like his long-lost cousin Lance, who was supposed to be upstairs in the ICU. But that was another story. The real wonder in this scene, of course, is that "things happened" in the ER. The unexpected could be expected.
They were about to draw the heavy curtain closed when Quinn saw another ER guy wheel the Samoan cabbie, now in handcuffs, into the ER. Detective Sherlock Gomes followed.
Gomes poked his head around the curtain. "Eh, Ah Sun, that was one of the world's great blind-side hits," he said. "Ought to make ESPN's Plays of the Week." And then: "Oh, Laurie, hi."
A totally different tone of voice, Quinn noticed. Like Gomes had suddenly turned into one of the Backstreet Boys or something.
"Sherlock, hello," the doc replied in a fluttery voice 180 degrees from the businesslike tone she'd used with her team.
Charge Nurse Van Truong noticed it too. It was true, Laurie's in love. And Quinn was thinking, Sherlock? He'd never before heard him referred to as anything other than Gomes or Detective. OK, there was one sergeant in vice who called him Sherlock Gomes, Portuguese Ace Defective. But other than that, no.
"I'll see you later," Gomes said, ducking out.
"Yes," Dr. Laurie Tang said. As in, yes yes yes!
>> State Capitol Grounds
Walking back from the press conference at City Hall, Machiavelli Wang alternately shook his head in amazement and rubbed his hands in excitement. He was back in the game. Well, to be precise, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela-Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka was back in the race for governor now that the mayor just announced his withdrawal.
After the news conference several reporters collared him, asked what this meant for the senator's campaign. Loathe to admit that he and his candidate had recently been in a position of weakness -- on account of the senator's going AWOL during the last three days of the just-completed session and a stripper crashing his car -- Machiavelli turned the question around. "What do you think?" Each agreed the senator was probably the Democrats' leading candidate.
Now Machiavelli just had to find him.
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