My Kind of Town
>> Arizona Memorial The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digestThe film was over, and everybody was filing out to the dock, where a boat ride from the Visitor Center to the Memorial awaited. Rosalita and her 6-year-old daughter Elizabeth stepped into the sunshine behind Wilhemina. She felt the cell phone vibrate.
"Hello, Muhammed," Wilhemina said in a cheer voice. Playing her role.
"No, it's me."
She knew the voice. Marty, the man she'd accosted at the Hale Koa Hotel and entrusted with her story of possible terror, turned out to be Lt. Martin Luther Washington, Navy intelligence officer. He'd given her the code name Sandy. Before the film started she'd seen Marty taking a seat on the other side of the theater. "What happened to Muhammed?"
Sandy turned from Rosalita and Elizabeth, whispered, "Stomach problem. Said if he wasn't back in time, for us to take the flowers to the Memorial."
"Don't say anything, but the flowers somehow got left behind. OK? Do not go back for the flowers. And keep your phone on."
Marty's phone vibrated. He connected to his boss Commander Chuck Ryan, heard, "Our friend Muhammed is leaving the men's room."
"Chuck, somehow the bouquet got left behind. I'm gonna ask a ranger not to let the next group into the theater until we can take a look at it."
"Good call. Muhammed appears to be leaving."
>> Queen's Medical Center
For Lily Ah Sun, the toughest part about being interviewed by HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes was admitting that the reason the cabbie chased and rear-ended her, then tried to drag her out of her car window by the throat was that she'd given him one little Finger.
"That's a declaration of war these days," he said.
"So Quinn Ah Sun is your cousin?"
Lily nodded.
"What he did out there, risking his own life to save you from that cabbie, was one of the bravest things I've ever seen."
Yes it was. What was Lily willing to risk for Quinn?
>> Arizona Memorial
Marty, lingering in his seat in the theater as the others filed out, appeared to be pondering the just-completed film, until he was the last one.
"Sir?" a park ranger called from the door. It was the young local woman who'd introduced the film. A cutey.
"Right," Marty said, rising.
As he walked down the aisle toward her, he pulled his wallet from a butt pocket. "Ranger ..." He paused, looking at her name tag above her breast.
"Ranger Maunawili, I'm Lt. Martin Luther Washington, Navy intelligence." He flashed his ID. "We have a problem."
"Oh?" said. This was just Pono Maunawili's second day on the job. She wasn't ready for a problem. "What kind of problem?"
He led her back up the aisle, pointed to a bouquet that the women with Muhammed left under their seats.
"We believe those flowers may be more than just flowers. They may be a bomb."
"Oh my God!"
That's when the little girl ran into the theater and called eagerly, "Did you find my flowers?"
>> State Capitol
Machiavelli Wang was ready to break something. Like Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka's nose. He'd missed the last three days of the session, been AWOL for almost five days now. Thanks, however, to the mayor's sudden exit, the senator was back in the race for governor. But he was not answering any of the usual numbers. Then Machiavelli remembered the Star-Bulletin story. The senator had been seen at a Makiki Heights home, and it listed an address. Machiavelli was on his way.
>> Arizona Memorial
A moment after Elizabeth ran back into the theater looking for her flowers, Sandy followed screaming "No, Elizabeth, stop!"
In his ear-piece, Marty heard his boss: "What 'n hell's going on in there?" "The kid wants her flowers back. Sandy's freaking."
"Let her have 'em. Muhammed's going to be watching. This has to look normal. He has any doubts abut what's happening, he might trigger the thing. My gut tells me he doesn't want to do that until they get out to the Memorial."
"Makes sense." Marty trusted his boss' gut instincts.
He gave Sandy the palms-down calm-down sign and a reassuring look as the little girl scooped up the bouquet.
Marty fell in beside Elizabeth as she came back down the row of seats with her bouquet and walked with her toward the exit.
"Those are beautiful flowers!" he said. "May I smell them?"
Elizabeth proudly lifted the flowers for the big man to smell. Marty leaned down, got a good look inside the bouquet, took a whiff. "Mm-mmmm. Very nice."
Their tropical fragrance was indeed nice. The gray putty substance at their base was not.
"Thank you, um, Elizabeth, is that what the lady called you?" Marty said, nodding to Sandy.
"Yes, sir."
Marty paused in the doorway, spoke into his phone's hands-free set. "You're right, Chuck. We've got gray matter at the base of the flowers."
"Stay close, Marty. And it's time for the ear-piece to go. Muhammed is watching from outside. You're playing tourist."
>> Exiting the Visitor Center, Muhammed sought a place from which he could watch the three females board the boat.
He found it in the shade of a monkeypod tree, behind its angled trunk. He saw a group of people exiting the theater, lining up at the dock. Yes, there was Rosalita. And last ones out of the theater, Wilhemina and Elizabeth, who held the flowers.
Muhammed watched them board boat No. 13. In his trouser pocket he felt what appeared to be a radio-control car door lock and glanced at his watch. Minutes, just minutes until the world was forced to take his people and their cries for independence seriously.
>> "They're too heavy," Elizabeth said, handing the bouquet to her mother. Wilhemina intercepted them. "Here, let me hold them for a while." The little girl was right. The bouquet was too heavy for just flowers, and heavier than it had been when they bought it at Foodland in Aina Haina. Appearing to sniff the flowers, she saw the stems planted in a gray putty. The same stuff she'd seen her cousin Rey playing with recently. "Boom boom," Rey explained, making a little pun.
Realizing she was holding a bomb, Wilhemina panicked, jumped up, drew back the bouquet to throw it overboard.
>> What the hell is she doing? Muhammed reached for the remote-control.
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