My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Q&A
Lily Ah Sun was not a weak woman. She had not cast aside all dignity. But she was standing, clearing her throat, telling her mother and her brother's gay lover that she'd be back, leaning down to kiss her comatose brother's forehead, whispering "Hey, Lance, rise and shine."
Then Lily was out the door, shaking her head at the image of her mother holding Greg's hand, and onto the elevator. And she was punching the button for her cousin Quinn's floor. He had questions and she owed him an answer or two. That's all there was to it. Even as she stepped off the elevator and took a deep breath, trying to calm her jumpy heart, that's all there was to it. Simple questions, simple answers. And she could say thanks for saving her from that insane Samoan cabbie.
And now Lily was knocking on his door. But she was not giving in. Really.
>> H-1, Kokohead-bound
HPD Sgt. Mits Ah Sun, en route to visit his son at Queen's after helping out at Pearl Harbor following the terrorist attack, heard a repeat of the radio news report about an illegal chemical dump site in Waimanalo that his brother Sheets heard earlier. The investigation of the just-discovered site was continuing, the report said. HPD and Department of Health officials said they were pleased with the evidence already recovered, but declined to be specific. Mits was dying to know exactly what they'd found -- human remains or an old .38. But asking around was the dumbest thing he could do. Why the hell a Pearl City cop would be interested in an illegal dump site in Waimanalo? Nope, Mits would keep his mouth shut, his ears open.
>> Makiki Heights
Machiavelli Wang thought of the media as a necessary evil. Use the curs of the press to get out his message but control what they were fed. Just enough meat to keep them from taking a hungry bite out of him. He hated thinking that these guys knew anything he didn't, but here he was double-checking the address printed in a Star-Bulletin story against the address on a mailbox. Machiavelli parked on the road, walked down a steep driveway toward a jungle bungalow. So this was where Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka disappeared to. The honorable senator had been AWOL in the last days of the session. Thanks, however, to the mayor's sudden change of plans, the senator was back in the race for governor. Machiavelli had to reel him back in. Too much was riding on the election. Reputations. Futures. Dollars, lots of them.
Just as Machiavelli stepped inside the carport, a door to the cottage opened. A semblance of the senator stepped outside carrying a blowgun.
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