My Kind of Town
Ms. Smart Mouth
>> Pearl HarborAs he'd promised, Chuck Ryan was waiting for Lily Ah Sun at the main gate. Dressed in an aloha shirt and khakis, he stood aside as one Navy sentry checked her ID. A second checked under the teal BMW with a mirror-on-a-stick, a third with a bomb-sniffing German shepherd. A fourth watched with an automatic rifle across his chest.
"Could you pop the hood, please, ma'am," the first sentry said. "And the trunk." She hoped the dog enjoyed the aroma of day-old workout clothes. The Beamer came up weapons-free, but still they insisted she park outside the gate, in the lot across the road by the security office. So it goes when you're known to associate with Islamic terrorists.
Ryan followed in a gold Intrepid. When she'd parked, his passenger door was open for her. He took a serpentine route across the base and she was soon totally disoriented. Lily had no idea Pearl Harbor was so big.
"You sure you don't want to put me in leg shackles, Chuck?"
"Sorry, Lily, just following procedure. And common sense. Can you imagine the field day the media would have if we didn't talk to every single person who'd had any contact with the guy who planted the flower bomb?"
She understood the theory. But Chuck knew her. She was no terrorist. She was a Republican, for God sake. "I barely met Muhammed Resurreccion. I don't see how I can help."
"You can help by giving us one less potential witness to question. Assuming you really don't know anything about the plot."
She shot him a sideways stink-eye. This Chuck Ryan was totally different from the one she'd met at the gym with Fawn and Shauny. That Chuck was friendly and fun to be with. This one was a hard case with a spooky edge. Yesterday's Chuck, when they'd asked about his work, said he was into international investments and head-hunting. She pulled his card from her Gucci bag.
"So what's the real title?"
"Commander, Navy intelligence."
"What about the name?"
"That's real."
They rode in silence for a while.
"How're Rosalita and Elizabeth?" she said at last. Lily's maid and her 6-year-old daughter.
"Anxious to see you."
"How long do you think this will take until we can all go home?"
Ryan pulled into a lot, parked, looked her in the eye. "Lily, that depends entirely on what Rosalita has been saying, and on what you have to say."
Lily decided it was time to take this seriously or she could Ms. Smart Mouth herself right into trouble. Wouldn't be the first time.
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