My Kind of Town
With a bullet
>> Makiki Heights
While Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka slept off a three-day binge, Machiavelli Wang finished calling Honolulu's political reporters. All the TV stations and newspapers would be at the Capitol tomorrow for the press conference. Barely a week before the primary, the Democrats' version of a three-legged race -- the Mazie, Ed and Andy Show -- wouldn't know what hit them.
At the press conference the senator would give details of how he was detained against his will for three days by Native Hawaiian terrorists, but ultimately talked sense into them and gained his release -- proving he was the right man to lead Hawaii in 2002 and beyond. Who else could say they stared down terrorists for three days, endured the physical and mental abuse, and through his intelligence, will and charisma convinced them that terror was not the way, and to trust him to improve the lot of Hawaiians? Wasn't he, himself, part-Hawaiian?
It was a brilliant story, and Machiavelli was rather pleased with himself for concocting it on such short notice. The story not only explained the senator's going AWOL, it put him back in the race for governor, with a bullet.
Actually, HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes should be getting that bullet right about now, releasing the senator from Gomes' threat to force him into a drug rehab clinic for two weeks. Salvatore Innuendo had never let Machiavelli down.
>> 2002 Wilder
Crouching low with his modified 9mm HK P7 drawn, Innuendo was just stepping around the corner to shoot Dr. Laurie Tang as she washed dishes and did not see the rat-tail towel coming as it snapped his right eye and ripped through the soft contact lens into his cornea. His shooting eye would never aim again. The tip of the tail rebounded and hit his left eye, causing no permanent injury but enough to make it tear up so thick he couldn't see. Innuendo lost all sense of direction and blindly pointed the pistol at where it seemed the doctor should have been in the kitchen and fired twice.
Good suppressor, Gomes thought, barely a sound. Not knowing how much damage his rat-tail attack had done, he drew it back to strike again.
Blinking furiously, wiping at his left eye, Innuendo forced himself toward the kitchen. If he could get to the doc, even blind he could grapple and stab her. But then he saw the shadowy outline of a human form and it was way too big to be the petite doctor. It had to be Gomes. Damn! How had he allowed himself to be so thoroughly fooled? Innuendo aimed the pistol in that direction.
Gomes dived and rolled a heartbeat before the pistol quietly spat a third bullet.
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