My Kind of Town
The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digest>> Kailua
Sheets Ah Sun scanned the newspaper and found the story he was looking for, about the investigation into an illegal chemical dump site in Waimanalo. It wasn't good news exactly, not bad news exactly: "Asked what his team of workers in space suits had found in the pit, Department of Health chemist Steve Tamura said, 'A lot of goo and a few chunks. In this business, chunks are good.' "
Chunks? Chunks of what? That was the question.
Sheets remembered that night at the dump site 21 years before. That night with Bobo wasn't planned.
It actually started when Dave Donnelly ran a column item: "Popular entertainer Clarence 'Bobo' Ah Sun back in Honolulu for the first time in six years -- performing aboard the luxury cruise liner Royal Nottingham now docked at Honolulu Harbor."
That day Bobo returned to the ship and found his cousin Mits Ah Sun in his blue HPD uniform waiting for him. Bobo had been hoping to slip into and out of Honolulu without seeing any of his family.
Bobo had once borrowed $2,000 from Mits to pay off a gambling debt. He didn't even want to think about the interest over seven years.
That night, Mits and Sheets took Bobo to play cards in Waimanalo. All the way, they caught up on their lives. Bobo asked about Sheets' and Mits' kids and wives, told about his travels performing aboard cruise ships.
"I'll bet you get plenny wahine, eh?" Sheets said.
Bobo missed the sinister tone. "Oh, brah, it's like a candy store!" Bobo chuckled.
Mits slowed, preparing to turn onto the street where their old pal Moses lived.
"That's what I figured, you son of a bitch," Sheets said, jamming the cold steel of the gun barrel into Bobo's neck.
"Sheets, what the hell you doing?" Mits said. He thought he was the only one with a grudge against Bobo.
"Since you asked about my kids, Bobo, the oldest one's yours."
"Oh Jesus," Bobo said.
"Lily?!" Mits said.
Bobo had danced out of ticklish situations many times in the past. But he'd never had a gun to his head.
"Clarence, tell my brother about that night seven years ago," Sheets said.
Seven years ago, Mits was thinking -- 1974 -- the last time Bobo was in Hawaii. The year he loaned Bobo $2,000 to cover a gambling debt. The year Sheets married Grace.
It was a different version of events than the one Grace Kealoha had told Sheets through her tears on the eve of their wedding. She was pregnant, she sobbed, and the baby was Bobo's; he'd raped her.
Bobo told of giving Grace a ride home one night, then pulling over -- "she was giving signals, you know, female kine. I knew she wanted me."
"She fought you."
"They all do at first."
"You raped my fiancee, Clarence, now my wife. It's gonna cost you."
Sheets had directed Mits to drive here, then told Mits to park and wait in the car. Mits heard two shots from a gun he knew by sound was his.
When Sheets returned to the car, he was alone and empty-handed. "Where's the gun?"
"In the pit too."
Mits swore angrily, said that if anybody found the gun it would be traced to him.
"No worry. The chemicals going eat away everything, even the metal."
Now Sheets took one last glance at the spacesuits, and hoped that his promise to his brother was right.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com