My Kind of Town
>> State Capitol Talkin’ ’bout my guy
HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes, the pursuing officer, did not want to be the arresting officer. Too much paperwork, especially with three prisoners who'd run away from the overturned HPD van.
So he let the guys in blue handle the cuffing and the reading of their Rodham Rights: "... we know society has failed you and that this really isn't your fault, but nevertheless we must ..." And so forth. The new wording really chafed Gomes.
"You guys about done," he said to the crime scene photographer, who was shooting Gomes' 1971 Barracuda from every conceivable angle. Gomes wanted to get it off the Capitol plaza before the press hounds showed up.
Too late, he saw. There was Johnny B. Goo, Star-Bulletin extreme photographer. That son of a duck-walker was everywhere, and was aiming at Gomes' car.
"Eh, Johnny B! I got a better shot than that, but you gotta hurry!" Johnny B followed as Gomes jogged over to the ambulance parked beside the Capitol moat. "Check out what those fish did to these guys!"
Johnny B had shot some gross stuff over the years -- fires, murders, head-on crashes -- but this was as bad as anything.
The fierce new strain of fish recently brought in as part of the state's homeland security at the Capitol (as well as to handle the algae infestation), a barracuda-mullet hybrid, had inflicted dozens of severe hickeys on the trio of escapees, some bad enough to draw blood. "Man, those are some mean suckers!"
While Johnny B fired away, Gomes jumped in his car and drove away, calling HPD dispatch as he went. "Eh, Gwen, you ever hear back from the driver of TheBus number 688?"
Gwen Roselovich read Gomes the message. TheBus 688 broke down at North King right in front of Farrington High. The driver, Myrtle Agena, was at the scene.
"I'm enroute," Gomes said. "By the way, Gwen, what's up with the other escapees?"
"Two accounted for, one still missing. And it's your guy."
"My guy?"
"The senator."
>> H-1, Ewa-bound
It was like deja vu all over again for Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka. Except this wasn't just a story he'd told to the press.
This was real. He'd been nabbed by a group of armed Hawaiians, pulled from the overturned HPD van. There were five of them in this big SUV. All but the driver was eyeing him.
"Howzit," the senator said. No reply. "Eh, mahalo, but no offense, I think you got the wrong guy."
"No s---," the one in the passenger seat replied.
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