My Kind of Town
>> Punchbowl Street Yakuza wedding
Laird Ah Sun was pale enough after two years in the Bay Area, but when his sister Lily saw him walking back toward the Capitol from City Hall, his face was white. Not an easy thing for a person of Hawaiian-Chinese-Japanese ancestry to accomplish.
"What happened to you?"
Laird told her of following the two escaped prisoners, their brief and unsuccessful attempt to get a pardon from the mayor, and then their attempt to hijack a wedding limo at Kawaiahao Church.
"Lily, I was 20 yards behind them when they were both shot! And one of them was killed!"
"By who?"
"Nobody was saying. Tell you the truth, it looked like a yakuza wedding."
"You could have been shot too!"
"I had that same thought."
"You OK?"
"Yeah, just a little too much excitement."
Lily glanced at her watch. "Visiting hours at Queen's don't start for an hour. We still have time to do some research."
At first he made a face. During the past two years at Stanford Business, Laird had done all the library research he wanted to do for a long time. But after what he'd just seen, there was something comforting about the thought of a quiet library.
She led him to the State Library periodicals section, pulled down a golden-brown volume of daily newspaper references from the year 1974. "We're looking up anything to do with the Ah Suns."
"Lily, I don't care about ancient history. I can't even remember what our uncle looks like!" But she gave him a big sister look and he went to work.
>> Waialae Avenue
HPD Detective Gomes parked on 5th Avenue, walked back to the mauka bus stop at 4th and watched TheBuses going by, waiting for the woman he suspected of being the Family Photo Burglar to get off. This, TheBus driver he'd spoken to had said, was her stop.
On TheBus No. 322, Kate felt like a mother with a howling child. Her expedition-size desert camouflage backpack was stuffed with family photos she'd adopted from a residence up on 16th, and they were all crying to go home and meet the rest of the family she'd told them about. She was so relieved as they neared her stop. But there, on the other side of the street, as if waiting for a bus, was the man who had been following her.
Kate patted her backpack, stroked it like a baby, and didn't get off. Her family reunion would have to wait. Poor things.
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