My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center What a legacy
Having stopped by her gynecologist's office to pick up a Viagra sample packet for her husband Sheets, Grace Ah Sun was going round and round in the dizzying circular parking structure on her way to visit her son Lance when Keala Rosenthorp broke into KHPR's Afternoon Concert with a news bulletin about Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka. Grace's boss.
Donovan had been plucked from an overturned HPD van en route to OCCC. Police believed it was a case of mistaken identity, that associates of Isaac Kunia had in fact meant to grab the Hawaiian activist who'd been arrested on drug charges. "Police," Rosenthorp said, "believe the senator's life is in danger and are asking his abductors to return him unharmed."
Grace breathed a prayer for Donovan.
>> Above Waialua
Taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment the way you're supposed to do, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka gently squeezed the trigger of a Glock 9mm and exhaled slowly -- emitting a cloud of marijuana smoke, through which he saw the bullet tear into the snout of a boar. Or at least the paper target in the form of a boar. Five shots, five hits.
"You shot before, eh?" said the guy he'd thought of as Shotgun -- because that's where he sat after they'd plucked him from the overturned HPD van -- whose real name turned out to be Sam.
"That indoor range in Waikiki mostly."
A doobie in one hand, a Glock 9mm in the other, the senator tilted his head back, felt the warmth of the sun on his face and stretched. It was good to have the handcuffs off at last. Turns out the guy he'd thought of as Backseat Right was named Moki and there wasn't a lock in the world he couldn't pick. The senator wished he had a third hand -- for a bottle of beer.
"Enough target practice," he said. "I want you guys to tell me about this political action Isaac had been planning. Over a beer."
As they headed into the small, wood-frame house that sat amid a banana patch, the senator had another thought.
"By the way, why you guys only got Miller in the fridge?"
"Isaac liked it," said The Driver, whose real name was Lude.
"Yeah," Moki echoed.
"Tell you what, from today, we buy Bud."
"Shoots, sounds good to me," Lude said. "I always liked those frogs."
"One other thing. Lude -- how'd you get that name?"
"My mother. She liked Quaaludes a lot, named me after 'em."
"Hey, probably nobody else got that name, right?"
"Except my son."
"Lude Jr.?"
"Good boy. Lives with the mother." Keeping the family legacy going.
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