My Kind of Town
>> Above Waialua Cosmic sock
"Guy from Maui is interested in some of our product," Sam said seriously.
"We meet tonight."
"Which product?" Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka replied. This house in the middle of a banana patch contained both a crystal meth lab and a large indoor, hydroponic marijuana farm.
"Ice."
"Kind of heavy deal," Moki added.
The senator had been involved in drug deals before, of course, usually scoring from a stripper at one of the clubs. That had been the great thing about having Serena around. The senator gave her money and the ex-stripper was in charge of drug procurement. It kept his hands clean at the point of purchase. In any case he'd certainly never been involved in any transaction that could be called heavy.
Sam told him the time and location.
"What's the heavy part?"
"The money, brah," Lude said.
"Six figures," Sam said.
Heavy money. And as the senator knew from his days at the Capitol, when the money got heavy, loyalty and ethics got thin.
>> Queen's Medical Center
All the way from the elevator, the goddess Ho'ola whispered Laird Ah Sun's name, but he didn't seem to notice and hurried to his brother Lance's room.
Trailing behind Ho'ola, Lily Ah Sun could see Lance puffing himself up with righteous fervor so that the moment he walked through the door he was ready to preach the truth of Christian X.O. St. James, author of the new book
"Jesus Was Straight, Mister: And You'd Better Be Too!" That truth was simple: Lance and his boyfriend could be cured of their gayness and thus save their souls. That's why Lance had made this unplanned trip home, to share this good news with his little brother.
As Laird pushed open the door to Lance's room, Ho'ola tapped him lightly on the shoulder, but he could not see the very large, very brown, very beautiful, very naked woman, and her touch was no more than an itch at which he scratched absently.
Lily hurried too, not wanting to a miss a moment of what happened when her brother's twisted Christian theology ran smack into Ho'ola.
The goddess of life was like most women -- she did not like being ignored. And once more she tried to speak to Laird, bending and whispering in his ear.
But again Lance treated her as a nuisance, waving at the tickle in his ear as if it were merely a mosquito.
"Lance, Greg," Laird began grandly, "I bring you good news of salv ..."
That's when Ho'ola stuffed a cosmic sock in his mouth. The words wouldn't come out and all he could do was cough, gag and choke.
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