My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
>> State Library Where's Bobo?
After two trips, Lily had the system down for researching in the newspaper archives. Golden-brown bound volumes contained an index of both daily papers, one book per year. Names that had been mentioned in the papers were listed alphabetically.
The last reference to Clarence "Bobo" Ah Sun that Lily knew about was 21 years ago, a postcard Bobo mailed from Miami to Dave Donnelly saying that rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated.
Leading up to that, there were frequent mentions in both papers, especially the columnists -- Donnelly, Sherman, Harada, Horton, Daacon, Chapman and Wood. He was described variously as "popular entertainer" and "local crooner." At the time he wrote that postcard, he was performing aboard a cruise ship.
Lily started with the volume for the next year -- surprisingly, no mention of Bobo. She quickly but carefully went through the volumes year by year. And there were plenty of Ah Sun references.
Business stories about her father Sheets and the Honolulu Soap Co. Various police beat stories referred to her Uncle Mits, an HPD sergeant. The sports page covered Quinn, a baseball all-star at Pearl City High.
More recent business stories mentioned Lily and Ola Essences. And Carol Chang's Windward Islander column had a few references about her brother Laird's academic honors and progress at UH and then Stanford Business and their brother Lance's dancing with the ballet. But no more Bobo. Not one reference in either paper since that postcard. Which followed a missing person report filed by his pal Tony Martinez. It was like Bobo fell off the face of the earth.
>> Queen's Medical Center
It was strange, Quinn Ah Sun thought, it was familiar. It was pretty weird after 16 years to be talking to his mother, it was pretty cool.
He was, Quinn knew, as responsible for that number as Flo Kajiyama Ah Sun. Yes, she's the one who left when Quinn was 11 to fulfill her dream of becoming a professional gambler. But it was Quinn who refused to take her calls or to reply to her cards and letters.
"It's so good to hear your voice, honey," he heard her say, and then a sigh. She was in Las Vegas, but sounded as if she were in the next room. "There's so many things I want to ask you about, but something tells me there's a reason you called."
"Yes. As a matter of fact."
Flo knew it. After all these years, mother's intuition.
"I need to ask you something. What do you know about Bobo Ah Sun?"
Quinn heard his mother gasp. "You're not supposed to know about him!"
"Why not?"
Flo should have known this day was coming.
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