My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
For the taking
>> North Shore
At a fruit stand across the highway from the entrance to Turtle Bay, Meg Choy Primitivo was writing a check to Jake Peepers, P.I., giving him a description of her husband Victor's Escalade and the laughing young woman who had been in the passenger seat when they turned into the resort almost an hour ago.
Through his dark glasses, he was enjoying the view. The distraught Mrs. Primitivo wore a low-cut black swimsuit, a black pareau tied at the waist. She was, in a word, sweet.
"I want to help you spy on him."
"To put it in the vernacular, Mrs. Primitivo," he said with a wink, "we need to get you the hell away from Turtle Bay. Tell you what, The Eddie is happening at Waimea. You got on your swimsuit, why don't you hang out there, get some rays, enjoy the ambience. I'll be in touch by cell phone, hopefully meet you over there this afternoon with the proof."
It shouldn't take too long, he hoped, to get photographic evidence that Victor Primitivo and some young bim were shacking up.
When Mrs. Primitivo called, he'd been on his way to The Eddie, hoping to score with one of the local beach blanket babettes. Hopefully, he'd be there in time for the final heats.
Peepers watched his new client walk to her car, loved the sway of hips. For an older broad, Mrs. Primitivo was a damn fine specimen. Maybe if she was PO'd enough at her husband, she'd feel like a revengeful roll with him. But he'd worry about that later. Right now, Jake Peepers was going peeping.
>> It happened so fast, like a magician. At first Lono Oka'aina thought he'd seen the older, distinguished haole put something in the young Japanese woman's pink wine when she got up to go to the lua. Not that it was necessary.
They'd been talking and laughing since Lono had been seated nearby at the Palm Terrace, and maybe it was the wine, but the young woman was doing a lot of touching, a tap on his arm, a brush of the hand. Lono knew where this was heading.
When she returned, the talking, the laughing, the touching continued over another glass of pink wine. She called him Victor. He called her Shauny.
When they left, she was a bit tipsy and slipped her hand inside his arm. They looked so happy, so glad to be together, Lono couldn't imagine why the guy would need to slip her -- what did they call it in the news? -- a date-rape drug. Shauny was already Victor's for the taking.
That was Victor Primitivo's idea all along, but after she woke up.
Lono didn't know it then, of course, but he'd be around for that too.
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