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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Round-up time
>> North Shore
When members of the international hunt club fleeing the Rockin' Pikake Ranch above Kahuku reached Kamehameha Highway, they relaxed. Some turned left toward Turtle Bay, some turned right toward Kaneohe -- fanning out, as they had in the hunt that had been called off scant minutes after it began. Amazing how fast hunters became the hunted. All because of the carelessness of Victor Primitivo and Clive Hubbington, the Aussie.
Thanks to a call from HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes to Dispatch giving license numbers and descriptions of the fleeing vehicles, officers were waiting. They made it look like speed traps, one adjacent to the shrimp ponds, the other opposite Malaekahana, waving certain vehicles over. As members nervously noted that it was only their vehicles being stopped, HPD reinforcements arrived -- blue-and-whites, unmarkeds, solo bikes and paddy wagons. Luis of Mexico, in the white Explorer driven by his associate Gerhard of Germany, tried to get off a call to their leader Tets Nakajima, but a motorcycle cop grabbed his cell through the open window.
In all, when the paperwork was finished and filed, officers nabbed 17 men and seized seven vehicles and 41 pistols and rifles. Initial charges included possession of unregistered and illegal firearms and aiding and abetting Victor Primitivo in the kidnapping of Shauny Nakamura. Others were pending. So the majority of the hunt club members were arrested and would be facing justice.
Back at the ranch, meanwhile, that didn't do Shauny Nakamura, Imelda the Manilla street kid and their new friend Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka much good. Peering from the shadows behind the rock outcropping, 35 yards down the slope, they watched as the one Shauny knew as Steven put a bullet through the head of the one dressed like Crocodile Dundee, then dumped the lifeless college boy Royce from a body bag.
That made three lying dead in the clearing, including Victor Primitivo and the one in Arabic robes in a body bag.
What a fine spot he'd gotten himself into, the senator was thinking. Along with drug charges and flight from prosecution, add murder (the Saudi) to his recent list of accomplishments. And he'd wounded Victor Primitivo -- regretfully because the senator recognized him as one of his major campaign contributors.
Shauny was having similar thoughts, the gravity of what she'd done when she brought the Arab's big sword down on Victor's groin sweeping over her. But she would not cry, for it was kill or be killed, and she'd won that one. Below, Steven and the other man looked up in their direction. Steven cupped his hands to his mouth. "Shauny! Imelda! Why not just give yourselves up now and make it easier on all of us?!"
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com