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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Extreme circumstances
>>Kona
Don the bartender, respectful of drinkers and drink, paused in his story of the night that Daren Guy became Hawaii's first million-dollar Lotto winner while Cruz MacKenzie took another sip of zin.
"Like I said, Nick Ornellas is in insurance these days. I introduce him to Daren. 'I want my own rock,' Daren says, 'not a piece of it.'
"Nick figures, hey, it's extreme circumstances, the guy needs coverage. He calls his boss, gets the O.K. to write a short-term policy."
"So Jonah Hancock from National Marine Fisheries isn't the only one interested in finding out exactly what happened out in the bay. By the way, have you told any other reporters about this?"
Don puffed his chest, stood to his full 6-foot-3. Even with a receding hairline, he was nearly as imposing as he was as an All-Pac-10 linebacker at Cal, which had something to do with his thick black eyebrows that grew together. "I wouldn't be telling you any of this," he said evenly, "except that I owe you for not saying anything in the column about why I left Honolulu."
Cruz shrugged, but privately cheered: He'd been right to ignore the scoop on Don's ignominious departure from the legal profession. And he'd been right after all about finding an exclusive angle at the yacht club.
"One other thing," Don continued. "At some point, Daren just disappears. People are drinking his champagne and dancing and celebrating and suddenly Daren's not around. I asked Sonya and she said he had to get away, be alone, but that he'd cover the tab. I offered to let her go early, but she said Daren needed a little quiet time." He took a deep breath. "Maybe I should have forced her to go. If I did this never would have happened." Don wiped his polished bar out of habit, lost in thought. "But I needed her, we were still jamming ...
"You know, it's such a damn shame what happened. Daren was a good guy who finally got lucky. Money wouldn't change him, not for the worse, I'm sure of that. But he never had the chance to enjoy getting lucky. Think about it, the luckiest night of his life turns into the unluckiest. It's too weird." The tape clicked off and Cruz flipped it to record the other side. "How much was the tab?"
"Almost six grand. Now we gotta file a claim."
Cruz finished the wine, pushed the empty glass toward Don. "Just one more." This was the hard part. "And then catch me up on Sonya."
"Eh, Mano!" Don waved to a tall Hawaiian man with silver hair and goatee coming through the yacht club's swinging koa doors.
Don whispered without moving his lips: "He was the last guy to see Daren alive."
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com