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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
A clean, shaded place
» Kona
Having cleverly left his cell phone in his car at the airport back in Honolulu, Cruz MacKenzie found himself at the pay phone outside Kona Kai Fishing Supply.
He left a message for Nick Ornellas at Prudential, the guy who'd sold Daren Guy his insurance policy just hours before he became dinner for a big tiger shark, then phoned Perry Brown's office. He was in court. Meaning Sonya had long ago left the office.
Cruz decided to wait for Sonya's return. Fortunately, the phone booth stood 20 feet from a weathered green picnic table. It was a clean and shaded place, and had a view of Sonya's dinghy. Cruz had composed columns in less comfortable environs, like the day lava was overrunning the village of Kalapana, and Cruz was on the phone to the office, dictating a column, when the line went dead and moments later the place burst into fire.
The problem with the Daren Guy story was what Cruz didn't know. He still had questions to ask, sources to visit. But there was a deadline in four hours. Cruz set his LapFlex on the table, opened it and started writing:
"Seldom has there been a more dramatic example of good news-bad news than the story of Daren Guy, Hawaii's ill-fated Lotto winner. This is an account of his last hours, according to those who were closest to him."
He recounted yacht club bartender Don Dzuraski's descriptions of Daren's personality, the celebratory Dom and the fateful decision to return to his boat the Moku Aina early without Sonya, as well as fisherman Manu Kekai's recollection of being with Daren and Sonya when they bought their Lotto tickets, telling them it was a waste of money, and of later preventing the new millionaire from swimming out to his boat, insisting on taking him out, and then Daren jumping from Mano's Zodiac.
Cruz started to write about Daren Guy's beard hairs that he himself had discovered clogging up the boat's sink this morning, but stopped. He wanted to mush that fact around for another day before making it public, highlighted that paragraph and hit the delete key.
Cruz believed there is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting, and spent another 45 minutes tightening and polishing.
Finally he plugged the LapFlex into the pay phone, dialed the paper's computer line and filed the column with an hour to spare.
Still no sign of Sonya. He called Perry Brown, but he was still out. Nick Ornellas, however, answered and agreed to meet for cocktails at Dorian's.
"How will I know you?" Cruz asked.
"I'll know you."
It couldn't be that tough to spot an ex-cop. He called for a cab and left a note for Sonya on the dinghy.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com
