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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Barely legal
>> Off the Big Island
This time it all happened quickly, smoothly. No other vessels suddenly appeared. No Coast Guard fly-overs. The sea was calm. Working the wheel and the electric motor, Daren Guy kept the yacht Wet Spot positioned at the bottom of a ladder made of nylon rope and wooden slats reaching from the deck of the Tuna Maru down seven stories to the water.
One by the 12 brown-skinned girls climbed down, terrified of the height and of falling, but they kept moving, anxious to reach the safety of the yacht because the captain of Tuna Maru swore he'd throw them into the sea if the rendezvous did not happen today, and night was beginning to fall.
Keeping both spearguns close by, Sonya Chan helped the girls aboard, noting that they were Filipinas and looked barely legal -- age-wise, anyway.
As Sushi Leclaire came down the ladder wearing a chartreuse aloha shirt with a large briefcase strapped to his chest, Sonya reached for a speargun. Daren said there would be money involved in this deal. She wondered what else he might have in the case other than money. She stood back, let Sushi clamber aboard without assistance, and he immediately started bowing. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," he said, and when at last he straightened up they saw tears in his eyes. And then: "But who are you? Where is Paul?"
"Couldn't make it, asked me to fill in," Daren said. "He was a little vague on what happens from here on out, though, Soosh. What's the plan?"
"He was to have arranged for a van to meet us at a secret location," Sushi said.
"We can do that," Daren said. "By the way, there's supposed to be some money involved here."
"Yes yes," Sushi said, bowed again, unstrapped the case from his chest, opened it, revealing more cash than Daren or Sonya had ever seen in one place, pre-counted and wrapped with a strip of paper around the center. Sushi, Sonya thought, it looks like Spam sushi, only greener.
Sushi reached in, scooped out handfuls of wrapped bills. "The rest to be paid upon our safe delivery to land and a vehicle."
Daren eagerly took the money, counted it even more eagerly. Ten hundreds to a pack, a thousand bucks, and he had 20 of them -- $20,000! More than plenty to tide him over until the insurance thing was settled. And more to come. But Daren was not so busy counting money that he failed to see the .22 pistol tucked among the other stacks of cash. Sonya saw it too, fingered the safety on the spear gun.
That's when they heard someone shout "Banzai!" and looked up to see a body hurtling from the deck of the Tuna Maru toward them.
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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
