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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Can’t go backward
>> Honolulu
Not that he didn't trust Nick Ornellas, but Cruz MacKenzie liked to hear some things for himself.
"It's officially been declared a disappearance, presumed dead from shark attack," the desk sergeant at the Kona police station said. "The case is closed. Why, you know something we don't?"
"Sarge, it's no secret what I know -- you can read it."
Which was technically true, if not totally.
Cruz continued wading through four days of phone messages. Most of them were from public relations agents and began by oozing about how much they enjoyed his column. Cruz had so much smoke blown up his okole by P.R. types over the years, it's a wonder he didn't have rectal cancer. He tried not to let it go to his head.
On the other hand, he'd had enough people be mean for no apparent reason just often enough that if somebody wanted to be nice, he usually let them get away with it.
The second part of the publicist pitch was usually an offer to get together and talk about doing a story on their client. Some in this batch of messages were from do-gooder causes, like the offer to participate in the media division of the Special Olympics. Others were commercial, like the gay couple, a flaming artist and a butch chef who had just gotten "married" and opened a gallery-cafe in Chinatown, Pallette & Palate, and wanted to have Cruz down for a bite.
He jumped a little when a breathy female voice said from the machine: "Hey Cruz, it's me. Listen, I won't be seeing you for a while. I wanted to let you know, OK. The other night was ... well, thanks. But, um, I can't go backward, you know? Anyway, I'm doing OK. Don't work too hard. Bye."
For about the tenth time during the day, he glanced at the Gannett Gazette photo of him in his BVDs holding Jasmine in a towel. Cruz didn't want to go backward either. But he did want to stay in touch with Sonya. He was working on a theory to explain Daren Guy's disappearance. If he were to reappear, wouldn't Sonya have to be one of the first to know?
>> Off the Big Island
Daren Guy and Sushi Leclaire had stayed up through the night, adjusting the pink sail as needed as they tacked across the sea back to Kona. The moment the first light began to show, they hauled the sails down.
Shortly after, his 12 Filipinas began coming up from a night of rest in the cabin, followed by Sonya Chan, Daren's girlfriend. She carried a speargun, loaded, walked over and kissed Daren's cheek. He handed over the wheel to her, gave her their bearing, and he and Sushi went below to sleep, not catching even one whiff of mutiny in the air. Perfume will do that.
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
