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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
15 degrees off
>> Honolulu
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and Cruz MacKenzie was lingering inexplicably in the office. Other times, he'd have gone to Ala Moana for a swim. But not now that sharks were reminding everyone just who was at the top of the food chain. And, yikes, the last couple of times he'd been at Ala Moana he'd seen sea turtles inside the reef. Could sharks have been far away?
Cruz felt a gnawing inside -- he was missing something in the shark-Daren-Sonya-missing boat-missing shorts story. Like the photograph of the yacht Pet Shop, he tilted the facts this way and that in his mind, tried to look at it from different sides. But he was missing something.
Johnny B. Goo, extreme photographer, stopped by on his way out -- he'd be shooting the UH football game that evening -- and shared some office gossip. Garry, the high-priest of journalism who everyone assumed was asexual, had been getting calls from a female and had even returned from his dinner break seven minutes late the other night.
"Mm," Cruz said. "No wonder he's been in such a good mood lately."
"Yeah, right!" Johnny B chortled on his way out.
Cruz followed -- it was time to pick up grub for the tailgate party and then Jasmine -- but the gnawing continued.
On the Big Island, at the remote Pele's Bath, Daren Guy was joining Sushi Leclaire in a full-on worry fest. Sonya, Sushi's 12 Filipinas and the yacht Wet Spot were now at least an hour overdue, Daren figured. What could possibly be taking them so long?
Aboard Wet Spot, Sonya Chan was awakened by the increasingly putrid smell emanating from the crew cubicle where the injured fisherman Hideki lay, a gurgling sound coming up from his lungs with the aroma of gangrene. Holding her breath, Sonya hurried up to the deck and found the 12 Filipinas Sushi recruited from the bars of Manila. And there at the wheel, as she had been for the past four hours while Sonya slept, was Magdalena. She seemed the brightest of the bunch, and so Sonya had taught her how to steer the boat. It was a simple matter of keeping two lines on the compass aligned. "Thank you, I'll take the wheel now, Magdalena, we should be getting close."
It was only then that Sonya realized they were out of sight of the Big Island. How could that be? And then she glanced at the compass. "Omigod!"
Turned out that when Magdalena went to use the head, the girl Poincietta took the wheel and had become confused, and steered off course, 15 degrees in the wrong direction, and Magdalena didn't notice because she was just worried about the two lines.
Sonya made an abrupt left, hoping to spot the Big Island before dark.
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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