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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Gunfight at Pali
is blast from the pastOnly a crass, insensitive former crime reporter would admit that last week's bloody shootout between rival organized-crime figures at the Pali Golf Course brought back a certain nostalgia for the colorful "old days" of Hawaii's underworld.
But what can I say? It did. I had been laboring under the impression that Hawaii had been "cleaned up" of real organized crime or that the criminals had become sophisticated to the point where they knocked off each other with lawsuits and writs of mandamus instead of firearms.
But no, organized crime still thrives, and some fairly scary people vie for the right to provide "protection" to illegal gambling houses. I'm not sure from whom the gambling houses are being protected. The photos of the dead, wounded and arrested from the golf course gun fight showed some of the toughest-looking guys I've seen for a while. If I had an illegal gambling casino, those are the kind of fellas I'd want to be protected from.
I MUST BE getting naive in my old age thinking that gambling in Honolulu had somehow disappeared. It's always been here in the form of dice, cards, cockfighting and sports betting. I cut my rookie police reporter teeth on covering the likes of Henry Huihui, the personable crime figure who was nevertheless responsible for a surprising amount of murder and mayhem in the '70s and '80s. But before Huihui was finally run to ground and forced to rat out his own gang members, Hawaii was home to crime bosses right out of Hollywood Central casting (Asia-Pacific Division).
People like Alvin Kaohu and Wilford "Nappy" Pulawa not only were famous here for their entrepreneurial zeal in managing Hawaii's sunshiny underworld, they were a hit in Las Vegas, too. Pulawa and Kaohu remain the only Hawaii residents still listed in Nevada's Black Book of "excluded persons," people considered so naughty that they cannot step foot into any casino. They were put in the book in 1975 when it contained only about a dozen names, mostly mainland mob bosses, hit men and kidnappers. Today, it still lists fewer than 40 names for the entire country.
Hawaii gamblers loved Vegas and sometimes returned home owing more money than they had. But crime bosses here would not abide outside bet collectors flying to the islands. Legend has it that when two Nevada mob thugs were sent to Hawaii to collect gambling debts in the 1960s, the "Hawaii Mafia" sent their bodies back to Las Vegas in a trunk with a note that said, "Delicious. Send More."
Don't get me wrong. I'm not in favor of organized crime. But the trunk shipment did show a certain verve that seems to be lacking among our current crop of identity thieves and ice heads.
In light of the Pali Golf Course tête-à-tête, I expect the police will raid the gambling dens, and a bright light will be cast on the dark, slimy underbelly of paradise. I can't wait.
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Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com