|
My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
H-3 shootin’ and tootin’
» Aiea/H-3
The new convict's cousin Mario and the mystery man he couldn't identify at trial -- but secretly did to a fellow inmate at Halawa -- were dead. Seth and his cousins Tai and Wili walked away with a satchel of their own money, a brick of Kenny's black heroin and Kenny's bodyguard's .45. It had gone easier than expected, largely because one of Mario's guys was busy in the lua.
They'd just reached the black SUV when a shot rang out. A bullet punctured the passenger door, passing between Tai's arm and torso, rattled off the frame. As they sped away, Seth at the wheel, WIli glanced back. Mario's guy from the bathroom was sprinting toward a baby blue Honda, a 12-foot strand of toilet paper flapping behind from the waist of his jeans, jumping in. The guy Tai decked followed on wobbly legs.
"Oh s---," Wili swore softly. "Dude's a racer."
Everything about the car said street racer, the air-intake scoop rising above the hood, the spoiler in back, the wheels, the low-slung attitude.
They chose the SUV for size and power, not speed. Seth, Tai and Wili each stood over 6-foot-3, weighed over 270 pounds. Seth once got it up to 100 mph, but that was coming down the H-3, and it scared them all spitless.
The Honda could probably do 130, easy.
Seth gunned the rig out of the parking lot, onto the highway, past the stadium, took the freeway entrance, at the split opted for H-3, hoping for a break. They got it, but the Honda ran two red lights, then zipped past a bus on the sidewalk, forcing a group of pedestrians coming from the swap meet to dive out of the way, causing an elderly visitor from California to have a fatal heart attack.
Seth had to slow for a Coors truck, but with the Honda gaining fast, tooted his horn as warning and roared past the beer man on the shoulder, gas pedal to the floor.
WIli, in the back seat, lowered the driver's side window, loosed the safety of his own Glock and the stolen .45. Seth, in the passenger seat, screwed the extended barrel onto his own .45, pivoted in his seat. "Hit the back window."
Seth toggled a switch, the rear window slid down into the door.
The Honda was 100 yards behind now and gaining fast, but ahead both lanes were blocked by two vehicles moving at exactly 57 mph. Idiots!
"Hang on," Seth said. Horn blaring, he passed on the left shoulder. The Honda followed, was 50 yards away when Tai squeezed off a shot, missed. The second punctured the Honda's windshield. It swerved, but kept coming.
At that moment, Quinn Ah Sun and the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa, riding Quinn's BMW bike, were entering the H-3 from Likelike.
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