We started a careful, inch-by-inch search, looking for anything that might have been out of place. I saw the melted remains of Robert’s computer, settled in the midst of a hunk of molten steel and plastic that had once been a desk. A couple of the framed posters on the wall were still recognizable, though singed at the edges, and the glass was gone. There wasn’t much else left to say what this place had been or what it had done.
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing my flashlight at a small white object on the floor. I kneeled down and picked it up. It was a piece of plastic about an inch square, with a few round depressions in it. It didn’t look like anything that had been in the office.
“Golf ball.” Mike took it from me and examined it. “Say you want to use a plastic explosive, like RDX. It’s pretty stable stuff, so you have to trigger an initial explosion in order to set it off. What you do, see, is you cut a golf ball in half and you fill it with something that will blow up more easily. There’s a lot of different stuff you can use-I couldn’t speculate yet what might have been in here. But the basic principle is, you put some kind of condensed acid inside some gelatin capsules, and you bury them in the less stable explosive inside the golf ball. After a while, the acid eats through the gelatin, and when it comes in contact with the first explosive, you get a little boom. That sets off the big boom.”
He shrugged. “You can read about it all over the Internet. If you’re an amateur, you don’t know much about using clocks and timing mechanisms, so you go for something simpler, like this.”
“You must have been hell as a teenager,” I said.
“Hey, did you know everything you know about homicide when you were a kid?” He smiled.
We were joined by a couple of agents from the local office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They were dispatched to investigate any kind of bombing, and these two weren’t happy about getting roused out of bed in the early hours of the morning.
Mike and I went through everything we knew with them, and after a while I was yawning and stumbling on my feet. At one point I fell against Mike and he grabbed me. But it didn’t even feel sexy; I was just exhausted. The ATF guys left, promising to come back in the morning. “Come on, I think it’s time to get you home,” Mike said to me.
I yawned again. “My truck’s in the garage.” I smiled. “I think it’s a little neater than yours.”
“Let’s leave it there overnight. I don’t want to see you falling asleep behind the wheel. Where do you live?”
“Waikiki.” I yawned again.
“Almost on my way. Come on, let’s go.”
I tried to argue but I was just too tired. I remember getting into the truck, and then we were on Kalakaua Avenue and he was gently shaking me awake. “Sorry, bud, but I need a little more direction.”
“Left at Lili’uokalani,” I yawned. “Geez, we’re here already.”
“Yeah, you’re not the best driving companion.” He looked over at me and smiled. I directed him to my building, and he pulled up in front. I stumbled as I got out of the truck, but got my balance before he could help me.
“I can make it.”
He nodded. “Thing is, you don’t want that suit inside your place. You’ll be weeks getting the smell of smoke out.” He grinned. “The voice of experience.”
“Okay.” It seemed perfectly reasonable to me. I unbuttoned the suit and let it drop from my shoulders. There was a warm breeze off the ocean that tickled the skin on my back as I stepped out of the boots and the legs of the suit.
“Whoa,” he said. “I didn’t mean you should strip down right here on the street.” He moved to stand between me and any passing car, although there weren’t any.
“I wear less than this any day on the beach,” I said, looking down at my boxers. It was hard to relate all those parts that I saw, legs, and arms and torso, to my body. I felt disconnected from them. I reached into the cab and got my shirt, pants and shoes. I tried to muster up some dignity as I turned, naked but for socks and boxers, to climb the steps to my apartment. But I stumbled again.
“Let me walk you up the stairs.” He put an arm around my shoulders, and I shivered from the contact.
“You gonna tuck me in, too?” I asked.
“Maybe another night.” We walked up the steps and I fumbled for my keys. He took them from me and opened the door.
I wanted to kiss him good night. I wanted to touch my skin to his and feel what that was like. But instead I said, “Will you call me tomorrow with whatever you find out?”
He smiled. “It’s already tomorrow, bud. I’ll call you later. Get some sleep.” He gave me a pat on the butt that moved me a step further inside, and turned away.
I must have made it to the bed under my own power, because that’s where I was a couple hours later when I woke up. My mouth was dry and my head was pounding, but my bladder was full. It was almost dawn and after I finished in the bathroom I couldn’t go back to sleep. I kept remembering the fire, worrying about the people I knew who had been inside, thinking about how much I had to figure out.
Whenever my head is too full, I go surfing. There’s something about the serenity of the water, the discipline of the physical activity, that helps me put everything in perspective. So I pulled on my board shorts and rubber slippas, tried to smooth down my unruly hair, and grabbed a board. Everything around me smelled like ashes until I walked outside and caught a fresh, sweet breeze, full of sea water, frangipani and the last, lingering scents of yesterday’s coconut tanning lotions.
I love to be outside in those moments just before dawn, when the city streets are quiet, the tall palms dozing under a fading quilt of stars. Even before you can see the sun, the sky begins to lighten, the night’s blue-black shading into the palest blue imaginable. When I was a little kid working my coloring books, I used to search for a blue just that shade, composed, it seemed to me, of equal parts of yellow and white. I never got just the right mix; maybe that’s why my art career didn’t continue beyond kindergarten.
The sun was just peeking over the tops of the Ko’olau mountains as I reached Kuhio Beach Park and launched my surfboard into the water. There were only a few other surfers around, the hard-core who, like me, have a physical need that draws them out on the waves. I lay flat on my stomach and paddled out past the low breakers, feeling my cheek against the cool Fiberglas of my board.
Back on land, the high-rise hotels and the little stores on Kalakaua Avenue were just waking up. In the distance I could see the fading green hills, with patches of brown from the protracted dry spell. I thought if I could just stay out there, waiting for the perfect wave, I could keep the world and its troubles at bay. I knew that almost as soon as I launched my day it would get away from me-too many calls to make, reports to read, details to organize. I was facing a major investigation alone, without any preparation, already physically debilitated.
I felt a good wave building beneath me, and stood to ride it. At the same time, though, the sun jumped quickly above the mountaintops, as it does in the tropics, and the flash of blinding light stabbed at my retinas. I lost my balance, and went tumbling into the cool water. Almost immediately I jumped up, howling in pain.
I learned to swim before I could walk, and the sea has always been kind to me, even at its most stern. This blinding pain in my back, though, was new and terrible. I dragged myself and my board out to shallow water and stood, trying to look around over my shoulder. What I saw there disturbed me-a big patch of my skin was raw and red, probably from a burn I’d suffered the night before and not noticed. Not until it came into contact with salt water, that is.
Reluctantly I splashed out of the surf and carried my board home. I wanted nothing more than an hour or so of uncomplicated surfing, clearing my head for the work before me, but I was not to be so lucky. Instead I showered quickly and awkwardly tried to lather some sunburn cream on my back, without noticeable effect. I pulled on a pair of light cotton pants and a polo shirt and realized I was starving.
It was barely six-thirty, too early to go into the office. The streets were still empty of tourists, only the occasional hotel employee or store clerk hurrying to work as I walked over to my favorite breakfast place, a buffet restaurant in a hotel right on the water. It’s called the Beachside Broiler, and you can sit at tables overlooking the sand, eat your fill of pineapple and papaya, ham and eggs and biscuits and whatever else you want. I like to go there after surfing sometimes, when my body is tired and aching but I still need to be near the water.
Connie, the elderly hostess who favored sarongs and way too much eye makeup, smiled when she saw me walk in. “Kimo! You hero!” She reached down to the pile of morning newspapers next to the register and held one up to me, the front half from the masthead to the fold. There was a huge picture of me coming out of the fire,
