The Pearl Harbor Murders

'Oh, my…. Young lady, please don't put me in the middle of-'

She sat forward, her eyes glittering, the shawl slip-ping, and he did his best not to look down into the considerable cleavage of this girl who was young enough to be his daughter. 'Oh, Mr. Burroughs, I know you're a good man, a considerate man, underneath that … gruff exterior.'

'Underneath this gruff exterior, my dear, is a gruff interior.'

'I don't believe it-I can see kindness in your eyes. I know Colonel Fielder doesn't approve of us, Bill and I. . '

'Can you blame him, at a time like this?'

She shook her head, and the dark arcs of hair swung. 'That's why I have to speak with the colonel-I have to speak with him privately, and I know you can arrange that. Discreetly, Mr. Burroughs. It's important.'

'You want a private meeting with Colonel Fielder. Just you and him-not Bill.'

She was nodding. 'I need to state my own case. I want to prove myself to Bill's father.'

Burroughs smiled, shook his head. 'You're a determined young woman.'

'Yes I am.'

He couldn't help it: she impressed him. She was as intelligent as she was beautiful, and she had courage and conviction. Who could blame any man for loving a woman like this?

'I've written about women like you,' he told her. 'But I've met damn few.'

'I… I don't understand.'

He stood, holding out his hand to her. 'I'll help you. I'll talk to Colonel Fielder, and set the meeting up here at my bungalow… discreetly. Tomorrow soon enough?'

'Oh, Mr. Burroughs,' she said, beaming, and she almost threw herself off the couch into his arms, holding on to him, tight. Face pressed sideways against his chest, she said, 'Hully is a lucky boy, having a father like you.'

'Yeah, I'm a peach.' He patted her back, gently. 'Now get out of here before I fall in love with you, myself, you little vixen. Scoot!'

The dark eyes were teary with joy, her smile a white slash of happiness, as she scurried out of the bungalow, thanking him as she went.

Wishing he were thirty years younger, Burroughs sighed and headed into the bedroom. There's a Jane any Tarzan might fall for, he thought. He slipped out of the robe and-bare-chested, in the pajama bottoms-crawled under a single sheet of his bed, a flower-scented breeze whispering in the open window, fluffing sheer curtains, the lap of waves on the nearby beach soothing him, lulling him to sleep.

Deep asleep, dreaming, he believed he'd awakened, hearing a sound. In his dream, he opened eyes that in reality were tightly shut, and saw-shrouded in darkness-a figure standing across the room from him. The figure gradually revealed itself to be female-a tall, beautiful female who moved into a shaft of pure, heavenly light, slanting through the window.

The woman's flesh was an emerald green, her hair scarlet, her voluptuous body bare but for strategic scatterings of gold sequins that appeared to have been applied to her naked skin. She seemed to be approaching him, reaching out to him, and he sat up, and reached out for her….

A roar from the darkness-for the bedroom had become a cave-announced a third player, and a mammoth man-beast lumbered into view … a pair of tusks, a huge single eye, a fiercely muscular build matted with fur with two arms on either side, each thick pawlike hand clutching a scimitarlike blade, four swords slashing at the air, threatening the green woman, who fell as the blades cleaved her emerald flesh, blood the color of gold splashing, and Burroughs tried to move, but found himself paralyzed in bed, screaming in protest, unable to move, too late to save the beautiful emerald girl, too late….

Then he was sitting up in bed, drenched in sweat, catching himself in mid-scream.

Quickly Burroughs got up out of bed, raced to his typewriter, snapped on his desk lamp, and sat in front of the keyboard, fingers flying. Before it could fade, he recorded the dream, in its every detail. Such nightmares came to him regularly-often involving some terrible creature or unidentified danger. Many of the plots and characters in his novels and stories had been literally dreamed up; he would routinely rise from a bizarre nightmare and, as calmly professional as a secretary, jot down notes.

He'd had these useful nightmares for many years, ever since receiving a blow on the head during his stint as a cop in Salt Lake City. At first there had been torturous headaches, as well, but these had faded, and the dreams remained. He was quite accustomed to them, but neither of his wives nor his children had ever got used to his nocturnal thrashing and bellowing, his moans and screams frequently awakening them.

Both of his wives had insisted that he sleep in a separate bedroom.

He was right up to where the scimitar-wielding man-beast had entered the dream when another scream echoed across the night-not his own.

A woman's scream, a scream of terror, cut off abruptly!

The cry came from outside, had found its way through an open window, and seemed to be coming from the dkection of the beach. He threw on the maroon robe, not even bothering to sash it, and ran barefoot into the night, finding his way through the palm trees in his backyard, toward where the purple ocean blended with the purple sky, with only the stars to show the difference, padding down onto the white sand, which looked gold in the moonlight, like the sequins on the emerald woman in his dream.

This nightmare had a woman in it, too, but Burroughs was not, unfortunately, sleeping: she lay sprawled ten or fifteen yards down the sandy expanse, lying near the surf, which rolled gently but insistently onto the shore. A man was kneeling over her, touching her shoulder with one hand, blood glistening on the other.

Burroughs could already see who the woman was: Pearl Harada, still in her blue gown, askew on her side on the sand, her skull crushed, blood turning the beach black around her rained head. Nearby lay a blood-spattered stone, one of the thick, roundish rocks used in the luau imu-an impromptu weapon anyone might have picked up.

The man bending over the obviously dead girl was a handsome if pockmarked Hawaiian from her band-the trombone-playing leader, Harry Kamana.

All of this the writer took in, in a heartbeat, and then he was running toward the kneeling man and the dead girl, yelling, 'You! Don't move!'

The musician looked up sharply, his eyes wild, but he did not obey Burroughs, rather he scrambled to his feet and ran, heading down the beach.

Though Burroughs was in his sixties and his quarry in his thirties, the writer was bigger than the slight, slender Hawaiian, still in his dance-band aloha shirt, and-as it turned out-faster.

He threw himself at the fleeing musician, tackling him, bringing him down onto the sand, rolling with him until they were both in the water, where the surf licked the shore. The writer had the younger man around the knees, but Kamana squirmed out of his grasp, pulling Burroughs forward, and the writer lost his robe, was climbing to his feet in the surf in just his pajama bottoms, chest as bare as Tarzan, and Kamana tried to ran again, but he was running in wet sand and didn't get very far before Burroughs slammed a fist into the man's back, nailing a kidney.

Kamana blurted a cry of pain, fell facedown, splashing into the shallow water, then flipped around and, making a shrill whining war cry, came up at Burroughs, small sharp fists flying.

The older man ducked and weaved, and threw a hard right hand into the musician's belly, doubling him over, then finished him with a left to the chin that didn't have much power, but was enough to drop the man.

'You want more, you son of a bitch?' Burroughs, looming over him, asked, breathing hard, but not as hard as the younger man.

'No … no… ' Kamana's voice was high-pitched, hoarse; he was on his hands and knees in the shallow surf.

Burroughs grabbed the man by the arm and hauled him to his feet, dragging him down the beach, heading to the bungalow.

The writer paused at the girl's body. He didn't bother to take her pulse-her skull had been caved in by that rock; her brains were showing. Rage and nausea and sorrow rose in him, a volcano of emotions threatening to erupt. He turned to the musician, wanting to throttle the bastard, but something stopped him.

The man was weeping.