The Pearl Harbor Murders

a listener as these idiots are lousy talkers-average man or woman has little or nothing worth saying, and spend much of their waking lives saying it. They exercise their vocal organs while their brains atrophy.'

Hully was used to such rants. Calmly he said, 'I'm not going to the wrestling match, Pop. Anyway, you're a great conversationalist, and some very interesting people are bound to be there. You're just not used to socializing sober.'

Burroughs gave his son a blank, almost stunned look; then the old man burst into laughter.

'You got me,' he said. 'Take your damn shower-you smell worse than I do.'

Hully took his shower.

He was amused by his father's cantankerousness, and delighted by how the old man's despondency had faded over the last month or so. Frankly amazed by his father's new lease on life, Hully had marveled the other day when, walking back to the hotel along a fence line-, his father had jumped up, swung a leg over and dropped down nimbly on the other side. The younger Burroughs had stood there flabbergasted: the fence was chest-high, and Hully knew he couldn't have vaulted the thing.

Perhaps it was time to get back home, to his mother, in the house in Bel Air. He was well aware she suffered from chronic alcoholism-he'd witnessed her incessant drinking since his childhood. Her periods of sobriety were now very short-a week or two-followed by ten days to two weeks of a bender resulting in delirium tremens and, ultimately, a doctor's care. Hully knew the affliction would follow his mother to the grave-if it didn't send her there, first.

Nothing remained but to try to make her life as happy and as free of worry as possible, and to keep her from injuring herself. Shortly before he left, he'd fired a maid and driver who were aiding and abetting his mother's bingeing, and taking advantage of her financially.

Truth was, he was enjoying himself here in Hawaii, and dreaded going back home-he loved spending time with his father, adored Waikiki with its gentle, flower-scented breezes, and had enjoyed several brief romances here … even if Pearl Harada hadn't been one of them.

A hundred guests had descended upon the Niumalu by sundown, far more than the relatively few residents of the thirty cottages scattered about the tropical grounds. The tables in the dining room had been rearranged, fit together picnic-style, but Hully and his father-and another forty patrons, inclined toward a more authentic, traditional presentation-sat like Indians on the lawn on lau hala mats, gathered around a long narrow spread of food exhibiting great variety and color, including the exotic likes of lomi-lomi (salmon rubbed and raw, mixed with shaved ice, onions and tomatoes); ti-wrapped breadfruit, yams, bananas and beef; opii (raw limpets); pipikaula (Hawaiian jerked beef); limu (dried seaweed); laulau, parcels of pork with salted butterfish; and two kinds of poi, one made from breadfruit, the other of taro. And chicken and mahimahi and, of course, the delicious shredded pork from the imu. Eventually noupio (coconut pudding) was served, but it took a long while, and a lot of serious eating, to get there….

Hully and his father both capitulated to having wine with their meals, passing on the stronger stuff- oke, short for okolehao, ginlike booze derived from ti root and, according to O. B., 'every bit as good as horse liniment.' Free-flowing oke and wine made the evening even more festive, and casual, and it was plenty casual, with even some of the admirals and colonels wearing the currently popular, colorful silk 'aloha' shirts, the women in loose-fitting, equally colorful muumuus, or the occasional kimono-Japanese fashion and culture were much admired locally, despite the threat of war.

In fact, the top brass themselves were here tonight-Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the Pacific Fleet, and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, commander of the U.S. Army ground and-air forces. Kimmel wore a white suit with a light gray tie that vaguely invoked his Naval dress whites, while Short was in a red-and-yellow aloha shirt.

Hully's father knew both men. Kimmel and Short sat almost directly across from O. B.-the two most powerful military men on the island had arrived together, with petite, attractive Mrs. Short (it was well-known that Kimmel had left his wife on the mainland, so as not to be distracted in his Hawaiian duty… even if his name was Husband).

As usual, Kimmel-whose strong voice was touched with a Kentucky bluegrass twang-seemed uncomfortable in a casual setting, his broad brow troubled. The admiral was in his late fifties, five feet ten inches of compact muscle and bone, his dark blond hair graying at the temples, with clear, direct blue eyes, a slightly hooked nose, and a sternly set mouth and chin.

Short, on the other hand, was affable and easygoing, and the close friendship between the admiral and the general puzzled many, as they would seem personal and professional opposites. A slim, wiry five feet ten, in his early sixties, Short had a thin, delicately boned, sensitive face with deep-set eyes under frequently lifted brows, with a high-bridged nose and a thin upper Up and sensuous lower one.

'Ed,' Short was saying, helping himself to two fingers of poi (no utensils allowed at a luau), 'how did a fellow with a military background like you wind up an artiste!'

'Nobody's ever accused me of being an artist before, General,' Burroughs said, nibbling a chunk of banana. 'Biggest disappointment of my life was when Teddy Roosevelt turned me down for the Rough Riders.'

Short frowned and smiled simultaneously. 'I thought you were in the cavalry-the 'Bloody Seventh,' who fought at Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee.'

'That's true, but the press agents would have you believe I fought side by side with Custer.'

'Maybe that's what happened to your scalp,' Hully kidded.

His father laughed at that, continuing, 'The only Indians I came in contact with, at Fort Grant, were Indian scouts. No, my cavalry career was undistinguished, General. A flop like everything else I ever tried.'

'Edgar Rice Burroughs,' Kimmel said, putting some pomp into the name, 'a flop? That seems unlikely.'

'Admiral, I have sold electric lightbulbs to janitors, candy to drugstores and peddled Stoddard's lectures door-to-door. The only interesting job I ever had was as a policeman.'

This was news to Hully, sitting next to his father. 'You were a cop, Pop?'

Burroughs smiled at the admiral and general, pointing a thumb at his son. 'You see, my boy has inherited my literary skill.' Then he turned to Hully. 'Yes, my poetic offspring, I was a police officer in Salt Lake City, my principal duty rousting drunks and hoboes. Even flashed my gun a few times.'

Hully was impressed. 'When was this?'

'Maybe ought three, ought four… don't really remember, exactly. But mostly I was a salesman-a bad one. I was peddling pencil sharpeners when I first took up writing.'

'Had you always had an interest in literature?' Kim-mel asked.

'I liked Mark Twain, and The Prisoner of Zenda, if you call that literature. I was supervising other salesmen, had a lot of free time, and spent it reading cheap magazines. The fiction I read struck me as lousy, and I figured if other people could get paid for writing such rotten stuff, make room for Burroughs.'

'I like your books, Ed,' Short said, grinning, 'and I won't have you downgrading yourself… and my good taste.'

'Don't think I'm not grateful, General. No writer alive has taken more potshots than me-there are li-brarians and literary types who consider my stuff a bad influence, particularly on young minds like yours.'

The general laughed, and said, 'How on earth could Tarzan be considered harmful?'

'Well, a good number of kids have fallen out of trees, emulating him… otherwise, I think it's good for their imaginations.'

Mrs. Short said, rather primly, 'Don't you think some children have rather overactive imaginations, Mr. Burroughs?'

'With all due respect, Mrs. Short, the power of imagination is all that differentiates the human from the brute. Without imagination, there's no power to visualize what we have never experienced… and without that, there can be no progress, no invention.'

Hully smiled to himself, thinking of his father's self-characterization of being a 'lousy conversationalist.' Of course, giving in to a little wine had lubricated his dad's tongue, no question….

Kimmel was frowning in thought. 'How on earth did you come up with something as imaginative as