of silver and black. “You like the copter?” he asked Harry, who shifted from foot to foot, trying to assess the situation.
“Yeah, it’s a fine-looking machine.” Harry knew cops on the take. Hell, in Miami, you were lucky if they didn’t steal nickels and dimes from the parking meters. But here, halfway around the world, not my turf, and I’m using a cop to pick up stolen property.
“Let me show this baby to you while I check it out.” Mikala put on his aviator sunglasses and smiled easily. “Hey, Lomio, hope we have enough horses to get this off the ground with you in there.”
The cop was chattering away, being friendly, too friendly maybe, Harry thought. The kid, too. They’re gonna give me half of a fortune and they’re happy about it, maybe stoked on what’d he call it, a pack of lolo.
“A beauty, huh?” The cop ran his hand over the smooth curve of the nose. “Made in Italy, those Italians know design. An Agusta A-109, two engines — good to have two, in case one peters out on you, right? Didn’t have that in Nam, the Cobra’s engine goes, you better have some flat land in sight. Now, this baby cruises at a hundred seventy-five, can take a thousand pounds of cargo or people. You want, to take some pakalolo home with you, we’ll stop at the farm. Now, this is what they call the executive configuration of the passenger compartment, five people, three facing two, can have a meeting, fix drinks, whatever. So make yourself at home, we’ll be there in no time.”
The guy seemed all right. Just a fly-boy who loves his planes, Harry hoped.
“Just one thing before we take off.” Mikala pointed at the bulge in Harry’s sports coat. “Standard procedure, I gotta take that gun in your shoulder holster. No firearms near the fuel tank, state law.”
State law! Friggin’ cop is fencing stolen property, growing weed, but he’s worried about aviation regulations. “I ‘spose you’ll make me fasten my seat belt, too,” Harry said.
“Absolutely.”
Harry handed over the gun. Now, if you don’t mind, the cop was saying, still smiling, his voice apologetic, assume the position, and with a gentle but firm grip, he spun Harry around until he faced the fuselage, kicked his feet apart and expertly frisked him, patting the polyester sports coat, under the arms, back of the pants, then up and down each leg, right into the crotch where one pat smacked Harry’s testicles into each other, hard enough for his eyes to water. Sorry, old habit, the cop said, then with Harry’s gun, he climbed into the cockpit, put on green earphones, and began fiddling with the dials.
Keaka stepped gracefully through the rear door and sat down. He offered Harry a hand and pulled him in, Harry settling into a seat directly across Lomio. Sitting that way, his knees wedged against Lomio’s shins, it was impossible not to look at the huge Hawaiian. The big man was unshaven, a three-or four-day growth erupting scraggily from the dark face, a forest here, a desert there. His dirty neck was creased with rolls of tissue, muscle or fat or a mixture of the two. An ugly yellow boil the size of a kumquat festered maliciously above his shirt collar. His black eyes were lost under heavy lids and he had yet to offer a smile or a decipherable word.
Harry was still concentrating on the dull ache in his groin when the four rotor blades started churning. The engines whined and the copter lifted a few feet off the ground, hovered a moment, then shot upward toward a rendezvous with the House of the Sun.
Harry Marlin had read the brochures but still didn’t know his geography. He didn’t know that Haleakala was east and that the trip should be entirely across land, first around the West Maui Mountains, then through the Central Valley, then up the gentle slopes of the extinct volcano, past the ring of clouds to the ten-thousand-foot level. Because he was unaware of these things, Harry Marlin was not alarmed that the helicopter was flying south across the Auau Channel, then the Kealaikahiki Channel — literally, the Path to Tahiti — then east over the small island of Kahoolawe. All this took a matter of minutes in the fast Italian helicopter, and then they were flying east over the open ocean toward the Big Island of Hawaii.
Harry Marlin did not know the difference between Maui and the Big Island. He thought only of a mountaintop with buried treasure. And, sure enough, in the distance two volcanoes were visible. The twin peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the Big Island stood more than thirteen thousand feet above the sea, even higher than Haleakala on Maui. Below the two giants was Kilauea, a third volcano.
There is a difference, however, between the volcanoes of the Big Island and Haleakala of Maui. Haleakala last erupted in 1790. Kilauea’s last eruption began only three months ago, and lava continued to pour through its vents and spill down its side to this very day.
The helicopter flew five hundred feet above the water, rapidly closing the distance to land. Harry Marlin leaned against the window and watched the waves peaking beneath them.
Keaka broke the silence. “Now we renegotiate.”
Oh shit. “Whadaya mean?”
Keaka’s smile was gone. He looked at Harry through eyes as black and hard as coal. “Fifty-fifty is not fair.”
“C’mon, a deal’s a deal.”
“New deal,” Keaka said. “A fair deal.”
“What’s fair?” Harry Marlin asked, afraid his voice betrayed a shudder deep in his bowels.
Keaka shrugged as if there could be no dispute. “All for me and none for you.”
Harry exhaled loudly. He tried his best fuck-you look, vaguely aware that it wouldn’t have frightened a kitten. Then Harry sized up the situation. The Hawaiian kid on one side of him, the door over the ocean on the other side, and a monster stepping on his toes facing him. And the crooked cop had his piece.
“Not exactly fair,” Harry said, his throat tightening against the fear.
Keaka stretched his arms in front of him, lazily, but the triceps sprang into shape, cords of well-defined muscles a few inches from Harry’s nose. Keaka spoke again, softly. “It’s my copter and they’re my coupons and these are my friends, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Leave?” Harry was sweating now. He could feel his face heat up, imagined it a searing red, hated himself for it.
Keaka was expressionless, his voice still calm. “Lomio, I wonder if the haole can swim. Many of them can’t. Hey, haole, would you believe that Lomio can hold his breath three minutes and free-dive to forty feet for Kona lobster. Lomio, should we see if the haole can swim?”
The big man grunted and seemed to smile. At least the corners of his mouth turned horizontal from their previously slack, downward arc.
“Wait,” Harry pleaded, “if you want the coupons, keep ‘em, they’ve been more trouble than they’re worth. They’re yours, let’s get back to the hotel.” The posturing was over. Harry knew what he was doing, knew it more clearly than anything he had ever known. He was begging for his life.
“That’s very generous of you, but they’re already mine. What else can you offer me? Nothing. You have nothing to bargain with. Maybe you could tell me where the other haole is, the lawyer, but I know that from Mikala, so you can give me nothing but your life. And after you die, the lawyer will die.”
Lomio nodded his massive head in approval, and he really did smile, revealing teeth large and gray like granite tombstones.
“Lomio, did you know this haole tried to shoot me? If he did that to you, what would you do?”
The big man shrugged, his massive head tilting toward the window, an unmistakable gesture, pointing to the open sea. The copter seemed to list in that direction.
“Hey, there’s land coming up,” Harry Marlin whined, bargaining for time. “Just put me down there, anywhere, and let’s forget all about it.”
Keaka moved closer to him. Their shoulders touched and Harry inched away until he was squeezed tight against the door.
“Lomio, I think the haole is afraid of the sharks. Hammerheads down there, tiger sharks, too. But the grays are the worst. Of course, they don’t usually eat everything. So if your head floats up somewhere, my poor cousin Mikala has another death to investigate, keeps him from helping me on the farm. Maybe it’s better if we don’t drop you here.”
Harry Marlin prayed then, prayed that they were just trying to scare him, to get him on the first flight home, but then he forced himself to look into Keaka’s eyes, now ablaze with withering hate. The fear hit him then, waves of heat and then cold from the pit of his stomach. But Harry didn’t panic. He kept his eyes open, watching for a
