Mana (3 page)

Lehua laughed her musical laugh. “OK. Since I won't have you distracting me for the next week, I'll provide some other entertainment for us tonight, and I'll save the tape till tomorrow. How's that?”

“Great. When does the entertainment start?”

Lehua stood up, moved around the table to his chair, leaned over and pulled his mouth up to hers. After a long kiss she asked, “Why not now?”

As he stood up, Lehua thought for a moment Bill had pushed her. A rolling noise outside the house, the rattle of dishes in the cupboard, and a feeling of being off balance told her it was a quake—a typical Big Island earth shock.

Bill turned and grabbed the portable phone. As he was punching in some numbers, he grinned and said, “4.6, 35 miles west of Kawaihae.”

Speaking into the phone, he said, “Hi, Ed? Where was it?”

There was a pause, then he nodded. “I wasn't too far off.” Then, “I didn't think it was that big. Anything else happening?” Apparently there wasn't, because Bill ended the conversation with, “I'll let you get back to answering phones. Thanks, and take care.”

Turning to Lehua he said, “It was northwest of the Island, and was a 5.2. Now, where were we? Seems to me we were doing something like this.” He pulled her towards him.

Chapter 3

“One of the best things about being a vulcanologist,” Bill said, “is you don't have to fight your way to an airport like O'Hare or Logan when you have to go anywhere.” The drive, with Lehua at the wheel, was not much more than a ten minute one from her apartment along a stretch of highway with scant outgoing traffic that time of morning. Dawn was just breaking.

“How's Ed taking your departure,” she asked, turning the rear view mirror so she could watch Bill's expression, lit by the occasional lights of approaching vehicles. Ed Tanaka was a fellow vulcanolgists and a friendly rival in the race for new discoveries on the island, and for choice expeditions such as the one Bill was now headed out on.

Bill grinned at her reflection. “I think he's finally resigned himself to the committee's choice. Now I'm glad I wrote that paper on Yellowstone hot springs. It was a pain to finish up at the time, since I'd pretty much lost interest in anything besides flowing lava by then, but it was worth doing. I'm almost sure it was the deciding factor in the committee's choice.”

* * *

After returning from the airport, Lehua indulged herself by going back to bed. It was not that she intended to sleep. It was just that she did her best thinking in bed. She had her editor's approval to stay home that day to polish up the next installment of the Angel Tong story. Cy MacLeish had known her long enough to give her a lot of leeway, and she had not disappointed him yet. Being an investigative reporter on a small town newspaper had its advantages, and having an occasional day at home was not the least of those advantages. Lehua closed her eyes and tried to rough in the first paragraph.

At first, the Angel Tong story had seemed to come easily. That was perhaps because so little attention had been paid to the festering sore which had been growing on the Big Island, to match the burgeoning development along its coasts. Sometime in the nineties, the small-time crime, the prostitution, the drug dealing, the gambling, began to take on an ominous aspect.

Sudden deaths in the Island's underworld were no longer so easily explained as being the aftermath of one pakalolo grower encroaching on another's territory. A strangled prostitute found in a cane field no longer seemed to be just a streetwalker who had picked up the wrong customer, and a spray of bullets at a cock fight was not merely an expression of anger by a sore loser.

Lehua probed, and she had friends and relatives scattered over the island who were ideal informants because they were themselves almost invisible: the cane worker, stopping for a smoke and sitting under the fender of his truck away from the glowing tropical sun; the chambermaid, working behind the half open door of a neighboring room; the waiter, overhearing a few snatches of conversation meant only for the ears of a companion across the table.

The pieces began to fit together. Control of crimes, which had once been petty but had now become major, had slipped into the hands of a group of Chinese. Lehua had broken the name of the group in her most recent article, the Angel Tong. She still needed to fit in the faces.

She had asked Bill for help. He had grinned and said,

“Don't ask me. I couldn't name you three other Chinese on this whole island. Remember? I'm from Milwaukee. In the three years I've been here, I've spent most of my time climbing over lava flows. I haven't even eaten in a Chinese restaurant since I got off the plane. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I ate in one anywhere. Deliver me from Chinese food.”

“You're sure a big help.”

Bill smiled, and then his face turned serious. “You know, if I were you I wouldn't go fooling around with this mob, whoever they are, and especially if they're Chinese. I've heard how their organizations scared the Mafia out of some of the major West Coast cities. They aren't the kind of people you want to go making enemies of.”

“Not to worry. This isn't New York City, or even San Francisco. Gangsters don't pick off reporters just because they're writing stories about them.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, don't go taking chances. Why don't you investigate something innocuous like the county council or something?”

“I'm not so sure some of those characters aren't just as dangerous,” Lehua said with a laugh. “But if it'll make you happy, I promise. Two more articles on the Angel Tong and I'll move on to Big Island politics.”

* * *

As the information had come in, the articles had grown in size and number. Where she had originally planned a total of three, it now looked like the figure would be five, perhaps more. She hoped that, with luck, she'd be able to keep her promise to Bill. The installment she had to have in by the following morning was a crucial one, just short of naming names, but hinting at who they were. With more luck, the next article after that would fulfill the promise. Captain Silva had guaranteed police protection for one of her informants. Now, all that was needed was a smidgen more of courage on that person's part. That would come later. There was still tomorrow's article to write.

With the outline now sketched out in her mind, Lehua threw off the bed sheet and headed for the shower. By the time she had reheated the coffee left over from their quick breakfast, she knew she could finish the article that morning and then move on to something of even greater interest.

I've got to listen to that tape again, she thought. Maybe I'll take it over to the University and listen to it with Tessa. She glanced up at the clock. Nine-thirty. OK. Done by twelve-thirty, then I'll call Tessa. We can have lunch on campus. Maybe by then she'll have heard from the guy she sent the rubbing to.

The article did not shape itself up so easily. The first phone call to fill in a blank merely annoyed her. “No. I'm sorry,” the female voice said, “but Mr. Matsuo is gone for the day. No, I'm sorry I can't help you. He didn't say where he was going.”

Matsuo had said he would be in for sure. As head of a major insurance company on the island, he seemed hardly likely to leave in the middle of the week without telling his secretary where he was off to.

It was the second call that really aroused her suspicions. Tom Wiley was a giant of a man, a big contractor who had a reputation for lifting hundred-pound bags of cement under each arm and tossing them up on the back of a flatbed. A missing front tooth, which he had never bothered to have replaced, along with a broken nose, seemed to tell the world he had taken a lot and had given back in good measure. Today the voice on the phone did not match the looks that went with it. There was no question but that fear was the chief component weaving through the sounds coming from the earpiece. Lehua found it hard to believe.

“You told me definitely that you saw Wai Chu Drayage trucks dumping that waste along the Steinback highway.”

“I made a mistake. It was getting dark, and I can't be sure.”

The uncertainty soon became certainty, certainty that he could not identify the trucks. It had not been getting dark. Lehua knew that for sure, but Tom's sight had gotten dim. There was no point in pushing any further. The source had dried up—with considerable outside help.

Three more calls produced only one confirmation for a major point in her article. I suppose I should be glad I've got even one.

Now the article would have to be rewritten, and she would have to go to the office to tap the files. There was still plenty of material, but the emphasis would be different. Her anger decided her to make it even more hard hitting than she had intended. Maybe that will give others the courage to speak up.

It was almost five before she had the completed article, less a few figures to be checked out, on the monitor in front of her. Two key taps and the information transferred itself to a floppy. She stretched and got up.

The contents of the refrigerator looked unappetizing, but she managed to scrape together a passable supper. The remains of a loaf of rye bread that had been lost behind the pickle jar for several days provided the basis for an open-face sandwich. A slice of frozen ham thawed in the microwave, a tomato fresh from the landlady's garden, a thin slice of onion, several slightly limp lettuce leaves, along with mayonnaise, mustard, and one of the pickles from the jar that had hidden the bread, completed the meal.

Lehua briefly admired her culinary achievement, poured herself a glass of two-percent, pulled the recorder over next to her plate, rewound the tape, and depressed the play button as she began to eat her sandwich. With the board in front of her, she tried to make some connection between the words from the machine and the mysterious symbols.

If anything, Annie's voice seemed even stranger as it took on the tinny overtones of the recorder, though now the language sounded somewhat more akin to Hawaiian. Checking the clock on her coffee maker, Lehua estimated the whole recital had taken just under two minutes. None of it made sense. She rewound and pressed the play button again.

The K's, she thought. There don't seem to be any. Listening closely she became convinced there were no K sounds in what Annie was saying. Hawaiians wouldn't be able to talk if they couldn't use K's, she decided. There was something else there, a D sound or something close to it that seemed to recur again and again. Maybe it's the equivalent of a K? Again she rewound the tape and played it through from the beginning.

This third time, the words, if they were words, seemed much clearer. They seemed to be telling her something, but they were like the voices she had heard in the Wailuku River one night when she and her mother and father and sister had tented out on its banks. The voices had talked, and sung, and stayed just beyond the edge of understanding.

Annie's falsetto ended abruptly, and she heard her own voice asking Annie to read it again. The answer, “No! One time. Only one time,” came through sharp and clear. Lehua sighed, popped the stop button, took her glass, silverware and plate to the sink, scraped off the crumbs and turned on the tap. That was when she had her first inkling something strange had happened.

The bearer of the tidings was an annoying one. A mosquito buzzed by her ear. Bill was always amused at Lehua's love-hate relationship with mosquitoes. They loved her. She hated them. Since they never bothered him, it was easy for him to be amused. Somehow, they took special pleasure in searching Lehua out. In bed with the lights out, if there was one mosquito in the house, it would find her, just about to doze off, and would take special delight in making strafing runs only inches above her ear.

This evening, as this mosquito flew in ever-tightening circles above her arm, she decided she was lucky to have had the creature emerge before bedtime. Tensing, and waiting for the small insect to alight and establish itself so she could be sure to demolish it with a well-placed blow, Lehua saw it settle and start to probe. She was about to make her own move when the mosquito suddenly blew aside and fell into the dishwater.

Windows were open, but no breeze stirred in the house. Puzzled, Lehua looked around, but the first sign had made only a scant impression on her. The clock on the coffeemaker caught her eye and distracted her. She decided it was time to go to the office and finish the article. The mosquito and its fate were forgotten. More pressing matters intruded. Cy wanted to set the story first thing in the morning, and she had promised it would be on his desk when he arrived.

* * *

The Kona News Building was an anachronism, even by the standards of a long-established town. Built in the prosperous years after the economy had recovered from the post World War II recession, the six-story hotel had been completed too late to share in the prosperity. It soon failed, and simply looked out of place in the small village sheltering behind the sea wall on the west coast of the Big Island. By the time tourists discovered the area, it was too late for the old edifice. Purchased by the publisher at a forced sale, it seemed particularly unsuited to be a newspaper office, especially for a paper with the limited circulation of the Kona News.

As Cy had said, “The publisher's got more money than he knows what to do with, so let's make the most of it.” The ample basement became the site for the presses which now filled in the hours between editions with advertising brochures, calendars, and even vanity publications. The first floor became the editorial offices, the second a warehouse for everything from extra newsprint to a badly-kept morgue of old copies, the third the art and photo department, the fourth the advertising department, the fifth and sixth provided offices for reporters and other personnel, with empty rooms left over.

Lehua found herself happily located alone in one of the top-floor rooms overlooking Kona Bay. “The same floor and view at Waikiki would cost me five hundred a night,” she had said to Bill the first time he visited her in her office.

* * *

Tonight, the building was quiet. Julie, the afternoon receptionist, was just going off duty when Lehua came in. “Be sure to let the janitor know when you're
pau
, Lehua. Someone went out without telling him last night and tripped the burglar alarm. Cy went into a snit because of it. He said he has enough to do around here without having to apologize to the police for his employees' screw-ups.”

Lehua smiled. “OK. I promise to have Joe let me out. I don't want Cy to go into a snit because of me.”

Settling down in her office, Lehua swiveled around to look out at Kona Village and its harbor. For the hundredth time, she told herself she would have to call the maintenance crew about having the outside of the window washed. It was a shame not to have the full benefits of the view. Sighing, she swiveled back to her desk, unloaded her briefcase, found the floppy and slipped it into the computer's drive. In a few moments, she was scrolling the article up on the monitor.

Again there were stumbling blocks. Data she had been sure were in her files, just were not there. Information she had been certain was specific, turned out on re-examination to be far more vague than she had remembered. Her final paragraph lacked punch. Tiring of corrections on the screen that needed even more corrections, she ran off a hard copy and sat down with a red-tipped felt pen. By eleven she was, if not pleased at the results of her labor, at least satisfied. She knew it would flush out more information from nooks and crannies she had not yet explored. It would make whoever it was that was running the clandestine and criminal show uncomfortable and perhaps even nervous.