Mana

by John A. Broussard

  “That really isn’t necessary, Sam.”

  “Not necessary?! You’ve just used up about fifteen of your lives. Your luck’s due to run out. So there are no ifs, ands or buts. I’ll relieve Sergeant De Rego from any other duties, and she can stay with you until we find out who’s behind this.”

  “I can think of worse company than Millie, but she’ll be bored silly. All I’ll be doing is writing my next article on the Tong.”

  “Being bored comes with the territory. Detectives spend most of their waking hours being bored, and Millie has had fifteen years on the force to get used to it. She’s also used to sleeping on the floor if you don’t have a couch to accommodate her.”

  “All right. I guess there’s no point in arguing. Besides, I do have a couch that opens up into a bed. So she won’t have to sleep on the floor. But I still say it isn’t necessary for her to stay with me.”

  “Why are you so damn sure? You think the guy who called you is going to give up? Or are you going to give up writing those articles?”

  For a moment, Lehua toyed with the idea of telling Sam why her anxiety level was so low, and then she thought better of it. “Neither,” she answered.

  “Then Millie moves in, period.”

  * * *

  Lehua had known Millie for years. One of the first patrolwomen hired in the Kona District, Millie established an enviable record during her probationary period as an officer, having disarmed a berserk husband who knew only one thing, that his wife needed killing. That, and rescuing a baby from a burning building had been just the beginning of a career that put a quietus on any possible attempts to discriminate against women on the Kona police force.

  In addition, Millie had won the police’s sharp shooting contest for the last seven years in a row. She also had the appearance to go along with her reputation. Five-ten, with a solid body and a no-nonsense face, she had long ago learned how to cow the meanest of drunks by just looking him square in the eye…and yet children loved her. So she had become the favorite speaker at the Law Day programs held by the local schools.

  Millie looked over at her companion as she drove her back to her apartment in an unmarked car. “I’ll stay out from under foot. All I need are a few video tapes from the supermarket. Got earphones for your TV? If not, I’ll drop by my house and pick up mine.”

  “No need. I’m all equipped. Bill likes to watch those endless science shows which leave me cold, so I bought him a headset for his birthday.”

  “Great. Let’s go by the market and we’ll pick up supper fixings and charge it to the department. That way they won’t have to pay for my eating out while on guard. I’m going to enjoy this kind of duty.”

  Millie insisted on cooking dinner while Lehua worked on the outline of the next article in her Tong series. No great cook herself, Lehua nonetheless appreciated good food, and admired those with the ability to prepare it. It was difficult for her to tear herself away from watching the efficient sergeant taking over the kitchen with the air and skill of a professional.

  “What’s on the menu?” Lehua asked, after she had drawn the curtains at Millie’s advice and returned to the kitchen.

  “Watercress salad, to begin with. Where do you hide your sesame seeds?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  Millie shook her head in disbelief. “We can make do, but I sure don’t see how you make a really decent salad without having sesame seeds handy.”

  Lehua grinned at Millie’s reaction. “You’d be surprised at how many other food items I don’t have. What else is on the menu?”

  “Some shrimp fritters, along with eggplant parmesan.”

  “High class international cooking. Great!”

  “Tomorrow night we go peasant and local, though. I’m getting the makings together for Portuguese bean soup, and I’ll mix up the ingredients for bread tonight so I can get it started on its first rise when we get up in the morning.”

  “You plan that far ahead?” Lehua shook her head in disbelief. “I usually don’t think about a meal until I’m hungry, and even then I don’t do anything about it until I open the refrigerator.”

  “You look like it, too,” Millie commented as she surveyed Lehua’s small figure. “You could stand to add a few pounds to those bones. Can’t you get that boyfriend of yours to do some cooking? Chinese are born cooks. Just give him a little nudge.”

  Lehua laughed at the suggestion. “Maybe I could get him to fry some eggs over hot lava, but otherwise he’s about as useless in the kitchen as I am. He says he can warm up a mean TV dinner in the microwave, and that’s about it.”

  Millie grunted. “It’s time one of you learned how to feed yourselves.”

  Lehua’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather settle for permanent police protection. All the fuss with no muss.”

  The meal measured up to Lehua’s expectations, and Millie glowed under the compliments, though herself disparaging the results of her efforts.

  Following a fruit dessert comprised of lychee, papaya and mandarin oranges, Lehua sighed and sat back in her chair. “I haven’t eaten that well or that much since my college days over on Oahu, when I used to treat myself to one extravagant meal a month at a good restaurant.”

  Millie started to reply when the phone rang. Their eyes met. “Do you have an extra phone around?” Millie asked.

  Lehua reached behind a pot rack on the kitchen counter and pulled out a portable phone. “Here. I’ll take the call in the other room.”

  The voice, surprisingly clear, was a familiar one. As Bill identified himself, Lehua heard the click of the portable being switched off, followed by the clatter of dishes in the kitchen sink.

  “Where are you? You sound like you’re in the next room.”

  “In Lagos, and you’re coming through loud and clear yourself. What time is it there? I’m completely screwed up on days, never mind hours.”

  “Eight o’clock…in the evening.”

  “It’s six a.m. here. We’re about ready to go to the airport, but the taxi hasn’t arrived yet. So I thought I’d give you a ring. I doubt there’ll be any phones out in the bush and there are dead areas for cell phones all through there. How’s everything going?”

  “Fine. How’s everything with you?”

  “Great, except for this damp heat. It’s probably in the low eighties outside, but it feels like a hundred and something. We got to see recent photos of those lakes. It’s amazing the way everything has grown back. The biologist in our group says the hydrogen sulfide just killed the above-ground vegetation. Anyhow, the people are already settled around the lakes, right back in the same old villages.”

  “Don’t they know any better?”

  “Sure, except that that’s prime farmland, and they have no place else to go. It’s either starve or take their chances with the voodoo of the lake. The local geologist says they live in terror there. I guess I would too, even though I have some idea of what’s going on.”

  “A scientific explanation can sure be comforting.”

  “Hey! What am I hearing? Lehua Watanabe saying there’s some point to science? What’s behind this sudden conversion? Why, I can remember you quoting to me from some poem about how the ‘learn-‚d astronomer’ spoils appreciation of the stars by trying to understand them. What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. I guess I just miss having my scientific friend around to reassure me the universe is orderly after all—and for other reasons, of course.”

  “That’s better. For a minute there, I thought I was going to come home to someone who’d forgotten about all those ‘other reasons.’ Whoops! There’s a cabby waving frantically at me. Gotta go.”

  “Love you. Take care of yourself.”

  “Love you too. Much! You take care of yourself too.”

  Chapter 6

  The evening had been uneventful. Sitting over their orange juice and cereal in the morning, Lehua said, “Maybe whoever it is has just given up.”

  �
��Who’re you trying to kid? There’s a Number One behind all this, and he’s not about to give up. Thugs are cheap, and that acid wasn’t meant to just scare you. He’s gonna to do his damnedest to keep you from writing any more articles. Which reminds me; did you get the next one finished last night? I could still hear you shuffling papers after the eleven o’clock news.”

  “Just about. I’ll need to go into the office to get some figures, but there shouldn’t be more than an hour-or-so’s work left on it.”

  “OK. Let me know when you want to go. I’ll check in at the station on the way, and we can pick up stuff for dinner on the way back.”

  Lehua giggled. “If we don’t find Number One pretty soon, I may die from overeating.”

  Millie grinned in reply. “There are worse ways to go.”

  Lehua turned serious, thinking of the fates of the would-be rapist and the acid thrower. “I know.”

  * * *

  They found Captain Silva in his usual relaxed position behind the big army-surplus desk. “Anything to report?” he asked, nodding toward the chairs opposite him.

  “No, Captain,” Millie answered, “not even a rock through the window.”

  “What are your plans for today?”

  Millie looked over at Lehua, who said, “I have to go by the office for an hour or two, and Millie wants to do some shopping. I have plenty of work waiting for me at home, so I imagine we’ll be back to my apartment by noon. Anything else you want to do, Millie?”

  “Uh-uh, except to get started on that soup.”

  A smile spread over Sam Silva’s broad face. “I’ve eaten some of Millie’s bean soup. You’re getting an extra bonus out of police protection, Lehua.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it. Has the acid thrower given you any hints about who hired him?”

  Silva gave a snort. “The doctors are keeping us at arm’s length, but I doubt we could get much from him right now anyway. He’s developed pneumonia, and they have him in an oxygen tent. I have someone standing nearby. As soon as we can, we’ll start questioning him again. At least, we know who he is now.” As he spoke, he slid a file folder across the desk.

  Lehua checked the tab, which read “Chen Loo-Ying.” Inside, the typed fax from the Honolulu PD was the biography of a Taiwanese who had been naturalized in the US, and who had then proceeded to accumulate a long criminal record. “That copy’s for your files,” Sam said. “We haven’t been able to connect him to anyone on the Big Island, but maybe you can. Incidentally, we checked back on where the near-rape happened. We found the tire iron and…”

  He paused, looking Lehua in the eyes. “There was one hell of a lot of blood there, almost as much as if he’d been stomped there rather than where we found him. Any idea how that could have happened?”

  Lehua shook her head.

  “The pathologist says he was hit a hell of a blow on his arm. It was a compound fracture, and a splinter of bone ruptured an artery—plus the whole arm was dislocated and practically torn from its socket. Doc Murakama says a sledge hammer couldn’t have done a better job, and a gorilla couldn’t have smashed up his face any more thoroughly.”

  “He was running awfully fast when he came at me and stumbled.” Lehua wondered if her statement sounded as lame to Sam and Millie as it did to her.

  Silva shrugged. “I guess it just wasn’t his lucky day.”

  As the two women left the station, Millie said, “Sounds like the Captain thinks there was someone else in the alley, someone damn powerful, who cleaned that rapist’s clock. Was there someone?”

  Lehua shook her head emphatically. Millie looked down at her companion who was almost a foot shorter than herself, shook her head, then changed the subject to what she intended to buy at the market.

  * * *

  Cy MacLeish, with the customary worried expression on his lean, bespectacled face, met them at the elevator. At his suggestion, they went off to his office. “For God’s sake, be careful Lehua. It’s nice to be emptying out all our paper boxes, but I’d rather cancel those articles than have something happen to you.”

  “Do you really think my articles are increasing sales?”

  “You bet they are. We’ve even boosted our sales off island. Now with a front page story about that acid thrower, I’m already upping today’s press run by ten percent.”

  Lehua smiled. “It’s nice to think I’m earning my keep without being here much. And don’t worry; Millie’s taking good care of me. Maybe one or two more articles will flush out Number One.”

  “I hope so,” Cy said, as the women rose to leave, “but it will be a relief when the most dangerous thing in the paper is an editorial about the incompetence of His Honor, the mayor.”

  * * *

  Millie was duly appreciative of Lehua’s private office, and particularly of the view.

  “You should have been here the night of the big lightning storm out on the ocean last month,” Lehua said. “It looked like some of those TV shots of Baghdad during the Gulf War.”

  Millie passed a hand over the surface of the window. “Too bad it isn’t cleaner, though.”

  “I know. It’s all on the outside, and it’s sealed because of the air conditioning. I told maintenance about it, but they have a lot to do already keeping this old building together. Maybe I’ll give them another call today. It’s so nice to sit back and look out when I lose inspiration, that it’s a shame not to get the full benefit of the view. Speaking of inspiration, I’m going to shoo you out while I finish this column. Nothing can happen to me here.”

  Millie looked dubious. “I suppose I could play the movie cop role and sit in a chair outside in the hall, chewing gum and leaning back on two legs against the wall.”

  “Don’t be silly. Go out and explore. If you’ve never been in the press room, it’s worth seeing that million-dollar jobby our generous publisher just invested in. I’m sure one of the pressmen will be happy to give you a tour. Besides, this floor is full of reporters going back and forth this time of day. No one would be stupid enough to try to come in here unnoticed, with that mob milling around outside.”

  “Maybe I will, but not until I’m damn sure you can lock this door securely.” Millie inspected the lock as she spoke.

  “Then that means you can go and breathe easy. These were old hotel rooms with deadbolts on the inside.”

  “How long do you expect to be working?”

  “Not much more than an hour.” “I guess I can leave you that long. Be sure to lock the door after I leave, and don’t open it for anyone else until I get back.”

  Lehua saluted. “Yes ma’m.”

  Millie grinned a “see you” as Lehua closed the door behind her and shot the bolt.

  Sitting down at her desk, she turned on the computer, tapped a few keys, and brought up her article. She had barely started giving it her full attention when the phone rang.

  “Hello. Could I speak to Sergeant De Rego, please?”

  “She’s not here, but I can take a message for her.”

  “No. That’s OK. I can catch her later.”

  “It’s really no problem. Who shall I say called.”

  “It’s patrolman Sing, but…”

  “She is in the building someplace. Try information. They should be able to run her down. If you’ll hold on, I can transfer you.”

  “No, thanks. That’s OK. Don’t bother. I’ll give them a ring.”

  Mildly annoyed at the interruption and wondering why the station had not called Millie on her beeper, Lehua went back to her article and slowly scrolled it up the screen. She decided it needed strengthening, less speculation, stronger positive statements, and more of them. Running quickly through it, she spotted the “maybes” and “perhapses,” dropped a sizable fraction of them, then searched for the XXX’s she had been planning to replace with data.

  The first one was a Taiwanese newspaper referring to a suburb of Taipei as the location of the Angel Tong headquarters. Lehua knew the reference was somewhere in her files. She
pushed away from her desk, got up and went over to the cabinet. As she riffled through the manila folders, she suddenly became aware something had blocked out the afternoon sun coming through the window.

  Assuming the cloud cover from Hualalai was making an early afternoon move down the mountain, she turned and did a double-take at the window washer strapped to the outside of the building. He smiled and waved at her. She waved back, thinking how surprised Millie would be to find a clean window and a clear view when she returned.

  Lehua watched as the man reached into his canvas bucket, leaned back on the safety strap and came up with a pistol equipped with a silencer. The ping of the bullet piercing a hole in the window was the first sound she heard, followed by two more in rapid succession. In mid-air, inches from her chest, she saw the three of them flatten out and slowly slide down an invisible wall.

  Before the bullets reached the floor, the window exploded outwards with a roar. There was no scream, no suggestion of response from the window washer except for a change of expression, from something akin to smugness, to surprise, to horror. His whole body seemed to flatten out against the blue expanse behind him. The two eye-bolts holding the safety belt to the concrete casing tore out simultaneously. His limp, scarecrow figure flipped over backwards and tumbled to the street below.

  She had no idea how long someone had been pounding on the door. Millie’s voice finally penetrated her consciousness. “Lehua! Lehua! Open up! Are you in there?”

  Tearing her attention away from the gaping expanse of the missing window, she slid back the bolt and barely stood back in time as Millie came crashing through with her service revolver drawn. Behind her, two reporters peered into the office, but neither made a move to come in.

  Chapter 7

  For the fourth time, Millie said, “I never should have left you alone.”

  The two women were sitting in Captain Silva’s office awaiting his return from the Kona News Building. Lehua had point-blank refused to go over to where the body was lying. It was surrounded by a curious crowd, held back by a patrolman who had come by within moments of the accident. Millie and Lehua circled around the crowd to get to Millie’s car.