Mana

by John A. Broussard

  Lehua suddenly had the feeling the direction he was moving in was not where she wanted to go. “I’ll be happy to testify before the grand jury but, of course, I can’t reveal sources.”

  Kerry’s face lit up into a broad smile. “Of course. Of course. I certainly wouldn’t press you to betray any confidences, but we’re all adults,” his glance moved around the circle to encompass each of the listeners, “and we know that, in practice, reporters do cooperate with the police. After all, we have the same goal, to put these criminals behind bars.”

  Lehua knew her expression had frozen, and she decided to terminate the interview as soon as possible. She not only succeeded, but managed to turn down an offer for lunch. As she and Millie walked down the hall, she couldn’t resist commenting, “All he cares about is the next election.”

  Millie shrugged. “What difference does that make, as long as he takes those murdering crooks off the street?”

  Lehua had to admit Millie’s pragmatism made sense, but she still resented the Attorney General’s suave self confidence and his conviction that bending the rules was justified if it produced the desired results. Rather than argue with her companion, she asked for hints about the evening meal.

  Chapter 9

  Millie was busy unloading the four large bags of groceries, and Lehua was filing away notes and clippings when the phone rang. Millie held up her hand in warning as she looked for the portable phone, finally finding it next to the living room couch. Lehua answered on the fifth ring, and when Bill’s reassuring voice came over the phone, Millie grinned at Lehua, clicked the button to off and went back to their purchases.

  Bill was again only briefly in Lagos, was brimming over with news of the first lake they had visited, and was impatient to move on to the next one. It was only after he had gone into some detail about their findings that he mentioned the talking board. “Any word back yet as to what it means, if anything?”

  Lehua decided to stay as close to the truth as she could without getting into the uncanny and terrifying events of the past few days. “Tessa’s looking into it. So far, she hasn’t found anyone who has any idea what it says.”

  “My guess is it’s just decoration.”

  “I suppose that’s possible,” Lehua answered, trying to keep the lack of conviction out of her voice.

  “Is Carlo getting ready for another expedition to that tube?

  “Oops! I almost forgot. He called and said the latest flow has covered up the entrance.”

  “Damn! I was looking forward to a full-scale exploration of that tube.”

  Lehua could feel his disappointment, a disappointment which, at the moment, she couldn’t share. She mumbled a few noncommittal words into the phone.

  “What are you doing for excitement?” Bill asked

  “Nothing much.” Lehua almost laughed aloud at her own bland statement. “I’m still writing about the Angel Tong.” She described the governor’s and attorney general’s interest in the same subject.

  “Hey. You’re moving into the big time. Maybe you’ll get a Pulitzer out of this.” Before Lehua could get her thoughts together to comment on that possibility, Bill added, “I sure miss you. Get ready for a rib- crushing hug when I see you at the airport.”

  The possibilities which that comment evoked kept Lehua silent—so much so, that Bill asked, “You still there?”

  “Yes. I miss you too. I was just left speechless by the thought of that hug.”

  Lehua had barely hung up when the phone rang again. Millie scooped up the portable as Lehua answered. This time the voice was Carlo’s, and the tone of that voice told her immediately something was wrong, even before she fully comprehended the words.

  “The bastards have blown up the Alice C.”

  “What?”

  “I was taking the tourists back to their hotel when a car drove down the dock and someone threw a molotov onto the deck. It’s badly gutted, and I don’t think I can salvage any of it.”

  “Do you think the Angel Tong did it?”

  “I’m damn well sure they did. Number One’s known for a long time I’ve associated with you, and he must have had a tap on my phone. When he heard what I told you this morning, he decided to teach me a lesson.”

  “Where are you calling from now?”

  “A phone booth, across the street from my apartment. I won’t be able to get over this afternoon. The insurance agent is coming out to inspect the damage, and I have to file a report with the police. I’m also going to try and run down some witnesses. There must have been some other boat owners around.”

  “Maybe Millie and I can come over there. I really want that information you have, now more than ever.”

  “You won’t need to come over. I’ll bring the proof over in the morning, and I’ll give you the most important part of it right now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Number One’s name. I know who he is. It’s Philip Cheng.”

  Phil Cheng! Lehua’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. Millie, who had been listening to the conversation shook her head in disbelief. Phil Cheng was a pillar, deeply anchored in the Big Island community. Ever since his arrival from Taiwan as a teenager, he had been active in everything from roadside cleanups and charity drives, to heading the United Good Neighbor Fund.

  Lehua could see the small, smiling Chinese handing a diploma to a high school graduate or an award to a deserving Boy Scout. His contracting company had been run without a hint of corruption, of attempts to curry favor with local politicians, or any other signs of anything but an honest endeavor to compete successfully within the system.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely positive. Tomorrow you’ll have some signed documents to prove it.” As he spoke these last words, Lehua could hear what she thought had to be a car backfiring. Carlo mumbled something unintelligible over the phone. This was followed by the sound of the receiver banging against the side of the booth. Lehua looked across the room in horror at Millie, who stepped forward, broke the connection and dialed the station.

  * * *

  The desk sergeant plugged Millie into the Hilo patrol car circuit, and she and Lehua listened to the report of the officer who first arrived at the scene.

  “Phone booth’s shot up. Must have been an assault rifle. Occupant is definitely dead. He’s…”

  Lehua didn’t stay to hear more. The tears streamed down her face as she ran off to the back of the apartment. Millie listened to the details, then tried to contact Captain Silva. It took several minutes before his booming voice came over the phone. “We picked up the conversation on the tap to Lehua’s apartment,” Silva explained. “That’s how the Hilo PD got a car there as fast as they did.”

  “What are you going to do about Phil Cheng?” Millie asked.

  “Not a damn thing. We can’t. What have we got but a dead man’s word?”

  “Carlo couldn’t have been making it up.”

  “I’m not saying he did. I’m having the Hilo police check his apartment, but unless we can locate something a lot more positive than we have already, there isn’t a thing we can do except keep an eye on Cheng.”

  Silva passed along the information that, so far, the police had been unable to find witnesses to the shooting, though one person in a second story apartment had seen a car driving away at high speed following the sound of the shots. The moments passed, and Millie could hear the police radio in the background. “Just got word. Carlo’s apartment’s been thoroughly tossed. If he had anything there to support his statement, it’s long gone. They’re going to check out his boat to see if that safe survived.”

  Millie looked over in the direction of Lehua’s bedroom, unsure whether or not to add this piece of bad news to what they had already heard. The Captain left her with the unnecessary order to get in touch with him immediately if anything happened at the apartment.

  Millie hung up, walked over to the window overlooking the street and pulled back the curtain. Everything was quiet. A patrol car
rolled slowly by, and the driver again threw a shaka sign in her direction. Millie didn’t feel much like returning the signal, but did so anyway.

  Still unsure about whether or not she should try to console the grieving Lehua, Millie finally went off to the bedroom to see what she could do. It took her several moments to realize Lehua had slipped out the back door.

  “Jesus Christ!” Silva’s voice exploded over the phone when Millie got through to him and told him about Lehua’s disappearance. “You damn well should know where she’s gone! Get over to Phil Cheng’s office. I’m on my way.” The phone crashed in her ear.

  * * *

  Lehua’s fury had mounted to the bursting point as she drove the half-dozen blocks to the building occupied by Phil Cheng’s business. Her mouth felt as though she had just finished throwing up, and only her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel kept her hands from shaking. There was no difficulty finding his office. She had once been there to observe and write up the ceremony where Phil presented the Hawai’i Humane Society with a thousand-dollar check.

  The receptionist, a spinsterish-looking haole wearing old-fashioned rimless glasses, glanced up as Lehua stormed in. She was totally unprepared for the younger woman’s rush past her desk and into the inner office. “You can’t…,” she began, then rose and followed Lehua in through the door left open by her whirlwind entrance. The scene in the office was frozen in place.

  Behind his desk, Phil Cheng, a small, hollow-chested man, wearing a suit—something rarely seen in Kona on anyone other than attorneys and funeral directors—looked up at the newcomer. Sitting in an imitation-leather chair at his right, another Chinese, taller, heavier in build, and wearing the much more common “aloha” attire—slacks and open-collared sport shirt—was in the midst of saying something with hand upraised.

  Cheng was the first one to recover. “That’s all right, Mrs. Cable. I was expecting our visitor.”

  The pale-faced receptionist backed out, closing the door behind her. Cheng’s guest lowered his hand, and sat back in his chair, not relaxed, but instead looking like a coiled spring.

  “Please sit down, Ms. Watanabe. Truly, I was expecting you.”

  “I’m sure you were.” Lehua couldn’t believe the calmness of her own voice as she ignored his offer. “Carlo told me you’re the leader of the Angel Tong. I didn’t know what to think at first, but now a lot of things are falling into place. I’m turning all of the material I have over to the police.”

  “Really? I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  At that moment, there was absolutely no question in Lehua’s mind Philip Cheng knew only too well what she was talking about. She looked down at the small man, his slender fingers stretched out in front of him on his desk. “Fine! By this time tomorrow you’ll know what I’m talking about. My article is going to name names, and yours will be in the headlines.” With those words she turned and walked swiftly toward the door.

  Behind her she heard Cheng give a command in a low voice, something in Chinese. Her hand on the knob, she turned to see the other man standing in front of the desk, blocking her view of Cheng. The thought struck her he must have moved at incredible speed, and that was when she saw the knife flash from his hand. It flew only three or four feet through the air, flipped and returned point first, with crushing force, into the middle of his chest, burying itself beyond the hilt. The face above it showed neither surprise nor pain. There was no life to give it any expression.

  Since his view of her had been blocked, Cheng had been unable to see what had happened. As his agent collapsed, Cheng rose, an automatic in his hand. “I’m not sure what kind of tricks you have been engaging in, but that was the last one.”

  Lehua could not be sure afterwards whether she had actually heard the sound of the shot. Too much happened too quickly for her to follow most of it. Cheng rose off the floor and slammed into the bookcase behind him. Blood splattered across the books. The shelves splintered and crumbled under the smashing weight of the body. Bits of bone and skull crammed into the spaces opened between the volumes. The expensive suit hung momentarily like a tattered scarecrow on the splintered shelves, then slowly fluttered to the floor, shattered arms and legs breaking through tears in the cloth.

  Behind her Lehua heard the door open, followed by a scream and then another. The screams went on and on, almost drowning the sound of feet pounding down the hall toward the office. Over the hysterical receptionist’s shoulder Lehua could see the blue uniform of a patrolman who stopped abruptly as he caught sight of the scene of devastation.

  * * *

  Lehua clung to the heavy navy mug full of black, bitter coffee as though her life depended on it. Millie was looking at her with an expression of mixed concern and anger. Captain Silva was staring across his desk at her, his expression unreadable.

  “This time I’m going to tell you what happened, and that will save you the trouble.” Glancing at a paper on his desk, he said, “Lester Liu and Phil Cheng got into a quarrel. Liu smashed Cheng against the bookcase just as Phil stabbed him. That’s the broad outline. Filling in the gaps may be a problem. Like how did Liu walk around the desk after being stabbed, since he must have died instantly?

  “Why didn’t Phil use the gun on Liu rather than a knife? We know he fired the gun, because we have another smashed bullet. So who was he shooting at? How did puny Phil manage to drive that knife into Liu, right through his chest and backbone, and leave none of the handle sticking out? How did Liu, who was no heavyweight either, manage to practically obliterate Cheng? Doc says he hasn’t seen anything like it for almost twenty-four hours. The last one was a window washer.”

  “Can’t this wait, Captain?” Millie asked. “You can see Lehua’s practically in shock.”

  The broad, bulky shoulders inched upwards. “The receptionist says Lehua had her hand on the doorknob when she opened the door, and what was left of Cheng was still sliding down the bookcase. I guess no one’s going to argue she made it across the room that fast after finishing him off. The one good thing out of this last Watanabe wipe-out is that there was enough material in Cheng’s locked safe to identify him as Number One. Maybe now I can go back to dealing with ordinary knifings and shootings.”

  Sam’s voice softened as he looked at Lehua’s hunched-over form. “You might as well take Lehua back to her apartment, Millie; we’ll get a statement later. And stay overnight.”

  As Millie rose, the Captain shifted his eyes over to her. “This time I think you can let her out of your sight.”

  * * *

  Over Lehua’s protests, Millie did stay the night, but the following day, Lehua persuaded her guardian that protection was no longer necessary. “Besides, I’m going to have to learn to live without a full-time bodyguard.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  Lehua shook her head. “Uh-uh, and I guess it isn’t the most important one. I’m just terrified that any minute you might brush against me.”

  “What are you going to do when Bill gets back?”

  “I’m even more terrified at that thought.”

  “OK. I’ll go back on regular duty, but call me when you go to meet him at the airport. It will take at least two of us to convince him.”

  Lehua broke into a wistful smile. “I’m not sure any number of people could convince him. He’s not strong on black magic. If something doesn’t have a scientific explanation, it doesn’t exist as far as he’s concerned.”

  “Do you have any idea what to do about it? You can’t live like a hermit the rest of your life, you know.”

  “I know. I’m going to call Tessa and see what she’s heard about that Tongan who’s most up on mana. I can’t think of anything else to do.”

  * * *

  Cy was quick to agree there was no need for her to come into the office. “Hell, Lehua, your story is being featured by the press services. You’ve put Kona News on the map. For that, if nothing else, you deserve a vacation. Come in when you feel like it.”


  Lehua smiled as she put the phone back into its cradle. I wonder how many reporters have an editor like that to work for. Looking up at the kitchen clock, she decided Tessa was probably between classes and punched in the professor’s number.

  “Hi,” the familiar voice said. “I was just thinking about you. There’s even better news than what I’ve been reading in the paper. The department head just called. He’s located our Tongan.”

  “He has? Where is he? Can we get in touch with him? Can I call him?”

  “Better yet. We’ve now got a closed-circuit conference TV-setup on campus, and we’re making arrangements to get him on the other end. He’s in Paris, by the way. Hopefully, the Sorbonne will let him use their conference circuit.”

  “You mean the Hawaiian Studies department is going to foot the bill for all this?”

  Tessa’s chuckle anticipated her answer. “The closed conference network is still ‘experimental’ so the University isn’t going to charge the department here or over on Oahu.”

  Suddenly, Lehua felt overwhelmed by a wave of depression, by the conviction she was grasping at straws. “Do you really think he’s going to have anything useful to offer?”

  The answer was a quick, “Yes,” followed by a pause.

  “What is it?” Lehua asked

  “Cy has some reservations about Toa.”

  “What?”

  “Toa’s working out of the University of Auckland, and he’s turning out to be something of their Carlos Castaneda in residence.”

  Lehua looked a question and Tessa sensed it.

  “In case you don’t know, Castaneda was an anthropologist who went off the deep end studying Southwest Indian ritual and magic. He ended up believing it and got himself ostracized by the academics as a result.”

  “Are you saying Toa believes in mana?”

  “Evidently. Cy talked around the subject. He’s kind of embarrassed by the thought, but he’s convinced Toa has accumulated enormous amounts of factual information on mana. So he figures it would be worthwhile talking to him for that reason if nothing else. Besides,” Tessa continued, “he can’t resist getting the University to fork over the cash for this conferencing.”