Primitive Secrets

by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

  Here was the information she’d sought, yet all she could think to say was, “Yeah, I miss him.” Storm could have kicked herself, but Tom beamed at her.

  “He had a good sense of humor. I could tell. Bet he was fun to work with,” Tom said.

  “He was. He’s the reason I went into law.” Storm bit the tail from a shrimp. “Did Dr. O’Toole send you to meet him after he told you that you needed a bone marrow transplant?”

  Lani made a snorting noise and Tom’s mouth twisted. “O’Toole didn’t tell us,” he said. “We found out on the Internet. There are chat rooms for people with cancer. When we asked O’Toole about it, he told us the procedure wasn’t covered by my insurance policy. He said the HMO wouldn’t pay for it.”

  Lani was practically sputtering. “We knew by then how much they cost. Could be a couple hundred thousand dollars! I told him we’d sue him and Unimed, that we were cheated out of time we couldn’t afford to lose. They’d let us go for months without telling us what Tom needed.”

  Tom smiled in his wife’s direction. “I didn’t have the energy to protest, but Lani did.” He took her hand and his eyes glowed. “And when she gets mad, watch out!”

  “I’ll say this for old Dr. O’Toole,” Lani said. “He looked more nervous and ashamed than mad. I thought he’d tell us to find another doctor, but he sent us to see Mr. Hamasaki.”

  “What did Hamasaki say?”

  “He said he’d try to talk to some people, pressure them a little,” Lani said. “If that didn’t work, then he’d start a lawsuit. He was worried about the stress of the trial for Tom.”

  “He knew I didn’t have time to sue,” Tom said quietly.

  Lani glanced at him, her eyes shadowed with worry. “He pointed out that Unimed makes it very clear, in the fine print, that they’re under no legal obligation to pay for certain procedures. He warned that a lawsuit might take years.”

  “And having the transplant is probably my best chance at beating this.” Tom took a deep breath and pushed won bok around on his plate. He looked tired. “Dr. O’Toole told us that Hamasaki’s firm does some of Unimed’s legal work. Your uncle was going to see what could be done, if some strings could be pulled. He thought maybe I could be Unimed’s first bone marrow transplant here in the islands. He said that it would be great publicity for the company.”

  “What happened?” Storm asked.

  Tom looked down at his plate. “He died.”

  “Did O’Toole talk to you after that?”

  Lani spoke up. “Dr. O’Toole told us that Hamasaki met with the CFO of Unimed, Hawai’i. His name is Dr. Overton. But he doesn’t know what they decided.”

  “Maybe I can find out for you,” Storm said. “Meanwhile, do you have any other options?”

  Lani’s eyes gleamed. “We’ve been working with the local Bone Marrow Registry. When they find a match for Tom, they’ll help us with a fundraiser. We’ve already had two bone marrow drives for potential donors.” Her chin jutted slightly and she set down her fork. “We’re going to do it. It just would have been a whole lot easier if Unimed had helped with the cost, or at least been up front about the whole thing.”

  “Do either of the children match his blood type?” Storm asked.

  “No,” Lani said. “They’re too much haole. You know, Caucasian from me. Tom is mostly Japanese, with a little Hawaiian and Portuguese.”

  “I’ll try. I’m half Japanese, half Hawaiian,” Storm said.

  “Every little bit helps. Even if you can’t help Tom, your blood type’ll be in the registry for someone else who may need you later.”

  “I’ll ask around to see who was supposed to talk to Overton, too.”

  Lani reached over and squeezed Tom’s knee. “And we’ll keep you healthy and strong, meanwhile. Especially with friends like Bebe and your Aunt Maile.”

  Storm unwrapped little boxes of almond float for dessert. Brandon and Stephanie were delighted, but she could see that Tom was beginning to tire. Lani got up to make a tea for him that Bebe had prescribed, then tucked her husband into his reclining chair. Storm cleared the table of dinner dishes.

  When Lani came back, Storm handed her untouched pudding to the older children. “Why don’t you two share this? I’ve got to go, and if my jeans get any tighter I won’t be able to sit down.”

  Lani walked Storm to the door and gave her a hug. “Thanks so much for visiting us and bringing dinner. It was great.”

  “I’d like to do it again,” Storm said. She saw the split-second hesitation in Lani’s eyes. “I’ll call you first and see how Tom’s feeling.”

  “Thank you.”

  Lani closed the door quietly and Storm walked down the stairs to the street. She couldn’t stop thinking about Tom Sakai’s eyes. Luminous when they rested on Lani. Scared and sad when he thought no one was looking.

  On the sidewalk, a different world from when she’d entered the Sakais’ apartment bustled around Storm. South King Street glittered with activity, lit by the hanging paper lanterns of Chinese restaurants that let aromatic clouds of garlic, seafood, and cilantro escape to the street. Neon flickered above the heads of the people who meandered between bars. Light spilled through open doors, but the alleys between buildings were opaque in their darkness and the people, mostly men, who sauntered into them disappeared as if they’d passed into a parallel universe. Only the embers of cigarettes glowed to show that the barrier wasn’t physical.

  Storm stopped on the corner to wait for the traffic light and tightened her grip on her purse and her tennis racquet. A quartet of sailors, their white suits still fairly clean, sauntered by and saluted her in a Slavic language. They were good-natured boys who were out for a good time and might need a hip full of penicillin in a few weeks. The loners were the ones who concerned her, the lowlifes who roamed in and out of the blackness between the strip joints.

  She could feel their eyes crawl down her body, take in the racquet, and move on. She made herself stand tall and gaze around, get a good look at her surroundings. Somewhere she’d read that prowlers looked for women who looked down and away when they passed a man. Fear and submissiveness attracted predators.

  Directly across from Storm was a tattoo parlor where a heavyset man stood in the door and scanned the street. His arms were painted so heavily that at first, Storm thought he wore a long-sleeved shirt. She looked again and realized that, except for an earring, he wore only a denim vest and baggy jeans.

  His eyes rolled past her without pause. She was probably better off crossing to his corner. He was marginally less threatening than the tall woman in white who leaned against the streetlight on the opposite corner. She staked a territory in front of the dark doorway to a bar whose name, The Geisha’s Lair, was displayed in hand-painted calligraphy. Lair, indeed. Storm had no desire to cross into a hooker’s domain. She glanced at the long, painted nails of the woman’s hand. Haloed by cigarette smoke, they traced an arc to her maroon lips in the yellow cone of the street lamp. Her wrist was thick and strong. Storm glanced down at her stiletto-heeled sandals. The feet and ankles in the strappy shoes were too large-boned to be a woman’s.

  A group of chattering Japanese tourists, all male, surged around Storm like a school of sardines. Right before the light changed, the female impersonator in the white dress caught her eye. He cocked a fine, arched eyebrow at her and allowed one side of his lip to curl. Caught staring, her scalp prickled with embarrassment. Storm jerked her eyes forward and stepped off the curb. She picked up her pace, but could feel White Dress watching her. She squared her shoulders and lengthened her stride.

  Mauna Kea Street got darker as Storm walked toward the municipal parking lot. The bars were dim; no paper lanterns hung out. A couple of the streetlights were broken. Fewer people walked along the sidewalks and those who did mostly shuffled along, their eyes to the ground.

  A clanking of glass drew Storm’s attention across the street. Otherwise, sh
e would never have seen the neatly dressed man who walked by the tattered woman rummaging in the dumpster. His face was buried in the evening paper, though his black leather vest gleamed dully in the dim lights, showing the lean curve of his body. Storm stopped in surprise and backed against the bricks of a dark building. Her heart pounded, partly with dismay. She watched Martin’s gold earring reflect the available light and listened to his leather heels click on the sidewalk.

  Chapter 22

  Storm’s first thought was that he shouldn’t be down here alone this time of night. Of course she was there, too, but she was leaving as fast as she could. And she had a tennis racquet to protect her. Storm stepped to the curb and opened her mouth to shout a greeting. Then she stepped back. Martin’s posture, the newspaper, his averted face, all told her he didn’t want to be recognized.

  Storm looked around. No one was nearby. Martin’s back was still visible, that kidskin vest of his gleaming against the dull black of his shirt. His step bounced a little, as if with anticipation.

  Storm darted across the street, about a half-block behind him. She slipped along the dark sidewalk, oblivious to the yawning black doors every ten to twenty feet. She could hear the buzz of voices inside, the bursts of laughter, but she ignored them. Apprehension and curiosity pushed her after Martin.

  For a moment, she wondered if he knew Tom Sakai. No, she was sure the Sakai family expected no more visitors this evening. She’d felt Lani draw her shields around the family for the night, making Tom’s tea, hustling the kids through dessert and to finishing their schoolwork. Plus, why would Martin know them?

  Storm’s stomach did a little pirouette. God, don’t let him go into The Geisha’s Lair. The lustrous black hair of White Dress gleamed from a distance in the neon of the street, right outside the entrance to the bar. But White Dress was faced away from Martin and Storm, toward South King Street, where the heavier traffic passed.

  Storm focused her attention back on Martin, just in time to see him turn into a dark doorway only twenty feet or so from White Dress’s corner. Storm slowed, made sure her feet slipped silently along the grimy concrete. Look casual. Sure, like a woman wearing jeans and carrying a tennis racquet would fit in. There were only two other women—that she thought were women, anyway—hanging around, and they wore false eyelashes and lycra dresses which barely covered their bony rear ends. They were so thin, you could hit a tennis ball between their legs even when their knees met. A flurry of emotions bombarded Storm: curiosity, embarrassment, sorrow at the women’s professions. She felt as conspicuous as a Great Dane at a poodle show—and kept her eyes straight ahead and on the spot where Martin disappeared.

  Strips of brocaded silk, impossible to see through, veiled the door where he’d entered. A plate glass window abutted the door, but heavy curtains, surrounded by the kind of little white lights interior designers put on Christmas trees, were drawn tight. Several feet above her head, the eight inches of uncovered window was crowded with hanging plants.

  Eyes were on her, she could sense them. Storm peeked to her right, toward the lights of South King Street. There stood White Dress, hands on cocked hips. He shook his head slowly at her, like a kindergarten teacher monitoring the rowdies at recess. Storm looked away quickly, back to the veiled window and the name of the bar across its face. The Queen Bee was spelled out with tiny bamboo spears.

  Storm felt a flush cover her cheeks and neck. She felt like she’d just awakened to discover that the recurrent nightmare that she was naked in school wasn’t a dream after all. The Queen Bee couldn’t mean…Martin couldn’t…unless he was meeting some old friend. That was it. Martin had old friends who still played live gigs at nightclubs. From the corner of her eye, she could see White Dress. He shrugged, went back to his post at the corner.

  Storm stepped through the silk into a smoky vestibule. She stood for a moment, tennis racquet dangling from her hand, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Voices hummed around her; it was a busy place. But her eyes were as disabled as if she’d stepped from the noonday sun into a cave. She could sense a crush of people. This might be fun. It was the kind of place she and Martin used to go to back when they enjoyed being rebels.

  She dragged one hand along the wall and crept ahead, toward the laughter and music, into a big room. The only light seemed to come from the little white Christmas bulbs that encircled the ceiling. They continued around large objects in the corners, which in a few moments she made out to be big potted plants. Ficus trees, probably.

  The room was crowded with little wrought iron tables, packed with guys. Many of them embraced or touched each other shyly. The tables were surrounded by so many standing men that Storm couldn’t get a feel for how deep the room was; she could barely make out a bar against the left wall. The bartender, dressed entirely in black leather, had a few more lights around him. So he could tell what bottle to grab, she guessed.

  Her mind ground to a halt, trying to deal with the data that her eyes were sending. There were no women in this room. Two men were locked in a fervent kiss ten feet to her right, pelvises grinding together. She looked away, quickly. It wasn’t the kind of place they used to go after all.

  Expensive colognes blended to a heady musk and the temperature of the place was at least fifteen degrees warmer than on the sidewalk. Still fixed on her rationale for Martin having entered a gay bar, she looked around for the band. No band. Instead, David Bowie blared from speakers over the bar.

  Heat and concentrated perfumes were making her dizzy. She took quick, shallow breaths, and felt with one hand for the wall. She was immobilized, unable to back out or go forward.

  “The courts are closed, honey.” A very tall, broad man with a nose that went in three directions before it ended in a flattened knob smiled down on her. He had been sitting on a stool by the door, hidden in the shadows.

  “Huh?”

  He raised his bushy eyebrows and looked down at her tennis racquet.

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “We all are.”

  Storm stared at him. Though his face was pockmarked and lumpy, his eyes were rimmed with thick, black lashes. They were dark and kind.

  The synapses in her brain were finally sputtering out of their frozen state and her gaze swept the room. “It’s my brother…he’s got something I need…”

  In the middle of the room, sitting at a table and holding hands with a broad-shouldered man who faced away from her, was Martin. Despite the number of bodies between them, his eyes locked with hers as if an electrical current had joined them.

  Storm saw a spectrum of emotions cross Martin’s face. Later, she would try many times to relive that moment and change it. She recognized shame, fear, and indignant fury. His eyes, dark and fierce, burned into her.

  “Maybe you could get it tomorrow, dear.” The sensitive voice of the giant at her elbow broke the spell of those angry orbs.

  Storm tasted blood from where she’d bitten her lower lip, first in shock, then to keep it from trembling. She looked up at the long-lashed bouncer. Wordlessly, she backed out of the dark, steamy place and onto the sidewalk.

  In the neon of the street, a few feet from the doorway to The Queen Bee, she leaned against a No Parking sign. She felt as if she’d been hit in the chest. Breathing hurt. Her vision swam and her neck felt like a great band of steel had been tightened around it.

  Why had he never trusted her? Did David and Michelle know? They were his blood brother and sister. And Bitsy, she probably knew, too. Everyone but her. The real family stuck together again. Storm drew a ragged breath.

  A pang of fear struck her. Did he use a rubber? Did he ask his lovers to use them? He could die, for Christ’s sake. She stared at the filthy sidewalk without seeing. When a pair of splitting, run-down cowboy boots appeared in front of her own shoes, she didn’t even look up.

  “Hey, baby.” The rancid odor of rotting teeth and metabolizing alcohol pulled her b
ack to the street. Storm looked up, but her mind still whirled around Martin. “Come with Uncle John.” He clutched the biceps of the arm with the tennis racquet and squeezed, hard. “Wanna get high? Forget your troubles?” He flipped open a shirttail to reveal the hilt of a large knife against the pale, flabby skin of his stomach.

  Storm stared, numb, and hung onto the signpost with her other hand out of sheer instinct. The pressure of his grip was shifting her state of mind from grief and confusion to anger. She couldn’t move the tennis racquet; he was pressing on a nerve that immobilized her arm. His unshaven leer moved closer to her face. She could see the broken capillaries in his nose, the ropes that coiled inside the loose skin of his neck. His eyes were the color of dirty ice, close together and red-rimmed.

  “Get away from me,” she said and tried to pull back. Asshole, she thought. I’ve got bigger problems than you.

  “C’mon, we’ll take a little walk.” His fingers dug into her flesh with such viciousness that involuntary tears of pain sprang to her eyes.

  “Ouch. Let go!” she shouted. Her arm and her alleged weapon were useless. A surge of panic washed over her. He saw it and moved his face to within two inches of hers.

  “Let’s go, now. Be a nice girl.” She tried to hold her breath against the reeking pungency that came from him.

  “Help!” Her voice squawked like a sleepwalker’s. She reared back against the signpost. Her arm hung helplessly in the vice of his thick fingers. The tennis racquet clattered to the cement.

  She saw the change in his eyes without knowing why it was happening. When the chain struck his face, she was so startled, she staggered to one knee. The first strike was a glancing one. The next time, the half-inch links wrapped around his neck.

  He let go of her arm and grappled with both hands to get free. His bloodshot eyes bulged and she watched, shocked, from below. When her adrenaline-soaked brain finally gave her the signal to run, she struggled to her feet and scrambled backward over the curb.