Big Island Blues

by Terry Ambrose

  As I waited to cross the road, I saw a young couple strolling arm in arm, both adorned in Hollywood sunglasses, tattoos, and dreadlocks. Both had earbud wires hanging to their waists. They bounced along the sidewalk, completely out of time with each other, but moving in uninhibited styles that reminded me of a cross between hip hop and samba. Suddenly, the girl reached out and grabbed her boyfriend’s hand. She pulled him to one side and pointed excitedly into a gallery window. I stared at who was behind them—Donny.

  The lettering on Donny’s black T-shirt sparkled in the sunshine. It was another nail in the Blueslover coffin. Yesterday, he’d been wearing a shirt that read, “Jazz Rocks.” Today, it was “B.B. is the King.” He had to be Blueslover. He still hadn’t seen me, so I turned and pretended to watch the ocean. Moments later, he entered The Roasted Bean. A car finally stopped, but I waved him past. I needed time to contemplate my next move.

  About ten minutes later, Blueslover came out the front door. He had a cup in one hand and had tied a sweatshirt around his waist. He hadn’t worn the sweatshirt going into the store, but it was just one more piece of evidence that Warren’s son Donny was Blueslover. Benni hadn’t given much of a description, but she had said Donny was about sixteen. That was about right for this kid. I now had two choices—follow the kid or go talk to Warren. The perfect solution was to clone myself and do both. But, Warren would be here and I could come back later. I started after Blueslover, making sure to keep him in sight, but maintaining a discreet distance at all times as we headed back into town.

  A half block later, I was passing Bubba Gump’s when two things happened. First, my grumbling stomach reminded me I was probably going to miss lunch again. Somehow, I needed to actually start planning for meals. Second, Donny stepped into the street and, almost without looking, crossed to my side of the road. Unlike Honolulu, where he might have been run down by a road-rage-infected driver, nobody even honked. Jaywalking was apparently the norm in this little town.

  I dialed Alexander on my cell and wasn’t surprised when he picked up right away. “Howzit, McKenna?”

  “I found him—Donny—and I’m almost positive he’s the one who picked my pocket.”

  “Tell me you not doin’ no confrontation stuff today, brah.”

  “Nothing so daring. I’m just a shadow. He went into The Roasted Bean, spent a few minutes there, and grabbed a sweatshirt. Now he’s headed back into town.”

  Donny kept moving, never acknowledging a single passerby. He was a black-clothed ninja in a sea of bright reds, greens, and purples. He either didn’t know anyone around him or didn’t want to. From my brief experience, the latter option made perfect sense. Who would want to know this moody teen anyway?

  Ahead of me, Donny stopped just past the opening to the Kona Inn Shopping Village. My breath caught and I quickly disconnected the call. What was going on? He turned sideways as though he were going to do a little window shopping—or see if he was being followed. I ducked into the nearest recessed entryway. I hadn’t even entered the store, but stood just outside the front door.

  “Aloha!” The obnoxious voice came from the store’s entrance. “You look like a medium. We got hundreds of designs and everything’s on sale. This green would be an awesome color for you and I’ve got one already made up with the perfect design.”

  Shit. Another T-shirt shop. Of course. I peered past the guy standing in the open doorway. He looked to be fifty going on eighteen. Frigid air spewed through the open door. Inside, racks and racks of colors, designs, and sizes—everything from small to jumbo-jumbo—filled the available space. My heart pounded. Blueslover was cautiously working his way in my direction, but so far, he only stared past me. If he hadn’t spotted me, what—or who—was he watching?

  I glanced at the man behind the voice. Long hair pulled back in a ponytail accentuated his receding hairline. A muscle shirt exposed way too much skin for a guy with that many extra pounds. If that weren’t bad enough, the waistband of his board shorts hung below his gut. The whole image was anything but easy on the eyes. My options were to be discovered or slip into Mr. Cool’s domain.

  When I got back to Honolulu, the first thing on my agenda would be to check every pair of shorts I owned to make sure they didn’t make me look pathetic like Mr. Cool. “Just browsing,” I said as I entered the shop.

  “Oh, you’re not a green guy? Gotcha covered, man. How about a rocking blue? Or one of our genuine lava rock washed tops.” He pointed to his left. “They’re almost the same quality as that place down the street, but less than a quarter the price.”

  Outside, Blueslover walked to the front of the store and peered in. I turned back to Mr. Cool. He had an expectant smile on his face—probably thinking he had another clueless tourist on the hook with that “quarter the price” line. I spotted the shirts he’d pointed out and went to the rack.

  Mr. Cool held out one of the shirts, which fluttered in the downdraft coming from the ceiling vent. I accepted the offering while I checked out the front of the shop. Blueslover was loitering on the sidewalk in front of the store, shifting from foot to foot.

  “What do you think, brah?” Mr. Cool wasn’t going to give me a break.

  “These fade naturally?”

  “Naturally?” He glanced away. “You like Bob Marley, brah?”

  “What?” Had he just zoned out and started grooving to the reggae beat blasting from the sound system? Oh Christ, another fruitcake. It had to be the vog making these people nuts. Or the water. Dr. Chuck was probably making a fortune selling those happy pills around here.

  “The singer, brah? This is classic Marley. Second album. Soul Rebels. Released in 70. My older brother turned me onto it. Could’ve been a summer of love, brah, but I was too young at the time. Catch my drift?”

  I had no intention of catching anything this moron tossed out. “The shirt, will it fade naturally?” Was the kid still watching? Damn, where was he? I couldn’t see him.

  “No need to get uptight, brah. Yeah, sure, they’ll fade.”

  At $8.99, I suspected that when this material hit water, the lava-rock dye would no longer be in the material, but in the water. Over my shoulder, I saw Donny out front, once again smiling and waving. Great. Now he had friends. He embraced a man who was his complete opposite. The friend towered over the kid and had a buzz cut instead of a shaggy head of hair. It looked like it would take almost two Donny’s to make one of his friend.

  Mr. Cool interrupted my surveillance. “You know Sam?”

  “No, not really. What’s his last name?”

  “Burroughs. So you know Donny, then?”

  I flashed Mr. Cool a thumbs up. “The kid and I have bumped into each other.”

  In return, I got a half-assed shaka sign and a nod from Mr. Cool. “Donny’s a regular, brah.” He paused, gave me a smile, then continued. “He gets all his tees here. You local?” He smiled as he pointed at the “Breenfield for County Council” button pinned to his muscle shirt.

  “I’m just visiting.” Not only was I not taking political advice from a 70s refugee, but Mr. Cool could also scratch me off his fashion-advice list, especially if it involved suggestions from a scruffy teenager.

  His face fell and he tilted his head at the empty doorway. “Looks like you missed them. Probably headed to the shop.”

  “The Roasted Bean?”

  “No, brah, High Tide.” I must have had a blank look on my face because Mr. Cool followed that up with, “You know, the surf shop.”

  “Right,” I quipped. “You know how it is, the mind is the second thing to go.”

  He flipped me another half-assed shaka sign, glanced both ways, then leaned in close. “I know what you mean, brah, got a little of that goin’ on myself lately. I thought maybe it was the old lady.” He took a step backwards and stared at me. “Hey, you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m gluten intolerant,” I said. “Maybe I got something that disagreed with me for lunch.” Or right now with your too-much-informatio
n conversation.

  “Lunch? Ain’t it kinda early?”

  “I meant breakfast.” The overhead vent continued to blast out air so cold I thought frostbite might settle in. “Look, I’ve gotta catch up with those two before this gets any worse.” My bodily functions were just fine, but my brief flight with Mr. Cool was about to crash land. It appeared that Mr. Cool saw it coming, too. He edged closer. When he backed me into a rack of tees, the hangers screeched their annoyance. I stepped to one side, but he kept coming.

  “Look, brah, over here we got . . .”

  I backpedaled out the front door, giving him my own version of his lazy shaka sign as I hurried down the street.

  Directly overhead, clouds bunched together into dark gray, billowy masses. One of our famous five-minute showers would be a welcome relief right about now. All around, happy people clip-clopped along the sidewalk, their slippas thumping against the bottoms of their feet as they chattered excitedly and pointed overhead. Maybe they thought the rain would ruin their afternoon, but more likely it would swoop in like a shark and then be gone.

  The High Tide Surf Shop was on the opposite side of the street sandwiched between a gift shop and a jewelry store. Donny and Sam crossed Ali’i Drive and entered the store, but I continued walking until I stood under the shade of the giant banyan tree on the grounds of the Hulihe’e Palace. For the first time, I realized I should put Benni’s number in my phone. Having to go through her brother for every bit of information was crazy, but I dialed his number anyway and Alexander answered on the second ring. “Where are you, McKenna?”

  “I’m staking out a surf shop. The High Tide. I’ve got a question for Benni about a guy who works here. What’s her number?”

  “You gonna write this down?”

  Damn, no paper—or pen. How prepared was that? “That could be a problem.”

  “How about I have her call you? Who you wanna know about?”

  “His name is Sam Burroughs. He works there—maybe he owns it. I’m not sure.”

  A couple strolling arm-in-arm along the street caught my attention. They stopped to peer into the window of the jewelry store next to the High Tide, he opened the door for her, and she gave him the sunny smile I’d never forget. Damn, Harris Galvin still looked great in a ponytail.

  “McKenna? You still there?”

  I jumped at the voice in my ear. “Uh, sorry. I just saw someone from my past.” For the second time.

  “Who could you know here? From a long time ago?”

  “Not that long.” Never mind. Alexander would probably never understand why I didn’t hate Harris. “What about this Sam?”

  “Can’t help you. I been gone a long time. Maybe I should come hang out with you. You know, a little support and maybe move this along quicker.”

  “Your friend didn’t have any information?”

  “Nothin’ we can use.”

  I could tell from the tone of his voice that Alexander was disappointed. I glanced up and down the street, the heat of the midmorning sun beginning to take hold. The conga line of cars and people was never-ending. No question, everyone wanted to visit a slice of paradise. “I’m under the banyan tree near the palace. This is serious pau hana traffic.”

  “Probably a cruise ship came in. Nothin’ like a few thousand haoles all at once to bring a little town to a stop. It gonna take a half hour to get there.”

  “You’ll call Benni on the way?”

  He agreed, I disconnected. I moved to a spot out of the flow of people. From here, I could watch the store without having to constantly dodge tourists and shopping zombies. Finally, things were working out. Alexander and I could confront Blueslover. The big guy could intimidate that little worm without lifting a finger.

  About twenty minutes later, my confidence tanked when Donny exited the High Tide and headed back the way he’d come on Ali’i Drive.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Donny, Blueslover, or whatever other names I wanted to call him, and I seemed destined to cross paths many times on this trip. I also didn’t need to irritate Alexander by having him show up in a place where I wasn’t, so my best option was to prod Sam for information. With any luck, by the time Alexander parked, I would have what I needed from Donny’s friend.

  The moment I entered the shop, a rooster crowed. I stared down, realizing I’d crossed an infrared beam set up to detect those entering and leaving the store. A friendly female voice came from somewhere in the racks of clothing to my left. “Aloha. Welcome to High Tide.”

  Even though I’d lived in Hawaii for years now, I’d never been in a surf shop. No reason. Who knew they’d have anything other than boards and wetsuits? My reply was automatic. “Aloha.”

  The woman had the deep tan of a local who spent time outdoors on a regular basis. The curls in her red mop of hair were so tight it looked as though they might hurt. Then again, the tattoo of a black rose on the left side of her neck suggested she might be a woman who handled her pain well. “Looking for anything in particular?” she asked.

  I hadn’t expected the store to be so well-stocked with clothing. My attention bounced from one display to another faster than a ping pong ball in a championship match. They even had everything from the largest men’s sizes to the smallest keiki. Looking for matchy-matchy outfits for mom, dad, and the keiki? No problem. All around, garments gobbled up floorspace on circular racks spaced only a couple of feet apart. I pulled a shirt from the closest rack and held it up. “Women’s tops.”

  A phone rang in the back of the store, then stopped and was replaced by the sound of a man’s abrupt voice. He said, “Hang on.”

  The saleslady gestured at the rack of tees, then glanced up as Sam approached. I hadn’t noticed it before, but he walked with a limp and had a black eye. “You got a phone call, Marylyn. I got this. Women’s tops? You found ‘em, brah. What size is she?”

  She? She, who? Uh-oh, I needed a woman—quick. Benni—I could use her. “Medium. Medium-small.” Sale signs were everywhere. Apparently, everything was a bargain—just like Mr. Cool’s. No surprise there. In a tourist town like Kona the stores probably ran the same sale every day of the year and the tourists never knew otherwise.

  Sam winced, then grabbed at his knee. It looked swollen, as did his eye. He caught me watching his face and said, “It’s nothing. How tall is she?”

  Marylyn put a consoling hand on Sam’s arm. “You should get off that knee. I’ll just take my break now, if that’s okay.”

  Sam nodded and Marylyn left us alone. Thankfully, I wouldn’t have any witnesses as I stumbled through the next few minutes. I raised a hand, letting it waver up and down just below the height of my ear. “About there.”

  “How much does she weigh?”

  Talk about a stupid question. “Pfft. You ever asked a woman that?”

  “You just seem kinda—uncertain. If she’s on the heavy side, it’s okay. Nothin’ to be ashamed of. You’ll wanna go up a size—or two. Otherwise, maybe an 8 in these tops here.”

  “She’s definitely not overweight,” I said absently while flipping through the shirts.

  Sam had a huge smile pasted on his face. “Sweet. She’s not your daughter, is she?” Without waiting for an answer, he pointed to another rack a few feet away. “On that one, you’ll be looking at smalls, too. Got some tanks over there the young ones like.” He winked, then turned to walk away. Over his shoulder, he said, “Lemme know if you need anything else.”

  “Mahalo.” I said, but I was only half paying attention. Marylyn was on her call, her voice carrying from the back room as it rose in intensity.

  Sam limped to the back of the shop, where he stationed himself at the cash register. It was possible he had important surf-shop business, but what could be more important than waiting on a customer? I found it irritating that Mr. Cool wouldn’t leave me alone, the woman who might have answered questions about Sam was arguing on the phone, and the guy I wanted to talk to was ignoring me. With Alexander still not here, the only thing I coul
d do was flounder through this rack of tees unless I could reengage Sam. I grabbed the closest small women’s tee and weaved my way through the racks, determined to get Sam talking again.

  He glanced up as I approached. “Found something already?”

  “I’m not too sure. You know how women are. What happened to the eye? That’s a beauty.”

  Even the most inexperienced observer would have seen Sam’s jaw muscles tighten. “Did you want to buy something?”

  “Is your name Sam?”

  He eyed me closely. “Have we met before?”

  “I’m a friend of Donny’s.”

  “Radisson? Where do you know him from?”

  It was my turn for the nonchalant wave. “We kind of ran into each other a few times. You know, small town, here and there. Pretty smart kid.” And sneaky, the little thief.

  Sam lifted his chin as though he were motioning toward the front door. “He’s the one who rigged up the chicken alarm. Pretty funny, actually. The tourists love it. Drives the locals nuts, man. I say screw ‘em. The owner ain’t so sure about it. I say screw him, too.”

  “Freaked me out.” I forced a smile. That was no lie. Talk about weird. “How’d you two meet, anyway?”

  “You lookin’ for somethin’ in particular?”

  “Other than a T-shirt for my hot girlfriend?” If only, I thought. I hadn’t had a hot girlfriend for almost a decade. Okay, longer, but why make myself sound desperate?

  Sam broke into a smile. “Yeah, other than that. What’s with all the questions?”

  “I don’t know. Guess I’m just the curious type. You know, how you befriended a kid like Donny. My girlfriend’s got one about his age and I haven’t been able to reach him yet. I need to know the secret.”

  “With Donny, it just kinda happened. He walked in a few months ago; we started talking. Just take an interest in the kid, man. That’s what they want, someone to care. I gotta get back to work.”