Posted 12:25 PM by Alfred

Dark - part 7 (see sidebar links for other chapters)

Rion Dark had thought about staying in Kahala, there was the Mandarin, but Waikiki was a better fit. He could get lost in the frenetic pace of Oahu’s tourist center for a couple days, than start planning his visit to the Chan estate, still owned by the San Francisco underworld boss, but strictly a refuge for just a few weeks a year. When the Westways picture had been taken, Robbie Chan had apparently been taking a little hiatus from his duties in the bay area. According to the further research he had done, none of which had turned up any more pictures or references to the mysterious girl he’d dreamed about, Chan had been planning to retire from his life of organized crime.

That had all changed about three years ago when Chan’s youngest brother, Johnny, was killed by a hit man who had apparently mistaken him for his more notorious brother. Johnny was visiting Robbie from Austin, where he’d been studying Anthropology at University of Texas. Johnny was proud of his oldest brother for walking away from crime; he was a young idealist who had broken off contact with most of the rest of their family, who were all connected in one way or another.

Dark hadn’t been able to find any juice on the identity of the killer; it seemed like he’d never been caught. The result had been the full-bore return of Robbie Chan to the interworkings of the San Francisco underground, and for the next two years, he waged a reign of terror against rival bosses, bringing the city the highest level of gang violence and unexplained murders the area had ever seen. Robbie Chan was now pretty much high mucka mucka in SF, thank you very much, and you did not fuck with him, it simply wasn’t done.

If only that piece of shit Edgar Bryant had remembered that, maybe he wouldn’t be on the lamb, tracking down teenage girls across the pacific ocean that he’d seen in his dreams and turned out to be real. Maybe instead he’d be back in LA balling that nasty stripper he liked/hated. Maybe he’d be getting ready for his next acid trip.

Ah well, he was in Hawaii, what was to complain about? Palm trees and surfboards, all that good shit. The cabbie dropped him off in front of the Sheraton Moana Surfrider, a huge white structure right in the middle of touristville. The hotel was beautiful, immaculate, but he barely noticed the scenery in his exhaustion. After registering under a new alias, he went to his room and fell on the bed without even brushing his teeth or checking out the view from the lanai.

Save the ghost hunting for tomorrow, he thought, half wondering if the dreams would come, maybe giving him more clues to what the hell was going on. He hoped to see that beautiful girl dancing in his mind’s eye again, healthy hips swaying, brown skin glistening with a slight sweat, eyes full of panic and unknown wisdom. He hadn’t shaken her face out of the periphery of his consciousness, nor had he wanted to. He hungered for even an illusionary apparition of her, some shared experience, something to hold him over until he verified her existence in the physical realm.

Sleep came shortly, and with it dreams, but nothing memorable. Just some random throat-slashings and video-game schizophrenia. Standards that had gotten him by for years now, justifications for his wicked ways that paved the way for breakfast and the emptiness in his soul, both of which he usually welcomed.

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