Posted 12:57 PM by Alfred

Two hours later, he was still trying to put things together in his head. He’d found nothing more of interest in the house. He was enough of a pro so that no one should know he’d been there. First the connection with the girl from his dream, now Ms. Psycho-sexy pops up in the picture. What was the connection?

MosBurger. Quite the little invention. A hamburger with some kind of onion-laden chili sauce spread all over. Apparently from Japan, a large influence in Waikiki consumerism. Dark wolfed down the remainders of his junk food and went out into the warm night air for a stroll among the tourists.

Hawaii was a fun place. Put you in a very mellow relaxed mood. Trouble was, he couldn’t get too relaxed. People were still after him, he could smell it, like a fox smells the hounds. They’d lost his scent but the hunt was far from over. He wondered how Tony had fared, if they’d caught up with him, if they were even after him. Maybe it wasn’t so much about the little bookkeeper, but more about him. Maybe some nut he’d rubbed the wrong way was looking for payback.

No. He had a strange gut feeling it was all tied into Chan. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence but no proof, but he just knew he’d find some answers on this island. And the picture with the girl from his dream. Who was she?

Dark needed a distraction. Way too much thinking was going on.

“Cigarette?”

Dark spun around, and where, he could have sworn, no one had been standing, a wiry, long haired, asian man stood, holding out, of course children, a Marlboro Light. The man was smiling at him, his long, not even close-to-full, mustache blowing in the wind. “They’ll kill you, but everyone dies some day, yes my friend?”

“Who the hell are you?” Rion didn’t like people fucking with him. He especially didn’t like it when he thought people were fucking with him, but he wasn’t quite sure.

“Call me Sammy.” With that he flipped the cigarette through the air, caught it in his mouth and lit it with a zippo. The zippo had a picture of She-Hulk on it. “My friend and I were wondering the same about you.” Standing behind Sammy, leaning up against the Prada display case, was a mammoth Polynesian guy with a t-shirt that read: “Hawaiian Built.” The big guy winked at him. “We were also wondering what’s your interest in the Chinese grocery business.”

Now Dark was pissed. These guys obviously knew he’d paid Robbie Chan’s house a visit. What the fuck, had he gone amateur in only 36 hours in the tropics? “All right smart guy. What?”

“Meet us in room 736 at the Princess Kaiulani tonight at 2 am, and we’ll take you somewhere you can find some really interesting shit about that asshole. But try not to stumble around too much before then. Honolulu is a city with eyes, haole, and ears, and the aina no appreciate overstep da aloha, dig?”

“Whatever.” With that, Dark walked away.

He walked straight to his hotel room, packed his bag, went downstairs, and flagged down a cab on Kalakaua. “The airport, please.”

About an hour and a half later, Dark stepped out on the departures area of Honolulu International. He handed the guy five bucks and walked into the concourse. Delta Airlines. Good as any. Scanning the monitor for departures, he saw the next flight out was to Seattle. He had switched cabs seven times on route to the airport. Walking between buildings, crossing busy intersections, going through apartment complexes in between cab rides, making sure no one was tailing him.

He was clean. He booked a ticket on the Seattle flight, which boarded in twenty minutes, paid cash, and went towards the gate. He used a new identity, Patrick Monahan, this time, one he’d picked up in Vegas about two years ago. Won it at a roulette table from a one-eyed drunk named Mac.

Through security alright, he went to take a piss. Coming out of the bathroom, he went to go wander through the shops for a while. Post September 11, the secured area of an airport was just about the safest damn place in the world. Dark milled around for a while, and about 30 minutes after his flight had left, he headed for the exits. Getting out of the secured area, he quickly headed downstairs to arrivals, walked outside, flagged a cab, and told him to drive for Turtle Bay, which was a resort nestled at the northern tip of Oahu. Stay up country for a while, lay low, hopefully shake whoever these fucks were that had smelled him out already.

He’d underestimated the locals, apparently. Typical mainland attitude. Wouldn’t happen again. Next time he ran into Sammy and his big buddy, it would be on his terms.

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