Mahu Surfer (39 page)

I mustered up a final burst of strength and wrenched the gun from him, pushing myself back from him. Another rifle burst split the air. “Everybody okay?” I called. “Terri?”

“Okay,” she said shakily.

“How’s Bishop?”

“Dario shot him, and he’s going in and out of consciousness. Kimo, I’m scared. Who’s shooting at us?”

“I thought I knocked Mary Fonseca out and handcuffed her, but either she’s gotten up or somebody else has gotten her rifle. See if you can drag Bishop under the table. Ari, can you help?”

I kept one eye on Dario, who was crying on the floor in front of me, and the other focused on the window. Mary Fonseca was a damned good riflewoman if she was able to shoot with her hands cuffed together.

“What about Brad, Dario? Who killed him, and that college kid? Why?”

“I couldn’t stand to see somebody else have what I couldn’t.” He was crying full blast by then. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I just went crazy.”

“And me? Did you shoot at me when I was out at Pipeline?”

“I’d never shoot you, Kimo. That must have been Mary. I think she knew how much I cared about you and she was jealous.”

I heard another blast of gunfire, but this one wasn’t aimed inside. There was a volley back and forth, and then I heard a voice call out, “Hello the house. Anybody there? Police!”

“Officer on the scene,” I called back. “Scene secured.”

After

Al Kawamoto was the first in the door, his gun held out ahead of him. In short order, he was followed by uniforms who took custody of Dario, and an ambulance crew that took Bishop Clark away, with Terri by his side.

I sat at the table with Ari, and we reconstructed everything that had happened for Al. When we were done, I drove down to Wahiawa General, where Bishop was in critical condition. Terri’s parents had driven up from Honolulu by then, and her father sat holding his older brother’s hand and talking gently to him.

“I’m so sorry things worked out the way they did,” I said to Terri, when we had walked out together. “If I had known there was any danger I never would have let you go to Bishop’s in the first place.”

“You didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“Yeah, that’s been the theme of my life lately. Everything happens and I don’t have a clue about it. Hell of a detective, huh?”

“You knew there was a connection between Dario’s store and the deaths of the surfers.”

“I should have figured it out sooner. The first time I heard that Dario had a wife, I knew something was funny. I should have looked at him a lot more closely, but I was afraid I was trying to make him the killer because I was scared of him.”

“You weren’t scared of him,” she said, taking my hand. “What you were scared of is inside of you, but you’re working on that.”

»
»
»

Bishop’s death was big news because of the family’s prominence. And of course they had to note that there had been another Clark death, just a few weeks before. This time, though, I went to the funeral, with my parents. We sat at the Kawaiahao Church in downtown Honolulu, across from Honolulu Hale. The Clarks were descended from early missionaries to the islands, and had ancestors buried in the graveyard behind the church. After a brief service, Bishop took his place among them.

I was in the news again, as Sampson told reporters that I had been working undercover to bring both Fonsecas to justice. Mary was being held for trial for her drug activities, as well as for the murders of Mike Pratt, Lucie Zamora and Ronald Chang. Dario was being held as her accessory for all that, as well as for the murders of Brad Jacobson and Thomas Singer.

I closed up the house at Cane Landing and moved back to my apartment in Waikiki. After a couple of days off, and evaluations by both the department physician and psychiatrist, I drove my battered pickup into downtown Honolulu once more, parked at a meter a block away from the main station, and prepared to start the job I’d thought I was getting all along, as a detective in District 1. I sat in the truck for a minute, though, listening to Keali’i Kaneali’i ask where all the beach boys of Waikiki had gone. This boy, I knew, had gone away, but was back. Secure in that thought, I locked my truck and headed inside.

About the Author

NEIL PLAKCY is the author of
Mahu
,
Mahu Surfer, Mahu Fire, Mahu Vice,
and
Mahu Men
, about openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka. His other books are
Three Wrong Turns in the Desert, Dancing with the Tide, The Outhouse Gang, In Dog We Trust, Invasion of the Blatnicks
, and
GayLife.com.
He edited
Paws & Reflect:A Special Bond Between Man and Dog
and the gay erotic anthologies
Hard Hats, Surfer Boys
and
Skater Boys.
His website is www.mahubooks.com.

Trademarks Acknowledgment

The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

.38 Special: Smith and Wesson Corporation

Advertiser: Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Architectural Digest: Condé Nast

Armani: Giorgio Armani S.P.A.

Beach Boys: Brother Records, Inc.

Beretta: Beretta U.S.A Corp.

BMW: BMW of North America LLC

Budweiser: Anheuser-Busch INBEV S.A.

Chrysler PT Cruiser: Daimlerchrysler Corporation

Coach: Coach, Inc.

Colt Model 1860: Colt’s Manufacturing Company

Corona: Grupo Modelo S.A.B. DE C.V.

Croakies: Croakies

Dolce & Gabbana: Dolce&Gabbana Industria S.p.A.

Food Channel: Television Food Network G.P.

Ford Taurus: Ford Motor Company

Ford Woody: Ford Motor Company

Fritos: Frito-Lay North America, Inc.

Glock: Glock Inc.

Guinness Book of World Records: Arthur Guinness and Sons PLC

Hawaii Five-O: CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman Productions

Hawaiian Airlines: Hawaiian Airlines

HECO: Hawaiian Electric Company

Heineken: Heineken Brouwerijen

International House of Pancakes: IHOP IP, LLC

Japanese Pistol type 94: Nambu

Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale: Kona Brewery LLC

Kona Longboard Lager: Kona Brewery LLC

Kona Pacific Golden Ale: Kona Brewery LLC

Land Rover: Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC

Lexus: Toyota Motor Company

M4 Carbine: Colt Defense

Manolo: Manolo Blahnik

Marlboros: Philip Morris Incorporated

Mercedes: DaimlerChrysler

Mexpipe: Mexpipe

Miami Vice: Universal City Studios LLLP USI-UCS Holdings LLLP

Mission Impossible: Paramount Pictures

North Shore Cattle Company: North Shore Cattle Company

O’Neill (surfboards): O’Neill Wetsuits USA

Oakley: Oakley, Inc.

Odd Couple: Neil Simon and Paramount Pictures

Palm Pilot: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Pop-Tarts: Kellogg North America Company

Prince Kuhio: Hilton Hotels & Resorts

Ralph Lauren: PRL USA Holdings, Inc.

Reef (sandals): South Cone, Inc.

Rip Curl (wetsuits): Rip Curl International Pty. Ltd.

Salvation Army: The Rip Curl International Pty. Ltd.

San Francisco 49ers: San Francisco Forty Niners, Ltd.

Sex Wax: Zog Industries

Sophie’s Choice: Universal Pictures

SPAM: Hormel Foods, LLC

Starbucks: Starbucks Corporation

Surf Girls: MTV Networks

Teva: Deckers Outdoor Corp

The Matrix: Warner Bros. Pictures

The Sharps ‘Big Fifty’: Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company

Town and Country Surf Shop: Town & Country Surf

Toyota Camry: Toyota Motor Company

Valentino: Valentino S.p.A.

Verizon: Verizon Trademark Services LLC

Versace: Gianni Versace S.P.A.

Volkswagen Bug: Volkswagen of America, Inc.

Xbox: Microsoft Corporation

MLR Press Authors

Featuring a roll call of some of the best writers of gay erotica and mysteries today!

M. Jules Aedin

Maura Anderson

Victor J. Banis

Jeanne Barrack

Laura Baumbach

Alex Beecroft

Sarah Black

Ally Blue

J.P. Bowie

Michael Breyette

P.A. Brown

Brenda Bryce

Jade Buchanan

James Buchanan

Charlie Cochrane

Jamie Craig

Kirby Crow

Dick D.

Ethan Day

Diana DeRicci

Jason Edding

Angela Fiddler

Dakota Flint

S.J. Frost

Kimberly Gardner

Roland Graeme

Storm Grant

Amber Green

LB Gregg

Wayne Gunn

David Juhren

Samantha Kane

Kiernan Kelly

M. King

Matthew Lang

J.L. Langley

Josh Lanyon

Clare London

William Maltese

Gary Martine

Z.A. Maxfield

Timothy McGivney

Lloyd A. Meeker

Patric Michael

AKM Miles

Reiko Morgan

Jet Mykles

William Neale

Willa Okati

L. Picaro

Neil Plakcy

Jordan Castillo Price

Luisa Prieto

Rick R. Reed

A.M. Riley

George Seaton

Jardonn Smith

Caro Soles

JoAnne Soper-Cook

Richard Stevenson