Paul Levine - Riptide

“You got yourself some wheels there, Little Lee,” Harry Marlin said, hoisting himself onto the bottom rung of the built-in ladder and poking at a tarpaulin that covered the truck bed. You never know, Harry thought, could be some jungle boy with a machete back there.

The bed was empty. Empty but not clean, a residue of twigs and tiny leaves stuck to the crevices of the metal bed. Harry knew from the smell that the truck wasn’t used by a Japanese gardener. No, this baby’s been hauling the kind of grass that mellows you out.

Harry stood there for a moment, not getting in, just hanging onto the side of the customized truck, the engine vibrating with quiet thunder as Lee Hu kept it in neutral. There was a moment of hesitation, and Lee Hu saw it.

“It’s Keaka’s truck but he usually keeps it on the farm he owns with his cousin,” she said. “Rough terrain, you need power and big wheels, rugged suspension. They’ve dropped a four-hundred-and-twenty-seven-cubic-inch engine into it, gets five-hundred-fifty horsepower, a six-hundred-lift hydraulic cam, TRW pistons, high-volume oil pump, the works. You ought to see it on mountain roads.”

Christ, this one talks like Mario Andretti, Harry thought. “We’re going on a mountain road, aren’t we, to get to the volcano? I read about the winding road.”

“Oh no,” Lee Hu said with a smile. “We’ll go a much quicker way. C’mon.”

Okay, sometimes you just got to take a risk, Harry thought, hauling himself into the cab. Lee Hu eased the truck into first gear, let out the clutch, and stomped on the gas, burning rubber and scattering birds as they tore out of the lushly landscaped hotel grounds and headed down the coast on Highway 30.

Harry kept his eyes on the outside mirror to see if they were being tailed, but the road was deserted except for hotel employees coming to work. Lee Hu drove south five miles to Lahaina, a nineteenth-century whaling village now overrun with tourists and T-shirt shops, an ice-cream stand on every corner. They were on Front Street along the harbor, the shops still shuttered, a few breakfast places opening, the island of Lanai visible across the channel.

Lee Hu turned into a side street and drove a few blocks to an empty softball field. She pointed to the middle of the field. “Here’s how you’ll travel. Much faster, much more comfortable than Crater Road.”

A helicopter sat in the infield. Two men stood near first base, one lean and strong — so he’s here — the other a massive hulk of dark Hawaiian manhood. Lee Hu pulled the truck alongside the first base line, Harry admiring the way she downshifted. Then he got out and stood face-to-face with Keaka.

“Hello, partner,” Keaka Kealia said, smiling at him, like they were really buddies.

“Hullo yourself. Been looking forward to this.” Have to show some toughness, let ‘em know Harry Marlin don’t roll over for nobody. Like the girl said, came six thousand miles. Fucking A, kid, Harry Marlin’s got balls the size of coconuts.

Keaka still smiled. “Say hello to Lomio.”

Lumbering toward Harry, Lomio was a load. He was smaller than a Patton tank but looked just as lethal, and he sure hadn’t missed any meals. He wasn’t built like Schwarzenegger, no rippling lats or carved washboards here. More like a sumo wrestler, big all over, the neck of a Brahma bull with huge, sloping shoulders, arms without definition, just thick slabs of meat. He wore a turquoise aloha shirt, his stomach ballooning underneath, but with no trace of softness, more like he’d just swallowed a watermelon. His face was the color of overdone toast, and if he knew how to smile, he was keeping it a secret.

“How you doin’,” Harry said, eyeing the big man warily. Lomio grunted in return.

Keaka laughed and patted his friend’s beefy shoulder. “Lomio isn’t used to strangers. He lives on the other side of the island, even beyond Hana, no paved roads, go in and out by copter. He helps out on a farm I own with my cousin.”

“Looks like you could hitch a plow to him, wouldn’t need a John Deere,” Harry said.

Keaka smiled in a relaxed, natural way, like it was every day he made a deal to split up more than a million bucks. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Barefoot, he looked harmless enough, just another kid from the beach, though this one had taut veins popping out on each arm and muscles that rippled with each movement.

“Lomio’s more of a caretaker than a farmer,” Keaka said. “He keeps trespassers from disturbing our crops, but he’s really very gentle, a lover, not a fighter. Lomio translates to Romeo, you know.”

“Didn’t know,” Harry Marlin said, thinking this Romeo’s Juliet was probably a holstein. Harry also figured they weren’t growing pineapples on the other side of the island, but that was none of his business. His business was… where, buried in an extinct volcano? He pointed at the helicopter. “So where we going in this thing?”

“To the crater. We’re waiting for the pilot. But first, do we have a deal? An even split, fifty-fifty.”

“I don’t like it, but I’m an easy guy to get along with. Just to avoid any… uh… unpleasantness between you and me, okay, fifty-fifty, even Stephen.”

Keaka Kealia extended a powerful brown hand and said, “Shake, partner. I knew you were reasonable.”

Harry Marlin tried not to wince as the handshake cracked his knuckles. He turned around in time to see Lee Hu pull away in the truck, the huge tires biting into the red dirt and stirring up a dust storm. “Good-bye, Mr. Marlin,” she called out the window. Harry stared after her uneasily, somehow feeling more exposed now, thinking nobody would put a bullet in his head with a lady on the premises.

“Little Lee’s afraid of heights,” Keaka said, as if reading Harry’s mind. “Refuses to fly unless she’s mellowed out on pakalolo.”

Harry stared at him blankly.

“Marijuana. Maui Wowie,” Keaka explained. “If you want, we’ll get you some.”

“Maybe later.”

Lomio had already hauled himself into the passenger compartment of the helicopter, a sleek beige craft with brown stripes. There were two doors on each side, one up front for the pilot and a larger door to a separate compartment for the passengers. Harry looked into the window of the passenger compartment. Five seats, two facing the rear separated by a small bar with a cut-glass brandy decanter, and three deeply cushioned seats facing forward. The interior was beige trimmed in brown leather. You could have a pretty good poker game back there.

Lomio sat in one of the seats facing the rear, opening and closing the compartment door by twisting the spring-loaded metal handgrip. The door opened with a whoosh, pushed by a pneumatic plunger. He did it again and again, like a child with a favorite toy. Christ, this elephant’s got the IQ of a sponge, Harry thought.

“He loves the copter,” Keaka said, “loves to play with the cyclic, the stick. We have to keep him out of the cockpit or he’ll foul up all the instruments.”

“Glad you told me. I was afraid he was our pilot.”

Keaka laughed again. Harry wondered why everything seemed funny to the Hawaiian this morning. Suddenly, a police car whipped onto the ball field, a trail of dust kicking up in its wake. Harry turned, took one look at the car and nearly started running. “What the hell!”

“Don’t worry,” Keaka said. “He’s my cousin and he’s the best copter pilot on Maui.” The police car slid to a stop, and a man looked out at them through the open window. Keaka said, “Mr. Marlin, say hello to Mikala Kalehauwehe, captain in the County of Maui Police Department.”

“Hello, Officer,” Harry Marlin said.

The captain nodded, got out of the car, took off his regulation shirt and replaced it with an L.A. Raiders jersey of silver and black. “You like the copter?” he asked Harry, who shifted from foot to foot, trying to assess the situation.