Neil Plakcy - Mahu Vice

Below me, Gunter was having trouble, flailing around under the surface of the water, the heavy cloak dragging him below. I dove down and grabbed him, but he was frightened and tried to shake me off.

One thing about being a surfer, you get a lot of experience dragging people out of the water. I knew not to fight with him. Instead, I focused on getting the cloak off him, letting him battle on his own, and once the heavy thing was off his shoulders, he rose up to gasp for air. We were in the deep end of the pool, eight feet by the marking on the side wall. I turned on my side to swim up to the shallow end, dragging Gunter along behind me. We both collapsed on the steps, which had been inlaid with a tile pattern of hibiscus blossoms.

“You okay?” I asked, panting heavily.

He coughed, spitting out water, but managed to say, “Never a dull moment with you, Kimo.”

“You burned at all?”

He shook his head. “Me neither.” One of the cloaks drifted toward us, and I saw a big hole burned through the back. The other cloak spread out at the deep end like a dead man floating. As we leaned back against the tile of the pool and caught our breath, the firemen aimed their hose at the back wall of the house.

More firefighters came around the side of the house to fight the fire at the back, and one of them helped us up out of the pool. He radioed that he had two guys soaking wet, needing blankets.

I’d lost my deck shoes in the pool, but I wasn’t going back for them. Gunter and I hobbled together across the lawn, as the fireman who’d helped us went back to fighting the flames. As we turned the corner, Mike came loping up the lawn, carrying blankets and throwing himself in my arms. “Don’t you know I’m the one who’s supposed to fight fires?” he asked, then he kissed me.

Mike wrapped Gunter and me in the blankets. I slung one arm around Mike, the other around Gunter, and we walked down the lawn together. There was a fresh breeze sweeping in from the ocean, and the air was clear down there. Despite all the chaos behind us, I felt safe and secure.

We’d almost made it to the street when the garage exploded, all that stockpiled gasoline going up in one big blast that shook the ground and sent waves of heat and fire toward us. The noise was so loud that it knocked my hearing out for a minute. I smelled singed flesh and burning grass as the three of us fell to the ground in a heap.

Waves of flame swept down from the garage. I closed my eyes and faced down in the grass. Mike rolled on top of us, splaying his arms out to keep us flat to the ground. The flames were quickly doused by the hoses, and a couple of EMTs rushed over to help us all up.

There was dirt all over Gunter’s face, and he’d gotten a bunch of scrapes on his chest. He couldn’t stop coughing, so they hooked him up with an oxygen mask. I saw him try to flirt with the EMT, but even Gunter is defeated sometimes.

I thought I might have a cracked rib or two, and there was a bruise on my forehead that hurt like a bastard. Mike had been wearing his yellow fire jacket, so the worst that had happened to him was that some of the black hair on the back of his head had gotten singed off.

The three of us sat down at the curb by the EMT wagon, watching the firefighters douse the rest of the blaze. Because of the spacious yard around the house, they’d been able to keep it from reaching the neighbors, though the street was crowded with onlookers and I saw a truck from Lui’s station, KVOL. I ducked my head down so that Ralph Kim wouldn’t see me and try to get me on camera.

The EMT insisted that we all go to The Queen’s Medical Center for evaluation. None of us had the energy to complain.

Dr. Phil was on duty, and as I stepped down from the van, holding Mike’s hand for support, he hurried forward in his hospital scrubs, a stethoscope around his neck. “You’re turning into a frequent flyer here, Kimo,” he said. “If you ever want to see me, though, you can just call. Don’t feel you have to have a professional reason.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. He took my vitals, directed the EMT to take me to a curtain, and then turned to Mike and Gunter.

A few minutes later a nurse came in to hook me up to oxygen, and I asked him for a pad and a pen. After he helped me peel off my wet, smoky clothes and put me into a backless hospital gown, he scrounged through a cabinet and found a pad from one of the drug companies, and a pen advertising a medication I’d never heard of and hoped I never had to use.

I started scrawling notes as the curtain next to me was pulled open. Mike was sitting back down on the bed next to mine. “Not what I was thinking of when I dreamed of sharing a room with you,” he said.

The curtain on the other side of his bed swung open, and Gunter said, “Hey, we could always make it a threesome.” Then he started to cough again, returning to his own bed, and the nurse hurried over to make sure he kept the oxygen mask over his face.

After a long while, Dr. Phil came by and said that all three of us were good to go, provided we took it easy and avoided running through any more fires for a few days. I used Mike’s phone to call my parents and let them know I was okay. I called Lidia, too, and she said she would swing over to the hospital and take Gunter home. Dr. Phil lent Mike and me each a set of scrubs. We were barefoot, and the scrubs were tight and only came down to the tops of our ankles, but they were better than nothing.

Gunter said he preferred to remain in the hospital gown. “You never know when one of these will come in handy,” he said. On our way out of the hospital we stopped in the lounge to watch KVOL broadcast a teaser for the late news.

They had some spectacular footage of the fire, including a shot of me and Gunter hobbling around the side of the house, soaking wet. Ralph Kim’s voice-over promised a full report at eleven o’clock. I knew my brother Lui would get hold of me before then, and that he’d complain that I hadn’t given him a heads up on the fire. I’d make it up to him by giving Ralph Kim an interview.

Lidia arrived as the fire segment was ending. We made a quick stop at a Long’s, where she went inside and bought three sets of rubber slippas, all in bright pink. “It’s the only color they had in your size,” she said.

Mike protested, but laughed and slid them on his feet.

A few minutes later, Lidia dropped Mike and me off at the station, then headed to Waikiki with Gunter, who was already talking about playing some doctor/patient games in the future. The man has a one-track mind.

Mike and I looked pretty funny, hobbling into the station, wearing the skimpy scrubs and the pink slippers. Ray was at his desk when we walked in. “Jesus, shouldn’t you guys still be in the ER?” he asked.

“Can’t leave you with all the paperwork,” I said. “Stan in the system?”

“He’s downstairs in a holding cell until they can get him in front of a judge. And there’s a cop at the hospital with Richard Hu.”

The three of us began to reconstruct everything we had done, in mind-numbing detail. Ray had the transmitter, which had been protected by the zippered bag, and he played it for Mike and me. It had recorded everything Richard and Stan had said to incriminate themselves. With testimony from Gunter, Treasure, and Long and the other immigrants, we had enough to put them both away for a long time.

Around eight, Dr. Phil called. “Thought you’d want an update on Richard Hu. He lost a lot of blood, but we removed the bullets and he’s in recovery.”

I thanked him.

“You might be interested to know that when we emptied his pockets, he had four different driver’s licenses, each one with a different name and a different address. Hospital billing is going to love tracking him down.”