This is Installment 1.
For Installment 2 click here.
A Matter of State
by
Ray Staar
"By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress, the Government of...(Hawaii,)...a feeble but friendly and confiding people, has been overthrown. A substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair."
President Grover Cleveland
Executive Mansion
December 18, 1893
What follows is a work of fiction. Similarities to any person or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental, except, of course, for the historical references, which are entirely true.
Chapter One
Thursday, April 8, 1993
Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CA -- 5:20 AM Pacific Standard Time
In the foggy pre-dawn of a chilly San Francisco morning, pajama clad police inspector Hal Frederick sat at the kitchen table, his grizzled brown jaw resting in the palm of his right hand, watching, almost impartially, as the pencil in his left hand wrote down the sum of the last of several columns of figures. For the past hour, as Hannah lay sleeping in their bedroom, he had repeated numerous variations of the same calculation, in hopes that some novel permutation might make the same numbers come out differently.
Alas, for all his efforts, the figures would not yield a happy outcome. Barring some miracle, he and Hannah would not be attending her family reunion the following week in Hilo, Hawaii. She would be terribly disappointed.
Frederick had dreaded this eventuality for several months now, and had done everything in his power to prevent it, including taking on countless shifts of unenviable overtime in the missing persons department at SFPD. Most recently, in a last ditch effort to raise cash he had sold some oil futures he owned, having heard that the market was trending upward and that hefty profits were likely.
The information had proved unreliable. Frederick lost over two thousand dollars.
Now, there was nothing for it. He was going to have to own up. Hannah was going to have to be told.
"You're up early."
Frederick jerked upright and looked over his shoulder. "Jesus," he said. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"You know," he said, "sneak up on a person like that."
"It's the Pacific Islander pig hunter in me," Hannah replied, coming up behind him. "If my ancestors hadn't been so stealthy, they might have starved. Then there'd be no Hannah to sneak up on anyone." She bent over and kissed the top of her husband's head, pausing briefly to nuzzle its crop of close-cut, kinky hair. "Besides, after all these years, shouldn't you be used to it?"
"I see," Frederick said, rising to the verbal volleyball in which the two regularly competed, "And I suppose if you'd been sticking me with pins all this time, I should have gotten used to that, too."
Hannah did not reply. "What's all this?" she asked, nodding toward the papers spread over the tabletop.
Frederick cringed but, apparently screwing up his courage, took a breath and began. "It's our financials," he said. "I've been crunching numbers."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, babe," he said. He turned in his chair, placed his hands on her waist and looked up. "I'm afraid it doesn't look good."
"Meaning?" said Hannah.
"Meaning the reunion," Frederick replied. "I don't think we can afford it."
Hannah blinked and pursed her lips. Frederick knew the signs. The news, though not entirely unanticipated, had stung.
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he said.
His wife nodded, remaining silent for a long moment.
"These pins you speak of," she said, a tear forming in the corner of one eye, "What kind are they, exactly? Teeny little pins, or gigundous hypodermic-sized pins?"
Frederick stood and took his wife in his arms, holding her while she wept softly. After some moments, she pulled her head from his chest and produced a tissue from the pocket of her robe.
"I don't know why I'm so upset," she said, blowing her nose. "The Pukuli family reunion will be just like everything else in Hawaii."
Frederick's brow wrinkled. "Pardon?" he said.
"It only seems like it'll be fun because of the location. The truth is, Hawaii is about as lackluster as Little Rock. Nothing really exciting ever happens there."
Kihei, Maui, HI -- 9:30 PM Hawaii Time
On the evening of his last day on earth, multi-millionaire evangelist Reverend Dr. Faber Heath leaned, waist deep, against the marble deck of a saltwater pool in his Maui compound, idly watching as a tawny Native Hawaiian parishioner stepped out of her clothing and stood, completely nude, before him.
Devlin, the visiting deacon who had procured the woman, had been right. She was exquisite. She was also, as Heath was soon to learn, highly skilled.
The reverend scarcely noticed the woman move a canvas cooler bag to the water's edge just before joining him in the pool. He was far too preoccupied tracking the progress of the saltwater as it slipped over her trim ankles, her superb calves, thighs and hips, finally rising to just below her dainty navel.
Now standing in front of him, gazing seductively into his eyes, the young woman laced the brittle fingers of Reverend Heath's bony hands through hers, then lay them on her bosom.
She drew near and placed her moistened lips over his. Faber Heath's mouth opened. She found his tongue and sucked on it, softly grinding her naked groin back and forth over his leg. So convincing was her display of ardor that, for several moments, Reverend Heath almost believed himself as vital and desirable as she.
Is this sorcery, the reverend wondered? Have I been bewitched?
However the thing was accomplished, Dr. Heath presently sensed his breath coming quickly, his skin tingling pleasurably and his pulse pounding. In short, as the quaint phrasing of the Bible would have it, there was a stirring in his loins. Such passionate responses as these were the most vigorous and authentic he'd experienced in many years.
Murmuring softly, the Hawaiian woman slipped her hand inside the good doctor's swimming trunks and fondled him. Faber moaned. God knew he had been touched by female parishioners before, some of whom had been nearly as beautiful as this one, but few had possessed the power to fill him with such anticipation. Whatever gift she has, he thought, she has it in abundance and she gives of it readily. He slid off his trunks so that she might give more freely.
"Oh, Dr. Heath," the woman breathed, "I want so much to bring you pleasure. May I take you in my mouth?"
Heath was mildly shocked, but only at her forthrightness. If he had any compunctions about allowing her to commit an act considered sinful by the church to which they both belonged, he was not aware of it.
"Oh yes, my dear," he said, draping his arm over the back of her neck, "of course."
The salty water made his body buoyant. Using the woman's shoulder as a hoist, the reverend closed his eyes, arching himself upward until, like a dinghy on the Dead Sea, he floated within her easy reach.
"The Lord has made you powerful and wealthy," she said, taking hold of his penis. Dr. Heath smiled at the compliment, foreseeing, so he thought, the even greater pleasure that was soon to follow. "It's a pity he also made you such a fool."
Lost in fervor, the reverend did not, at first, grasp the disparity between the two halves of the woman's statement. When it dawned on him that he was being taunted and might very well be in danger, he opened his eyes, but by then it was too late.
While he had been swooning, the woman had retrieved her canvas cooler bag from the pool's edge. Smiling, she now held it in her free hand, open and just low enough to reveal its contents. Protruding from the brackish water inside was a translucent mass of fleshy tissue about the size of a cabbage head. Just beneath it, dozens of thick tentacles undulated, like a cluster of venomous and angry worms. Faber's eyes grew wide.
"Sea wasp?" he said, hoarsely.
"Sea wasp, box jellyfish, cube jelly," the woman said. "Call it what you will, it's equally lethal." Reverend Heath's breath came harder and faster now, but not from desire.
"Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want from me?" The woman's smile broadened. Dr. Heath struggled, but held as he was by his most sensitive organ, his efforts were quite useless. "I'll scream," he said. "Deacon Devlin will hear if I scream."
"Deacon Devlin," called the woman. "Reverend Heath says he's going to scream."
A sliding glass door leading to the nearby pool house was heard to open. From inside, the deacon called out his reply.
"I'll put on some music, then," he said.
Realizing he was alone and defenseless, Dr. Heath's expression grew more desperate. Having no other recourse, he began to beg.
"Please. I'll give you anything. Whatever you want, it's yours. Just don't do this, I implore you."
The woman brought her face directly over Faber Heath's and looked into his eyes. "Will you lead Japheth out from the tents of Shem?" she said.
To a bystander, even to a Biblical scholar, the question might have seemed obscure. To Dr. Heath, it apparently spoke volumes. For the first time, his face registered comprehension. He now grasped with whom he was dealing and what was at stake. He now understood it was time for him to die.
"Will you lead Japheth out from the tents of Shem?" the woman asked again.
His eyes bulging, Dr. Heath remained silent.
"I thought not," she said.
Then, in one nimble movement, the woman released the reverend doctor, leaped from the pool and upended her cooler bag. Amid a splash of seawater, the dread creature fell on Faber Heath. Its once fat tentacles, now sticky and thin, encircled his body and adhered to his skin, its organelles stinging repeatedly, injecting him with deadly venom.
He sank briefly and then shot up out of the water, clawing at the transparent strings and howling in agony, his skin aflame, his heart pounding.
Alas, Dr. Heath's efforts served only to stimulate the creature's secretions. The more he struggled, the more toxins flowed into his flesh. One final time, his head broke the surface of the pool. He screamed pitiably.
"Olga!"
The beautiful Hawaiian woman did not stop to wonder why, with his last breath, the old man had called out this particular name. It did not concern her. Calmly, she picked up a long pole and pushed down on the reverend doctor's chest. Within minutes, Faber Heath was dead.
Chapter Two
Friday, April 9, 1993
Somewhere in Puna, The Big Island, HI -- 9:00 AM Hawaii Time
Iggy the Apostle was late. Dickley Hooper, guerrilla pot farmer, squatted near a newly planted marijuana patch, sparked up a blunt and waited.
This year would mark the fifth season in a row that Dickley had contracted with Iggy to plant a highly potent variety of weed known as Puna Pow. Previously, as an independent grower, he had cultivated White Widow, another species of cannabis, but five out of the last six years he had done so, his crop had been discovered by police and destroyed. Since throwing in with Iggy, such difficulties had ceased to plague him. That was one of the benefits of being under Iggy's protection.
Another benefit was the money. Iggy paid a generous yearly advance even though, as far as Dickley knew, no Puna Pow was ever sold on the Big Island, a fact he had always found puzzling. Another puzzle was that Iggy forbade Dickley to hold back any Puna Pow for himself.
"Don't even smoke any," he told Dickley. "You do, and I'll know. You do, and I'll kill your ass."
Dickley shook his head. Yes, that Iggy was an odd bird, but he paid well and he paid punctually. In fact, he realized with a start, Iggy was punctual in all things. Dickley could not imagine what might be delaying him today.
Inhaling yet another long pull from the blunt, Dickley held it in his lungs until spots appeared before his eyes.
Then, while exhaling, he thought he heard a rustling sound from the brush some sixty feet away. He looked up, but saw nothing. Still light-headed, he rubbed his eyes and looked again. Still, there was nothing.
Dickley stood up and set out across the field, focusing his attention on a thicket whose branches appeared to have begun fluttering. Abruptly, the fluttering became a racket. Limbs bowed, boughs crackled and small animals bolted from the underbrush. Iggy the Apostle, weaving unsteadily, moaning and holding his arms in front of him, appeared in the clearing.
Dickley's first thought was that Iggy was playing some kind of trick. A heartbeat later, he realized he was wrong. Iggy had no sense of humor. He didn't play tricks.
Then Dickley saw the blood streaming from Iggy the Apostle's eyes. Rolling down his cheeks ran two streams of red. Somewhere in his mind, Dickley must have also realized that Iggy's eyelids were hanging, strangely slack and flaccid over his eye sockets. Even so, his horror stricken brain would not allow him to draw the obvious conclusion. He called out.
"Iggy?"
The Apostle, standing at a slight angle, awkwardly turned himself toward the sound of Dickley's voice, cocked his ear and grunted. Seen straight on, his appearance was all the more grisly.
"Iggy. My god, what's happened?"
Iggy parted his lips and pointed between them. "Ah," he said. "Aye pooh mah Ah ah."
Past the edge of the man's mouth, beyond his lips and behind his teeth, loomed a revolting void. At the back of Iggy's throat, a stump of bloody muscle that had once been his tongue, writhed like a wounded serpent. Dickley tasted bile, finally realizing what he was seeing.
He leaned over, heaving convulsively, driven to his knees by nausea, remaining on the ground, his head in his hands, for several long moments. When, at length, Dickley did look up, what he saw filled him with even greater dread.
Two enormous brown men, identical in appearance and dressed as Hawaiian warriors, wearing colorful sarongs, gourd helmets and feathers, flanked Iggy the Apostle, holding him fast by either arm. Beside them stood the most beautiful Native Hawaiian woman Dickley had ever seen. Her face was covered in yellow and red paint. She was naked to the waist. In her hands she held a shark-toothed bludgeon.
"This is the plague with which the nations that fight against us will be stricken," she said. Dickley gazed at her with alarm and awe. "Their flesh will rot where they stand, their eyes will fall from their sockets, their tongues will be torn from their mouths." Then, with a powerful grace that Dickley could not but admire, the woman swung her truncheon, neatly splitting Iggy's head like a ripe melon.
As he fell, the two brown behemoths made a move toward Dickley as if to take him, but the woman held out her ax, blocking their way.
"For now," she said, "this is the last of four. Should more poison find its way to my people, more deaths will follow." She turned toward Dickley Hooper and fixed her eyes on his. "Do you understand?"
Dickley did not understand. Still he nodded.
"Good," she said before disappearing into the brush. "Go now. Go and tell them."
Garrison Residence, San Francisco, CA -- 10:00 PM PST (Pacific Standard Time)
For days now, two sets of incoming calls had plagued Deborah Garrison's peace of mind. One set had been threatening. The other set held out hope.
An old friend of her family ran a contract air courier business which flew regularly between Hilo, Hawaii, and Kingman, Arizona. He'd offered to arrange safe transport to the islands if Deborah could but reach Kingman undetected. That was going to be tricky.
By this time, she was sure, every local airport, bus and train station had been put under surveillance. Engaging private transport or even taking her husband's company jet would leave an easily followed paper trail. Still, she had to get out of town and, in the circumstances, there was really only one way to do it: she was going to have to drive.
Deborah did not relish leaving her San Francisco home, nor did she relish the idea of running, especially from an oaf like Hugh Nachtmann. In his youth he had been an arrogant boor and a bully, an embarrassment to both his school and community. Time, she was sorry to learn, had not altered him.
Among their high school peers in the Hilo District of Hawaii's Big Island, she alone had stood up to Nachtmann, defending those he tormented and bearing up under the revenge he took on her for opposing him. Over time, his very presence, she remembered, became enough to set her teeth on edge.
Still, though she had defied him once, she could not defy him now. If she and her family were ever to know peace again, today she must run.
The classic brown 1966 Mustang in which they fled belonged to Deborah's friend and neighbor, airline executive Rachel Morris. She'd left it in Deborah's care while vacationing in Europe.
To keep the car in trim, Deborah had agreed to use it for shopping and other short trips, but the promise had proven difficult to keep. In fact, until tonight, she hadn't driven it at all, dispensing with her care-taking responsibilities by occasionally opening Rachel's garage door, starting the engine and letting it run.
It was with a comforting sense of anonymity then, that at 10:00 PM Friday evening, she and her 4 year-old son, Noah, had followed a flashlight beam down the alley and through the gate leading to Rachel's backyard, climbed into the Mustang and driven into the darkness.
Had they taken Deborah's Volvo, Hugh Nachtmann and his people would likely have been on their trail almost instantly. The unfamiliar vehicle, she hoped, would buy the pair at least some of the time they needed.
Noah sat in his child safety seat in the back of the car. "Does Daddy know where we're going?" he asked.
"No, sweetheart," said Deborah, catching her son's eye in the rearview mirror.
"How come?"
"Well, you know how Daddy sometimes has to go on trips by himself?"
"Yes."
"That's what we have to do, sweetie. We have to take a trip by ourselves. OK?" The boy cocked his head to the side and pursed his lips, a manner of looking thoughtful he'd learned from his father.
"OK," Noah said.
Deborah Garrison could not explain to her son. His child's mind was not yet capable of understanding. In his mother's past there was an enormous and troubling secret. Because of it her parents had died. Because of it, her life and the life of her child, were also threatened. From this thing, finally, there could be no escape, only confrontation.
Garrison Residence, San Francisco, CA -- 11:00 PM PST
Jim Garrison returned from a business trip later that evening to find Deborah and Noah not at home. Though their absence was unexpected, he was not concerned. It was Friday night. Possibly they were having a sleepover with one of Noah's day school friends. The boy loved spending time in unfamiliar places, especially if his mother was nearby.
The absence of an explanatory note, too, might have troubled another husband. Garrison, however, was unperturbed. Yes, his wife was ordinarily conscientious, but even conscientious people have lapses of memory.
More likely, he thought, it had been he whose memory had lapsed. Doubtless, Deborah had told him of her plans and, in his busyness, he had let it slip his mind. In either event, Garrison did not fret. He did his nighttime exercises and went to bed.
Office of US Congressman Joe Chow, Hilo, The Big Island, HI -- 11:00 PM Hawaii Time
Moses Pukuli, member of the Hawaiian House of Representatives for the 4th District, sat in the home office of his friend and fellow Democrat, US Congressman Joseph Chow.
Chow was not as yet in attendance and Moses Pukuli was growing restless. A former cop, he was predisposed to take easy offense from politicians, even though he had been one himself for many years now.
At 8:05 PM, Hawaii Time, Congressman Pukuli had been contacted by one of Chow's aides who had requested his immediate presence for an emergency meeting. Could Mr. Pukuli, the aide wondered, be in Hilo by 9:30 PM?
As of this moment, 11:00 PM Hawaii Time, Moses Pukuli had been cooling his heels in Congressman Chow's empty office for nearly two hours. If this meeting was so goddamn urgent, he grumbled to himself, why is my chair the only one with an ass in it?
Pukuli drummed his fingertips and glanced impatiently around the room. The walls of Chow's office were covered with an impressive array of photos, plaques and memorabilia, attesting to the congressman's popularity, not only in his home district, but also statewide and even in Washington, D.C.
Pukuli rose from his seat and walked to an especially large color photograph. Standing before it, he was ashamed to feel a wave of envy stirring his breast. Pictured there, in the glowing spring sun near a tulip bed, was Joe Chow and two of his staunchest political allies: Bill and Hillary Clinton. The scene of the photo, he then realized, was the Rose Garden at the West End of the White House. The wave of envy threatened to become an tsunami of spite.
At that moment, the door to the office swung open and through it strode Chow himself, his hand extended, an apologetic smile spreading over his face.
"Moses," he said, advancing into the room. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you." Reaching out for his comrade's hand, Pukuli's jealousy evaporated. While it may have been feasible to work up a resentment against Chow in his absence, it was quite impossible to dislike the man face-to-face. He was just too damned genuine.
"Sit down, Moses. Sit down," Chow urged. "Please forgive my tardiness. It's been a brutal day." Pukuli resumed his seat, glancing back across the desk just in time to see Chow wincing in pain. The leg wounds he had sustained while serving in Vietnam were especially troublesome when he was overtired.
Pukuli leaned forward. "What's going on, Joe?" he asked.
Chow did not mince words. "We've got trouble, Moses," he said. "Big trouble."
"With what? Who?"
"Faber Heath is dead," said Chow. "His body washed up on the beach near his home."
"Drowned?"
"No. Evidently he was swimming when he was attacked by a venomous jellyfish."
"Jesus H. Christ," Pukuli whispered. "What a way to go." A moment later, the larger implications of Congressman Chow's news became clear.
"Oh, shit," Pukuli said. "The Faber-Brady trust. Will it?"
"Yes," said Chow. "The only known eligible beneficiary cannot be located. That being the case, unless another suitable candidate can be identified, the Council succeeds by default."
"How long before that happens?"
"We've got five days," said Chow. "The deadline is Wednesday."
"Great God in heaven," whispered Congressman Pukuli. "The Council of Kahunas...a radical agenda with an eight billion dollar war chest."
"Exactly," said Chow. "When word gets out, the news alone will cause more political fallout than Watergate."
"Political fallout my brown ass," Pukuli said. "We'll be lucky if it doesn't cause real fallout."
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