The Green Room (4 page)

On her feet, she found that her petrified brain started to function once again. She was up. In this position, she had control. She could shift her weight back on the board to avoid pearling, or she could move forward and adjust for a lull in the water's force. And once in control, she was no longer as frightened.

The ride was perfect. She sailed past Nahoa and Robbie, who shouted and gave her a thumbs-up. Twenty yards beyond them, the wave petered out, and Storm let herself fall, laughing, into the ocean.

“Way to go.” Ben had appeared nearby, and calmly sat on his board as if he'd driven up and parked.

“That was great.” Storm was breathless with exertion and a roaring adrenaline buzz.

“Wanna do it again?”

“Yeah.”

***

A couple of hours later, the surfers traipsed back to where Leila and Hamlin had set down beach chairs. They'd had a hard time staying in them, though, and met the wet and sandy group halfway down the beach.

“That looks really fun,” Hamlin said.

“You could do it,” Storm assured him. “Let's start on smaller waves, though.”

“They look pretty big,” Leila said. “Lots of white water.”

Robbie was carrying the tandem board with Ben. “It was so fun, Mom. I want to do it again.”

Leila had laid an old bedspread in the sand next to the beach chairs. Robbie and Storm sat down on it, but the guys insisted on sitting in the sand. “We're going back out again pretty soon,” Goober said.

“Speak for yourself,” Ben said. “I've got to get some work done.”

“Gotta check in with your mom, you mean?”

Ben glared at Goober. “Maybe. So what?”

Nahoa interrupted them. “Waves will be better later this afternoon, when the wind dies down.”

Goober shrugged. “Whatever.”

Storm was seated on the blanket so that she faced the arguers. Consequently, she gazed down the beach in an effort to ignore the friction. Nahoa reacted as if he'd heard the sniping before, and he turned to Leila to discuss Brian's work as a police officer.

A small group of surfers walked along the beach, boards under their arms. One of them pointed toward Storm, Hamlin, and their little group. A sunburned, tow-headed kid of nine or ten in a brand-new Matsumoto Shave Ice T-shirt ran up to them. Someone had coated his peeling nose with zinc oxide.

“Some guy asked me to give you this.” The boy handed Nahoa a package, wrapped in brown paper and twine. He then dug in his pocket and pulled out a Subway napkin, complete with calorie counts and a couple of oily spots. “Can I have your autograph, too?” He handed the napkin to Nahoa. “I heard you're gonna win the surf contest tomorrow.”

“We'll see,” Nahoa said. “Anyone got a pen?”

Leila dug around in her beach tote and came up with an old ballpoint, which Nahoa used to sign the napkin.

“What's in the package?” he asked.

“I dunno.” The kid stood on one foot in the hot sand, then the other. “You prob'ly should open it.”

“Okay.” Nahoa untied the twine and peeled back the layers of paper. For a moment, he didn't move.

“Who gave this to you?”

“A man.” The boy pointed down the beach in the direction he'd come.

Everyone looked toward the layers of brown paper. All that was visible was a heavy dark, carved wood handle. By the size and heft of the package, Storm guessed the item was about eighteen inches long and weighed several pounds.

The skin had tightened around Nahoa's eyes and she could see that he was pale beneath his tan. The handle sparked an image from her childhood, reinforced by Nahoa's reaction.

Nahoa spoke, his voice dead calm. “What did the guy look like?”

The boy looked around as if he might see the guy. “He was tall. Um, he had a blue shirt with a surfer on it.”

“What did he say to you?”

The kid had picked up on Nahoa's gravity. Nervous and off-balance, his foot knocked the edge of the wrapping. The item poked out so that Storm saw the other end, which was a flattened, heavy oval, its perimeter embedded with shark's teeth.

A jolt of revulsion went through Storm. Aunt Maile was a
kahuna lā‛au lapa‛au
, or traditional Hawaiian healer, and Storm had learned a great deal of their ancestors' history and tradition under her watchful eye. The rest of the group looked perplexed, but the frown on Hamlin's face told her that his mind was on the same track as hers. Hamlin was a voracious reader of Hawaiian history.

The package held a
lei o manō
, or shark's tooth club, used in
lua
, an ancient form of Hawaiian warfare.

The boy perceived the tool's malevolence; it was hard not to. “He gave me a twenty dollar bill.” The boy's voice shook. “I'm sorry, I guess it's not a nice gift.”

“You didn't know.” Nahoa's voice sounded resigned. “Somebody's just trying to scare me.”

“Yeah, that's it,” the boy said. “Hey, I'm really sorry.” He scampered off, anxious to get away. For a few moments, no one spoke.

Goober was the first one to break the uncomfortable silence. “Hey man, you'll be okay. Isn't your
‛aumakua
the shark?”

Nahoa attempted a laugh. “No, it's
pueo
, the owl.”

A chill puckered the flesh on Storm's forearms. That was her mother's
‛aumakua
, which wasn't surprising because these deified ancestors, who took the shape of animals, were passed within families. But Storm's mother had suffered from depression and committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills when Storm was twelve.

Storm had never been able to understand what drove her mother to take her life, and throughout her teen years, she'd been tormented with the idea that the illness everyone whispered about would be passed down to her daughter. Nor had she been able to stop wondering whether she could have done something—anything—to prevent her mother's gradual slide toward death. The
pueo
hadn't helped her mother, so Storm chose Aunt Maile's ‛
aumakua
, from her grandfather's side of the family.

“
Pueo
is a good, powerful totem,” Ben said. “Anyway, like you said, someone's just trying to rattle you.”

“Yeah, like that asshole Gabe,” Goober said. “He wants to win the meet tomorrow.”

Nahoa squinted at the water, which glared in the hot afternoon sun. “It's not a big deal.” He picked up the package. “Maybe I'll intimidate a few people with it. You know, hang it from my rear-view mirror or something.”

It was a weak joke, but everyone in the group attempted to smile. He stood up. “I've got to get going. See you tomorrow at the meet?” He directed this comment to Storm, Hamlin, Leila, and Robbie.

Storm stood and gave him a hug. “Wouldn't miss it.”

She sat back down and watched the back of his muscled shoulders head down the beach. He nodded a greeting to a group of surfers as he passed. She could see by their gestures that they wished him luck in the upcoming contest. He exchanged a few words and kept walking. She admired his equanimity in the face of the threat he'd just received.

Meanwhile, she fought the impulse to wish Nahoa had a stronger
‛aumakua
. Anything but that of her mother. Stop it, she told herself. You're a modern woman, for crying out loud. And Nahoa, unlike her mother, was tough and strong.

Chapter Six

Barstow awakened O'Reilly at six a.m. by showing up inside the colorful but thorny bougainvillea-covered fence surrounding the beach house and banging on the sliding glass doors of the master bedroom. O'Reilly had the heavy drapes drawn and thought it was still the middle of the night, but the girl he'd brought home last night sat up with a little yelp and said her girlfriends were going to be really worried about her, especially since she had borrowed their car. She ran by Barstow on her way to the Mustang convertible she'd left, roof down, in the driveway. It was raining and in the mid-sixties, a typical winter morning in the isles.

Barstow hadn't changed much. He even looked the same, about five-eight and wiry as a jockey. O'Reilly had forgotten the guy barely reached his shoulder. He'd forgotten how impatient Barstow was, too. Definite Type A.

Barstow made a beeline for the espresso machine that the posh beach house supplied with other high-end kitchen equipment, and had two frothed and sweetened bowl-sized cups prepared by the time O'Reilly was out of the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, they stood side by side in the sand and watched the rising sun scatter fuchsia and flame sequins across the ocean. O'Reilly shivered in the damp morning air and wished he had another cup. With a little Irish whiskey in it.

“Hey, when did you get that tattoo?” O'Reilly asked.

“You like? It's my
‛aumakua
, the shark.” Barstow picked up his leg to give O'Reilly a better view of the design that encircled his ankle. “I can get you an appointment with the guy who does it. All the locals use him.”

“Nice.” O'Reilly liked it, but it wasn't really his style. He looked out at the ocean. “You know anyone out there?”

“Yeah. See that tube action? If that guy can keep it up, he can beat the Hawaiian.” Barstow pointed to a short, muscular man with bands of tribal tattoos on his arms and legs.

“Who is he?” O'Reilly asked.

Barstow consulted a pad of paper. “Gabe Watson. He's seeded second, right behind Nahoa Pi‛ilani.”

“Hey, isn't Ben in this?” O'Reilly asked.

“Yeah,” Barstow said.

“So what's his rank?”

“Hell, he's got to grow up.”

“C'mon, you can brag to an old friend. If I had a son in this, I'd blab it all over the place.” O'Reilly clapped the shorter Barstow on the shoulder. “He's in this thing, he's gotta be good.”

Barstow grinned. “Yeah, he's okay. He's still in the lineup for tomorrow.”

“All right.” O'Reilly nodded appreciatively. “That means he's made it through four rounds. He's within striking distance of a trophy. It's a good purse, too.”

Barstow shrugged. “We'll see. You never know till you're out there, getting your wave. Anything can happen in the water.”

“I'll bet.” O'Reilly nodded. He followed Barstow's gaze as three surfers headed out. “Isn't that Ben?”

“And Nahoa Pi‛ilani. I don't know the other kid.” Barstow squinted into the light, which was intensifying by the moment. He took an expensive pair of mirrored, wrap-around sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on.

“Don't you want to go talk to him?”

Barstow shook his head. “Not yet. I don't want to break his focus.”

O'Reilly knew Barstow's wife had taken off over a year ago with the kid, though the way Barstow talked about Ben, he was sure the father stayed in touch with his son. He wasn't sure of the details, though. A hardness had settled on Barstow's face when he implied he'd wait to talk to his son.

“Hey, you ever heard of the Blue Shorts?” O'Reilly asked, to change the subject.

Barstow looked at him sharply. “Yeah, they used to be a tough North Shore gang.” He shoved his foot into the sand. “Where'd you hear about them?”

“I was talking to some surfer-types.” O'Reilly could see the reflection of clouds drifting across the mirrors of Barstow's sunglasses. The glasses gave the man the expressionless demeanor of a magnified insect.

“They were bullies.” Barstow's soft growl belied the impression the glasses left. There was an angry sneer in it, like that of an outcast disparaging a high school clique. “A lot of 'em were lifeguards, supposedly working to protect swimmers and surfers.”

“They wore blue shorts?”

“Yeah, the lifeguards had these blue shorts with red piping and a slash of red and white print.”

“Were you ever a lifeguard?” O'Reilly knew he'd hit a nerve the second the words were out of his mouth.

“Fuck, no. Me? A California boy?” Barstow's upper lip curled. “I was the type they were trying to get rid of.”

O'Reilly grinned at Barstow. “Hell, I guess you showed 'em, didn't you? You were a finalist in the '86 Gerry Lopez Pipeline Masters.”

Barstow let a smile lift one side of his mouth. “I guess so.”

“And married a local girl, too.”

“Yeah,” Barstow said. “But that was a long time ago. Things have changed, people are different.”

O'Reilly let that comment go. He didn't know whether Barstow was referring to his marriage or the local culture.

Chapter Seven

Robbie was the first one up, which didn't happen very often. “C'mon, it starts at eight.”

“It's seven,” Leila yawned. “And it's the only day I get to sleep in.”

Leila owned a very popular bakery, and most weekdays she was in the shop at four a.m. so that succulent-smelling goodies were ready for the downtown professionals when they arrived at their offices. By eight a.m., Leila's place was standing room only, and that's what people did. They stood, talked story, and had a sticky bun or warm malassada or two with their lattes. She loved sleeping in on the weekends.

Storm poured coffee into mugs while Hamlin got the milk and sugar out.

“Uh oh, ants in the sugar,” he said, and poked at the open box. He leaned against the countertop in a way that told Storm his leg bothered him again. He'd hate it if she said anything about it, though.

“Slam it on the counter a few times and they'll run away,” Storm said. “Then transfer it to a jar with a lid. Ants are always in beach houses.”

Leila poured cereal into a bowl and handed it to Robbie. “Mister, you don't go anywhere until you eat breakfast.”

“Don't worry,” Storm reassured him. “You've got time. What heat are Nahoa and Ben surfing?”

“Nahoa's in the last heat, but Goober's in the first,” Robbie said. “Ben's in the next-to-last heat. We've got to hurry—it's already the semi-finals.”

“Four guys in a heat, right?” Hamlin asked.

“Yeah,” Robbie said. “The first and second guys in the heats are the only ones to make the finals.” He gulped his cereal down.

“Has anyone checked the surf report?” Storm asked. They could all hear the ocean breaking a hundred yards from the front door, and it sounded louder than it had yesterday. It had wakened Storm a couple of times during the night, though she hadn't had the dream. Maybe the surf session yesterday had helped alleviate her fear of helplessness in the water.

Sunset Beach wasn't a long drive, but Kamehameha Highway moved like the Ala Moana Shopping Center parking lot on Christmas Eve. It not only took almost an hour to drive about eight miles, they had to park the car a half-mile from the meet. By the time they got to Sunset Beach, it was the middle of the third heat and Robbie was desperate to see how his new surf buddies were doing.

“There's Goober.” The unusual turtle tattoo made him easy to pick out in the crowd. He stood a hundred yards away, holding binoculars on the four surfers nearly a half-mile out in the water.

“If you'll take Robbie to find out what's happening, I'll find a spot in the shade,” Leila said, “or we're going to be charbroiled by the end of the day.” She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, but freckles were already popping out across the bridge of her nose and cheeks.

“I'll stay with Leila. You guys can give us a report,” Hamlin said.

“We'll be back as soon as we know what's happening.” Storm and Robbie made their way through the spectators toward Goober, but Storm looked back when she thought Hamlin wouldn't notice. Yes, he was limping more than he had been yesterday. He'd curtailed his physical therapy three weeks earlier than his doctors had recommended, and Storm worried because he pushed himself harder than the physical therapists had. He'd already increased his daily walks from one mile to three.

A too-familiar surge of regret flushed through Storm. She and Hamlin had been the lucky ones in the incident that brought down the once-austere law firm of Hamasaki, Cunningham, Wang, and Wo. Miles Hamasaki, her guardian and mentor, had been murdered, another of his partners died, one went to jail, and one retired in alcoholic shame. Months later, Hamlin struggled to recover from the assault that nearly killed Storm and him.

Robbie's shout to Goober lifted Storm from her unhappy recollection. Robbie had his hand in the air, waving, but Goober looked over his shoulder at them and walked away.

Robbie stopped dead in the sand and frowned at Storm. “Why'd he do that?”

“He's being a jerk,” said a voluptuous young woman, who had lowered her binoculars to observe Goober's reaction. She was small and stood between two tall, athletic women.

“No kidding,” said one of the taller women, a brunette, in a wry tone. “He needs to grow up.”

“Aw, Dede, you're being hard on him,” a tall blonde said.

Dede rolled her eyes. “Everyone loses sometime, Sunny. You know that. It's how you handle it.”

“No one's taught Goober that yet.”

“You want to?” Sunny asked with a grin. The sunlight glinted off the half-dozen earrings she wore, from colored stones to tiny hoops.

“No thanks,” the dark-haired girl said with a chuckle, and the three women sauntered away.

Robbie watched them go. The brunette who'd criticized Goober wore a thong bikini, the kind Storm and Leila called anal floss. Storm grabbed Robbie's arm before he walked into the back of the person in front of him.

“Let's see if there's a scoreboard.”

They wove their way to some umbrellas and a phalanx of cameras that showed above the observers' heads.

Robbie squinted at the tiny figures in the water. “Can you tell who's who?”

“We should have brought binoculars.”

“Ben had on yellow flowered board shorts yesterday. Someone's wearing yellow out there.”

A spectator turned to them. “Yeah, that's Ben Barstow. He and Gabe Watson are only three points apart.”

“Who's ahead?” Robbie asked.

“Right now, Gabe is. But Ben's—yeah! Did you see that aerial cutback? What a ride!”

Robbie and Storm watched the figures, spellbound by their maneuvers. Fifteen minutes later, Ben's teeth flashed white against his tan as he walked up the sand. He tossed water out of his hair and reached out a hand to a fellow surfer waiting on the beach. The young man clasped Ben in a hug.

“He's made the finals, no sweat,” the spectator said to Robbie. “Look at that grin. He and Gabe are neck and neck.”

“What about Nahoa?” Robbie asked.

“He's going out now. It's the last heat.” The fellow squinted into the sun. “Here, want to use my glasses?”

He handed Robbie a set of binoculars, which Robbie stared through for a few moments, then handed to Storm. The four men in the final heat were lining up.

“Nahoa's top seed for this meet, isn't he?” Storm asked, and handed the glasses back to the spectator.

“Yeah, you know him?”

“He's her cousin,” Robbie said.

“Cool.” The guy stared through the binocs for several minutes. “He's a real athlete. Has a reputation for doing what he needs to do to get his points.”

Robbie looked at Storm, who shrugged. The comment sounded like a compliment, but she wasn't sure.

“Here, take a look. Each surfer is allowed ten rides per heat, so he'll be out there soon.” The guy handed the binoculars to Robbie again.

“How're the heats judged?” Storm asked.

“Kind of like diving or gymnastics. Each wave a surfer rides is scored from zero to ten, then the highest and lowest scores are eliminated so the judges get an arithmetic mean.”

“You know a lot about this.”

The young man smiled. “I'm working on it. I compete, but I really want to be a judge.”

Robbie jerked the binoculars a few inches to his left, which attracted both Storm's and the commentator's attention. He watched several moments without even appearing to blink. One of the surfers, in black shorts and a black rash guard, finished a nice backhand cutback and headed for the leading curl of the wave.

“Is Nahoa wearing the red and white shorts?” she asked Robbie.

“Yeah, you can tell it's Nahoa because he's goofy, remember? His right foot is forward.”

Their new friend looked over at Robbie. “Hey, you're right. This is a right-hand break, though, which puts him at a slight disadvantage.”

Robbie looked at him with concern, then back through the binoculars. “He hasn't gone yet. I think he's waiting for the guy on the wave.” Robbie pointed without bothering to lower the glasses, then gasped.

Storm could see what happened without the binoculars. The black-clad surfer had misjudged the leading edge of the fourteen foot wave, and the curl slapped him from his board as if he were a mosquito. The guy bounced twice before the wave closed out on him and swallowed him in its salty spume.

Spectators murmured nervously and stood on tiptoe to catch sight of a tiny person on the vast plain of foam. Storm held her breath. “You see him yet?”

Robbie kept the glasses to his eyes and merely gave his head a quick shake.

“Lemme take a look, okay?” The spectator reached for his glasses. Storm's hands were balled so tightly that her nails dug into her palms. It seemed like minutes before the young man said, “There he is. Probably in the green room for a while.”

He handed the binocs back to Robbie. “There, it looks like Nahoa Pi‛ilani is taking off.”

Storm swallowed hard and unclenched her fists. The green room. That's what people called the underwater space where either a wave shoved a surfer or where she dived to escape the crush of tons of churning water. Storm had been there; she'd been buffeted in the tumult like a dead fish, disoriented to the point that she couldn't tell up from down. Even with her eyes open, there was no sensation of direction. Everything was green.

A roar from the crowd brought Storm's awareness back to the surfer on his rocketing board. The wave was huge, and its thunder dwarfed the excited hum of the spectators. Red and white shorts plunged into a steep takeoff, hung for a moment in a gravity-defying stall, then cut back up the face of the wave. Nahoa launched himself into an aerial and the crowd gasped again in mute admiration, then broke into a throaty cheer. Nahoa landed in a deep crouch and plummeted down the face, leaned way out, and spun his board in a one-eighty. Lifting his body in a move worthy of a ballet dancer, he shot back to the top of the wave and faced the rising curl of the monster. There, he hovered for a breathtaking second, and crouched.

The crowd hushed. This was the move that the last surfer had blown. Fifteen feet above him, opalescent blue water curved in a fat wall. With a purpose that Storm would have sworn bordered on suicidal lunacy, Nahoa headed into a tunnel that moved with the velocity and mass of a freight train.

Seconds passed, and no one moved. For Storm, time stood still. Her lungs burned and her eyes teared with the effort of searching for a tiny speck of a person, either against a wall of water or in the acres of white foam on the heaving horizon. She recalled Ken Matsumoto, the surfer who had recently died, and for whom this meet had been postponed.

Suddenly, a tiny figure in red and white shorts squirted from under a blue curtain on the shoulder of the wave. The spectators went crazy. Storm and Robbie threw their arms around each other, and it was a few moments before they realized that their friend with the binoculars was hugging them, too.

“What'd I tell ya? He does what he has to,” the young man shouted. “He's the best.”

Storm wanted to sit down in relief. Her legs were weak, and she looked over her shoulder to see if she could find Hamlin and Leila in the surge of people. It was a comfort to see Hamlin standing only about six feet behind her.

He looked around at the surging tumult of surf enthusiasts, who cheered with the elation of watching a fellow human cheat a haughty and all-powerful Mother Nature of possible death. “Was that an amazing ride or what?”

“Totally,” Robbie said.

“Absolutely,” Storm said, and her voice shook a little.

“Leila and I found a spot down the beach a bit, but we have a pretty good view,” Hamlin said. “We weren't sure you'd find us in this crowd, so I came after you.”

He led them back by walking parallel to the water, near the clusters of camera operators and media announcers. A fellow with hair that didn't move in the breeze, though his expensive silk aloha shirt billowed around him, smiled into a camera.

“Nahoa Pi‛ilani leads the finalists!” The reporter's voice was filled with the jubilation of an announcer at a football game after a touchdown. “A combination of innovative and radical maneuvers in the most critical sections of the rides Pi‛ilani selected showed the style, power, and speed this surfer is known for. Ben Barstow and Gabe Watson are neck and neck, though they are probably competing for second place. It's doubtful that anyone can overtake Pi‛ilani, though up-and-comer Kimo Hitashi, in third place, could still upset Barstow or Watson for the second spot.”

The announcer's face glistened in the sun, and he held up his hand to stop the camera, then waved over a young woman in very tight, very low white jeans and a tube top that showed a wide expanse of brown midriff and a slew of belly-button rings. She dusted him with a big, puffy makeup brush. Two seconds later, he gave the cameraman a nod and continued with the commentary.

“The rising tide is changing the shape of the waves, so be with us at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, when some of the best surfers in the world face off at one of the toughest breaks on the planet.”

He broke off and turned to a couple of casually dressed men who hung in the background. They each pumped his hand.

Storm watched the three interact for a moment, as the two talking to the announcer were certainly VIPs, maybe the meet directors. They looked like aging beach boys, though one was tall and had a paunch while the other was short and wiry and wore wrap-around mirrored shades. The tall one shook the announcer's hand again, and gave off an aura of relief.

Hamlin led them away from the media groupies, back into the shade of trees that lined the beach. The roofs of expensive beachfront homes peeked above the palms, and people drifted from the hot sand to the shelter of the exclusive refuges.

Leila waved from under a cluster of ironwood trees. “Too bad we can't stay for the finals. Nahoa was terrific, wasn't he?”