Riptide

The islands that are Hawaii sit atop the largest structures on earth, volcanoes that extend five miles from the ocean floor to peaks ten thousand feet above the sea. The oldest of the islands, Kure, was formed more than twenty million years ago. Today, it is a tiny reef fifteen hundred miles northwest of Maui, eroded into a semicircle that will eventually disappear beneath the sea.

All these islands — from the largest and youngest, Hawaii, t the Big Island, to the smallest and oldest, Kure — were born from the same womb, a hot spot boiling with magma beneath the surface of the earth. When the pressure builds in this underground reservoir, steam surges upward, searching for the path of least resistance. Then molten rock erupts from the innards of the earth, and if the volume is great enough, a new land mass is formed.

The mantle of the earth moves slowly over the hot spot, a few inches each year to the northwest, and with the millennia each island moves with it. While Kure slowly disappears under the ravages of erosion, the Big Island of Hawaii grows even now as Kilauea continues to erupt and add silvery rock to the land.

The ancient Hawaiians, the Polynesians who crossed the ocean in giant sailing canoes, had their own explanation for the explosions and the crimson flow of molten earth. The fire goddess Pele lived in the heart of the volcano, shifting from Kauai to Oahu to Maui before settling in Kilauea on the Big Island in search of the perfect home and perfect lover. She thought the chief Lohiau would be that lover but he fell in love with her younger sister, Hiiaka, and when the couple tried to escape, Pele drowned them in the caldron of fiery Kilauea.

Pele, it seems, is a jealous lover.

Haleakala. Haleakala here, there, and everywhere, Harry Marlin thought. Postcards in the gift shop, a tourist film on the hotel’s TV channel, busloads of hicks leaving at four a.m. to see sunrise at the Haleakala crater like a bunch of friggin’ pilgrims. Four a.m., for Christ’s sake, time to call it a night, not start the day. Haleakala, that’s all there was here except for the beaches and Harry Marlin didn’t travel six thousand miles for a suntan or for a ride up a mountain to take snapshots of a burned-out volcano. A one-horse town, that’s Maui for you.

Harry studied the literature, as he called it, at the concierge’s desk. Haleakala, House of the Sun. Hale, “house”; La, “sun.” That’s where the girl, Little Lee, said the coupons wereand that was the only good reason to go up the mountain, as far as Harry could see.

He showed up fifteen minutes early. That was smart, he thought, take a look-see, scout the perimeter for wise guys. At seven o’clock sharp, Lee Hu pulled into the driveway. Hard to miss her, the engine of the Chevy Blazer 4x4 rumbling in the still morning air, awakening the snoozing cabbies. Now if this wasn’t a sight, Harry thought, the little dumpling driving a souped-up truck, actually a jacked-up truck, thirty-nine-inch wheels and a heavy suspension system lifting the cab high off the ground. The front bumper was a foot-high beam of thick steel with a heavy winch attached. Seven high-powered spotlights were attached to a rail across the roof, nearly enough wattage to play a night game.

“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.

“Yeah, it’s a fine-looking machine.” Harry knew cops on the take. Hell, in Miami, you were lucky if they didn’t steal nickels and dimes from the parking meters. But here, halfway around the world, not my turf, and I’m using a cop to pick up stolen property.

“Let me show this baby to you while I check it out.” Mikala put on his aviator sunglasses and smiled easily. “Hey, Lomio, hope we have enough horses to get this off the ground with you in there.”

The cop was chattering away, being friendly, too friendly maybe, Harry thought. The kid, too. They’re gonna give me half of a fortune and they’re happy about it, maybe stoked on what’d he call it, a pack of lolo.

“A beauty, huh?” The cop ran his hand over the smooth curve of the nose. “Made in Italy, those Italians know design. An Agusta A-109, two engines — good to have two, in case one peters out on you, right? Didn’t have that in Nam, the Cobra’s engine goes, you better have some flat land in sight. Now, this baby cruises at a hundred seventy-five, can take a thousand pounds of cargo or people. You want, to take some pakalolo home with you, we’ll stop at the farm. Now, this is what they call the executive configuration of the passenger compartment, five people, three facing two, can have a meeting, fix drinks, whatever. So make yourself at home, we’ll be there in no time.”

The guy seemed all right. Just a fly-boy who loves his planes, Harry hoped.

“Just one thing before we take off.” Mikala pointed at the bulge in Harry’s sports coat. “Standard procedure, I gotta take that gun in your shoulder holster. No firearms near the fuel tank, state law.”

State law! Friggin’ cop is fencing stolen property, growing weed, but he’s worried about aviation regulations. “I ‘spose you’ll make me fasten my seat belt, too,” Harry said.

“Absolutely.”

Harry handed over the gun. Now, if you don’t mind, the cop was saying, still smiling, his voice apologetic, assume the position, and with a gentle but firm grip, he spun Harry around until he faced the fuselage, kicked his feet apart and expertly frisked him, patting the polyester sports coat, under the arms, back of the pants, then up and down each leg, right into the crotch where one pat smacked Harry’s testicles into each other, hard enough for his eyes to water. Sorry, old habit, the cop said, then with Harry’s gun, he climbed into the cockpit, put on green earphones, and began fiddling with the dials.

Keaka stepped gracefully through the rear door and sat down. He offered Harry a hand and pulled him in, Harry settling into a seat directly across Lomio. Sitting that way, his knees wedged against Lomio’s shins, it was impossible not to look at the huge Hawaiian. The big man was unshaven, a three-or four-day growth erupting scraggily from the dark face, a forest here, a desert there. His dirty neck was creased with rolls of tissue, muscle or fat or a mixture of the two. An ugly yellow boil the size of a kumquat festered maliciously above his shirt collar. His black eyes were lost under heavy lids and he had yet to offer a smile or a decipherable word.

Harry was still concentrating on the dull ache in his groin when the four rotor blades started churning. The engines whined and the copter lifted a few feet off the ground, hovered a moment, then shot upward toward a rendezvous with the House of the Sun.

Harry Marlin had read the brochures but still didn’t know his geography. He didn’t know that Haleakala was east and that the trip should be entirely across land, first around the West Maui Mountains, then through the Central Valley, then up the gentle slopes of the extinct volcano, past the ring of clouds to the ten-thousand-foot level. Because he was unaware of these things, Harry Marlin was not alarmed that the helicopter was flying south across the Auau Channel, then the Kealaikahiki Channel — literally, the Path to Tahiti — then east over the small island of Kahoolawe. All this took a matter of minutes in the fast Italian helicopter, and then they were flying east over the open ocean toward the Big Island of Hawaii.

Harry Marlin did not know the difference between Maui and the Big Island. He thought only of a mountaintop with buried treasure. And, sure enough, in the distance two volcanoes were visible. The twin peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the Big Island stood more than thirteen thousand feet above the sea, even higher than Haleakala on Maui. Below the two giants was Kilauea, a third volcano.

There is a difference, however, between the volcanoes of the Big Island and Haleakala of Maui. Haleakala last erupted in 1790. Kilauea’s last eruption began only three months ago, and lava continued to pour through its vents and spill down its side to this very day.

The helicopter flew five hundred feet above the water, rapidly closing the distance to land. Harry Marlin leaned against the window and watched the waves peaking beneath them.

Keaka broke the silence. “Now we renegotiate.”

Oh shit. “Whadaya mean?”

Keaka’s smile was gone. He looked at Harry through eyes as black and hard as coal. “Fifty-fifty is not fair.”

“C’mon, a deal’s a deal.”

“New deal,” Keaka said. “A fair deal.”

“What’s fair?” Harry Marlin asked, afraid his voice betrayed a shudder deep in his bowels.

Keaka shrugged as if there could be no dispute. “All for me and none for you.”

Harry exhaled loudly. He tried his best fuck-you look, vaguely aware that it wouldn’t have frightened a kitten. Then Harry sized up the situation. The Hawaiian kid on one side of him, the door over the ocean on the other side, and a monster stepping on his toes facing him. And the crooked cop had his piece.

“Not exactly fair,” Harry said, his throat tightening against the fear.

Keaka stretched his arms in front of him, lazily, but the triceps sprang into shape, cords of well-defined muscles a few inches from Harry’s nose. Keaka spoke again, softly. “It’s my copter and they’re my coupons and these are my friends, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Leave?” Harry was sweating now. He could feel his face heat up, imagined it a searing red, hated himself for it.

Keaka was expressionless, his voice still calm. “Lomio, I wonder if the haole can swim. Many of them can’t. Hey, haole, would you believe that Lomio can hold his breath three minutes and free-dive to forty feet for Kona lobster. Lomio, should we see if the haole can swim?”

The big man grunted and seemed to smile. At least the corners of his mouth turned horizontal from their previously slack, downward arc.

“Wait,” Harry pleaded, “if you want the coupons, keep ‘em, they’ve been more trouble than they’re worth. They’re yours, let’s get back to the hotel.” The posturing was over. Harry knew what he was doing, knew it more clearly than anything he had ever known. He was begging for his life.

“That’s very generous of you, but they’re already mine. What else can you offer me? Nothing. You have nothing to bargain with. Maybe you could tell me where the other haole is, the lawyer, but I know that from Mikala, so you can give me nothing but your life. And after you die, the lawyer will die.”

Lomio nodded his massive head in approval, and he really did smile, revealing teeth large and gray like granite tombstones.

“Lomio, did you know this haole tried to shoot me? If he did that to you, what would you do?”

The big man shrugged, his massive head tilting toward the window, an unmistakable gesture, pointing to the open sea. The copter seemed to list in that direction.

“Hey, there’s land coming up,” Harry Marlin whined, bargaining for time. “Just put me down there, anywhere, and let’s forget all about it.”

Keaka moved closer to him. Their shoulders touched and Harry inched away until he was squeezed tight against the door.

“Lomio, I think the haole is afraid of the sharks. Hammerheads down there, tiger sharks, too. But the grays are the worst. Of course, they don’t usually eat everything. So if your head floats up somewhere, my poor cousin Mikala has another death to investigate, keeps him from helping me on the farm. Maybe it’s better if we don’t drop you here.”

Harry Marlin prayed then, prayed that they were just trying to scare him, to get him on the first flight home, but then he forced himself to look into Keaka’s eyes, now ablaze with withering hate. The fear hit him then, waves of heat and then cold from the pit of his stomach. But Harry didn’t panic. He kept his eyes open, watching for a chance to cheat death.

Harry looked out the window and saw the breakers that tumbled close to shore, and with one hand he unbuckled his seat belt and with the other reached for the handle with the spring grip and twisted it. The door opened a crack. The big man made no move to stop him. Harry pressed against the door with all his weight but the pressure from the wind pushed back, closing it. Harry twisted the handle and pushed again but the door wouldn’t budge beyond an inch or two and then they were over a rocky coastline and the fall would kill him. He slumped back into his seat.

Keaka laughed and this time his teeth showed and his black eyes danced. “If you want to leave, just say so. Mikala can hover and the door will open easily, no wind resistance to keep it closed.”

In a moment they were over the lower slopes, on a detour around the massive peak of Mauna Loa flying toward the eastern shore. They rode in silence until they were above Kilauea and the helicopter bucked and pitched in turbulent air currents.

Harry pressed his face against the window, the glass hot against his cheek. He looked down and what he saw was a vision of hell, a lake on the summit of the volcano churning with red lava, a pot boiling with molten rock at two thousand degrees, torrents of heat rank with sulfur rising around them. The helicopter hovered now, Mikala trying to hold it steady in the updrafts.

“Say hello to Pele,” Keaka said. “Would you like to visit her? She is always looking for new lovers.”

Harry was silent, sick to his stomach from the turbulence and the fear.

Keaka grabbed Harry by the back of his neck, and pressed his face to the scorching window. “The fools built houses on the coast road below, all haoles like you. They thought they were safe there, ten miles from a sleeping volcano. But Pele sleeps restlessly, and when she awakes she lets out a roar. Each day the flow comes from the bowels of the earth. Sometimes the lava is fluid like a river out of control, the pahoehoe. No man can outrun it. Then there is the ‘a’a, full of rocks and cinders, and though it is slow, the haoles cannot stop it, not even with all their machines and technology. Pele adds to the island, gives us a new coastline. Probably somewhere in California, even before the lava has cooled, haoles are planning stupid condominiums for the new land of Hawaii. But Pele has issued her warning. Already, she has breathed her fire on the haole houses along the sea, big stupid houses like the big stupid haoles. And little stupid haoles like you, Harry Marlin from Miami Beach. You were born stupid and you will die stupid.”

“No, please,” Harry whimpered.

“Do not fear, little man. I will make you immortal. In a few weeks the lava will cool and harden. In months it will become rock. In years wind and rain and dust will carry spores and seeds into the crevices, and from the smudge of grease that had been your worthless body, a flower might grow. And in ten thousand centuries, the same wind and rain will eat away at the rock and the rock beneath it, and the Big Island of Hawaii will disappear into the sea from which it came. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”

There was a rapping on the wall separating the passengers from the cockpit. Keaka looked up and rapped back, twice. “Mikala’s in a hurry. The fumes will corrode our engines. haole, are you ready to meet Pele, to love her forever?”

Lomio reached over and grabbed Harry Marlin under each arm. Harry neither resisted nor uttered a sound. He just wanted to get it over with, what he knew was coming, to replace the agony with the pain that would be short and the nothingness that would be forever.

Propping him half out of the seat, Lomio used one hand to turn the spring-loaded door handle, and the pneumatic plunger pushed the door wide open while they hovered. A blast of sulfur, harsh and hot, filled the compartment. With two hands, Lomio swung Harry out the door holding onto his wrists, and Harry did something he had not done in three days on Maui. He unlocked his rectal sphincter and let it go, soiling his pants. A second later, he was hanging there, swinging back and forth by his wrists, his sports coat blowing in the wind from the props. Harry felt the heat through the soles of his shoes, the rising steam from the blast furnace burning his face. He looked up at the big man, who was smiling broadly, his face lathered in sweat.

Lomio let go, the copter hung there a moment, then lifted skyward. At the same time, Harry Marlin fell, arms flailing, trying to fly, Icarus on his way to the sun. Then, spread-eagled, he dropped straight and landed facedown, his descent into hell barely causing a ripple in the flow of boiling red and black lava. In an instant Harry Marlin’s clothing was incinerated, and in another second his flesh melted and then the flames of centuries consumed every bone and organ, and having swallowed him, the molten river moved slowly down the mountain and what had been Harry Marlin became a piece of the island itself.