The Presence

CHAPTER 9

Alice Santoya slid the stack of pancakes onto her son’s plate, put the plate on the table, then called out for the fourth time, “If you don’t get up right now, Kioki, you’re never gonna get the bus, and I’m not gonna drive you!” When she still got no answer, she went to her son’s door, rapped loudly on it, then shoved it open. “Kioki, I’m tell—”

The words died on her lips as she saw the empty bed and realized that he hadn’t come home at all last night.

But Kioki always came home! He was a good boy, not like that Josh Malani he hung around with sometimes. And when he’d called, he promised to be home early. He was just going to a movie with Rick Pieper and Josh and—

Josh!

She’d bet every penny she had that Josh Malani had gotten hold of some beer and talked Kioki into going out to a beach somewhere and getting drunk. And then he’d been scared to come home.

Just wait till she got her hands on him!

Going back to the kitchen, Alice picked up the phone and called Rick Pieper’s house. “Maria?” she said when Rick’s mother picked up the phone. “It’s Alice. Did Kioki come home with Rick last night?” A moment later, when Rick came on the line and told her he’d dropped Kioki off at the intersection, her anger dissolved into fear. If they’d been drinking …

“Did you boys get drunk?” she demanded. “If that Josh Malani got my son drunk—”

“He didn’t,” Rick Pieper insisted, then Maria Pieper was back on the line.

“Rick came in just before midnight,” she told Alice. “Believe me, I know. I was waiting up for him. He said they were playing video games and lost track of time.”

“Hah! If Josh Malani was with them—”

“They weren’t drinking, Alice,” Maria Pieper assured her. “Rick was fine when he got home.”

As she hung up the phone, Alice Santoya tried to tell herself that there were a dozen good reasons why Kioki might not have come home last night.

But she couldn’t think of a single one.

The one image that kept flashing into her mind, though, was of her husband, who had been walking home from the night shift at the mill in Puunene. They’d lived only two blocks from the mill, and it should have been safe.

But that night as he’d been crossing the road from Kihei — only half a block from the house — a car had come out of nowhere and smashed into Keali’i, killing him instantly.

Kids, getting drunk in the cane fields.

Like the cane fields all around this house.

Her anxiety mounting, Alice Santoya left her house and got into her car. She was going to be late for her job at the hotel out in Wailea, but it didn’t matter. If Kioki was lying out there somewhere by the side of the road—

No!

He was all right!

Something else had happened, and he was fine!

But as she drove along the narrow track that led to the road half a mile away, she began to get a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling of foreboding that she could not shake off.

It had rained during the night, and the road was slick with red mud. Apprehension tightened her hands on the wheel.

And then she saw him.

He was on the left, maybe fifty yards away.

He was lying facedown, his arms stretched up over his head, his legs in the irrigation ditch.

Choking back a scream, she braked to a stop a few feet from Kioki. Leaving the engine running, she scrambled out of the car and ran over to her son. “Kioki!” she cried. “You’re all right! You’re going to be—”

Kioki didn’t move.

Unconscious!

He was unconscious and couldn’t hear her. Dropping down onto her knees in the mud, she reached out and touched him. “Kioki, it’s Mama.…”

Her voice died away as she felt the coldness of his skin.

“Kioki?”

For a long time Alice Santoya crouched on her knees in the mud, willing her son to wake up, to move, to whimper, to do anything that would be a sign telling her that what she knew to be true wasn’t true at all.

An image of her husband flashed into her mind, but now, instead of seeing Keali’i’s face, it was Kioki who stared at her through a mask of death.

“No …” she finally moaned. “Oh, no, Kioki. Oh, no, please …”

Slipping her hands under her son’s shoulders, she pulled him from the irrigation ditch. Sitting in the mud, she cradled his head in her lap, stroking his forehead with her fingers, tears flowing down her face, a keening sound issuing from her throat.

After a while a car approached, slowed to a stop, and its driver got out. Then another car arrived, and another.

A little while after that, the police arrived, and an ambulance.

But Alice Santoya was barely aware of the activity around her.

Her heart broken, her spirit destroyed, she sat in the mud and cradled her dead son in her arms.

Ken Richter knew something was wrong the minute he unlocked the back door of the shop that morning. A methodical man — who had christened himself “Kihei Ken” when he’d opened the dive shop two years ago on the strength of his reputation and a loan from Takeo Yoshihara — he had always believed that there was a place for everything, and that everything should be in its place.

This morning, everything was not in its place.

It was nothing obvious; indeed, when he first stepped into the back room of his store, it was little more than a feeling. But when he turned on the lights and looked around, the feeling grew stronger.

Then he saw the puddle in the middle of the floor.

Ken Richter did not leave puddles in the middle of floors.

Finding a towel, he began mopping the puddle up, already rehearsing the speech he would give to Nick Grieco for locking up last night without making sure the place was clean.

He and Nick had arrived on Maui as surfing buddies a dozen years ago, and though they were still friends, Nick now worked for Ken, spending just enough hours each day tending to the shop or taking tourists out on dives to pay the rent on his one-room apartment in Kihei and keep gas in the rusty Volkswagen van that took him and his surfboard out to wherever the waves were breaking best, the perfect wave being his single-minded pursuit. Last night he obviously hadn’t been working much. Not only was there a puddle in the middle of the floor, but the equipment that should have been ready for this morning’s dive didn’t look as if it had been checked over.

Which annoyed Ken Richter even more, since he’d told Nick just before taking off for Lanai yesterday afternoon to double-check everything. The last thing he needed was to mess up a dive that had been arranged by Takeo Yoshihara’s office. This one was important enough that a truck had arrived yesterday with brand-new equipment.

Finished mopping, Ken Richter turned his attention to the equipment, wondering if Nick had even looked at it, let alone made sure it was all in perfect condition. He was just starting to inspect the fins and masks when the back door opened and Nick himself appeared, along with Al Kalama, who was going to be helping Nick with the dive.

“Am I asking you to do too much around here?” Ken asked, his voice tight. “Because if I am, just tell me, and I can get someone else.” His eyes fixed angrily on Nick. “That would be instead of you, though, not in addition to you.”

Nick glanced uneasily at Al Kalama. “What’re you mad at me for?”

Ken Richter’s eyes swept the storage room. “Does this place look the way it should? I already cleaned up the mess you left on the floor.”

“What are you talking about?” Grieco asked. “There was no mess!”

“Didn’t I ask you to check all this stuff out before you left last night?” Ken demanded, ignoring the other man’s question. “What did you think — I was kidding?”

“I did check it out,” Nick Grieco insisted. “Fins, masks, regulators, tanks. Everything!”

Ken Richter’s gaze shifted to the five tanks that he himself had lined up on the third shelf yesterday. “You checked all of them?” he asked.

His tone was enough to make Nick Grieco’s eyes follow his boss’s, and as he saw that four of the tanks were registering empty, he felt a flash of uncertainty.

Had he checked the tanks?

He tried to think back.

It had been pretty quiet most of yesterday afternoon, and he’d closed the shop up maybe half an hour after the last of the rental equipment had been returned.

And he’d had a couple of beers with his dinner. Better not mention that to Ken. But he’d come back after dinner and opened up again, just like he was supposed to.

He’d even sold a couple of bathing suits, and a snorkel set.

Then, around seven, he’d closed up for the night, but not until he’d inspected the equipment for this morning’s dive, just like Ken had told him to.

But had he actually checked every one of them, or — His thoughts were interrupted by a loud banging on the front door.

“That’ll be the bunch Yoshihara set up. Go let ’em in, and see if you can stall ’em for a little while. Maybe sell ’em some sunglasses or something, while Al and I take care of these tanks.”

“I can do it—” Nick protested, but Ken cut him off.

“Yeah, right. That’s what you said yesterday, but it didn’t happen, did it?”

As Nick Grieco went into the front of the shop, Al Kalama swung one of the tanks off the shelf and took it over to the air compressor. “You know,” he said cautiously, not certain quite how angry Ken was, “it might not be Grieco’s fault. If the tanks are faulty—”

“Four faulty tanks?” Richter cut in. “Get real, Al. One maybe, or even two. But not four. Not from Yoshihara. Everything he’s ever sent down has always been perfect. Face it — Grieco screwed up.”

“But—”

“Can it, Al,” Ken said. “Let’s just get these tanks filled and checked, and get these kids going. The last thing I need is having them go whine to their folks that they had to wait around for an hour because there was something wrong with the equipment.” When the first one was filled, Ken nodded toward the barrel of water that stood just outside the back door. “Sink it in there for a minute, just in case. I’ve never sent a leaky tank out yet, and I’m not about to start now.”

Taking the newly filled air tank to the barrel, Al Kalama lowered it into the water, then searched for any sign of air bubbles that would betray a leak.

Nothing.

He repeated the process with the other three tanks after Ken had finished filling them. All four tanks checked out perfectly.

There were no signs of leakage, and all the gauges now read full.

“Take them,” he said. “Who knows? The guys up at Yoshihara’s probably sent them over empty, and Nick just didn’t notice.”

The tanks were packed into the van, the van departed for the beach, and Kihei Ken proceeded with the business of the day. But he’d still have it out with Nick Grieco later on, because whatever else he’d done last night — or not done — he should have made damned sure of the condition of those tanks.

Faulty tanks could kill people.

Michael knew something was wrong the minute he got on the school bus that morning. “What’s going on?” he asked, sliding into the seat next to Jeff Kina.

Jeff glanced around uneasily, and when he spoke, he kept his voice low enough that only Michael could hear him. “Kioki didn’t make it home last night.”

“What do you mean? Wasn’t Rick going to drop him off?”

Jeff shrugged. “Didn’t happen. Rick said it was gettin’ so late, Kioki didn’t want to wake up his ma. So Rick dropped him at the corner instead of taking him all the way home.”

“When did you talk to Rick?”

“Just before I left for the bus stop. Kioki’s ma called his ma, and he called me right after they hung up.”

“What happened to Kioki?”

“Don’t know,” Jeff replied. “But it’s only like half a mile from where Rick dropped him to his house, and there’s nothin’ out there.”

“Maybe he got caught doing a drug deal,” a voice from the seat behind them said.

Jeff Kina turned and glared angrily at the boy in the seat behind them. “Kioki? No way.”

“What if he ran into some other people doing a deal?” the other boy pressed.

Jeff scowled. “Get off it, Jimmy. Just because you’re always out there doesn’t mean everybody else is.”

“I never did—” Jimmy began, but Jeff stopped him.

“Don’t give me that crap. Everybody knows you’re the biggest dealer in the school. But you never sold anything to Kioki, did you?” Jimmy glowered angrily, and Jeff rose out of his seat, turning around to tower over the boy behind him. “Did you?” Jeff demanded.

“Sit down back there,” the bus driver called, glaring at Jeff in the rearview mirror. As the bus slowed, Michael pulled Jeff back into his seat.

“Forget it. He’s not even as big as Josh!” Jeff sank reluctantly back into his seat, and the bus sped up again. “Maybe Kioki was going to meet someone,” Michael suggested. “Does he have a girlfriend?”

Jeff shook his head. “Never had one. He’s always real shy around girls.”

As the bus pulled into the parking lot, Michael and Jeff saw Rick Pieper waiting for them, his face ashen. A crowd of kids had gathered around him. Michael could see them whispering nervously among themselves.

“Shit,” Jeff said quietly. “Come on.” Rising from his seat, he wriggled past Michael and surged down the aisle, with Michael right behind him. “What happened?” he asked Rick as he stepped out of the bus.

Rick seemed dazed as he looked at Michael and Jeff. “His mom found him,” he said. He hesitated a moment, then spoke again, his voice breaking. “He’s dead.”

Michael and Jeff stared blankly at Rick.

Though neither of them spoke a word, both of them were experiencing exactly the same thing: an oddly sick feeling, which spread through them, numbing their bodies as well as their minds.

It wasn’t possible — they’d been with Kioki only a few hours ago, and he’d been fine.

And now he was dead?

Instinctively, Jeff, Rick, and Michael drew closer together as they began moving slowly toward the school. The whispering voices of their classmates swirled around them, and though nearly every person who whispered the news to someone else had an explanation for Kioki’s death, none of them knew the truth.

Michael walked to his locker as if in a trance, and stared stupidly at the lock, its combination having vanished from his head. Then, from behind him, he heard Josh Malani’s voice.

“We gotta talk,” Josh said. “All of us.”

Michael turned and gazed at his friend. “What happened?” he said. “What happened to Kioki?”

Josh Malani’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know,” he said. Then he quickly looked around, as if checking for anyone who might be listening. When he spoke again, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “But it’s got nothing to do with us,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

Michael stared at his friend for a long time, wishing he could believe him.

Deep down inside, though, he couldn’t.