HELL IN HONOLULU

Friday - October 22, 2038

Dmitri McPherson’s plane from Shanghai got into Honolulu about nine-thirty in the evening. The airport was deserted, as the flight had been, even though he’d had to wait almost three days to get on it. Not too many flights to Hawaii now, not since the hurricane, especially. But things were going bad, even before that, with the increasingly rotten weather and the beaches starting to noticeably erode. Now the trades had turned cold, the melting North Pacific icebergs, migrating southward, severely afflicting their path to the islands.

As he walked through the arrivals lounge, a patchwork of gaping empty spaces and lonely, deserted shops, it was clear that, for the most part, the damage he had seen six years earlier, when he’d come back to visit right after hurricane Oswald had hit, was still pretty evident. Outside there was even less sign of any effort to rehabilitate the scene. Even through the glass of the arrivals lounge, he could see the atmosphere was gloomy, a light rain falling now, occasional gusts of wind blowing it into the faces of the few waiting outside for their rides. With the small dent that only every third streetlight made in the darkness, it was more than gloomy; it was menacing.

Most of the few passengers that had arrived with him, a random mix of Asian and European faces, hopped the casino hotel shuttle to Waikiki. The kind of tourists he remembered, families of four, mom and dad with the matching dress and aloha shirt, little ones making a racket, were conspicuously absent. These were serious gambling types, no kids, not a lot of luggage, the look of people on a mission. They all lined up somberly for the final x-ray, or whatever the latest imaging technology had to offer, to exit the terminal. There was a big sign up next to the conveyor belt, beneath it a plastic bin with a one-way cover.

HAWAII GUN LAWS - TOUGHEST IN THE NATION

LAST CHANCE TO DEPOSIT BEFORE INSPECTION

FIVE YEAR SENTENCE FOR POSSESSION

- NO EXCEPTIONS! -

Dima crossed over to the concrete island where the public transportation boarded. There was no one else waiting, but even so two taxis passed him without stopping. It seemed odd. Finally a battered Charlie’s Taxi swung over, the passenger side window rolling down as it pulled into the curb.

“Where you going, Brudda?”

“Waikiki,” said Dima, bending over to look through the window. “The Wailana.”

“Da kine coffee shop?” said the driver, his sing-song pidgin making Dima smile.

“That’s right.”

The driver looked down at the small duffel Dima was carrying.

“That it?”

“Yeah.”

“Get in.”

Dima jumped into the rear seat and settled back as the cab took off and headed out of the airport. He noticed that the driver had it on full automatic and was eating some kind of take-out with chopsticks.

“Go Ala Moana all the way, please,” said Dima.

“Cannot,” said the driver, through a mouthful of noodles.

“Why not?”

“High tide today. Part stay washed out, traffic report say.”

“Jesus. Is that normal now?”

The driver turned around in his seat to look at Dima. “At least one year stay li’ dat. High tide lot of detours on Ala Moana. Freeway betta.” He stuffed some more noodles into his mouth, chewed a while, still looking at Dima. “You Kamaaina?”

“Yeah. Born at Queens.” The cab was on the freeway now, and the driver, apparently satisfied with Dima’s answer, swung back to watch the darkened asphalt. With GPS guiding the car, there was really no need for light at all, and the cab’s headlights were pretty much alone in their efforts to penetrate the darkness, the rain from the incoming storm front making visibility even harder.

“You picking up many regular tourists these days?” asked Dima, not really feeling like talking, but wanting to get a line on how bad things had gotten in the last six years.

The driver sighed, his ample bulk trembling as he turned slightly, still not actually looking back. “Less and less, Brudda, less and less.” Now he turned all the way, giving Dima a serious gaze. “They scared, tha’s why. Guys carrying fucking swords on the street now, Brudda.”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” said Dima.

“The gamblers, though, they coming.”

They exited the darkened freeway at Punahou Street and headed makai, towards the ocean. Traffic was sparse. The forlorn look of Kalakaua Avenue, with its darkened, hurricane damaged buildings, began to brighten as they got closer to Waikiki, the gaudy neon of the casinos signaling that at least somebody, somewhere, was doing something. Just over the canal bridge, the cab turned into Ena Road.

“Stop over there, next to the main entrance,” said Dima.

“You not going coffee shop?”

“No. I live here.”

The driver switched the car to manual and stopped.

“Hundred and twenty-five bucks.”

Dima’s eyebrows raised slightly. “That’s pretty high, isn’t it? You wouldn’t overcharge a kamaaina, would you?”

“No, Brudda. Dis da kine night rates. Getting pretty dangerous to be out after dark, das why.” Dima gave him a hard look. “Hey, man, I not shitting you.”

Dima paid and got out. His key card still unlocked the main entrance, but the guard at the desk jumped up and confronted him as he came in. The guard was carrying a sword. That was new.

“You have an entry card,” he said, fingering the hilt nervously. “But I don’t recognize you. Are you visiting somebody?”

“I live here,” said Dima. “Or, at least, I used to. I’ve been away.” The guard looked a little uncertain. “Look, just ring the penthouse and tell them Dima is here.”

A few moments later he was in the elevator. At the top floor, the door opened to a large foyer, closing behind him as he stepped into the room. A woman stood directly across from him, her thin frame radiating an energy that belied her obvious years. A cautious smile flickered across her face. Dima dropped his duffel and stood for a moment, the two of them staring at each other.

“Priviet Mama,” said Dima. “It’s been a long time.”

Even before Dima had disappeared down the Wailana’s entrance hallway, the cabbie was on his cell phone, speed-dialing #1. It answered on the second ring.

“Mora.”

“Ringo.”

“You finished with the kid?”

“Yes, Mister Mora.”

“You dropped him safe at his mommy’s?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And he thought you were just a regular cabbie?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Anyone else try to pick him up?”

“No, Sir. Everybody know supposed to be me.”

“OK. Just one more thing.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“How does a fucking local boy get a name like Ringo, anyway?”

“Was my parents, Sir. They name me that.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I know you know, Sir. You already ask me that ’couple times.”

“Yeah. OK, get something to eat at the coffee shop. Hang out there for a bit, make sure the kid is tucked in. Then that’s it for tonight. ”

“OK, Mister Mora.”

Hashi Moramoto replaced the antique telephone receiver in its brass cradle and took a long puff on his cigar. From his Kakaako penthouse the palm-studded length of Ala Moana Park spread out, its beach narrowed to a sliver of sand at spots, its playing fields now a patchwork of swampy, mosquito-ridden islands. On the forty-seventh floor, it was nice to be where only the hardiest and craziest mosquito would venture, a mosquito, Hashi thought to himself, that would deserve some respect.

He turned away from the wall of glass that now was showing an old moon rising, its amber glow reflected from the upturned palm leaves below. A trail of cigar smoke followed him as he made his way into the building’s interior and then out again to another magnificent view, a slightly different angle of the same scene. It was a room with black leather couches and two giant video screens, a bar to one side. One of the screens was working, a Sumo tournament direct from Tokyo. Watching was a Japanese man, seated on the couch in such a way that the natural elegance of his being was somehow immediately evident, an impression that the cigarette in his mouth and the glass of wine in his hand only served to underscore.

Hashi moved to the bar and poured himself a drink. On the screen, a four hundred and seventy-five pound human avalanche of flesh had just been tricked with a nifty hip throw into depositing his corpulent authority on some hapless bystanders at ringside. His considerably lighter, perhaps only four hundred pound opponent, the current champion, was receiving the crowd’s acclaim.

“Inoki!” Hashi gestured with his glass at the screen. “The fucking master.”

The elegant man on the couch lowered the volume on the TV and turned to face him. His eyebrows raised, a speculative expression.

“Yes, yes.” said Hashi, now speaking in Japanese, “it’s done.” He knocked off an ash from his cigar. “What did you think was going to happen to him just coming from the airport, anyway?”

“Nothing. But one never knows. If something had happened, how could I face her?”

“Don’t you think the boy can take care of himself?”

“That’s not the point.”

Hashi sat down in the leather chair and tried to look interested in the next Sumo match. Abruptly he turned to the man on the couch and said:

“Kenji, you know what the Americans would say about you? They would say you are ‘pussy whipped.’” These last words in English.

Kenji Nakamura raised his eyebrows a second time.

“Hashi, not many men could say that to me and get away with it.”

“Yeah, well, what are friends for, anyway?”

“Hashi, please do not take offense, but it is impossible for you to understand the way I feel about this woman. She is very special.” He drained his glass and Hashi took it from his hand without asking, poured him another. “Very special,” he repeated. He gave Hashi a hard look. “You’re just jealous.”

“Fuck you,” said Hashi, grinning. “But yeah, I hate the bitch.”

“Sometimes,” said Kenji, weighing the drink in his hand, like it was telling him something, “I hate her, too.” He brightened slightly. “But what the hell,” he said, downing the refill with one gulp, “She is my wife.”

Victoria Nakamura, the former Victoria McPherson, exchanged an awkward hug with her son. Leaving his bag by the elevator door, Dima followed her into the penthouse living room, its walls, the giant picture window to the outside, all pitched at odd angles, not a parallel surface in sight. She gestured for him to sit, but he remained standing, looking around.

“Is he here?” said Dima, finally turning his gaze her way.

“Of course not,” said Victoria.

Nodding slightly, Dima took a seat.

“Then, we’re alone?”

“Not entirely. Your sister is here. She’s already asleep. You can see her in the morning.”

“Half-sister.”

“Half-sister.” Victoria paused. She looked at Dima, a pained expression slightly spoiling her beautiful face. “Dima, don’t take out your anger on your sister, please.”

“Half-sister.”

“Alright, half-sister. But even a half-sister is still the closest relative you have. Besides, she’s crazy about you.”

“Crazy about me? We met once. What was she, five?”

“Four. You made a big impression, Dima. Her big brother. A real gung-fu master, she said. She couldn’t stop talking about you. I didn’t tell her you were coming tonight. She wouldn’t have gone to sleep.”

“She lives here with you?”

“Not all the time. Sometimes she goes with Kenji. More these days. She speaks perfect Japanese.”

Dima was still perched on the edge of the sofa, looking uncomfortable, and seeming reluctant to be anything else. Victoria stepped into the kitchen and came out with a glass of apple juice. She put it down on the coffee table.

“You still treat me like a child,” said Dima, laughing a little.

“You will always be my child, Dima,” said Victoria. She sat down on the couch with him, not too close.

“I don’t get it,” said Dima, after a sip of apple juice. “Doesn’t Kenji live here with you? You’re married, aren’t you?”

Victoria fidgeted slightly, a crooked smile flashing briefly.

“Of course we are, but-” she paused. “It’s complicated. He’s - he’s not here a lot of the time.”

Dima looked out over the expanse of Waikiki to the ghostly outline of Diamond Head, just visible in the moonlight.

“Mom,” he said, his voice now with a pleading tone, “Mom, he’s a fucking gangster. Don’t you see that? He’s in the Yakuza, for Christ’s sake.”

“He’s not,” said Victoria, looking a little peeved, “actually in the Yakuza.” Her expression softened a bit. “He works for them, that’s all.”

“And that’s so much better?”

“Don’t be naive. You think you can devote your life to the martial arts without ever associating yourself with anyone who actually uses them? And where would Hawaii be now without the Yakuza? It was they who pushed through the gambling legislation. Without the casinos, there would be no money coming here at all. You think tourists are going to travel thousands of miles for weather like this?”

“I’ll bet they were behind this crazy open-carry law for swords, too. Now when tourists come we don’t just freeze their asses off and batter them with hurricanes, we also scare the hell out of them.”

“Dima, even the police were for this. People have a right to defend themselves, and the streets here are getting just too dangerous.”

“Yes, because of the casinos.” He slammed his empty glass down on the koa wood coffee table.

“Would you like some more juice?”

“No, I don’t want more juice.” Dima’s eyes moved around the room, settling on a framed photo on a corner knick-knack shelf. A small girl stood alone, in her hands a double-edged Lung Ch’uan sword, too big for her, but seeming somehow natural, her grip, her stance, her eyes showing a quiet authority.

“Is that her?”

“Yes, that is Akiko.”

“You’re teaching her.” It wasn’t a question.

“Of course. And so is Kenji.”

“I thought you said you would never force martial arts on any child.” He laughed. “Remember? Papa said you wanted me to be a dentist.”

“Of course,” she said, smiling. “If you hadn’t responded so enthusiastically to your father’s teaching, I probably would have kept pushing that desire.”

“And with Akiko?”

“Dima, Akiko is more than enthusiastic. She is-” she paused, seeming to search for the word. “-spooky.” She walked to the case and took down the photo, handing it to Dima. “Look for yourself. Her stance, her i, it is not like a child. And this picture was when she was eight. She is ten now. You will see for yourself tomorrow. There is no way I could resist teaching her.”

“And Kenji?”

“It was clearly his intent from the beginning. I at first said she should learn one style or the other, it would be too confusing otherwise, but Kenji insisted. He said ‘Give her the chance. She will do it, she will make it work.’”

“And? Does it work?”

“It is too early to tell for sure. She does seem, so far, to be able to keep them separate, the styles, and even to kind of combine them also. We will see.”

Standing, Dima handed back the photo.

“I should get some sleep. I assume my apartment is still the same?”

“Yes. I have been using the terrace to train Akiko in the mornings. Would that still be all right with you?”

“Of course. Where you used to train me.”

“Except for that, no one has been there for six years, since the hurricane. I had it cleaned, the icebox stocked, put out some towels. Do you still have your key?”

“Thank you. Yes.” He started out, his mother following him into the foyer. After calling the elevator he turned back to face her.

“Mother, you should know something.”

Victoria straightened, listening.

“When I was in China, I saw a lot of things. I was well prepared by you and Papa, and a good thing I was, too. The sword is enjoying a renaissance there, thanks much to the stories starting to come out of these islands. I hear the same thing is happening in Europe. It’s not real, like it is here, but the new competition suits capture the nuances surprisingly well. I was even forced by circumstance a few times to use a real sword, and had to kill twice. When I saw you last that wasn’t true - I’d never killed anyone. It changes you.”

“Yes, it does.”

“I know, you told me how bad it was here, when I came back after Oswald.” He bit his lower lip slightly. The elevator arrived and he stuck his hand into the doorway to hold it. “I know I should have stayed, I should have hung around to help you, but-” He looked down at the floor for a minute, then up again. “But I was just so mad. How could you do that to Papa? It drove him crazy. Is Kenji really that great? Is he?”

“Yes.”

“Worth destroying your marriage, destroying Papa?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

Dima took a breath, clearing his head.

“Anyway, though I was well prepared, I was not undefeated, and I saw others who I know could have defeated me.” He stepped back into the elevator, still holding the door. “But what I did not see, Mother, not in Russia, not in China, not anywhere, was anyone who could have defeated you.”

Dima stepped out of the elevator at the twentieth floor and walked down the long, open-air hallway to the end, apartment #2005. When he cracked the front door the blast of air rushing by told him that his mother had opened the huge glass sliding doors on the other side, at least partway. He stepped through the living room and directly out to his favorite part of the apartment, the terrace, almost a thousand square feet, with its dramatic view of Diamond Head Crater and Waikiki, and, off to the right, the ocean. He had grown up in this apartment, learned his gung-fu on this terrace, Taiji boxing, most weapons from his father, sword fighting from his mother. He shook his head fondly, thinking back. He remembered his father saying, when he was very young, “I want you to learn the sword from your mother. She has a special gift, very special. Try to catch hold of it. You’re her son. If anyone can do it, you can.”

Now, after ten years of travel, he had to say, in all honesty, amazing as it was, it was true. What he had just said to her in parting was true. She really was the best he had ever found. But he knew, and she knew, that the only reason she could realize that talent was due to the years of training from Papa in Taiji Boxing, before and after they got married and Dima came along. Which is why it was hard to imagine how his mother, once so faithful and so grateful, could abandon Papa to have a child with this swordsman from Japan. I mean, can’t you admire someone, study from someone if you really think he’s that great, even go to bed with him for Christ’s sake, without thinking you have to marry him?

He had left for college in Moscow in a state of shock. After eighteen years of happy home life, a perfect childhood, Papa had disappeared, right after the big fight between him and Kenji.

Kenji. Dima felt his blood pressure rising just thinking the name. He knew from the past few years that he took no pleasure in killing, that he had no “killer instinct.” He remembered his father sensing this, and approving. Even Mohammed Ali, his father had said, truly perhaps the greatest boxer of his or maybe any era, said that the killer instinct was found in great boxers; but not, he said, in the greatest. At the highest level, his father had said, it could be used against you, it was a predictable thing. Fine.

But Kenji, he knew, he actually wanted to kill, not out of instinct, but out of anger. Kenji he could kill, and take pleasure in it. There was a lot, however, in the way of anything like that. First and foremost, his mother. He still loved her, as angry as he was about what he felt was her complicity in his parents’ breakup. She was unshakable in her feelings about Kenji. It was almost like she was hypnotized. Secondly, or probably actually first, Kenji would kill him. His mother’s technique with the sword had surpassed his father’s skill, and his mother would never have been so fascinated by someone she could have bested. Dima, who knew, after ten years away from home, ten years of experience, that even at this point he could still never beat his father, fell, by that reckoning, last in a pecking order that had Kenji at the top.

But also, and he could not deny this apparently uncontested fact, the fight itself had been his father’s fault. His mother had insisted this was the case, and he himself had seen all the signs in his father that confirmed its probability. It was not completely clear exactly what the prime motivating factor really was. Was it jealousy over his wife’s presumed infidelity, an infidelity she denied but seemed pretty undeniable after she became pregnant, then gave birth to what no one denied was Kenji’s daughter? Or was it just jealousy over Kenji’s mastery of the sword, and a childish desire to take back his wife’s affection by beating him? The same logic that was instrumental in holding back any reckless revenge on Dima’s part should have guided his father to a similar cautionary stance; but that, sadly, had not occurred.

And so his father had disappeared. Obviously, that must have been the agreement. Dima felt sure that his mother would never have countenanced his father’s death, and Kenji must have considered that. One could always presume as well that that might have been a factor in his father’s decision to take the chance of fighting Kenji, but that would be a pretty unfair thing to say about someone not around to defend themselves against such a low-class accusation.

And anyway, was it really necessary to vanish completely? Not a phone call or an email or a message in a bottle or something? Was that part of the deal? Or was it just his father’s nature, to run from a situation where he felt unwanted. Maybe if Dima had stayed in the islands his father would have surfaced. But you could find anyone through the internet, Dima included, and his father apparently had not taken the time to do so. Still, Dima did not feel hurt by this. His relationship to his father had always been too close for him to ever really doubt its strength. He was hoping that, if his father was still anywhere in Hawaii, his coming back home might draw him out.

He looked out over the edge of the terrace at Waikiki. Just below was what had been Fort DeRussy, the prime beachfront real estate owned by the government and used for years as a choice place for military rest and recreation. It had boasted one of the broadest beaches in Waikiki, a beach that had progressively become more and more crowded as the rising sea levels ate away at every other beachfront hotel’s prime attraction, and forced their patrons to retreat to someplace that still had some sand, which was Fort DeRussy and, right next door, Hawaiian Village. But finally even that had eroded, though, by that time, crowds were no longer the problem, what with the increasingly cold weather. Oswald was the last straw, and finally the government had sold out. His mother had said to him then, when the sale had been announced just before his return to Russia, that now high-rises would finally be built and block their view of Diamond Head. But they had been saved, sort of, by the crashing economy. Even the smaller hotels, the ones that hadn’t been converted into gambling casinos, had experienced mass closings. Nobody was going to spend any money on any new construction, not for a long time. DeRussy’s large tract of land, being military, had been one of the few places restored after Oswald, kept up to a much higher standard than the rest of Honolulu, and was only now, a few years after the sale, beginning to show the ragged foliage and deteriorating infrastructure that marked Honolulu’s current decline.

Gambling on sword fights, especially mortal combat, was the biggest draw in Hawaii, its completely unique attraction, one that no other casino anywhere in the world could offer. Of course it was still technically illegal, but the level of corruption in the police force, at least as far as the casinos went, was such that it could be easily managed. The top of Fort DeRussy’s three-story parking garage, a large expanse of concrete and occasional obstacles, was in clear sight of many of the casino hotels, and a favorite spot for pre-planned events. Fights could take place there without any particular casino taking responsibility, and police could find lots of obstacles in their way whenever they were notified of such illegal duels, good excuses for being unable to stop what was going on.

Not only that, but the casinos, becoming bolder and bolder, did not shrink from sending a message to the police that Fort DeRussy was off limits to them, and more than one cop had been found murdered, or simply disappeared, after venturing onto its grounds. This made the place a haven for low level thugs as well, even if they didn’t actually live there. They could venture out and terrorize what was left of the surrounding non-casino hotels, street traffic, etcetera, then elude pursuit by vanishing into its nearby and ever-increasing jungle.

God, what had Honolulu become? Tomorrow he would call his oldest friend from high school, Calvin Yang, and try to catch up, find out just how far things had gone. But one thing was fairly obvious:

It was Hell.