Read O'ahu Lonesome Tonight? (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series #5) for Free Online Page A

mid-air.
    “They probably
don’t speak English,” I said. I gripped Jeff’s elbow in an attempt to steer him
back outside.
    “Well, I didn’t
come here for conversation,” he said. “I came for sushi. Don’t you think they
save the best stuff for the people who know what it’s supposed to taste like?”
    By now we’d
arrived at the sushi counter. The hostess indicated two chairs at the end of
the bar and we sat down.
    “I don’t know
if this is such a good idea,” I said. “We won’t know how to order.”
    “Look Pali , back home I eat sushi whenever I can. I know the
words. And besides, look at the menu. It has pictures.”
    I glanced at
the glossy menu and indeed there were rows of pictures of pink, white, red, and
gray seafood. Most things were shown wrapped in either green or black seaweed.
To me it looked more like a bait shop list than a menu.
    “Do you think
they have California roll?” I said to Jeff. “Or maybe something
with cooked shrimp?”
    Jeff snorted.
“Let me order for you. I know the good stuff.”
    “Can we get
some hot saké ?” I said. I knew whatever fish
concoction he was going to foist on me would go down a lot easier after a few
gulps of piping hot rice wine. Besides, maybe the saké would ‘cook’ the fish when it hit my stomach.
    “Sure. Good
idea.” Jeff expertly ordered a large ginjo saké —in Japanese.
    “Do you speak
Japanese?” I said.
    “A little. I worked on a project with a team from Tokyo
University in Shinjuko . Their way of getting the job
done was to work for ten to twelve hours straight and then go to a kyabakura , or hostess bar, and get
falling-down drunk. You get up the next day and do it all over again. Those
dudes were relentless.”
    The saké came in a thin white vase about ten-inches tall. The
hostess placed two tiny porcelain cups in front of us and poured the first
round. The warm saké went down like a cool flame—hot
yet numbing. After the first cup I was enjoying myself a lot more. By the
second cup I was up for taking a stab at things like raw eel and urchin.
    Everything
tasted like rubbery sea-water to me, but I didn’t care. We had a great time,
and the other diners seemed to get a kick out of Jeff’s tortured Japanese. They
must’ve figured me for his well-trained wife since I didn’t utter a word. Even
if everyone had been speaking English I still probably wouldn’t have said much.
The saké had seen to that.
    We walked back
to our high-rise—Jeff expertly steering me up over curbs and away from light
poles.
    “You’re a cheap
drunk,” he said when we finally got into the elevator.
    “ Arigato ,”
I said, saying ‘thank you,’ in Japanese. It was the only word that had stuck
with me.
    He laughed.
“The good thing is we don’t have to get up tomorrow morning and design a propulsion
algorithm.”
    “I can’t even spell algorithm, let alone design one,” I said.
    He draped an
arm around my shoulder as we walked the ten steps from the elevator to the
penthouse door. “I’ve missed you, sis.”
    “I’ve missed
you, too, bruddah .”
    “Let’s tear up O’ahu ,” he said. “Let’s see it all, eat it all, and act
like a couple of obnoxious tourists for the whole week. I want to go home tired
and guilty.”
    “Sounds good. Goal for the week: little sleep and lots of
remorse.”
     
    CHAPTER 7
     
    Since Farrah
had left for Honolulu on Friday, I was a little concerned when I hadn’t heard
from her by Sunday morning. Ono was scheduled to take Tomika’s guests out that day, so I figured it’d be a good time to call.
    “ Aloha ,”
she trilled as she took my call.
    “ Aloha , yourself. How was the trip over?”
    “Groovy beyond words.”
    “Really?”
    “Really. It was bumpy, like you said, but fun bumpy. It
wasn’t ‘we’re all gonna die’ bumpy like on an
airplane.”
    “I’m really
happy to hear that. So, what are you doing today? Do you want to hang out with
me and Jeff?”
    “Sorry, but Ono
says we