"I'll call on the phone, then, the day after tomorrow? Maybe around nine in the morning?"
"That will be fine."
"Thanks," Oliver said. He drained his soda and gave the can back to
Mrs. Nakano. "Good," he said. He waved and started out the gate.
"You want a ride down the hill?" Jimmy asked.
"No need," Oliver said.
"He fly," Kapono said.
When Oliver got back to Waikiki, he had lunch at the banyan bar and thought about what had happened. Mrs. Nakano was nice. The moss-rock delivery duo had been most respectful. The house was in an upscale neighborhood. Ken Nakano was well established, for sure. You couldn't tell much from the house; like the other houses near it, the side facing the street was simple, almost anonymous. What was individual was out of sight. He was glad that he hadn't given Mrs. Nakano his middle name. Who knows what Jimmy and Kapono would have thought? They were pretty sharp.
The following day, he took TheBus around most of the island. That's what it said in big letters on the side: "TheBus." Mountains three thousand feet high separated the leeward and windward sides. The windward side was cooler, breezier, and less touristy. Steep sharp ridges radiated out to a coastal plain. Deep valleys disappeared into mysterious shade, wilder than he would have thought, so close to a city. TheBus returned across a central highland between two mountain groups. They passed a pineapple plantation, long rows of spiky bushes in red dirt, and a military base, Schofield Barracks. Pearl Harbor spread out before them—large, calm, and silver, warships moored at docks, small boats moving about. Then they were back in traffic, back in the city. He got out at the shopping center and walked to Waikiki.
It had been cloudy most of the day. The wind had begun to blow hard. Gusts caught the hair of young women and whipped ebony parabolas three feet over their heads. The women turned their heads like wild mustangs, laughing—counterpoint to their Asian composure and perfect make-up. This is it, Oliver thought. I could die right here. I'll never see anything more beautiful.
He ate dinner in a Thai restaurant. His waitress was another knockout. Across the room, someone who looked like Gomer Pyle was eating and joking. It was Gomer Pyle—Jim Nabors. Wilt. Gomer. Gorgeous women. Oliver began to feel that this was the way things should be, that it was his due. He was Oliver. He had family on Alewa Heights, he was sure of it. Tomorrow would tell.