“You here for the news?”
Minnow looked up. It was Sawyer, sweating profusely in a linen suit.
“Yes.”
“Mind if I join you? I got a call from the mayor’s secretary telling me to tune in,” he said, lowering onto the stool next to her without waiting for an answer. “Drinks on me. What are you having?”
She needed something stiff for this. “Cadillac margarita?”
“You got it. George, bro, two Patrón margaritas, please.”
They sat there for a while in awkward silence, both looking up at the basketball game. Minnow had nothing against the man personally but was in no mood to pretend to be interested in anything he had to say.
Eventually Sawyer broke. “So what’s it like staying down at Kaupiko’s?”
“I love it.”
He reached over the counter and produced a cup of chopped pineapple, popping a chunk into his mouth. “Given the choice, would you rather stay there or here?”
No hesitation. “There, definitely.”
“Ouch.”
“Nothing against the Kiawe. It’s beautiful, but I enjoy my solitude. And Hale Niuhi just feels so...” Putting the feeling she got there into words was harder than expected. “I guess it feels like it’s been there forever, like it’s just a part of the island. It has roots. And I feel strangely at home when I’m there.”
“Before I built the Kiawe, I stayed there for a week with Woody. The place gets under your skin, for sure. Did you know he helped me design this?” he asked, waving his hand around.
Her brow pinched together. “Woodydid?”
“Yeah. I had it in my mind to do something like Rockefeller did at Mauna Kea. A five- or six-story building. He told me no way, that the only way to make something work down here was to do it like the Hawaiians, only better. And so I did.”
“Thank God you listened to him,” Minnow said, unable to imagine a big boxy structure here.
George slid two margaritas in front of them, and Sawyer held his up. “To no more shark attacks.”
At least she could drink to that. She clinked his glass and took a sip, then gagged.
He smiled. “George knows how I like my drinks—just like my women. Strong.”
Minnow had no response to that kind of weirdness, so she took another sip. This one went down easier and she savored the icy coolness, then pressed the glass to her forehead.Let’s get on with this.Sawyer went on about his hotel, and she nodded along, all the while feeling the tequila spreading out into her limbs, loosening the cords of tension that had been twisting all afternoon.
Then he said something that chilled her. “I know it may look like we’re raking in the dough, but you’d be surprised. A lot in this business is smoke and mirrors. A few sparse months could put us under.”
She was about to ask him to elaborate, but the news came on and George turned up the volume. The first story was about a tornado in Florida that left at least forty-two dead. Tornadoes were much more dangerous than sharks, that was for certain. The local anchorman Stan Jones wore a toupee and had at least an inch of pancake makeup on. He stared solemnly into the camera and said, “And now, we have an announcement from Mayor Lum on the recent deadly shark attacks on the Big Island that have made national headlines, and what the state is doing about them. Linda, over to you.”
It was getting harder and harder to take a breath.
Linda Moore was standing out front of a green wooden house with Mayor Lum flanked by two men in aloha shirts. “Stan, the mayor is just about to go live, and as you can see, we have a lot of interest here.”
The camera panned to an army of reporters jockeying for position. Mayor Lum tapped the mic. “Aloha. I want to thank you all for beinghere, and also thank the task force who met to determine the best course of action in the wake of these tragic incidents.”
She sat up straighter. “At least he saidincidentrather thanattack.Hegets a point for that,” Minnow said with a burst of hope. Maybe he had heard her after all.
Sawyer did not take his eyes from the TV. “What’s the difference?”
There was no time to answer, as Lum got right to the point. “We heard from all parties with a stake in this—Ocean Safety, Hawai?i Fire Department, DLWA, the Hawaiian community, business owners, family members of the victims, a white shark expert from the mainland—and we looked at this thing from all sides. In the end, the team decided it is in our best interest to go ahead with a controlled shark hunt, to begin this Saturday morning.”
The team decided?His words pierced, stung, sliced through her.
