Primitive Secrets (14 page)

Storm looked at Hamasaki's cheerful mug, which still sat on her desk. She was on the outside looking in at the family with whom she'd grown to adulthood. She thought about how she'd often shared an afternoon cup of tea with Uncle Miles. He'd related stories about early days in the firm, they'd told jokes and imparted confidences. She would miss him terribly. The days when she'd found support in the company of siblings and under the tutelage of a wise and powerful man had ended. Her throat constricted with the thought.

Still, she was more fortunate than many. She had Aunt Maile and Uncle Keone. That might be more comfort than Martin had right now. Insecurity had shown in his voice, almost a tinge of desperation. Perhaps in his mind, this stock deal was proof of his professional competence. Though he struggled to prove himself to a ghost.

Storm knew emotions such as these were rarely ruled by logic. She still had to show she wasn't like her mother, didn't she?

If Martin was hurting, he needed her. After all, he had stuck by her through some very rough stretches in their teen years and she wanted to help him through his hard times, too. Losing a parent was bad. Losing one during a period of discord or alienation was worse.

Chapter 21

Storm sat in the back of the Buddhist temple at Lorraine's funeral and tried to swallow the constriction in her throat. Ben Tanabe looked like a lost child; Storm could swear that his hair was thinner and grayer since she'd seen him in the hospital. Two women, one with a toddler on her arm and one following close behind, supported him. Storm remembered that Lorraine had daughters and was glad to see the family together.

After the ceremony, Storm drove home to change out of the clothes she'd been wearing all day. She didn't want to visit the Sakai family wearing a funeral suit. Something brightly colored and appropriate for playing with children would go a long way toward shaking the sorrow that sat on her chest.

Fang pranced along the path to the cottage and Storm was glad she'd made the trip home. While the cat told her all about how hungry she was, Storm pulled on jeans and a striped tee-shirt. Each meow was lasting longer and longer. The animal could do La Boheme if she kept practicing.

“All right, all right,” Storm said. She went to the kitchen, placed a full cat dish on the floor and the caterwauling came to a dead stop. A purr rumbled noisily. “Sheesh. What would you have said if I'd come home after the Sakais?” Storm asked the cat. Fang ignored her.

Storm picked up the phone and called Robbie's favorite Chinese restaurant. She requested two orders of minute chicken with cake noodles (Robbie could eat two by himself, so Storm figured this dish was a good bet), shrimp with caramelized walnuts, won bok with tofu, opakapaka in black bean sauce, and an order of fried rice. She hoped that she had covered the kids' and the adults' tastes and headed out the door. Her own stomach was already gurgling in anticipation. This was looking like a better and better idea.

The restaurant was on the way to the South King Street address Lani had given her. The food was waiting, neatly boxed and bagged, and Storm was back in her car in a matter of minutes. Ala Moana Boulevard was still fairly busy with people escaping the downtown office buildings, but Storm escaped the bottleneck going to Pearl City and the airport by turning up Alakea Street to the heart of downtown Honolulu.

South King Street was a one-way street going the opposite direction, so she had to guess at the street numbers by traveling along a parallel street. The business area of the city wasn't very big, just five or six blocks, and by the time the street numbers were in the vicinity of the one Lani had given her, she was in the middle of Chinatown.

Chinatown had always appealed to her. She watched with interest while last-minute workers scurried across the streets, locking the doors of travel agencies, acupuncture and herbal specialty shops, and lei-makers. The food markets were already closed up tightly, the bright red chickens' and pigs' feet taken from their hooks to be stir-fried with red pepper and ginger and consumed that evening.

The night population, which transformed the neighborhood, was just beginning to stretch its gaunt arms and peek from behind dark curtains. Korean bars and strip joint proprietors flicked on their neon signs, one by one. A whippet-thin creature in a clingy white dress leaned against a dark storefront and smoked a long cigarette, her sloe eyes following certain men's progress along the sidewalk. Storm, at a stoplight, noticed that she didn't bother watching shop-owner types or the white-shirted fellows who scurried home to their families.

Storm searched for a street sign to confirm whether she was in the right area. There weren't going to be any nice condominium parking lots around here. Bebe hadn't told her that the Sakais were poor. To Storm's knowledge, only immigrants and the penniless lived above the garlic or liquor-infused shops in Chinatown.

A cop car from the Chinatown substation crawled toward her and she felt the gaze of the two uniforms inspect her old car and, she hoped, clean and honest face. The narrow streets were lined with “No Parking” signs. She was going to have to head a couple of blocks maaka, or toward the mountains, to the municipal lot.

Ten days ago, she wouldn't have thought twice about walking the streets in the rosy sunset. Who would bother an athletic-looking woman in jeans and tennis shoes? Especially one carrying a stack of aromatic take-out boxes. Storm pulled into the parking lot and looked into the back of her car. Now she wasn't as confident about safety. She'd tuck her tennis racquet under her arm for extra protection.

Except for the beery vapors left in the wakes of a few people on the sidewalk, Storm passed mostly working folks. She walked two blocks down Mauna Kea Street, past the tuberose-scented air that surrounded the lei-makers, and rounded the corner to South King Street. The Sakais lived above a travel agency, their door a neatly varnished, barely noticeable passageway adjacent to a plate glass window covered with posters of Beijing.

Storm rang the bell on the street and was buzzed in. When she got to the top of the stairs, two beautiful hapa haole, or half Asian, half Caucasian, children greeted her with smiles. “Aunt Bebe told us about you. Your aunt is a healer, too.” Their eyes followed the boxes in her arms.

Lani Sakai, a petite blonde, appeared behind them and guided Storm into the apartment. “Thanks for coming over. I left the office about an hour ago and picked up the kids on the way home, so it's hard to make dinner and get everyone organized. Tom is looking forward to meeting you.”

She gestured for Storm to set the boxes on a hardwood dining table that looked like a family heirloom. She shouted toward the older child, who looked about eight. “Brandon, do you have homework? If you want to eat with the rest of us, you'd better get busy.”

Storm put the boxes down and looked around at a noise behind her. She was standing in the living-dining room area. From across the room, a very thin man with a few wisps of black hair that sprouted haphazardly from his scalp pushed an afghan from his lap and stood up from a lazy-boy recliner. His black, almond-shaped eyes, huge in a drawn face, crinkled and warmed the air between them. Strong white teeth shone in a grin against his yellow-gray skin. He steadied himself for a moment by taking the hand of the little girl who had greeted Storm at the top of the stairs. “I think you've met Stephanie,” he said. Tom offered Storm his hand. His grip was cool and firm, his skin dry as a flannel nightgown. The little girl, who looked about six, hugged her father round the hips, then led him to a dining room chair.

“Nice of you to come by and bring dinner. Takes a burden off Lani.” He smiled in the direction of his wife, who had headed toward the kitchen and the noise of a fussing baby.

Lani came back out a minute later with a tray of water glasses and two milks. She glanced toward her husband and Storm saw her blue eyes darken momentarily.

Storm helped her set the drinks out, then rummaged in the bags and set out the dishes in the middle of the table, to be eaten family-style. The older children laid out place settings.

Lani put the baby in a high chair at the table, then sat down with the rest of the group and joined the chatter. Brandon wolfed his meal, then asked his sister for her last morsel of chicken. When she covered it with both hands, he went instead for the container and, with a swift glance at his mother, dumped the remainder of the cake noodles on his plate. Storm stifled a grin.

Lani, also, ate everything on her plate, but Tom picked walnuts from around his shrimp, ate a few chunks of tofu, then pushed food around on his plate to leave bare spots. Storm would have bet her favorite tennis shoes that Lani noticed it, too, though she couldn't catch her watching him with anything but pleasure. For a few moments, the knot in Storm's throat wouldn't let her swallow.

She looked around the apartment, surprisingly comfortable in its incongruous neighborhood. An air conditioner in the living room window insulated the home from the downtown noise. Wood floors gleamed and though the area rugs were far from new, they were Chinese wool, and lovely. The furniture was comfortable and clean, books and family photos covered the shelves on which perched a small color television.

It was a home where people loved each other. Storm blinked hard a few times and looked at Tom, who was speaking.

“I met your uncle, you know,” he said. “A real nice guy. Dr. O'Toole sent me to talk to him.”

Here was the information she'd sought, yet all she could think to say was, “Yeah, I miss him.” Storm could have kicked herself, but Tom beamed at her.

“He had a good sense of humor. I could tell. Bet he was fun to work with,” Tom said.

“He was. He's the reason I went into law.” Storm bit the tail from a shrimp. “Did Dr. O'Toole send you to meet him after he told you that you needed a bone marrow transplant?”

Lani made a snorting noise and Tom's mouth twisted. “O'Toole didn't tell us,” he said. “We found out on the Internet. There are chat rooms for people with cancer. When we asked O'Toole about it, he told us the procedure wasn't covered by my insurance policy. He said the HMO wouldn't pay for it.”

Lani was practically sputtering. “We knew by then how much they cost. Could be a couple hundred thousand dollars! I told him we'd sue him and Unimed, that we were cheated out of time we couldn't afford to lose. They'd let us go for months without telling us what Tom needed.”

Tom smiled in his wife's direction. “I didn't have the energy to protest, but Lani did.” He took her hand and his eyes glowed. “And when she gets mad, watch out!”

“I'll say this for old Dr. O'Toole,” Lani said. “He looked more nervous and ashamed than mad. I thought he'd tell us to find another doctor, but he sent us to see Mr. Hamasaki.”

“What did Hamasaki say?”

“He said he'd try to talk to some people, pressure them a little,” Lani said. “If that didn't work, then he'd start a lawsuit. He was worried about the stress of the trial for Tom.”

“He knew I didn't have time to sue,” Tom said quietly.

Lani glanced at him, her eyes shadowed with worry. “He pointed out that Unimed makes it very clear, in the fine print, that they're under no legal obligation to pay for certain procedures. He warned that a lawsuit might take years.”

“And having the transplant is probably my best chance at beating this.” Tom took a deep breath and pushed won bok around on his plate. He looked tired. “Dr. O'Toole told us that Hamasaki's firm does some of Unimed's legal work. Your uncle was going to see what could be done, if some strings could be pulled. He thought maybe I could be Unimed's first bone marrow transplant here in the islands. He said that it would be great publicity for the company.”

“What happened?” Storm asked.

Tom looked down at his plate. “He died.”

“Did O'Toole talk to you after that?”

Lani spoke up. “Dr. O'Toole told us that Hamasaki met with the CFO of Unimed, Hawai'i. His name is Dr. Overton. But he doesn't know what they decided.”

“Maybe I can find out for you,” Storm said. “Meanwhile, do you have any other options?”

Lani's eyes gleamed. “We've been working with the local Bone Marrow Registry. When they find a match for Tom, they'll help us with a fundraiser. We've already had two bone marrow drives for potential donors.” Her chin jutted slightly and she set down her fork. “We're going to do it. It just would have been a whole lot easier if Unimed had helped with the cost, or at least been up front about the whole thing.”

“Do either of the children match his blood type?” Storm asked.

“No,” Lani said. “They're too much haole. You know, Caucasian from me. Tom is mostly Japanese, with a little Hawaiian and Portuguese.”

“I'll try. I'm half Japanese, half Hawaiian,” Storm said.

“Every little bit helps. Even if you can't help Tom, your blood type'll be in the registry for someone else who may need you later.”

“I'll ask around to see who was supposed to talk to Overton, too.”

Lani reached over and squeezed Tom's knee. “And we'll keep you healthy and strong, meanwhile. Especially with friends like Bebe and your Aunt Maile.”

Storm unwrapped little boxes of almond float for dessert. Brandon and Stephanie were delighted, but she could see that Tom was beginning to tire. Lani got up to make a tea for him that Bebe had prescribed, then tucked her husband into his reclining chair. Storm cleared the table of dinner dishes.

When Lani came back, Storm handed her untouched pudding to the older children. “Why don't you two share this? I've got to go, and if my jeans get any tighter I won't be able to sit down.”

Lani walked Storm to the door and gave her a hug. “Thanks so much for visiting us and bringing dinner. It was great.”

“I'd like to do it again,” Storm said. She saw the split-second hesitation in Lani's eyes. “I'll call you first and see how Tom's feeling.”

“Thank you.”

Lani closed the door quietly and Storm walked down the stairs to the street. She couldn't stop thinking about Tom Sakai's eyes. Luminous when they rested on Lani. Scared and sad when he thought no one was looking.

On the sidewalk, a different world from when she'd entered the Sakais' apartment bustled around Storm. South King Street glittered with activity, lit by the hanging paper lanterns of Chinese restaurants that let aromatic clouds of garlic, seafood, and cilantro escape to the street. Neon flickered above the heads of the people who meandered between bars. Light spilled through open doors, but the alleys between buildings were opaque in their darkness and the people, mostly men, who sauntered into them disappeared as if they'd passed into a parallel universe. Only the embers of cigarettes glowed to show that the barrier wasn't physical.

Storm stopped on the corner to wait for the traffic light and tightened her grip on her purse and her tennis racquet. A quartet of sailors, their white suits still fairly clean, sauntered by and saluted her in a Slavic language. They were good-natured boys who were out for a good time and might need a hip full of penicillin in a few weeks. The loners were the ones who concerned her, the lowlifes who roamed in and out of the blackness between the strip joints.