CHAPTER 8

.8.

Mahina was a cold, white eye staring down from the July sky. Her light had turned the Pacific into a sheet of dark, moving mercury. I didn't like it. In the daylight, the ocean is a postcard; at night, it can be a big, dark room with no windows and a hidden door.

Jimmy was twenty feet out, his strokes too frantic, the kind of swimming that screams "this is going to end badly" to anyone who knows how to read it. He was trying to outrun a ghost, and he thought he could do it by filling his lungs with salt.

"Keep it steady!" I called out. I was treading water with that easy, deep-water "Stingray" flutter-kick, barely making a ripple. "Don't fight the tide, Jimmy. It’s got more patience than you do."

Then it happened. He hit a cold current, or maybe just a memory of the fall from the boat. He stopped mid-stroke, his head jerking back like he’d been hit by a ghost-punch. I saw his eyes in the moonlight – two black holes of panic.

"Ray!" he choked out, but the word died as he swallowed a mouthful of the Pacific.

He started to "climb the ladder" – that desperate flailing where a man tries to hike himself up on the water like it’s a solid floor. I didn't rush. You rush toward a panicking man, and you both end up as a footnote in history books. I circled him, stayin’ just out of reach of his clawing hands.

"Look at the moon, Jimmy! Breathe!"

He didn't hear me. He was already in that dark place where the air doesn't exist. He went under, a silver bubble rising where his fair hair had been.

I dove. In the dark, the water is like ink. I found him three feet down, a thrashing shadow. I didn't grab his hand – that’s how you get your neck snapped. I swam behind him, reached over his shoulder, and locked my arm across his chest in the cross-chest carry I'd practiced a thousand times. My bicep was jammed under his chin, keeping his mouth clear of the foam.

He fought me. He was strong with the kind of strength only a man who thinks he’s dying can find. He tried to turn, to pull me down into the quiet with him.

"Easy, you damn fool," I grunted into his ear, my voice vibrating through his skull. "I've got the mana. Just feel the kick."

I engaged the "Stingray" engine. I pushed my legs in that deep, powerful flutter-kick Mr. Kahanamoku had taught us; the kind that makes the water boil behind you. I wasn't just swimming anymore, I was towing a million-dollar bakery empire through a liquid graveyard. 

Every time he tried to struggle, I tightened my grip, my ribs aching against his. I could feel his heart hammering against my back – a frantic, staccato beat that didn't match the rhythm of the sea.

We cut through the swells like a slow-moving torpedo. I didn't look at him. I just stared at the lights of the Waikiki Tavern on the shore – the only lighthouse left in the world.

When my knees finally hit the sand, I didn't gently set him down. I dragged him until the water was only ankle-deep, then dumped him like a sack of wet taro. He sat there, coughing up the ocean and gasping for air like it was a miracle he didn't deserve.

I stood over him, dripping, my heavy wool UH suit weighing a hundred pounds and smelling like a wet dog. My lungs were burning, but I kept my face like a stone statue.

"That’s two," I said, the words coming out as a jagged growl. "I know things that happen twice often happen a third time. But I’m telling you now, Jimmy, I won't be there for the third."

I turned my back on him and the moon, walked toward the shadows of the palms, and didn't look to see if he was standing. There was a "Chapter One" waiting to be written at the bungalow, even though I wouldn't be adding anything else to that blank page tonight. The real story seemed to be shivering on the sand behind me. My father wanted history, and the tourists wanted lively, exotic postcards. At that moment, however, all I wanted was a bowl of noodles and, perhaps, a way to forget how a million-dollar prince was trying so hard to turn into a ghost.

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