Shred of Evidence

gunmen

The four gunmen were in a black Chevrolet Suburban. The Suburban had tinted black windows and was parked on Front Street ten meters south of Wahie Lane. The Lahaina, Maui waterfront. One street block from the Molokini Cafe. The waves out to the west looked peaceful in the moonlight, and the four men inside the Suburban watched Rio leap over a knee-high brick wall in front of the Molokini Cafe. They watched him stand stock-still, his eyes hammering over the tabletops. He looked nervous.

One of the men leaned forward from the back seat, rubbed his mouth with the palm of his left hand and said, “That’s him?”

The guy in the passenger seat stared at Rio from behind the Suburban’s tinted windows. He said, “That’s him.”

A guy in the back seat said, “He’s just a kid.”

The guy in the passenger seat tapped the dashboard with his index finger.

The driver—a big, beefy fellow—looked at him, looked at the finger, placed his hand on the silver key in the ignition and fired up the engine.

rio

Rio heard the engine of a large truck fire up. The white round coral stone floated inside an octagonal glass cylinder. The octagonal glass cylinder stood atop a green patio table. Rio saw a black Chevrolet Suburban pull away from the curb fifty meters up Front Street. The water side of Front Street, the two-lane downtown Lahaina street.

He glanced from the glass cylinder, to the Suburban.

Just panic, he thought. Nobody—nothing—couldn’t know I was here unless they were listening to the phone call, somehow.

The headlights of the Suburban flashed on like stage lights in a theatrical show. They were bright and for a moment, shined right at him. He took three steps forward, and grabbed the coral in his hand. The octagonal glass cylinder felt cool and smooth and the coral looked secure inside, like a baby in its crib.

The Suburban crept at first, then Rio heard and saw the Suburban floor it, wheels peeling out on the pavement, engine racing. Across the moonlit channel, the island of Lanai rose from the horizon like a transposed cereal bowl. Rio turned, and ran.

kaiser

The driver of the Suburban—a man named Kaiser Hörndorff—saw the white T-shirted back running, the bright yellow Hobie shorts, the sneakers with their jogger reflective tape moving at an all-out sprint away from the Suburban.

Kaiser grunted in stoical amusement and pressed the accelerator harder. His hands moved over the steering wheel, felt its firm rubbery surface. His eyes saw an old dude with a walker huffing it along the right side of the street up on the sidewalk. Rio was on the left. Kaiser saw the old dude with the walker blink, terrified at the roaring Suburban. The old dude moved toward the railing on the waterfront, leaving his walker like a lonely skeleton there in the middle of the sidewalk. Kaiser swerved to smash the walker. It flew up over the hood of the Suburban, and the guy in the passenger seat yelled obscenities at Kaiser Hörndorff.

All four men watched Rio turn left up into the Lahaina Marketplace. The Suburban swerved left!

rio

Rio was in an all-out sprint. He felt the hard smooth brick surface inside the plain-air marketplace under his sneakers, realized the Suburban couldn’t follow him straight up into the marketplace, and so just sprinted hard in the direction of Luakini Street. He heard the Suburban smash something metal. Thick green overhanging trees on Luakini welcomed him. He ran out the back of the marketplace, scanned quickly to his right, realized the Suburban would have to go all the way up to Dickenson and northwest up Luakini. The street block.

He scrutinized the nearly barren parking lot in the phosphorescent street light. A green Renault forty feet away. A silver Porsche 911. An almond Toyota Camry. A white Ford Focus. The other thirty parking spaces were vacant at 5:59 a.m., and the parking lot glowed in the eerie street-light luminescence.

The sky was brightening, and he could hear birds twittering in the trees. Cars raced along Highway 30, a quarter mile up the hill from the waterfront.

linux

Linux Vienmarte jabbed his index finger from the passenger seat, and roared at Kaiser Hörndorff. The glass window of the Lahaina Bakery was two feet from the Suburban’s front bumper. He realized there was no way through the marketplace for the truck and yelled at Kaiser to “Back it up! Back it up! You idiot!”

His head rocked forward with the screaming reverse of the Suburban, and slammed back as the Suburban roared down onto the pavement, the wheels spinning. He felt the blood rush to the back of his head as the Suburban raced south up Front Street. He saw a crack in the glass of the windshield where the metal walker had smashed into the window. The truck swerved left up Dickenson, and Linux leaned forward staring hard at the east entrance into the marketplace.

The Suburban swerved left up Luakini, heading toward the marketplace. Linux saw Rio standing at the far end of a nearly barren parking lot. He jabbed his index finger forward, yelled at Kaiser Hörndorff, and fingered the machine gun.

rio

Rio looked across the parking lot at the Suburban making the turn up Luakini. He realized the SUV would be on him in seconds. He scanned the little white homes on Luakini, the thick green trees, and sprinted across the parking lot to Luakini Street. He saw the passenger-side window of the Suburban open. He saw a gray-eyed man lean out the window. He saw the steel black machine gun. And he realized the gray-eyed man was about to fire on him.

mckenshaw

The SAW M249 report was loud in Robert McKenshaw’s ears. McKenshaw leaned right in the Surburban’s back seat. Rio sprinted across the street, and Linux leaned out the passenger-side window. Linux fired on the kid. McKenshaw felt sweat trickle down his forehead.

The bullets splintered up dirt and earth, wolfing at the kid’s heels. The Suburban bolted forward, and McKenshaw realized the Suburban was going to smash into a white, parked Volkswagen Beetle.

McKenshaw threw his right hand forward to try and brace for the impact, but it came too fast.

The sound was a thunderstorm of glass and wrenching metal, glass pouring down in the front seat, and McKenshaw went forward—nose and then right cheek—meeting the polyester fabric on the back of the front seat.

He shook his head dazed, realized Linux was climbing out of the door, machine gun in hand. He threw open his own door.

I’ll get the damn kid.

McKenshaw slammed the door shut with his left hand. His eyes fired up the little dirt drive. There was a little swinging white gate, an entrance into the home’s back yard. He felt the pebbly grip of his Beretta.

rio

Rio stood inside a storage shed. It was dark inside except for a single line of light along the doorway. The four gunmen shouted. Footsteps rustled over mango leaves strewn on the backyard. Rio leaned toward the line of light and peered with one eye into the backyard.

He saw a huge man. Six-three, 280. The huge man seemed confused. He looked right, then left. The man followed his three cohorts.

There was a lean man with gray eyes. The man Rio had seen lean out the window of the Suburban. He looked calm, cool and calculating. Rio stood there inside the aluminum storage shed and suddenly realized he was standing inside an aluminum storage shed, the walls little more than Bounty. The man with gray eyes held the machine gun up and opened fire on him.

walker

Tyrell Walker watched Linux grit his teeth and blast all holy hell out of the little aluminum storage shed. The sound made him wince. Machine gun report, tin-blasting holes all through the shed. Behind the shed, wood and leaves exploded. And out of the corner of Tryell’s left eye, he saw a fellow come to the back door of the second story porch.

The fellow wore a brown terry-cloth robe and looked at them from the other side of a kitchen screen door. He held a coffee cup in his hands.

Tyrell saw the dude’s face flood with panic. He saw the coffee cup fly up into the air, as the dude himself hit the kitchen floor. Tyrell watched that coffee cup. It seemed to rise up into the air in slow-motion while the dude in the brown terry-cloth robe floated to the kitchen floor. The coffee cup hung there in midair like a three-day-old balloon. Tyrell saw it, and was already pointing his revolver up in the direction of the screen door. He capped off three shots. The coffee cup did three somersaults before the inertia slowed enough for the coffee itself to rush out of the cup and coffee then, rather quickly, splashed all over the screen door, through which the kitchen light was bright.

Tyrell’s first two shots torpedoed the wood around the screen door, and the guy in the terry-cloth robe screamed. The third shot shattered the upper half of the screen door, and glass peppered the second floor deck. Tyrell heard a woman inside screaming her head off.

He turned his head to the right and saw Linux holding the SAW M249, blasting away at the aluminum storage shed. Linux roared with each rapid firing, 725-cyclic-rounds-per-minute, gas-operated-magazine, lithium-cooled shot. Kaiser roared something, but it all seemed in slow-motion to Tyrell, who now turned back up toward the second floor screen door. The dude in the brown terry-cloth robe ran.

Tyrell went down on one knee and aimed his revolver up at the second-floor kitchen. He capped off three more shots, the first two hitting wooden cabinets inside the kitchen, the third catching the thick wood five feet to the right of the kitchen door.

He started toward the little wooden stairwell that led up to the second floor deck, but McKenshaw grabbed his shoulder. McKenshaw jabbed a finger at the little aluminum storage shed.

Tyrell’s eyes rose from McKenshaw’s jabbing index finger to the shed. Tyrell watched the shed tilt crazily for a moment. He heard the creaking metal. The shed was about to cave in.

All four men moved forward, toward the shed, and Tyrell heard someone inside the falling storage shed yell: “You sons of b—!”

rio

“—itches!” Rio yelled.

The aluminum shed was on top of him. He clambered inside it like a man inside cold metal netting. His palms felt the metal sheeting of one wall and the weight of the entire enclosure on top of him. He shuffled face-down toward the back of the shed and poked his head out.

The metal was cold. The ground was damp. Rio heard the men shouting at one another. He pushed himself forward out of the aluminum shed into a thicket of green bushes.

Rio felt grime and dirt on his face. He tasted coppery blood in his mouth, spat quickly, quietly, and crawled forward through the bushes. Bullets whined overhead, and his body fought through the adrenaline.

He started to climb up from his hands and knees. He heard the police siren in the distance.

A metal fence stood in front of him, and he rose up to his feet and climbed it. Rio felt the metal fence scratching at his chest. He fell to the ground on the other side of the fence, jumped up as quickly as he could and ran like hell was chasing him across this new backyard.

There were four more gunshots, and Rio heard the four gunmen crashing through the bushes. He heard them hit the fence. The police sirens were hauling east on Lahainaluna, and Rio climbed over the next fence.

The gray-eyed gunman was across the yard, but Rio realized the police would be on the scene in seconds. He watched the gray-eyed gunman raise the machine gun like a rifle. Rio fell forward over the fence. He looked back and saw the gray-eyed gunman point a single vowing finger at him. Both realized the war was just beginning.

Rio checked the octagonal glass cylinder. The coral was still intact. He sprinted forward into the cool, green backyard.

Far on the Pacific Ocean’s eastern horizon the giant round sun crested the line where sea met sky. The breeze carried the salty fragrance of the sea. And the ocean’s waves roared on the surf.