Broken Symmetries, page 9
When Anne-Marie emerged a minute later she found the young woman standing with her back to her, blocking the hall, her arms crossed under her heavy breasts. Hey sat facing her on the worn plastic couch in the living room. Dusty surfing and football trophies stood on top of the television set. On the wall was a color photograph of a group of musicians and dancers in traditional Hawaiian costume.
The woman moved aside as Anne-Marie came up beside her. “You okay?” she asked, with what sounded like real concern.
“I’m very sorry to push in on you like that.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” The woman’s dark eyes swept knowingly over Anne-Marie’s midsection, then returned to her face. “I’ll get you some hot tea.”
“Really, there’s no need…”
“You sit down with your husband.”
“We’re not married,” Anne-Marie said quickly.
The woman laughed. “Me and Dan aren’t married either. Makes my parents real unhappy, but I tell them, if God is love, He’ll understand.” She went down the hall to the kitchen.
Anne-Marie glanced at Hey, who was grinning at her foolishly. She followed the woman into the kitchen and found her putting a stainless-steel kettle on the gas stove. “I mean, my husband is in California,” she explained. “I’m working as a photographer for Mr. Hey’s paper.”
The woman turned to her. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. My name is Ana.”
“Mine’s Anne-Marie. You’re very kind.”
“I don’t see very many people these days. Dan stays away from people.”
“Who are the dancers in the photograph?” Anne-Marie asked, not wishing to pursue the question of Dan Kono—that was Hey’s business.
Ana smiled. “I’m one of them. I look different in a ti-leaf skirt, huh?” She cast a brief deprecating glance down at her faded muumuu. “My parents have a dance troupe, they dance at the big hotels. I used to be in it.”
“Why did you give up dancing?”
“I didn’t give it up, I just don’t dance for haoles anymore.” She looked up at Anne-Marie. “Except my friends.” She changed the subject. “You really a photographer? Not like the ones who used to come around after Dan, for sure.”
“I’m just getting started again. I used to take pictures before I was married, when I lived in Europe.”
“A real world traveler, huh?” Ana smiled. “Maybe you better slow down now, Ana-Melia.”
Anne-Marie said nothing. The water was boiling. Ana poured it over tea in a round pink unglazed pot. After a few moments Ana poured the tea into a chipped china cup and handed it to Anne-Marie. “Healthy,” she said, smiling. “Full of secret Hawaiian herbs. Don’t you laugh.”
Anne-Marie took the cup from Ana’s strong, gracefully upturned hand. She felt a rush of gratitude for the young woman’s kindness, so immediately and unconditionally offered. For the moment it didn’t matter if the offer arose from the woman’s loneliness, or because Ana imagined that she had perceived some kinship between them; for the moment the whole relationship was contained in the warm, complicated flavor of the tea.
Anne-Marie heard the front door open. Alarm flickered across Ana’s face; she put her teacup down and hurried toward the front of the house.
Anne-Marie followed. From the living-room window they could see Gardner Hey on the lawn, watching a Toyota Land Cruiser back into the driveway, pushing behind it a high-prowed fishing boat on a two-wheeled trailer. The boat was made of plywood, painted bright blue and white, the colors of the sea; the Land Cruiser was a sun-dulled beige, streaked with rust the exact hue of volcanic dirt.
Two men were in front; the driver glanced at Hey, then ignored him as he steered the boat and trailer into the corrugated-iron shed. When the car stopped Hey stepped forward. “Mr. Kono, I’m Gardner Hey, with Science Weekly. I’m here to cover…”
The driver opened the door in Hey’s face. He was a tall thin man; his naturally dark complexion appeared unhealthily sallow, as if he’d been spending too much time indoors. His black hair was curly, and he had a sparse beard, a would-be Vandyke.
Inside the house, Anne-Marie raised one of her cameras in her right hand and reached to move the curtains aside with her left.
“That one, you don’t take his picture,” Ana said sharply, reaching in front of Anne-Marie to catch her hand.
“That’s not Dan Kono?”
“Luki, his brother.” Ana was gently urging Anne-Marie away from the window, still holding her hand. “Dan’s with him. Better you put the camera away now. Maybe Dan will let you take his picture another time.”
Anne-Marie supposed a hard-boiled press photographer would have ignored Ana and started clicking away, but she did not protest.
The real Dan Kono got out the other side of the vehicle and joined his brother in unhitching the trailer. He was taller, heavier, and much darker than Luki. His beard covered his jaws and chin, and he wore dark glasses and a ragged straw hat that covered most of the rest of his face. The dog, which had emerged from under the house upon the arrival of the Land Cruiser, now joyfully pawed and slobbered over Kono’s bare brown legs and tough bare feet; Kono ignored the dog. He and Luki lifted the trailer from the hitch and rolled the boat to the back of the shed.
Hey watched impatiently as they hung up the oars and fishing tackle. “Look here, Kono, maybe you never heard of my paper, but we’re legitimate. Do you want to see some ID?” He was still addressing Luki. “TERAC is celebrating its birthday Monday, did you know that? That’s why I’m here. You had a lot to say about TERAC once.”
Dan Kono did not even glance up as he finished securing the boat’s little outboard motor. The saturnine Luki looked at Hey without apparent malice, but with no more interest than he might have shown a lizard.
Gardner Hey’s blond pigtail quivered indignantly. “You can’t stonewall me, Kono,” he said to Luki. He moved to block the men’s exit from the shed. “You let a lot of people down. I think you owe them an explanation.”
Luki lifted a burlap sack out of the bottom of the boat. Something in it flopped and struggled. “You in my way,” Luki said reasonably, gently but irresistibly pushing the smelly sack into Hey’s chest until Hey stood aside. Luki and Kono walked past Hey toward the front steps. The dog tangled itself in Kono’s feet and was bumped aside roughly; it barked reproof.
Hey’s pale face suffused with blood. “I know you were bought, Kono,” he said loudly. “I guess I’ll be able to figure out who did the buying without too much trouble…”
Dan Kono stopped, one foot on the lowest step; he half turned toward Hey, but did not look directly at him. “All this time you been talking to the wrong man, reporter. Looks like you can’t figure out much of anything.” He turned to his brother. “Go inside, Luki. I be a minute.”
Luki did not move. He continued to watch Hey with apparent detachment.
“Luki!” Kono said sharply.
Luki spread his arms and shrugged. The burlap sack thrashed. Luki grinned, and still did not move. Goaded by his brother’s intransigence, Dan Kono lost control of his temper, slowly at first, then with heavy acceleration, like a stream bank crumbling in the rain. “Get off my land, reporter.” He moved toward Hey. “Or maybe I throw you off right now.”
“You can’t threaten…”
“Damn snoop!” Kono charged him, and Hey tripped over his own feet trying to back up. He sat down hard. Kono was on him; Kono reached down and took a twist of Hey’s shirt collar in one enormous brown hand, the back of Hey’s waistband in the other.
Hey’s feet pedaled air as Kono marched him across the lawn to the Datsun and threw him against the door. “Get out!” Kono slammed his huge hand down on the fender of the little car, his fingers spread wide, leaving a five-fingered dent in the thin sheet steel. Hey, now pale with terror, scrambled into the passenger side of the car and jerked the door closed behind him, rolling up the window as quickly as he could.
The little dog was standing in the middle of the yard, barking frantically in the general direction of the commotion, but afraid to look anyone in the eye. A flock of mynah birds flew down to join the chorus, yawking and strutting.
Ana charged across the yard; the dog yipped and scurried out of the way. “Uoki, Dan! You end up in jail again.”
Anne-Marie stepped tentatively onto the porch behind Luki. Startled, he flinched away from her and dropped his sack. A dozen silvery little akule flopped out onto the porch.
Meanwhile Hey had squirmed into the driver’s seat and started the car; he forced it into gear with a clang and popped the clutch, spinning the wheels on the sandy shoulder. The car lurched onto the highway, weaving erratically.
Anne-Marie ran to the edge of the road in front of Kono and watched the little red car dwindle in the distance. “I don’t believe it! He forgot me.”
“Who the hell is this?” Kono demanded of Ana, glowering at Anne-Marie.
“You leave her alone, she’s okay,” said Ana, stepping protectively in front of Anne-Marie.
Kono opened his palms and shrugged. “Sure she’s okay, Ana. I just want to know who she is. And what’s she doing with those cameras?”
“Nothing, she don’t want to leave them in the car, that’s all, Dan,” Ana said quickly.
“Good idea. Some local boy might steal ’em,” said Kono sarcastically.
“I can’t believe he forgot me, that—pig,” said Anne-Marie.
“You don’t worry, Dan will take you home,” said Ana. Kono looked at her incredulously, but she ignored him. Then, half a mile away, the red car skidded to a stop and began backing up along the narrow shoulder, trailing white coral dust. Anne-Marie sighed with relief. The car bounced to a stop a dozen yards away, keeping its distance from Kono.
Anne-Marie turned to Ana. “Thanks for everything.”
“Maybe we see you again, huh?” Ana looked hopeful.
“I hope so.” Anne-Marie marched determinedly toward the Datsun, clutching her cameras in both hands.
“Hehena!” Kono snorted. “Crazy haoles.”
Anne-Marie tugged twice at the locked door before Hey remembered to unlock it from inside. As she slid into the seat she heard Luki shouting after them: “And don’t come back, reporter, or my big bruddah ram an oar up you haole ass.” He giggled gleefully.
Anne-Marie peeked at Hey as he busily accelerated away from the disastrous attempted interview. He refused to look at her. She looked away at the dry cool landscape of dead rock, holding her hands to her burning cheeks and trying not to laugh out loud.
12
Peter threaded the narrow back streets of Waikiki and turned into the narrow drive of the Halekulani Hotel. The old hotel’s quiet gardens and bungalows had succumbed to the wrecker’s shovel, victims of inflation and the state tax collector’s distorted notion of “best use” of the land, but the rambling colonial main building remained. Peter left his car with the valet and went inside.
Visiting scientists and a few of the better-living reporters mingled with the other guests in the open lobby, with its floors of polished ohia and its pillars of dark lava. After the lavish Kahala Hilton, the Halekulani was the hotel of choice for island visitors with taste and means. Peter made a quick scout around and did not see Anne-Marie. He went to the desk. “Pardon me, is there a message for Peter Slater?”
“Are you a guest, sir?”
“No, I’m meeting someone for lunch here. Miss Anne-Marie Brand.”
“Oh yes, I know the lady you mean,” said the trim, middle-aged clerk. “She’s with Science Weekly, isn’t she? She and her friend over there?” He nodded in the direction of a small library off the main lobby, where Peter could see a short man with a blond ponytail hunched over a telephone, shielding its mouthpiece with his hand.
“I wouldn’t know about him,” said Peter. “But if she inquires, would you tell her I’m on the lanai?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Peter walked to the terrace, doing his best to be casual while avoiding the people he recognized. There went the man from the Times, the affable gray eminence of science reporters, one of the few writers Peter could remember by sight. But he also recognized two or three of his colleagues from Europe and the east coast, and he was not here to talk physics. The sight of them reminded him that he had agreed to deliver a background talk on grand unified theories to interested science writers, sometime during the coming week. He hated these affairs, but public-relations efforts were essential to the survival of an institution like TERAC, and all staff members were expected to pitch in. He successfully eluded his acquaintances and reached the terrace bar.
The view from the Halekulani’s Diamond Head Terrace was precisely that view which had become Waikiki’s trademark, the silhouette of the volcano’s eroded cone thrusting out into the blue Pacific, past a curve of yellow sand fringed by arching palms. Peter sat in the shade of a gnarled hau tree and sipped a gin and tonic, trying to imagine what it would have been like to have been here in the 1930s, Waikiki’s heyday. He failed in the effort—all he could see over the edge of the terrace was bodies lying scattered on the beach, pale lumps of seared flesh, seeming victims of some unnatural disaster. In the thirties there had been only a handful of hotels near the beach; those packed bodies on the sand were both cause and effect of a grim metamorphosis. By shifting his gaze just a little to the left Peter could see, flatly lit by the midday sun, the ugly towers which daily sucked the tourists in and spewed them out again.
A man loomed over him. “Peter Slater? I’m Gardner Hey, Science Weekly.”
Peter squinted up at the reporter, who’d ambushed him out of the sun. Hey was already pulling out a chair, seating himself without invitation.
“Heard you were looking for Anne-Marie. Anything I can help you with? I think she’s out there soaking up rays with the rest of the bodies.” Hey leaned across the table and offered his hand.
Peter took it with the limpest possible enthusiasm. “Hello,” he forced himself to say. For Anne-Marie’s sake he avoided the brutal curtness he would normally have employed against such presumption.
“I guess you don’t remember me,” Hey said with sour satisfaction.
“Uh, didn’t I see you at Martin’s house last night?”
“Not what I meant. I interviewed you about intermediate vector bosons—because you predicted the precise mass of the Z-zero. But that was after they finally found it at CERN.”
Peter was one of several theorists who’d suggested the mass of the Z-zero. He’d been interviewed by several reporters after the particle had been found, reporters who cared little for the scientific implications of a theory which allowed such precision; instead they’d wanted to know why the Europeans had beaten the Americans to a significant discovery yet again. “No, I don’t remember you,” said Slater bluntly.
“That’s okay, I understand.” Hey beamed. “Well, Slater, this is a real break for me.”
“Oh?” Peter looked away and raised his gin and tonic to his lips; he took a sip and then became conscious of Hey staring thirstily at his glass. He lowered it and signaled the waitress.
“Yes, sir?”
“This gentleman will have…?”
“Make it a Mai Tai, hon.”
“My tab,” said Peter. She nodded and left.
“Thanks, you can write that off, right?” Hey settled into his chair. “I’ve been looking for people who can help me get a really good deep background on the inside story at TERAC. Who could be better than you?”
Peter was silent a moment. Then he said, “What do you want to know? I’m giving a talk to a group of you people Monday night. Or Tuesday night, I forget which.”
“Yeah, I know all about that. I’ve done my homework, Slater. In fact, I have a degree in physics myself, did you know that? NYU.”
Peter murmured something wordless, meant to be polite. Degrees were less important than apprenticeships, affiliations. If Hey held a dozen advanced degrees he’d still be a reporter to Peter.
Hey leaned closer across the table. “I didn’t see many Japanese at Edovich’s place last night. How’s he getting along with them? With Yamamura, especially. You’ve got the world’s biggest proton linac out there—isn’t it true Yamamura wants to use it to produce antiprotons and nothing else?”
“What do you mean?” Peter asked.
“Pure antiprotons, you know. For rocket fuel, or explosives, something like that.”
“Sensei Yamamura heads the applications division,” Slater said stiffly. “I suppose he’d like to see more time devoted to his own projects. But he’s only one vote on the planning board.”
Hey produced a portable cassette recorder from his hip pocket and set it on the table between them. “You don’t mind? So I get the facts straight. No quotes unless you say so.”
Peter didn’t know on what grounds to object, other than those of simple courtesy, which he doubted Hey understood. He shrugged at Hey. “I don’t believe in secrets.”
Hey grinned wolfishly. “Neither do I. So what would Yamamura do with this stuff if he got his way? Build a Jap bomb?”
“The Japanese won’t touch weapons technology, Mr. Hey. Don’t tell me you’re not aware of that.”
“Oh, I know the party line. But they don’t look like such moral types close up.”
“Their reasons aren’t moral, I’m sure. Why should they give their Asian markets a scare? Or give the Russians an excuse to get tough? What’s in it for them, Hey? We’re the ones who’re pushing them to spend more on defense—after we dictated their constitution, which forbids it. It’s a question that’s brought down more than one government in the past twenty years.”
Hey grunted. “All right. It was just a flyer. What about space?”
Peter said, “That’s plausible, if you’re writing fiction. Yamamura’s allegiance is to MITI, the big bureaucracy that coordinates industrial effort and marketing. Energy is one of their main concerns. Space could help them there. And a Japanese space program could produce unique industrial products.” Peter grinned coldly. “Sure, there’s a plot for your next novel. But it’s worse than science fiction, Hey; it’s fantasy—there’s no way a plasma of antiprotons can be stored, except in a ring like TERAC’s. Hardly portable.”
