April 2: Down to Earth (28 page)

"So if you are from Home where's your foreigners pass?" he asked, patting the top of his breastbone, where they hung the way most wore them.

Adzusa explained how the Customs agent got in her face about it and how she'd burned the card into the floor. "She ended up with her hand still on her pistol in the holster and left the impression she'd just as soon melt him into the floor too."

"I wish I'd been there to see that," he said chuckling, "I'm not going to sell you no beer. I'm going to buy you one for that story." He pulled out a tall one and levered the cap off with some sort of small tool. It was comfortable at the counter, but sweat was running off the bottle immediately. He slapped food on the grill and disappeared for a few minutes while they talked. He came back as the fry baskets needed emptied and wrapped the cooking up.

When he turned around next there was only one sandwich on the beige oval plate and she reminded him gently she wanted another.

"I don't start the second right away. This one is perfect for your mouth right now. If I make the second at the same time it will be cooled down and not near as good by the time you get to it. It will be along about the right time you need it," he said with a wink. The fillet was hanging out all around the edges. It was in a hoagie bun brushed with butter and grilled until it had a nice crunch.

"Would you have some hot sauce?" April asked and he got a bottle from under the counter in front of her. "What sort of fish is this?" she wondered.

"It's Mahi-Mahi today. I use whatever my nephew catches," he informed her. She noticed he dipped another handful of raw onion rings in batter and dropped then in the oil, so they'd be fresh with the second serving. Adzusa went off to the ladies room and she made a quiet sign of finger to her lips to Sam and sneaked off to the back door to check something. When she got back a fresh beer was uncapped without request. She figured out herself that the one fryer off from the other two was for the onion rings only, to keep the taste separate.

After she polished off two sandwiches, rings, a mountain of coleslaw and both beers she leaned back and raised her hand to her mouth. Sam looked a little worried like maybe she was going to be sick, but all she did was politely muffle a fishy beer burp, that came all the way up from her toes.

"What ya got for desert?" she asked.

Sam smiled real big.

Chapter 24

"Honest April, twenty bucks is more than enough tip around here. If you throw your money around here, people will just think you're foolish, not generous."

"But that's part of my agenda to flash some cash on ‘em, besides reminding them who the hell whooped their butts."

Adzusa looked across at her briefly and then back at the road, chilled by what she had heard. She was hearing entirely too much truth and it was the beer talking.

"Hush up, beer breath. They probably put a bug on this truck when you bought it and are following every word. I wouldn't even be surprised if they have a drone following us too. The damn things can loiter at a hundred meters up and you can't see or hear them."

"Three bugs," April said and after a brief struggle got the right number of fingers up. "One on each bumper and one in the front dome light. And they did have a drone on us. When you went in the ladies room I ducked out and looked for it. Shows right up plain as can be, when you put the pistol sights in infrared mode."

"Dear Lord. What did you do to it?"

"Poof," April illustrated with both hands opening wide to spread fingers. "They aren't hardened very well."

"Didn't Sam say anything?"

"He just smiled, when he saw the flaming debris rain down in his pasture. I apologized for scaring the cows. That's when he gave me another free beer."

"Sam is one of those that would like to see a free independent Hawaii. He has some real loose and liberal ideas, including some real edgy moves in the import-export business. Now he'll have a recovery team on his land, to clean up after the drone. He doesn't need that kind of attention drawn to him."

"Well he seemed pretty darn happy about it. I bet he'll ask damages for it scaring his cows and sells the suckers lunch at the tourist prices. Does he use his nephews fishing boat for his smuggling?"

"You're as bad as him," Adzusa unknowingly complimented her. "You put entirely too much together too quick and you're going to get in trouble."

That reminded April of a similar warning Ruby had given her awhile back.
When two people tell you the same thing it's time to listen,
she thought. But what she said was, "Then maybe I should change careers, become a reporter." Adzusa seemed horrified at the thought.

Chapter 25

Adzusa's family home was down one of those scrapped dirt roads she had told April about. The noticeable thing about their driveway in fact, was that it was nicer than the road. She pulled up the drive and parked, in a small area near the house, with a couple sedans and a four wheel drive truck with a pickup bed. It was even higher, but not prettier than the Mercedes.

April noticed there was no perimeter or fence around the property and there were lots of trees and gardens around the house and its associated buildings, but Margaret had given her enough tactical instruction she also noticed the trees all had bare trunks near the ground, with no pine trees or other trees with low masking foliage. The driveway was also meandering, with a couple rock gardens in the loops, where it would have been easy to make it straight. Even with her Mercedes, April didn't think she could take a shortcut across the rocks. They looked more like tank traps than decoration. And beyond the cluster of greenery around the house, there was a band of bare grass at least a hundred meters wide before the trees started again. She'd sure hate to have to cross that, if somebody at the house had a decent rifle.

She also noted the house had no real out buildings. The sheds and garage were all attached in a cluster and there were plenty of windows overlooking every approach. She approved of it from a security viewpoint. It was a real bonus that it was on a rise, that lifted it from the surrounding woods at least three meters. She wasn't sure that was natural or graded.

When they got out a young man came out of the garage and approached them. He looked hard at the aikuchi in April's belt and the laser gun worn cross draw, before he nodded very gravely to them. She had been studying Japanese for months now, but the most she could understand was he asked Adzusa something-something about the service of April's sword. Adzusa replied that April was not her servant. With a start, April understood the man
was
a family servant. The first she had ever seen that wasn't in a historic video or old movie. April thought she understood the conversation enough she felt compelled to comment.

"I don't trust my Japanese enough to use it, but I want your man to understand, I'm not a hired gun, but if there was trouble while I was your guest I wouldn't stand back and ignore it, I'd support the household that was extending hospitality to me."

"You understood enough," Adzusa told her. "How long have you been working on that?"

"I've been mostly studying with Jeff when we are together for other things. He just about has me to the point where I can order in a restaurant and the help can make it to the kitchen to laugh, instead of bursting out with it right at the table."

"Then we shall help you along," she promised.

April didn't have any idea what to expect. She had read a great deal about etiquette and customs in Japan and didn't know if Adzusa's folks would have a Japanese style home with traditional furniture and mats. She was sort of reviewing it all mentally. She waited to see when they went in the back door if they would have slippers waiting for her or what. When she stepped in, it was more like a mud room in a Midwestern farm house. There was a low bench with shoes kicked off under it and not a slipper to be seen. There was a rubber backed industrial mat on the floor and a box in the corner beyond the bench, with umbrellas, a broom, garden markers, a walking stick carved from a crooked tree limb and a metal baseball bat that had a dent in it. A high shelf above had hats, garden gloves, a beat up paperback, some envelopes of seeds and a baseball glove with a ball jammed in the pocket. A couple slickers hung on hooks.

Adzusa kicked her shoes off under the bench, almost without breaking stride and April hurried to do the same and keep up with her. Inside was a surprisingly big kitchen, that looked like it belonged in a restaurant instead of a house, with a woman  working at a counter dicing something. Adzusa greeted her warmly, but kept on moving.
Another servant,
April thought. Two servants and a huge spread of land for Hawaii. April was revising her estimate of Adzusa's family. She had read the signs wrong on Home, that Adzusa must be middle class by American standards, but from what she was seeing they were quite well to do. She was irritated with herself, that she hadn't figured that out when she hit the end of the driveway.

They went out through a formal dining room, that had rather plain but tall European style furniture and entered a very large room that was set up for comfort, not formal entertaining at all. It had two groups of furniture, one group clustered around a huge thin screen on an inside wall and around a grand piano tucked in a corner that would have filled the Lewis living room on Home all by itself. A sun room that extended out of the side of the house with plants, had more casual furniture and a set of sliding doors let out to a small pool and a patio area with table and chairs.

Adzusa passed right through, just glancing to make sure April was keeping up and went to a tree shaded glass patio table set, where April was finally sure they had reached her parents. Her mother jumped up to hug her and she stood with her arm still around her mom and said, "These are my parents April. They know you of course from my work." It was an awfully informal introduction.

"Sit down, join us and relax," her dad invited. He got up and walked around the table, holding the white painted steel chair out for her. When she sat he scooted it in just right. Not like some people who take two or three tries to get it in far enough. Another young man in a white jacket appeared and silently set a plate and silverware for her, a napkin and then a place for Adzusa beside her.
Three servants,
thought April.
Very
well to do indeed, she realized.

"How should I address you?" April asked. "I'd rather just be called April if you are comfortable with that."

"I go by Lin which is a syllable in my Japanese name if you like," her mother offered. "We have a man servant Li, but everybody seems to keep us sorted out in conversation. They say Mama-Lin or such if there is any question."

"Well on the estate here, I usually go by Illustrious Lord or Benevolent Master," her dad suggested. "But if you want, most of Adzusa's friends end up calling me Papa-san and I've been known to answer to Hey-You. As you can tell we're not big on formality and don't try to run a Japanese style household. If we wanted to live like that we wouldn't have stayed on the island when I retired. We both went to college in California and have been back and forth three times over my working years and we like it here just fine." Both of them had the subtle signs of having extensive life extension therapy.

Looking around April could believe he liked it just fine. It was the most impressive private home she had ever been in. Adzusa got done hugging her mom for the third time and gave her seated dad a hug from behind, before coming around the table to join April. He just reached up and patted her arm affectionately, when she circled him. There was a pitcher of iced tea and she poured for April and April guessing maybe this was one of those Japanese customs they did retain, so she poured for Adzusa. But she didn't serve April, she took a bowl of fruit salad and spooned a serving for herself. But in all fairness, after seeing April eat lunch, she might have wanted to get some before April polished it off. April took the clue and served herself also. The man came back with a plate of cookies to go with the fruit. They were warm from the oven.

"That vest looks awfully stiff," her dad observed. "You're welcome to make yourself comfortable if you want. If you want to lay weapons on the table it won't offend us."

April though about it and looked over her shoulder at the tree line. It was about a hundred and fifty meters away.

"Silly me," her dad said. "I didn't realize. It's a ballistic vest isn't it?"

"Yes and it's cooled. But it does get tiresome."

"I'm sure it does. You should know we will be aware of any intruder, long before they can get to the edge of the grass. The sensors are way back in the trees and indeed on the other edge of the woods also. House," he instructed aloud. "Set the intruder alarm from silent, to be sounded in all areas until instructed different. Give us a sample right now just in the patio area."

There was a ding - ding – ding, that seemed to come from the bushes and near the doors.

"There. I'll leave that on for you. If you hear that, you know we have a problem. House, take a voice sample. This is April Lewis. She is a guest. She can enter any area of the house but our bedroom. She has rights to declare an emergency and lock herself in any room. She has rights to page anyone through you. She has access to outside com and data. You can share surveillance information with her. Go ahead dear."

"House do you have aerial surveillance capabilities?"

"Yes, both radar and optical. We buy feed off a commercial aerostat."

"Do you understand what a drone is?"

"Yes, an unmanned instrument platform that usually hovers and is difficult to track with human vision or hearing. Usually with flexible or ducted fans for lift and sometimes lighter than air cells. It may be stealthed for microwaves or lidar also."

"Could you tell me if we have any drones loitering within range you can detect?"

"There is a drone that comes within two miles of our southern boundary occasionally. It appears to do so as the edge of a pattern, that centers on an area further south. It has not changed the pattern in a statistically meaningful way in the last two months."