Restless Waters (2 page)

“Well, this is Hattie Keoki. One of your people is outside my house damaging our property, and we expect you to do something about it.”

I couldn’t be certain that I’d understood her correctly, due to what sounded like gunshots erupting like fireworks in the background.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about is your agent that’s here climbing around in our trees and breaking the branches. My husband wants him off our property this instant, or he’s going to shoot him,” the woman righteously informed me.

“Yes, I can hear that,” I responded as another round of gunfire broke out.

The only problem was there
was
no other U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent here on Oahu besides myself and my three-hundred-pound boss. And I damn well couldn’t imagine Norman Pryor trying to shimmy his way up a tree.

“Can you tell me exactly why this person is in your yard?” I questioned, curious as to what sort of wacko
would choose to impersonate a Fish and Wildlife agent.

“Well, for pity’s sake. I should think
you
would know that,” she huffed. “He rang our doorbell, showed his ID, and said he was here to catch some of those pesky alien species we’re always hearing so much about. We were happy to give him permission, but he never said a word concerning property damage.”

“Do you happen to recall the name on the ID badge?” I queried.

“Let’s see. I believe it said I. M. Kuhl.”

And that hadn’t made her suspicious?

“Why don’t you give me your address?” I suggested.

“We’re at 1171 Poloke Place, just off Tantalus Drive.”

Well, whadda ya know? It was right around the area that I’d planned to scope out tonight.

“All right. I’ll be there as soon as I can. In the meantime, would you ask your husband to please stop shooting?”

“Absolutely not,” Hattie Keoki adamantly asserted. “He’s going to pin your agent down and hold him hostage until we’re reimbursed for all damages.”

“In that case, I have to tell you that the man on your property is an imposter.”

“What do you mean by that?” she suspiciously questioned.

“He’s not one of our agents,” I replied.

There was a moment of silence, and then Hattie Keoki rapidly clucked her tongue like a pissed-off chicken.

“Ooooh. That’s bad. My husband is gonna be plenty mad when he hears about this.”

Hopefully not enough to make him haul out any heavier artillery.

I
hung up, stuffed my wet bathing suit into a plastic bag, and then headed for the parking garage to rescue my Ford Explorer. Sliding inside, I buckled my seat belt and threw the Explorer into reverse.

“Damn, damn, damn!” I cursed, having managed to sideswipe the concrete column next to my vehicle.

I leaned out the window and took a look. What I saw wasn’t good. Shocking pink paint that had been scraped off the column now ran down the length of my Ford. Oh well. People would either think it was an eccentric design, or that I was one hell of a badass driver.

Exiting the garage, I joined what was possibly the worst traffic on the planet. It stretched in one long conga line up and down the strip. The upside was that it gave me plenty of time to contemplate why I’d been sent to Hawaii to begin with.

At first, I’d had a hard time figuring it out. After all, this was the land of Jack Lord and Magnum P.I. It had seemed like a plum assignment. I liked to think that I was finally being rewarded for all my hard work. But any such illusion was promptly dispelled by my new boss, who’d called me into his office and immediately laid down the law.

“Nothing ever happens here. There’s no smuggling, no poaching. Only penny-ante stuff. Don’t sweat it—enjoy yourself. Just kick back, relax, and keep your mouth shut.”

Forget
The Stepford Wives
. Norm Pryor’s assignment was apparently to mold me into the perfect Stepford Agent.

“What am I supposed to do then?” I’d inquired.

“Go to the airport, check in with the inspectors, and keep busy with paperwork,” had been his response.

In other words, I was to be the equivalent of a Wal-Mart greeter, doing no more than sitting in the office and answering telephones. Considering that my territory included all of Guam, Saipan, American Samoa, Midway Island, and the state of Hawaii, surely
something
illegal had to be going on.

So far, all I’d discovered was a massive invasion of reptiles and amphibians. Alien to Hawaii, the voracious creatures were turning the state’s environment upside down. They were the equivalent of snakes in the Garden of Eden, wiping out nearly all of the native wildlife. Even more frustrating was that these aliens weren’t arriving here under their own steam power.

There are no naturally occurring reptiles or terrestrial amphibians in Hawaii; no snakes, iguanas, toads, or salamanders of any kind. Yet suddenly monitor lizards, veiled chameleons, and frogs were appearing everywhere. They were being smuggled into the state, along with rosy boa snakes, piranhas, and crocodiles.

As if that weren’t enough, they were then turned loose in the mountains and forests. The reason for this? In order to breed and colonize. From what I could gather, the master plan was to round up their offspring and ship them back to wholesalers on the mainland. Once there, the crit
ters were most likely dispensed to large pet store chains such as Animal World and Reptiles ’R Us. Good for kids, along with amphibian and reptile lovers, perhaps. But definitely bad news for Hawaii. The result was that millions of years of evolution were being decimated in one fell swoop.

Hawaii’s web of life was shaped by isolation. The island chain is the most geographically secluded place in the world. It’s twenty-five hundred miles away from the nearest land mass; too distant for any animal, amphibian, or reptile to swim to and survive. The upshot is that it took eons for each species of flora and fauna to arrive.

Seeds hitched a ride by clinging to birds’ feathers, while insect eggs were carried inside pieces of driftwood, or blown along by the wind. They evolved to fill thousands of niches upon landing in Hawaii. The resulting species are so unique that they’re found nowhere else in the world.

Many plants need no thorns since they’re living in paradise. Some bird species have lost their ability to fly. The adaptation made perfect sense: There were no predators on the ground and, therefore, little reason to flee. I suppose that’s what happens when you get used to dwelling in Eden. You eventually let down your guard. Instead, these species became mutually interdependent in a powerful show of cooperation. The downside is that it’s created a disastrous domino effect. Paradise left the door wide open for aggressive outsiders against whom they have no defense. The result has been nothing less than an ecological meltdown, which has turned Hawaii into the extinction capital of the world.

Hawaii is now home to one third of all endangered species in the U.S.—not to mention nearly fifty of which disappeared during the first twenty years of the Endan
gered Species Act. This has led scientists to label the islands a zone of mass extinction; an archipelago of the “living dead.” Replacing those once unique creatures are now cats, pigs, and chameleons, in what has amounted to the McDonaldization of Hawaii.

Crossing the Ala Wai Canal, I left behind the crowded beach and tropical ticky-tack of Waikiki to enter Honolulu, where half the island’s population resides. Its outskirts are lined with squat, colorless buildings, their facades as tired as worn-out fringe. The local poor live inside these two-and three-story barracks, bringing true meaning to the words “poverty in paradise.” I zigzagged through the traffic, feeling relieved as I finally turned
mauka,
toward the mountains, and began to drive inland.

Ahead stood the Ko’olau Mountains, their peaks reaching like fingers for the sky. A tsunami of lights twinkled on their ridges at night, as if they were fallen stars that had come to reside inside people’s houses.

I steered onto a narrow road and began the climb toward Mt. Tantalus. The foliage grew increasingly lush and green with each twist and turn. I headed deeper into the rain forest, leaving the urban jungle behind. Pavement was replaced by elephant-ear taro, stands of bamboo, pepper trees, and ficus. Trumpet-flower vines curled up along the tops of telephone poles to strangle the surrounding trees, whose limbs barely seemed to mind, seduced by their beautiful yellow blossoms.

I entered an old, exclusive neighborhood where the privileged class lives. One of these swank, mountainside homes had formerly belonged to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Two concrete lions silently roared, as if to warn me away from their gate. I paid little heed, too besotted by the heady perfume of ginger and jasmine flowers that filled my Ford. Their aroma must have worked like a
drug, for only at the very last moment did I catch sight of a large animal that raced across the road.

I abruptly slammed on the brakes, barely able to believe my eyes. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn it was some kind of mutant cat measuring at least four feet in length. The cocoa brown feline became illuminated in my headlights and then quickly disappeared back into the darkness.

I sat with my hands trembling on the steering wheel, wondering if I’d imagined the creature, or if it had actually been real. The only other explanation was that something had been slipped into my iced tea at the tiki bar.

I released the brake and continued on, vowing to pay closer attention to the road this time. The Ford agreed, its brights acting as searchlights, as we wound our way nearly to the top before turning onto Poloke Place. Hattie Keoki’s residence was the last house on the block.

I parked in the driveway and walked across the grass to the entrance of the sprawling ranch. Hattie Keoki opened the door before I even had a chance to knock, having been impatiently waiting for me.

A wiry woman in her late fifties, Mrs. Keoki wore wire-rim glasses and sported steel gray hair the color of a Brillo pad. She held her hands curled beneath her chin, like the paws of a nervous squirrel, as she carefully studied my ID.

“You better get out there and do something quick. My husband is tracking down your rogue agent and swears he’s gonna shoot him in the rear,” she said, curtly handing my identification back to me.

“As I told you before, he’s not one of our agents,” I calmly tried to explain.

“We don’t really care. He had a Fish and Wildlife badge, and my husband said that’s enough to make you
people responsible,” she loudly exclaimed, as though I were deaf.

I didn’t bother to argue, but instead took off toward the sound of gunshots, not wanting to waste any more time.

Tree limbs lay like fallen soldiers in the backyard. I crossed through their war zone and continued on, heading into the jungle. There was almost no need for a flashlight to guide the way. A moon the size of a truck tire hung big and heavy in the sky, its light shining down on a veritable fruit basket of guava, banana, and mountain apple trees.

I took a deep breath and nearly passed out, growing dizzy on air that was thick with eucalyptus mixed with the underlying stench of decay. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry about getting lost. I just followed the freshly broken path toward the sound of bullets.

Stands of tall bamboo creaked and groaned as they swayed back and forth. They seemed to sing, as if announcing my presence. The moon played along, its beams flickering through their fronds in a game of hide-and-seek. Even the ground joined in, having turned spongy as Jell-O after last night’s rainfall.

The dark sticky mud clung thick as molasses to the bottom of my shoes. It oozed and sucked at my feet, as if determined to hold me in place. I paid little heed, far too busy ducking and dodging philodendron leaves the size of dinner plates, which sprang up all around me. It was almost enough to make me believe that I’d landed in a remake of the movie
Jurassic Park
.

I didn’t watch where I was going and tripped over a root, its girth as thick as a wrestler’s thigh. At the same time, a strident screech tore through the dark, sending my blood pressure soaring.

KOKEEEEEEEEEE!

The sound, loud as a car alarm, ripped apart the fabric of the night.

It was produced by a two-inch tree frog, no larger than a quarter. A beloved mascot in Puerto Rico, where the coqui frog’s likeness adorns everything from glasses to ashtrays, it’s been condemned in Hawaii as an uninvited pest. The love-starved male’s piercing cries grew in number until there was an amphibian chorus reaching ninety decibels. I hurried deeper into the rain forest, my surroundings having turned into a child’s eerie fairy tale.

The jungle sprang to life as the spidery arms of a banyan tree now wrapped themselves around me, its long bony fingers plucking at my legs, my hair, my face. Caught in its web, I frantically tried to escape, only to have my feet break through a dense layer of matting. I sank down through its roots. It was as though the banyan were trying to eat me alive.

I was about to let loose a cry when a flicker of light in the trees up ahead caught my attention. Pulling myself free, I began to quietly slink toward it. What I spied was a different kind of bird from any I’d ever seen before.

This one had long, blond Rasta braids that were badly in need of shampoo. Attached to the braids was a teenage Caucasian boy. He sat, perched on a branch, wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt, with Maori tattoos on his limbs and a flashlight lodged in his mouth. Ooh, yeah. He clearly looked like your typical Fish and Wildlife agent, otherwise known as the ever-so-clever Mr. I. M. Kuhl.

I silently observed as he navigated a long pole with a hook on the end. He guided it with expert precision along the tip of a skinny branch above him. Then I spotted his target: a prehistoric-looking creature with a bony shark fin crest atop its head, four pencil-thin legs, and a supple prehensile tail.

A mind-boggling two-and-a-half feet in length, the reptile shone bright turquoise green in the moonlight. I rec
ognized it even from where I hid. The critter was none other than a veiled chameleon, which originated in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

The bad news was that not only can it snare birds in midair, but females will lay up to thirty eggs twice a year. In other words, this horny chameleon spelled big trouble for the remainder of Hawaii’s native creatures.

The kid skillfully finagled the pole so that the reptile was forced to step onto its end. Then he gingerly lowered the lizard, dumping it into a sack next to him, as it loudly hissed in objection.

I walked over to where two more bags lay beside a skateboard on the ground. Rasta Boy must have heard my footsteps, for he whipped the flashlight from his mouth and aimed it at me.

“Hey, leave those things alone! That’s my private property,” he angrily protested.

“Not anymore, they’re not,” I replied, and picked up the sacks. “You’d better come down here now. We need to talk.”

“Damn straight about that,” he seethed, sounding much like the captive chameleon.

Rasta Boy tied the burlap bag around his waist and carefully made his way to the ground. Then he once again removed the flashlight from his mouth, as though it were some kind of cork.

“I don’t know who the hell you are, but this territory is already staked out, and my boss doesn’t take kindly to trespassers. So if you’re smart, you’ll give me back my things and get the hell outta here, bitch.”

Rasta Boy tried to grab the bags from my hand, but I twisted sideways, neatly cutting him off.

“And if
you’re
smart, you’ll shut up and listen. I’m with law enforcement,” I told him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he jeered, clearly unimpressed. “Big fucking deal. I got ID too. So what?”

The moonlight glittered along eight little hoops that ran the length of his ear, perfectly matching the front gold tooth in his mouth. Wouldn’t you know? He already outdid me in the jewelry department.

“Listen, you idiot. I’m not fooling around. I’m a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

Rasta Boy showed all the respect he apparently felt I was due by flinging himself at me through the air.

If the kid was going to fight, he needed to learn better moves. I raised my knee and jammed it into his stomach as hard as I could, taking care not to hurt the chameleons. He yelped and doubled over, wrapping his arms around his waist.

I was about to open the sacks and take a peek inside, only to be surprised as he recovered and smacked me hard across the face with his open palm.