There was no time for that now. Frankie had been looking for Miss Mae at her bungalow near Kona Town. And if he saw her here? He’d know that she knew. She and Frankie both had cooperated with the Military Government during the war. Frankie was even on the payroll of Police Chief Gabrielson when he wasn’t in bed with US intelligence. Playing all sides. Informing. He was smuggling too, because he knew when they would and would not be watching. Cooperating with their clampdown only made things like prostitution and gambling easier on the sly, as long as you pretended to go along with their hard set of rules in Chinatown, that was. When Chief Gabrielson found out she and Miss Mae were trying to open a boogie house outside of their red-light district, the chief threatened to beat her good once martial law was done with her. It was always easier for men. Frankie meanwhile helped run the sailors’ favorite cockfighting ring on the south shore of Oahu and made even more dollars that way despite the cops’ hefty take. Cockfighting wasn’t illegal before the war, but martial law changed that, too. Now it wasn’t a crime unless the police chief didn’t get his cut. The bare truth was, the Territory was learning how to deal and operate like the mainland and there was no turning back. She and Frankie had teamed up at one point for this and that racket. He liked her. He made his play for her, he wanted his hands on her. But she had kept him at bay. Then Miss Mae told her about The Preserve.

For a moment last night, her night terrors had intensified and a kind of delirium set in—and she considered the prospect of joining with Frankie for good. She shook it off. Not a chance, she told herself. It would be going backward. Sure, it sounded like a prime opportunity for a secret pact between locals, but it really, truly was nothing of the sort. Frankie’s showing up here could easily backfire. Frankie was too close to them. Who knew what he was promising them? What they were guaranteeing him? The moke was smart but even he had no idea what he was getting into. This wasn’t Police Chief Gabrielson, not even Military Government. This was something bigger and darker, from that same mainland ambition that grabbed the land with a promise then tore up the guarantee, laughing and spitting in your sorry brown colonial face.

Gotta keep moving, was what Wendell always said.

She threw back her whisky down in that living room pit.

She heard someone talking. She sat up in her rattan chair. Set her glass down on that barrel of a table.

Charlie Selfer strode in. He wore another handsome aloha shirt, pressed trousers, those white leather sandals of his.

She smiled.