“Not yet. Just that once coming out of that tunnel. But I can feel him.”

Kanani rocked in place, hugging herself, still thinking. He let her think.

“Selfer did say there are new bosses, big kahunas, more secret,” she said eventually. “Sounds to me like some kine transaction happened.”

A transaction. That made Lett think of Lansdale’s big haul in the Cagayan Valley, visited by MacArthur, like an inspection. A new arrangement. Old deals nullified.

He remembered what Miss Mae had told him. She knew things. She’d learned they planned to assassinate someone so important she could not say his name. Then? Big confusion. They use the chaos. The people feel weak. They take over.

His chest ran hot, a bed of coals, his heart the fire.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Miss Mae,” he blurted. “I saw her.”

Kanani’s face lit up in a smile, but he doused it fast enough. He told her about his mission to Honolulu. He even told her what he had done. “I think she ended up knowing too much for her own good,” he said.

“You’re an angel,” Kanani said. Her eyes welled up, and she touched at one with her index finger to keep the tears in. “I owe you even more, Wendell Lett. You always help me.”

“You want to repay it? Save yourself. Drop this gold hunt. Get Selfer to transfer you somehow, if he even can. Or just run. You’re playing with fire.”

“Haven’t you heard? We’re surrounded by live volcanoes,” she muttered. “Madame Pele.”

“Who?”

“Hawaiian fire goddess. No mess with Pele. She mess with you.”

He shook her, gently. “Listen to me. If they find out? They’re gonna do to you what they were gonna inflict on Miss Mae—and she thought she had a deal.”

Her face hardened, and she raised her chin. “Frankie must’ve cut a better deal,” she said. “More money.” But her voice creaked. Her chin gave in. The tears pushed out and rolled down her face, bright lines in the dim light.

Lett brushed her hair with his fingers. He set an imaginary red plumeria behind an ear. She chuckled through sniffles.

Lett said, “I tell you one thing, right here and now: I will not complete the treatment.”

“What does that mean? Speak English.”

“I won’t do their dirty work for them. Get blood on my hands when it’s really on theirs. I will never use violence again. Ever. I will never fire their weapons. I vowed that to Heloise a long time ago. I owe it to Holger Thomas.” And to all of them, to all his friends who had helped him. To her, the little German girl. If he only knew her name, he thought, and now the tears welled around his eyeballs, heating them up, too.

“Oh. Now you are really talking lolo,” Kanani said.

“Call me crazy. I don’t care.”