After Wendell Lett snuck away, Kanani, keeping the lights off, changed into her dark denim overalls and sneakers. Charlie Selfer was still in the bar, and the camp was emptier by the day. It was high time to try looking at night again. She could only keep notes about Selfer’s mimeographed map so long, let alone keep it memorized, especially since Selfer had moved the map from its hiding place under the leather blotter on his desktop. She folded up her faint penciled notes into a pointy wad, slid that deep in her long front thigh pocket, slipped out the back and moved through the forest like a crab on the lookout for feral beach cats.

She first needed to get inside her boogie house bungalow. There was a baby revolver in there, from before the first World War most likely, but a gat was a gat. It came with the footlocker they’d provided for any eventuality, tucked in next to that opium pipe.

On the lanai, a sharp chill hit her, and she hoped she wasn’t getting a fever. She unlocked the door and moved through the main room in the dark.

The light clicked on, she screamed.

“Try stay calm, yeah?”

Frankie. He was lying on the chaise with the gold legs, his own legs hanging off one side and end like logs, his thick head and neck upright on the raised part. He wore those Army coveralls, still clean, and holster and knife on a web belt.

Her blood was pumping, sweat running down inside her overalls already. Stay calm, she told herself, stay calm. “You went scare me,” she said.

“No make ass, wahine,” Frankie said and smiled. The lamplight on his face reminded her how long and fair his eyelashes were compared to his kinky black hair, which he parted down the middle.

She tried a smile. It felt okay. “Ho, you making that chaise look like one baby bed,” she said. “You always big for one Philippine boy.”

“I’m Hawaiian. Just like you.”

“What you doing here?” She found the armchair, lowered herself into it.

Frankie didn’t answer. His slim purplish lips pressed together. He rose and moved around her, the floorboards creaking. When he was behind her he said, “Got one light?”

She shook her head.

“What in your pocket den?”

“Oh, right . . .” She pulled out the gold lighter, held it out.

“Who give you dat?”

She turned to him, scowling. “Miss Mae. Remember her? Den she went scram and I never see her no more. Dat no-good bitch owe me money.”

Frankie shrugged.

“You see her around?” she said.

“Nope.” He took her lighter, eyed it and weighed it in his hand, fired it up and lit a fat rolled cigarette.