“Over there,” Sharkey said, and pointed at the waves illuminated by spotlights at the edge of the mansion’s property, the break off the Kahala reef, far-off bands of tumbled froth, feathery in the lights.

“You surf there?”

Hunter, leaning to see better, was pink, glowing with sweat, as though he’d been pumped up with a drug, his eyes looking boiled, his shirt torn at the neck, buttons missing, his pale belly showing. He clutched the empty Chivas bottle with both hands, as though steadying himself.

Seeing that Avery the sponsor had slipped away, Sharkey said, “I came here as a kid. The rich haoles here set their dogs on me.”

“You afraid of dogs?”

“No,” Sharkey said sharply, then softly, “Yes.”

“Where did you usually surf?”

“In town. Where I first learned—from a beach boy. An old guy, actually, Uncle Sunshine.”

“Waikiki?”

“Magic Island.”

“Fantastic,” Hunter said. He was stirred by the name. He muttered, working his jaws, keeping the words in his mouth. “I gotta see it.”

And it was then that Sharkey remembered that he had come to the party with Winnie, his recent girlfriend. He whistled for her.

“This is Winona,” Sharkey said.

“Tell him your name, honey,” Hunter said to the woman approaching him.

“Call me Honey,” the woman said, and gave Sharkey a kiss.

In the driveway, Sharkey thought, Always that feeling of relief when I leave a party, always the anxiety at arriving. The thought provoked by Hunter seemed the opposite: leaving, he looked defenseless, he was talkative, jumpy, furtive, seeming to look for reassurance, as though he’d been expelled, banished to the darkness of the street.

“Where are we?” he mumbled later, crouched in the car.

“Passing Diamond Head.”

The famous name calmed him, but still he stayed bent over, hugging the whiskey bottle, and he looked like a nervous child, now and then tugging at his baseball hat and still wearing sunglasses, peering at the road ahead.

Slightly tipsy, and buzzed from the pakalolo, Sharkey drove hunched on the steering wheel, overcautious and squinting into the glare of oncoming cars, Hunter in the passenger seat, grunting. Hunter’s girlfriend—she insisted they call her Honey—in the backseat with Winona, who’d come for the party and been reluctant to leave. The two young women talked in whispers, like spouses determined to be friendly out of respect for their men, deferential but strong, hoping to find something in common.

“Old lady wants to join a biker gang,” Hunter was murmuring.

At first Sharkey could not follow, there was no emphasis in the gabble, but he realized Hunter was telling a joke in a monotone.

“‘Got a bike?’ She says yeah. ‘Any tattoos?’ ‘Yup.’ ‘Ever been picked up by the fuzz?’” And the rest was a succession of grunts and throat clearings.

Sharkey said, “What was that?”

“She says, ‘No, but I got yanked by my nipples once.’”

“Hunter!” his girlfriend called out from the backseat.