“‘You sent a pound of weed to me?’ He says, ‘No. Small, the box.’ I said, ‘If I’m busted I’ll lose my house. I’ll have to do time for that amount. They’ll kick me off the tour.’ He says, ‘I know I done a bad thing. I neva inten’ fo’ do it. But I wen’ wrapped it okay. Cannot smell.’

“I says to him, ‘Moe, for God’s sake, don’t do it again.’ And then he starts to make a whinnying noise and I think, What? He now sounds like a small boy with a big problem.

“I go, ‘What is it?’

“‘It nevah come! Maybe too small, the mail can.’”

“Careful,” Olive said, seeing that a car ahead had pulled over but not completely. It was tipped against a storm drain, part of it still angled into the road.

Sharkey tugged at the steering wheel, squinted ahead, cursed so softly it could have been a prayer, and swung his car around the protruding vehicle. She was reassured by his efficiency.

“The package of pakalolo he’s sent me hasn’t arrived. His plan was to intercept it and keep sending the weed to me—because after all I’m not home. But on the day of delivery there is no box of weed in my mail can, as planned by the genius.

“I says, ‘Are you sure it was sent?’

“‘Guarantee. My braddah have the receipt.’

“‘So where’s the pakalolo?’

“‘I dunno.’ And he made that whinnying noise again. ‘I know I done a bad ting.’”

“That’s mental,” Olive said.

“I assumed it had been seized. They have sniffer dogs. A big wrapped box from the Big Island can only be weed. A dog smells the box and they pass it to the feds. Dealing weed in that amount through the U.S. mail is a federal offense. I guessed it was a pound, maybe more. I could be facing serious jail time.”

“God, what did you do?”

“I cannot see a thing,” Sharkey said, flicking his high beams onto the rain-swept road. “I didn’t want to cut my trip short—the surf was huge—so I kept calling home. Moe’s always mournful. The package is nowhere to be seen, two weeks after it was sent priority mail from a neighbor island.”

“Weren’t you worried?”

“Petrified. I could not believe anyone would do anything that stupid.” He slapped the steering wheel. “Jail! Big fine! Seizure of assets!”

“So what happened?”

“I can’t see through this rain,” Sharkey said, beginning to shout—and his shout matched the force of the rain, which was a harsh sound. The rain was an odor too—of earth and roots—and with the window cracked open for air the dampness inside the car drenched them.

“The package of weed,” Olive said, to prod him.