“Turning on the AC. Hot in here, sister.”

She resisted remarking on the fact that he had just come from pigging it in his ragged tent on the beach, exposed to the morning sun. She said, “I’ll be delighted to turn it on, but in that case you can’t smoke. If you insist on smoking, we keep the windows open and the AC off.”

Frawley shouted into the backseat, “The wahine one hard-ass!” He lit a cigarette and said to Olive, “You see the original house?”

“That two-story house—yes,” Olive said.

“Was one story already when he bought it. He put on the second floor and made a major renovation.” And as they passed it, Olive driving slowly, the black dog stalking them along the chain-link fence, Frawley said, “He lived up top. He let all kine people crash on the first floor—surfers, homeless people, families from the beach. Was like a hotel.” He leaned out the window and yapped, mocking the dog’s bark. “Back then was no fence.”

“He didn’t charge them anything?” Olive said.

“No charge. He had overhead costs and they sleeping and sitting on his tangible assets! Some stayed for weeks, for months. That’s how he got the name.”

“What name?”

“Uncle, the rich haole.”

“They called him Uncle?”

“Out of respect. Even later, when he had no receivables, like the past few years, always Uncle. Maybe he got money now, passive income or something. Smart buggah.”

“The cop said he was bulletproof.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Why would he say that?”

“Ask the cop,” Frawley said. “The cops know him.”

Fonoti spat out the window and said, “Kind of insane, us showing you the Max world here. More better he showing you himself.”

To fill the silence that followed, Olive said, “But we’re here.”

“Keep going straight,” Frawley said. “To Makaha.”

“He lived in Makaha too?”

“No—we pay respects. Uncle Buffalo stay there. Plus his keiki.”

“Buffalo Keaulana?” Sharkey asked, lurching forward.

“Was his kupuna,” Frawley said. “Take this right.”

As Olive drove slowly through a grid of sleepy streets to a back road of small flat-roofed houses, Frawley leaned over to look out her side window. He squinted and said, “His car not there. Maybe in town. Keep going.”

Sharkey said, “Buffalo. I met him a few times.”

“He respect Max so much,” Frawley said. “And Max, he respect him back. Go mauka here.”

It was a side road, which after fifty yards became a country lane, jogging the car with its potholes, a scattered herd of cows swinging their tails and chewing behind a wire fence as they watched the slowly passing car.

“That van,” Frawley said. “Max stayed there for almost one year.”