“All the bodywork on the front end is busted up, and the windshield’s smashed. But it runs.” Sharkey was studying the printed form. “I could try this place in Waialua—Aloha Garage.”

“Let me know what they say,” Fujihara said. “We’ll look at their estimate. Oh, and”—he held out a small white pad—“would you mind signing this?”

“Is that some kind of form?”

Fujihara said, “Your autograph. For my boy. He’ll be stoked.”

“Does he know who I am?”

“I’ll tell him.”

When he had gone, Sharkey drove to Waialua, where at the body shop a man rolled from beneath a car and smiled, wiping his hands on a rag.

“How’s it?” he said. A name patch, KEOKI, on his pocket. “Park that bad boy over there. You here for one estimate?”

“Yeah.” He bumped the man’s grease-stained knuckles with his own, saying, “Joe Sharkey,” and waited a beat for a reaction.

“Nice car,” the man said. “Lexus. Ninety-seven. They make da kine good that year, braddah. Sales were bad so they put everything into that year’s model—more better parts, more safety, extra padding for quiet, leather. Good product.”

“It’s been carrying surfboards for the past sixteen years. And I had a little accident. What do you think?”

“If fix,” he said, and with an expression of sorrow shook his head from side to side, “it look humbug.”

“I’m here for an estimate,” Sharkey said.

The man frowned. “She totaled.”

“No—I just drove it here from my house. It needs bodywork on the front end and a new windshield. Pop out the dent in the door and fix some dings. It runs fine.”

The man was smiling, as though at Sharkey’s stupidity, being patient, taking no interest in what he said, waiting for him to finish.

“I make a report—it’s totaled,” the man said. “Then you get your money.”

“And what happens to this one?”

“I buy it.”

“So it’s not totaled?”

“You don’t get it, braddah.”

“Yeah, I do, Keoki.” The insurance company would compensate him—and he’d buy a new car. And Keoki would get the car he admired and would fix it. “You want my car.”

The man had not lost his smile. There was a streak of grease on his neck, his fingernails were black, his hair dusty and matted. As the two men stood face-to-face, in silence, a woman in denim overalls approached them, rolling a wheel she might have just repaired—the tire was new, with shiny black treads.