The ride into Honolulu was brief, and Slim Jim couldn’t help but laugh at all the dumb jerks they left behind, running along, begging for a chance to get out of that hellhole of a field. They raised a cloud of black ash and dust as they trotted beside the bus. Mohr kept a close eye on his least favorite charge as they bounced and squeaked their way into town. But cops had been eyeballing Slim Jim for a lot longer than Eddie Mohr. He knew to keep himself clean, which meant staying in character. He regaled the men in the seats around him with the exploits from his previous visits to the body shops along River and Barretania Streets. Mohr eventually tired of his bullshit and tuned him out. Slim Jim kept it going all the way to the Moana.

“Would you look at this joint,” said Moose Jr., with real awe in his voice as they piled out in front of the hotel. Forty years old and fronting directly onto Waikiki Beach, the Moana had serviced some of the wealthiest tourists in the world before the war. Along with the Royal, it was one of the few grand structures in Honolulu. The coral reef that covered the floor of the bay had been smothered in sand dumped from barges in front of the Moana, so that the dainty feet of wealthy tourists wouldn’t be too badly cut up.

Ever since the Japanese raid in December, naval personnel had replaced the tourists, and barbed wire now ran along the beach, blocking access to the brilliant green water.

Slim Jim nudged Moose in the ribs. “What’d I tell you about officers, Moose?”

“To love, honor, and obey them,” said Mohr, punching Slim Jim in the back. “C’mon, Vladimir, the workers’ revolution can wait. We got barges to lift and bales to tote.”

The duty wasn’t excessively heavy. Mostly they had to ferry a lot of sea trunks and personal luggage out of the hotel and into a truck for transfer to graves registration. A couple of the former occupants did have some curious and inconvenient items, like the pilot who’d acquired an antique mahogany dining table on a tour of China and had somehow managed to carry it through two other postings. Moose, Slim Jim, and four other guys were needed to shift that baby.

As tempting as it would have been to pocket a curio here or there, Davidson knew not to tempt fate. Mohr had eyes in the back of his box-shaped head and he was a lay-down certainty to be watching like a hawk. No, Slim Jim was a patient crook, content to pretend he wanted nothing more than to escape the prison camp of the cane field. If he behaved himself and didn’t give the chief reason to get on his case, he might just get enough wiggle room to do some real business before long.