"No shit?"
"No shit," I said. "Do you want the lights on or off?"
"Turn them off," Ivy said. "Let's celebrate."
The lights in my room went off.
Morning brought a blood-red sunrise over Maui. In the west a full moon was falling slowly into the sea. Ivy and I were finished with sex. Both of us were exhausted. Ivy took the nearest pillow and used it as a sponge to soak the sweat off her naked chest.
I looked over. "Finally-- Finally-- Have you had enough?
Ivy was exhausted. "Aw, god--. Yeah."
I stroked her thigh, then kissed it.
But then I got up and got out of bed.
Ivy almost panicked at the suddenness of my move.
"Where are you going?"
"The shower."
Ivy calmed. "Don't take too long."
An hour later I walked with Saundra Collins on the beach and told her, "A national park is just talk at this stage. There'll be a million public hearings before any decision will ever get contemplated."
"Because Smokey the Bear hates getting sued," Saundra said, grinning.
"A national park might be one alternative to more hotels."
Saundra picked up a seashell, rinsed it in the surf, then gave it to me. "A souvenir of Hawaii."
"Thanks. You're a beachcomber."
Saundra was gracious. "Thank you. That's just about the nicest thing anyone's said about me in years."
"D'you know the names of everything that washes up on the beach?"
Saundra laughed. "Not all of them, no. But most of them. Crazy, right?"
I didn't understand. "Why should that be crazy?"
Saundra focused on me. "Do you know the price of gold these days?" She indicated the seashell. "Well, what's the price of a seashell these days? When people lose their values, all they're left with is greed." She gestured at the whole wide world. "They think I'm crazy. I know they're crazy."
"That's the way you look at it."
"I won't look at it any other way. When I was growing up, my father used to tell people he didn't want to be the richest man in the cemetery."
"So what is important to you?"
"Living a good life."
"Have you had a good life so far?"
Saundra considered my question seriously. "I've been very lucky."
"Any family?"
Saundra nodded. "Oh, there's my husband and me. Our two boys are both grown men and moved away. A grandson and another one on the way--"
"What's your husband like?"
Saundra spoke carefully. "He's a good man. We've been married twenty-five years next month."
"And you still love him?"
"Oh yes. Very much."
I ate lunch in the Pier Inn and read a newspaper as I ate. Ivy came and joined me. Her eyes were wide and she seemed solemn. She had a brown paper bag in one hand.
"This morning, when you went in to take a shower, I needed a cigarette."
I said, "Yeah?"
"Your suitcase was opened." She opened the brown paper bag and showed me my Browning nine-millimeter. "I found your gun," she said.
"Thank you," I said. Casually I took the Browning from her and slipped it into my jacket pocket. I resumed reading and eating. But I wasn't reading anything and I wasn't tasting anything I was chewing. I may have looked calm and collected, but my mind was a roller coaster of conflicting emotions.
Ivy said, "After you dropped me off at my apartment, I followed you. With all the tourist traffic, staying close enough behind you not to lose you and far enough away not to be seen was easy."
I cursed myself for thinking I was in paradise.
"You stopped outside the Collins' processing plant. I saw you and Saundra Collins talking together on the docks. Then I watched you two walk away from the processing plant towards the beach, still talking together."
"We were talking about the national park."
She tapped the paper bag that held my gun. "You said National Park Service," Ivy said. "You said Smokey the Bear."
"People who cause forest fires oughta be shot."
Ivy snorted her disbelief and contempt for my answer. "Who are you?"
"Sometimes I get scared at night in a strange town. That's why I carry a gun."
"Then how do you know Flea Nichols?"