I shrugged. "Call it culture shock, maybe."
The ork snorted. "You call this culture? This is glitz, brah, pure and simple."
"That's what I mean," I told him. "I'm not used to this much money concentrated in one place."
"I got it now, Mr. Dirk." Scott laughed. "You want to see the other side of the coin, right? Okay, you'll get it." And he pulled the car back out into the traffic.
As soon as we were out of the Waikiki enclave, into the real Honolulu, I felt a lot more at home and comfortable. (Depressing, in a way, but there it is.) According to Scott, the official population of Honolulu is almost three million- just a hundred thousand or so less than Seattle's. That's the official figure, of course, in both cases. In Seattle, if you lump in the SINless-the homeless, the indigent, the transient, and the shadowy-the total rises to, depending on which estimate you believe, just short of four million to well over five and a quarter million.
The Honolulu number is probably an underestimate as well, but-cruising down its highways and byways-I couldn't believe that the difference between official population and real population was that great. Don't get me wrong, I did see vagrants and homeless types. (I made sure that Scott included appropriate places on the tour.) But they were nowhere near as numerous as in Seattle, or even in Cheyenne. There were some pretty drekky low-rent areas, and one or two ancient tenement complexes that prompted ideas of urban renewal using high-explosives, but there wasn't anything I'd really class as slums. And there certainly wasn't anything as squalid and soul-killing as Hell's Kitchen, Glow City, or the Barrens back in Seattle.
The most interesting thing about Honolulu, to my mind, was the proximity of the drekkier parts of town to the corporate heart. Around the intersection of King Street and Punchbowl Street, you've got the financial guts of the city, all pristine skyrakers and corp smoothies on the street. Less than half a klick away, there's the "vice shopping mall" that is Hotel Street, lined with sex shows, tough-looking bars, and porno chip outlets, populated by broken-down jammers of all four orientations (hetero and homo male, hetero and homo female), by chipleggers and flashmeisters, and by the fresh meat strolling by to do business with same. Even Seattle has managed to segregate the two facets of its economy a little more.
Hotel Street was the heart of Chinatown, according to Scott, but I didn't see too many ethnic Chinese on the streets. Lots of big slags and biffs who I guessed were native Polynesians and an almost equal number I tentatively labeled as Filipinos. As we cruised slowly by, I watched the action-contract negotiations of various sordid kinds-come to a stop as the participants stared at the Phaeton gliding past. There probably weren't that many Rolls-Royces to be seen in this neck of the woods, I figured. (Come to think of it, that slow cruise pointed out another difference between Honolulu and the underbelly of Seattle: nobody so much as took a potshot at the car.)
From Chinatown we headed west again, swinging past the airport, past the huge restricted area that was the Pearl Harbor military base, and into the region known as Ewa (EH-vah; Scott made sure I got the pronunciation right). As recently as thirty years ago, my tour-guide told me, Ewa had been a city in its own right, close to but still distinct from Honolulu itself. No longer: The larger city had sprawled out, eventually absorbing the smaller. (Much like Everett and Fort Lewis, now that I came to think about it.) Apart from the weather and the clarity of the air, as we drove the streets of Ewa I could easily imagine I was in Renton.
I checked my watch. We'd been cruising for almost two hours, and my stomach was starting to make growling noises again, despite the big breakfast. "I need a bite to eat," I told Scott. "And it's getting on to Miller time, too."
"The bar's fully stocked in the back," the ork told me, "and if you look in me bottom of the fridge there's food-"
"No," I cut him off, "I want to stop somewhere around here. Consider it part of the tour."
He smiled at that. "What do you have in mind?"
I told him, and his smile grew even broader. "Mo' bettah, brah, that's okay. I got just the place in mind."
The place was called Cheeseburger in Paradise, and it was in the grimy heart of Ewa. Scott told me the name as if it was a joke, but I didn't get it. He had to explain about a song by some dead country-folkie called Jimmy Buffet whom I'd never heard of, and by that time it wasn't really funny anymore. In any case, he explained. Cheeseburger in Paradise was originally a chain that had started up in Maui during the nineteen eighties, and eventually spread to the other islands. The chain had gone belly-up in the 'twenties, and recently this place had picked up the name as an ironic commentary. Something like a rat-bag flophouse calling itself the Hilton.
I felt at home the moment I walked in the door. Almost subliminal waves of tension, of intensity, of danger and violence only barely held in check, washed over me. In the semidarkness of the tavern, I could easily imagine I was back in The Blue Flame in Seattle, or even The Buffalo Jump in Cheyenne.
I went in first-Scott had wanted to lead, but I'd insisted-and I felt the eyes on me from the darkened booths and tables. The bartender, a grizzled ork with chipped fangs, gave me a welcoming sneer. From the rough direction of the dance stage-currently vacant, although the lights gleamed on something that could be oil on the worn carpet covering-I heard a muttered comment, something highly derogatory by its tone, and a harsh laugh. Yep, this was just the kind of place I was looking for.
The door opened again behind me, and I felt the looming presence of Scott at my back. Instantly, the feel of the place-the strange dynamic that you can always feel, if you're tuned in closely enough to your instincts-changed. I couldn't believe that the locals of Cheeseburger in Paradise knew Scott personally, but they had to recognize what he was, if not precisely who: a bodyguard, and a very competent one. I could feel the shift as the patrons quickly reoriented their perceptions of me.
I jandered across to an open booth, thinking about the gun on my hip as I walked. That's all it takes, really-just think about the heat you're packing, and where you're packing it. It changes your walk, the way you carry your weight, very subtly. Anyone with street instincts is going to pick up on that change and interpret it correctly. In a totally non-confrontational and non-threatening way, I'd made it abundantly clear to those who mattered that I wasn't traveling unheeled. Scott followed me, and we slid into the curved booth, sitting side by side with our backs to the wall.
A waitress-a hard-faced woman with black roots to her bottle-blond hair-was with us in a minute. "What can I get you?"
"Nothing for me," Scott started, but I shot him a look. He hesitated, then beamed. "Gimme a dog, then," he said.
I raised an eyebrow in question.
"Black Dog beer," Scott explained. "A microbrewery out Kailua way makes it. Real good, if you like your beer dark."
"I'll have a dog too, then," I told the waitress. She walked away without acknowledgment, but a few minutes later returned to place two half-liter glasses filled to the brim with dark liquid on our table.
I tried to pay, but Scott was too fast. "I'll get this one," he said, slipping some money-real folding money, which surprised me-to the waitress. "You got breakfast."
"Did I?"
He chuckled. "It got charged to your room, anyway." He glanced down at his glass. "I shouldn't be doing this, not on duty, but"-he grinned like a bandit, and raised his glass- "okolemaluna!"
I toasted him in return. "Whatever you just said." The beer had a nice head to it, and a sweet, slightly nutty taste. I took a second swig and nodded approvingly. "Good. How's the food here?"
By the time we'd finished our lunch-a large soyburger with Maui chips, two of the same for Scott-the afternoon crowd had started to roll in. A succession of dancers-quite pretty, most of them, and some could even dance-disrobed and strutted their stuff for the indifferent authence. As the patrons gathered along the bar and in the shadowy booths, I felt even more at home. Apart from style of dress and the preponderance of deep tans, these slags were almost exactly like the crowd that frequented my favorite watering holes in Seattle and Cheyenne. Hard-edged customers, most of them-totally at home in the reality of the streets, if not full-on denizens of the shadows. Many were packing-I could see it in the way they moved-and those who weren't looked as though they could more than hold their own even without a weapon.