"Dead fish," said Ba, debarking behind him. "I know that smell from village where I grew."
"You get used to the pilau after a while," said the tractor driver who'd come out to tow their jet into a nearby hangar.
"Don't tell me Hawaii always smells like this."
"Hell no. Didn't they tell you? It's been raining fish for the past two nights."
"Fish?"
"Yeah. You name it: tuna, squid, crabs, blues, mahi mahi, everything. Even a few dolphin. Raining out of the sky. And first thing every morning I've got to go out with the plow and clear them off the runways. Don't know why. Nobody's flying much these days anyway since all the tourists upped and went home."
"But raining fish?"
"It's the puka moana. It backs up at night."
With that he jumped on his tractor and started towing the jet toward the hanger, leaving Jack wondering how a whirlpool could back up. It wasn't as if it was a toilet. Or was it?
Frank led them toward the terminal building.
"Let's see what we can do about getting you guys a car."
The main terminal building looked like an Atlantean relic raised from the sea. Its windows and skylights were smashed, rotting fish and seaweed draped its roof and walls. Inside it was worse.
"Shee-it!" Frank said, waving his hand before his face. "Smells like a fish market that's run out of ice."
They trooped through the gloomy, deserted building, looking for someone, anyone. Finally they ran across a dark, middle-aged fat guy squeezing into a wrinkled sports jacket as he hurried toward them down a ramp. His badge read "Fred" and he looked part Hawaiian.
Jack waved him down. "Where are the car rentals?"
"There ain't. All closed up. Nobody to rent to."
"We need a car."
"You're outta luck, I'm afraid."
Jack looked at Ba. "Looks like we'll have to wait till morning, Ba. What do you say?"
Ba shook his head. "Too long away from the Missus."
Jack nodded. He knew Ba was feeling the time pressure as much as he; maybe more. He grabbed the guy's arm as he tried to squeeze by.
"You don't understand, Fred. We really need a car."
Fred tried to pull away but Jack tightened his grip on his flabby upper arm. Ba stepped closer and looked down at him.
"I can't help you, Mister," Fred said, wincing. "Now let me go. It's after five. It'll be getting dark in half an hour. I've got to get home."
"Fine," Jack said. "But we're new around here and you're not. And since you seem to be the only one around here, we've elected you to find us a car. And if you can't help us out, we'll be forced to take yours. We'll pay you a generous rental price before we take it, but we will take it. So where do they keep the cars around here?"
Fred stared at Jack, then up at Ba, then at Frank who stood behind them. Jack felt a little sorry for the guy, but there was no time to play nice.
"Okay," Fred said. "I can do that. I can show you to the rental lot. But I don't know about keys or—"
"You let me worry about keys. You just get us there."
"All right," Fred said, glancing up through one of the broken skylights. "But we've got to hurry!"
They could have walked. The rent-a-car lots were only a couple of hundred yards from the terminal. Jack used his Semmerling .45 to shoot a link out of the chain locking the gate to the Avis lot. The lot was littered with rotting fish—on the cars, between the cars, in the lanes—and so the stench was especially vile here. Fred's tires squished through the fish, sending sprays of rotting entrails left or right whenever he ran over a particularly ripe one. He drove them around the return area until they found a Jeep Laredo. Jack was ready to hot-wire it but didn't have to. The keys were in the ignition. It started easily. The fuel gauge read between half and three-quarters. That would be enough. Jack went back to where Ba and Frank waited with Fred in his car. He pulled out the Maui road map Glaeken had given him and pointed to the red X drawn above a town called Kula.
"What's the best way to get here—to Pali Drive?"
"You want to go upcountry? On Haleakala?" Fred said. "Now? With night coming? You've got to be kidding!"
"Fred," Jack said, staring at him. "We've only known each other for a few minutes, but look at this face, Fred. Is this face kidding?"
"All right, all right. I've never heard of Pali Drive but this spot you've got marked here is somewhere between the Crater Road and Waipoli Road. You take Thirty-seven, it runs right out of the airport here. That'll take you up-country. You turn left past Kula, keep to the left onto Waipoli Road, and it looks like it'll be somewhere off to your right. But there's nobody up there…except for the pupule kahuna and his witch woman."
Jack grabbed Fred's wrist. "Witch woman? Dark, Indian looking?"
"That's the one. You know her?"
"Yeah. That's who we're going to see."
Fred shook his head. "Lot's of strange stories coming down hill. Now I'm real glad you're not taking my car up there. Because you ain't coming back."
"We'll see about that," Jack said.
After Fred rushed off to drop Frank at the hangar where he planned to spend the night in his plane, Jack pushed a half dozen dead fish off the Jeep's hood, unzipped his duffel bag, and began laying out its contents.
"Okay, Ba. Name your poison."
He laid out the chew-wasp-toothed club Ba had given him, plus a .45 1911, a Tokarev 9mm, a couple of TT9mm nine-shot automatics, two Mac 10 assault pistols, and a pair of Spas-12 pump action assault shotguns with pistol grip stocks and extended magazines.
Ba didn't hesitate. He picked out the 1911 and one of the shotguns. Jack nodded his approval. Good choices. Jack already had his Semmerling; he added the toothed billy, the Tokarev, and the remaining shotgun to his own armament, then tossed a fifty-cartridge bandoleer to Ba.
"You ride shotgun."
Ba pumped the Spas-12, checked the breach, then handed it to Jack.
"No," he said, his face set in its usual mortician's dead pan. "I am a far better driver than you."
"Oh, really?" Jack repressed a smile. This was the longest piece of spontaneous conversation he'd been able to elicit from Ba all day. "What makes you say that?"
"The drive to the airport this morning."
Jack snatched the offered shotgun from his grasp.
"Fine. You drive. And try not to wear me out with all this empty chatter as we go," Jack added. "It distracts me."
They'd gone about half a dozen miles or so on Route 37—some of the signs called it "Haleakala Highway"—driving on stinking pavement slick with the crushed remains of countless dead fish. The outskirts of a town called Pukalani were in sight when Jack glanced back at the lowlands behind them. It was fairly dark below; lights were few and scattered; the airport was completely dark. He glanced beyond the coast to the strange-faced moon peeking huge and full above the edge of the sea, but when he saw the sea itself, his heart fumbled a beat and he squinted through the thickening dusk to confirm what he thought he saw.
"Whoa, Ba," he said, grabbing the Oriental's shoulder. "Check out the whirlpool. Tell me if you see what I see."
Ba braked and looked over his shoulder.
"There is no whirlpool."
"Thank you," Jack said. "Then I'm not crazy."
He wished he'd thought to bring the binocs so he could get a better look, but even from this distance in the poor light it was plain that the huge pinwheel of white water in the sea off Kahului Bay was gone.