Tomo had a flash. "That haole Quint—" He drank before speaking. "Jeremiah Quint and some redheaded haole and Ginny Hong the undertaker all together in the Pikake Lounge." He had another flash. "And she's fucking that resident deputy Ka’aina - " He then concluded, "If I had known it sooner ... "
Mad Dog was disgusted. "What would you have done, Tomo?"
They watched Lester park his truck and approach them. Tomo and Mad Dog passed Lester the bottle, and he joined in with the heavy drinking. The bottle was in constant motion.
Tomo said bitterly, to Lester, "Mother-fuck you, too, mother-fucker!"
"Hey, mother-fuck you, too," Lester said. "Whose truck is that?"
"I stole it," Tomo said. "Only way I could get up here because you and your kid fucked me over."
Mad Dog told Lester, "The Sheriff busted the farm tonight."
Lester was stunned. "The grass there is gone?"
Tomo outraged. "Hey, fucker, my grandfather's in jail because of you fuckers."
Mad Dog corrected Lester. "We didn't lose our crop, Lester, just part of it. We still got the garden and what's drying up at the shack."
Tomo asked Lester, "Is that blood on your shirt?"
"Some deputy attacked me in a bar," Lester said.
Mad Dog was losing patience with his son. "What did you do to him?"
Lester honestly didn't know. "I was putting the moves on some chick, and the fucker just attacked me, and all I did was break free and come up here." He crossed his heart. "Honest Injun."
Tomo asked Lester, "Who was it?"
"That big Hawaiian from down in Ilima. Eddie Ka’aina."
"Maybe this is part of the set-up against us," Tomo said. "This Ka’aina is the one fucking the undertaker woman."
Lester said, "She was with him at Suzsie's Sugar Shack."
Tomo said, "She was down at the Pikake earlier with some redheaded haole who was with Jeremiah Quint even earlier."
"Some redheaded guy." Lester said, "I bet it was him at the Sugar Shack, too."
Mad Dog said, "See, there you go." He bitched. "Jeremiah Quint set us up."
"Let's go get him," Lester said.
"How you gonna do that?" Tomo asked.
Lester asked, "Have we blown the deal with that lawyer from Hilo?"
Tomo looked blankly at him. "Jack Draper? Sure. We got no dope to deliver."
Lester said, "We gotta have a crop to sell, right? So we hit Quint and we take his crop."
Tomo didn’t get it. "But he sold already, got his money already."
Mad Dog said, "Let's go get his money."
"We oughta," Lester said.
Tomo was lost in drunkenness. "Why?"
Lester said, "Hey, he fucked us!" Then he roared with anger. "Fuck him!"
Tomo could be just as rowdy. "Fuck him dead!"
A blood-red sunrise rose over the island.
Rafferty drove his rental with its sunroof open fast down a country dirt road alive with ruts and rocks. He reveled in the warmth of the islands.
But as Rafferty drove closer to the Quint house, with one hand on the wheel, he closed the sunroof.
When he saw red reflector tape wrapped around two palm trees on either flank of a side road, Rafferty spun the steering wheel hard and drove his car off the main dirt road onto this side road. He started tooting his horn madly.
Rafferty drove down the side road past the posted sign that read "KAPU. NO TRESPASSING."
The road made a half-turn, then swung right and began climbing again. At the Quint house Rafferty left his rental encircled by peacocks who were screaming horribly enough to curdle blood. Rafferty walked towards the Quint family home, then saw both pit bull terriers were dead, shotgunned.
Rafferty ran towards the farmhouse. He found Jeremiah Quint dead by the screen door. Still wearing yesterday's clothes, Jeremiah had been shot twice. Once in the small of his back, and then the back of his head has been blown off. A handgun was in the dirt beside him.
The side door had a shotgun hole, and the locks had been blown off.
The door had been kicked in.
"Audrey!" Rafferty called.
Desperately, Rafferty raced upstairs and into the master bedroom. Audrey Quint and her baby were dead in an upstairs closet, both shot with a single blast from a shotgun.
In the next room, the children’s room, Rafferty found Summertime, the retarded child, dead in his pajamas near his bedroom window.
Rafferty was filled with horror and anguish.
He fell back against the wall and let the pain flood him.
Then, hearing a door downstairs slam shut, Rafferty ran to the stairs and took them three at a time.
Rafferty met Jimmy Quint in the kitchen. Jimmy was weeping, bawling his anguish. Jimmy wore only cut-offs and tennis shoes. He held a hand gun limp in one hand.
Rafferty spoke with studied calm. "Jimmy, it's me, Terry Rafferty."