Read Online Chameleon by William Diehl - Free Book Online

with twenty- and thirty-foot breakers.
    Paradise.
    Everything was paradise. The night before, he had scored some unbelievable Maui grass. He had been shacked up at the Intercontinental Maui at Makena Beach for three days with a gorgeous model from London. In eight hours he was flying first class to LA. The next day he had tickets on the thirty-yard line for the Rose Bowl game, with an even thou down on Michigan plus ten over Southern Cal, the biggest bet he had ever made in his life.
    And here he was, in a rain forest on the back side of Haleakala, the ten-thousand-foot volcano that dominates Maui. He had read all about the Seven Pools of the Kings, which was supposed to be a sacred place where the Gods lived and where, centuries before, princes from all the Hawaiian islands had come in their outriggers with their entourages to be coronated king.
    Eddie felt like he was in an old Dorothy Lamour movie he had seen on television when he was a kid.
    He got out of the car and lit a cigarette. He was wearing a fringed suede jacket, Tony Lama boots, which lifted him to nearly five-nine, Polo jeans and a Stetson cowboy hat. Shit, it was bouncing his way. And about time. He watched a high school kid as he dove from one clear pool to the next, working his way down the mountainside until he reached the pond at the bottom. The kid rolled over on his back, spat water two feet in the air and closed his eyes as the spray from the surf splashed up over the rocks.
    Eddie had come a long way from swimming in the Harlem River when he was a kid. Goddamn! He was feeling good. And why not? He could afford all this now, could afford trips to paradise and London motels and pot at four hundred dollars a lid. In less than an hour he, Edward (NMI) Wolfnagle, once cashiered out of the Marines in disgrace, was going to be worth a cool hundred grand. What would Vinnie and the bunch back in Canarsie think of that?
    Hey, Vinnie, lookit me, ain’t I hot shit, cruising through paradise and tonight I’m flying first-fucking class to LA and tomorra I’ll be watching the Rose Bowl from the thirty-yard line and in a few more minutes I’ll have one hundred big ones in hard-fucking-cash in my two-hundred-dollar-fucking-hat.
    He yelled out loud, a good solid Texas geehaw.
    ‘Way to go, Eddie,’ he shouted to nobody in particular.
    He got back in the car and drove deeper into the forest, past other rented Hondas parked haphazardly around the small bathhouses near the road. A heavyset Hawaiian in a red print shirt and wash-and-wear pants stepped into the road and flagged him down. He showed Eddie a badge.
    ‘State police,’ he said in precise English. ‘May I see your license, please.’
    ‘Sure,’ said Eddie. ‘Anything wrong?’
    No, sir, just checking. I see you’re from the mainland. Better be careful if you leave your vehicle. Take all your valuables with you. There’s a lot of car theft in the islands.
    Young punks, y’know. Grab and run. That’s why none of the locks on these rentals work. They just bust ‘em open.’
    ‘Thanks, Officer.’
    ‘Yes, sir. We don’t want anybody goin’ home mad.’ He smiled.
    ‘Am I headed right for Mamalu Bay?’
    ‘Straight ahead another ten miles or so. You can’t go anyplace else. You’ll have to turn around there, though. There’s a road through the Haleakala lava field but it’s just for Ranger use. Very dangerous.’
    ‘I was planning to do just that,’ Eddie said amiably, and went
    Hinge parked his car before he got to the bridge at the Seven Pools and hiked up the mountainside to the edge of the Haleakala lava field, then followed it down to the bay at the end of the road. It was an easy hike, going ever the ridge that way, not more than three miles. And although it was hot and the humidity was high, Hinge did not sweat. Hinge never perspired.
    A few yards from the road he turned and walked back into the thick foliage. He sat down and took a paper bag from his coat pocket, spreading the