The Curse of Lono - By Hunter S. Thompson Page 0,4

bag for a tube of Desenex, to kill the itching. There was no way to get rid of the blue dye.

"What?" he said. "It won't wash off?"

"No," I told him. "Maybe two weeks in saltwater can dull it out. Get out in the surf, hang around on the beach."

He looked confused. "The beach?"

"Yeah," I said. "Just go out there and do it. Tell them whatever you have to, call it a birthmark. . ."

He nodded. "Yeah. That's good, Doc -- what blue arm? Right?"

"Right," I said. "Never apologize, never explain. Just act normal and bleach the bugger out. You'll be famous on WaikikiBeach."

He laughed. "Thanks, Doc. Maybe I can do you a favor sometime -- what brings you to Hawaii?"

"Business," I said. "I'm covering the Honolulu Marathon for a medical journal."

He nodded and sat down, stretching his blue arm out on the couch to give it some air. "Well," he said finally, "whatever you say, Doc." He grinned mischievously. " A medical journal. Jesus, that's good."

"What?"

He nodded thoughtfully and put his feet up on the table in front of him, then turned to smile at me. "I was just wondering how I might return the favor," he said. "You staying long in the islands?"

"Not in Honolulu," I said. "Just until after the Marathon on Saturday, then we're going over to a place called Kona."

"Kona?"

"Yeah," I said, leaning back and opening one of my books, a nineteenth-century volume titled The Journal of William Ellis.

He leaned back on the cushions and closed his eyes again. "It's a nice place," he said. "You'll like it."

"Well," I said, "that's good to know. I've already paid for it."

"Paid?"

"Yeah. I rented two houses on the beach."

He looked up. "You paid in advance? "

I nodded. "That was the only way I could get anything," I said. "The whole place is booked up."

"What?" He jerked up in his seat and stared back at me. "Booked up? What the hell are you renting -- the KonaVillage?"

I shook my head. "No," I said. "It's some kind of estate with two big houses and a pool, pretty far out of town."

"Where?" he asked.

There was something wrong with the tone of his voice, but I tried to ignore it. Whatever he was about to tell me, I felt, was something I didn't want to hear. "Some friends found it for me," I said quickly. "It's right on the beach. Totally private. We have to get a lot of work done."

Now he was definitely looking troubled. "Who'd you rent it from?" he asked. And then he mentioned the name of the real estate agent that I had, in fact, rented it from. The look on my face must have alarmed him, because he instantly changed the subject.

"Why Kona?" he asked. "You want to catch fish?"

I shrugged. "Not especially. But I want to get out on the water, do some diving. A friend of mine has a boat over there."

"Oh? Who's that?"

"A guy from Honolulu," I said. "Gene Skinner."

He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Sure, I know Gene -- The Blue Boar." He leaned up from the cushions and turned to look back at me, no longer half asleep. "He's a friend of yours?"

I nodded, surprised by the smile on his face. It was a smile I had seen before, but for a moment I couldn't place it.

Ackerman was still looking at me, an odd new light in his eyes. "Haven't seen him in a while," he said. "He's back in Hawaii?"

Whoops, I thought. Something wrong here. I recognized that smile now; I had seen it on the faces of other men, in other countries, at the mention of Skinner's name.

"Who?" I said, standing up to get some more ice.

"Skinner," he said.

"Back from where?" I wanted no part of Skinner's ancient feuds.

He seemed to understand. "You know anybody else in Kona?" he asked. "Besides Skinner?"

"Yeah," I said. "I know some people in the whiskey business. I know some real estate agents."

He nodded thoughtfully, staring down at the long fingers of his freshly-blued hand as if he'd just noticed something odd about it. I recognized the professional pause of a man long accustomed to the sound of his own brain working. I could almost hear it -- the high-speed memory-scan of a very personal computer that would sooner or later come up with whatever fact, link, or long-forgotten detail he was waiting for.

He closed his eyes again. "The big island is different from the others," he said. "Especially that mess in Honolulu. It's like going back