The Curse of Lono - By Hunter S. Thompson Page 0,51

were the words Phillips used.

At the same time the news of the death of Chief Kalimu off Waipunaula arrived with the four canoeists who had witnessed the shooting, and spread with the speed of sound through this emotionally charged gathering. They closed in, two or three thousand already, the sound that had once been like a distant murmur now rapidly growing in volume and undisguised hostility, and with a new sharpness now added to it -- the mournful shriek of conch-shells being blown. Even Cook could no longer disregard the great press of numbers about them, and their menacing mood. Not one of them even the nearest, was now prostrated. On the contrary, they were waving clubs and spears, and some of them held high the newly-acquired and prized pahoas from the ships' forges, some with blades as long as 20 inches.

Richard Hough

The Last Voyage of Captain James Cook

The elevator door opened and we stepped inside.

"What name did you sign?" I asked him.

"Rupert," he said.

"That's all?"

"Yeah, but I put a lot of long swirls in it, plenty of old English filigree." He shrugged. "What the hell? It's a dog's signature anyway. My name's not Rupert."

"It is now," I said. "You are Mr. Rupert and the first time you forget it we'll be in Hilo Prison for defrauding an innkeeper. That's a felony."

He nodded, turning the key in the lock of 506. "Okay," he said finally. "You're right. That dog just got a new name -- what is it?"

"Homer," I said. "The dog's name is Homer. I'll have Dr. Ho put it on some kind of affidavit."

"That's right," he said. "Those bastards down at the desk don't care what our names are, anyway. They'll give us whatever we want if Ralph's plastic checks out."

"Jesus," he added. "Is Ralph the kind of guy who pays his bills on time?"

"Probably not," I said. "How much time do we need?"

"Not much," he replied. "I can bag the whole crop in three days -- and I like that 'off limits' gig; we won't have to worry about the maids coming in."

I nodded. This was a whole different side of the coin and it worried me. We could deal, I felt, with the Dog Problem -- or even the risk of signing a young chow's name on Ralph's credit card, but I was not entirely at ease with Ackerman's plan to use the best suite in the King Kamehameha Hotel, in the heart of downtown Kona, as a bag-house for his whole marijuana crop. He wanted to hire a garbage compactor and crush a whole orchard of marijuana trees into fifty-pound cubes about the size of a TV set.

"How much do you have?" I asked him.

"Not much," he said. "Maybe five hundred pounds."

"What?" I said. "Five hundred pounds! That's too much. They'll smell it. We'll be busted."

"Don't worry," he said. "The whole suite is off limits. They can't cross the threshold."

"Balls," I said. "They can cross anything they want for five hundred pounds. The last thing we need right now is a parade of dope dealers in and out of this place. The whole town would come down on us. It would be a civic outrage; red fleas are one thing, but. . ."

"Never mind," he said. "I need the fleas. We couldn't ask for a better cover."

I thought for a moment, then put my worries aside. This was, after all, Mr. Rupert's suite, not mine -- and it was Mr. Rupert who would be signing all the room service chits. I was only here as a personal favor to my old friend Steadman, the rich and famous British artist. He had flown back to London on short notice and left us to care for his dying dog. The beast was too sick to touch. Its brain had shorted out a long time ago from the constant plague of red fleas that it had obviously picked up in Hawaii -- perhaps in this very hotel. We had no choice, as I saw it, and I knew Dr. Ho would agree.

"Don't worry about that crazy little quack," Ackerman assured me. "He's the worst coke whore on the island. I've known him for years. He works for me."

"What? Dr. Ho?"

"Yeah. He has friends in Waikiki. They ship a lot of dog medicine." He smiled. "And they ship it in real big crates."

Big crates? I thought. Dog medicine? Indeed. Ralph would want it this way.

By the end of the second week at the hotel, it was clear that we