Restless Waters Read Online Free Page B

lizards inside the sacks had any idea of how much trouble they’d already caused. And if so, did they care at all? Probably about as much as their captor did I figured. I silently vowed that he hadn’t seen the last of me yet.
    I followed Walter Keoki back to his house, where his wife was busy talking up a storm on the phone.
    “Here. Your boss is on the line and wants to speak to you,” she said, thrusting the receiver into my hand.
    “Porter? I expect to see you in the office first thing tomorrow morning,” Norman Pryor darkly intoned.
    I gazed at Mrs. Keoki, wondering how the hell she’d managed to get me in trouble so quickly. Norm Pryor’s phone number was unlisted, as was that of every other law enforcement agent.
    “I’ll be there,” I replied and hung up.
    Hattie Keoki shot me a triumphant look. “You should remember that it’s people like us that pay your salary,” she lectured, before turning to face her husband. Loudly clucking her tongue, she slapped him in the stomach, and took his rifle away. “And no more fooling around with guns for you, unless I say it’s okay.”
    I grabbed the skateboard and bags of goodies, no longer wanting to play. Instead I walked out of the house and down the driveway. All I wanted to do right now was go home. But I couldn’t resist first taking a peek inside the sacks.
    Holy leaping lizards! The first bag held a pair of protected Egyptian spiny tails that were roughly thirty inches long and weighed a couple of pounds.
    Their clublike tails had large, pointed, sharp scales thatcould be whipped around to beat an attacker. Hawaii was far, far away from their desert home. It made me wonder if my lizard-catching friend had planned to set them loose in the hope that they’d survive and breed.
    The second bag contained a panther chameleon as colorful as a rainbow on acid. Each of its turreted eyes turned in a different direction. One stared at its surroundings, while the other rolled up to examine me. It must have thought I was one hell of a big bird, for a tongue, twice the length of its body, catapulted out and headed straight for my mouth. I quickly shut the bag to avoid an interspecies kiss. As much as I like wildlife, I did have my limits.
    While it was nice to know that I had a smidgen of animal magnetism, I doubted that it would help me in the morning. I started my SUV and took off, certain of one thing: The illegal ranching of lizards on Oahu was a much more highly organized trade than anyone would ever have thought.

Three
    I heard the pounding of the waves before I actually saw them. There was a good reason for that. These were the winter monsters capable of swelling up to sixty feet in height. They roll in from the Gulf of Alaska having traveled two thousand miles, gaining strength along the way.
    I held my breath and swore I could feel them rumble, the ground trembling as they broke. Salt sprays trailed behind them like a legion of lacy wedding veils, their vapors carried on the air, covering the road in a light mist. It was a gentle reminder that the North Shore couldn’t have been further from the bustling streets of Honolulu and from Waikiki Beach.
    There are no high-rise buildings, no acres of pavement, and rather than a freeway, only a two-lane road runs along the coast. Three stoplights are all that regulate its thirty-mile stretch. Of course, in just one of those miles are over a dozen surf shops. But then, what else could one expect? This is the surfing capital of the world, a place boasting surf breaks with names such as Avalanche, Monster Mash, Gas Chambers, and Banzai Pipeline. Even the Beach Boys paid tribute to the North Shore in one of their songs, “Surfin’ U.S.A.”
    This was where I was living these days—in Haleiwa, to be more precise, a quirky little plantation town dotted with old clapboard buildings and creaky wooden sidewalks. The highly eclectic population consists of surfers, artists, ex-military, former mercenaries, skateboarding