SAND DOLLARS
St. Martin's Press
May 1998
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Charles Knief: Author Interview

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CHAPTER ONE

"I didn't think you were gonna make it," Dennis Dillingham growled as I jumped aboard. Dennis captains and owns the Mako, making a living chartering out to most of the dive shops in Waikiki. It's his business and I think it's his home. Dillingham’s a small blond man with an enormous walrus mustache and skin that's similar in color and texture to an old baseball mitt. He's always barefoot, and I think he only owns one pair of faded green shorts. I've never seen him wear a shirt.

"Just got the call twenty minutes ago," I said, dropping my day pack on a berth cushion and changing into my wet suit. Tom Cotton, a shop owner and fellow divemaster in Waikiki, called and begged me to take his group, citing last-minute emergencies with his teenage daughter. It had happened often enough I didn't ask, just jumped in my Jeep and raced to the Waianae boat harbor. I don't charge him for my time when I cover him. It's more of a hobby.

"Tom brought your gear. Your group is over there." Dennis pointed to four Japanese men dressed in neon yellow wetsuits standing in a huddle at the stern, inspecting their equipment. "It ought to be easy keeping track of 'em in those outfits." Dennis shares my preference for dark-colored gear, the avoidance of bright and flashy colors, anything that might attract the attention of creatures in the water possessed of curiosity, hunger, and sharp teeth, a dangerous combination. My suit is dark blue and black. All the rest of my gear is black. I exchange my shiny stainless Rolex for a black plastic Casio when I go into the water. I carry two knives, a Phrobis and my Buckmaster, and a .44 magnum bangstick. No matter where I am I like to be in contention for a spot at the top of the food chain.

"Thanks, Dennis." I studied my charges. Only four divers. They would be easily managed. I hoped they spoke English, and then realized they would have to. Tom's dive shop doesn't aggressively advertise for Japanese tourists. Some shops in Waikiki are Nisei-owned and their instructors and divemasters all speak fluent Japanese. It's to everyone's advantage that they work that part of the market. We all want our guests to come back, and if tourist divers have a bad time due to anyone's ignorance, no one benefits. But Tom's a businessman. When the occasional foreign tourist finds him, he's always ready to make a sale or charter a dive.

I introduced myself to the four men and we sized each other up. There was some bowing and some shaking of hands, the usual mixing of the cultures. I bowed and they shook my hand. Everybody grinned.

I sensed the short, thickly-built man with a gray brush cut was in charge, the head hotshot, surrounded by three junior hotshots, on a business-reward outing. I immediately liked the man. He was powerful, used to giving orders and having them obeyed, but he looked intently at me and listened to what I had to say. I was sensei, the teacher, and he was the pupil. I could tell why he had risen to the top.

I like the average Japanese tourist. Apart from the fact that the money they pumped into the economy spared Hawaii most of the effects of the latest world-wide recession, they are polite, well-mannered guests. They don't get drunk and throw furniture out of hotel windows. They don't drive down the streets of Honolulu at ninety miles an hour. If they are involved in a crime they are usually the victims. They typically travel in groups, bring their families, spend copious amounts of money, take their hundreds of photographs, and return to Japan to be replaced by another group. They are quiet, generous and interchangeable. They come, they spend, and they go home.

Vini. Vidi. Photi.

I came. I saw. I took a lot of pictures.