A pink and silver bus let Chandler off at Fort Street in downtown
Honolulu and he walked a few blocks to the address he had been given.
The name of the place was Parts 'n Plenty. He found it easily enough.
It was a radio parts store; by the size of it, it had once been a big,
well-stocked one; but now the counters were almost bare.
A thin-faced man with khaki-colored skin looked up and nodded. Chandler
nodded back. He fingered a bin of tuning knobs, hefted a coil of
two-strand antenna wire and said, "A fellow at Tripler told me to come
here to pick up equipment, but I'm damned if I know what I'm supposed
to do when I locate it. I don't have any money."
The dark-skinned man got up and came over to him. "Figured you for a
mainlander. No sweat. Have you got a list?"
"I can make one."
"All right. Catalogues on the table behind you, if you want them." He
offered Chandler a cigarette and sat against the edge of the counter,
reading over Chandler's shoulder. "Ho," he said suddenly. "Koitska's
square-wave generator again, right?" Chandler admitted it, and the man
grinned. "Every couple months he sends somebody along. He doesn't
really need the generator, you know. He just wants to see how much you
know about building it, Mr.--?"
"Chandler."
"Glad to know you. I'm John Hsi. But don't go easy on the job just
because it's a waste of time, Chandler; it could be pretty important to
you."
Chandler absorbed the information silently and handed over his list.
The man did not look at it. "Come back in about an hour," he said.
"I won't have any money in an hour, either."
"Oh, that's all right. I'll put it on Koitska's bill."
Chandler said frankly, "Look, I don't know what's going on. Suppose I
came in and picked up a thousand dollars' worth of stuff, would you put
that on the bill, too?"
"Certainly," said Hsi optimistically. "You thinking about stealing
them? What would you do with them?"
"Well...." Chandler puffed on his cigarette. "Well, I could--"
"No, you couldn't. Also, it wouldn't pay, believe me," Hsi said
seriously. "If there is one thing that doesn't pay, it is cheating on
the Exec."
"Now, that's another good question," said Chandler. "Who is the Exec?"