* * *"Since Tate was obviously in no mood for further discussion," Treadway said, concluding his account of the trip to the Big Island, "I left my telephone number and returned to Kailua."
Hideo Kamada, seated across the desk, said nothing.
Treadway searched Kamada's face for some sort of reaction, found none, and plunged ahead with what he considered to be a judicious display of open-mindedness. "Now it could be," he theorized, his voice betraying a belief that what was to follow was too absurd to be true, "that Tate just didn't like me personally. The impression I got, however, was that he's simply a hostile sort of person."
Treadway felt a drop of sweat trickle down his armpit. How the hell could he be sweating? The room was as cold as a goddamn refrigerator. In fact the
