After
Steve left, I snatched Beni’s nearly full plate and scraped it into the
garbage. He’d eaten only a few bites, but the alfredo sauce was starting to
congeal and I didn’t hold out much hope of him suddenly digging in.
“You
know, I got the cops after me, too,” he said, totally out of the blue. “Seems I
got both cops
and
robbers on my tail.”
“Beni,
hopefully I can help you with the trouble you’re in. But first, you’re going to
have to come clean with me on what you know about Crystal Wilson—you know, the
red-haired girl.”
“Oh
man, that’s a freakin’ mess. She gets pinched by those guys and then... Hey, I
told ‘em it was stupid. By the time they figured out I was right, it was a done
deal.”
“Whoa,
wait a minute,” I said. “What’re you saying? They didn’t mean to kidnap her?
How do you mistakenly kidnap a person? Doesn’t something like that take a lot
of planning?”
“I
don’t know. They don’t tell me nothin’. I was only s’posed to make sure that
haole
dude knew they had her. That’s all. But then he takes off and it all got fu—uh,
I mean, messed up, eh.”
“So,
why do you think they’re coming after you?”
“They
gotta blame
somebody
. They finger me for the local dumb-ass so I’ll take
the fall.”
“Okay,
let’s start at the top. These guys grabbed the red-haired girl when? The day
before Halloween?”
“Yeah,
the night before. I guess she was at a party at Moose McGillicuddy’s down in
Lahaina. She left down the back stairs, alone.”
“And
they abducted her. And then they cut off her hair.”
“Yeah,
like that.”
“And
then they told you to make sure Keith Lewis knew about it.”
“They
called him a different name. But it was the guy you were doing the wedding
for,” he said.
“The
police hinted he’d given me a phony name. Do you remember the name your friends
called him?”
“Hey,
they’re not my friends, eh? They’re just some bad-ass dudes I owed a bunch of
money.”
“Okay,
fine. But what name did they call him?” I said.
“Johnson,
Jackson, Jock-itch—some stupid
haole
name like that.”
“So
you’re the one who put the hair in my car. Why in my car?”
“Because
those guys tol’ me to put it where that
haole
guy would find it. But he
was staying up at the Ritz. Not like a dude like me can go hangin’ around there
and not get caught on a camera. I followed him for a while and figured out you
were doing his wedding. I remembered you from my cousin’s
kung fu
place.
On Halloween I follow you to Lahaina and when you park your car I stick it in
there. I knew you’d tell him. Smart, eh?”
I
chose not to weigh in on his intellectual prowess.
“So,
did you also key my car door?”
“Huh?
No way, man. The door was open.”
Good
thing I hadn’t perjured myself by agreeing he was intelligent.
“And
then when nothing happened after I found the hair,” I said, “the kidnappers
peeled off her fingernails.”
“I
s’pose. They don’ tell me much.”
“So
you were the one who hung the bag of fingernails on my doorknob.”
“Yeah.
I would’ve put ‘em in your car again but I couldn’t get in.”
“And
how about the ransom note?”
“I
don’t know nothin’ about that. After I hung that thing on your door they start
accusing me of messing up. They made me point you out. I took ‘em by your house
and then down to your place in Lahaina. After that, I was pretty out of it.” He
squirmed in his chair. “Look, we done here? I’m feelin’ kind of sick.” He belched
as if to add authenticity.
“We’re
done for now. Get some sleep and we’ll talk some more in the morning.”
“There’s
nothin’ more to say. I did what they told me to do. There’s no way this was my
idea—no way. Now you gotta help me. I tell ya, if they find me they’ll kill me
too.”
I
squinted at him.
He
shook his head. “No, I mean it. These dudes have done the deed lots of times—to
friends of mine. They squash guys like me like bugs, eh.”
Not
exactly the note I wanted to end on, but Beni was shaking and sweating like a
hosed-down Chihuahua, so I halted my interrogation and helped him get back
upstairs to bed.
***
I
felt lousy about the way I’d left things with Hatch. I knew I wouldn’t be able
to get to sleep if I didn’t try to straighten things out, so I called him.
“I
sure hope you’re not calling me from jail,” he said as he picked up.
“Very
funny. No, I’m here at the house, but I’ve been feeling bad about how we left
things today.”
“Bad
about being a drug mule, or bad about me finding out about it?”
“Stop
it. You know I’m no drug mule. Can I come over and talk?” I didn’t want to
invite him over to my house and risk having Beni stumble into view.
“I
guess. You bringing a peace offering?”
“Sure.
You want wine, mac nuts, cookies, what?”
“All
of the above, babe. You got some serious making up to do.”
I
packed a little picnic basket and drove down to Sprecklesville. After my
conversation with Beni it felt good to get away from the house for a while. I
cranked the driver’s side window down and let the trade winds blow my hair
around.
I
pulled in to Hatch’s driveway and slowly approached the house with my
headlights off. I was kidding myself if I thought I could sneak up on Wahine
,
though. Her yapping started when I was still ten yards away, and it changed to
a high-pitched whine when I got out of my car. Hatch must have patched the hole
in the screen door because she was inside, throwing herself against it in a
rather impressive display of righteous indignation.
“Hey,
babe,” Hatch said as he opened the screen. Wahine shot through the door and off
the porch like she’d been launched from a cannon.
“Hey,
girl,” I leaned down to pet her, but after a quick sniff-assessment of my hand
she went for the picnic basket, ignoring my offer of an ear scratching.
“Heen,
what have I told you about begging?” said Hatch.
“She
probably smells the doggie rawhide I put in there,” I said.
“Oh
yeah, try and butter up the old man by spoiling his kid.” He smiled.
“Seems
to be working.”
“Not
so fast. What’ve you got in there for me?”
I
pulled out a quart of pineapple/mac nut ice cream, some shortbread cookies, and
a bottle of white wine.
“Wine
and ice cream?” he said.
“Food
of the gods.”
We
sat outside eating ice cream and sipping our wine while Wahine licked and
chewed her rawhide. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have guessed everything was
rosy. A charming little family of three enjoying a night on the lanai while the
wind rustled the palms and plumeria blossoms scented the air.
Hatch
put his bowl down and Wahine immediately dashed over to lick it clean.
“That’s
kind of disgusting, you know,” I said.
“No,
what’s disgusting is you getting mixed up with a bunch of scumbag drug
dealers.”
“That’s
what I came over to talk about. I—”
“Look,
I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t want to hear how all you’re doing is
trying to find that missing tourist. Fact is, this is quicksand, pure and
simple. You watch somebody getting sucked under and you go in to help and the
next thing you know, it’s you.”
I
blew out a breath.
“Oh
yeah, tell me I don’t understand. Call me a hard-ass, or a worry-wart. Thing
is—I’m neither. I totally understand. And
not
being a hard-ass nearly
killed me.”
I
waited. There was nothing to say, no question or comment that would make any
difference.
“Remember
when I told you I left the force over on O’ahu to become a firefighter because
I was tired of being a cop—sick of being the dude nobody wanted to see coming?
I thought playing fireman would be different. We show up and everybody cheers.”
He
went on. “Well, come to find out, there’s lots of times people want to see
cops. Like when I got hit by that jerk while I was working that wreck out on
the highway last winter. Nobody cheered louder than me when that cop collared
the moron who ran me down.”
He
paused as if reliving the two months it had taken him to heal from a badly
fractured leg and shoulder. And the three months of physical therapy were
probably still pretty fresh in his mind as well.
“Anyway,
I didn’t leave O’ahu willingly—didn’t stop being a cop willingly. I left under
duress. Under huge freakin’ duress.”
Wahine
lifted her head as if she’d heard a faraway whistle. Then she moved in closer
to Hatch and laid her snout on his bare foot. He scratched her head and they
both sighed.
“Hatch,
I didn’t mean—”
“No,
let me finish. I haven’t told you any of this before because I was hoping I
wouldn’t have to. Now I know I do.”
I
gave a small nod, but in the gathering dark I’m not sure he saw it.
“I
did the unthinkable—I fell for my female partner. Not supposed to, not
encouraged by the department, that’s for sure. But we were both single and we
understood each other like no one else did. You got someone’s back day in and
day out and pretty soon you don’t have a choice. It’s like they become a part
of you. In this case, she became the
better
part of me. It wasn’t about
looks, or sex, or physical chemistry, or any of that. It was about loyalty, and
commitment, and not knowing where one of you ends and the other begins.”
I
felt a tightness grip my sternum. Did I really want to hear his shaggy dog
story about his one true love? Hardly.
“Anyway,
they tapped her for undercover. She was pretty enough for vice, so I thought
they’d be dolling her up and sending her out to Waikiki to nab johns on
vacation who chase their mai tais with little blue pills. She couldn’t tell me
what she was working on, but every night she’d come back a little more tense
and a lot more paranoid.”
“Finally,
I’d had enough,” he went on. “On my night off, I tailed her. She didn’t go to
one of the regular hooker traps, though. She went to a house up in Manoa
Valley—way back in there, off the beaten path.”
He
covered his eyes and then dropped his face into his hands as if watching the
memory unspool before him like a movie.
“It
turned out to be a drug house—a meth lab. Right after I got there I saw a guy
dragging her outside—her arm twisted up behind her back. I panicked, sure her
cover had been blown and he’d made her for a cop. I jumped out and as soon as
the guy saw me, it was all over. He pulled the biggest damn pistol I’ve ever
seen and blew a huge hole right through her neck. Just like that. I popped him
and got her into my car but she bled out before I even hit a paved road.”
By
now Hatch’s voice was a husky whisper. “I didn’t go to the memorial service. I
didn’t even eat for days ‘cuz all I wanted to eat was my gun.”
Wahine
let out a long doggie sigh and nuzzled her snout into the arch of his foot.
“It
was my captain’s idea for me to switch to the fire service. He had a
brother-in-law over here, said he’d let me take the test.”
He
stopped. Something skittered under the porch but Wahine stayed put.
I
had nothing to say—nothing to ask. I laid a hand on Hatch’s shoulder.
“Pali,”
he said. “I’m begging you. Don’t get involved in this. Let it go—please.”
***
It
was getting late. On the ride back home I weighed my options but they all came
down to one simple truth: I’m not a quitter. I sleep better when I’m not second-guessing
myself. Maybe Wong and Hatch were okay with leaving Crystal at the mercy of a
bunch of drug-fueled kidnappers, but it wasn’t something I could live with.
I
came into the house and went upstairs to Beni’s room and knocked.
Silence.
“Open
the door.”
Silence.
“Open
this door or I’ll break it down.”
The
sofa bed creaked.
While
I waited, I silently counted. When I got to eight, I decided ten was more than
he deserved. I took a couple of steps back and heaved my shoulder against the
door, but it didn’t budge.
Steve
jerked his door open at the other end of the hall. “What the hell are you
doing?”
“I
need to talk to Beni.”
“It’s
after eleven. Let the guy sleep. Besides, he’s not going anywhere. You can talk
in the morning.”
I
preferred the visual of crashing through Beni’s door and shaking him until his
teeth rattled, but common sense won out. After all, I’d be the one paying to
fix the door.