Primitive Secrets (15 page)

She could feel their eyes crawl down her body, take in the racquet, and move on. She made herself stand tall and gaze around, get a good look at her surroundings. Somewhere she'd read that prowlers looked for women who looked down and away when they passed a man. Fear and submissiveness attracted predators.

Directly across from Storm was a tattoo parlor where a heavyset man stood in the door and scanned the street. His arms were painted so heavily that at first, Storm thought he wore a long-sleeved shirt. She looked again and realized that, except for an earring, he wore only a denim vest and baggy jeans.

His eyes rolled past her without pause. She was probably better off crossing to his corner. He was marginally less threatening than the tall woman in white who leaned against the streetlight on the opposite corner. She staked a territory in front of the dark doorway to a bar whose name, The Geisha's Lair, was displayed in hand-painted calligraphy. Lair, indeed. Storm had no desire to cross into a hooker's domain. She glanced at the long, painted nails of the woman's hand. Haloed by cigarette smoke, they traced an arc to her maroon lips in the yellow cone of the street lamp. Her wrist was thick and strong. Storm glanced down at her stiletto-heeled sandals. The feet and ankles in the strappy shoes were too large-boned to be a woman's.

A group of chattering Japanese tourists, all male, surged around Storm like a school of sardines. Right before the light changed, the female impersonator in the white dress caught her eye. He cocked a fine, arched eyebrow at her and allowed one side of his lip to curl. Caught staring, her scalp prickled with embarrassment. Storm jerked her eyes forward and stepped off the curb. She picked up her pace, but could feel White Dress watching her. She squared her shoulders and lengthened her stride.

Mauna Kea Street got darker as Storm walked toward the municipal parking lot. The bars were dim; no paper lanterns hung out. A couple of the streetlights were broken. Fewer people walked along the sidewalks and those who did mostly shuffled along, their eyes to the ground.

A clanking of glass drew Storm's attention across the street. Otherwise, she would never have seen the neatly dressed man who walked by the tattered woman rummaging in the dumpster. His face was buried in the evening paper, though his black leather vest gleamed dully in the dim lights, showing the lean curve of his body. Storm stopped in surprise and backed against the bricks of a dark building. Her heart pounded, partly with dismay. She watched Martin's gold earring reflect the available light and listened to his leather heels click on the sidewalk.

Chapter 22

Storm's first thought was that he shouldn't be down here alone this time of night. Of course she was there, too, but she was leaving as fast as she could. And she had a tennis racquet to protect her. Storm stepped to the curb and opened her mouth to shout a greeting. Then she stepped back. Martin's posture, the newspaper, his averted face, all told her he didn't want to be recognized.

Storm looked around. No one was nearby. Martin's back was still visible, that kidskin vest of his gleaming against the dull black of his shirt. His step bounced a little, as if with anticipation.

Storm darted across the street, about a half-block behind him. She slipped along the dark sidewalk, oblivious to the yawning black doors every ten to twenty feet. She could hear the buzz of voices inside, the bursts of laughter, but she ignored them. Apprehension and curiosity pushed her after Martin.

For a moment, she wondered if he knew Tom Sakai. No, she was sure the Sakai family expected no more visitors this evening. She'd felt Lani draw her shields around the family for the night, making Tom's tea, hustling the kids through dessert and to finishing their schoolwork. Plus, why would Martin know them?

Storm's stomach did a little pirouette. God, don't let him go into The Geisha's Lair. The lustrous black hair of White Dress gleamed from a distance in the neon of the street, right outside the entrance to the bar. But White Dress was faced away from Martin and Storm, toward South King Street, where the heavier traffic passed.

Storm focused her attention back on Martin, just in time to see him turn into a dark doorway only twenty feet or so from White Dress's corner. Storm slowed, made sure her feet slipped silently along the grimy concrete. Look casual. Sure, like a woman wearing jeans and carrying a tennis racquet would fit in. There were only two other women—that she thought were women, anyway—hanging around, and they wore false eyelashes and lycra dresses which barely covered their bony rear ends. They were so thin, you could hit a tennis ball between their legs even when their knees met. A flurry of emotions bombarded Storm: curiosity, embarrassment, sorrow at the women's professions. She felt as conspicuous as a Great Dane at a poodle show—and kept her eyes straight ahead and on the spot where Martin disappeared.

Strips of brocaded silk, impossible to see through, veiled the door where he'd entered. A plate glass window abutted the door, but heavy curtains, surrounded by the kind of little white lights interior designers put on Christmas trees, were drawn tight. Several feet above her head, the eight inches of uncovered window was crowded with hanging plants.

Eyes were on her, she could sense them. Storm peeked to her right, toward the lights of South King Street. There stood White Dress, hands on cocked hips. He shook his head slowly at her, like a kindergarten teacher monitoring the rowdies at recess. Storm looked away quickly, back to the veiled window and the name of the bar across its face. The Queen Bee was spelled out with tiny bamboo spears.

Storm felt a flush cover her cheeks and neck. She felt like she'd just awakened to discover that the recurrent nightmare that she was naked in school wasn't a dream after all. The Queen Bee couldn't mean…Martin couldn't…unless he was meeting some old friend. That was it. Martin had old friends who still played live gigs at nightclubs. From the corner of her eye, she could see White Dress. He shrugged, went back to his post at the corner.

Storm stepped through the silk into a smoky vestibule. She stood for a moment, tennis racquet dangling from her hand, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Voices hummed around her; it was a busy place. But her eyes were as disabled as if she'd stepped from the noonday sun into a cave. She could sense a crush of people. This might be fun. It was the kind of place she and Martin used to go to back when they enjoyed being rebels.

She dragged one hand along the wall and crept ahead, toward the laughter and music, into a big room. The only light seemed to come from the little white Christmas bulbs that encircled the ceiling. They continued around large objects in the corners, which in a few moments she made out to be big potted plants. Ficus trees, probably.

The room was crowded with little wrought iron tables, packed with guys. Many of them embraced or touched each other shyly. The tables were surrounded by so many standing men that Storm couldn't get a feel for how deep the room was; she could barely make out a bar against the left wall. The bartender, dressed entirely in black leather, had a few more lights around him. So he could tell what bottle to grab, she guessed.

Her mind ground to a halt, trying to deal with the data that her eyes were sending. There were no women in this room. Two men were locked in a fervent kiss ten feet to her right, pelvises grinding together. She looked away, quickly. It wasn't the kind of place they used to go after all.

Expensive colognes blended to a heady musk and the temperature of the place was at least fifteen degrees warmer than on the sidewalk. Still fixed on her rationale for Martin having entered a gay bar, she looked around for the band. No band. Instead, David Bowie blared from speakers over the bar.

Heat and concentrated perfumes were making her dizzy. She took quick, shallow breaths, and felt with one hand for the wall. She was immobilized, unable to back out or go forward.

“The courts are closed, honey.” A very tall, broad man with a nose that went in three directions before it ended in a flattened knob smiled down on her. He had been sitting on a stool by the door, hidden in the shadows.

“Huh?”

He raised his bushy eyebrows and looked down at her tennis racquet.

“I'm looking for someone.”

“We all are.”

Storm stared at him. Though his face was pockmarked and lumpy, his eyes were rimmed with thick, black lashes. They were dark and kind.

The synapses in her brain were finally sputtering out of their frozen state and her gaze swept the room. “It's my brother…he's got something I need…”

In the middle of the room, sitting at a table and holding hands with a broad-shouldered man who faced away from her, was Martin. Despite the number of bodies between them, his eyes locked with hers as if an electrical current had joined them.

Storm saw a spectrum of emotions cross Martin's face. Later, she would try many times to relive that moment and change it. She recognized shame, fear, and indignant fury. His eyes, dark and fierce, burned into her.

“Maybe you could get it tomorrow, dear.” The sensitive voice of the giant at her elbow broke the spell of those angry orbs.

Storm tasted blood from where she'd bitten her lower lip, first in shock, then to keep it from trembling. She looked up at the long-lashed bouncer. Wordlessly, she backed out of the dark, steamy place and onto the sidewalk.

In the neon of the street, a few feet from the doorway to The Queen Bee, she leaned against a No Parking sign. She felt as if she'd been hit in the chest. Breathing hurt. Her vision swam and her neck felt like a great band of steel had been tightened around it.

Why had he never trusted her? Did David and Michelle know? They were his blood brother and sister. And Bitsy, she probably knew, too. Everyone but her. The real family stuck together again. Storm drew a ragged breath.

A pang of fear struck her. Did he use a rubber? Did he ask his lovers to use them? He could die, for Christ's sake. She stared at the filthy sidewalk without seeing. When a pair of splitting, run-down cowboy boots appeared in front of her own shoes, she didn't even look up.

“Hey, baby.” The rancid odor of rotting teeth and metabolizing alcohol pulled her back to the street. Storm looked up, but her mind still whirled around Martin. “Come with Uncle John.” He clutched the biceps of the arm with the tennis racquet and squeezed, hard. “Wanna get high? Forget your troubles?” He flipped open a shirttail to reveal the hilt of a large knife against the pale, flabby skin of his stomach.

Storm stared, numb, and hung onto the signpost with her other hand out of sheer instinct. The pressure of his grip was shifting her state of mind from grief and confusion to anger. She couldn't move the tennis racquet; he was pressing on a nerve that immobilized her arm. His unshaven leer moved closer to her face. She could see the broken capillaries in his nose, the ropes that coiled inside the loose skin of his neck. His eyes were the color of dirty ice, close together and red-rimmed.

“Get away from me,” she said and tried to pull back. Asshole, she thought. I've got bigger problems than you.

“C'mon, we'll take a little walk.” His fingers dug into her flesh with such viciousness that involuntary tears of pain sprang to her eyes.

“Ouch. Let go!” she shouted. Her arm and her alleged weapon were useless. A surge of panic washed over her. He saw it and moved his face to within two inches of hers.

“Let's go, now. Be a nice girl.” She tried to hold her breath against the reeking pungency that came from him.

“Help!” Her voice squawked like a sleepwalker's. She reared back against the signpost. Her arm hung helplessly in the vice of his thick fingers. The tennis racquet clattered to the cement.

She saw the change in his eyes without knowing why it was happening. When the chain struck his face, she was so startled, she staggered to one knee. The first strike was a glancing one. The next time, the half-inch links wrapped around his neck.

He let go of her arm and grappled with both hands to get free. His bloodshot eyes bulged and she watched, shocked, from below. When her adrenaline-soaked brain finally gave her the signal to run, she struggled to her feet and scrambled backward over the curb.

“Watch out!” A young man's voice shouted in her ear. Stumbling to avoid a collision, Storm turned toward her rescuer. White Dress jumped out of Storm's way and toward the lout who scuffled to escape.

White Dress's shapely arm was raised again, the weapon incongruous in the manicured hand. “Scram, you piece o' shit.” An accent of the Far East broadened White Dress's vowels. His narrow, expertly made-up eyes glinted with the anticipation of another strike.

The attacker scuttled into a dark alley. White Dress reluctantly lowered his swinging arm and kept his eyes on the shadows where the man disappeared. “He no come back.”

“Thank you,” Storm gasped.

“Welcome. Now go home.” White Dress looked at her forehead instead of her eyes. He was shorter than she'd thought, about the same height as she in her tennis shoes. Without his heels, he would be shorter. And he probably weighed less. Storm swallowed hard. What kind of life had this boy led? How could she thank him?

“Could I buy you a beer?” she asked.

He looked at her sharply. Only when the skin around the flat black stones of his eyes softened did Storm realize her words had been those of a prospective john. She grimaced.

“No, t'ank you. Go home.” His maroon lips twitched in what might have been a smile.

“Right. You're right.” Storm picked up the useless tennis racquet with the arm that didn't throb and started up the street. She stayed close to the curb, in the light, away from the shadows of the buildings and the gaping maws of doors and alleyways. Her legs felt like Jell-O.

“Storm!”

Storm jerked around. There was Hamlin, in a black tee-shirt and black jeans. Storm stood agape. His outfit was similar to what Martin had been wearing, though not as elegant. Why in the world was he here? She was besieged with another disappointment, on top of everything else. Those terrific legs…

“You shouldn't be down here alone,” Hamlin said.

“Huh?”

“Well, it's not a great neighborhood at night.” Hamlin still looked concerned, but his eyes held many questions.

Storm sputtered. “Why didn't you help me a few minutes ago?” Storm's nerves were stretched to their limits. “I don't need shitty advice right now, Hamlin.”

Now Hamlin looked perplexed. “Help you? Storm, why are you here? It's not safe.”

“Why am I here?” That was the last straw. “Why are you here? Men! You're a bunch of opportunistic, manipulative bastards, playing your games at anybody's expense.” Her voice was thick and hoarse.

“Hey, Storm.” He reached a hand out and she batted it away.

“Leave me alone. All of you.” Her adrenaline surge was fading and she felt weak and shaky. “Go back to the Bee's Knees, where you all belong.” She panted with exertion.

“The Queen Bee, I think you mean. I wasn't there, though I think maybe I should have been. I was looking for a client.”

“Right. That's what Martin's gonna tell me, too.”

“What?”

“I've gotta go. It's been a busy night.” Storm turned away. “You've got friends to meet.”

“Mind if I see you to your car?”

Storm squinted at him. She didn't know how much mileage her quivering legs had left in them. The two dark blocks to the parking lot looked like a mile. Good sense overcame pride. “If you want.”

She started out stomping up the sidewalk, then slowed and resisted the urge to use her racquet like a cane. She kept her eyes front and center. Hamlin was quiet. After a few minutes, Storm spoke. “So, you didn't see that guy grab me?”

“No, but now I know why Jasmine was stalking that dirtbag who ran into the alley.” Hamlin sneaked a peek at her out of the corner of his eyes, his jaw set with concern.

“Jasmine?” Storm asked.

“Yeah. Tough kid, that one. Used to be Ming-shan.”

Storm looked sideways at him. “You know him?”

“From my days in the prosecutor's office. We kept trying to rehab him, but he wasn't having any. Didn't want to send him back to Cambodia, either.” Hamlin shrugged. “What were you saying about Martin?”

“Nothing.”

“Um, Storm, did you by any chance see a good-looking guy, big, with dark hair in a pony-tail?”

Storm gave him a poisonous look. “I've had it with surprises tonight.” She shook her head and felt irrational tears sting her eyes. “Sounds like the guy Martin was with,” she whispered. She fired her next words at him. “Why don't you go back and join them?”