“You're a cruel man, Chawlie.”
The old man nodded agreement, his face unreadable in the fluorescent glare of the bare overhead lamp. He leaned back in his chair, meager weight against the orange plastic. Over his shoulder, a gecko scurried across the glass partition of his restaurant's foyer.
It was more than a month after the dive on the
Mahi
and I was leaving the Islands for a case on the Mainland. Chawlie had somehow discovered my intent and called, demanding an audience. I had been curious about Chawlie's ploy with the lawyer, but kept away from the old crook. Asking questions would have resulted in a blank stare. If he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me.
“You knew I wouldn't take that case,” I said. “Mr. J. Lawrence Tishman went on an empty errand.” I knew but didn't say that Chawlie would have sent the lawyer on a wild-goose chase for a reason known only to himself. Chawlie had used me, but he had his designs and they were none of my business.
“General partner stealing funds from investors. Stupid man. No finesse. Had a meeting of limited partners to decide what to do. They brought in haole lawyer, wanted to stir the shit. I biggest investor. Told them to hire private detective. Must hire only the best. You.” A wizened finger pointed at my chest. “Knew you'd say no. Knew you'd be hard to find, too. Keep haole lawyer busy.”
“While you handled the general partner.”
Chawlie laughed, a cackling wheeze. “Handled him very much. Thanked him very much. Took my cut.” He reached
inside his sweater, brought out a thick wad of folding money and handed it to me. “Here's yours. For your trouble.”
I took the money, putting it away without looking at it. I seldom have qualms taking money from Chawlie. He has so much. And he parts with it so seldom. And nearly everything he gets is tax free.
“So it was all for show.”
Chawlie grinned. I've known him for as many years as I've lived in Hawaii and he's never changed. Maybe aged, but only a little. He's always been an ancient Chinese institution who owns restaurants and fishing fleets and construction companies and acres of land, as well as massage parlors and gambling dens, and he has legions of nephews to handle the details of his empire. Chawlie and I have history. He threatened to kill me a while back, but changed his mind and made three-quarters of a million dollars from the circumstances surrounding a personal tragedy.
“Haole lawyer confused, that's all.”
And the subject closed.
“You find new boat yet?”
“No. Haven't looked.”
“Still in that dump on Seaside?”
I nodded. Waikiki depressed me, closed me in, but I didn't have the urge to go out and search for a new home to replace Duchess, my boat of many years. She sank in a hurricane, along with all of my possessions. Living in a hotel was a temporary solution for an anachronistic vagabond, but I didn't yet have the urge to abandon that way of life.
Homeless but for the cash on hand, I'd gravitated to the beach. There was a lot of cash, so there was a lot of beach time. I'd made money after a personal tragedy, too. About the same amount as Chawlie. Maybe a little more.
Not worth the loss.
Not worth it at all, when I thought about it.
I tried not to think about it.
The Rainbow Marina was changing, too. That helped put me off finding a new boat. The navy was building a bridge to
Ford Island from Aiea, using the marina parking lot as a staging area. When it's finished, the new bridge will loom over my old slip. Construction would take more than a year, they said, peace and quiet a thing of the past, sacrificed to progress. Or, as in this case, to access.
And so I put off the move and stayed away from Pearl Harbor. If I found a boat, I'd have to find a new place to dock. Somewhere peaceful, away from traffic and the crowds and the construction. Somewhere on the windward side of the island.
But I wasn't ready.
I'd originally planned to head for California after the events of the previous year, but that ambition died gradually into inertia when I returned to Honolulu and found myself settling into a high-rise hotel room on a side street across from a pair of motion picture theaters. I lived a day at a time, content to watch the tides change and tread the sandy beaches, giving time a chance to heal minor physical and major emotional wounds.
I survived the Christmas season, not venturing far from my hotel room except to run or work out at Duke's Gym or accomplish the occasional errand. The holidays can be cruel when you're suddenly uprooted from your accustomed environs, your life shattered. The forced good cheer of the season too quickly brings up the gag reflex, so I hid from the world until the first week of January, when I felt it safe enough to come out.
So when I got a letter from a Mainland banker, the envelope containing a small retainer in the form of a cashier's check and airplane tickets along with a request to fly to San Diego, there was little holding me. A phone call to the banker solved the mystery of the connection. I don't know that many bankers. I know none on the Mainland. I don't advertise my services, even when I need the work.
The woman's son had been one of the boys I'd rescued from the
Mahi,
the one who had thanked me. He'd apparently related everything, including the fact of my profession, overheard during my conversation with J. Lawrence Tishman. His mother had checked me out, and liked what she'd heard. Her
client needed an outside expert, someone who knew boats. Most important, the detective had to be a fresh pair of eyes, someone who could pick out the forest from the trees.
It intrigued me and I agreed to meet her and her client in San Diego.
San Diego had been an unrealized destination for years, a place where intention and destination never seemed to converge. Self-absorption is only one of my minor vices, and here was the excuse I needed to get off the beach. Max was there. So was the admiral. And California was a good place to buy a boat.
“This case in California. How long it take you?” Chawlie leaned forward, his voice a raspy whisper. When he does that, I almost expect him to call me Grasshopper.
“I don't know what it is yet. You have something?”
“No, no, no,” said the old man. “Just think it would be good for you. Keep you busy.”
“You want me out of the Islands?”
“Nothing like that. You are wasting your life here. You don't do anything. You need a cause. Without a cause, you cease to exist.”
That was as close Chawlie had ever come to saying he cared about me.
“Flight's out tonight. Taking the red-eye to LAX, then renting a car and driving down the coast. Haven't seen California for years. I'll enjoy the drive.”
Chawlie shook his head. “Going to LA? Taking your cash?”
“Why?” Chawlie held the bulk of my cash in his vault. It was safer than a bank, and he had no reporting requirements to some faceless bureaucrat who had my best interests at heart.
“You buy new boat. Not good for you to live in hotel. You're a waterman, not a tourist.”
“I'd thought about it.”
“LA's a hard place.”
“They're a bunch of psychos, but I'm just passing through.”
“You're going, you're buying new boat, you're taking cash money, you're in California. You better bring gun.”
Chawlie wanted something. He wanted me gone, away from my normal haunts. Maybe someday I'd discover the reason, but most likely I'd live my life in ignorance.
That was okay.
I was used to it.
I was early for the meeting at Mr. A's, a glass-enveloped steakhouse atop one of San Diego's downtown buildings, but the clients were already there. They had been for a while and were more than a couple of drinks ahead by the time I arrived.
When I mentioned the banker's name, the maitre d' swept a menu from his podium and held it above his head like a banner as he led me through the dining room. Eyes followed our procession, eyes belonging to a well-dressed crowd, the business and political class of the city. I was glad I'd worn a suit and tie.
Two women sat near a window, deep in conversation. A good-looking brunette and a petite blonde occupied a booth, stemmed glasses of white wine in front of them, the bottle on the table. San Diego's harbor spread below them like a kingdom at their feet, the sun descending toward the long, low hump of the Point Loma peninsula beyond.
Both women interrupted their discussion at my approach, the blonde extending her hand in the gracious and formal European tradition. I shook it. Maybe I should have kissed it, but I'd never learned the etiquette of hand kissing and decided to stay with what I knew. “Claire Peters,” she said, her voice low, pleasant to listen to, her eyes alert, but not friendly.
“John Caine.”
The brunette shook my hand firmly with an old-boy shake, the business grip. This would be the banker.
“Mr. Caine, I'm Barbara Klein. Thank you for answering my call for help.”
“You went a long way for it. Don't they have any PI's in California? Or are they all in Hollywood?”
She smiled but it wasn't convincing. Even though I was invited, there was an exclusivity to this gathering, a femaleonly ambience that made me the automatic outsider. They were both powerful, successful women. I was the beach bum from out of state. And a male. It was as wrong as a woman in a barbershop.
A waiter filled my glass as I sat. I took a sip of the wine, a California chardonnay. It had the rich, oaky flavor that I liked.
Barbara Klein looked me straight in the eye, the way they teach you at all those good management schools. It matched her grip. She wore an olive suit with a white silk blouse that billowed at the neck. A large diamond ring graced her right hand, the way divorced women wear them when they like the ring but no longer love the circumstances of its acquisition. Her left hand sported no jewelry of any kind.
“We've spoken on the telephone so many times I feel I know you, Mr. Caine,” Barbara. Klein said. “You were a little unkind in your description of yourself, however.”
“I said I'm a big old ugly man with a beard.”
“You should have said rugged. Ugly is a little harsh.”
“Maybe a little.”
“He's self-effacing. He doesn't mean it.” Claire Peters looked at me without interest. She was pleasant, but distant. I was hired help. The meeting was some kind of requirement. She didn't want to be here and she didn't want to meet me.
Claire Peters looked to be in her mid-thirties, but these days who can tell? The air near her held a light, sensuous scent. Her body, finely toned, had all the right curves in all the right places. Her hair, cut short at the nape of her neck, would have looked mannish on some women; on her it was totally feminine, complementing high cheekbones and the flawless complexion of a professional model. She wore a simple black dress with a modest black shirt jacket that had probably set her back a thousand dollars. The triple-choker
strands of pearls at her throat looked real, as did the gold Cartier casually entwined with the diamond tennis bracelet. The skirt was just short enough to display trim, athletic legs. I could picture her running up and down a tennis court, smashing the overhead shot into the distant corner, just out of her opponent's reach.
“I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Peters,” I said. “I don't know if I can help, but I'm here to listen.”
“What do you know?”
“Only what Ms. Klein told me. Your husband died in a boating accident several months ago and there are some questions about the circumstances of his death. The accident happened in Mexico, which complicates everything.”
“You've never heard of my husband?”
“I'm afraid not. Ms. Kleinâ”
“Barbara.”
“Barbara told me that Paul Peters was successful in business. Beyond that, I'm ignorant.”
She considered my statement. “He's ignorant. That's like he's ugly. Where did you get him?” She spoke to Barbara Klein as if I were somewhere else. I took another sip of wine.
“He saved my son's life.” Barbara gave a fairly accurate description of the events on the
Mahi,
and of my other capabilities. She really had checked me out and knew my record. Someone must have tapped her into Kimo's line, because she knew about my military background, too.
“Is that about it, Mr. Caine?”
“I think you left out the part where I leap tall buildings with a single bound.”
Claire Peters examined me, this time with interest. “Perhaps you're just about perfect. Do you carry a gun, Mr. Caine? Don't people like you carry guns?”
I shook my head. “People like me need guns if they make a lot of mistakes. I try not to get into situations where a gun is necessary.”
“Barbara said you were smart. I need someone with brains. I don't need a thug.” She appraised me briefly, a clinical appraisal, intense and specific. “You're big enough. Imposing.
Rugged, actually. If things were to get rough, you look as if you wouldn't run away.”
“I won't run away,” I said, “as long as there's a reason to be here.”
The corners of her mouth turned up in amusement. It was almost a smile. She turned to her banker. “He'll do, if you still think I need a detective.”
Barbara nodded. “I'm being promoted to the San Francisco office,” she said to me, then turned to Claire. “I won't be around to watch out for you. You need adequate representation, dear, and you've not been getting it.”
“Joe's a good lawyer.”
“Joe's a tax consultant. He's over his head. You know that.”
Claire nodded.
“Well, I'll leave you two alone. I've got to get home.” Barbara Klein rose from the table, her mission accomplished. “David's going back to Berkeley tomorrow, so I want to spend some time with him before he goes. Oh, Mr. Caine.” She turned to me, her dark eyes penetrating. “I know David thanked you for what you did, but I feel I owe you a mother's appreciation. It was because of that, plus the other things I found out about you, that you're here. Yes, we have private investigators in California. Good ones, too. But you saved my son. And the way you went back into that ship made me know you are the kind of man Claire needs now. If she trusts you, she will tell you all the facts and”âshe faced Claireâ“if she knows what's good for her, she'll trust you.” She turned back to me. I stood and shook her hand. “I'll meet you in Joe's office in the morning. In the meantime here's my card. If you need anything.”
We watched her leave, taking the check, the full-service banker. And one hell of a woman. When she left, the room seemed empty. Claire and I sat next to each other in the booth, silently sipping our wine. When she didn't say anything, I did.
“When was the accident?”
“Two months ago. The
Santa Clara,
that was our boat,
blew up at a fuel dock in Ensenada, about a hundred miles south of here. It burned to the waterline. They were able to recover only some charred remains they identified as Paul. We buried what was left of him.”
“Death certificate?”
“Of course. Joe, he's the family lawyer, he has all that. Tell me again. You've never heard of Paul Peters or Petersoft?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Petersoft, Limited. My husband wrote software. We started the company in our apartment, then took it public. Now it's listed on the NASDAQ. We moved the corporate offices to La Jolla two years ago. We bought the property for cash. Paul and I made a lot of money in a very short time. Now that he's gone, I guess I'm the president.”
“You guess you're the president?”
“That's part of the problem. Some of the stockholders have filed suit trying to block my appointment. Joe will tell you all the details tomorrow. If you want the job?” She said it with a rising inflection, as if it were a question.
“I don't understand what you want me to do.”
She sipped her wine. It was a healthy sip. She set the glass down, patted her lips with her napkin, replaced it in her lap, and adjusted the corners so they matched. “Barbara said to trust you,” she said.
“Paul was the president and CEO of Petersoft. He was a genius. I know that sounds trite, but in his case it was true. He was simply one of the smartest people I've ever known. We were married for fifteen years. At first we were very poor and we stayed that way for a long, long time.” She looked me in the eyes. It was a pleasant experience, but disturbing, too. The blue irises were now the color of ice. “Long enough,” she continued, my mind racing to catch up, “to appreciate the difference.
“Paul had a plan. He knew exactly what he wanted. He wrote his first commercial software program soon after we got married. Then he hit it big with his relational database with a graphical interface. He wrote it originally for a Macintosh
platform, but Microsoft Windows made it possible to adapt it to other hardware. One of the biggest software companies picked it up. He never looked back after that.”
She took another sip, another big one. So did I, unwilling to admit I had no comprehension of what she had just said.
“I know I'm not getting to the point and I appreciate your not pushing me,” she said, looking at the top of the table. She smoothed a wrinkle in the tablecloth with her fingers until it was gone. Behind her, the sky turned orange as the sun hid beyond a band of clouds near the horizon. It cast a soft glow over her features.
“I handled the marketing and the operations, but Paul handled the creative aspects and the money. He was old-fashioned, I guess. He liked for the
man
to handle the
money.”
Her voice took on a hard edge when she said those words in the same sentence.
“After Paul's death, Joeâhe handles both our personal and corporate financesâdiscovered that for an eight-month period, Paul had systematically looted money from the accounts, transferring sums to a bank down in the Cayman Islands. By the time of his accident, he had transferred seven million dollars down there.
“Those banks, they're like the Swiss, except more secretive. We don't know for sure, but the money was probably moved somewhere else. It's vanished. Barbara investigated as far as she could and she says it was âbounced' to a bank in another country so we can't trace it or recover it. It's just gone.”
“Seven million dollars.”
She nodded. “There's just enough left to pay the corporate taxes and close the company. Petersoft is just a shell without my husband. The life insurance the company had on Paul and the cash on hand will just about cover the debts. It's like he planned it to the penny. Almost.
“Financially, I'm okay. For the moment. I've got money of my own, a house in Point Loma that's clear-titled and a condo in Park City. We have a place in Maui, too. Joe says I'm going to have trouble with the IRS over the missing money from the
joint accounts and there's an SEC investigation. I may have to give up the condos, but he thinks I can keep the house. I may have to pay taxes on money I don't have.”
“Anything else?”
“He's alive.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if it were of no consequence, as if its telling was a generally accepted truth, like gravity.
“You know that?”
She drained the rest of the glass. A waiter appeared and refilled it, killing the bottle. “Thank you, Hector. Another one, please.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Are you going to eat?”
“Why?”
“At the rate you're going, you're going to get drunk.”
“Good.” She sat back, squaring her shoulders, and stared at me in naked challenge, the kind of stare that would start a fight out on the street.
Okay, I thought. She wasn't my business. And sometimes getting drunk isn't such a bad idea. This couldn't be easy. “He's alive?”
“I saw him. A friend of mine came down from Newport Beach last month to drag me away from the details of trying to put my life back together. The devil's in the details, you know. Sometimes they just overwhelm you.”
“They can do that,” I agreed, remembering how hard it was to get through the first few months after Kate died.
“Edith said there was a little resort near Rosarito Beach. Caters to us rich gringos. She was right. We played golf. We played tennis. Men tried to pick us up. It was exactly what I needed.