K
imo drove the Cherokee from the narrow confines of the tall buildings of Honolulu up toward the great expanse of tract homes and cane fields of Mililani. Planted smack in the middle of the island on the great alluvial fields between Oahu's two shield volcanoes, Mililani was a bedroom community serving both Honolulu and the military bases that bordered it. Formerly agricultural, Mililani had sprung from cane fields, and now was surrounded by sugar cane, the dry whispering stalks hard against the chain link fences of the cookie-cutter backyards.
We rode in silence, each in his thoughts.
As we passed Halawa Prison I turned away from the mountains and gazed toward Pearl Harbor, even though I caught a glimpse of a rainbow high up the emerald slopes above the prison. I always stared at rainbows.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” said Kimo.
“I may not be the guy to ask this, being on trial for murder and all, but did you attend some seminar? Or is this just something you thought up all by yourself?”
Kimo almost smiled. “What, you don't think I'm being nice to these lolos?”
“I'm just wondering about the level of the violence. That's not
like you. I'm no cop, but this doesn't look like the smartest way to ask questions. Unless your real name is Torquemada.”
He nodded. “I'm trying to see if they'll tell me something under stress.”
“You're stressing them. I'm just not sure if you're doing yourself any good. Or your son.”
“There's things ⦔ He shut his mouth after a moment.
“You don't want to tell me. I understand. But you brought me along for a reason.”
Kimo was silent. I let him be, watching the landscape. We had reached the end of the highway, just outside Schofield Barracks, and found the narrow two-lane road. The road ran through pineapple fields that seemed to stretch unbroken from the Waianae Mountains on the west to the foothills of the Ko'olaus in the east. Beyond the green hump of the pineapple fields ahead was the pale blue Pacific Ocean graced with columns of billowy white clouds. Up this high it was easy to tell we were on an island.
“That's why you're along,” Kimo said after a moment. “You're supposed to keep me out of trouble.”
“You're already in trouble. Both of those guys have reason to report you.”
“They won't. They know I'm here because I'm a father. Not because I'm a cop.”
“You think one of your sons is informing them?”
“How do you think Ricky Lee knows me? Do you think he knows every cop on the island by name?”
“Probably not.”
“So why would he know me? I've never crossed his path before. Not officially. But he knew me as soon as I walked into the gym. How come?”
“Point taken.”
“And he knew you, too, Caine. He reacted when I mentioned your name.”
“I noticed that.”
“So you're the detective. Deduce something.”
“These guys are connected to one another just the way you thought they were, and Francis, who also knew you, called Ricky to tell him of our encounter, so Ricky expected us to pay him a visit, too.”
“How does that explain their knowing our names? I can see him describing us, but our names?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on, you're better than that.”
I knew the answer. I just didn't want to say it out loud. Not to Kimo. Not in his current mood.
“Come on, Caine. I want to know if you figured it out, or if your brains are down, too.”
“They know you because of what Francis said. He identified you, he mentioned your son, so he knows you through your son.”
Kimo nodded. “So how do they know you?”
“I've been to your house.”
“And you've met my son. It's okay, you can say it.”
“And I've met your son.”
“Who identified you as the detective for Donna Wong â¦
“Who must have known what I was doingâ”
“Who identified you as the detective for Donna Wong.”
I nodded, sensing that if I did not agree with him, he would continue to press the issue. “And where does that leave us?”
“That, Caine, leaves me with the possibility that I've got a murderer living under my roof.”
The road descended through cane and pineapple fields until it came to the Waialua turnoff and we followed the road down toward the beach. Kimo had his thoughts and he had his problems. I wasn't certain I wanted to trade, even though my own were bad enough.
He parked the Jeep in a dirt lot fronting an old stucco and corrugated metal-sided bar within rock-throwing distance from the Waialua sugar mill. I recognized it for what it was, a workers' bar, a place where laborers gathered after a shift. It was not a place for haoles. It was not a place for cops.
“We're going in here?”
“One of the guys I know told me about this place.”
It took me a moment. Kimo seemed to be reluctant to speak the kid's name. “Your son?”
He nodded, staring at the covered entrance to the bar. Two big men sat on the railing in front of the bar and drank beer from brown bottles and stared at the Cherokee. It wouldn't be long before we would be the focus of attention.
“This where they meet?”
“Sometimes. There's a guy here named Bumpy Kealoha, one of the leaders of the Aha Kuka O Na Kanaka. He tends bar. Runs a Hawaiian commune on the north shore. The place is supposed to be a hotbed of radical political thought.”
I couldn't tell if he mocked himself, so I let it alone. “Your son used to come here?”
“A few months ago, a couple of uniforms stopped him just down the road and he failed the Breathalyzer. They called me instead of taking him in. Professional courtesy. Like a fool I came to get him. Probably should have ordered them to arrest him.”
“So you talked on the way home?”
“He
talked. I couldn't get him to shut up. You know drunks. He told me all about his new friends, how they were going to change the world. I thought it just a bunch of college-boy stupidity.”
“So this bartender, you gonna beat him up?”
“Don't know.”
“You know I'm not supposed to fight. I'll go in there with you, but if it starts to get nasty ⦔
Kimo looked over at me. “You don't have to. This isn't your fight.”
“Is it yours?”
“My son is involved in something. These guys know things that I need to know.”
“You think they care?”
“Not yet. But they're gonna.”
I stared at the two big guys sitting on the railing, each bigger than an NFL lineman. They continued staring at the Cherokee, drinking slow draughts of beer, aware of us watching them.
“You can't beat all of them up. Even if you could it wouldn't do any good. What's the purpose?”
“My purpose?”
“What do you hope to accomplish? Get information? You expect them to tell you, a cop, and me, a haole, all about their fantasy plot to overthrow the government? You already know enough to get it out of your son. You've got enough to sit down with him, and with Tutu Mae and Neolani, and learn everything he's into. He'll tell you now. I'm sure of it.”
Kimo settled in his seat. “Well, in the first place I don't think James would be willing to talk to me. We had a hell of a fight about this whole thing last night when I got home.”
“Oh.”
“And in the second place he packed his gear and left afterward. I don't know where he is.”
Kimo gripped the steering wheel in both of his huge hands, his knuckles white.
“You asked my purpose? My purpose is simple. My purpose is to find my son and bring him home.”
I nodded toward the two giants sitting on the porch railing. “We going to march in there like a couple of Old West gunslingers and make them talk? You think that's going to happen?”
Kimo nodded to himself, his mouth a tight line. Something was going on in his head, but whatever it was he wasn't ready to share.
“You know, five years ago I'd have gone in there and cleaned the place out with you. I'd have done it because you needed the back-up, and I'd have understood how you needed to take out some of your frustration on these people.” I pointed toward the bigger of the two laborers. “Five years ago I would have happily walked into that bar and grabbed the information for you, no matter how many heads I had to break. But not now.”
He looked at me, still silent. Then he said, “How far can I trust you, Caine?”
I shrugged. It was a useless question.
“You know about the
lua
?”
“Hawaiian martial arts. I've heard it's effective, but you don't share it with us haoles. You teach it only in secret societies.”
Kimo snorted. “You make it sound like the Chinese Triads.”
“Warrior societies are the same. It's the same as the Knights Templar. They can be a force for good.”
“But not necessarily,” Kimo said. “Lua dates back to Kamehameha's time. The Alapai Guard practiced lua, perfecting it when they were the king's personal bodyguard. Now it forms a basis for father and son traditions. I was about to bring James into my lua brotherhood. He had resisted earlier, but a combination of what he was hearing at the university and his level of maturation made him change his mind.”
“He changed his mind?”
“Then he changed it again. He refused to come with me, although joining my lua brotherhood would have previously satisfied him. It was all he wanted since he was very young.”
“He'd already joined another group.”
“That's exactly what happened. He broke from the family and joined a rogue group.”
“How did you find out?”
“I caught him practicing defensive moves he would not have known. Do you understand? He
could
not have known what he knew without personal instruction.”
Two more men had joined the giants sitting on the porch railing while we talked. Another appeared in the doorway, a shadowy figure, standing out of the light.
“That's him,” said Kimo.
“That's him who?”
“Bumpy. In the doorway. He's been to the house. With James.” He reached for the door handle. I gently put my hand on his shoulder.
“So you've seen him before. He'll keep. If he's connected to those other two he'll know why you're here. Give it some time. Once you've got something on him you can come back and do it legally.”
“This place is where they meet.”
I looked at the giants watching us, seeing them now in a different light.
“Just think about what you're doing before you do it,” I said. “If you still want to go in there I'll go with you. Not happily, but I'll go.”
Kimo looked at me for the long moment, staring me in the eye as if he were considering what I'd said. I'd have given anything to know exactly what was going on inside his head.
I knew what he'd decided when he opened the Jeep's door.
“Lock your side,” he said.