The Flaming Luau of Death (17 page)

He nodded, looking horribly sorry about it.

“How?”

“I am really good on the Internet,” he said. “Really good. I play a lot of MMO games, and some of my online buddies are extremely good at hacking around. Anyway, I found out you went to school with the woman who is running the Four Heavens resorts. It’s in both of your Web site bios. And I just hacked an e-mail hoax to you inviting you and your friends to stay at the Four Heavens.”

“And you know that manager fellow, Jasper Berger?”

“I gave him a sufficient tip, that’s all. Anyway, no harm done, right? I was paying for a luxury vacation for friends anonymously. He had no trouble with it.”

“Oh, Marvin. It’s creepy, that’s what it is. Almost like stalking, only well, like reverse-stalking.”

“I never approached Holly! I haven’t even seen her. I just wanted to let her know I was here if she wanted to talk.”

“So,” I said, just figuring it out, “you sent your buddy Kelly Imo to Holly’s room to invite her to see you.”

“Yes. I wanted to see her. Desperately. But in the clutch, I panicked. I couldn’t do it. Holly was so close, but I didn’t have the courage to face her. Kelly thought I was a riot. He said he’d go and talk to her. He had no trouble talking to women, so I said yes. I was grateful.”

“And Berger let him into the room?”

“Yes.”

“And then what?”

“I have no idea,” Marvin said, miserably. “I never heard back from Kelly. I had my housekeeper make a very special dinner last night, but Holly didn’t show up, and Kelly was supposed to invite her here. It just never worked out. And then this morning, we learned that Kelly had somehow fallen into the ocean and died.”

“So you never heard from him after he met with Holly?”

“No. As I said, he didn’t get back in touch with me. I figured he just didn’t want to hurt my feelings. But then when they said his death wasn’t an accident, I didn’t know what to think.”

“What happened,” I said, relaxing just a little as I realized that while Marvin Dubinsky might be the most romantically mixed-up young man on the planet, at least, thank god, he wasn’t homicidal, “is that your friends from the wasabi fields of Japan are on the island and they have a gun, Marvin.”

“Shit!”

“Yes. And…”

Before I could tell him “and…”
what,
a terrible, terrible thing occurred. Every single light in that little house suddenly went out.

I let out a little yelp. “What’s happening? What’s happening?”

Marvin’s voice came out of the complete pitchdarkness. “I don’t know. Our power must be down.”

“What?” I asked, nervous. “Does that happen often out here?”

“No. Never,” he said. “The power out here comes from the main house.”

“So you mean the electricity is off at the main house too?” I tried to imagine two hundred guests bumping around in the dark, about three miles up the road, knocking into one another, spilling their kalua pork. Maybe yelling and jostling. It wasn’t a pleasant mental picture.

“This isn’t good, Madeline,” Marvin said, his voice tense. “I’ve got a backup generator. If the lights don’t go back on in another second or two, I think the power has been sabotaged.”

We sat there, Marvin and I, in the absolutely silent
darkness, willing the lights to come back on. Another second went by. Then another. My breathing became much more shallow. Thirty seconds later and I figured the lights weren’t going to be working anytime soon.

“Look,” Marvin’s voice said, still tense. “You’ve got to get away. If those men have been trying to get to me, they may have figured a way to do it. They’re probably outside right now, on their way down the road right this minute. You’ve got to get away.”

“We can both go,” I said. “I’ve got my car out back.”

In the far distance we could just barely hear the sound of a car’s engine. It was getting closer.

“No, they’ll just find a way to run us off that little road. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But, Marvin!” My voice was anxious and I stood up, trying to figure my way to the door. From outside I could hear the car’s engine growing louder by the second. “Let’s get out of here, now. Please.”

“Don’t open the front door,” he said, hearing me bump into a table. “They’ll see you. Look, I’ve got another idea. There’s a crawl space under this house. Come toward my voice.” I heard some shuffling of furniture and walked straight toward his voice, my chin bumping into his outreached hand.

The night was still, but we could hear the unmistakable thump of a car door slam, then another. And feet scuffling on gravel.

“Look,” I said, “let’s both go. Promise?”

“Sure,” he whispered. “Now feel down here on the floor. I’ve lifted the hatch on the crawl space. Just ease yourself down. It’s about a two-foot drop. And get away from here, Maddie.”

Two small beams, as from flashlights, suddenly flicked on outside and immediately began tracing impatient
patterns of light across the sliding glass doors. The curtains were drawn, thank God, but the faint illumination of the flashlights filtered into the room enough for me to make out Marvin’s face in the darkness. “You’re coming, right?” I whispered. I felt along the floor and found the opening, about two feet by three feet, and lowered myself down. Then I scrambled onto my stomach and edged away to make room for Marvin to follow.

The hatch quietly closed above me. Marvin had stayed to face his foes.

Iwak
lua Mua Kenekulia ’O-hule
(Twenty-first-Century Nerd)

I
had no great plan, no inspiration at all. I crouched low outside the house beside the back bedroom, leaning against the coolness of the exterior siding, trying to catch my breath, and took stock: I was alive at the moment, unharmed, unseen, unlooked for. That was the good news. The bad news was, there was an unknown number of angry men, probably armed, probably willing to kill, pinning us down at a little house in the middle of nowhere on the island of Hawaii, and they weren’t there to share recipes.

I always had this vision of myself that I did my most creative thinking under pressure. I was better at whipping up a startlingly good impromptu meal out of leftover ingredients than some chefs made out of a limitless larder. I was far happier when called upon to improvise than I was just plodding through some well-thought-out elaborate plan. So at this particular harrowing moment, I should have shined. I should have soared. I should have thought up something brilliant. The fact was, I didn’t.

All I could think of was reaching Wesley. I had taken my purse with me, and I opened my bag very slowly and very quietly and pulled out my cell phone. Before I flipped it open, I said a little prayer. But that was one prayer wasted. No cell coverage out here. None. Not
even one bar. Well, that was that. I needed a plan. I needed a plan.

I slipped my shoes off—high-heeled sandals were not going to figure into my plan, that was one thing I was sure of—and tucked them neatly near the house. I was crouching by a spiky shrub in the large rock garden, where, unfortunately, the sharp coral scratched my bare feet. Not my biggest worry now, however.

There were too many things I didn’t know. I didn’t know how bad the situation really was. Maybe Marvin would give these men their wasabi roots back, allow them to dig up his fields, pay for any damage he might have done to their business. Maybe there was still a hope in hell that reason could prevail.

Right. What was I thinking? Marvin’s wasabi fiasco had gone far past that point. For a thousand years, farmers had kept the secrets of cultivating their precious root, only to now be done in by this twenty-first-century nerd. They had lost the battle to some freaking phytomedicinal prospector, and they weren’t being gentlemanly about their loss. They had sent these horrible, violent men—men who used tactics that marked them as thugs and enforcers—out here to teach Marvin a lesson. They didn’t care about science or logic or the potential new uses for an ancient crop.

So, basically, we were screwed. Could I make it to my car, was the question.

It wasn’t far. The black Mustang sat tantalizingly close, with its top down, only a hundred feet away from where I was now sitting. I had my purse. I had the key. If I could make it to the car before anyone inside the house heard me, I might have a chance to drive out of here and get away.

But what if someone did hear me? In the stillness of
this absurdly quiet night, the roar of the engine turning over would alert them instantly. What if someone came running out of the house, gun drawn, to stop me? Who would hear gunshots out here? And another shiny new doubt cropped up: What if they had prepared for trouble, and had left other cars filled with other gunmen farther down the private road in order to prevent anyone from escaping? My heart was beating out of my chest, the more I envisioned fleeing in the Mustang and being chased off a cliff to die in the rocky water below. Like Kelly, I thought, and my heart beat even faster.

Maybe I should just stay low and hide by this little bush. Forever. Well, not really forever. These gangsters had to leave sometime, and fairly soon. Marvin’s security men had their hands full right now, true. I could picture the scene only a few miles away, with a house full of disturbed luau guests being led out of the dark house, demanding their cars, scurrying to leave. It would take some time for the security men to bring around all the cars and evacuate the main house. But then, in an hour or so, Marvin’s security team would certainly come to check out the foreman’s house. The men inside must know this and would not stay any longer than necessary.

If I could stay quiet for just an hour, the men inside might leave without ever knowing I was out here at all. Maybe by just hiding quietly, I could survive this night. That was, if I was willing to listen to whatever awful things were going on inside. From where I sat I heard muffled yelling coming from the direction of the living room. Were they hurting Marvin? Torturing him? Would they kill him? Could I sit here and wait quietly for Marvin Dubinsky to be murdered?

And then, right in the middle of my intensely quiet panic, up sprang an idea. It wasn’t a fabulous idea, but
who could be choosy at a time like this? I worked as silently as I could, praying the moon would stay behind the clouds a little longer, moving farther away from the house, toward the fields of black lava rock. And when I was finished, I had to congratulate myself. I had managed to survive for fifteen more minutes, and I was not yet dead.

The bottom of my feet were bloody, though, having scraped them against the rocks, but I barely felt the pain as I tiptoed to the Mustang and back to the house, and still no one came to stop me.

I had been in a worry spiral, thinking every sort of bad thing, and was now exhausted with worry. I had been worried about Marvin, worried that at any second I would hear a gunshot ring out from inside that house, and worried I would go crazy if I did. I was back against the house now and figured I should hear a little more of what was going on inside. I crept around the corner and found a spot under a dining room window that had been left open. Inside, the house was not completely dark. They had left their flashlights on as they interrogated Marvin Dubinsky.

The voices inside could be heard quite clearly in the nighttime silence. I couldn’t tell how many men were inside with Marvin, but it appeared that one man, at least, had stayed behind in their car. I could just peek out from my position and see the familiar late-model Lincoln, the same car the men had been driving when they threatened me at the Grand Waikoloa. It was now parked near the front door of the foreman’s house, with a man sitting inside, bored at the wheel.

It was only the merest fluke of good luck, I realized, that that sentry hadn’t taken the time to walk around to the back side of the house and make sure all was quiet.
None of these men had expected Marvin to have a guest with him tonight. None of them thought to check out the silent night. That’s what saved me.

I peeked out again. The man in the Lincoln hadn’t moved, and by the hang of his head, he might be sleeping. His eyes seemed closed. Another stroke of luck, and my heart continued to race as I ducked back down again and tried to make out what the men inside were saying.

“How you do it?” asked one of the men.

“I figured out the system of cooling the mountain water,” Marvin was saying. “I told you about this already.”

“Listen to me. You will tell again. And again. No one can do what you have done. Wasabi is very difficult to grow. Tell again.”

That was why they had come to Hawaii. They were angry this guy stole their precious wasabi plants, sure, but there was more to it than that. Men had probably stolen live plants in the past, but nothing had come of it. They were truly furious that Marvin had gone one better. He had figured out how to grow their famously temperamental wasabi outside of their tiny province in Japan. If they could learn how Marvin had done it, they might be able to stop other wasabi marauders in the future.

“Look,” Marvin said, “I told you I’m not trying to harm your business. You grow about five thousand tons of wasabi a year, right? My little garden here is nothing, my man.”

“How you know so much?” another man’s voice rang out, belligerent.

“I don’t want to get into your line at all. I’m not really into sushi,” Marvin said, his voice still sounding rational. “Look, it’s the phytochemicals I’m concerned with.”

“The what? You tell us everything now.”

“Okay.
Wasabia japonica
is part of the cabbage family, right? So of course, its pungency is due to isothiocyanates. But I’ve identified two glucosinolates in the root: sinigrin, which is also the characteristic aroma compound of black mustard and horseradish, and traces of glucocochlearin.”

“Enough!” said the first man who was interrogating Marvin. And then I realized, as long as Marvin Dubinsky had information they needed, they wouldn’t kill him. I was filled with relief.

Marvin continued, “See, the tasteless compounds are enzymatically hydrolyzed to the pungent mustard oils, allyl isothiocyanate…”

Oh my God! Marvin had a plan of his own. As long as he kept up his chemical blather (in the background, now, I could hear him saying: “[CH2 equals CH-CH2-NCS] and sec-butyl isothiocyanate—[CH3-CH2-CH(CH3)-NCS], respectively…”), he could delay the inevitable. His execution. Geek-speak might save Marvin’s life. Marvin was a genius after all.

“Stop that! Why you waste our time?” asked the man. “You steal our plants. You pay for that.”

“You’ve got to hear me,” Marvin pleaded. I didn’t like the sound of his voice, though. It was much more strained. Were they hurting him? I couldn’t take the chance to turn around and try to look through the open window. What if the man in the car opened his eyes? I couldn’t even see him from where I was sitting, but if I stood up again, he might spot me.

Marvin didn’t stop his spiel, no matter what they were doing to him. “Look, I’m just saying that what I’m finding out is amazing stuff. The chemicals natural to wasabi work faster than aspirin to prevent blood clots. And it’s
insane, but they also show protective properties against osteoporoses, diarrhea, and asthma. It’s like a whole new class of drugs, only better than drugs. Don’t you understand?”

“You leave me no choice, Mr. Dubinsky. I have to kill you now.”

I couldn’t tell when I’d started shaking. Probably just at that very minute.

“Shut up!” yelled one of the other men. Then he said, “First Mr. Dubinsky is going to tell us how he grow the wasabi outside Japan. Many men tried that. No one else can do that. You tell now.”

“It’s got to do with the water,” he said. “For wasabi to thrive it must be constantly bathed in pristine, chilly water with just the right mineral balance. Apparently the melted snows that trickle through the volcanic soil of both Izu and Nagano are ideal for this. I’ve studied your setup, and there has to be rushing water to flow past the roots. Just like you have in the mountains of Japan. That’s why they call wasabi Mountain Hollyhock. You probably know that already.”

“Go on.”

“Well, the water has to be the right temperature. Cold. Izu grows wasabi on terraced fields carved into sloping hills, while Nagano’s Azumino plain boasts flat beds with wide streams between the mounds of earth—both provide a water temperature of about forty-five to forty-eight degrees Fahrenheit year-round. And to get the mineral balance just right, it has to filter through volcanic rock. Like in Japan.”

So that’s why Marvin had relocated to the Big Island. He needed the volcanic rock to grow his illicit crop of wasabi.

“So that’s all? Cold water?” asked the man.

“No, of course not. It’s so much more complicated than that,” Marvin said.

Good for you, Marvin. Keep them talking.

In the quiet stillness of the night, I heard a very low roaring sound. Not a car. What was it? Possibly an airplane?

“Good evening!” A flashlight glared; a rough hand grabbed my shoulder, shocking me. “You stand up now!”

And that was the end of my secret little hideout.

The man who had been stationed in the Lincoln Town Car had apparently woken up and taken a stroll. In his hands he was holding a strappy pair of high-heeled sandals. My abandoned sandals. Shoot! Busted by fashion.

“Get up,” he said and pulled me to my feet.

“Ouch!” I yelped. My feet were scratched and bleeding. And now I could feel them hurt.

“Go inside with your husband,” said the man.

Right. They were still all about that.

“What’s that?” cried a man’s voice from inside the house. And when I was brought into the living room, two more flashlights were instantly trained on my face.

“Madeline!” Marvin yelled, horrified to see me. “I told you to run. Damn it. I was doing everything I could to give you time. I almost recited my entire doctoral dissertation for these imbeciles. What happened?”

“I didn’t want to leave you,” I said.

“Silence,” the man with the gun called.

And, of course, it was exactly as I had expected. We were being held hostage by the same merry band of pranksters I’d run up against at the Grand Waikoloa. “Hello again.”

“You think this is a joke?” he asked us, furious. “You
find out it’s no joke. I already kill one man on this island. I don’t mind killing more.”

My head reeled. Kelly Imo. He was admitting to killing Kelly. I had watched enough television to know that the murderer never admits to killing anyone unless he’s damned sure he’s going to leave those witnesses dead too.

“Why did you kill Kelly?” Marvin asked, anguish in his voice. “What did he have to do with you?”