Murder On The East China Sea

by Mark W M Smith

  “So they solve it. I’m off the hook.”

  “Solving the crime is less important than closing the case.”

  Garboski offered me a pathetic smile. One of his eyebrows raised while the other dipped. “You get too excited over things hadn’t happened yet.” His color remained ashtray smudge.

  “Maybe.” I traced the exposed roots of the banyan, imagining Quentin teaching his baby sister to climb while hidden from my watchful eye. “My dad owns a Japanese car dealership. My mother drives an oversized Chrysler. It makes a nice mix of be prepared and fuck it.”

  “My granddaddy always told me don’t cry ’til you spilt the milk. That’s my motto.”

  “Then you cry like a three-year-old.”

  “Screw you.”

  “You do grasp the part where dead stripper equals spilled milk.”

  He laughed, but his humorless eyes peered through the porch screen into paradise without appreciation.

  I wondered if he imagined a tree overflowing with his own miniature Garboskis. “You need a woman, G. Gain yourself some perspective.”

  “Speaking of women, you still got one?”

  “Real PSYOP specialist, aren’t you?”

  It prompted a smoky laugh. “She almost kilt me today. Thank Jesus for cops.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  “She lay hold of her PI license yet?”

  “Funny.”

  “I bet she could find you under a rock off of Hedo Point.”

  Disgrace clenched my neck and forced my chin low. “Won’t happen.”

  He harrumphed. “You say.”

  “I’m done chasing my pecker.”

  “She’ll forgive you. It’s in your blood.”

  His reference to my dirty old codger of a dad twisted a smirk into my grim mood. “Your insight into married life is profound, Bernie.”

  “Hey. Cool it with the B-word.” He scowled with his mouth. “You’re grumpy. Let’s go see some girls.”

  “Your nuts, G.”

  “Drive to Naha.”

  My snort came out more judgmental than intended.

  G’s expression shifted, falling away from hopeful excitement to disturbed regret. “I need redemption for that last trip. A second chance.”

  It took more self-discipline than I had to keep from reaching over and grasping his knee in brotherly love. “Happens to everybody, G.”

  He knocked my hand off of his leg. “You ever cradled a limp lizard?”

  I thought of my children, forming memories in our lush backyard. Quentin playing horse while Penelope whipped him with a switch. Her screeches of joy at his gentle bucking. I’d played similar games with my sister, Renée. “You were drunk. It happens.”

  “To other people.”

  Talking about our sexual adventures—or misadventures—felt as safe as hand-starting a C-130 prop. I imagined Nansi waiting behind the enormous tree holding a shovel, two shallow holes beside her, one a head longer than the other. “Apparently not, G-man.” I pushed my butt out of the chair.

  “So you’re not backing me on this?” His heartache left him gawking like a giant elf at a Christmas protest.

  Standing to my full six-one, I replied, “Put on that face and you should do fine minus a wingman. The ladies will line up to fix your problem.”

  “Alright, Pierce.” Garboski spread the plastic arms wide to free himself. “Copy that.” By the time he straightened, he stood a head taller. “I’m not offended. Because you rode along for my adventure with Johnny Law.”

  “Watch your six. Johnny Law wants your hide.”

  “You hurt my bitty heart.” He tapped my shoulder with a meaty fist.

  A flutter of relief flowed across my breast and into my throat. I slapped a palm to his chest. “There’s no bitty in this heart, big guy.”

  He wrapped me in his thick limbs, feigning a whimper. “You are me little friend,” he said, putting a Polish spin on his Brogue. “I vill miss you.” Then he released me and banged through the door with the flurry of a flying ape.

  Passing our bedroom window, he blew a kiss. “Bye, my Sweet.” He laughed his way to his tiny Honda. Creaking and groaning the car accepted him, a militant Barnum and Bailey clown out of makeup.

  He popped and sputtered into the path of a shiny black 1993 Toyota Crown with dark window tint. They creeped up the road with the contrasting humor of a lilliputian motorcade.

  I swelled with emptiness. My neighbors’ houses stretched haphazardly over a large grassy knoll above the East China Sea. Warm odors of fish and salt water swaddled me.

  I was sure he wasn’t equipped for sub-zero wind chills in Leavenworth, Kansas.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “WHERE’S GARBOSKI?” I asked Senior Master Sergeant Siemen Friedrich Falkney. His name always arrived in full dress uniform under pressure. How I earned this burden reminded me that God created men equal. Even when they believe otherwise.

  “Don’t you have a sortie up in an hour, Pierce?” His voice adopted an Irish brogue when he lied.

  “Aren’t you from Phoenix, Arizona, Chief-oh-so-sorry Senior Master Sergeant Falkney?”

  He straightened from his leaning position, as tall as Garboski but wide and flat like a cobra.

  My memory interjected the repulsive image of his bare-naked ass trembling on the porch of a German brothel. I stood my ground.

  Falkney’s self-proclaimed personal attendant Airman Winona Jones tiptoed her willowy form back toward her cubicle.

  “You're exceptionally ballsy today, Staff Sergeant Pierce.” Falkney offered a smile that made me want to bob and weave. “What’s in your craw?”

  “I’m just looking for my assistant.”

  “You check the tail section? Maybe he’s napping.”

  “I checked.” I glanced after Jones. “Did I interrupt official business? She taking dictation on the details of your next divorce?”

  Cherry fire lit Falkney’s sharp cheeks. His frontward lean closed the strike gap. Behind his calculating eyeballs I could almost make out the risk assessment of his career against my blood on the tarmac. “You think you can get away with shit based on a compromised moment, Pierce.” The raspy whisper came as a hissing omen before a viperine launch. “But you’re still a pissant in an oversized outhouse.” His head snapped forward another inch. “And I’ve got a big damn boot.”

  My thoughts revisited the Falkney dossier. It now included a firm belief he’d spent a minute as a security policeman. I had no intel on what relaunched his military trajectory. An inappropriate trifling, no doubt. On balance, I reckoned the knowledge of his dalliance with a General Officer’s concubine had enough dry powder to lob a sizable round. “Where’s my fucking assistant, Sarge?”

  Falkney’s ire faded into a sketchy grin. “I suppose your own differences with the misses kept you this morning. You undershot the dramatic departure of your gun moll girlfriend.” A glint of pleasure sparked his steel irises. “That buff Security Jock, Sledge, tugged him out of here with a flourish of applause.”

  His arrogance set my earlobes ablaze. “You are a piece of self-aggrandized cat scat, sir.” I held my tone below the growling sounds of airmen working in the hangar. Watching Falkney strain to pick up my abuses increased the satisfaction. Lifting my voice over the ambient clamor I said, “Yessir, Senior Master Sergeant! I understand the crucial nature of this flight to the mission. I’ll go ahead and sign it off.” My abrupt about-face prevented me from enjoying Falkney’s shock. I did see a few of my colleagues raise their eyebrows at the prospect of their boss insisting a questionable aircraft fly into the sunset.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE THOROUGHFARE BUZZED with noontime activity in direct competition with the neon sign above Chuck’s Taco Dori. Shoppers drifted past, oblivious. An Okinawa couple jostled us, shoving in to view Chuck-san's exhibition of Japanese-style Mexican cuisine.

  “Sumimasen, sumimasen.” They spoke frenetically, while facing the plastic food in the display case.

 
I averted my gaze. Their feigned deference annoyed me.

  Sharon bowed as deftly as an Ryukyuan dancer. “Daijoubu desu.”

  Her tone held the stealth of that early morning warning call to my home. Nerves lit tiny fires in my breast. I should remind her of the rules. Her ash blonde hair shimmered in the storefront glass. The rules of affairs abandoned me. “We could go to Half Moon.”

  She curled her fingers over my forearm. “You’ve been avoiding.”

  My eyes rolled, casting off memories of the love motel. “There’s a cliché.”

  “And still you observe from afar,” her voice tilted upward, “my mirror image holding you transfixed.”

  I chuckled. “Sharonnette, your countenance beams more radiantly than mortals can abide.”

  She punched my shoulder. “So you deny?”

  My hand settled over hers. “It’s not easy.”

  “To deny?”

  “To avoid.”

  “So why do it?” She tracked my expression in the glass.

  “You know why.”

  “Humor me.”

  A bright-eyed Okinawan woman caught my eye and coyly nodded. “What I need is information.”

  Sharon wrinkled her forehead. “You won't answer?”

  I traced the fleshy creases with two fingertips. “My friend is in trouble.”

  She brushed the pads of my fingertips with her mouth and then pulled them to her breastbone. “You want to stop seeing me?”

  “Somebody killed a stripper.”

  Sharon cocked her head, gauging my sincerity. “You were there?”

  The question hit me between the eyes.

  Her character shifted from fierce jealousy to amused disinterest in a blink. “Connor. You naughty boy.”

  Disappointment and wounded pride puffed my chest. “It was for Garboski.”

  “You warm them up for him?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Caress their silky skin and kiss their gentle palm.”

  A gasp entangled me. My scalp tingled at the image of Sharon watching as I touched the girl. What was her name? Jasmine? No. A spice. Cinnamon. She told me Cinnamon. “The paper called her Keziah Ocampo. Filipino, I guess.”

  “But you couldn’t say, personally?”

  Sharon’s knowing grin heated my cheeks. The dancer’s weight in my lap and the taste of her perfume haunted our moment. Before the newspaper story, she was an object of lust, not a desperate young woman with dreams of nursing or three siblings and a dad working sixteen-hour days. “Every American dollar they let her keep went to family.”

  “Connor?”

  I zoomed in on my lovely mistress, the habit I was determined to kick. “Sorry.”

  “You look… disturbed.”

  “Just a revelation.” I scowled. “They arrested my assistant for this girl’s….”

  Sharon smiled and tugged my chin, giving me a quick kiss. Moisture rimmed her lower lids. “It’s your kindness that draws me.”

  The scowl grew harsher. “I’m the same as my father.”

  “He must be a good guy.”

  Waving off the irony, I smirked. “Did your husband mention details of the murder?”

  “We don’t talk about work.”

  “You simply listen in?”

  She shook off the insult with a flick of her sumptuous mane. “A chance thing. I was assisting a friend.”

  “Fair. Still. Dangerous.”

  “We don’t talk about much.” She squinted up the walkway.

  “Waiting for someone?”

  “Godot,” she said, leaning further out.

  “What?” Caution buzzers kicked off inside my chest.

  Her green eyes danced with the risk that first drew me. “Theater reference. You wouldn’t understand.” Her lips glistened.

  My attention swung to the tuna tacos blanketed with dull tomato slices.

  Scents of yakitori wafted from a street vendor. Bustling foot traffic soothed the tension between us. A moped zipped around a creeping white Toyota.

  “You can’t help me figure this out?” I asked the fake food.

  “You haven’t admitted to avoiding me.”

  Her phantom image glanced down the road again.

  “You’re making me nervous.”

  “Because I want to be close to you?”

  “Because you’re acting like Jason Bourne expecting discovery.”

  “They’ll make a movie,” she informed my replica.

  Her deflective dialogue kept my neck loose on its swivel. “If they make a movie about our business, Nansi will mount me over the mantle.”

  “Sounds sexy,” she said.

  “You’re a master of distractions, m’lady. I was speaking of taxidermy.”

  “Awe. Your wife’s ire. A clue.”

  “More than that. A promise.”

  “So we’re done?”

  The Half Moon splashed across the screen of my mind, a slot machine pissing me off in the corner, Sharon’s purse tumbling off the side of the bed. Our sweating bodies. A can of Orion from the mini-fridge smoothing my shame.

  My glance met hers. “I should be.”

  Hurt pinched off a morsel of her grace.

  “I’ve got kids, Sharon.”

  She touched the name tag above my shirt pocket. “Logan wants a baby.”

  The mention of him chilled the daytime heat. Dead stripper. Cops searching. Logan Pasfield leading that search. I wrapped an arm around Sharon and squeezed. “Maybe not yet.”

  She shifted back, checking my sincerity.

  I kissed her.

  She nudged me off, palm cupping my face. “I better—”

  Realization fired up my pre-flight checklist. “Shit, Sharon. You didn’t.”

  * * *

  “I needed a reason for being out.”

  My gaze scoured the floating heads.

  A tall white guy, immaculate suit, scanning. Logan Pasfield looked confused.

  “You told him to meet you at the shoe store?”

  “To avoid surprise.”

  A glance at Sharon and I was breaking free. “I swear you’re crazy, woman.”

  Her voice followed my retreat. “Call me.”

  I scooted into a trinket shop across the street. Racks of cheap jewelry brushed my arms like undergrowth in the Boonies around Kadena housing. My eyes searched the floor for unexploded ordinance left behind after World War One.

  From the belly of the shop, I watched Sharon greet her husband. Her smile genuine, she appeared to wink at my sanctuary. Logan visually panned the sidewalk further down. In profile his half grin looked sinister. Worse, omniscient.

  Stomach acid squeezed into the sides of my neck. Fear of his deductive powers pushed me deeper inside, behind a rack of necklaces. Unbidden memories of our heated passion at the Half Moon handed jealousy and shame each a weapon in the battle. My mind traced our steps from the first rush of lust and nerves on the King-size bed into the calming wake of the jetted tub. I dialed 9 on the house phone and said “Going home” while thinking to my wife. Sharon stuffed our combined yen into the tube of anonymity embedded within the sanctum walls. Spouting, “Keep the change,” made me feel a tiny bit noble during the betrayal of my wedding vows. The automatic privacy gate lifted, and I drove Sharon to her car while she encouraged my waning testosterone. In that moment I knew our affair was damned. After dropping her, I pulled over, angled out the door and retched.

  Logan’s super vision made one more sweep over my hiding place.

  I crouched on instinct.

  The rack tipped, touching a young woman’s shiny black hair.

  She jumped and chirped her fright.

  Ducking more deeply, I eased the metal tree towards upright. Sickness swelled into my throat. My stomach seized, holding the bile captive.

  “Sumimasen,” I whispered at the woman. “Sumimasen.”

  She flashed an overmodest smile and dipped her chin.

  I acknowledged her flirtation while scrutinizing the street behind her.

&
nbsp; Logan, and my lover, were gone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MY FEET HIT the inhospitable tile in our bedroom at 3 a.m. Restless ideas bounced from pin to pin like Pachinko balls seeking a winning prize. Letting Nansi assume an early morning takeoff, I tucked my uniform under my arm and headed out to find Garboski’s alibi.

  At Gate One, the guard questioned my off-hour intentions while holding my ID against his nose.

  I twisted the truth into something useful. “Buddy stuck in Naha.”

  “Make it sweet,” he warned. “Locals are hostile since that schoolgirl’s rape.”

  A vigorous nod got me rolling. One eye targeted the rear view until I pulled onto Highway 58 southbound. A left at Highway 23 had me circling the base perimeter to Koku Dori.

  I parked on Hoikusho Dori and squeezed the car door shut. A splash of light flooded the sidewalk fifty feet ahead. Someone rushed toward me, tightening my sphincter inside out, before disappearing down a side street. A block deeper into the multistory cavern, a vehicle started and flashed headlights onto the opposing storefront. I slammed against the wall. The building slid round the curve of my ankle, rocketing me across the street through the blinding beam with the velocity a PJ fast roping into a combat zone. Skidding into the shadows, my heart pounded out the end of days. The blender of memory churned up the terrified hiss of a feline as its shape ricocheted off of mine. My breath slowed. Crack of dawn silence settled in. I tiptoed on.

  Rover’s rested atop a two-level structure.

  I jogged up the stairs and grabbed the door handle like Joe Hardy in a Jessica Fletcher story.

  Locked.

  “You’re an idiot, Connor,” I said aloud.

  The door opened.

  My grasp on the knob prevented a tumble to ground zero.

  “Sumimasen?” a wiry geezer demanded. Backlighting turned his face into an oval vacuum. Wisps of gray bloomed at the edges of his gleaming black scalp. “We close stupid GI.”

  He slammed the door, yanking the knob from my grip.

  I stumbled backward, teetering on a single heel. The vacuum left by the shopkeeper’s absence loosed me into the force of gravity. I seized the rail and jerked my body into a squat. Predawn air chilled my lungs. When I opened my eyes to scowl at my failed sleuthing, fortune revealed a vertical thread of luminescence.