“I am a felony suspect.”
“You’re always a felony about to happen. But I need you today.”
“Okay,” I said, my thoughts not on the day ahead, but the day after. And the day after that. “What about Tutu Mae?”
“What about her?”
“She’s the expert in Hawaiian culture.”
“I’m bringing her in as a consultant on the case. She knows everything about this kind of stuff, man. She will know how to deal with it.”
The way he said it I wasn’t sure if Kimo meant “criminal” stuff, or “Hawaiian” stuff, or “family” stuff. I decided it didn’t really matter. She had enough wisdom to go around for all three.
“Look, Caine,” he said, staring at the sand through the shallow, clear water in front of him. “It’s accelerating. A Japanese honeymoon couple was carjacked on the north shore last night. The husband is the hero of the hour, engineering an escape before he or his wife was seriously hurt. But the kidnappers got away, even though one of our off-duty guys happened to be there and chased them into the jungle. The only thing the witnesses can agree on, and that includes our officer, is that the suspects were young, Polynesian, and that they shouted political slogans as they tried to hijack the convertible.”
“You think it was Silversword?” I wanted to ask if the son was home, but I left it alone. If what Francis had told us was accurate, Kimo’s son may have been involved in a murder. Or a series of murders. Carjacking was short time, compared to that.
“Maybe. If they’re trying to make a name for themselves.”
“Carjacking? Kidnapping? They’re branching out.”
“Keeping the crimes local, is what they’re doing. They haven’t attacked government buildings, although that’s who they say they have their beef with. They don’t want the FBI on their tail, I guess.”
“Who shot up Pearl Harbor?”
“You mean recently? There’s more than one loony on this island.”
We reached the beach in front of the Royal. The attendants were raking the white sand patch in front of the old pink hotel, setting out pink lounge chairs for the guests in exactly the same way they had set them out for over fifty years. Over my shoulder Diamond Head rose above the Waikiki skyline like a familiar friend.
“I want to follow up what Francis told me,” said Kimo. “I want to prove that he was talking out of school. I want to prove that Donna didn’t kill Hayes, that somebody else did.”
“Who did it?”
He shook his head. “That’s why I need you today, Caine. I need a friend with me. I really don’t think I’m gonna like what I’m gonna find out.”
32
We found Little Ricky Lee holding court at Duke’s Gym, impressing the boys with his prowess on the speed bag. I vaguely knew of Little Ricky, as he was called when he was out of earshot, and had seen him at the gym for years. I knew him as a braggart and a bully, a guy to avoid.
I never knew what he did for a living, but the man gave the impression that whatever it was didn’t take much of his time while it paid large rewards.
Kimo told me that from what he understood, Little Ricky drove a bright red Corvette, which he habitually parked in the rear of the topless bar across the street from the gym. When he wasn’t ringside at the topless bar he was at the gym. He never seemed to be anywhere else. It limited his life experience, according to Kimo, but made him easier to find.
“Why this guy? He’s Chinese,” I asked Kimo on the way to the gym. Kimo drove his Jeep Cherokee, not his Mustang with the blue police light on top. I found that odd.
“Oh yeah?” smirked Kimo. “I heard he’s pure Hawaiian.”
“Is he?”
“Pure bullshit is what he is. He’s been hanging with that porker we talked to at the wizard rocks, and sometimes he works for your friend as an enforcer.”
“My friend?”
“That Chinese criminal.”
“Chawlie?”
“Only sometimes. Just low-level stuff that I know about. He’s not connected. I doubt that Chawlie ever heard of him.”
“Chawlie doesn’t hire enforcers, does he?” I had trouble keeping my face straight.
Kimo raised one eyebrow and looked at me. “I don’t know if you’re putting me on with that wide-eyed innocence, but I hope you’re not that stupid.”
“So how did this guy’s name pop up in this investigation?”
“Ricky knows things, and he hangs with people, but he’s strictly free-lance. That topless bar’s his office. People come and go. Sometimes he sits with his clients, makes a deal, and goes out and does whatever it was he agreed to do. He’s such a small-time crook that only the young cops are interested in him.”
“So why are you interested?”
“Ricky’s been hanging with Francis, and with … other people that know Francis, guys down from the university.”
“No names.”
“No names, thank you. Like I said, he’s a free-lance kind of guy. I figure that if he works enforcement for one group, he’ll work enforcement for another.”
“Silversword?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s pretty thin.”
“Yeah.”
“But we’re going to brace him, aren’t we?”
“Uh-huh.”
And then I understood. Ricky was a hard case, or he thought he was a hard case. In either event, he would not speak willingly with the police. So that’s why Kimo had brought me along. He was not going to talk to Ricky Lee under the cover of his badge. He was going to talk to Ricky Lee as the father of a boy who might be in deep trouble. A badge came with responsibilities and limitations of authority. And Kimo was not going to worry about the restraints that also came with the badge.
“Here we are, and Little Ricky is at home.” Kimo pointed to the red convertible snugged up against the back of the concrete block building on Kalakaua Avenue, the car surrounded by plastic trash cans to protect it from an accidental collision. The cans looked like boat bumpers.
“He takes good care of his car.”
Kimo parked next to the Corvette. He walked all the way around it, examining the tags and the safety stickers. From what I could see everything was legal. Kimo must have thought so, too, because he did nothing to the car. I was sure that he would have radioed for a tow if he’d found any excuse.
“A man has to take pride in something,” said Kimo. “This guy can’t really point to anything else in his life.”
Kimo was wrong. When we found Ricky Lee we found a tiny warrior, stripped to the waist, with superb muscle definition and lightning reflexes. He was dancing with the speed bag, tapping the leather with such a brilliantly coordinated effort that it looked easy. Tapping was probably the wrong word, but that’s the way it looked. Except that Ricky’s tap sent the speed bag flying, rebounding off the board, only to be met with another fist. He never missed. His rhythm was flawless. He was fast as a snake. Ricky could be proud of his hand-eye coordination, as well as his Corvette.
We watched among a crowd, both of us at least a head taller than the other gym rats, until he stopped. Ricky didn’t just taper off, or abandon the bag in full flight, letting it take its course. It just stopped. One touch and the bag came to an instant arrest. Ricky was fast. And he was proud of it. Turning around, pulling off his gloves as if he expected applause, Ricky smiled until he saw the two of us. Then his smile faded and became a scowl.
“What chew want?”
“He knows you?” I asked Kimo.
“I don’t think so.”
“What chew want?” The little warrior was suddenly in front of us, hostility and sweat pouring off him in equal portions. The gym rats disappeared, leaving us alone in the boxing room.
“I want to talk to you, Ricky.” Kimo smiled, and I noticed that Ricky had managed to become cornered by the bigger man. Kimo had skillfully maneuvered him. He had nowhere to go if Kimo didn’t want to him leave.
“Not to me. Talk to my lawyer.”
> Kimo looked at me, his eyes pleading. “Nobody wants to talk to me today. Why is that?”
“You eat Thai food last night?”
Ricky made a move toward Kimo, his body moving so fast he was a blur.
“Nope,” said Kimo, and hit Ricky Lee in the jaw with his left, his forearm coming up to meet the smaller man’s assault.
Lee fell to the mat and lay still.
“You kill him?”
Kimo rolled Ricky over until he was face up. “Probably not.” He patted his face. “Get me some water.”
I went to the cooler, filled a cup with ice-cold water, and brought it back.
“Thank you,” said Kimo, drinking half of it. He stood there, considering the still form at his feet, and then poured the remaining half on Ricky Lee’s head.
“Hey!” Ricky instantly reacted, leaping up from the mat in one smooth motion. Kimo pushed him back to a sitting position.
“Guess I didn’t kill him,” he said, his voice a mixture of innocence and disappointment.
The smaller man sputtered, shaking his head, wiping the back of his hand across his face. “I’ll have your badge for this.” Even on the floor, even looking up at a man half the size of Godzilla, the little guy was on the offensive. I almost liked him, if for nothing else but his spirit.
“Sure you will, Ricky,” said Kimo. “Did I say I was a cop?”
“You focking broke my jaw.”
“No I didn’t. I could have, but I didn’t.”
“I’m going to sue you.”
“For what?”
“Assault!”
“Assault? Did I hit him?” Kimo turned to me.
“I didn’t see anything.”
“You got any other witnesses?”
“Fock you, man. I know who you are, and I’ve seen you before,” he turned on me. “You work out here once in a while. I’ve seen you.”
“I didn’t hit you either.”
Ricky snorted, almost a laugh. “What do you two turds want with me?”
“How long has it been since you were up to St. Louis Heights?”
“I wanna see some ID.”
“You said you knew who I was. You don’t need ID.”
“Gotta get your badge number.”
“I heard you hang with a group from the University of Hawaii. Talk about revolution, reestablishment of the monarchy, that kind of stuff.”
“I never been to no university.”
“How about grammar school?” I asked.
Ricky snarled at me. “Hey, you ever say anything that’s not smart ass?”
Kimo gave me the hard stare. “Pay attention to me,” he said to Ricky. “You know people who do?”
“Do what?”
Kimo sighed. I thought he was going to hit the man again. “Do you know who I am?” he asked instead, his voice gentle. “Come on, Ricky. You said you know me. What’s my name?”
Ricky looked at him out of the side of his eyes, his head turned toward the floor, studying the giant in front of him as if what he saw was just too bright—or too ugly—to gaze at directly. A small smile came to him after a moment.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “You’re the Jolly Green Giant.”
Kimo shook his head, tiring of the game.
“You got your beanstalk parked outside?”
“You don’t know—”
“I know you got a badge, and I know you’re in deep shit trouble. I’m going to file a complaint against you this afternoon. And so is my friend. We’ll both press charges.”
“What friend?”
“You know the one. You knocked him on his ass in Waikiki this morning, Lieutenant Kahanamoku.”
Kimo looked at me and winked. “You know, I think you might be right,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he directed the remark to Ricky Lee or to me; he was looking at the ceiling when he spoke.
“You going to report me?” he said to Ricky.
“Assault. That’s a felony.”
“You ought to know. How many times you been busted for felony assault?”
Lee shook his head. “You’re not going to go there, you big moke. Just go away and leave me alone.”
“Ricky … Ricky … Ricky.”
“What?”
“I want to get this right. I don’t want to misunderstand what you said. You said my name and my rank, and told me that you are going to go to the police station and report me for felony assault. Is that correct?”
Lee knew something was up but he was already too deep into the conflict and incapable of backing out the way he’d come. I watched his muscles flex along the tops of his shoulders. He was poised, those snakelike reflexes on full alert.
“Yeah, cop. What you going to do about it?”
“I hit you once. That’s all.”
“See? You admit it!”
“I only hit you once and you’re going to report me for assault.” Kimo looked at me, a theatrical frown on his face. “Does that seem right to you, Caine?”
Lee snaked a look at me when Kimo said my name.
“Does it?” demanded Kimo.
“No,” I said. “Once is not enough. Not if he’s going to report you.”
Ricky’s head swiveled back and forth between the Kimo and me, trying to follow the path, almost getting it but not quite quick enough to follow where this was headed. The one concept I was certain he understood was that he was in trouble.
“You’re right,” said Kimo, but only after his sandal had stomped down on the leading foot of the little warrior. Ricky tried to jerk away but found himself pinned to the mat. Kimo popped him in the jaw before Lee could get his hands up and he went down like one of those weighted punching dolls. I almost expected him to rise, but he was unconscious before he hit the mat.
“You have a real technique, Detective,” I said as Kimo checked Lee for vital signs for the second time.
“He’s got a code. He wouldn’t tell us anything anyway.” Satisfied that Ricky was not seriously hurt, he got up and wiped his hands on his pants. Lee’s body was still covered in sweat.
“You knew that before you came here.”
“Yeah.”
“Then why, may I ask, did we go through this?”
“It felt good.”
“Punching Ricky Lee because it felt good is not good police procedure.”
“You’re lecturing me about police procedure, Caine?”
“Just pointing out some possible holes in your technique, is all.”
“Come on. We’ll talk about it in the car.”
“Aren’t you worried about the report?”
He grinned and shook his head. “A Ricky Lee does not go to the authorities to settle his disputes; he won’t go anywhere near the station unless he’s in handcuffs. He will not try to get me fired. It’s not his style.”
“I didn’t think beating suspects was your style.”
Kimo put his hand on my chest. “You got an attack of morals all of a sudden, Caine?”
“Call it wisdom.”
“Call it whatever you want, but I need to know what Ricky Lee knows, and I don’t have time to ask him twice.”
He waved and smiled as we passed the reception desk on our way out the door. People were craning their heads toward the boxing room like a prairie dog colony, trying to see what had happened.
“You got his attention. I’m not certain it did you any good.”
“I got what I wanted,” he said. We were on the sidewalk in the bright morning sunshine. Traffic was heavy and we waited for a light down the street to clear before we could jaywalk safely. “And now I’ve got his attention. He’ll try to find a way to get back at me. When he does, he’ll make a mistake. I’ll own him then.”
I nodded. It made sense.
“And what would you have done, given the circumstances?”
“Given the circumstances? You mean if I knew that he was part of a group that was drawing my son into a dangerous situation ?”
Kimo started to speak but changed his m
ind. It registered that he almost hit me for answering the question the way I had. There were boundaries here that I was not supposed to cross.
“Yeah,” he said, after a moment.
“You mean, would I have hit him?”
He nodded.
“Harder. And more often.”
We walked by the red Corvette. I knocked over a trash can.
“I would have kicked him, too.”
33
Kimo 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.
Silversword Page 21