I resumed the track and headed on out to the Kahala district. I was no more than ten or fifteen minutes behind as the result of my eventful little detour through Waikiki. I was in a slow burn—mostly at myself—and kicking my own ass all long the road in my funny car with bullet holes.
I wondered if I should check in with Billy Inyoko, and then wondered why the hell I should.
And, I have to tell you, I wondered if I should just tuck in the tail and go on home like a sensible citizen too far out on a limb.
By this time, though, I am idling past Davitsky's place and noted that there were now three cars in the driveway. Lights were on throughout the main house and both bungalows; also I saw lights and activity down along the boat docks.. ..
It appears that a party is getting underway. Seems like a strange time for partying, especially considering the circumstances, so I park directly uprange and watch. I hear female laughter and see figures transferring stuff onto a boat. It is a deep-sea cruiser, maybe a fifty-footer; I'd noticed it earlier during the look- see with Billy Inyoko but the dockside lights had not been on at that time and I'd seen little more than a silhouette in the twilight. Now the boat, too, is lighted inside and I can make out a good-sized salon topside. . . .
So what the hell; I left my vehicle parked along the roadside and went over the wall for a closer look. I was able to get inside about a hundred feet without exposing myself. Probably I would have had a hard time attracting anyone's attention out there, short of shooting off a gun or going on board with them. They were having a great time loading the party provisions and making ready to cast off.
Davitsky was on the bridge and warming the engines.
Ed Jones was fiddling around with the lines, obviously an apprentice at this seamanship business but ready to do or die for good old Jim.
The Godfather or whatever, a vigorous guy of maybe fifty, was helping the four Oriental girls stock the bar and put away the groceries.
I caught not a glimpse of the bewitching Belinda.
Davitsky gave his signal from the bridge, and Jones cast off the bowline, then ran aft to cast off the stern and scramble aboard via the swim platform. The cruiser nosed smoothly out of the slip and moved quietly into the darkness.
I lit a cigarette and stood there until the boat was out of sight, then stepped onto the walkway and went up to the house.
The bewitching Belinda met me with a pistol in my belly.
I said, "Aloha, kid."
She said, "You are one crazy man."
Hell.
She did not have to tell me that.
I'd been telling it to myself all night.
Chapter Twenty-two
I'VE SAID I believe a person is revealed by their home but I guess I don't know what to say about the home away from home. I think maybe the home away from home could reveal our secret fantasies; as though to say, okay, while I'm here I'm somebody else. And you set up the vacation home to reveal that somebody else.
Of course I had never seen Jim Davitsky's home in L.A.
But this joint here on the island was bizarre, to put it mildly.
A party pad, obviously, and put together with that idea supreme in the planning. But it was opulent, gaudy, vulgar in a no-holds-barred stretch for sensuality, coming together as unrestrained erotica.
You got the feeling, walking through all that, that Jim Davitsky fantasized his "somebody else" as the Marquis de Sade. And you got the feeling, too, that this "somebody else" might just be unhinged—considering the context.
I mean, here is a guy with all the money anybody could ever want. True, he was born to a lot of it but he had more than tripled his net worth since he came into his own, so the guy had to have some business smarts. He was young, good looking, rich, popular in political circles; guy like that could reasonably entertain national political aspirations with maybe even an eye on the White House some day. After all, look who else has made it.
So what does this guy want, you could ask, that he does not already have?
Looking around this home away from home, it seemed pretty obvious what Jim Davitsky really wanted. And that "want" was clearly out of context with his many other assets. I mean, I was trying to picture this place as the Hawaiian White House, the president's home away from home, and the focus simply would not resolve. I am talking life-size copulating statuary, art-deco Kama Sutra wallpapers, the erotic art of the masters hanging from the walls, huge oversized sectional sofas upholstered in llama fur, funny chairs designed to accommodate every possible sexplay positioning, a white marble hot tub in the living room complete with retractable serving trays and even an "Oriental swing" suspended overhead—and all that is just what's up front.
Hey, I'm no prude. I enjoy a bit of erotica from time to time the same as anybody. I'll swing from a chandelier now and then, if I can find one to hold me. But to be totally immersed in it is, to me, to be immersed in some head problem. To be immersed in it to the point of self-destruction is akin to alcoholism or drug addiction.
My reading on Jim Davitsky did not all come from the Hawaiian home, of course. But taking everything together, I figured I had my line on the guy.
Linda Shelton more or less confirmed it.
She had nervously but determinedly refused to hand over the big pistol she'd met me with but made no move to stop me as I went on inside for a look around. We passed no more than eight or ten words between us and things were decidedly stiff as I showed myself around the joint, then I hit her with it straight from the hip.
"Are you really a psychologist?"
"Yes."
I deliberately eyeballed the surroundings and
invited her to do the same. "Look around and tell me what you see."
She clutched the big pistol with both hands as she perched on a stool at a bar loaded with phallic symbols—even a brass bottle opener that was actually an eight-inch dildo. "We tend to see what we want to see, Joe."
I lit a cigarette, blew the smoke at her, settled down across from her; told her, "Don't give me that clinical stuff. This guy has a problem and you've been feeding it. So why don't you put that in your doctoral thesis?"
She gave me an angry look; said, "You really enjoy the leap to judgment, don't you."
I picked up a heavy ashtray designed as a reclining nude woman; you figure out where the ashes go. "I leap at what I'm given. Give me another and I'll try it on for fit."
She slid off her stool and confronted me with both hands tightly pushing the gun towards me. "You have no right barging in like this. I asked you to butt out. Why do you insist on dogging me around? I mean, really Joe. All the way to Hawaii?"
I wanted to laugh in her face but instead turned to an inspection of the bar. "Come on, Linda, you're a bright girl; you can do better than that. No right? People dying all around me, people invading my home and shooting it up, couple of attempts on my own life—I've got no right? If I can't leap at this, kid, you tell me what I should be leaping at."
Her gaze dropped, the gun with it, and it seemed that her anger was losing its focus. She turned away from me. "Joe ..."
I was not enjoying this, not even a little bit. I said, "Just to save us both some meaningless time, I know about your little talent pool enterprise."
“I see.”
"I don't. Maybe you could enlighten me. Give me something else to leap at."
She lowered herself onto one of the furry sofas, looking beautiful but also vulnerable as hell; placed the pistol on a table at her knees, delicately pushed it away from her. The outfit she was wearing was not designed for dispassionate viewing, a fluffy thingamabob over a sheer leotard that only highlighted the natural endowments thereunder. She lay back with her hair fluffed onto the furry background, sighed heavily, kept the eyes averted as she told me, "God, I'm tired, Joe. Haven't slept since . . . don't remember when. It's a nightmare."
I said, "Yeah. Let's compare your nightmares with mine. Start with the talent pool."
"You won't believe me. You wa
nt to believe the worst. Go ahead. Be my guest. Call me whatever you came to call me, then please get out of here before they come back."
I said, "You still don't get it, kid. I came to call you nothing. I came after some killers."
She looked at me, then; at her pistol, out of reach; back to me again. "Including me?"
"You do seem to be rather comfortably installed among them."
She raised to an elbow, regarded me soberly for a moment through half-closed eyes. "Guilt by association, huh?"
I shrugged. "Not to mention, birds of a feather and all that. What am I supposed to think?"
She said in a dulled voice, "Obviously you think like a cop so I guess you're supposed to think what you're thinking. I really don't care, Joe. At this point, I really don't care."
"Okay, you owe me nothing and it works both ways. But satisfy my curiosity. Why are you tangled up with this guy Davitsky?"
"He's my boss."
"So I gather. But when did you find that out?"
She lay back down, began picking her words in a rather careful recitation. "Private audience one night. He called me back, told me how much he appreciated my so-called art. We talked. One thing led to another."
"Culminating in what?"
She looked around. "All this."
"Uh huh. But take it backward several steps."
She sighed. "Ever think of it?" she asked a moment later. "Most of our troubles begin very small, so small we don't recognize it as a trouble until it has grown large enough to devour us."
I suggested, "Put it in your thesis."
She replied, "Maybe I will."
"Put it to me first."
She raised both knees and crossed them, interlaced her fingers behind her head, looked sort of dreamy for a moment, then said, "He was very charming. Nice looking. Fabulously successful. Very political, powerful. Did a lot of entertaining. Told me he was always in need of attractive women to help him entertain important visitors. Made sense. I was always worried about these girls out moonlighting on their own. Never knew what they'd run into. Jim's proposal made sense, at the time. So I talked it over with George. Look, the girls were already doing it. And in a highly dangerous way. We figured we could elevate the process a bit, do everybody a favor."
"Including yourselves."
The lady was apparently beyond anger now. "Sure. Why not? Nobody pays my bills for me. I'd been knocking myself out for years with very little gained. If I am going to perform a service I should be properly paid for it. Do you work for nothing?"
"Lately, yeah," I replied. "But not out of choice."
She sat up suddenly, clasped her knees to her chest, shivered. "I don't know why it should matter but I can't stand what you're thinking about me."
"Maybe I'm just your mirror."
She stared at me through a moment of heavy silence, then said, "There is that, too, I guess. Something of a psychologist yourself, aren't you."
"Most cops get that way."
"Some laboratory you've got, huh."
"We get it all, yeah."
"Joe, please believe okay—I admit that this whole idea fascinated me. Jim is an exciting man with a very exciting life ... including many interesting people. Someone I once studied in school, maybe Freud, said there's a little bit of whore in every woman. Maybe that's true, and maybe there's a whole lot of whore in me. I found it exciting. No, I found it positively fascinating. It really turned me on to be around such stimulating men, I mean powerful men who are shaping the future. But I—please believe this—I did not know the party was going to get rough."
I nodded my head at that. "Usually we don't. Or there wouldn't be a party. As for your future-shaping fascinating men, though ..." I let my eyes stray about the room again, silently inviting her to do the same. "What shape, you figure, do they have in mind?"
She said, "I didn't know about this. Well ... okay, I'd heard about it. But ... somehow it just didn't translate this way." She looked altogether miserable; dropped her gaze to inspect her own knee. "I know what you're thinking."
I told her, "I'm thinking your boy is certifiable for the loony ward."
She nervously rubbed her knees. "Maybe so.”
"So why'd you run to him?"
"You won't believe me."
“Try me.”
"I'm still not sure about any of this, you know. I mean, I don't know for sure what to believe about Jim. I just know that Maria—Maria Avila, she was Juanita's roommate .. ."
"I know. Go on."
"Maria served notice that she was out of it. Now Maria is ... well, as I think I once told you, Maria would go for anything. If enough money was involved, she'd take you in a cesspool if that was what you wanted. But even she was scared, really scared, and she flatly refused to take any more assignments for Jim Davitsky."
"The last job she did take was ... ?"
"Here, yes. She and two other girls came with Jim and two men from Sacramento for a weekend. I guess Maria was Jim's girl and—"
"Have you ever been Jim's girl?"
She met my eyes firmly. "I'm nobody's girl. And this is my first time in Honolulu."
I said, "Okay. Prerogatives of the madam."
She showed me a sour smile. "Remember that."
"So Maria ... ?"
"She came back from Honolulu very upset. Announced that she was out of it. But Jim would not leave it at that. He'd taken a special liking to her, it seemed. And then I believe Maria threatened him with something. I don't know what. But there was some question about a video and some pictures she might have taken. All of a sudden we had the security people all over us."
“Tanner’s crew.”
"That's right."
"You didn't know Ed Jones."
She shook her head. "I'd seen him around the past few months. Always in the background, though. I never got the idea that he belonged to Tanner, until I saw them together yesterday."
I said, "So maybe he didn't. Maybe he was Davitsky's hedge against Tanner. Could you buy that?"
She said, "I can buy it, yes. Especially now. Seems to have come into his own. Suddenly he is very much in the foreground."
I told her, "I believe he is Davitsky's triggerman."
She blinked. "Maybe that's going too far with mere speculation."
"He's the guy that shot up my bedroom while we were in the hot tub."
"You don't know that."
"And the guy who tried to run us off the mountain."
"How do you know that?"
"Don't look so surprised. You saw the guy planting the gun that killed George in your car. You saw him shadowing Juanita before she was run down. You saw him—"
She lay back down and muttered, "Oh God."
I said, "Maria's trip to the island. She came with two other girls. Did she get back home with two live girls?"
"Yes."
"Did she say anything .. . ?"
"No. Just that she didn't want anything more to do with it."
"Have you ever heard anything to make you think that Davitsky sometimes picks up local talent? Like tonight?"
She said listlessly, "It's practically de rigueur for these Honolulu assignments. I understand that there are almost always local girls involved."
"So why all the expense of bringing yours along?"
"Our girls are the class act, the regular companions. These local girls don't even speak English, most of them, or so I understand."
"So what do they do?"
"They perform, I think."
"Perform?"
"Yes. You know. Kinky material."
I looked around that room. "Whips and chains, that kind of kinky?"
"That too, I guess," she said quietly.
"So why are you here?"
She told me almost defiantly, "I came to get the truth."
"And you'll likely find it, kid. In a shark's belly. No Ph.D. at the end of this research. Didn't they ask you along on the boat tonight?"
She had gone very pale. "I told Jim I wasn'
t feeling well. . . ."
"But you promised to go later," I guessed.
She whispered it. "I promised nothing."
"Don't. Your talent pool has become an expendable liability to this guy. He has knocked off at least two of your girls and your general partner. So—"
"Two of my .. . ? Maria really is dead?"
I said it bluntly on purpose, for a calculated effect: "As dead as you can get with your throat shrink-wrapped inside a G-string. They tore her place apart searching for the pictures, then tore her apart when they couldn't find them without her help. So maybe there never were any pictures. So what chance did the kid have to talk her way out of it at that point? And what tender mercies do you expect to find here at the hands of the same people?" I shook my head. "Davitsky must have thought he really had a bird in hand when you turned to him last night—"
"Stop saying it like that. I did not turn to him. I wanted to find out what was going on over here."
I looked around again. "Well, you found it, kid. Enjoy the view. It will very probably be your last. Somehow I just can't believe you when you tell me it's your first. You look very much at home here. Same way you looked with Jim Baby when you picked him up at the airport. You said it yourself—birds of a feather, or whatever. I guess that covers the action pretty well, doesn't it?"
She said, "What's happened, Joe? You were almost sweet. And at least understanding. Now you're so cold, and brutal. .. . It's like I'm talking to a steel wall. Why can't you believe me? I know you want to. Why can't you?"
Maybe I was being cold and brutal. What I felt, though, was numb ... just pure numb. I told her, "I've been once-burned, kid. Do you expect me to smile sweetly now and swallow the whole damned thing again?"
She lowered her eyes, quietly said, "No. Go to hell, Joe. Just go to hell."
Copp For Hire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) Page 11