So I sit there fuming inside over this growingly intolerant age of ours.
He knows I'm fuming; gives me a sly grin; I get the idea that this guy is a reformed smoker and he is enjoying my discomfort. It is a familiar feeling; I get it often and I have lately begun to resent the hell out of it.
So I remind the guy about the fucking whales.
He says, "What about the fucking whales?"
I say, "Well, that's just one of the issues that mean more than this anti-smoking hysteria. How about unwed mothers?"
He says, "*Yeah, how 'bout them."
I say, "Well there's an issue more important than smoke."
He reminds me that they should not smoke, too. Old people with emphysema should not be exposed to cigarette smoke, he tells me. I look around the office and don't see any old people or pregnant women, and I give audible
note to that observation.
He says yeah, but what if one should come in while I'm sitting there smoking.
I say, "Okay, I'll put it out."
"Damage is already done, though," he says with a shrug. "You've already loaded the air with that shit. They say secondhand smoke is more dangerous."
I decide I have this guy's game, now. He's as bored as I am. He's playing with my head to pass the time.
So I go ahead and light up anyway.
He raises his Colt and aims at a point midway between my eyes. I smile and put out the cigarette as I say, "Bullshit, how could it be more dangerous?"
"They proved it."
"Who the hell proved it?"
"Those guys in the government, that doctor, one with the beard, that general guy, the doctor general."
I say, "Doesn't make sense, though, does it? If secondhand is more dangerous, shouldn't nonsmokers be at higher risk?"
He says, "That's what I'm telling you. We are at higher risk."
I say, "Then wouldn't it be smart if we all took up smoking?"
He frowns, scratches his head. "No, see . .. if everybody stops smoking, then none of us are at risk."
I say, "No more cancer or heart disease?"
He says, "That's right. Well ... not as much."
I say, "Bullshit. What're we supposed to die of, then? They're rigging the figures, pal. First they use the figures to say you're at risk if you smoke. Then they conveniently forget those figures to tell you that you're at greater risk than the smoker if you don't smoke but he does in your presence. That's a covert operation, pal, and they're fucking with your head to convert non-smokers into zealous anti-smokers."
"Why would they do that?"
"To give holy cause to their annoyance. To give it to you. So you can sit there like you're doing right now and watch me squirm without feeling guilty about it."
He says, "Bullshit, I don't feel guilty."
I say, " 'Course you don't. You've got God on your side now."
See, this is a dumb conversation. I know it at the time. But it's the sort of thing you sometimes find yourself going through when death is looking at you. So much of life, I've discovered, is really inane. And sometimes it gets the silliest when life and death are, as they say, in the balance. Here is one man holding a gun on another man in the backroom of a whorehouse owned by a third man who
probably kills and maims without qualm, and they are discussing the pros and cons of the surgeon general's warnings about cigarette smoke.
It's a parallel, see, to the larger world, sort of anyway, and I can't help thinking about that, even considering my circumstances. What were the real problems facing mankind? Weren't they hunger and poverty, crime and warfare, ignorance, injustice, slavery, misery and suffering of every kind—in wholesale lots? So why were so many Americans so fired up over so many inane goddamned issues? I am sitting here in a whorehouse with maybe fifty female slaves under the roof and God knows how many pimps and killers and goons of every stripe—and we are arguing, for God's sake, the effect of secondhand cigarette smoke.
So I tell my captor, "You're an asshole."
He shrugs and tells me, "So are you, and you're a dead one if you think you're going to blow your fucking smoke at me."
I shrug back. "Dead is dead. We all get it. Right? You feel immortal? Think you'll live forever, with or without the fucking smoke? What d'you want to die of?"
"I want to die in bed. While I'm asleep. I just don't wake up."
I say, "Maybe I could arrange that for you."
He says, "Don't try. I always sleep with one eye open."
I say, "You want to die of internal causes."
"I really don't want to die at all," he says, "but when my time comes, yeah, I want to die internal."
"But not of cigarette smoke."
"That's right."
"How 'bout AIDS?"
His eyes jerk. "Not funny, guy."
I tell him, "Not meant to be funny. But if you had your choice of AIDS or smoke, which one?
He says, "Wise guy."
"Cancer?"
"Shut up, asshole."
"You've got to choose something," I tell him. "Our doctor generals have fixed it so there aren't many choices. You get your choice between cancer or heart attack, maybe stroke, if you want it internal. The difference between smoke or not smoke is a difference of a few years, maybe, but we all get it one way or another. So which one do you want? Heart attack?"
"I told you I'm not ready for any of that."
"Old, then—you want to die old."
"Yeah."
"Used up and worn out. Old isn't just a pile of birthdays, you know. Old is broken down. It's slow, withering—death by inches. Nothing works right anymore. The eyes go; the ears go, everything—"
"Shut up."
"Fuck you, you started it. Dying old is dying broken and helpless. You can't exercise your way out of that, pal; you can't medicate your way out of it or eat your way out of it; you're going to decay and die by inches if something else doesn't shortcut the process."
He has the Colt up again, threatening me with it. "I'm going to shortcut your process, asshole."
"So why the hell can't I light a cigarette?"
He smiles, wiggles the gun. "Because it's dangerous to my health."
"What you are doing right now, pal, is even more dangerous to your health. I just might decide any minute now to ram that damned thing up your nose and pull the trigger with your tongue."
I light my cigarette again, blow the smoke at him, put my hands behind my head.
He is grinning at me.
I blow more smoke and grin back.
"You're okay," he tells me.
"Thanks," I tell him back. "You too." I am lying. This hood is not "okay" by any standard. But it is a lying game, here on the hardside, and you have to respect the rules if you mean to survive it.
I have decided that I will survive this one.
And that is where I am when Charlie Han comes to get me.
The guy who'd been baby-sitting me was called Peter "the Saint" Fu, a native-born American and apparently one of the cadre honchos under Charlie Han. Obviously he'd gotten word on its way to Charlie even before he collared me, because he made no calls from that office. But a guy came in after we'd been cooling it there for more than an hour; just poked his head in and said, "Let's go," and the three of us went out the back way.
In passing, I noted that the club was closed and emptied, all its lights up bright and several guys cleaning up. It looked like Death City in there, under the lights, and smelled even worse.
A big dark sedan awaited us just outside. Fu pushed me into the front beside the driver and slid in beside me; the other guy used the rear door and settled in with another man already present but nearly invisible in the shadows back there. I made contact with commanding eyes in the rearview mirror and spoke to them: "Hi, Charlie. I'm Joe Copp."
The guy seated back there with him said, "Shut up," but with no particular emotion.
Saint Peter slipped a cassette tape into a little slit in the dashboard and slapped me playfully
on the knee as he settled back beside me.
The tape ran for only a minute or two but I knew what it was at the opening sound. This was Saigon Li and me during our intimate moments. They'd put us into a room wired for sound—or maybe all of them were wired.
All listened without reaction of any kind, but when it was finished, Charlie's eyes flashed at me in the rearview and he said in a flat voice, "Come work Charlie, eh?"
I said, "Well, there was a bit of a language problem there. Before I forget it, though, you owe me fifty bucks—I didn't get my five minutes."
Charlie snapped his fingers. Saint Peter reached into a breast pocket, produced a fifty, handed it to me without a sound. I transferred it to my breast pocket without acknowledgement, said to Charlie, "I figured any overture would put me in touch. But I hand it to you—I didn't expect to be in touch this quick."
He said, in that curiously emotionless voice. "You have had a big night."
I said, "Bigger than I needed, right. That's my own fault and I apologize. I didn't know that you and Davitsky are connected. I was on him, not you. Don't blame you for covering your flanks. But now I'm into deep trouble with the Honolulu cops."
All this time I'm talking to the mirror. But Charlie was reading me loud and clear.
He asked, "So what do you want from me?"
"An understanding."
"That's all?"
"That's all."
He snapped his fingers again and the car began moving. We circled around onto Hotel and went on toward the freeway, just cruising slowly.
"I do not get you, Mr. Copp," Charlie was saying, still with no emotion in the voice. "You come over here to this beautiful island and lay all over me, spy on me, knock off two of my kanakas and—"
"Hold it right there. I did not knock off anybody. Two boys tried to hit me but they weren't good enough so it went sour. All I did was cover myself. They got excited and got careless and got dead. I had nothing to do with it."
Saint Peter evidently felt an obligation to speak up for me. He spoke across his shoulder to say, "That's right, Charlie. I saw the whole thing with my own eyes. They loused it. Then he got behind them and was chasing them. But he didn't fire any shots. They lost it on their own."
"And one of them was carrying a badge. So that puts me in an unhappy spot."
"He tried to split," Saint Peter explained. "He did split. Went on out to the Kahala. HPD caught up with him out there. I got a read on the booking. It's suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene. I read it myself. He made bail, came straight to the club."
"Sounds like," Charlie commented, "you have found a brother, Mr. Copp."
I presumed he was referring to Saint Peter. "We have a lot in common," and almost choked on the words. Saint Peter nodded. "That's right."
"You feel good about this man, do you?" Charlie asked Saint Peter.
Fu replied, "I think he's okay, sure. 'Course I don't know what—"
"Then let me tell you what," Charlie said. "This man has been a hardnosed cop for fifteen years. Could not handle the system so went out looking for trouble on his own. Thought he would bring some to our island. Now he is in a mess and yelling for help. That about it, Mr. Copp?" I sent an angry look into the mirror. "That covers it pretty well, yeah. Except for the conclusion. I don't want any help from you, Charlie. I'm just trying to simplify my case, keep it sized right. You're not part of it."
We were moving up the hill toward the National Memorial Cemetery, called "The Punchbowl." I did not like the symbolism of that, but I tried to keep the tension out of my voice as I went on with my pitch. I was prepared to lie like hell, and thinking fast.
"I'll lay it out straight for you. Buy it or don't buy it, that's your problem, not mine; but HPD wants me to make you part of it. They've offered me a deal. Play their game and I go home clean. Otherwise, I may never see home again. So—"
"So you decided you should play their game."
"I decided I'd better make them think I am, for the moment. I don't know why they're so hot for your body, pal, but they're sure lusting after you."
Charlie merely grunted.
I went on, "I want no part of island troubles. I want Davitsky, and that's a personal want, has nothing to do with you or any of your dealings with him. Whether I get him or not, he'll take a fall because the L.A. cops are getting ready to lay all over him. I give this to you out of the kindness of my heart, and as an apology for busting in on you tonight. If you've got detectable connections there, you should break them quick and clean. The guy is going to fall."
Charlie snapped his fingers.
The car stopped.
We were within view of the memorial. A lot of Vietnam and World War dead were buried up there. I had to work to suppress a shiver as we all got out of the car—all of us but Charlie. Saint Peter shook me down again, then the guy who'd come into the club to fetch us shook me down, then the driver took a turn at it. I was thinking what the hell when Peter opened the rear door and motioned me inside.
I moved in beside Charlie. The other guys wandered away.
"I figured it was something like this," Charlie said.
I said, "Well, it does figure, doesn't it. This guy Davitsky has got a head problem."
He said sourly, "Yes." It was the closest to an emotion he'd shown yet.
I said, "You never know what comes up when you mix business with a head like that."
He said, "This man has great connections, though."
"It's those connections that are wrapped around his neck right now," I said. "And I guess that's what has HPD all excited. They're really worried about you, Charlie."
He showed me a small smile. "Yes?"
"Oh yes. I gather it hasn't always been that way. They used to look the other way. Right? Now they're looking at you with telescopes and microscopes. They're feeling heat, somewhere. But I think the heat is coming from Davitsky, or reflected off of him. Whatever, it's shining on you now and these guys are running scared—these HPD guys, I mean."
"This man has a head problem," he said. "You are right about that."
"And now it has become your problem, Charlie."
"At the moment you seem to be my problem, Mr. Copp. I do not fear this other man. Why should I fear his problem?" He snapped his fingers. "I do this and he is a dead man."
"You could do it to me."
He agreed.
"But you didn't. Why not?"
"I did not yet," he corrected me, then smiled and corrected himself: "This time."
"Okay. So why not yet the second time?"
"You interest me, Mr. Copp. Particularly your story interests me, but you interest me also. Why would a man with a cop's hard nose behave so foolishly? Why do you place yourself directly into the palm of my hand...so close to the snapping fingers?"
"I figure it's my only way to Davitsky. He can go home any time. I can't."
“I see.”
"The guy has become a liability to you, Charlie." "We shall see."
He rolled down the window and signaled the others to return to the car.
I was watching the snap-fingers. But that hand seemed entirely relaxed now.
Mine were not. Believe me, pal, none of me was relaxed.
Chapter Twenty-six
I DON'T WANT you to take me a hundred-percent literally when I tell you that Charlie Han—in a certain, curious way—is a gentleman. A hood, sure—thug, pimp, killer—all that—but with all that, something else; and the something else is what I refer to under the title of gentleman. I don't know how to sum it up except as a sort of elegance or self-possession, an almost courtly formality or dignity or whatever.
I would put him at about fifty—though I could probably be ten years wrong either way on that. He must stand about five-ten. The body is thickset, hard, probably not much fat but very substantial; he could weigh two hundred. The hands are not manicured but they are tidy and very strong, fingers thick and stubby but smooth, and the knuckles gleam when he makes a fist.
The face is not so expressive as impressive, but it does reflect the mind behind it. You get a stolid feeling there; a strength and a mindset of utter pragmatism. There is no facial hair, but it is thick upon the head, shiny black, neatly trimmed. The eyes have seen it all but still can leap with some otherwise unexpressed emotion, and they are the only place he laughs.
When Charlie speaks, you hear a hundred tongues. It is a soft voice, but soft with its own confidence and not given to postures or deceits, not trying to impress with sincerity or anger. You hear some British in that voice and some Hawaiian pidgin and God knows how many other ethnic influences, but you never get the feeling that it is groping for words or straining for effect.
In short, I was impressed with this man, while still aware that he was as deadly and ruthless as anyone I had ever met. I could have liked this Charlie Han if I had not known about the other. And I had the feeling that "the other" was what had survived many hard streets and vicious environments where only the shrewd and the ruthless make it through.
We cruised the streets and roads of Oahu shoulder to shoulder in utter silence and for quite a long time while Charlie thought his thoughts. It was my understanding that he was mentally processing the situation with Davitsky, considering his options, weighing ramifications—and I understood also that my own fate, like they say, was in the balance there. I had the feeling that he liked me, but I doubted that would have any influence on the outcome of those deliberations.
But I'd made my pitch and I knew that anything further volunteered from me would only hurt my case; I had to wait for the man to come to me for further arguments . . . and it was a damned difficult wait.
When finally he did speak, I was totally unprepared for it—I had let go, and maybe that is what turned the trick for me. I found myself simply going with the flow and allowing it to happen in total spontaneity.
"This man came to me as a prince of the mainland."
"Okay, sure, you could put it that way. He and four others administer a principality that stretches across four thousand square miles, eight million people, personal property valued at two hundred fifty billion dollars, with maybe the most dynamic economy in the nation. It's bigger and wealthier than most of our states. A prince of the mainland? Okay."
Copp For Hire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) Page 13