Alkao tried to lift his head, I raised my hand to hit him again. He cried out. “They told me to lie!” he whimpered. “I had to.”
“Sybil Tinsley met me at the door, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
I grabbed up paper and pen from Kole’s desk and scribbled that down. I shoved it at Hooks Alkao. “Here, damn you,” I said, “sign your name!”
He signed it.
“Now then, Eddie,” I said evenly, “this is going to be worse on you. You told Sybil that if she didn’t agree to leave the Territory and never return you’d expose the marijuana party pictures, didn’t you?”
He was holding his battered nose with his cupped hand. “All right,” he said, “so we got rid of her.” He couldn’t forget yet that he was big time, the owner of the Bali Hi. “I ain’t signin’ nothing.”
“All right, Kole,” I got up off the chair. I reached out and got the front of his shirt in my hand and lifted.
I’d only got my fist back when Kole broke. “Hooks,” he whined. But Hooks wasn’t getting off the floor.
When he’d signed, I backed to the door. “You haven’t got much time, Kole. If you got anything you want to take with you, you better get it, and start running.”
• • •
Lanai’s apartment was only about two blocks from the Waikiki theatre. In the foyer at the manager’s desk were the mail slots, and beside them a board of keys, with a pass key plainly marked beneath the orderly rows.
The automatic elevator was closed but lighted. The door to the manager’s office was closed. There was a sign on the desk, “Ring for Manager.” I walked over to the sign. I reached for the bell with one hand, but with the other I removed the pass key.
The only false note about Lanai’s silent apartment was a strange odor.
For a moment puzzled, I stood in the center of the glamorously furnished front room. Perfumes, incense, the odor of semi-tropical flowers would not have been alien here. Then I recognized the odor as stale cigar smoke.
I looked at the ash trays. In the stand beside a deep chair was a cigar, and a discarded band. Lester Sakayama had been here very recently.
I began opening the boxes and cabinets and small, Eastern chests in the place. I worked through parlor and kitchenette. In Lanai’s frilly bedroom, in a box crammed with gaudy ear rings I found the folded manila envelope.
I’d just opened it, the first of the negatives and glossy prints falling out, when I sensed someone behind me.
I turned, holding the things in my hand.
“Still you do not trust me, do you, Jim-mee?”
Lanai was wearing the filmiest, blackest lace gown I’d ever seen. Her face was bleak.
She lifted the small black automatic in her hand. “Somewan called me, and said there is somewan in my apartment,” she said. “I did not think it would be you, Jim-mee.”
“I had to have this stuff first, Lanai. Is this all of it?”
“Yes. That is all, Jim-mee.”
“When did you get it from Herb?”
“The night he was killed. Lester and I went there. It was in our minds to kill Her-bert and take these things from him. Eddie Kole agreed to help us if we cut him in on what we take.”
“But you didn’t kill Herb?”
“What does it matter, Jim-mee. I meant to kill him. I had this gun with me. Lester and I went to his rooms. But when we get in, he is already dead. We take what we want and go, telling the fat woman that she will die if she betrays us.”
“So you are on your way to riches at last?” I snarled.
“No, Jim-mee. I have been waiting to hear from Hattie Contona that you are at the boat.”
“The boat?”
“So you do not believe that I have hired a boat to take us to the beeg island?” She sighed heavily, her shoulders sagging. “No wonder women do such things, Jim-mee. Men will not believe them, even when they are truthful.”
“How could I believe you’d leave a fortune and run away with me?” I demanded.
“Because I told you. With only part of me do I want all this — ” her gaze took in the apartment, the negatives in my hand. “I am not afraid to be poor — if I am to be happy — ”
The telephone rang. She walked over to her bed tiredly and picked it up. She listened a moment, her wax-doll face showing nothing but weariness. At least she replaced the receiver.
“They have arrested Hattie Contona,” she said. “They have found marijuana on her, and it is all over, Jim-mee. That was Lester Sakayama. They will frighten her. They will make her talk at last.”
“Maybe they won’t.”
She shock her head. “They will never let up. It is over. Lester says so.”
She picked up an ornate cigarette lighter from the table beside the bed. She put out her hand. “Now we can run, Jim-mee. Now we can be together. You believe me now, won’t you.” Her voice turned bitter. “If I had nothing to stay for, then I would run, wouldn’t I? I would run with you then?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “Maybe you would have all the time, Lanai. Maybe I believed you would.” I watched the envelope ignite, watched her drop the glowing paper on a ash tray. She stood, staring at the licking flames, and fed the glossy prints into them. “I love you, Lanai, maybe the way you and I have always in our own way wanted love. But I couldn’t go away — not until this is finished.”
“Please go with me,” she whispered. “Without you I’m lost, wherever I go. Please! Only you can save me! You’ve got to!”
Her trembling fingers dropped one of the pictures.
I picked it up and handed it back to her after I’d glanced at it.”
She said dully, “That picture. I’m sorry it had to be that one.”
I looked at her. “Are you?” I said. “It doesn’t matter. I already knew.”
First she looked starkly frightened. Then she smiled hopefully. “Then you will come away with me? Now?”
I shook my head. “No. Maybe I should. Maybe I want to. But Troy is going to need me now. For the first time in my life, I can help her, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
She tore off her lace dress wildly. “Jim-mee!” she cried. “Look at me. Is there another wan so lovely? Where will you find some wan to love you as I do?”
The last picture was gone now, and there were ashes in the cigar tray.
“You can save me, Jim-mee! For you I would be good all the days I live. Only for you. Without you, I am lost. Without you I am bad!”
She pressed her self against me, digging her fingers in my arms. I held her head in my hands, pulled her hard against my mouth. She drew in a sharp little breath across her bright lips. It was like the sob of a child.
The telephone was ringing again. But I could hardly hear it above the thunder in my ears. Then, I pulled her hands down. She staggered back when I released her. Her black hair had fallen about her bare, golden shoulders. Her chest rose under her ragged breathing, her nipples standing like rubies against the golden heaps of her breasts. She leaned against the wall, mouth bruised, green eyes in tears as she watched me. I had wondered what it was like to see Lanai cry, she whose face was never made for crying. Now I knew. It was unreal. Unreal as she was. And yet it hurt, tore at you inside, in the same merciless way her beauty did.
19
I COULD NOT hurry. I knew I had to, knew that if I didn’t, I might be too late. But my legs were leaden, they would not move swiftly.
I got a taxi near Waikiki and rode through town. As I watched the town slide past, I was planning. I could take Troy on the small boat that Lanai had chartered. It was to have taken Lanai and me to the big island. But I had known from the first I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t run away and leave Troy to face it alone.
The taxi stopped in front of the house. I was not even aware we’d begun the long climb up Pacific Heights. I rang the doorbell, and when Cari came, staring at my blistered face and splattered clothes, I told her sharply to go out and pay the cab driver.
I wen
t into the house. I called, “Troy.”
There was no answer. I stood waiting and it seemed my voice came back to me. I heard Cari closing the front door behind me. I said, “Where’s Mrs. Patterson?” I didn’t turn around.
“She’s out sir. She’s been out. Since the news came that you were free. She has been trying to find you.”
I nodded. I went through the house to her bedroom. The door was locked. I drew back my foot and struck the lock with the heel of my shoe. The lock snapped, and the door swung slowly open.
It was a pretty room. Maybe it ran too much to one color. But somehow that increased my feeling of weariness, the sense of sadness that would not lift. The predomination of that single bright color. What color might Troy have preferred if I’d shared this room with her? If I’d cared to share it?
Oh no, I thought, you didn’t want anything, wise guy except to share her money, and let a girl named Julie know that you’d married a million dollars. What did you care what you did to her.
I looked around the room. There wasn’t going to be time to take much. I slid back two of the doors at Troy’s closet. A scent came out to me, a scent that belonged to Troy alone. There were the neat row of her shoes, the dresses and suits and skirts lined on hangers, there was the inescapable scent of her.
It was the small week-end bag that I wanted. I pulled it from the closet, threw it on her bed and opened it. And there it was, leering up at me. The shocked, startled look on its obscene little face. A brass monkey!
It wasn’t empty. I knew it wasn’t going to be when I pressed its belly. The bottom slid back and half a dozen cigarettes fell out in my hand. I closed my fist on them, wadded them and threw them in the waste basket beside Troy’s writing desk.
When I turned around, Troy was standing in the doorway watching me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
“I was a wise guy trying to get away. I should have stayed. They couldn’t have held me much longer.”
“No,” she said quietly, “they wouldn’t have held you much longer. I would have gone to them, Jim. I was only trying to get my nerve.”
“Then I’m glad I did it,” I told her. “That isn’t what I meant. The frame up was falling apart. They’ve arrested part of the people behind it. They’ll get the others. There’s a boat in the harbor waiting, Troy. It can take us to Hawaii Island. We can get a plane there — ”
“There’s no use,” she said. “It’s only time now — just a little more time until it’s ended. How did you know, Jim? How did you find out?”
I sucked in a long breath. “It was the most horrible thing I could think of,” I said honestly. “Then I knew that was it.”
“I’m not smart,” she said. “I never have been. I was only trying to spare you.”
“I know. That’s part of how I found out. No one else but you would have cared that I was in town when Herb was killed. So it had to be you who hired this man Kalani to pretend Ona was his daughter.”
I shivered. “And it had to be someone Herb didn’t fear. He knew Sybil hated him. He’d have watched her. He knew that Lanai wanted the things he had, the blackmail mess, and he would not have let her come near him. But you — ”
She just stood looking at me, her eyes unflinching. I took another deep breath.
“But you — he knew you loved me so much that you’d pay anything to keep me from finding out the truth about you. He — he also knew that when you drank — or smoked — or whatever it was he’d taught you to do, you had to — to be loved. You had to get somewhere the — the love you — never got here. And when you — went into his arms — even in his filthy bed on Aala Street — he never suspected — ”
“If you walk out on me, Jim, please believe me, I’ll understand. I know how dirty — how awful I am. Father will be here tomorrow. His plane arrives in the morning. That’s all I’ve been waiting for — so I wouldn’t be alone. You see, they — taught me everything else — except how to be alone. I could never stand that. Loneliness frightens me.
“I know I’ve had everything, Jim. And I was a fool to throw it away for the evil things I had. But you aren’t lonely at fashionable schools for young ladies, not if you’re rich enough and popular enough. There’s always somebody in Miami or Manhattan or Palm Springs. You don’t ever have to be alone. You don’t learn about loneliness.
“But I learned out here, Jim. I was always alone after I fell in love with you. For no matter who else was with me, I was still alone.
“Then I found out you didn’t want me. You didn’t even want me. You didn’t want my money, so I couldn’t hate you for that. It looked like you’d married me for no better reason than that I loved you so terribly, with a such a silly passion.
“But I couldn’t take it. I had to hit back. I had to get even. I did. Didn’t I? I’ve gotten even now. Herb came one night, looking for you. He was drunk and wanted to borrow some money. So I let him have it, and he took me out with him. There was nothing wrong with that. It didn’t do me any good. So I got drunker than he. Drunker than anyone in the world has ever been. I wouldn’t let him bring me home. I made him let me stay the night with him. His room was better then than the Aala Street one — but not much.”
I started to speak. I started to say, “It’s all right. Troy, you don’t have to tell me.” But I knew that would be running away from it. Doing what I’d been doing for four years. When it got rough, I wanted to back away from it. So I said, “What did you do, Troy.”
She smiled bitterly. “At first it’s hazy, but then after a while, I sobered enough to know what I was doing. But not enough to quit. I came home the next day, feeling dirty all over. I stayed in the shower all afternoon. But I didn’t feel any cleaner. You didn’t know I hadn’t been home. You didn’t even care.
“I don’t know how long I kept sneaking away to meet Herb. I soon lost interest in him. But not in what he could do for me. This fat woman, this Contona woman, brought cigarettes. Herb said he would let me help him put them in the brass monkeys. People bought the monkeys from him. There was a man there who also helped. While we worked, they told me to smoke. I did, and soon I was feeling different than I had ever in all my life. They were saying terrible things, but they didn’t seem terrible. They were about me. I remember laughing at it. The things they said we should do.” Her shoulders sagged. “I know we did them all. Because later they showed me pictures of them.”
My voice dead, I described Lester Sakayama. “Is that the other man?” I said.
She nodded. “There’s no use telling you any more. Herb came to me and said that he wanted five hundred dollars. Now. Five hundred next week. And five hundred every week. He didn’t like to have to go to you, because you had always been his best friend. But that he would go to you. I told him I wouldn’t pay. So I called this man — this private detective.”
And so I knew where I had seen the man who posed as Ona’s father before. Another Honolulu shamus.
“He found the girl Ona. She was planning to go away with someone over the week-end anyway. We hired her to stay an extra day, and let herself be found by you. I knew you’d probably spend the night with her. That she got the idea that she was to keep you there that way. Probably because I paid her five hundred dollars — ”
Five hundred dollars, I thought, deflated. No wonder Ona felt such ecstasy in my arms. Well, they weren’t leaving me anything.
“Well, I wanted you out of town only in case Herb went through with his threat to see you. And he did. Didn’t you think it funny that your good old friend who never drank in such a quiet little bar as the one you liked on Alakea Street should turn up there, and just happen to need five hundred dollars?
“So when you came home and told me Herb wanted to borrow five hundred from you, I knew that was his threat. He was working it that way, this once. So that night, while you were gone, I pretended to be drunk. I called him and told him I had to see him. I’d already bought a gun. When — whe
n we were on his — bed, I opened my purse for some reason, I don’t even know. I took out the gun. He yelled. But it was too late. I thrust the gun against his rotten face and — pulled — ”
I went across the room. “There isn’t much time, Troy. I’ve got to get you out of here. Nobody knows you killed Herb for sure but me. Even the old landlady. You may have been paying her to keep your tryst a secret. Lanai Okazi and Lester Sakayama were there almost immediately after you. We can be out of the territory before they find out the truth — ”
“I haven’t killed once, Jim. Twice. I knew Ona was calling you. I was afraid she’d tell you that I’d hired her. You’d know immediately I had a reason. From there, you would have quickly found — ”
I looked at her. “How did Ona’s body get in my car? Why did they frame me?”
“Because I called Lester Sakayama and told him that if Ona’s body were found in your office, they could never get money from me, because you were the only one I’d pay to protect.”
I sighed. “So they had by then found out I was on to them. It was let you go, by framing me for murder, or losing the whole set-up. Well. Well. What a beautiful, beautiful mess.”
Cari ran to the door. “Mrs. Patterson,” she said frantically. “It’s the police.”
“Let them come in,” Troy said dully.
“Don’t open your mouth,” I told Troy. “Let me talk, Troy.”
She only shrugged, as though she no longer cared.
Albert Mosani came through the door. With him was the private detective whom Troy had hired to play Ona’s father. Mosani said bitterly, “I was mistaken, it seems, Mister Patterson. You did not kill Ona after all. But it still pleases me. It is still — shall we say — in your family?”
I stepped past Troy, facing him. “No,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“When you are telling me that Ona is not an orphan, I see you actually believe it. So I am thinking. And by much clever police work, I find this man. And I get a confession from him.”
“I know how you work,” I said.
The Brass Monkey Page 12