by Chris Bauer
“Really good info, sir.”
“Wise guy.”
Philo slowed the SUV, pulled up behind another car waiting at a tall iron gate separating them from the part of Kauai that housed the military training outpost.
“We’re here,” Philo said. A Marine guard validated their temp passes in the system and a second Marine ran a mirror around the SUV’s perimeter and undercarriage while visually checking the interior. The iron gate slid open for them.
They followed signage at each intersection to CO Evan Malcolm’s office in a one-story building. Palm trees, blue sky, and low humidity surrounded them as they exited the car. Another beautiful day in paradise, except for the murder they were about to address.
Inside the building the CO’s secretary greeted them in an office adjacent to his. Female, a lieutenant, mid-fifties, Caucasian, graying hair wrapped in a bun sitting just above her starched white collar. Career Navy.
“I’m Lt. Bingham, gentlemen. Nice to meet you. Petty Officer Trout, a word if I may.” She motioned him away from Patrick, to outside her boss’s closed door.
“Commander Malcolm needs to not be here today. I can’t get him to go home. He told his captain he’s heading home but he won’t go. He’s insisting he escort you. Talk him out of this visit to his fiancée’s house. Pick another day. It’s too soon.”
Philo shook the lieutenant’s hand, called Patrick over. “I need to talk with him alone first, to try to call this thing off for today. You need to hang out here.”
Inside, Philo strode into a hearty hug with his husky friend, his dark, somber face above Navy khakis, the hug’s front end busy with SEAL and other verbal military platitudes, the back end filled with teary-eyed regrets and a tighter hug because of Evan’s shocking personal loss. The installation’s commanding officer tucked his large frame into a chair behind his desk, his commander’s hat resting an arm’s length away, its oak leaves and acorns—“scrambled eggs”—perched in a single arch on each side of the bill, embroidered in lustrous gold bullion. Evan extended a welcome for Philo to sit.
“So. Scatman.” Philo treaded lightly here with the nickname, forcing himself into a timid smile. Early in their friendship, twenty years and fifty pounds ago, the nickname worked, Evan’s sleek dancer’s frame the reason, reminiscent of a famous black actor. A tightly trimmed black mustache offset the current frog-like bulk of Scatman’s bald head and flat, broken nose. “We’re here to help any way we can, Evan, but I think today’s not a good day to start.”
“Appreciate the sentiment, Philo, but neither you”—Evan glanced at his door—“nor my lieutenant get to make that call.”
“Right. But your captain does. And he did. Go home, take a few days off, we’ll hook up another day.”
“His wasn’t a command, Philo, it was a suggestion. Finding the bastard who did this needs to start right now…”
“Yeah, but the police—”
“The police are on it, Philo. And you and I will be, too.”
“You realize,” Philo said, measuring his words, wanting to deliver them without an ounce of insinuation, “who the number one suspect will be?”
“You think I give a shit? The hell with that husband-boyfriend shit. I’ll go it alone if I have to, damn it…”
“Not implying—”
“Fine. I’ve got something to offer you in return. You want access to Miakamii. It might be a stretch under the circumstances, but we made the request.” Then, with Evan fighting for composure, “Having you help with Miya should be easier to manage. The police chief is a friend, and you’re in the business, so…”
The crime scene business. Gruesome murders, messy suicides, meth labs, hoarding, chemical cleanups, other human and non-human detritus needing remediation… this was Blessid Trauma’s wheelhouse.
“… maybe you can make sense out of it, Philo. A slaughter…”
Philo reached across the desk, grabbed his friend’s fisted hands, and gripped them hard.
Evan stayed melancholic. “So warm and caring a person. I never thought I’d find someone to love like that again…” The commander choked back the hurt; in a moment he regained control. Fire rose behind his eyes, and he became the man Philo knew from shared military missions past. A man to be feared.
“The person who did this,” Evan said, seething, “when I find him… maybe he gets terminated with extreme prejudice.”
Evan pulled open a drawer, lifted out a holstered forty-five, placed it atop his desk. His Navy issue Colt. Out of his chair now, he strapped the sidearm around his waist, settled it on his hip.
“What circumstances?” Philo asked.
Evan unholstered the handgun, checked it, confirmed it was loaded. “What?”
Philo was now also on his feet. “You said getting access to the island was a stretch ‘under the circumstances.’”
A hard rap at the CO’s office door. “Hold that thought, Philo. Come in,” Evan called.
Lt. Bingham entered. “I have some answers for you, Commander, but I still think—”
“Look, Lieutenant—Mary—I know you’re worried about me. I can’t not do this investigation now. Tell me how you did.”
The lieutenant’s jaw tightened. A lot of good you did, her glance at Philo said. “But sir, a person needs time to grieve—”
“Lieutenant…” Evan’s voice was stern.
“Fine, then. You’re allowed on the scene, Commander, sir. The police and the NTSB said okay. So did the Logan family.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Have our detail assembled by fourteen hundred hours please. I’ll have our guests back by then.”
She did an about-face, spoke under her breath.
“No, you’re not going, Mary,” Evan said in response. The door closed behind her exit, the hard close a statement.
After trimming up his cap on his bald head, Evan announced their plans.
“I have a van with a driver outside. We’re going to Miya’s house. The cops wouldn’t let me in until last night. Are you aware of the copter incident that caused the air traffic issues yesterday?”
A huge local news story that had quickly gone viral. Something Philo learned after they landed. “Yes. It, ah, cost us over an hour in the air.”
“Also cost the copter pilot his life and turned one of the helos the Logan family owns into a crime scene.” He ushered Philo toward the door. “The Logans asked the Navy to look at it. I already added your names to the official detail. Your ticket to visiting Miakamii, Philo. But before that, my fiancée’s place. Introduce me to your associate, then let’s get the hell out of here.”
5
The driver of Wally’s gold Escalade limo pressed the talk button on the tarnished metal box on a black pole at window level. The outdoor speaker was thick and heavy-duty, a replica that looked tougher than the ones that hung from poles at 1950s drive-in movies. Two stories overhead, a rough-hewn, wooden yoke crossbar connected the left side of the fencing to the right, and boasted in etched concave letters that they were about to enter the Logan Ranch. Beyond the silvery aluminum pasture gate stretched a thousand or more acres of private Kauai ranch property. Plenty of head of steer, no buildings in sight.
The speaker emitted a disinterested squeal. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Lanakai to see Mr. Logan,” the limo driver said.
Ten seconds of silence, then the tinny female voice returned. “Please stay in your car until your escort arrives.”
An incredible day—low humidity, cloudless sky, slight breeze, mid-eighties, another of Hawaii’s endless summer of incredible days. The Escalade’s tinted window powered closed, Wally and the three occupants remaining stoic and pin-drop quiet. Wally Lanakai, his light business suit custom-tailored to accommodate his girth, some of it newly acquired from his crime family’s lucrative relocation to the U.S. mainland, was contemplative, his expression uncompromising. His focus was on the distant horizon, below the dome of an azure blue Hawaiian sky, where someone who wasn’t thrilled to see him
awaited his arrival. The limo’s escort would arrive momentarily.
Dust kicked up. A few hundred yards from the gate two horses and their riders emerged, a cloud trailing them from disturbed prairie soil mixed with volcanic ash dust, the sunlight leaving mini rainbows in their wake. One galloping paniolo in a sombrero reached the split rail fencing and pulled up on the left. The second paniolo, also in a sombrero, took a position on the gate’s right. Pancho Villa throwbacks, with bandoliers across their chests, the bandoliers far from affectations, with semi-automatic gun magazines instead of individual bullets. The pasture gate opened electronically. The Hawaiian cowboy on the driver’s side barked orders at him.
“Ten miles per hour.” It wasn’t a request. The driver nodded. The automated gate rolled back to a full stop behind the split rails.
The cowboys giddy-upped their horses to trot alongside the limo while they followed the long entrance road to the Logan residence. A grazing twelve-hundred-pound steer glanced with disinterest at the passing limo. Wally eyed the cowboys and their crisscrossed bandoliers much like he’d done on a prior visit, unable to see where they kept their handguns, on their persons somewhere or on their horses—he didn’t know which, maybe both, but they were never visible. He knew this hidden hardware was a Miakamii thing, mostly because the Logan family forbade the island’s inhabitants from carrying firearms on the island itself, forbade firearms on the island, period. The affectation persisted once they’d left Miakamii for the other Hawaiian Islands, including here on Kauai, even though it was understood they would at times carry weapons while providing security for the Logans’ ranch.
Escorting a convicted crime boss, Wally knew, was one of those times.
At ten miles per hour it took them five minutes to reach Douglas Logan’s sprawling home. The cowboys dismounted, stood like sentries while Wally and his protection disembarked the limo. The driver stayed with the car in the circular driveway. The front door to the ranch home was already open. Mr. Douglas Logan, face pinched while sizing up his guests, blocked their path.
“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Logan,” Wally said, extending his hand.
Douglas Logan’s hands stayed at his side. “Let’s get this over with.” He beckoned Wally and his bodyguards forward. “Follow me. Try to keep up.”
Logan showed them his back and quick-stepped through a large foyer into a long hallway. Wally’s troupe fell in line behind them, and all were silent for the hundred or so feet it took to arrive at an office. They filed inside, their host closing the door behind them, two more of Logan’s bodyguards already there. Muscle faced muscle, all the same ethnicity, Polynesian-Hawaiian, Wally included, except for Mr. Logan.
“Sit,” Logan said.
Each man’s bodyguards crowded the room as its occupants settled, Wally Lanakai’s men in tailored suits and Douglas Logan’s men in denim. The crowding begot nothing worse than benign knuckle-cracking and deadpan facial expressions.
Logan launched into it.
“The judicial system says you paid your debt, Lanakai. I’ll accept that. But I’m not your friend. I respect you only because of the violence you’re capable of. Tell me why you’re here.” He steadied his lean face, went straight-lipped after having scowled through his speech.
Wally would allow this rudeness, was able to control himself around it if it made good business sense, but only to a point. In this instance, he knew what the loss of the Logan helicopter and its Hawaiian pilot meant to Mr. Logan, because Wally had made it his business to learn everything he could about this proud pipi‘i, the Caucasian owner of an island he coveted.
“To offer my condolences, Mr. Logan,” Wally said, “and to reinforce what my associate told you on the phone. I’m not responsible for the loss of your helicopter, or the loss of your dear pilot friend. Not me, not anyone associated with my family. I wish you only good things, Mr. Logan. My offers to you have been sincere, with no plan to ever intimidate you or your enterprises into accepting them. You have my word on this, on all of this. It was not me.”
Logan harrumphed. “Your word. The word of the head of a crime family.”
“Please, Mr. Logan, don’t insult me. I only want to help.”
“How about this, then. A question for you. You own a cigarette boat? Ever charter a cigarette boat?”
“In days past, yes, before I left the islands. Years ago. Not since my return here. No.”
Logan measured the response, drilling his eyesight into Wally’s head, Wally’s soul. Wally knew the territory, something all good businessmen learned to master over time: recognizing tells, searching the faces of one’s competitors and detractors for lies. In Wally’s case, Logan could find none because there were none.
Logan moved on. “I thought Ka Hui was dead. It turns out your family businesses are thriving half a world away in Philadelphia. Go back to Philly, Lanakai. Eat a few more of those belly-bomb cheesesteaks, they seem to agree with you. Hawaii’s doing fine since you’ve been gone. Miakamii is still not for sale, nor are any of its ventures.”
Wally’s custom-made dress shirt suddenly felt tight around the collar. He didn’t need his bodyguards; he could gut this skinny little loudmouth by himself. The hell with Logan’s bodyguards, too; his knives could take care of them just as easily.
But Douglas Logan was grieving. Lanakai’s poking had uncovered the father-son closeness that Logan shared with the copter pilot, a transplanted Miakamiian, and Wally had made it a point to learn all there was to learn about, and swoon over, Miakamii and its inhabitants. He would allow Logan his anger, and his grief, and his rudeness; Wally Lanakai wasn’t an animal. What he was, was practical. And patient.
“My interest in the island is not the only reason I’m here. Again, I had nothing to do with the loss of your pilot friend. I’m here to say I will see what I can find out about it. Are there any leads you can share?”
Aside from the cigarette boat mention, intentional or not, which Wally tucked away.
Logan stood. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need you. But I’ll give you one thing: I believe you’re telling the truth. The problem is, aside from you, I have no idea who could have done this. No motive other than your interest in Miakamii. And that’s all that the police, and the U.S. Navy, have as a motive, too. They know Ka Hui’s back in the islands, and they don’t like it. I don’t like it either.”
Wally, standing now: “Well, they’re wrong, Mr. Logan. I have a few personal things to look into, and I’m looking to reacquaint myself with someone who might have returned to the islands, but these are temporary interests, nothing to keep me here permanently. Rumors of Ka Hui’s resurrection have been greatly exaggerated. Ka Hui is extinct. My former business associates and I are leading a quiet life on the east coast of the U.S. mainland. But I’ll leave you with this.
“I have nothing but the best of intentions regarding Miakamii and the folks who still live there. Their way of life, their culture, their long-term financial and physical health, their artisanship. And I have the best intentions regarding you and the Logan family, personally, as well. I simply feel it’s time to return the land and its commerce to its native people, to those who can best steward the island into the future, but you already know my feelings on this subject. I remain hopeful you will eventually see it my way.”
Logan spoke, his head shaking his answer. “That island and those people are a part of my family. We will weather this temporary hardship. None of it is for sale.”
The gold Cadillac Escalade exited the ranch gate, the two paniolo escorts and their horses leaving amid additional clouds of volcanic ash rainbow dust visible in the rear view.
Wally grabbed a bottle of guava juice from the limo’s bar, tossed the cap, sipped, then drilled a stare into the man sitting next to him.
“I need to know what happened, Magpie.”
Magpie Papahani was a big man. Polynesian-African descent, his was a nickname earned not because of his ruddy onyx skin. It came from his ruthlessness in getting w
hat he wanted, for his boss and for himself. The dramatic, self-inflicted departure of Wally’s first in command, Olivier ʻŌpūnui, had left big shoes. No one else on Wally’s remaining staff had bigger shoes, or balls, than Magpie.
Magpie returned the stare. “This ambush, if that’s what it was, the copter crash, came out of left field, but we’re asking around about it, boss.”
“I want that island, and I want the Logan family to want me to want that island, for a fair price, after all this drama is over.” Wally softened, sipped more guava juice, spoke the next question to Magpie calmly rather than bark it.
“You found any leads on her yet?”
“Her” was Kaipo Mawpaw, ex-Ka Hui mob cleaner and fixer who recently left Wally’s employ on the U.S. mainland. A contractor. By day, hers was a lucrative personal training business. But her business cards for her after-hours work could have read Have industrial pressure cooker, will travel, with lye, electric saws, tarps, and hazmat suits. Ice in her veins. Need a body to disappear? She was your man. Was ex-Ka Hui based on her terms, not Wally’s, which did not sit well with him or the rest of the Ka Hui enterprise, and for more than one reason. Kaipo Mawpaw was a rare gem of a woman, exquisite, a true original, and a beautiful love interest of Wally’s, but the feeling wasn’t mutual.
“We found her pressure cooker behind Icky’s center city Philly restaurant in a dumpster, then we found her van abandoned in North Philly.”
“Anything inside the cooker?”
“Spotless. Nothing helpful in the van either.”
“She’s good,” Wally mumbled. “Too good.”
“That’s why she works for you.”
“Worked for me,” he said. “I just never thought she’d run, never thought she’d leave…”
Me was how Wally wanted to finish the sentence, but he didn’t, leaving an awkward silence.