“I understand.”
I stood in the velvety darkness of her driveway for a minute before getting into my truck. Looking out toward the ocean, I could see the vast compass of stars. There was a slight scent of jasmine and new-cut grass in the air, and I could hear distant traffic and the slight rustle of a lizard in the underbrush.
There are always days like this, but that doesn’t make them any easier. I couldn’t help Tommy Pang, and I couldn’t help Terri Gonsalves or her husband Evan, a nice guy who had probably already started down the wrong road. Hell, who was I kidding? I couldn’t even face my own demons, no less help someone else with hers.
I got into my truck and drove back to Waikiki.
LINGERIE AND GENTLEMEN’S ITEMS
Tuesday morning, Lieutenant Yumuri called Akoni and me both into his office. He’s full Japanese, only about five-seven, and all business. “Where are we on this murder?” he asked.
We gave him the rundown, walking through everything we had done, the interviews, the tong research, the discovery of the murder weapon. We told him our plan to start tracking down the people in Tommy’s address book that day.
“You’ve done all that, but you don’t have any suspects?” he asked. “Go back to investigation 101, gentlemen. Who benefits from the crime?”
Akoni and I looked at each other. I said, “The wife inherits everything. But I’ll bet the son and his boyfriend take over the Rod and Reel Club.”
“Boyfriend?” Yumuri asked. “Figures. The guy was found behind a fag bar, after all. Those queens are always mixing it up, sticking bottles up their boyfriends’ butts, clawing each other with their fingernails.” He made a limp-wristed gesture.
Yumuri had been a homophobe as long as I’d worked for him, but it hadn’t bothered me before. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t dare look at Akoni either.
Yumuri thought for a minute. “You’re doing good,” he said, finally. “Wrap it up as soon as you can. Murders are bad for tourism, you know. If we let this go I’ll have every hotel manager on Waikiki on my back.”
Akoni and I went back to our desks. “Let’s take a look at that address book,” he said, and I pulled out the printouts. There were records on a couple of businesses Tommy owned besides the Rod and Reel Club, including a lingerie shop in Chinatown that we were pretty sure was a front for prostitution. Live models would stroll around the store in their underwear, and for a fee you could take one into a back room and examine the merchandise more closely. Vice had closed the place down once or twice but they hadn’t been able to make any charges stick.
He also owned a pack and ship place that specialized in sending goods to and from mainland China. They did a big business in relocation of ancestral bones, and it seemed like it was all legit. Chinese have a big thing for ancestor worship, and it’s important that the graves of their dead relatives be maintained properly, that the right prayers are said and the right offerings made. As Chinese emigres become successful and settled in the US, one of the things they do is arrange for the remains of their ancestors to be brought to the US for re-interment, where they can visit more frequently, and don’t have to depend on a Communist government that might interfere with their observances.
“I’d say these two places give us a good head start,” Akoni said. “Which one you want to start with?”
We decided to do some more research before calling anybody. I gave him the lingerie shop and took the pack and ship for myself, and we spent the time until lunch on the phone, finding out as much information as we could on Tommy Pang’s business life. Akoni made an appointment for us to go out to the lingerie shop and interview the manager, so we decided to get lunch in Chinatown. We found a parking space on Pauahi Street, named for one of the royal families of Hawai’i, and ended up eating at a place on North King across the street from the lingerie shop, called Sally’s.
“They have nice stuff over that place across the street?” Akoni asked the waiter as he delivered our kung pao chicken. “I need a present for my wife.”
The waiter leered. “Very nice stuff.” He made curving motions with his hands. “You like very much.”
“Me, I’m not married,” I said to the waiter. “They have pretty girls that work there? Maybe I can get one to go out with me.”
He shook his head. “They no go out.” Then he broke into a wide grin. “They have rooms in back, no need go anywhere else. You like,” he said, nodding. “You like very much.”
The waiter went back into the kitchen and Akoni looked at me. “You’re still interested in girls?”
I gave him a look. “And you’re really going to buy something there for Mealoha.”
“I might,” he said defensively, and turned his attention to his chicken.
When I was a kid, I remember Chinatown was a lively neighborhood, full of colorful groceries, lei shops and dark little restaurants and bars. Now, though, it was pretty dismal. The streets were dirty, with old soda cans, shriveled dog turds and shreds of newspaper rustling in the wind. Most of the storefronts were shuttered and many were scrawled with graffiti, and there was nothing much Chinese about it.
There were still a bunch of lei stores on South Beretania amp; Maunakea Streets, but they’re tiny rooms with folding shutters or rolling grills, and the leis were all behind glass refrigerator cases. You could walk past and only smell car exhaust and fried oil, not a single flower. North King was the only street with any life on it-groceries with tubs spilling out to the street, stacked with garlic, ginger, hard-boiled eggs, and packages of dried mushrooms, noodles, and soy sauce.
We paid our bill and crossed the street, past a stand with row upon row of leis made of orchids, velvety orange ‘ilima flowers, and fragrant maile leaves intertwined with tiny white pikake blossoms. Behind the counter, an elderly grandmother sat stringing even more. Chattering teenagers and haole tourists crowded around the booth, debating the merits of different leis and bargaining for better prices.
Through the window of the lingerie store, we saw three elegant young Chinese women and one Filipina strolling around inside in lacy undergarments, periodically stopping to strike poses for the half-dozen male customers. We walked in, and a soft, musical bell rang. No one paid any attention to us.
Each of the girls was wearing more than you’d see on any public beach, particularly since the invention of the thong, but their effect was totally sexy, from their high heeled shoes up to their expert makeup and hair. And each had a flawless body. “If you see something you like, just ask,” a girl in a red lace teddy said, brushing past Akoni. He turned almost as red as her outfit.
“Where do we find Norma Ching?” I asked the girl.
“She’s in the back.”
Akoni and I steered our way past tables of panties, racks of bras and waterfalls of see-through nighties to a desk in the back where an improbably elderly Chinese woman sat behind an elaborate French renaissance desk.
She looked tiny, barely four feet, and wore a bright blue silk cheongsam. Her gray hair was as elegantly coiffed as any of the girls’, and her skin was hardly wrinkled. Even so, I guessed she had to be at least eighty. “Mrs. Ching?” Akoni asked.
“You must be the detectives,” she said. “Please sit down.”
She motioned us to two tiny embroidered chairs across from her desk, and Akoni and I perched on them like embarrassed elephants. “We’re interested in anything you can tell us about Tommy Pang,” Akoni said.
“That man, what a flirt!” she said, with a light, musical laugh. She had almost no accent and her voice was high and girlish. “He used to come around once a week or so to meet the girls and examine our merchandise. He was very interested in quality control.”
I’ll bet he was, I thought. “Did he ever bring anyone with him?”
“Oh, yes, often,” she said. “He often brought business colleagues here to show them our facilities.”
Akoni took out a pad and pen. “Can you give us any names?”
Norma Ching looked horr
ified. “Our business is very confidential.” She leaned toward us. “Sometimes, you must understand, our clients are making purchases they would not want revealed to their wives.”
“We understand,” I said. “And we’re not interested in anything that goes on here, or in connecting anyone to this facility. We’re trying to find out who killed Tommy Pang. And in order to do that we need to talk to people who knew him.” I smiled at her. “We won’t find it necessary to reveal how we were able to secure these names.”
“Let me see.” She opened a box filled with index cards and flipped through for a minute or two. “Melvin Ah Wong,” she said. “Dong Shi-Dao. Those are two associates he brought here occasionally.”
“Melvin Ah Wong runs his shipping agency,” Akoni said. “I don’t know Dong Shi-Dao.”
“Anyone else?”
“Others were usually businessmen visiting from other cities. Sometimes Hong Kong, sometimes Manila. Once or twice Japan, Singapore.” She paused. “You might also want to speak with Treasure Chen. She used to work here.”
I nodded. “A special friend of Tommy’s?”
“You could call her that,” Norma Ching said. “She worked here once. Mr. Pang took a liking to her. They became good friends. She now works at a restaurant in the Ward Center, the Lobster Garden. She is the hostess.”
That was about it. I knew Akoni wanted to check out the merchandise, but was too embarrassed to say so, so I said, “May we look around for a few minutes?”
“Of course,” she said, smiling. Akoni almost blushed, but he looked happy. He got up and walked back to the front of the store. As I was going, she said, “We have some gentleman’s items in the corner there.”
So she knew. That was interesting. I wondered if, now that I had acknowledged my sexuality to myself, there was now some change in my body language that enabled an astute observer to see. On an impulse, I turned back and asked, “Did Tommy Pang ever bring his son here?”
“Once. As you can imagine, he was not particularly interested. Although it was at his suggestion that we included the section to which I referred you.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Do you know if the ownership of this store passes to him?” she asked.
“I don’t know. You know of course Mr. Pang was married.” She nodded. “It’s possible that either Mrs. Pang or Derek will contact you.”
“I will look forward to it.”
I walked over to the gentleman’s section, as she had called it. They had a nice selection of extremely skimpy men’s thongs, as well as athletic supporters in a wide range of colors and styles. I had never realized you could buy a gold lame jockstrap, and wondered under what circumstances it would be appropriate. You could buy an improbable-looking triangular patch that would cover your privates, but I couldn’t figure out what made it stay on. There was a lot to learn about my new life, I decided. A lot.
PACK AND SHIP
The Chinatown air was filled with the scent of ginger, frying fish, and something rotten coming from Nu‘uanu Stream, just down the block. The offices of U.S. China Ship, Inc. were sandwiched between the dirty windows of the Floating Palace restaurant, long since closed, and Hin Shee Dook dry cleaning, which may have been open at some time during the day, and then again may not have been open since statehood. The front windows of each store, like all those around, bore legends in both English and Chinese.
Inside the pack and ship there were racks of Chinese greeting cards, and displays of the different sized boxes you could purchase, as well as packing materials like tape, twine and Styrofoam peanuts. Melvin Ah Wong was in his mid-fifties with thinning hair and a wool vest. An air conditioner hummed somewhere in the back of the store, but it was still hot and stuffy inside, and I couldn’t understand how he could dress so heavily. He stood behind the counter making change for a bent old man with one prominent tooth. As the man shuffled away Akoni and I stepped up.
Akoni showed his ID and introduced us. We established quickly that Tommy was the owner of the store, and a personal friend of Melvin’s, but that he was not involved in the business. “How about his son, Derek?” I asked.
Melvin Ah Wong nodded. “Yes, Derek comes by once, sometimes twice a week.”
“For what? To look at the books?”
Ah Wong looked offended. “I have full responsibility for running this business. They don’t look at my books at all.”
“Then why does he come here so often?”
Melvin Ah Wong looked around. “We should go in the back. Where we can be private.” He opened the hinged countertop and we followed him past a huge hopper full of peanuts and stacks of flattened boxes. “Jimmy!” he said as we turned a corner.
A teenaged boy was sitting at a desk in front of us, doing what looked like his homework. Though he was Chinese, he had a shock of bright yellow hair that stood straight up, like a Mohawk, and the rest of his head was shaved. He was about sixteen, thin, and effeminate. “Go watch the desk,” Melvin said.
Jimmy slouched off to the front and Melvin closed the door behind the three of us. “Derek and Wayne come here to ship packages,” he said. “They do everything themselves. Weigh, wrap, fill out customs forms.”
“Do you know what’s in those packages?”
He shook his head vehemently. “No! I don’t know, I don’t want to know.”
“But you suspect they’re doing something illicit.”
“Who am I to suspect? Maybe they’re just very careful. Perhaps these are important things of great personal value. They don’t trust anyone else to handle them.”
“Or they’re smuggling something.”
Melvin shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“How about other friends of Tommy Pang’s? You know any of them?”
“Dong Shi-Dao,” he said. “He’s a friend. And then Chin Suk, he’s like Tommy’s mentor, I guess you could call it. Knew Tommy’s family in China.”
There was Uncle Chin again. It was clear I was going to have to talk to him about Tommy at some point. It wasn’t something I looked forward to; since becoming a cop, I’d managed to maintain a good relationship with Uncle Chin by keeping my professional life and my personal life separate. Though it appeared that concept had flown out the window the night I went to the Rod and Reel Club. “Anybody else?”
“Tommy didn’t have many friends.”
“How about enemies?”
Melvin’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Akoni said, “Sure you do. Anybody who disliked Tommy enough to kill him.”
You could see the wheels turning in Melvin Ah Wong’s head. He was trying to say something without incriminating himself. “We know Tommy Pang was a criminal,” I said. “And I don’t care what you know or don’t know about his businesses. I just want to know if he mentioned any particular rivalries to you, anybody he cheated, anybody who might want him dead.”
That didn’t seem to make the connection for Melvin. He was still thinking. I had a flash of inspiration. “How about cops? Any cops who might have been working for Tommy on the side, who might have a grudge against him?”
That hit the jackpot. Melvin smiled. “Tommy often had reason to become friendly with police officers. Because of the work he did, he sometimes needed both business and personal security. And,” he paused, again searching for delicacy, “occasionally he may have skirted the law and needed an officer to look the other way.”
Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. “Names, Melvin. We want to know who these cops were.”
His face fell. “He never told me. I know most of the officers he dealt with were Chinese. There was at least one haole, I know, with a Portuguese name. Tommy was particularly pleased to have recruited him. Apparently the man had financial problems, and was in a particular position to do Tommy good. But he never told me the man’s name, or if he did, I forgot it.”
“Great,” Akoni said. “A haole cop with a Portuguese name. There must be hundreds of those.”
Th
ere wasn’t anything more Melvin Ah Wong could tell us, though he did give us an address and phone number for Dong Shi-Dao, who he said worked in import-export. He said he couldn’t be more specific. We walked back through the storeroom with him. “Can I get a soda, Dad?” Jimmy asked.
Melvin frowned. “All right, but come right back. You still have homework.”
Jimmy walked out of the store with us, and hesitated for a moment, waiting to see which way we turned. Then he followed us.
“Give me a few minutes,” I whispered to Akoni. “Go on ahead a little.”
He picked up his pace and I slowed down. In a minute Jimmy Ah Wong was walking next to me. “Where do you go to school?” I asked.
“Honolulu Christian,” he said, naming a Chinatown private school not far away.
“Good school. I was in a speech and debate club when I was at Punahou, and we used to compete against them.”
He nodded. We came to a little convenience store across the street from Nu’uanu Stream. “I think I need a soda, too,” I said. “Hot day.”
We went inside and got Cokes. There was a tiny park alongside the water and I said, “Want to go over there?”
“Sure.”
The smell of something rotten was stronger right there by the river, but when the trade wind blew it didn’t bother me too much. We sat down on a picnic bench under a big kiawe tree. There was a clutch of old men behind us, gabbing in Chinese, but they couldn’t hear anything we said. “If you have something to tell me, you can,” I said.
He looked down at the picnic table. “I’m ashamed.”
“Hey, when I was your age I was ashamed all the time,” I said. “Ashamed and scared. Matter of fact, I still am. I’m just more accustomed to it.”
He didn’t speak. “You know something about Tommy Pang’s murder?” I asked gently. “Was your father involved?”
He looked up fast. “No, nothing to do with my father.”
Then I knew. “Derek and Wayne, right? They got friendly with you, didn’t they?”
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