Mahu Vice

by Neil S. Plakcy

  That was something I didn’t want in the police department rumor mill.

  WHAT NORMA KNOWS

  Ray showed up at my apartment at six thirty Monday morning, too early to spring a visit on Norma Ching. “I’ve got something to talk about downstairs in Vice,” I said as we drove. “While I’m down there, I’ll see if they know anything about this clinic, or about Norma.”

  Ray didn’t ask about my other business with Vice, and I didn’t volunteer any details. I had to see how things worked out first, and how much involvement I would have in Brian Izumigawa’s case.

  While Ray parked, I went down to the B1 level, the first of two levels below ground. The photo lab, narcotics, and the special investigations section, where they do research on evidence, are also down there. It’s my favorite part of the building, and I’m always willing to hang around the labs and talk to the techs.

  Lieutenant Kee’s secretary, Juanita Lum, is a heavyset, no-nonsense Filipina, with lustrous black hair and skin so smooth she could do soap ads. From her wedding picture, which sat in a heart-shaped frame on her desk, you could see she’d been a real looker when she was younger.

  “Hey, Kimo, howzit?” she asked.

  “Pretty good, Juanita. The lieutenant have a minute?”

  “He’s on the phone. And then he’s got a meeting. But let me see if he can squeeze you in.”

  She kept an eye on the red light on Kee’s line while she chatted with me and kept on typing some kind of report. The multitasking made my head spin, but it was all in a day’s work for Juanita. When she saw the light go off, she buzzed the lieutenant. “I’m busy, woman,” I heard him say through the intercom.

  “And next week you’ll want something from Homicide,” Juanita said. “You scratch Kimo’s back, he’ll scratch yours. And your back itches a lot.”

  “Fine, send him in.”

  In the four years or so that he’d been in charge of Vice, Kee had been perpetually grumpy. He had a long, sad face like a Bassett hound, and brush-cut black hair going gray at the sideburns.

  “Thanks for giving me a minute,” I said, walking into his office. “You hear about the arson homicide up in St. Louis Heights last Sunday?”

  “Shopping center up on Waialae Avenue?” he asked. “What about it?”

  “That address ever come up in your investigations? There was an acupuncture clinic there that sounds pretty shady, and they closed down and moved out a couple of days before the fire.”

  “I’ve heard the address,” he said. “But I’ve been short handed since the last round of budget cuts. I haven’t had a chance to get anybody up there.”

  “You know the name Norma Ching?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  I paused, and Kee said, “That all?”

  I took a deep breath. “Nope.” I told him about Brian Izumigawa, how he’d contacted me, making it sound like he recognized my name from the media. I showed Kee the note Brian had been sent. “You get this dusted for prints?” he asked.

  “He was cagey about what was going on. I didn’t realize it might be evidence until he’d already given it to me and I’d put my prints all over it. I can still get it tested, though.”

  “Do it.” He looked at me. “What do you make of this?”

  Inside, I breathed a little sigh of relief. There was no reason why Kee should recognize my naked back, but I was still glad that he didn’t. I told him my theory that the blackmailers were amateurs, and explained about Brian’s connection to Mr. Hu and the mansion in Black Point.

  “He told you all this?” Kee asked.

  “We met up yesterday afternoon and I got him to open up.”

  “This needs some delicacy,” Kee said. “You want to run this? Keep it quiet that way.”

  “If you want.” Good. There was little chance that the story would spread around the department if I was in charge.

  “I’ll clear it with your boss. Get back in touch with this guy. Tell him not to do anything until they contact him again. In the meantime, see what you can run down on this Hu guy.”

  I dropped the note off for fingerprint processing, taking a photocopy back upstairs with me, and filled Ray in on the case, leaving out my personal involvement. I checked the property records for the mansion in Black Point where Brian and I had been fixed up. It was owned by a corporation, of course. I put in another call to Ricky Koele.

  “You’re turning into my new best friend,” he said. “Pretty soon we’ll be surfing together.”

  “You get a lead on some good waves, you let me know.” I gave him the name of the corporation that owned the mansion, and a few minutes later he was back on the line.

  “It’s a shell,” he said. “The stockholders are another corporation out of Hong Kong. Wah Shing Ltd.”

  “Why does that name sound familiar?” I asked him.

  “Hold on. Let me do a cross-reference search.”

  He was back on the line a couple of minutes later. “You won’t believe it. Remember that acupuncture clinic you called me about last week? Golden Needles? Wah Shing was their corporate parent.”

  “No shit? Or should I say no Shing?”

  “Call if you need anything else,” Ricky said.

  After I hung up, I sat there staring into space. It was too weird that this random trick and his blackmail case had somehow become connected to our arson homicide. A million things were running through my head, not the least of which was how I was going to come out of all this with my secrets intact.

  I didn’t realize Ray had been talking to me until he was waving his hand in my face and saying, “Earth to Kimo.”

  I told Ray about meeting Brian Izumigawa and the blackmail attempt. I showed him the picture, too, and he didn’t recognize me—though there was no reason why he should have. “You’re sure this isn’t just some random shot from a porn movie?”

  “Very. But here’s the weird part. The same corporation was behind the lease on the acupuncture clinic and the house where this was taken.”

  “Whoa. What do you think that means?”

  I looked at Ray. I liked him, and we worked well together. We’d shared bits and pieces of our personal lives as we got to know each other better. I knew about the money problems he and Julie were having, the way they argued sometimes about them. He knew about my complicated history with Mike Riccardi. But this was bigger. It was time to see if I could trust my partner.

  “Let’s head over to Norma’s,” I said. “I’ve got some stuff to tell you.”

  As detectives, Ray and I can either use personal vehicles for police business, or sign out an unmarked Crown Vic from the Vehicle Maintenance Section. Call me fussy, but if I’m going to feel something sticky on the seat or the dash, I want to have a general idea what it is. If there’s a funny smell in the car, I want it to be one of my funny smells. And I don’t want to have to worry about whether the last guy to drive it did something that’s going to cause me a problem.

  So I was reluctant to take a car out, and Ray was willing to drive us into Chinatown in Julie’s Mini Cooper. Which put us on the road in a vehicle that didn’t say, “We are the police. Fear us.” But it had to do in a pinch.

  There were big, puffy clouds outside, and a restless wind shook the kukui trees along South Beretania Avenue as Ray drove us. “I told you about how I broke up with Mike, right? About a year ago? After that, I started getting into this web site called MenSayHi.com, a hookup site. Through it, I met this older guy, Chinese. I always called him Mr. Hu. He got off on choreographing these scenarios for me. He’d pair me up with guys, for whatever reason in his head, and then sometimes he’d watch, and sometimes he’d participate.”

  “Did you meet him up at that house?” Ray asked. “The one where the blackmail guy went?”

  “Yup.”

  Ray looked over at me. “Shit. Is that you in the picture with him?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you complain about me and one-word answers.” Ray pulled th
e car over a couple of blocks from Norma’s. “Tell me the whole story.”

  I took a deep breath. “There isn’t much more to say. I didn’t know who Brian Izumigawa was, and I didn’t know we were being filmed.”

  “You cannot tell anyone else that’s you in the picture, Kimo.” He looked back at the street ahead of him. “You do, and they pull you off the case, and your name goes down the drain. I’ve seen that happen. You’re too good a cop to lose that way.”

  “Thanks.” I felt a little better, knowing Ray was on my side. “But I have to say, I don’t know what to do.”

  Ray looked out at the street, then turned back into traffic. “Right now, we go see Norma. If she worked for your Mr. Hu, maybe she can help us find him. Then we get both cases wrapped up fast.”

  Norma Ching lived in a run-down high-rise just off Hotel Street, which had once been the center of Honolulu’s red light district. I’d heard stories about the brothels there during the second world war, when there were nearly 150 of them within a few blocks, servicing the servicemen.

  Now, though, it’s just another neighborhood. A lei stall was already open across the street, the beautiful colors and pungent scents a dramatic contrast to the shuttered storefronts around it. The only other business open was a Chinese grocery, and as we passed I looked in the window and saw a familiar face.

  “Hey, Melvin, how you doing?” I asked, walking inside to the aroma of barbecued pork and roast duck. The shelves were lined with canisters of salty dried plums and apricots, tapioca pearls, and shrink-wrapped mushrooms. Chinese characters decorated bottles of vinegar and soy sauce. A couple of dusty red paper lanterns hung from the ceiling.

  “Detective.”

  Melvin Ah Wong was Jimmy’s father, if you could still call him that. He’d kicked the boy out at sixteen, when he discovered his son was gay. I introduced him to Ray, then said, “You seen your son lately?”

  “My son is dead.”

  “Your son is very much alive, Melvin. He’s at UH now, you know that? Looks happy, got lots of friends. You’d be proud of him.”

  “My son is dead, detective,” Melvin said, and he walked past us.

  “I always admire your people skills,” Ray said, as he paid the shopkeeper for a package of salty dried plums.

  “The guy’s lucky I don’t knock him out,” I grumbled.

  We walked over to Norma’s building and took the elevator up to the tenth floor. We knocked on the door of 10-F and a moment later Norma opened it.

  I wasn’t sure I’d have recognized her on the street. Her white hair was wild and uncombed, and she wore a black cotton dressing gown hastily tied. I introduced myself and Ray.

  “I’m not dressed for gentlemen callers,” she said, smiling coyly. She was missing her front teeth and her smile reminded me of a Halloween pumpkin.

  There was just a trace of a Chinese accent. She smiled flirtatiously at Ray. “Will you come in and give me a few minutes to fix myself up?”

  We sat in her black lacquer living room, and all the hothouse plants reminded me of Uncle Chin’s lanai, where he had spent much of his last years surrounded by flowers and birds. A glass étagère along one wall was cluttered with dragon figurines, bonsai trees, and a pile of round coins with a square cut out of the center—I Ching charms. A rice paper scroll hung on the wall with a bunch of characters signifying good fortune. I recognized love, peace, and harmony, among others. Through the doorway into the kitchen I saw a Buddha kitchen god and a Chinese calendar.

  Ten minutes passed, and when Norma reappeared from the bedroom she was a different person. She’d put her teeth in, and donned an elegantly coiffed white wig. There was red powder on her cheeks, and she wore a smart black business suit with a white blouse, open at the neck.

  “Now, how can I help you, detectives?” she asked.

  “We wanted to ask you about the Golden Needles Acupuncture Clinic,” I said. “You know it burned last week?”

  She nodded. “We had already closed a few days before the fire.”

  “Why did you close?” I asked. “Not enough people needing acupuncture?”

  She laughed. “Oh, detective. We didn’t do acupuncture there, despite the sign out front. Since I am no longer employed there I feel free to tell you that personal services were provided to discreet gentlemen.”

  “Prostitution,” Ray said. He and I looked at each other. So we’d been on the wrong track; it wasn’t gambling that the other tenants had been hinting about.

  “What an awful word. So unsavory, isn’t it? Not that I participated myself, you understand. I am a little past my prime.”

  “Why did you close?”

  “It was a business decision made by my ex-employer.”

  “Mr. Hu?” I asked.

  Norma looked surprised. “Yes, that is the name I knew him by. But I doubt that is the name he was born with.”

  “You and I first met about two years ago, isn’t that right?” I asked. “You were working at a lingerie shop. Just a few blocks from here, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “That building burned, too,” I said. “Interesting, isn’t it? You worked at two places that both burned under suspicious circumstances.”

  “I had nothing to do with either fire.”

  I pulled out Mike’s list of suspicious fires. “A massage parlor in Waikele, a quick mart in Kaneohe, a coffee shop near the airport, and a Christian religious shop downtown. All of them burned. If I check your employment records, will I find that you worked at any of those places?”

  Norma sat up very straight. “You can accuse me all you want, detective. But I am an innocent woman.”

  “I know that you know something, Norma,” I said. “And I want to know what it is. What happened after Tommy Pang died? Who took over the lingerie shop?”

  I saw Norma consider her options for a minute. I knew from Aunt Mei-Mei that Norma was angry; I figured if I just asked the right questions, she’d open up.

  “For a long time, I didn’t know who the new owner was,” she said, having made her decision. “Everything went along. Then Mr. Hu called one day. He informed me that we were closing down, and that I should move everything to Waikele.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not following,” Ray said. “This lingerie shop—did you provide the same kind of services there that you did at the acupuncture clinic?”

  Norma looked at Ray the way a teacher might smile at a prized pupil. “You are following everything just fine, detective.”

  “Did Mr. Hu give you any reason for the move?” I asked.

  “He said something about his arrangements with the police changing,” Norma said. “I resisted, because I didn’t want to go all the way to Waikele. I am an old woman, you know, and I do not drive. It was very inconvenient for me.”

  “And what did Mr. Hu say?”

  “He told me that I was welcome to stay in the shop, if I wished. But it might get very warm for me.”

  “So you found your way to Waikele,” I said.

  “A car and driver is expensive,” Norma said. “But better than the alternative.”

  “Why did the massage parlor close?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I am just an old woman. I do what I am told.”

  “From Waikele, you went to St. Louis Heights?” I asked.

  “That is true.”

  “Did you know why the acupuncture clinic closed?” Ray asked.

  “Mr. Hu did not say. But I had my suspicions.”

  “What were they?” I asked.

  “A young boy,” she said. “One of our employees. He ran away, and Mr. Hu was afraid he would compromise our operation.”

  “Jingtao?”

  Norma looked surprised. “So he did go to the police.”

  I shook my head. “He was hiding at the far end of the center, in the back of the beauty salon. He never spoke to the police. He was killed in the fire.”

  Norma looked sad. “He was a beautiful boy. Very much in demand. But very unhappy
inside.”

  “You have a new location?” Ray asked.

  “As I told you earlier, I have been informed that my services are no longer needed.”

  “How can we get in touch with Mr. Hu?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I do not know. The number I had for him has been disconnected.” But she smiled slyly. “But I know someone who might be able to help you. Her name is Treasure Chen.”

  I finally made the connection. Treasure had been Tommy Pang’s girlfriend, and she had worked with Norma at the lingerie shop.

  “The girl the pharmacist spoke about,” Ray said.

  I grimaced. If I’d only made the connection to the name the pharmacist had given us, we could have moved a lot faster.

  “He did more than speak,” Norma said. “Though he was always worried that his wife would find out.”

  “Where can we find Treasure Chen?” I asked.

  “I do not know. But when you find her, I have a message for her.”

  “Yes?”

  Norma spit, more sound than saliva, and wiped her hands briskly. “That is my message for Treasure Chen.”

  ANGRY LOBSTERS

  We left Norma a few minutes later, after she told us that Treasure’s phone number was unlisted and she didn’t know where the girl lived. “We can check payroll tax records,” Ray suggested. “There might be an address for Treasure Chen there. You know anything about this Mr. Hu besides his address and last name?”

  I shook my head. “That was part of the deal. Control. He contacted me; I never knew how to reach him. But I might have another way to get to Treasure.” It was almost lunchtime, and I told Ray to drive over to Ward Warehouse, a complex of shops between downtown and Waikiki. “After she left the lingerie shop, her boyfriend got Treasure a job as the hostess at a restaurant called the Lobster Garden. Maybe somebody there has kept in touch with her, or has an old address we can start with.”

  The Ward Warehouse was a mini-mall, two long lines of stores facing each other on two levels with parking in the middle. To me, it’s one of the least attractive shopping centers on the island, because it looks like a child’s play set—girders bolted together, corrugated metal sheets painted clashing colors.