“What’re you talking about?”
“I’m just sayin’, you have a need, don’t be ashamed to get it treated by a professional.”
Stanley put his hand up to his head. “I don’t have a need.”
Jack snorted. “Of course you do.”
“No, I don’t. I’m fine.”
“You’re in denial.”
“Okay. I’ll go see a psychiatrist. They’re professional.”
“A professional cocksucker will straighten you out faster than any kind of shrinky-dinky do-gooder.”
“Thanks, Dad. You woke me up to tell me this?”
Stanley was tired. He took a bottle of water out of the minibar.
“Hand me a beer, will ya?”
Stanley twisted the top off a bottle of Heineken and handed it to his father. He sat back on the bed and sipped his water as Jack drained two-thirds of the beer in one long gulpy swallow.
“The fuckers are declaring war on us.”
“Who?”
“The local fuckers. The Sumo and his kid.”
“Samoan.”
“Whatever. They braced me in the strip club.”
Stanley was shocked. “What?”
“Have you ever seen the tits on a Korean girl?” Then Jack realized what he’d said. “Forget it. Of course you haven’t. Only tits you see are in National Geographic.”
Stanley was growing agitated. “What did they say?”
“What do you think they said? They want us out.”
“What did you say?”
“I told ’em to go fuck themselves.” Jack finished the beer and tossed the bottle on the floor.
“What did they say to that?”
Jack shot his son an annoyed look. “What do you think they said; ‘Okay, we’ll just go fuck ourselves, thank you very much for suggesting it’?”
“No. . . I—”
“They declared fuckin’ war. I’m takin’ the first flight back to Vegas. I’m gonna have a little chat with some of our AFL-CIO friends. Maybe they can apply some pressure, straighten this out.”
“For a piece of the action.”
Jack hoisted himself to his feet, grabbed his walker, and began to hobble toward the door.
“The cost of doing business.”
...
If you didn’t know better, you might open the door to this ratty little dive tucked away in a dank Chinatown alley, take one look at the thugs, junkies, and hired killers inside, and slink away as quickly as possible. But if you knew the truth, you’d know that the tough-looking customers drinking beer and eating questionable sashimi were all off-duty police officers, most of them undercover detectives from the narcotics and organized crime units. Despite appearances to the contrary, this was actually the safest place in Honolulu.
A detective, chronic-looking with a greasy ponytail, Fu Manchu mustache, and pirate earrings, was singing karaoke. He was drunk, as were the other off-duty law enforcement types in the bar, but his heartfelt and slightly raunchy rendition of “You Light Up My Life” was bringing down the house.
Joseph entered the bar and nodded to a couple of detectives he knew. That was the thing about growing up in Honolulu: You knew everybody and everybody knew you. Joseph knew a few policemen. He even knew a criminal. One of his best friends from high school had become a high-class pimp. Not that they ever talked about it. Joseph didn’t ask and his friend never mentioned it. Sometimes, with friends, it’s better not to know.
Joseph sat down at the bar and ordered a beer. An inebriated brunette—Joseph recognized her as one of the Chinatown bicycle-patrol officers—pushed the karaoke song list over to him and ordered him to pick a song. In a bar where everyone’s packing heat, it’s best to do as you’re told. Joseph nodded and scanned the list until his drink arrived.
The beer came with a glass of ice and a plastic bowl filled with little red globes of li hing mui. Following the local custom, Joseph plucked two of the li hing mui, sour pickled plums coated in a carcinogenic-red powder, and dropped them in the glass of ice. He then slowly poured the beer over the fruit. He did it carefully, because something in the plums causes the beer to foam up.
Across the room, Sid sat in deep conversation with the assistant district attorney. Sid was trying to figure out if there was a way to implicate Jack Lucey and his Las Vegas business in price-fixing, bid rigging, or extortion: basically, all things that Sid routinely did with the union’s blessing. Sid was looking for allies or, better, someone to go to war for him. Joseph watched as the ADA, a friendly red-haired man with a perpetually sunburned nose, shook his head. Sid took a swig from his beer, nodded like he understood, and tried another tack. Joseph heard his uncle’s voice rise above the karaoke clatter.
“But dis is our island!”
The ADA mumbled something in response. Judging from the way Sid shot a sideways glance and clenched his teeth, Joseph could tell it wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
Joseph took a long drink of the ice-cold, sweet-plum-flavored beer and shook his head. As far as he was concerned, it was a little late to start shouting This is our island when it’d been stolen from them over a hundred years ago. The British and the French had both tried and failed to overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii and take control of the islands. They’d been repelled by a stubborn monarchy and a ferocious people. Only fat-cat robber barons from the United States had managed to pull it off, and they didn’t bother with warships or a battalion; they had someone on the inside.
In 1875, King David Kalakaua, a boozer and womanizer—the real incarnation of Kamapua‘a, the Hog God—signed the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States, allowing sugar and pineapple barons to sell Hawaiian goods to the mainland without a tax or tariff. The fat cats from San Francisco and beyond had anticipated this and gobbled up vast tracts of land, much of it purchased directly from the king himself.
A few years later Kalakaua extended the treaty and, in exchange, let the U.S. government build a naval base at Pearl Harbor. That was the beginning of the end for the Kingdom of Hawaii. Ten years after that the agribarons, Claus Spreckels, Sanford B. Dole, and C&H, the self-made kings of pineapple and sugar, sponsored a revolt against the monarchy and had the U.S. Marines land to “protect American interests.”
On January 17, 1893, Queen Liliuokalani surrendered her crown under protest to avoid a bloody battle between native Hawaiians and the U.S. Marines. The islands were annexed as a territory and Dole was installed as territorial governor. American interests had been protected in perpetuity ever since. If you asked Joseph, they’d been protected at the expense of the Hawaiians.
The inebriated brunette handed Joseph the microphone and told him it was his turn to sing. Because he spoke Hawaiian, he had picked a native song. But he was not a natural singer and he held the microphone tentatively, hoping no one in the bar would pay much attention to him.
The music started, images of natural rainforests and waterfalls appeared on the screen along with the words, and Joseph began to sing in a high, lonesome falsetto the classic island song, “Hi‘ilawe.”
He might not have the best voice in the bar, but the song, with its hauntingly sweet melody and beautiful words about a magical waterfall, moved him and he found himself singing louder and with more confidence than he intended. The melody rose up through the clatter and silenced the bar. Even Sid, who was just beginning to offer his support, union connections, and cold cash to any political ambitions the ADA might have, shut up and listened.
Suddenly, in a little bar on a small island in the middle of the largest body of water in the world, Joseph felt a connection to this time and this place. He became filled with a kind of soulful nostalgia that he could only describe as profound.
It came out in his singing, and it moved everyone in the bar. He could see it on their faces as he sang. Even Karate Mike, the giant detective who never sang, closed his eyes and mouthed the words.
When Joseph reached the end of the song, the bar erupted, whooping and cheering. Har
ry the bartender took the microphone from Joseph and told him he had sounded almost as good as the great Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole himself. Joseph smiled and nodded and even blushed a little as he sat back down, stuffed a few more li hing mui into his glass of ice, and slowly poured a beer over it.
He had never felt more Hawaiian.
Nine
His given name was Walter, but on the street everyone called him Lono. That’s because if there was some news or a rumor, Lono would know it. If he told you that someone was poaching your whores or gunning for your little corner of the drug world, or that the police were gearing up to drop some damage your way, it was usually true.
His network of girls reported back to him almost hourly, bits of gossip picked up here or there, people seen in certain places at certain times. Little things. Information that a normal person would discard as useless or irrelevant. But to Lono they were all tiny pieces of a large and multilayered jigsaw puzzle. He was able to take all the tidbits of information and hearsay and piece together an extremely accurate picture of what was going down on the mean streets of Honolulu.
This ability—some would say gift—was very useful. It kept Lono and his girls out of trouble with the competition and out of jail, one step ahead of what was about to go down. He was like the warning towers for incoming tsunamis that dot the North Shore. He gave you just enough time to reach high ground before the wave hit.
But Lono was selective. He traded information, using it to keep his business running smoothly. He didn’t help everyone, just special people. For example, the Japanese Yakuza and White Ghost Triad from Hong Kong held him in high esteem and, in fact, owed him many favors. In exchange for his information, they allowed his girls to work in many of the fancier hotels that were off limits to other pimps, and they never bothered to sweat him for a percentage of his earnings.
But it wasn’t just the organized crime syndicates that Lono traded information with; there was a methamphetamine importer from Seoul who treated Lono like a brother, a highflying money launderer who traded stock tips and investment advice for Lono’s information, a couple of counterfeit artists who specialized in 10,000 yen notes, a certain high-ranking government official, and a retired hitman from New Jersey. They all prospered through their connection with Lono. It was, as Martha Stewart likes to say, a good thing.
So Lono knew it was only a matter of time before he found out who the boyishly thin Japanese-American woman was, where she was staying, and what she was up to. He had put the word out. Lono could tell from looking at her that she wasn’t a doper, a local, or a tourist. That meant she was either newly arrived or here on business.
He knew she wasn’t in the game; that much was obvious by the way she carried herself. She was much too open, not cagey or circumspect like a working girl would be. Her reactions and comments had seemed completely honest and unguarded.
Lono found himself replaying their conversation in his mind over and over again. He didn’t know why he was suddenly obsessed with her. He could have any woman he wanted. Beautiful women were the currency he dealt, and it was common for pimps to dip into the till from time to time—if not for their personal pleasure, at least for quality control, making sure the product that was delivered to the consumer was the finest available. But Lono had never been tempted by any of his girls, even the exotics like Alice, the six-foot-four beauty from Tanzania, or Wachara, the hermaphrodite from Bali. He should’ve done both of them just to satisfy his curiosity. But the fact was that, unlike his customers, Lono wasn’t looking to get off. To tell the truth, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. But he thought he’d seen a glimmer of it in that woman lost and wandering through the prowl district.
Lono had to see her again. But he didn’t stress about it. He’d find her. It was only a matter of time.
Ten
Yuki looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon. That’s because she had. Her hair was cropped super-short on the back and sides and left long, lanky, and shot through with streaks of red on the top. Her hair swooped along one side of her head and flopped over her face like a crazy cantilevered Mohawk.
It was the coolest thing she’d ever done, and just knowing she’d had the courage to change her appearance so radically energized her. Why hadn’t her life coach ever suggested a haircut? Why waste all that time and money on aromatherapy workshops, Reiki classes, and vipassana meditation retreats when a new haircut totally changed everything? What if magazines like Vogue and Glamour were right? Maybe a makeover was more than just a makeover. Maybe a little color in your hair and some new eyeliner could do more than change your appearance; maybe it could change your outlook on life. Maybe it could even change your luck.
She walked across the street and into the Ala Moana mall. She thought it was strange to find a mall in Honolulu that was just like any mall you’d find in Omaha or Sacramento. McDonald’s, Burger King, and the Gap might have an imperial stretch from Orlando to Rome to Kuala Lumpur, but Baskin Robbins and Hickory Farms were definitely made in the U.S.A. It was jarring to see all these Asian people surrounded by orchids and palm trees carrying shopping bags filled with cheese balls and smoked sausage while lapping at a double dip of Here Comes the Fudge.
Yuki scoured several boutiques, searching for the exact right outfit to go with her new look. She tried some slinky miniskirts, floppy sundresses, pegged black jeans, and even super-casual flat-front khakis. But nothing was exactly right, although she was pleased to see that she looked kind of sexy in the miniskirt.
Eventually she found what she was looking for in a clothing store for surfers and surfer wannabes. She found the loose-fitting calf-length pants, the thin cotton tank top, the Hawaiian shirts, the high-top canvas sneakers, even a black baseball cap with the words “Strong Current” embroidered on it. Strong Current. That kind of said it all. That was what she was feeling.
She stood in the dressing room looking at her new image in the mirror. A chill of recognition ran up her spine, and she felt as if her dream and this new reality had somehow managed to merge. For a brief exhilarating moment, Yuki was unsure if she was dreaming or awake. She felt the same surge of erotic energy crackle through her body that she had felt in the dream. The sensation made her gasp.
She paid for her purchases and wore them out into the mall. Everywhere she went, heads turned to appraise her. Men looked her up and down, trying to figure out if she was a hip teenage boy or the DJ of a lesbian disco. Either way, there was something sexually dangerous and alluring about her. Being an object of sexual desire, or at least curiosity, was a new experience for Yuki, and she found it uplifting and slightly creepy. Being androgynous was going to take some getting used to.
...
“These motherfuckers think they can get away with whatever the fuck they want just because they live here. Just because it’s some fuckin’ island.” Jack was seething.
“Calm down. You’ll have another stroke.”
“Calm down? You want me to calm the fuck down? What do you want me to do, huh? Grab my ankles and say ‘Aloha, please fuck me up the ass’? Fuck that. I’m not sayin’ that.”
Stanley tried to be reasonable. “Look at it from their point of view. They’re just trying to protect their business. We’d do the same if they came to Vegas.”
“If they came to Vegas we’d plant their corpses in the fuckin’ desert.” Jack’s expression changed. “Which isn’t a bad idea.”
“They aren’t coming to Vegas, Dad. Don’t get any ideas.”
“Nothing says stay out of my way like a fuckin’ bullet in the head.”
Stanley turned and gave his father a stern look. “No.”
“No?”
“Yeah, no. Okay? No. I can’t make it any clearer than that.”
“Pussy.”
“Fine. I’m a pussy.”
Jack looked out the window. He thought about telling Stanley to go fuck himself but then thought better of it. Chucking the fucking Sumo in a volcano was a good idea, no doubt about it. No
thing announces your business plan and puts you on the map like that. It had worked when that putz in Vegas had tried an end-around and called his Hollywood friends. Death is an effective business tool. It’d been proven over and over again—by dictators, tyrants, despots, and corporate CEOs. People get in your way, you disappear them. Make an example out of them. Suddenly there’s no competition, and everyone else gets real cooperative.
Jack realized he’d have to make a corporate decision, exercise some leadership, without consulting Stanley. If he couldn’t get the union to help, he’d take care of it himself. That is, if he made it to the airport in time for his flight.
“Could you drive faster? It’s the fucking pedal on the right. You have to press it down with your foot.”
“Relax, Dad.”
“I don’t want to miss my flight.”
Stanley didn’t reply; he just stared ahead as the car slowly crawled along Ala Moana Boulevard.
“There must be a faster way.”
“I checked the map.”
“That doesn’t mean there’s not a faster way.”
“I guess I just take after Mom.”
Jack laughed. “Your mother could kick my ass, drink me under the table, suck my cock raw, and then go out and party until it was time to wake you up for school. Trust me, you don’t take after her.”
Stanley couldn’t help himself; he pouted. “That’s not how I remember her.”
Jack smiled. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But once she’d served up her famous meat loaf and put you to bed—well, I couldn’t keep up with her.”
“She went out? After she tucked me in?” Stanley sounded slightly distressed.
“She had a standing poker game at Binion’s.”
“Mom gambled?”
“Texas hold ’em. She loved that game.”
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