The Green Room

by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

Storm pushed the button she had programmed for Leila’s cell, and Brian picked up. “Leila’s driving,” he explained. “We just passed Schofield.”

  “Perfect,” Storm said. “Meet us at Kimo’s Pizzeria in about an hour.”

  “Great. We’re all starved.”

  “We are, too. If you get there first, order a pitcher.”

  They disconnected and Storm tucked the phone back into her sweatshirt pocket. She slouched in the seat and shivered. Her long ordeal in the ocean had thoroughly chilled her, and distress about Goober was nearly overwhelming. She trembled again.

  “You all right?” Hamlin asked, and put his arm out. He drew her to him, like teenagers on a date.

  She put her head on his shoulder. “I’ll be a lot better when we get this over with.”

  “I bet. You know what you want to ask him?”

  “I’m going to start with why Goober broke into my house. I hope he reveals what he was trying to find.” She sat quietly for a moment. “I wonder if he found it.”

  “Maybe he saw Goober talking to you on the beach,” Hamlin said.

  “That’s what I was thinking, too. And then he followed me when I ran after him.”

  Storm directed Hamlin into the subdivision where Barstow rented his beach house.

  When he caught sight of the place, Hamlin whistled. “And I thought O’Reilly’s house was nice. There’s some money to be made in this business.”

  “It seems,” Storm said dryly. The same modern globes that she’d noted before lined the wide drive. Probably solar energy. Slick, she thought.

  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.” Hamlin pulled in.

  “He had the garage doors down when Stephanie and I were here, too. It’s hard to tell if he’s in or not.”

  “So let’s find out.” Hamlin set the parking brake. “What does a person do with a three-car garage in a vacation home?”

  “I don’t know. I’d settle for one.” Storm’s cottage in Honolulu had an open carport, typical of many Hawai'i homes.

  They rang the doorbell. After a couple of minutes, when no one answered, Hamlin stepped back to peer through one of the tall windows. “Looks like a study,” he said. “The computer’s running. It’s not even in sleep mode.”

  “Maybe they just left,” Storm said, but she rang again.

  “They would have driven right by us.”

  “You don’t think we’d miss them? It’s dark.”

  “Streets are too narrow. Besides, I was watching.” Hamlin walked back to the door and rang, then banged loudly.

  A moment later, Barstow threw open the door. He was a bit out of breath. “Hello, Storm. What a surprise. Sorry, I was working in the front of the house. Didn’t hear you at first.”

  “This is my associate, Ian Hamlin. Sorry to drop in on you like this—”

  “No problem. Come on in.” Barstow gestured for them to enter and closed the door. He stuck out his hand to shake Hamlin’s. “Nice to meet you.” He looked to Storm. “Is this the attorney you wanted me to talk to?”

  “Have you had another threat?” It seemed like a week had passed since she’d talked to him about Buster DeSilva.

  “He hung around the whole meet today. Whispering to people, cozying up to the media.” He turned to Hamlin. “I’d like to discuss this with you. I might need protection.”

  “We’re here about another matter, but I can give you my contact number,” Hamlin said.

  “We wanted to talk to Steve O’Reilly. Is he around?” Storm asked.

  “O’Reilly? He’s on the way.” He waved for them to follow. “Come on in. I can at least offer you a cocktail. He’s always late.”

  Hamlin and Storm followed him to the front of the house. When they got to the front room, Hamlin’s eyes lit up. The wall facing the ocean was entirely in glass, and shaped like a ship’s prow. Outside the window, the ocean’s dark expanse gave the impression the house was isolated, exclusive in its domain.

  Hamlin let his gaze travel from the high cathedral ceiling to the natural bamboo flooring, on which lay a plush Chinese carpet in green and rose hues. He gestured to the natural stone fireplace. “Do you ever use that?”

  “Sure, it got cool enough last night. Have a seat.” He indicated a cushy leather sofa and walked to a wet bar in the back corner of the room.

  Storm thought she heard a thump, and wondered if the surf hit a sea wall out front. It was too dark to see beyond the rail of the lanai outside the huge window. She was about to ask, but Barstow spoke first.

  “What would you like to drink? Wine, beer, whiskey… I just opened a nice cabernet.”

  “That would be fine,” Hamlin said.

  Storm heard the thump again. It didn’t seem as regular as breaking surf, plus the noise seemed to come from the back of the house. “I’ll have the same,” she said, and looked about for a clue as to where the noise came from. Maybe Barstow had a dog.

  Hamlin had apparently noticed it, too. “Is that—”

  Barstow held one glass of wine and took a step toward them. Hamlin rose to take it from him, but before Hamlin got to him, Barstow reached behind his back, pulled out a pistol and fired.

  Chapter Forty-three

  O’Reilly lay on top of a musty-smelling bed in a dark, unused guest room at the back of the house, trussed like a duck in a Chinatown market. At least he wasn’t hanging from a hook, he told himself. Not yet, anyway. And he nearly choked on his fury. Who would fucking believe this?

  What had Barstow said? It was hard to remember after that awful shock. The sonofabitch had tasered him. Knocked him down flat. Messed up his head, too—memories of the last hour or two were coming back in dribs and drabs. Like someone turning a film projector on and off.

  This was unbelievable. Who would have thought the guy was wound so fucking tight? O’Reilly took a deep breath through his nose. But here he was, trying not to panic at the gag Barstow had stuffed in his mouth. His own sock, and some moldy old handkerchief.

  Barstow had gone ballistic, then threatened to blackmail him. Blackmail him! O’Reilly snorted and flopped on the mattress, which squeaked with abuse, and banged the headboard against the wall. It gave him a sort of juvenile satisfaction, but shit, he could hardly breathe. Christ, he had to stay calm.

  First, Barstow had told him he knew about the cocaine Goober had procured for him. Shit. Then he went on about how he had some local girl’s father lined up to go to the local paper and accuse him of statutory rape. What girl, O’Reilly asked himself. The one you thought was a tourist? She wasn’t fifteen, she was driving a car. But you didn’t ask her age, did you, old buddy?

  What had set Barstow off, anyway? More like which event had done it. Barstow had been getting more and more eccentric. He’d turned into a fanatic with those protein blender concoctions. Had to have one every morning, his special ritual, with awa and some other crazy Hawaiian remedies.

  Jesus, maybe he should have seen this coming. They’d been arguing over everything the past few days, from the lineup to whether to call the meet early this afternoon.

  O’Reilly sagged into the mattress. He had to think about this whole thing. His first real glimmer of Barstow’s instability, though he hadn’t seen it as such, was his reaction to Pua’s appearance. It wasn’t anything O’Reilly couldn’t handle. In fact, she’d looked great and he’d found he wanted to talk to her. Apologize, even.

  But Barstow had called security, then pelleted O’Reilly with questions. He couldn’t let it go, wanted to know all about her, and what O’Reilly’s relationship had been with her.

  O’Reilly could see now where he’d fucked up, but he’d had no idea Barstow was as bad as this. He was just trying to needle him, show him that they both had faults, get him off his back. So he’d made a comment about how Barstow had manipulated the slate of contestants. Letting him know that he was aware two qualified surfers had been bumped from the contest so that Ben and Goober could compete.

&nb
sp; O’Reilly remembered the flickering light behind Barstow’s squinting stare and got very still. O’Reilly admitted to himself that in many ways, he’d been a self-involved fuck-wad. But he’d also been working his ass off trying to make the Intrepid a world-class event. He felt like a juggler keeping ten balls and a dozen spinning plates aloft, simultaneously trying to pull money from the air.

  He’d done it, too. The contest was a booming success. But he’d lost track of things, too. People, that is.

  Goober had tried to warn him, but he’d been too busy to listen. The kid had come back to the house this morning after Barstow left and started spouting some pretty wild stuff. Something about Barstow using a cave and stealing a warrior’s mana through his teeth.

  Teeth? O’Reilly still had no idea what he was talking about. Goober’s timing, as usual, sucked. O’Reilly was already ten minutes late leaving the house for an interview with five—count ’em—TV networks. PR was the bedrock of this business.

  But he should have paid attention. O’Reilly sucked air through his nose and struggled against the line around his wrists. The headboard banged the wall again. He’d make it up to the kid, send him to college or something. He should have listened.

  Chapter Forty-four

  It happened in slow motion, yet so fast that Storm felt like she was frozen in a nightmare. She could only yelp in confusion and dread. Oddly, the gun didn’t bang. It made a hissing pop, which at first Storm thought was a silencer. Then she saw the two wires shoot out and stick in Hamlin’s chest.

  Hamlin yelped with pain, bent over, and dropped to the floor. Aghast, Storm recognized the way she’d been brought down earlier in the day. Barstow had a taser, a kind of stun gun. She’d never seen one before, but she’d heard Brian and other members of the police force discuss them.

  Though frantic with worry for Hamlin, she knew he hadn’t been shot with a bullet and he would recover. She also figured the wires had to stay in contact with him, so her first priority was to pull them out.

  “Ian,” she shrieked, and dashed toward his twitching form.

  Jesus, what was all that blood? He was bleeding—a lot. His face was covered, and it was dripping onto the bamboo floor, brilliant red against the blonde wood.

  Barstow took a step toward Storm. “Not another step,” he shouted.

  “You pea-balled, spineless jellyfish.” She kept coming.

  Barstow pulled the trigger again and Storm, horrified, watched Hamlin convulse. She didn’t see Barstow’s free hand swing at her head, but she felt the impact. He’d struck her flat-handed, a blow that knocked her to her knees between the couch and the heavy glass coffee table.

  Storm shook her head, dazed. Her eyes watered with shock. Unbelievable. He’d actually hit her. Rage decelerated the tableau to slow motion. He would not get away with this.

  Still on her knees, Storm grabbed the big crystal vase on the glass coffee table. She didn’t even bother to dump out the water and sunflowers. Like a potted shrub held between her and Barstow, she jumped into a surfer’s balanced crouch, aimed, and hurled.

  In the split second before the vase connected, Barstow’s squinty leer flicked back and forth between Hamlin’s prone body and Storm’s advancing one. Like a gluttunous rat, he couldn’t decide who posed the greater risk. Chauvinist to the end, he chose the male as the bigger threat.

  The vase connected with a noise like a cantaloupe on concrete and Barstow crashed to the floor. He also released the gun, which skittered under a rosewood cabinet.

  Hamlin moaned, and Storm jerked the probes from his shirt front. “Hamlin, can you hear me?”

  She groped in her sweatshirt for her cell phone, and struggled to hold her shaking hand still enough to speed-dial Leila and Brian. She needed cops and an ambulance.

  Before she could bring the phone to her ear, the crash of breaking glass brought her to her feet. Someone was breaking into the house.

  Afraid it might be an accomplice of Barstow’s, perhaps O’Reilly, Storm jumped up and grabbed the vase, which was thankfully still in one piece. She flattened herself against the wall, out of sight of anyone entering the room. If it was more than one person, she didn’t have a chance, but she had to protect Hamlin, who was still down and helpless.

  “Storm?” He sounded weak and confused.

  Loud footsteps, those of several people, clattered down the hall. “Storm!” a woman’s voice called. “Are you here? Are you okay?”

  Storm leaned against the wall in relief and lowered the vase. “Sunny?”

  Ben, Sunny, and Dede raced into the room. “Oh,” Ben cried. “It’s true.” He dropped to his knees, his eyes on his father. He didn’t approach him, though. Instead, he looked at Hamlin, who held his hand over a gash on his forehead and struggled to sit up.

  Sunny and Dede ran to Storm, then to Hamlin. “Thank God. We were so scared for you we broke the front window to get in.”

  All three turned their attention to Hamlin. Dede ran to the kitchen, and came back with a wet dish towel and a zip-lock bag of ice.

  Storm threw her arms around him. “How are you feeling?”

  “Kinda shaky, to be honest.” He shook his head. “I’ll be okay, though.”

  Dede peered at him. “You need stitches.”

  Storm told them about the taser.

  “Your head must have hit the edge of the coffee table,” Dede said.

  “I was helpless. I couldn’t avoid it,” Hamlin said.

  Storm looked at Sunny and Dede. “How’d you know where we were?”

  “You said you were going to talk to O’Reilly,” Sunny said. “Goober had told me something bad was happening with the surf contest, and he needed to talk to O’Reilly. Then he died. So I called Ben to see if he knew where you’d gone.”

  “How’d you know I’d talked to Ben?” Storm asked.

  “Stephanie called me,” Sunny said.

  Storm was going to ask for more information, but an electronically-transmitted shouting got all their attention. “Did you leave a phone off the hook?” Sunny asked.

  “It’s coming from the couch,” Dede said. “And it’s calling your name.”

  “Hold on,” Storm shouted. She grappled under a cushion for the mobile phone she’d dropped when she heard the glass break.

  “Storm, what’s going on?” Brian Chang yelled. Storm could hear Leila in the background, asking what was happening.

  Storm told him where she was and what she knew. She also asked for an ambulance.

  “We’re on the way,” Brian said.

  Chapter Forty-five

  “Is he dead?” Ben’s voice was sad. Except for his splayed limbs, Barstow looked like a funeral corpse, piled with sunflowers.

  Dede felt his neck for a pulse. “No, he’s alive.” She saw the taser filaments on the floor and pulled the gun from under the cabinet. “One of us had better watch him until the police get here.” She peered at the gun. “I wonder if we could use this on him.”

  Sunny looked at Ben. “Tell Storm what you told me.”

  Ben sighed heavily. “I saw the bowl.”

  Storm frowned at him. “What bowl?”

  “The artifact. A calabash, you know, with the teeth. Dad said it was very rare, that only a few private collectors had them anymore.”

  “What did he tell you about them?”

  “That the winner of a battle took the teeth of the losing warrior to gain his power and spirit. His mana.”

  “Your dad has one of these bowls?”

  “Yes.” Ben whispered his next words. “And I think he’s making one of his own.”

  “Holy Mother of God,” Storm breathed, and sank down next to Hamlin.

  Sunny and Dede stared at Ben. “You didn’t tell us that,” Sunny said.

  Ben just looked at the floor, deflated. “I wasn’t supposed to see it. That’s when I decided he was losing it.”

  No one spoke for several moments. Storm wondered if Sunny a
nd Dede knew about Ken Matsumoto’s and Nahoa’s missing teeth. She didn’t want to be the one to tell them. It was just too awful.

  “What’s that noise?” Sunny asked. “Something thumped.”

  “I heard that before,” Storm said.

  “Me, too.” Hamlin struggled to his feet. “It’s upstairs.”

  Ben and Dede stayed to watch Barstow, but Sunny, Storm, and Hamlin found the staircase, a wide, modern affair up which all three of them barged. It didn’t take them long to find the room where O’Reilly was tied. When they opened the door, they found that he’d slid off the bed and was attempting to roll across the floor.

  Sunny pulled a Swiss Army knife out of the pocket in her cargo shorts and cut the gag off him, then sawed through the nylon line around his arms and ankles.

  “Are you okay?” she asked him.

  “Yeah.” His bloodshot eyes showed white around the blue-gray irises. They darted from Sunny’s face, to Hamlin’s, and to Storm’s.

  “Where’s Barstow?” he gasped.

  “Storm knocked him out.” Sunny gestured toward Storm, who stared at the man with a mixture of mistrust and astonishment.

  From the guy’s behavior, it looked like Barstow had turned on him, too. But how much had he known about Barstow’s activities? Had he actually confronted the man? Or had he somehow stopped fitting into Barstow’s sick and deluded plans?

  O’Reilly’s eyes dropped to the ground. His hair stood up in clumps, his wrists bled from the nylon line that had bound them, and his elbows and knees were abraded from his struggle across the carpeted floor. The frayed khaki shorts he wore were stained and he smelled of urine.

  He took a staggering step and shook his head from side to side. “He’s crazy, you know.”

  “Probably,” Sunny said. She took his arm and led him out the door to the top of the stairs. “Can you walk okay? We’ve called an ambulance.”

  Storm and Hamlin followed, ready to catch him if he stumbled. Hamlin still held ice to his oozing forehead. The paper towel that was wrapped around the zip-lock bag was bloody. They were halfway down the staircase when the police pounded on the front door. It sounded as if a battalion had arrived. Piercing blue lights flashed through the broken window.