Mahu Blood

by Alex Beecroft

  “What do you want to know?” he asked.

  I showed him O’Malley’s picture. “Recognize this guy?”

  He took the picture from me, turned to the bar back where the light was better. When he handed the photo back to me he said, “Yeah. He comes in sometimes on Thursday nights.”

  “Was he here last night?”

  The guy nodded.

  “You see him leave with anyone?”

  He might have looked brainless, but he wasn’t. “Shit.

  Somebody hurt him?”

  “Last night.”

  “Sometimes he leaves alone, sometimes he doesn’t,” the bartender said. “Last night, he left with this tough-looking dude, tats up and down his arms. He was making a play for your guy, for sure.”

  “Making a play how?”

  “I saw him come up to your guy at the bar, start talking. Put his arm around him, that kind of thing. They didn’t dance or anything, just hung out and drank and played around.”

  MAhu BLood 205

  “You recognize him?”

  “He’s been in a couple of times before, but I don’t know his name.”

  “If we find him, you think you could pick him out of a lineup?”

  “I can try.”

  “Any other regulars who might have noticed something last night?”

  “Thursday night’s a specialized clientele,” he said. “Hard hats night, you know. Tonight the promo’s for younger guys. Different group entirely.”

  “I understand. Mahalo.” I went down the bar and spoke to the other bartender, who hadn’t noticed O’Malley or his mystery date.

  I looked around at the interesting mix of guys. Older men, all races. A couple of middle-aged business types, looking scared.

  Some younger guys, the kind I might expect to see at a meeting of my gay teen group. And a guy like the one O’Malley had picked up the night before, with sunglasses propped on his head, as if he’d need them in the dim room. A sleeveless gray T-shirt showcased his beefy biceps. He wore loose athletic shorts that hung low on his hips and backless sandals.

  He didn’t have tattoos on his arms, though, so I gave up and scanned the crowd, looking for tall, dark and handsome. I spotted him in a corner, drinking a Bud and flirting with a young blond with a buzz cut.

  I walked up and put my hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Ready to go?” I asked.

  “We’re talking here,” the blond said.

  Mike looked amused. He drained the last of his beer and put the bottle down on a nearby table. Then he leaned back against the wall, his hands in his pockets, stretching his pants tight and displaying his ample endowment.

  I turned to the blond. “Beat it. He’s mine. I’m tougher than 206 Neil S. Plakcy

  you are, I’m better in bed and I carry a gun. Get it?”

  “Hey, fuck you,” the blond said, but he turned away.

  I wasn’t exactly on duty, at least I wasn’t going to put in an overtime sheet for this trip to the bar or for my unofficial surveillance later that night at the Wing Wah.

  The DJ segued to a Lady Gaga song and turned the volume up high. “You want to hang around here for a while, or you want to go?” I yelled into Mike’s ear.

  “Neither.” He shook his head. “I want to make out.”

  He grabbed me around the ass and pulled me toward him. His kiss was loose and beery, and I wondered if maybe he’d downed more than one bottle while waiting for me to finish questioning the bartenders.

  But then I got caught up in the moment. Our bodies swayed in time to the music, and I felt his stiff dick grinding into my thigh. I got hard, too, and everything around us fell away as I kissed him, this man I loved.

  We were putting on a show for the guys around us, who were on the prowl, after all, most of them strangers to each other.

  After Mike and I had kissed and felt each other up for a while, he led me to the back bar, where an X-rated film was playing on a couple of plasma TVs. A guy in an obviously fake police uniform was getting his dick sucked by a punk.

  Mike said, into my ear, “Cops. You know that excites me.” He slid hand into the waistband of my jeans, teasing the tip of my dick with his index finger.

  “You’re bad,” I said, leaning up against his ear. “You’re going to make me come in my pants.”

  He leaned down and kissed me again.

  I whispered in his ear, “Wish I could stick around, stud, but I’ve got another date. In Chinatown.”

  wiNNeRs ANd LoseRs

  I dropped Mike back where he’d parked his truck and drove into Chinatown. It was the end of a long week, and I wanted nothing more than to relax and enjoy the Labor Day weekend.

  But I had a new murder on my plate and one more thing to do that night before I could go home and get some rest. I had to stake out the pai gow game, unofficially, and do my best to make sure nothing bad happened to my oldest brother.

  I parked a couple of blocks from the Wing Wah and joined Ray in his Highlander shortly before midnight, where I told him what I’d learned at the bar. Even though the night was cool, I couldn’t help sweating, waiting for the game to break up. Ray and I tried to figure out where the FBI guys were, but we couldn’t make them.

  Close to two a.m., two Ford sedans and a squad car drove up and parked right in front of the restaurant’s side door.

  “Something’s going down,” Ray said.

  Two uniforms stepped out of the squad, while five guys in FBI piled out of the Fords. I recognized Salinas as he walked up to the door and pounded on it.

  “FBI! Open up!” we heard him yell.

  There was no response from behind the door so he stepped aside and an agent holding a rammer stepped up. It was about forty pounds, basically a concrete tube with handles. The agent holding it smashed the door handle, destroying the lock, so that the door swung open. Then he stepped aside as the rest of the team streamed in. He dropped the rammer, swung his gun around and followed them in.

  My heart rate accelerated as I watched. “My brother’s probably pissing his pants right now.”

  The two uniforms pulled their weapons and led the way through the open door, with Salinas right behind them.

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  “I’m going to scoot over there and see what I can hear,” I said, opening the Highlander’s passenger door.

  “No you’re not.” Ray grabbed my arm. “You’ll only get in the way.”

  I sighed. “You’re right.” I closed the door. “But I hate sitting here waiting, not knowing what’s going on.”

  “Trust Salinas.”

  “You obviously haven’t worked with the FBI enough to know how dumb that statement sounds.”

  A man too thin and short to be my brother stepped through the door, stumbling in his haste to get away. He scurried down the street like a cockroach when you turn the lights on. A minute later, he was followed by another man, who behaved the same way.

  “Jesus, what’s going on?” I said.

  “You know,” Ray said. “You’ve been there. They’re questioning each guy, searching them and then letting them go one by one.”

  I did know that, but it didn’t make me feel any better about my brother. Two more men came out, and then Lui appeared, silhouetted in the light from the room behind him.

  “I’m going after him. Can you hang around and see how things play out?”

  “Sure.”

  I jumped out of the car and ran to my brother. “Lui! Hold up!”

  He pivoted as I reached him, and he reached around and grabbed me in a big hug. I could smell liquor on his breath.

  “What happened in there?” I asked, pulling back.

  “I won, brah!” he crowed. “That fucker Tanaka made me the banker, trying to drive me even further into the hole, but I came out ahead.”

  I was so surprised at once again hearing my brother curse that it took me a minute to process. “So you didn’t lose any of your MAhu BLood 209

  inheritance?”

  Lui lau
ghed. “I didn’t make back everything I owe Tanaka, but I walked away with a stack of bills. I didn’t even count it yet. You know that song, ‘you don’t count your money as you’re sitting at the table.’”

  OK, Lui singing country songs was just too much for me.

  “What about the FBI? What happened when they blasted in?”

  “Man, it was like something out of a movie. Cops and robbers, brah. They grabbed Tanaka and then started searching everybody for guns. At first I was scared shitless, but when they started letting everybody go, and I realized how much I’d won, I felt like I was the king of the world.”

  He spread his arms out and spun around, like Leonardo di Caprio in Titanic.

  “Are you drunk, brah?”

  “I’m high on life.”

  Oh, Jesus, I thought. “Come on, brah, I’ll drive you home.”

  “I can drive, little bruddah. Only had two rumrunners. Don’t worry about me.”

  I shook my head. I still had a lot to worry about—like would he be able to stop gambling, now he’d started again? I knew that winning that money would make him feel lucky again and make the temptation that much greater.

  I decided I’d follow him up to St. Louis Heights, make sure he got home all right. “You drive safe, brah,” I said, as we reached his car.

  As I walked away, I heard him turning the radio up loud and starting to sing. I wished I’d had a video camera trained on him; might make good evidence the next time he was acting like a stuck-up prig.

  I got in my Jeep and caught up to Lui, who was driving with exaggerated care. I stayed behind him until he pulled into his own driveway. As I was heading back downhill, Ray called.

  210 Neil S. Plakcy

  “I’m outside the Kope Bean warehouse,” he said. “The FBI brought Tanaka here for a search party.”

  “Very cool.”

  “Nothing more I can do here, though. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  When I got home, Roby was waiting for me by the front door, jumping up and down like a demented kangaroo. The rest of the house was quiet, so I figured Mike was already asleep. I grabbed the leash, and Roby and I went for a long walk, up and down hills, as I tried to decompress from the evening.

  I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been about my brother’s safety until I saw him walk out of the restaurant. I was tired of feeling nervous about people; I’d spent a lot of energy worrying about Lui’s gambling and my mother’s work with Kingdom of Hawai’i.

  Even the goofy golden retriever on the other end of the leash had suffered a loss and was recovering from the trauma of the fire that had destroyed his home and sent him away from the family who loved him. By the time Roby and I circled back to the house, I was pretty sure he had no more urine left in his bladder, and I was yawning and ready for bed.

  Saturday morning I woke to find Mike’s leg crossed over mine and his tongue tickling the outside of my ear.

  “Missed you last night.”

  He ran his hand down my chest to my dick, which responded to his touch. We began carrying out the promises our bodies had made at The Garage the night before.

  We were kissing and rubbing our bodies together when Roby’s big golden head appeared over the side of the bed.

  “Down, boy,” Mike said. “This is not a participatory sport.”

  I laughed and pushed the dog away. He settled down on the floor next to the bed and had to wait until Mike and I had both had our fill of each other before I crawled out of bed, pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and took him for his walk, as Mike rolled MAhu BLood 211

  over and went back to sleep.

  I skipped breakfast in order to make it to headquarters and meet Ray just after eight. “I’ve been thinking about what you found out at the bar last night,” he said, as I handed him a bodyboard-sized macadamia latte I’d picked up for him from the Kope Bean on my way in.

  “Yeah?”

  “What if O’Malley’s death isn’t related to the others at all—

  just a coincidence? You said that the bartender recognized the hustler had been in there before. He made a play for O’Malley, then went home with him. Both concierges confirmed that he often brought tough-looking guys home with him.”

  “But why kill O’Malley?” I asked. “He was already hog-tied.

  The hustler could have just picked up O’Malley’s wallet and jewelry and walked out.”

  “Maybe O’Malley threatened him. Let me go, or I’ll drag your ass into court.”

  “I don’t think O’Malley could have been that stupid.”

  “Why stick the dildo up his ass?” Ray asked. “That’s anger, don’t you think? Like O’Malley did something to piss the guy off.”

  “Could be. Or it could be a red herring, the killer trying to make us think this was a sex thing.”

  I sipped my coffee and thought. “Besides, it’s just too coincidental. He told me he was worried about people involved with KOH, that they were dangerous. I think his death has to be connected to our appointment with him.”

  “That’s certainly one theory,” Ray sipped his coffee, and sighed with pleasure, “but just to be thorough, let’s see if there’s anybody on duty in Vice who can tell us if there’s someone out there committing similar crimes.”

  “They’ve probably all cut out for Labor Day,” I said, but followed Ray down to the B1 level, where I was surprised to find Juanita Lum at her desk.

  212 Neil S. Plakcy

  “Big sweep last night in Waikīkī,” she said. “I had to come in this morning to help out. You know the lieutenant, he’s lost without me.”

  “I heard that,” Kee boomed from his office. He had a long, sad face like a Bassett hound and brush-cut black hair going gray at the sideburns. “What brings you gentlemen down to the bowels of the building?” he asked when we walked in.

  I sketched out the details of O’Malley’s murder. Kee frowned.

  “Let me see what we can dig up. Juanita! I need you in here.”

  He swiveled his computer keyboard around so that she could lean over the desk and type. “Get me all the crimes involving gay men and sexual violence.”

  “There’s a course next week,” she said, as she started to type.

  “Computers for Dummies. You should sign up for it.”

  “What do I need a course for when I’ve got you?”

  “You want domestics, too, or just prostitutes?” she asked us.

  “Nothing between long-term partners,” I said. “But not just prostitutes, if you can do that.”

  “I keep this department running. I can do anything.”

  She typed for a bit, scanned the monitor and then typed some more. “Next time we need something, we can come to you, huh, Juanita?” Ray asked. “Bypass the lieutenant altogether.”

  “I’m not deaf, Detective,” Kee said. “Just computer-challenged.”

  The printer on Kee’s credenza started spitting papers, and Juanita went back to her desk. Kee picked them up and scanned them before handing them to us.

  “Mostly it’s the working boys who get hurt,” he said, as Ray and I moved together to look at the sheets. “Customer realizes the goods aren’t what he expected, he gets angry. That kind of thing.”

  He handed us another couple of sheets. “Every now and then you get a john who gets ripped off and calls us, though.”

  MAhu BLood 213

  Two complaints stood out. The most important was one filed by Adam O’Malley over a year before.

  “Guy sure didn’t learn his lesson,” Ray said, looking over my shoulder.

  According to the police report, O’Malley had met a man at a bar, then gone to a secluded area of Kapiolani Park with him.

  The guy had pulled a knife and taken O’Malley’s watch, wallet and college ring. I remembered being that desperate, long before, when I was still in the closet and picking up the occasional guy in a bar. I’d been lucky never to get in trouble, but I knew what it felt like to throw caution out the window when you were horny.<
br />
  The other looked more promising. A tourist had gone to The Garage a couple of months before and picked up a man whose description fit the guy who’d left with O’Malley, in a very general way—skinny, white, tattoos.

  According to the tourist, the skinny guy had picked him up and taken him to a cheap motel a few blocks away. Skinny had suggested that the tourist jump into the shower, promising to join him there. By the time the hot water had run out, the tourist figured something was wrong. When he stepped out of the shower, the skinny guy was gone, along with the tourist’s watch, wallet and clothes. There was no phone in the room, so he’d had to walk down to the office wrapped only in his towel.

  “You know anything about this guy?” I asked, pushing the paper back to Kee.

  He picked it up and scanned it. “I remember this one,” he said. “The tourist left, and then a couple of weeks later his gold Rolex showed up at a pawn shop. We pulled in Shakey Simons, but he swore he got the watch from another guy in exchange for some information. Of course, he didn’t know the other guy’s name or where to find him.”

  “Can we talk to Shakey?” I asked.

  “Wish you could. He died a couple of weeks ago. HIV, complicated by ice.”

  “So it’s unlikely he was at The Garage on Friday.”

  214 Neil S. Plakcy

  “That’s what I like about working with you bruddahs from Homicide. Always so quick to pick things up.”

  “This is all you’ve got?” I asked.

  “If that’s all Juanita found, then that’s all we’ve got.”

  “Which leaves us with nothing,” Ray said, as we headed back to the elevator.

  MeetiNg oLd fRieNds

  When we got back to our desks, Ray said, “We should look around for any similar MOs, guys picked up at that bar or others. You’ve got contacts. See if there’s anyone who’s been too embarrassed to report something.”

  Ray googled O’Malley, trying to guess what he might have known about Kingdom of Hawai’i. I flipped through the old address book I had found in O’Malley’s closet, looking for familiar names. On the F page, I found one I knew: Gunter Franz.

  “Jesus, Gunter,” I muttered to myself. “Have you slept with every gay man on this island?”