She seemed most puzzled by my last statement, as if she thought that I thought she was missing.
“Auntie,” I finally said, “you remembah Lino Johnson?”
It seemed cruel. Of course she knew. He had been gunned down right outside her flower shop. She could forget most of what had happened on a daily basis, but not that.
Her eyes closed. Tears came down her cheeks. I reached for a nearby Kleenex box, put a tissue in her shaky hands, and she used it to dab the tears away. I then reached out to steady her hands. In my hands her hands stopped shaking, as if they just needed something to hold on to.
I explained slowly and gently and reluctantly that it was his daughter who was missing. I told her the reason I came is because it seemed as if Kay had disappeared while looking into the death of her father.
It seemed too much for her to bear.
“I’m sorry, Auntie. Shouldn’t have come—”
After a moment she gently pulled her hands back, made fists, then she thrust her left hand outward and to her left, and with her right hand she made an up-down strumming motion.
That was puzzling. And it took me a moment to get her drift.
“Chalangalang?” I said.
She smiled without parting her lips, gave a quick nod, then shook her head very slowly.
She began humming a melody. It was “Ku‘u Leialoha Pikake.” I began humming with her. Her face blossomed into a full smile.
I was no longer a private eye. I was a long-lost nephew. We continued to hum, an octave apart. When we had hummed a couple of verses, Agnes began humming, with her eyes closed, another very familiar melody. After a few measures I realized it was “Sweet Caroline.” I hummed along just so she’d know I was still there.
Felicia had come by. I hadn’t noticed her behind me. She too started humming, then she began singing the words. She had a sweet voice, and really soared with the phrase, “Good times never seemed so good.” Agnes’s face lit up even more.
Agnes then took the lead on another song. It was very, very soft. Took me a while to recognize “Let It Be.” She was barely able to mouth the words, but she tried, whispering the chorus over and over.
Let it be, let it be…. Was that a message? Was I reading something into it that wasn’t there?
Her hands shook, but she indicated she wanted to write something.
Felicia brought what looked like a journal. And a fat pencil.
It seemed to take forever, this nearly blind woman, hands shaking like crazy. Writing in big letters, she managed to get a few words down.
I looked at what she wrote: Talk to Joe. Then, in looping letters, what looked like the word Sad.
I got up, bent down, and embraced Agnes. Kissed her cheek. I guess I was her long-lost nephew after all.
“She always happy when she get visitahs,” Felicia said. “She like to hear music. Live, not record. My husband, he play for her sometimes.”
I promised I’d be back.
The traffic on the H-1 slowed down around Mapunapuna. After twenty minutes or so of slow going, I took the Bingham exit and dropped the bike off at the McCully Bicycle repair shop on Hausten Street. I picked up a take-out dinner at the nearby H.K.’s, headed back to the boat, parked in the metered zone close to the boat to unload the boxes, then moved my car to the boat-owners’ parking lot.
• • •
Both dinner and daylight were gone when I ripped up the sealing tape on each box and began sifting through the contents. Hadn’t looked at this shit in years, had forgotten much of what was in it. I had a few other boxes lying around, some I still hadn’t unpacked, some I hadn’t unpacked from my previous move. What kind of life is this, I asked myself, where you move boxes around?
It didn’t take long for me to find what I was looking for: a data CD with all my Star-Gazette articles. It was a gift from my reporter colleagues when I resigned my post. I never popped it into a computer, figuring why dwell on the past? But now I needed to revisit the past; this case kept taking me there.
I took the disk out of its sleeve and popped it into my laptop’s CD drive. Remembering Gerard’s words: Forget the queen. Save the bishop, I clicked on various files till I found the ones under the headings “Bishop Estate” and “Bishop Street.”
I pulled out the street file first.
bishop street—local code for the nexus of money and power; a few years ago, a group of these shakers and movers founded Hawaii Business Consortium, U.S., known better by its acronym, hibiscus. hibiscus is a business roundtable consisting of ceos and senior executives and is headquartered on that very street. Its stated mission is to promote the overall economic vitality of the state.
According to one well-placed source, the consortium’s original acronym was hibizcus, and it was altered from its original emphasis on bizness to acknowledge the powerful presence of bishop estate. So the z became an s. Members say that’s a load of bullcrap, said the z makes it look unprofessional, that it looks better and makes more sense with the s.
In the stratosphere where these guys operate, profit trumps everything, and when I was writing about this, I saw evidence of a mentality that could be best expressed as by any means necessary. Poverty was on the increase, but it wasn’t their problem. Around the time I was working on my Bishop Street/Bishop Estate article, some stuff came up about a Zen dojo, a retreat up in Alewa Heights, not far from the entrance to Kamehameha Schools. Described by visitors as an elegant yet simple, natural yet pristine place for meditation, a refuge from the day-to-day grind, it had attracted a curious assortment of individuals, including a former governor, the speaker of the House, the head of the state Senate, the court master who oversaw the Bishop Estate scandal, two state supreme court judges, the top cop and a few of his deputies, and a power couple: two Democratic Party strategists who were now immersed in scandal. Makes one wonder, what did they talk about up there?
When I cornered one of these strategists—oh, she was good. She went on and on about how her experience at the dojo was empowering, how her experience there brought to light concepts of positive societal change.
When I brought the potential exposé to my boss’s attention he said, “We can’t print shit like that. You’d get us sued.” The paper’s editorial board supported his decision, saying unless there was substantive proof that anything underhanded went on at that dojo, they didn’t want to go there. Though I based my argument on the principle that the public needs to know, the writing was on the proverbial wall: My job was in jeopardy, if not on Jeopardy: I’ll take “corrupt politicians” for a thousand.
I clicked on another street file. It was about a scandal that linked a couple of members of hibiscus to two union officials, a father-son team. The father and son—who never went near the dojo—ended up in jail. Those of us who covered the case suspected that they were the fall guys. Powerful as they seemed, they were the obvious scapegoats. This was followed by some mysterious shit about a whistle-blower—some guy who named names, identifying the key players involved in the undoing of the father-son team. This whistle-blower was said to have fled the islands, fearing for his life.
I closed this file and pulled out the estate file. It was huge, with enough material for a book. A book I once thought I would write.
bishop estate—the legacy of Mrs. Charles Bishop, better known as Bernice Pauahi Bishop, great-granddaughter of Kamehameha I. Back in the 1850s Pauahi married banker Charlie Bishop, a shrewd businessman if there ever was one. As the story goes, when Kamehameha V lay on his deathbed, he offered his hānai sister Pauahi the crown. She refused. This opened the way for their cousins from the House of Kalākaua. Like other notable Hawaiian chiefs, rather than seeking power, Pauahi chose to be a benefactor to the poor, leaving the vast lands she had inherited to fund a school to benefit orphans and poor children. What had come of this charitable trust by the 1990s can only be termed criminal, as noted in The Shattered Bond, a book-length exposé.
Bad enough that the existence of Kamehameha Scho
ols was NOT benefiting the poor and orphaned, but privileging so-called qualified Hawaiians, which seemed to include, more often than not, politically connected Hawaiian children. Bad enough that its greatly overpaid trustees were accused of operating more like Mafioso than caretakers. Beneficiaries of political patronage, with Bishop Estate trusteeships being the most sought-after political plum, these players felt justified in giving themselves million-dollar salaries. They intimidated teachers and students, called on their goons to deal with anyone who would get in their way, wielded power in ways that can only be termed corrosive. They created a business arm that invested heavily into Goldman Sachs, and began land development projects that ran counter to the concept of aloha ‘aina, or love for the land, inherent in Hawaiian culture.
Such was the criminal melodrama of the late 1990s. Many in the Hawaiian community stood up to the madness, the young ones taking the initiative, taking bold steps to catalyze change.
When the courts, AND the irs, AND the wider community all sided with protesting students and alumni, there were days of light and transparency, days where one felt the salve of justice, of victory over those who abused the public trust.
I now cringed at those words, knowing that most of these well-connected criminals came out of this alleged overhaul unscathed. Sure, their egos hurt a little, but the wealth they had accumulated was still there, and there were fruitful ways to invest this wealth if you knew how the system was rigged.
After all the theater, all the melodrama, all the tearing and healing, the estate simply continued going street, banking on its well-invested millions.
Make that billions.
I sat there thinking about those billions, thinking about those who ran off with a good chunk of this largesse, thinking about those whom the princess wanted to help, and those who were now sleeping on sidewalks and beaches.
It was painfully clear how Bishop Street, Hawai‘i’s financial center, had its hands in all matters involving Bishop Estate. Save the bishop, Gerard had written before he died. Was there a connection here? And if there was, how far back? Was Lino the first pawn to be sacrificed? Was Aaron also a pawn, or had he achieved knighthood status by playing both sides?
This was no chess game. This was Monopoly.
And no matter how you spun it, there was no move for a penny-ante private eye.
Restless, I dug through more boxes and found hard copies of much of the same stuff, as well as a ton of photographs and newspaper clippings. Among the clippings was a newspaper photo of a group of Kamehameha students. It was taken by Scotty Koga, my camera-wielding partner back at the newspaper. I was taken by this photo because of the story it told me of modern Hawai‘i: how ethnically diverse we had become. Kamehameha Schools, in this context, could be seen as no less multicultural than any public school. Every “Hawaiian” student pictured was of mixed heritage. Their names were equally diverse, as shown in the caption beneath: Among the student leaders calling for the trustees to resign were Dudley Macapit, Leialoha Sato, Marvin Lopes, Ku‘ulei Johnson, and McKenna Kauhane.
Ku‘ulei Johnson. Shit. Didn’t see that coming. I looked very carefully at the photo.
It was her, all right. She was there.
I took the clipping out, folded it, and put it in my shirt pocket.
The last article I dug out of a box was a feature I had done on Smokin’ Joe. I had interviewed him in a totally noncriminal context. I talked with him about his wrestling career. It was part of a ’60s–’70s nostalgia spread, featuring a time when wrestling in Hawai‘i was big business. I remembered being appalled that Smokin’ Joe, in spite of his strong presence on the scene and one-time popularity, hadn’t earned much, but had raked in tons of money for his “handlers.” Big as he was, I remember walking away thinking he was more a victim than a bully, a thought now trumped by a more pressing thought:
She was there.
29
MEMORIAL DAY
(Day 8—Monday, May 28) The next morning I woke up bothered by a dream where I’m on a bus to the Las Vegas Strip and this humongous dude, a bus bouncer—don’t ask—was hassling me. I didn’t have the right ticket or the right change. He fucked me over good. I was trying to get back to the Strip just to kill him for being an asshole. Except for a vivid memory of touching the back of my head and feeling a large clump of hair come off I didn’t remember the rest.
I slathered peanut butter on a slab of toast, took a few bites, and washed it down with coffee, then put on my cross-training shoes and began a walk/jog from the boat harbor toward Waikiki Beach. Tourists and locals as well were already laid out on the sand in increasing numbers on this holiday. The sun was creeping up in the eastern sky and I could already smell the sunblock in the ocean air. I slogged past the Hilton Hawaiian Hotel complex, where the sand ran soft and deep, then picked up my pace on the beach side of Fort DeRussy, the military’s R&R complex, which featured the lovely, taxpayer-funded Hale Koa hotel. There the sand was firmer, a perfect running surface. A bit further on, I slowed to a walk, as the sand got soft again and my feet sank deep with every step. When I got onto more solid ground I scuttled past the tourists who were inclined to stop every three steps for a photo op.
When I laid my eyes on Smokin’ Joe, the first thing that struck me was that he was bald. When I had last seen him he had a head thick with hair, and none on his face. I now looked at him: bald, with a goatee. Shit, it’s that huge motherfuck! I backed off, phoned McMichaels, who was probably getting tired of my queries. “The Sperry brothers,” I asked him, “any idea what they look like now?”
“Still huge. If you’re talking about other distinctive features, they both shave their heads nowadays.”
“Goatees?”
“You got it.”
“Shit. Think I’ve had a run-in with one of them already. Does he hang out with a guy who’s about eight feet tall, with short, spiky black hair on top and long blond curls in the back?”
“That’s Declan. And he’s merely six-eight. He’s the nephew, son of the sister and some guy—German-Samoan scum.”
I took a longer look at the large man at the booth. “I’m near the Kuhio beach concession. The guy I’m looking at, I’m assuming it’s Joe, not Curtis.”
“That’s gotta be Joe. Curtis has never gotten his hands dirty doing real work. Not when he’s got beaucoup ways to be bad. Be careful. Joe may seem like he’s a few cards short of a full deck, but he’s still dangerous.”
I hung up. It was confirmation enough. If it had been Joe the other night confronting me and Mia, he would’ve said, Hey, I know you. But there was no sign of recognition. I had gotten to know him casually, way back when, but I’d never crossed paths with Curtis.
I approached the person that had to be Joe.
“Hey, Joe,” I said, which made me think of the Hendrix song. He had no gun in hand, however. Joe stood under the nylon canopy behind the display table in this makeshift kiosk. A mess of surf- and bodyboards of varying sizes and various degrees of wear and tear lay stacked behind him. On the counter, next to the sign, sat assorted items: sunblock, bottled water, Vaseline, surfboard wax, and white hand towels. Beach umbrellas and lounge chairs were stacked on the side. Two others were working that day, but not the gal who also worked at Duke’s.
“Howzit…. Hey, I tink I know you.”
“I interviewed you once. Way back when.”
“Yeah, da noose-pepah guy. I nevah forget a face. Wha’ was yo’ name?”
I told him, and with his right he reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezed it just tight enough to assure me he could break it, and when he let go I noticed that his hands shook the way Agnes’s did. Maybe he had Parkinson’s. Joe had always been large and heavy, probably since kindergarten, but that was mostly muscle, don’t-you-dare-fuck-with-me muscle. Now much of that muscle had gone to fat.
“Yeah … Kawika. Da brain not workin’ too good dese days. You workin’ on one story?”
“Nah, brah. I one private investigator now.”
“Hoh, MacGyvah. So, what’s da scoop?”
“I’m looking for a girl.”
He snickered. “Hey, I wish I could help you, brah, but I no can even hang on to my own.”
“A missing girl. The daughter of Lino Johnson.”
“Lino?” He looked at me and his eyes brimmed with tears. That startled me.
“Your old acquaintance. Killed on Maunakea Street.”
He nodded. “Da daughta.” He put his shaky hand to his mouth. “No.” He pinched his lip with his thumb and index. His head dropped.
I don’t know who Mia saw with Kay, Joe or Curtis, but in no way was this guy Kamana’s bodyguard. Whatever had happened to him had made him as soft as pudding. Turned him into the Pillsbury doughboy.
“How’s braddah Curtis?”
“Yeah, Curtis.” He looked at me straight. “I guess he doin’ all right. I no see ’om too often.”
“I think I saw him at Zippy’s one day. He stay bolohead like you, eh?”
He smiled. “Yeah, we still pass fo’ twins. Except—” He pinched his fat roll. “He get less a’ dis. An’ our tattoos diff’rent.” I noticed the tattoo on Joe’s neck. It looked like an ‘i‘iwi bird.
“What kinda work he stay doin’?”
“Security.”
That sounded plausible enough. “Hotel security?”
“Nah. He work in da state capitol, da building.”
I once spent a lot of time there, on assignment, covering the scuttlebutt behind questionable legislation. “He stationed in the chamber level?”
“I dunno what level.” He seemed puzzled. Maybe he didn’t know the layout of the building. “I tink he go all aroun’….”
For a Song Page 23