“It was a very light color,” she said. “Not white, but kind of off-white.”
“Scroll down”
Mia scrolled through the images.
“Notice anything?”
“Yeah. Every now and then it’s a police car.”
I leaned over her and punched in the phrase “Mercury Grand Marquis” and pressed return. Mia shifted over so we could share the desk chair.
“Holy crap. It looks the same.”
“There’s one difference.” I scrolled down through the images.
“Yeah. No police cars.”
“They’re virtually the same car. However—”
We looked at each other.
“You think I’m being followed by the police?” I shrugged.
“Why would the police follow me?”
“You tell me.” I thought of Double-A. Maybe he took a liking to Crown Vics from his time on the force. On the other hand, what if it’s not the cops? “Maybe it ain’t the cops. Any bad blood between you and anyone at all?”
“Heavens no…. It’s Kay related, isn’t it?”
“Let’s try this.” I knew that Crown Vics were also a favorite car for taxi drivers, so I typed in the word taxi after Crown Victoria and hit return. What Mia and I saw was a proliferation of yellow cabs.
We again looked at each other.
“Well, it wasn’t yellow….” Mia stood up. “I think I need a drink.” She walked all of eight feet to the kitchenette. “You thirsty?”
“What you got?” I got up and joined her in the kitchen part of her studio.
“Let’s see.” She opened and scanned the fridge. “Cranberry juice … white wine … no beer … vodka that’s been there forever … margarita mix….”
Straight tequila sounded good. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
She pulled out a bottle of white wine. A chardonnay. She removed the stopper, filled two glasses, and handed one to me. “I bet you haven’t eaten. I got some leftover curry and rice. Want some?”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
While Mia dug through the fridge to locate the leftovers I wandered around her studio. It was spartan and tidy. A small, loveseat type of sofa sat near the center; it faced north, facing the twenty-six-inch TV mounted on the wall. A coffee table made of some high-quality wood sat in front of the sofa. It was covered with magazines, a pair of remotes, and some coasters. Two bikes were mounted on the eastern wall, the Fuji Altamira she used when she loaned me the hybrid, and a light-green, probably custom-made two-wheeler. Together, the two bikes looked like some modernist/minimalist sculpture. A stationary bike was squeezed into the northeast corner. On the other end of the eastern wall was a door that led you to what looked like a walk-in closet, but when you walked into it, you found that it functioned not only as a closet but as an entry way to a small bathroom. The closet itself seemed incredibly organized, with everything from bike clothes to blouses, skirts, pants, and scarves—and a couple of dozen pairs of shoes—bike shoes, running shoes, dressy shoes with no heels. Back in the living room, the western wall featured a picture window, nicely curtained, with a futon directly under it. Next to the futon was the desk with the laptop and a printer, and next to it a bookcase stuffed with books, CDs, and DVDs. An orchid down to its last two flowers sat atop this bookcase. Mia’s gear bag lay on the carpet near the entryway, ready to go. This was a second-floor apartment in a five-story walk-up. Quite vulnerable to intrusion.
I checked her windows, made sure they were secured, then, after laying my wine glass on her coffee table, plunked myself down on her two-person sofa. Mia sat on the armrest on the opposite side.
“I’m sorry about all this,” she said.
“I should be the one saying sorry. If you weren’t trying to help me, this wouldn’t be happening.”
“You didn’t get me into this. I got me into this.”
We left it at that and sipped our wine in silence.
A buzzer went off and we both jumped. Mia got up to get the bowl out of the microwave. She stuck another bowl in and set the hot bowl of yellow Thai curry on the coffee table, then brought over some napkins, and a fork and spoon. Then she got up and walked over to the microwave just when it went off again. She opened the microwave door, pulled out the second bowl, a bowl of steaming rice, and placed it on the table.
I took a few bites of the rice and curry, said, “This is good…. So what’s with this clean-up in Thailand?”
“Glad you like it…. Yes, Kay, Matt, Gerard—they went there with a group from Hawai‘i. To help with the rebuilding.”
“I see Kay doing that, but Plotkin?”
“Well, if you ever met him—”
“I did … the night he was killed.”
Mia’s fingers had been interlaced, as if in prayer. She raised them to her forehead, still interlocked. “Please don’t fuck with me, Kawika.”
“Well, somebody’s fucking with me. See, I got this other case. I was hired to look into some—theater business. Silly business, if you ask me. So I meet up with this Plotkin guy at Diamond Head Theatre. We go and have drinks at Indigo. Later that night, from what I hear, he gets himself killed. I’m beginning to think it was a set-up. Someone’s behind all this, and I’m starting to feel like I’m a target.”
“What on earth for?”
“I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
She sat down next to me, her head sinking into her palms. “What the fuck is happening?” she whispered.
“You’re gonna have to trust me, Mia.”
She looked at me. “I don’t know anything else, Kawika. Really. All I know is this is crazy spooky.”
“Look. You knew that Kay and Plotkin were close. I didn’t. His murder and her disappearance may or may not be coincidental. I need to know the extent of their relationship. Now. It could help me find her. Might help me find out who’s following you.”
“Like I said,” Mia began, “she acted in a couple of his plays. They weren’t exactly buddies, not at first, but she did maintain some relationship. I think she saw him as a mentor.”
“Did she see him often?”
“I don’t know….”
While I finished off the curry and rice, Mia told me a little story about how, after working with the rebuilding crew in some remote village in Thailand, part of a Red Cross mission, Kay, Matt, Gerard, and the rest of the volunteers returned to Bangkok. While Kay and Matt couldn’t wait to return to Hawai‘i, Gerard was thinking differently. He announced to them that he had changed his departure date. He told Kay and Matt that since he had no commitments back at home he wanted to “explore” the city.
“When Kay was telling me about all this,” Mia said, “she mentioned Kamana. You know, his—”
“What, his ‘fuck tours’?”
“Yes, exactly. Being well aware of the sex tour market there, Kay told me she and Matt wondered whether Gerard might be into that kind of thing. And if he were, well, they might have second thoughts about hanging around with him.”
“She did some filming there, right?”
“Yeah, about a year later, uh … twenty-o-six. Anyway, this is what Kay told me: Gerard, sweet as he is, could get pretty wild when he got drunk.”
“That I can imagine.”
“He wasn’t into children or any creepy stuff, but he did have a thing for young men. Young Asian men.”
I said, “Mm-hmm,” prompting her to continue.
“So Kay leaves, and Gerard stays. Couple weeks later, he’s back in Hawai‘i, and he goes out with Kay and Matt. They’re having dinner together and he starts telling them what happened after they had left. He tells them that he was hitting the bars and then he ran into someone who was obviously from Hawai‘i. You know, one of those pidgin-speaking, real ‘local boy’ types. This guy introduced himself to Gerard. When Kay told me about this, that was the first time I heard the name Genaro Blankenship.”
“You mentioned him before. You said he had a thing for—how did you put
it?—very young girls.”
“Yes,” Mia said. “And so, Gerard tells Kay and Matt that he and this guy Blankenship, you know, they’re talking away, appreciating their mutual connection to Hawai‘i, and then it comes up that Blankenship is a union guy. Not just any union guy, but the head union guy. And Gerard, being a DGA member—”
“What’s DGA?”
“Directors Guild of America…. In any case, Gerard sees him as one of the ‘good guys.’ Not one of those corporate opportunists that were flooding the area.”
“A different kind of tsunami.”
“That’s one way to put it. So they had drinks, traded stories about life in Hawai‘i. I guess the quantities of rum or whatever they were drinking had loosened their lips—Blankenship’s, anyway….”
“He told Gerard about how he had a well-connected friend, a certain state senator, who sometimes comes with him to Bangkok. Blankenship probably was too drunk to recognize Gerard’s sexual inclination, ’cause he tried to set Gerard up with a young girl. Told him she was no virgin, but that virginity was overrated. He told Gerard he liked them young AND experienced. Said he always wore condoms; even offered Gerard a pack of what he considered the finest brand. Gerard politely turned him down. He just wanted to get out of there….
“That could have been the end of it, but the very next night—Gerard’s last night in Bangkok—he saw Blankenship walking down the street with a very young girl. Gerard thought she was fourteen, fifteen at most—and they were heading into the same hotel where Gerard was staying.
“That sobered him up. He told Kay and Matt that he checked out early, took a cab to the airport, and got on the earliest flight he could to Tokyo, and then back home.”
“So some union leader type likes young Asian—”
“—pussy. You can say it.”
“I was thinking poontang…. So, let’s see. Genaro Blankenship tells him he knew a state senator—a sometime traveling partner—who most likely is Kamana….”
“Very likely.”
“OK, I’ll grant you that one, based on all available evidence. And then Kay goes on to make a movie about, guess what, sexploitation in Asia. Where is this taking us, to the Northern Marianas?” I sipped some wine, felt its bite in the back of my throat.
“I think so. Think about the timing. Kay and Matt heard this story about two years ago. I heard nothing more of it. Then, just before her trip to Vegas, I find she’s looking into this Tinian incident. And to complicate matters, she’s suddenly very interested in the death of her father? You’ve seen what I’ve seen. What do you make of all this?”
I shrugged.
“Well, think about this: The girl who was found dead had come from Bangkok, Kawika. And there’s a rumor that a ‘well-connected official’ had brought this girl to Saipan, to get her on so-called American soil. Got her there on the promise that he’d get her to Hawai‘i down the line.”
“Maybe it’s a love story.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Oh god. A love of pussy story, if you ask me. Pubescent poontang.” She spat out the latter word.
I had a flash of Mr. Drawstring patting Mia’s ass. Could that be a love story too?
“Anything else?”
Mia raised her eyebrows. “When Kay brought up the story again, she said something about Gerard getting in over his head. She hinted he had been trying to help her leverage something. I remember very specifically her using the word leverage.”
This would suggest a motive for Gerard’s murder. “How did she die, the young girl?”
“She was found in a hotel room. Strangled. Her wrists were tied. There were cuts on her body. Semen-stained sheets…. That’s what they’re so bent on covering up. Even though the press hasn’t gotten wind of the real story—strike that—the nastier story, Kamana and Blankenship are making sure people keep their mouths shut.”
“Wait a minute. You’ve made quite a leap here.”
“I’m only telling you what Kay told me. She said those guys were joined at the hip.”
“Look, I know that the guy the community sees as ‘Mr. Integrity’ is really scum, but when one guy becomes the go-to guy for every crime committed, I start thinking, this may also be about something else.” Still, as I said this, I had a visual of Aaron shitting bricks when I told him I heard Kamana was into young girls. What does Mr. Double-A, the man who hears and then spreads all the gossip, what does he know?
“Like what?” Mia was saying through my thoughts.
“Kay blames him for everything done wrong to her and those around her, maybe she’s now blaming him for her father’s death, for all I know. Then she goes to a party at his house and he’s suddenly her benefactor? This is just—”
“—preposterous. I know. But I don’t think she blames Kamana for her father’s death.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. I was beginning to wonder.”
“Kay and Matt, with Gerard’s help, were playing a dangerous game: fraternizing with people they’ve been at odds with in most circumstances.”
“And something went awry. At least it appears so. I think we’ve covered this before.”
• • •
“I keep picturing them in Vegas, in some upscale restaurant, enjoying the food and drink. Everybody’s having a good time. Then somebody says something he or she shouldn’t. Trust is suddenly gone.”
“Then it becomes a cat-and-mouse game, played out on the Strip. Can I use your bathroom?”
“All yours.”
I walked into the tiny bathroom, which featured a standing sink, a basic toilet bowl, and a walk-in shower that could only fit one person. And not a big person. As I peed, I played back in my mind what Mia had just told me. There seemed a deliberate quality to the way Kay’s and Kamana’s lives kept intersecting in critical areas. Mia held more cards, but I did hold an ace: I now knew the identity of the goatee’d guy and his supersized nephew.
When I came out of the bathroom I saw that Mia was putting dishes and glasses into the dishwasher. I brought my wine glass to the sink.
“You told me a few days ago that Blankenship was no longer a union head?”
“Yeah. About a year ago he took leave of his union duties to become Director of Communications for the state Senate.”
“Wow. And Kamana is Senate president. That’s pretty fricken cozy.”
“Blankenship is all over the map. Besides his union and political duties, he’s the main investor in Cinnabar, you know, that club in Waikiki, and he co-owns some high-end restaurant in Waikoloa.”
“There’s another guy I keep hearing about. A guy named Jerry Herblach. You know him?”
“Yes, I do know him. Well, know of him. He used to dabble in community theater here. Now he’s supposed to be a major player in Hollywood. Les knows him quite well. In fact, I think he’s helping to bankroll Les’s latest movie.”
“Murder in the Desert.” The title rang a bit more ominous now. “Kay was with him in Vegas. She, Matt, AND Jerry were all part of Kamana’s entourage on Cinco de Mayo.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. That’s their M.O. Kamana and his boys love to hobnob with the rich and famous. That’s why all those parties—you know, at his place.”
“That party you attended, was Herblach there?”
“I don’t know what he looks like. My guess is no, he wasn’t there.”
“I’m gonna take a look outside. I’ll call if I see anything.” I started toward the door.
“Why were you following me?” she said to my back. It was almost a whisper.
I turned around. “I followed you thinking you were going to work. I wanted to see your workplace.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you why.” I crossed my arms and leaned against the door. “I’ve spent all this time with you, yet I have no idea what kind of work you do, or where. Hell, maybe you work for Kamana too, and this is all a set-up.” The look on her face made me follow that with “OK, OK, I take that back…. I do think, however, tha
t as much as you are helping me find pieces to this puzzle, you seem to be parceling them out quite slowly, and there’s still a lotta missing pieces….”
She gave me a look, and it wasn’t pretty. “See that thing in the corner?” It was a flat rectangular object, about six feet by three feet, with legs that folded up.
“I saw that in your car the other day. What is it, a portable table? Are you a caterer?”
“It’s a massage table, Kawika. I don’t have an office, or a suite. I go where the client is.”
“Was he a client? The guy in those drawstring pants?”
“Yes. A well-paying client. You know how it goes. Sometimes they think that since they’re giving you all this money, or time, that they have some proprietary—”
Ouch.
“Next time, just ask, ’kay?”
I relocated outside, with a bottle of water Mia insisted I take. First I walked down the street, to where Mia said she had seen the car parked. I saw Ford trucks, Hyundai Elantras, Hondas Civics, a vintage Cadillac, a Toyota Camry, and so forth, but not one Crown Victoria. I walked back up to the nearby strip mall and sat in my Corolla. I waited. After a while I stepped outside the car and lit a cigarette. I took one deep inhalation, then put it out as I casually strolled the area. It was pretty desolate, with a row of tall shrubs that lined the ground of the nearby Unitarian church providing good cover. If I were staking out someone in Mia’s building, that’s where I’d park.
Around eight there was a passing squall, common along this Palolo-to-Waikiki corridor, which got me back in the car rolling up my windows. I fired up the engine and occasionally turned on the wipers to slap away the accretion of drops. This lasted for a good ten minutes and I was glad when I could lower the windows again and take in the sweet night air.
After a half hour or so of sitting in the car and integrating the new information into the most plausible scenarios I could construct, I fired up the engine and drove around the area, taking in every side street, looking into every open garage.
No sign of any Crown Victoria or any white or off-white vehicle that resembled one.
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