Back at the boat I found Rian and Kawika Jr. sitting on chairs on the deck, passing a joint back and forth. Talk about father/son bonding. I grabbed and opened one of Rian’s folding chairs and joined them. Kawika Jr. handed the roach to me. I took it and boy did I inhale. I chased it down with the tequila they offered. Took me a few inhalations and sips before I could mutter thanks.
“Heard you were rousted by the cops,” Kawika Jr. said.
“Comes with the job.”
“Tricky trying to figure out which side of the law they’re on,” Rian added.
“It ain’t on our side,” Kawika Jr. added. “That’s for fucking sure.” He took a sip and passed the bottle to me. Rian gave him a bemused look.
Kawika Jr. stood up and climbed down into the cabin.
“Kids nowadays,” Rian said. He looked at me. “No story to tell?”
I shook my head and he nodded.
I liked that he allowed me to be quiet, to just chill.
Kawika Jr. returned with two instrument cases, that same guitar case I had seen before, and a much smaller, rectangular-shaped one. Out of the larger case came Rian’s beautiful guitar. Out of the smaller, a beautiful, sparkling trumpet.
“D’ya mind?” Rian said to me as he took out the guitar.
“Not at all. Please, play.”
Rian did some flamenco flourishes, then very loosely played something I associated with Jethro Tull, but he said it was Bach. He called it a warm-up exercise. His son, muting the horn with his left hand, played a few lightning fast chromatic scales, then some arpeggios. He seemed to be warming up too. Then they played some sad, haunting music, providing a soundtrack to the video that ran through my head, as I relived the last two weeks, everything from my walks on the beach to my visits to high-end homes and low-rent theaters to clandestine meetings in restaurants. No dumpster diving, but then I wasn’t done yet. That too could be around the corner. Rian and Kawika Jr. may have played for a long time; I was aware, yet not aware, listening, but not focused. What snapped me to the present was Rian offering me the guitar.
“No thanks. I’m too fucking stoned. And I’m not in your league.” Nor in the mood.
“League? What the fuck are you talking about, league? You going nautical on us? C’mon. We’re just having fun. C’mon. I saw the Takamine in your cabin, so I know you play. Play something. Nobody works twenty-four seven.”
“OK,” I finally said. It was easier than arguing. “You asked for it.”
The band I played with in high school paid homage to rock/blues bands like the Stones and Cream. We called ourselves the Lug Nuts, and wrote songs like “Making Up for Lost Time.” That was a long time ago.
My hands were numb from the cold air and my fingers wouldn’t do what I wanted them to. I tried to hand the guitar back to Rian, but he wouldn’t take it till I played something. I played a pentatonic scale, missed a note, then strummed a simple G-D-C pattern, then made it G-D-Em. The guitar sure sounded pretty, even in the hands of an amateur. Those hands suddenly remembered the chords to “White Room,” so I trusted them. That worked for a bit, then … nothing. I then tried “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” remembering its descending bass line. It felt sloppy, kind of pathetic. As a last resort, I went for a Chuck Berry lick, specifically that seminal lead-in to “Johnny B. Goode,” which I had learned way back in high school. My buddy Will was already playing lead in a rock band, and I wouldn’t let him leave my house until he solved the mystery of that lick for me, until he broke it down note by note, which I wrote down so I’d remember. I then worked on it for days.
What happens to that impulse, to set a next-to-impossible goal and work to achieve it, no matter what?
I couldn’t quite nail the opening riff, but it didn’t matter. Rian looked quite sated as he drum-rolled with a pair of chopsticks and then pushed the rhythm while this Kiwi Miles Davis did improbable fills with his horn. After a while my fatigue got to me and I handed the guitar to its rightful owner. Rian, despite declaring himself snockered, began to strum some jazzy samba licks, not only with diminished chords and major sevenths, but with flatted ninths and elevenths, and these gave way to chords and tones that were way more bluesy.
Where’s Amber when you need her?
Who is she, anyway? Why did she feel compelled to call?
As the moon sank into the ocean Kawika Jr. put a mute on his trumpet and played sad, crying notes that cascaded throughout the harbor. What had begun as a “let’s disturb the universe” jam had become a quieter gathering, a soothing trifecta of drug-induced mellowness, soul-stirring music, and transcendent companionship. Rian and son had offered a salve to my misery, a momentary break, reminding me that life goes on, or something like that, reminding me that when life is giving you shit, you use that manure to make something grow, in this case a relationship. What better way to end a day, close a chapter, re-energize, before one had to, inevitably, turn the page.
Part Three
MAELSTROM
45
DONNYBROOK
(Day 15—Monday, June 4) I woke up the next morning feeling more than a little disoriented. I had slept in my street clothes, and when I dug my fingers in one of the pockets I found myself twirling something, and it wasn’t my green casino chip, which I had misplaced. It was the matchbook cover. I looked at the words again: Watch out. This is way over your head. Way over mine.
I had the perfect visual of the casual way his arm slid down along the outside of his car door before Richards dropped the matchbook. Two things were obvious:
—His partner wasn’t in on it.
—Rian was right there, right on the scene, reading it perfectly.
I called Richards. No answer. Didn’t want to leave a voicemail message. As I shut the phone I heard Rian calling out to me and I exited the cabin. He stood there with Kawika Jr., who was all dressed up and holding on to the extended handle of a carry-on.
“You’re leaving already?”
“I’ll be back. Gonna see my mom in Wellington, spend the onset of winter there.”
“Right. Southern hemisphere.”
“He’ll be back in a few weeks,” Rian added.
I shook Kawika Jr.’s hand and then gave him a manly hug. He reminded me of another talented young man, Matthew Serrano. Though I’d never met him, I felt like I knew Kay’s boyfriend quite well. Never met her either. Still would like to.
We exchanged sentiments and I went back into my boat and cabin.
When I tried connecting the dots just yesterday, I didn’t have the matchbook cover. Now armed with that warning, I added one more element, another major suspect: Tyler Froom, head of CIS, and also Sal’s nemesis. There’s a thread that goes all the way back to the investigation of Lino’s death and all the way forward to the matchbook in my pocket.
I punched Sal’s number. No answer, and he didn’t do voicemail, so I couldn’t leave a message. I tried Mia. Again, no answer. Where are you, girl? What’s going on? She thought she was being followed. Now she wasn’t answering. I was getting more worried.
It was one thing to go against criminal scum buttressed by the entire moral universe. But to take on the law … and the lawmakers….
Well, fuck. Maybe it’s time.
I called Norm McMichaels, told him I needed to meet with him. We arranged to meet at Mocha Java Café at Ward Centre, where they served breakfast all day.
I ordered whole wheat pancakes and coffee. McMichaels got a tuna sandwich and iced herb tea. He threw down a twenty. I grabbed it and shoved it in his shirt pocket. “It’s on me.”
We sat down. I handed Norm a paper bag, which contained the bottle of scotch I’d promised him way back when. He peered in it and frowned.
“My ulcers are back,” he began. “I got dying parents, constant headaches, and when I go for a run, I ache for days. I’m three years past sixty. I need to retire. What do you want?”
“Sorry about your parents.”
Norm nodded. “So what’s up?”
&nb
sp; “Ty Froom.”
“Stay the fuck away from him.”
“Why?”
“He’s bad news and he’s too well connected.”
“Tied to Kamana?”
“Could be, but the guy he’s really tight with is Blankenship. He’s married to the guy’s sister.”
“No shit.”
“That’s why we haven’t been able to touch that fuck. Plus, there’s Tyler Froom, Jr. I work with that shithead. He’s making his way up the ranks and he’s gonna have my job in no time.”
One of the gals working the counter brought our drinks. We both sipped. I thought the coffee was the best I’d had since the day I sat across from Mia at Les Biden’s house. How long ago was that? An older gent brought us our food. I hadn’t eaten a decent meal in nearly two days and the pancakes hit the spot. Norm looked at his sandwich and seemed to ponder the pickle next to it. He looked around, scanning the stores: Honolulu Chocolate Company, The Gallery at Ward Centres, Birkenstock Footprints….
“Maybe a reporter can do what the cops can’t,” I told him between bites.
“You read the news? You ain’t a reporter anymore.”
“But I still know how to get information out.”
“Look David, you’re talking about people who control the flow of information.”
“Not always. There’s the web.”
“The web.” Norm stifled a laugh and shook his head.
“The Internet.”
“I know what the web is, David. I may be a Luddite, but I do live in this world.”
“My bad … as they say.”
“A billion sites,” he continued. “That’s where information goes to get lost.”
“Got a better way?”
“No, but let me tell you something.” What came out was a barely audible whisper, as if Norm suspected we were being homed in on. “That guy Rian, your new neighbor, he seems to know a lot more than he’s let on.”
Rian? “You think he’s dirty?”
“No. But I do think he’s looking for something too.”
“Would your boys happen to have me under surveillance?”
“I’ve had a couple of my boys pass by, only to see if you’re still standing, but that’s it.”
“Chrysler Sebrings?”
“Chryslers, Chevys … shit, maybe even a Kia now and then. We’re trying to be inconspicuous. You see a guy riding a bike. Helmet and sunglasses. Might be one of ours.” Norm finally took a bite of his sandwich. Chased it down with his iced tea.
“Anything else you can tell me? Anything at all?”
“What’s there to tell?”
I knew there was something else, something he wasn’t telling me.
“Remember in class when you talked about the Kennedy assassination?” I said this after a good solid minute of uneasy silence.
“Used to be an obsession of mine. Got over it.”
“You used the term ‘contending narratives.’”
“Yeah…. Taken in isolation, each narrative seems highly plausible, but when you run them against each other, you know that only one could be right. Problem is getting through the morass of information. The glut.”
“You also said you thought the CIA was behind the assassination because only they could have constructed something so baffling.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
“All I’m saying is, my case is the same.”
“You think it’s the CIA?”
“Not exactly. But I do smell an intelligence operation.”
“You know, every time I think about your case, all I see are boats.”
“Boats?”
“Yep. You’re on a boat. Serrano’s boat is missing. You got a guy in the slip next to yours who seems mighty curious.”
“Kay’s mom thinks it’s about boats too.”
“Geezers and moms, we both got intuition. The scary part of it is, if a boat sinks in the middle of the Pacific, it’s not like help’s on the way.”
I drank some coffee. Looked at my mentor. “They could be dead. And that could have happened a couple weeks ago. And everything that’s transpired, from Plotkin’s death to Richards’ matchbook warning, may have absolutely nothing to do with their disappearance.”
“Matchbook warning?”
“Oh yeah. I meant to show you.” I pulled the matchbook out of my pants pocket and handed it to Norm. He looked at it, shut his eyes, then handed it back.
“Yes. They could be dead. But don’t let that thought stop you.” Norm pulled out a little plastic container, popped it open, and pulled out several pills. He swallowed them, along with his iced tea.
I got up, went up to the counter and asked for a refill. Don’t let that thought stop you, he had just said. What did he mean by that? The girl at the counter rang up a fifty-cent charge, took my cup, and walked away. I sat back down.
“‘Don’t let that thought stop you?’”
“I’m just saying….”
“I’m going after Froom. Even if he has nothing to do with this.”
Norm sighed. “I wish you well. Remember, Sal tried. As you know.”
“I’m not Sal.”
“Exactly. You’re not Sal.”
“Hey, I’m not claiming to be that guy, the one impervious to all the shit. But I’m one thing that Sal’s not. I’m a team player.”
“Where’s your team?”
“I’m putting it together as we speak.”
Norm almost choked on his iced tea. I had to give him a moment. “Keep that sense of humor,” he finally said. “You’re gonna need it.”
The girl brought me my refill.
Norm stood up. “Gotta go feed my dad.” He started to walk away, then turned. “You need to have a conversation with Richards. He’s a straight arrow. Wound a bit tight. But he can give you some background. Some insight.”
“Bonjour,” I said to him.
“Be really careful, Dave.”
I watched my mentor leave the café. He walked slowly, still recovering from hip replacement surgery. I hoped he didn’t feel that our meeting was a waste of time. It wasn’t for me, because he clarified the criminal-cop connection. How does one fight that? And he had me wondering about Rian. Was he working for someone? Was he put there to keep an eye on me? And I let him and his son run wires throughout my boat! Am I a fucking idiot or what!
When I got back on board I traced the wires but couldn’t find evidence of a transponder. Maybe I should just pull out all the wires, HBO and Comedy Central be damned. I wanted to, but didn’t.
I called out to Rian. He wasn’t in his boat. Shit. I tried his cabin door. It was securely locked. I jimmied the damn thing; it wasn’t hard. I went in and searched. His desk was littered with shit, but it was all the usual junk mail crap, plus concert flyers, magazines…. His small bookcase carried dictionaries, including one in Spanish; classic and crime novels that ranged from Charlie Dickens to Eric Ambler; biographies of Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Lafcadio Hearn, whoever the fuck he was; several music books; and some current events/social science texts. I pulled each one out, shook it, and quickly leafed through the pages. Nothing.
Atop the bookcase sat a pair of high-end binoculars—but who doesn’t have one?—a trio of reading glasses, and a Sony portable music player.
I found his encased guitar in a shallow closet behind a sliding door. His clothes hung there, the dirty ones in a small hamper. I saw some linen, including the gray blanket, a reminder of the relationship I thought we had. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find any trace of an electronic feed, some clue that he was surveilling me. I relocked the cabin door and made my way back to my boat.
I unplugged the coax connectors and went for a run, if only to sweat out all my toxic thoughts. I kept doing equations, weighing the possibility that it was Rian who had brought Amber into this. But I was a poor mathematician, because nothing was adding up. When I returned to my boat I took a quick shower. Around twilight I was twirling the TV remote, thinking I m
ay have been foolish for hastily dismantling what may have not been a listening operation. I plugged the connectors back in and, within minutes, on the tiny security video screen I had placed next to the TV, got a glimpse of somebody nosing around.
The nine iron was in the car, so I grabbed the one wood that Les had recommended and tiptoed toward the deck. The air was thicker than usual; vog, broadcast meteorologist Guy Hagi had said. And it would get thicker the next few days.
Somewhere in the mix of vog and impending darkness, the sky beautifully lit in streaking grayish red above the horizon and blue-indigo above that, I saw the outlines of a person. I tucked the club behind my back and snuck up on the shadowy figure. He was about my size. Lean, yet well muscled. Any bigger and I would have to yell for help.
He wore no shirt. Just swim trunks, like he had just swum to the boat. Lucky for him it was a balmy day in June, other wise he’d be freezing his ass.
As he turned, probably sensing someone was behind him, I recognized, from the photographs, the profile of Matthew Serrano. As I was about to lay the wood/wedge on the side, he turned more sharply and raised his open hands.
“If you swing, you better not miss.”
“It’s dangerous to sneak up on people, Matthew.”
It wasn’t Matthew. He looked like Matthew but was older and more visibly scarred. The scars looked like cigarette burns and were all over his chest and midsection. There was a cut over his blackened eye; his jaw was a bit swollen—these were fresh wounds.
“You’re not Matthew.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Donny?”
“I prefer Dominic, but yeah. So you know why I’m here.”
“You’re going to help me find Matt?”
He looked at me with a level of disdain that was positively criminal.
I tried again: “Your mom sent you?”
“Spare me the bullshit. Where are they?”
For a Song Page 38