I was about to pounce on that startling comment when his wife came back and said, “They’re gone.” She looked again at the broken glass on the floor, shook her head and walked away.
“So … Kamana and Blankenship?”
Andy grabbed the remaining cards and tossed them into the air.
“I used to gamble at this place on Maunakea. That’s how I got to know them.”
“Wo Fat’s?”
“No, a less obvious place, near the waterfront…. Look, I fell into some debt, had to refinance the house. It wasn’t pretty, if you know what I mean. Got a wife with, uh, needs…. What I’m trying to say is, I got involved in these stupid drug deals because that’s the only way I could get Blankenshit’s boys off my back.”
“You mean, you were the runner? You mean, you didn’t get the boat at an auction?” He did say Blankenshit.
“Not quite. Somehow Herblach—”
“So you do know him.” Fucker.
“Barely. Herblach got these kids involved. A young couple.”
“What happened to this couple?”
He looked anguished.
“What happened!” I said again.
“I—I don’t know. I don’t—I don’t deal with that kinda shit. I just tried to protect myself by getting rid of the boat.”
“And I was right there to pick it up. How fucking convenient.”
“Sorry.”
“What about Gerard Plotkin?”
“Who?”
“He’s the stage director that was murdered,” Janine said. She was back.
“Leave us for a minute, Jan.”
“Is this about Mexico?”
He looked at his wife. He was visibly angry. “I’m handling this.” She frowned and left again.
Andy looked at me. “I read about that guy, OK? But no, I never met him.”
“C’mon, Andy. You gotta come clean. It’s your only chance.”
“I am clean. I did my part. Got my money. Got rid of the boat. Fresh start.”
“You pinned the boat on me. The DEA just came by and swept the boat. I came this close”—I held out my thumb and index, a quarter inch apart—“to being busted.”
“Sorry…. It’s still a good boat.”
“Yeah. One that you got for a song.”
The doorbell rang again. The cops were back.
“Hate to tell you this, but”—he had the look of a desperate man—“I think it’s you they’re after.”
It dawned on me right then that he was right. The false arrest. The boat search. I was the target. Not him.
“You’d better get out through the back,” Andy said. “We can talk more later.”
Before I could get to the sliding door a plainclothes cop walked in. I only knew him from a picture I had seen. Tyler Froom Jr. He had a fierce face, cheeks that were sallow but intense, eyes covered with classic shades, a jaw that could break fists. He was alone, and walked in like he owned the place. He kicked away pieces of the broken vases with his shiny, black leather shoes. Looked like size thirteens.
It was his left hand that startled me. A tattoo and a distinctive wedding band. He was the one cropped out of the photo, the one taken on the beach at Tinian.
“About friggin’ time,” Andy told him, seemingly relieved.
Those words told me all I needed to know about Andy. Strike that. Drew.
Froom walked up to me. I was about to say the word lieutenant when a fist came so fast I couldn’t put my hand up in time. It rocked me to the base of my spine and I fell to the floor. My jaw. I tasted blood. I rolled onto my side just in time to see what was coming next. Froom kicked the one wood out of my reach, then kicked me in the ribs with those large black leather shoes. I saw stars.
Excruciating as it was, I felt a strange comfort, the odd feeling that things were finally falling into place.
Andy was the picture of relief. He walked up to Froom, saying something like, “You guys aren’t paying me enough to—” when Froom pulled out a gun. Andy then said, “Let me finish him—” And right then I heard the ch’ck of a silencer and saw Andy’s face blow up. Froom then walked up to Andy’s stunned wife and shot her twice, ch’ck, ch’ck, in the stomach.
Janine let out an awful moan. I was horrified.
Froom came back to me. I had no move. My only thought was, Is this how it ends?
Standing above me he turned and fired three shots in the direction of Andy and Janine, making holes in the wall. He then removed the silencer and placed the gun on the floor, next to me.
“Grab it. Come on. I’m giving you a chance.”
Thinking he’s gonna crush my hand with those large shoes the moment I reached, I moved my hand very slowly toward the gun, ready to pull back the instant he made a move.
He didn’t. He let me have the gun.
“Out of bullets, shithead.” He pulled out another gun.
Of course. He’s a cop. He’s going to frame me, put all the murders on me, including Gerard’s, and I’m gonna be too dead to defend myself.
His cell phone rang. He ignored it.
He kicked me in the ribs again. In desperation I pulled the trigger, twice. Nothing. I gasped for air. Barely took anything in.
“If there’s any profession I fricken hate more than lawyers, it’s fricken snitch reporters who turn PI.”
His phone kept ringing. Janine’s moans were softer, sporadic.
Froom Junior aimed his gun at me. I let go of the unloaded gun and braced myself. I just couldn’t get a breath. I need air.
Someone else walked in. Someone who cast a huge shadow.
Froom turned to the hulk who had walked in and said, “Finish her. We need to do this right and—” A loud blast stopped him short. Next thing I knew, Froom had collapsed right next to me, the side of his head partially blown off, bloodied brain matter spraying all around me.
Managing my horror and pain, I turned to get a better look at this large presence. It was Curtis Sperry. It was clearly Curtis. I could tell the difference now.
“Need you to get out of here. Now!” He came up to me, grabbed me by the collar like I weighed nothing and yanked me to a standing position. It hurt so much I wanted to scream but I had no voice, my ribs and jaw making each moment treacherous to bear. I couldn’t stand straight. My legs buckled and Curtis yanked me up again, at the same time reaching down to grab Froom’s cell phone. He pressed a button and yelled, “Ten zero zero! Officer down! Three down! Address: Six-nine-five Hanapepe—”
I hugged my sides and took in the little air I could. Playing cards and broken glass and pieces of flesh were all over the hardwood floor, strangely uniform in their scattering. And bodies: Andy’s … Froom’s … Janine’s….
Andy’s wife sat on the floor, bleeding, moaning, trembling, with one arm holding her blood-covered belly while she cradled her dead husband with the other. She was gasping for air, and weeping.
Curtis aimed his gun at her.
“You can’t.” I don’t know how but I got between them.
“Have to.”
“She won’t talk.”
He grabbed me and tossed me to the side. “Get da fuck outta here. Right now!”
“Not goin’,” I said as I dragged my way back. “We can fix this.”
He aimed the gun at me. “You blowin’ it, you fuckhead!”
I heard sirens coming from every which way and footfalls from the street.
“You gotta let her live. She’s too smart to talk.”
I remembered Sal’s words: Curtis was the snitch. Curtis, the one with a poker face for the ages. When I gazed into his gray-green eyes for a tell, all I saw was burning hate.
Curtis lowered the gun and bent down toward the fallen woman and said, “You heard him? You gonna keep your fricken mout’ shut?”
Distraught as she was, she nodded.
The sirens were louder.
Curtis straightened up and turned toward me without looking at me. He muttered something like, “Fricken bitch. Walk a
round the capitol like you own da fricken place.” He then looked at the miserable wretch that was me in the eye and said, with ridiculous calm, “You not outta here in two seconds, I shoot her … ONE!”
I got to the sliding door as fast as I could. Heard Curtis say, “RUN!”
As if I could.
I stumbled past the pool and then leaped toward the wild bush, getting scraped by kiawe thorns as I made my way toward the water below. It was shallow; you couldn’t swim till you got around fifty yards out. There was nowhere to go but back. I turned around and started to climb up the little trail. I saw two men coming around from the side of the house with guns out. They saw me. With that sighting came a sound: the cha-kack sound of a round being chambered.
I had to risk the water.
I slipped and scurried down to the shore, scraping myself on the rocks.
I was bleeding from all my scrapes when I got in the water, still struggling to get a good breath when a shot rang out. I took the deepest breath I could and tried to swim in the shallow water away from the shore and learned all too quick that I couldn’t raise my arms without experiencing horrific pain, pain that was far worse than the pain in my jaw. I stood precariously on one knee in the shallows to better see the surfers out in the deeper waters. They were focused and unfazed. More shots rang out and I got as horizontal as I could, skimming over the coral-infused shallows, taking quick breaths, till I reached the point where the ocean floor dropped. I took a deeper, more painful breath and swam as far under the surface as long as I could.
When I broke through the surface I could see China Walls, the popular diving spot. A few sun-worshippers lay on their towels laid on top of the layers of volcanic rock. They seemed unfazed also, oblivious to all the turmoil occurring a couple hundred yards away. No one seemed to be coming after me, but I knew I couldn’t go back to the shore. They were waiting. After all, why chase me when all they had to do was wait? They knew I had nowhere to go. With my injuries I wouldn’t last long.
I spit blood. It tasted like ocean water.
The sun shone incessantly on the water; it was blinding to look west, like looking at a million diamonds. Like looking at a zillion pieces of glass on a sunlit Chinatown street. From the gutter.
What’s the diff? Really. What is the fucking diff?
I headed south. All I could manage was a backstroke, though I couldn’t get my arms higher than my chest.
This could take forever.
Andy. Tyler Froom Jr. They had to have been working with each other. A dirty lawyer and a dirty cop. The wife may be the supreme bitch, for all I know, but you don’t kill her in cold blood.
And those shots. What if Curtis had a change of heart and finished her off? What choice did he make? A guy who’d shoot a cop with no hesitation.
I felt faint. Dehydration coming on too. I struggled to maintain consciousness. In the diamond-studded distance I saw a shape. What the fuck now? Another massive shape. A deadly shape. Like someone standing on water. It looked like Curtis. But it couldn’t be Curtis. He couldn’t have gotten out here this fast. Or could he? How much time has gone by? The shape held out something. A paddle? What do I do? I had to grab for the paddle. That was my lifeline, my only chance. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t reach.
But then I had to. Fuck the pain. Fuck the pain. I reached again, screaming inside, and when I finally grasped what I thought was a paddle I realized it was the stock end of a rifle. I held on and felt my body rising. More pain. Excruciating pain.
It … isn’t … Curtis….
57
(Day 22—Monday, June 11) I kept fending off the ping-pong balls as best I could as the humming sound increased. A ball I missed hit me in the ribs. Struck like a pinball, it hurt so much. I looked at my wound and I saw nothing but ketchup packets. Heinz and Hunt’s, Heinz and Hunt’s. Bleeding packets all over my arms and legs….
I opened my eyes. It was twilight dark, everything fuzzy, pixels lacking resolution, hues of gray.
I am in a room. A television set is propped up near the ceiling.
Wires and tubes taped to my chest and fingers. I am attached to a machine.
A woman wearing light blue scrubs came in. She checked the IV bag, held my hand up to check the place where the needle went in. I felt pretty good. Was it Vicodin? Morphine?
I wanted to ask but couldn’t speak.
KGMB weatherman Guy Hagi sat near the door. He checked his shirt pocket like he was looking for a cigarette. I wanted a cigarette.
Ping-pong, ketchup, weatherman? This is good stuff.
Guy Hagi got up and clicked a light on, then approached me.
It wasn’t Guy Hagi. It was Detective Richards.
Shit.
It came back to me. Two were dead. One of ’em a cop. Had I said anything while under sedation?
“Finally,” he said.
What “finally”?
“You’re a mess. Coral really cut you up.”
“I guess.” Apparently I could speak, though I couldn’t open my mouth more than a fraction and my voice was hoarse. Or maybe I had been dreaming that I couldn’t speak. Or was it the other way around, and I was now dreaming that I could?
“You took in a lot of water. That guy who rescued you, he’s got quite a criminal past.”
Rescued me? When? Where? “Who’s that?”
“They call him ‘Smokin’ Joe’ Sperry. Person of interest in several cases going way back.”
I had no idea what had happened. Remembered diving into the water and getting scraped up in the shallow water. Remembered not being able to raise my arms. Remembered being pulled up … hanging onto a rifle….
“What are the odds, huh?” Richards continued. “The very same guy who called nine-one-one when Lino Johnson was shot turns out to be the guy who pulled you out of the water near Black Point. Almost twenty years later.”
Black Point? That’s, like, five miles away from the place where I entered.
Richards turned to look at something. In profile he did look a bit like Guy Hagi.
“It’s June,” I muttered. “Best weather on the planet.”
“Yeah, if you like muggy. That global warming shit’s starting to look real.”
“Guess I’ll stay indoors then.”
“Like you have a say.”
Richards came closer and then sat on the far edge of the hospital bed. Went for his cigarette pack, then probably remembered where he was and stopped.
Where the fuck am I?
“Boy,” Richards said, “you should see my caseload. As you know, we got the guy who killed the Watanabe woman, but we can’t find the body…. Plotkin—we know where his body is, and we got a couple of suspects, but that case is stalled. Then I get hit with this double homicide….”
“Double homicide?”
“You shoulda been there, out in Portlock. Two guys dead. One a lawyer and the other, one of Honolulu’s finest. Both killed in a shootout.”
“Open and shut case, then.”
“Yeah, open and shut….’Cept for a few tiny loose ends. For one, the lawyer’s wife was shot too. Same gun that killed the lawyer. Seems like my fellow policeman was going wild until somebody, who knows who, shot him in the face. Whoever was involved tried to stage it—I tell you, lotta staging going on nowadays—tried to make it look like Lieutenant Froom and Mr. Geary shot each other, at the exact moment. But the wife’s presence complicates the scenario … she’d be a suspect, except that she had no powder burns….
“Also,” he put the ace of hearts on my exposed belly. “We lifted a fingerprint from this and a couple of the other cards. They happen to match one of the victims … and yours. And from what I’ve learned, you played poker at that guy’s house just a few weeks ago. How you like that?”
“That would explain the fingerprints.”
“What? Can’t hear you.”
I repeated my words as loud as I could.
“Sure would. And we found a golf club too. You know, one just like the one
you almost whacked me with.”
“Nine irons are a dime a dozen.”
“Wasn’t a nine iron…. And, it didn’t have any fingerprints. Man, it was wiped clean.”
I said nothing. Just wondered what was next.
“And the lawyer’s wife? Boy, what a tough gal. She’s lawyer’d up, you know. She ain’t saying shit.”
She’s alive. Thank you, Curtis.
“She’s doing fine. She’s in this very hospital. Can’t say which room, though. They got guards at the door.”
I shuddered. “HPD?”
“No way. The Feds have jumped all over this one. Seems they don’t trust the local cops, just in case somebody wants to make it personal.”
He looked at me, grimly, then leaned over toward me.
“You know how overworked I am,” he began. “I’m so drastically underpaid for the shit I gotta deal with. So I wanna solve this one fast and take a much-needed vacation. Maybe Six Flags with the kids. Or go to Orlando. You know, Disney World and all that shit. So I’m thinking, this is how it’s gonna play, despite the mounds of contradictory evidence: A lieutenant from the Narco squad, even though this was way out of his jurisdiction, just happened to find himself in the area of a domestic disturbance. He goes in. A scuffle ensues. Shots are fired. Wife injured, husband killed. This same police officer, who happens to be the son of the deputy chief of field operations, is killed in the line of duty. He gets a hero’s burial. Case closed. Any evidence of other people being there, other bullets fired, playing cards with fingerprints of a suspect in another case, squashed.”
“Deputy chief gonna buy it?”
“His hands are tied. Thanks to his son being a master at tying people up. Tyler, it seems, was living up to his name. Did I say people? I mean young Asian girls. You see, on occasion, Junior goes a little too far and leaves them for dead.”
“Tyler Jr.’s the one?” My head was spinning.
“Clues were in that flash drive you gave me, my friend, in those photos. I passed the drive on to McMichaels and Vice is now going through every file. Big mahalos there…. Seems Tyler Jr. liked to travel with his uncle, one Genaro Blankenship, and the rest of his shit-ass posse, ever since his dad brought him along one year. They, what’s the phrase, ‘created a monster’? Well, Junior turned out to be an insatiable pussy hound. Plus, going in, he had a history of abusing women. That would include his ex-wife and a couple of ex-girlfriends. And twice he had been reprimanded for going overboard with arrests. For being a little too trigger-happy. There’ve been two Internal Affairs investigations looking into his … methodology. If it wasn’t for daddy’s clout …”
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