Honolulu Hottie

by Terry Ambrose

  He pulled his hand away, nodding. “Gotcha.”

  This was good. Kind of like the old days, but better. I liked this kid. He was eager. Smart.

  The sound of someone inserting a key in the lock shattered our camaraderie. Chance and I peered at each other with wide eyes.

  “McKenna?”

  “We’re busted, kid.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The lock turned. The door opened a crack. A string of Chinese gibberish. Daylight snuck through the opening. More yammering assaulted our ears.

  Breaking and entering or B&E, it didn’t matter what you called this, we were screwed. I could kick myself. Why had I betrayed Benni’s trust? Why hadn’t I told her what I was doing? If I went to jail...If she found out...If—no, what...what a moron I’d been.

  The door opened fully. A wizened Asian couple stared at us. And one of them was the woman we’d passed outside. Skinny munchkin bookends. That’s all they were. Nothing but wrinkled, saggy skin and brittle bones. The woman looked like she’d blow away in a light breeze. No sweat, we could get out of this by hook, crook, or force. I stepped forward and bowed to show respect. “We were just looking around. We’ll leave you two alone.”

  The old woman pushed past the man. “What you doing my room?” Her shrill voice could have passed for a police whistle.

  “We meant no harm. Come on, let’s leave these fine folks to their room.”

  A bony finger wagged in my face. “You no use without pay first!”

  It was Chance who jumped all over that one. “Lady, we’ve been in here for all of five minutes. I’m not paying you for anything.”

  A howl in a language I recognized, but would never understand, brought another shape into the doorway. A man weighing a good 250, hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a bloody, white chef’s apron blocked our exit. His arms were larger around than my thighs. Talk about a game changer. A human doorway.

  “Let me see if I can clarify what my impetuous, young friend was saying. Are you the apartment manager?” One glance at the face of the big guy in the doorway told me it was time to kiss up and get out. “This is a nice place you have here. How much to rent it for, uh, say, an hour?”

  Behind me, I heard Chance groan. The human doorway didn’t flinch. Did he even speak English? This was a mini-Chinatown, which meant he might have no need for a second language. Mr. Landlord and his wife jabbered away in a grating staccato prattle. Far East. Used a lot in the islands. Beyond that, call me clueless.

  The wrinkles on Mrs. Landlord’s face turned upward into a mask of greed. “Twenty dollar.”

  Chance bellowed. “For an hour?”

  Mr. Landlord’s head bobbed agreeably, his smile betraying a complete lack of understanding. The human doorway remained impassive.

  “This good place! We no rent by hour. Cannot rent while you here. You want argue, maybe I make you pay cleaning deposit.”

  “How long did Victor live here?” I asked.

  Mrs. Landlord’s eyes twinkled. A smile crossed her face. “Police already ask. You police?”

  “No.” I turned to Chance. “Pay the lady.”

  “This is robbery!”

  “Pay the lady, Chance. I’ll explain later.”

  Chance pulled out a twenty. Even Mr. Landlord’s eyes lit up as they both peered past me at Chance’s open wallet. Oh, yeah, I knew these people. How many times had I dealt with nosey apartment managers in my career? They probably knew every tenant’s business, but pretended to know nothing. They’d probably scavenged the room the moment they learned of Victor’s death. I’d even bet my own money the cops got nothing of importance.

  Money changed hands. Mrs. Landlord pulled up her T-shirt, stuffed the bill into the front pocket of her jeans. Apparently satisfied they’d made a profit, Mr. and Mrs. exchanged a nod and parted so we could make our exit. Chance took one step, but I held up a hand. “We want information. He has money.”

  Mrs. Landlord’s eyes widened, the wrinkles of the greed mask returned. She and her hubby once again exchanged a few garbled barks. The human doorway still gave no hint of understanding or caring one bit about this transaction. Mrs. L cocked her head to one side and gave me a yellow-toothed grin. “What you want know?”

  “We’re most interested in Victor Durisseau’s business. As the manager, I’m sure you had to check him out. You know, make sure he was reliable. Would he pay the rent on time? Maybe not conduct too much business out of his room.”

  “Mr. D not allowed do business here. He have office for that.”

  “Of course.” I held out Victor’s business card. “This one?”

  She nodded, the confident smile still there. She thought she could beat me in this game of I-know-that-you-know—it wasn’t likely. This was the perfect time to incorporate McKenna’s Skip Tracing Secret No. 8—money is a great motivator. Unfortunately, she’d probably guessed exactly how anxious I was. Well, I definitely knew how much she wanted the money. “You know,” I stretched out my words in an effort to seem less anxious. “We’d be very grateful if you had information that would help us learn more about what Victor might have done for a living.”

  Her tongue flicked over her lips. Her yellowed teeth formed another grin. “You not police, yah?”

  I shook my head. “You are correct. We are not the police.”

  “What you want know?”

  Chance shifted in the background. Forget the ants in your pants, kid. She had something to sell, I was willing to buy. We just hit the skip-tracing mother lode. The human doorway hadn’t budged, nor had he shown any indication of leaving. “Do you have any of his things?”

  “Police already took everything. You go talk them.”

  She jabbed a bony finger at me. I shook my head. She was lying. “What if we were willing to pay for what you have?”

  “How much you pay?”

  “What have you got?”

  “Fifty dollar.”

  “Not until you tell me what you’ve got.”

  The old woman crossed her arms over her scrawny chest and glanced at her husband. He gave her the same impassive smile. She looked me in the eye and shrugged. “Maybe have business record.”

  “Pay the lady, Chance.”

  “I’m not an ATM, McKenna.”

  “What would he do?” I emphasized the word “he” for Chance’s benefit. It was time to start bringing this kid’s Magnum fantasy in line with reality.

  “He, who?”

  “I’m a baby boomer, kid. I watched TV. Red Ferrari. Tigers cap. You know the he I’m talking about.”

  Chance gulped, then reached for his wallet. “Fifty?”

  Mr. and Mrs. L’s eyes sparkled as the money changed hands. Moments later, Mrs. L motioned for us to follow. The human doorway stood to one side, letting us pass. As we left the room, I checked out the parking lot. The Ferrari was still where we’d left it. Standing next to the car was a little boy, probably no more than seven years old, who was about four feet tall with limbs the size of sticks. He wore a dark tank top, baggy shorts, and slippas.

  In this neighborhood, the only people who drove an expensive car were drug dealers or someone who didn’t know better. The kid flashed a shaka sign at two older boys as they approached. They all seemed friendly enough, but the two backed off when the kid by the car warned the two older boys away with a backwards flip of his hand. Kids that size didn’t intimidate bigger kids unless they had some serious muscle behind them, which most likely meant our parking attendant was related to the human doorway. I chuckled. The car had a bodyguard.

  “My car,” Chance gasped. He hissed, “What’s he doing with my car?”

  “Relax,” I said. “He’s the protection.”

  We went down the stairs, Mr. L in the lead, Mrs. L behind him, Chance bemoaning the fate of his car behind me, and the doorway bringing up the rear. Over my shoulder I said, “Keep your wallet handy. You’ll have to pay for valet parking.”

  Our little procession entered the restaurant through a
side door, wove between tables, past a kitchen reeking of garlic and onion, and into a back office. This was a neighborhood notorious for disliking haoles. Don’t think it didn’t occur to me that we were at the mercy of these three. I could just see Mrs. Landlord greeting her dinner patrons with a huge smile. “Tonight we have house special, Sweet and Sour Haole.”

  I said a silent thank you to the world’s media. They described all sorts of meats as “tasting just like chicken.” But, I’d never heard them include people in the listing.

  In the office, Mrs. Landlord went to a corner and picked up an overstuffed purple filing case. She lifted the case by its black handle and placed it on the desktop. She smiled at both of us. “Fifty dollar to look.”

  The case belched open with a single upward flick of the black latch. I leaned forward, reaching out to pull one of the file folders. Mrs. L cracked my knuckles with a swift rap. “No take. Only paid to look.”

  There were four different colors in the case: red, blue, green, and yellow. “This was Victor’s? How do I know that? And why didn’t the cops take this?”

  “Victor rent file space here.”

  Off-site storage? All cash and no record. What did he do, rent by the square inch? “How do I know it’s all here?” I asked.

  A staccato blast of words between our hosts bounced around the room. They all laughed. It was the first sign of emotion I’d seen from the big guy with the ponytail. He gave me a grin that sent a chill through my spine and sent the old woman into a cackling fit of laughter. A moment later, she said, “He say, if I lie, he break your legs. Very funny, yah?”

  “Hysterical,” I moaned. “Looking at this isn’t going to help me. I need to take it.”

  “You only paid look. You want buy?”

  Chance started to say something, but I silenced him with a shushing sound. He rolled his eyes and reached for his wallet. “How much?”

  “Do you have anything else of Victor’s?” I asked.

  Another round of jabbering between the three of them and finally Mrs. Landlord nodded. She picked up a box of colored file folders that had been next to the purple case. She opened the box and pawed through the assorted colors. “Almost full. Good condition. You want buy? Twenty dollar.”

  I shook my head. “The box is only half full. That’s twice what they cost brand new.”

  “Maybe you want fingerprint. D-N-A. Do something forensic.”

  “No thanks. How much for the records?”

  “One hundred.”

  I glanced at Chance, who shrugged. “Give her fifty bucks,” I said.

  “More,” she barked. “A hundred more. You already looked, didn’t like.” The old bag held out her hand, palm up. It flexed like an eagle’s talon seizing prey.

  Once Chance had paid in cash, she resealed the expandable file folder and gestured for me to take it. I clutched the evidence to my chest and nodded at the door.

  Chance looked Mrs. Landlord in the eye and asked, “Will twenty dollars cover the parking?”

  She cackled. “I like this boy. He know how get results.” She held out her hand again and when Chance laid the bill in her palm, she gave him a toothy smile. “You come back for dinner anytime. House special very good.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Ferrari was still in the lot, right where we’d left it. The kid who’d been acting as the car’s bodyguard was talking on a cell phone. He spotted us, hooked his right hand up in a shaka sign, then walked in our direction. Judging by his swagger, he was seven going on twenty-seven.

  The kid gave Chance a high five, and said, “Have a nice day, brah.”

  Chance was firing up the engine when he said, “McKenna, I’m out of money.”

  Just when I was getting used to having my own personal cash machine, too. I glanced around, remembering the cautions tourists received about this area. “In that case, we’d better get out of here.”

  We wormed our way through Waikīkī traffic, doing our best to imitate tourists having an average day in paradise. Fat chance of that working. We were in a smoking hot Ferrari and I had a conman’s secret files on my lap.

  At my apartment, I placed the folder on the dining table. “You paid for it, maybe you should do the honors,” I said.

  Chance brightened. “It feels like Christmas.”

  By my count, this little present had cost Chance almost two hundred bucks and it might turn out to be a bust. The least I could do was to be supportive. I smiled. “Go for it.”

  He eagerly opened the case and fingered through the documents.

  “He must have a system,” I said.

  He stopped when he got to one of the red files. “All the red ones are people’s names. Look, this is for Mr. Herschel.”

  “Let me see that.” I began skimming through Meyer’s folder while Chance continued on. “He’s got a worksheet in here. Bank account numbers, social security number, date of birth—he’s even got a recent statement for an account that goes to a PO box.” Behind the worksheet, there was a clear plastic envelope containing a Hawai‘i driver’s license for a Meyer Herschel who had the same date of birth as Meyer, but a completely different address, photo, and description. “You see any IDs in those other files?”

  A moment later, Chance extracted a clear plastic sleeve just like the one I held in my hand. It contained another local drivers license. Chance eyed me. “What was this guy up to?”

  I pointed at the box. “We need to try and figure out the colors. They mean something.”

  “It’s pretty obvious the green ones are paid or rejected forms. The yellow appears to be for active claims—looks like Medicare and VA benefits.” Chance shrugged. “The blue ones don’t make sense to me.”

  “Let me take a look.” I worked my way through the blue folders. “What kind of gibberish is this?” The first was labeled X121412R, the second was X42913T, and the third used the same pattern, a letter followed by a string of numbers and another letter.

  Chance crossed his arms over his chest and let out a huff. “Victor might be the only one who can break the code.”

  “Maybe not,” I muttered. I picked up Meyer’s file again. It was labeled R32313. The number part of the code was on the form with Meyer’s financial information in the date of application field. I held the paper up for Chance to see, my finger pointing directly at the date. “It looks like those codes are based on a date.”

  Nodding enthusiastically, Chance began pouring through the rest of Meyer’s folder. His eyes darted over the page. After a few seconds, his eyebrows went up and he looked at me. He held the papers out for me to see, his finger pointing at a name.

  I nodded. As I’d suspected.

  “What’s up with this, McKenna? It’s Mr. Herschel’s manager. Graham Reynolds.”

  The answer was obvious, wasn’t it? For some reason, I didn’t want to make Chance feel stupid, though. “What do you think?”

  “They must have been working together? If the number part of the code is the date he signed up, the R must mean he was recruited by Graham Reynolds.”

  “Which he was.” I took my time, trying to sound more sensei than critic, but who knew how this would come across? Knowing a code was one thing; knowing people entirely different. “I’ve been finding people for a lot of years. In some ways, it’s almost like Victor had a mini-pyramid scheme going on. Victor got Graham Reynolds as a client, who then brought in Meyer. Maybe Graham was a crook, but based on what Meyer has said, my guess is that he didn’t start out intending to be a conman. Most likely, he lost money and Victor offered him a way to get out of debt.” I watched Chance’s face as I spoke.

  “Oh.”

  Chance’s brow wrinkled. Was he realizing for the first time what he was getting into? “Look, kid, sometimes good people do bad things just to survive. I’ve seen people lie, cheat, and steal just to keep their heads above water. If you’re going to be a PI, you’d better get used to it.”

  My throat tightened. Had I single-handedly destroyed Chance’s new
career? Soured his outlook on life?

  “I’ve never really thought about it before,” he said. “I mean, all these people lying reminds me so much of Hollywood. I just didn’t expect it, that’s all. I kind of thought it would be different here. I guess people are the same no matter where you go.”

  I stared off into space, recalling my own initiation to the world of liars. Nearly fifty people had lied to me in one day. I blinked and gazed at Chance. “Take my advice, kid, get out before you start thinking like them—or me.”

  “Nope, this is my new career. My dad wanted me to be an attorney, but I flunked out of law school after a year.”

  “Ouch. Bet that didn’t make him happy. I thought you were an actor.”

  “After law school he got me a VP slot in a bank. The job itself was so boring. I started partying too much. I had to take pills to get me going. One drink at lunch became two. Dad couldn’t save me when the bank cleaned house.”

  “Strike two. So this is your Plan—what—Plan C?” I smiled, but Chance didn’t seem to notice.

  “More like D. Maybe someday I’ll tell you how I got blackballed in Hollywood. What’s next?”

  The kid had spunk. In spades. I liked that.

  An alarm on Chance’s phone rang. He took one look at the screen, nodded to himself, and said he had an appointment he couldn’t miss. His voice shook slightly and he didn’t make eye contact. Some people did that all the time, not Chance. I had no idea what his appointment was for, but I’d done enough prying for one day and we said our goodbyes.

  Victor’s files beckoned to me from the table, but the most nagging question was Chance Logan himself. What was going on in his head? There was plenty of time before he’d return, so my first task was going to be looking into the Phillip Marlowe Online Detective Agency.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Phillip Marlowe Online Detective Agency had an impressive website. I watched the introductory video—twice. Music. Fade-ins. Fade-outs. Wow. This was a professional sales tool taken to the extreme. I read the sleuthing tips. The course descriptions. I even found certifications from states across the nation. Everything was designed to create an aura of legitimacy.