Mike and I were driving down Kalakaua on our way back to my apartment when I saw two kids I recognized-Frankie and Lolo from the Gay Teen Center. I pulled over and called out to them from the truck.
They were both dressed suspiciously-form-fitting tank tops that didn’t quite reach their waists, and then board shorts that slipped down their hips, exposing both a band of skin and the elastic waistbands of their briefs. Jesus, were they working the street? When I’d seen them at Ala Moana Park on Saturday night, I’d thought they were dating, the way they palled around.
“You guys seen Jimmy lately?” I asked.
Up close I could see that Frankie was wearing some kind of eye makeup. And either Lolo was very glad to see me, or he’d been padding his crotch. But those were problems I couldn’t address right then.
Frankie and Lolo looked at each other and neither spoke for a minute. “It’s important,” I said. “I’m worried about him.”
Finally Frankie said, “We saw him at Ala Moana Beach Park last night.”
“Was he working?” I asked.
Frankie looked down at his feet and shuffled around for a minute.
Finally Lolo said, “Yeah. He looked like shit.”
“If you see him again,” I said. “You tell him everything’s okay where he was, that they want him back. Tell him to come to me. I’ll take care of him.”
I opened my wallet and pulled out all the money I had, a few twenties, and handed them to Frankie. “I want to be the only guy you take money from tonight, all right?”
“We can’t take your money,” Lolo said.
“Why? Because I don’t want a blow job in exchange?” I asked. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, Lolo, and I don’t have time to fuck around with you. Take the money, go get yourselves some dinner, and stay off the street. Cause if Vice picks you up, I will bail you out. And then I will beat the shit out of you. Got that?”
Both boys opened their eyes wide. Lolo reached out and took the money from my hand. “Someday I want a boyfriend like you,” he said, and he grabbed Frankie’s arm and dragged him away.
“You’ve got an admirer,” Mike said.
“Don’t start. Can we go down to Ala Moana Park?”
“Sure. And don’t worry, dinner’s on me tonight.”
While we struggled through the busy streets of Waikiki, I told him about Jimmy Ah Wong, how I felt responsible for outing him to his dad. “You didn’t do it, he did it,” Mike finally said.
“Because I told him it was the right thing to do, to testify against those guys. I promised to look out for him.”
“And you have.”
“Yeah, like I’ve been looking out for Danny Gonsalves,” I said. “Like I’m keeping Frankie and Lolo off the streets. Like I kept Sampson’s stepdaughter from interfering in the investigation.”
I found I was gripping the steering wheel and consciously tried to relax.
Mike said, “I think you have the kindest, strongest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Gee, here I thought you only liked me for my looks.”
“I’ve known who you were for a few months now,” Mike said.
I glanced over and saw that he was looking out the window, not at me.
“I did think you were handsome, the first time I saw you on TV. But more than that, I admired you so fucking much for being brave enough to be who you are.”
I didn’t say anything, but I swallowed, trying to get down the lump in my throat.
“Every time I’d go over to the police station, I’d be keeping my eye out for you. I thought you were this larger-than-life figure, and I kept thinking about you. I knew that the only way I’d get over you was to see you in person.”
I felt him turn my way, and looked over at him. “Then when I saw you carrying that dead chicken, I realized that you were a real guy, not just some fantasy figure. I don’t know if I’d ever have had the nerve to talk to you, if we hadn’t been thrown together because of the bombing.”
“Your loss,” I said lightly.
We finally passed the Ilikai Hotel and traffic eased up. “You play the hand you’ve been dealt,” I said. “That’s all I’ve been trying to do.” I reached my right hand over to him, and he took it and squeezed.
We parked at the Ala Wai Yacht Club, where Gilligan and his crew had left for their three-hour tour, and we walked the whole park, looking for Jimmy Ah Wong, with no success. We ate dinner at the Gordon Biersch at the Aloha Tower, but I couldn’t enjoy the sunset, worrying about Jimmy and Kitty and how I’d ever get this case solved.
The beer seemed flat, the food tasteless. The only good thing was that I was with Mike. After we ate, we drove around downtown, checked the park one more time, then cruised Waikiki for a while. By eleven, we were both exhausted and had to give up.
He’d left his truck in a garage on Waikiki earlier, and I dropped him there so he could move it to my apartment. When he met me at the outside stair, he was carrying a gym bag. “Running up to Aiea to get clean clothes every morning is getting old,” he said. “You don’t mind me assuming, do you?”
“Not a bit.” He walked up the stairs ahead of me and I swatted his butt.
Wednesday morning I woke up next to Mike. For a couple of minutes I just lay there, resting on one elbow, looking at him. His chin was grizzled, his dark, curly hair tousled. He looked like a sleeping angel. I decided it was a way I wanted to wake up a lot in the future.
A little later, after some fun in the shower, we walked together to a cafe near my apartment, got malasadas and coffee, and then, under the outside stairs to my building, kissed goodbye.
When I reached the main station, there was an urgent message from Billy Kim in ballistics. Rather than call, I went downstairs to his lab. “Kimo, I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I found something strange and I want to show it to you.”
He pulled out a blown-up photo of a bullet. “This is what you brought us from your shooting victim yesterday.”
“Charlie Stahl.”
“Right. See the grooves here on the sides? Very distinctive. Comes from a small, lightweight gun, most likely a Smith amp; Wesson Chief’s Special Airweight.”
“Good.”
“Wait, there’s more.” He brought over the poster I’d seen the day before.
“Not the chicken again, Billy.”
“You’re going to like this, Kimo. Look at the grooves. See? Same pattern.”
“So whoever killed the old man and the chicken also used a Chief’s Special Airweight.”
“More than that. Look at this little notch here. See how it matches in both pictures? That’s more than just the same model. It’s the same gun.”
“You’re saying the same gun was used to kill Charlie Stahl as was used in the two shootings in Makiki?”
“I’d swear to it in court.”
“Whoa. This is wild.” I stood up. “I’ve got to think about this one. Thanks, Billy-this could be the break I need. If I can just figure out how to use it.”
When I got back to my desk my phone was ringing. “Kanapa’aka, Homicide.”
“Hey, hey, Special K,” Harry said. “How’s it hanging, brah?”
“You won’t believe what I just found out.” I told him about the ballistics match.
“Tell me everything you know about the old man,” he said. I did. “Now tell me everything you know about Charlie Stahl’s murder.”
I did that, too. I could almost hear the wheels clicking in his brain. “Do you think Charlie Stahl knew Hiroshi Mura?”
“I doubt it. I’ll check, you never know who knows who in Hawai’i.” I thought of something. “You know, they didn’t necessarily have to know each other. But they both had some connection to the murderer.”
“Yes,” Harry said.
“The only thing I’ve got on Charlie Stahl’s killer is a partial license plate. It could take forever to pull up every match and analyze them.”
“You ought to be able to automate that a little,” Harry said. “Eliminate the vehicle types that don’t match. Eliminate cars registered on the other islands.”
“Our system isn’t that sophisticated. You have to do all that sorting by hand.”
“I can write you a program that’ll do that. You just get me the data file.”
“You can?”
“Sure. The data must have VIN numbers in it, right? And addresses, including zip codes? It’s a simple sort. How soon can you get the data?”
“Let me make a call.” I hung up from Harry and called our computer tech. I explained what I needed and gave him Harry’s phone number. He said he’d take it from there.
I hung up. There was something dancing around the edges of my brain, a connection between Hiroshi Mura and Charlie Stahl. But what was it?
Lieutenant Sampson loomed above my desk in black polo shirt and black slacks. “In my office. Now.”
I didn’t like that tone. What had I done now?
“Shut the door behind you.” He stood next to his desk, and from the way his jaw was clenched and his eyes narrowed, I figured he was plenty mad. I saw his eyes dart across to the picture of Kitty-and then I knew.
“I’m sorry,” I said, before he could blow up. “I didn’t know what else to do. She was determined to go to the Church of Adam and Eve on Sunday, and I knew that she would, no matter what I said. So I went with her.”
“Do I need to remind you that my daughter is not a sworn officer?”
“You know Kitty a lot better than I do. But she strikes me as the kind of girl who follows through on what she says. Can’t convince her to change her mind.”
Sampson’s shoulders relaxed a little. “I’ve been trying to convince her not to become a cop since she was twelve. No matter what I do, she just does what she wants.”
“Did she tell you about the picnic on Thursday?” I asked.
His eyes were wary again. “No. Tell me.”
“This couple we met at the church.” I closed my eyes, searching my brain for their names. I have this trick I use sometimes, connecting a name to something else as a way to remember. I can’t use it that often, because of the wild ethnic soup we have in the islands, but I’d connected that couple to a president. Out loud, I started reciting any presidents I could think of. “Carter, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Nixon, Roosevelt, Coolidge, Harding, Taft… wait, Harding. That’s their name.”
I opened my eyes to see Sampson staring at me with something like a grin on his face, which disappeared almost immediately. “Fran and Eli Harding.” I shrugged. “They seemed nice enough.”
“It’s that kind of insight that makes you a great detective,” he said dryly. “Tell me about this picnic.”
“I don’t know much. They called to invite Kitty, and she accepted. I told her that if she didn’t tell you by tomorrow, I would.”
“So that’s why she called me this morning,” he said. “If I hadn’t spoken to you, she’d probably go on this picnic Thursday, and then Friday she’d say, ‘I told you, Jim. You just don’t listen to me.’”
“I’ll bet you listen to her a lot more than she realizes,” I said.
“Obviously, she is NOT going to this picnic,” he said. “At least not alone.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, lieutenant. I’m taking some personal time Thursday afternoon. My dad’s best friend passed away. The wake’s a command performance.”
His lips set in a grim line. “I’ll talk to Kitty. If necessary, Thursday will be take your daughter to work day.”
I went back to my desk, trying to remember what I’d been thinking about before the confrontation with Sampson, and my phone rang.
“Hey, brah, long time no hear.”
“Akoni! Geez, man, this is a surprise. What have you been up to?” Akoni and I had gone through the police academy together, and we’d been detective partners in Waikiki for three years, before my transfer downtown. “How’s Waikiki?”
“Not there any more. As of yesterday, I’m in the same building as you.”
“No shit? What’s up?”
“Yumuri is losing it,” he said. I could tell he was lowering his voice in order to speak about the lieutenant who had supervised us in Waikiki. “Ever since the business with you, he’s been acting weird. Rumor has it they’re moving him soon, maybe somewhere out in the country where the stress isn’t so bad. I heard about this opening in Organized Crime, they needed a detective for a special project, I figured I’d come over here for a while, see what happens back in Waikiki.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“And you know what else sucked? He had me partnered with Greenberg, and the guy’s a real asshole. Thinks he knows which way the sun rises and sets. I just couldn’t take it any more.” Alvy Greenberg had been Lidia Portuondo’s boyfriend, and the one who’d outed me to the rest of the squad. Though he’d been my friend once, I didn’t feel bad hearing that he’d turned out to be a jerk. “Listen, reason why I’m calling? A name came up I know you’re familiar with. Chin Suk.”
“Uncle Chin. You know he died on Monday?”
“Yeah. They sent us the autopsy results, I thought you might want to know. What we all want-massive heart attack. Took him right out.”
“They think he might have been awake at all?” I explained about the table, the spilled bottle of pills.
“Possible. But there was nothing anybody could have done to save him. This was the big one.”
“Thanks, brah.” It felt good to know that Jimmy Ah Wong couldn’t have been involved. “We’ll do lunch sometime, all right? Now you’re here in the building.”
“Yeah. You gotta tell me the good places to eat. I got heartburn from yesterday like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I’d believe it. Nobody told me where to eat, the first couple weeks I was here. Listen, brah, I gotta go. I’m in the middle of a big case. But we’ll talk.”
I stared at the phone after I hung up. It took me a while to get back to work; I kept going back to the idea that Uncle Chin had died peacefully. Then why had Jimmy run away?
Now all I had to do, while finding the bomber and whoever shot Charlie Stahl, was find Jimmy Ah Wong and let him know he was off the hook.