Friday morning I told Akoni most of what I had learned the night before. It didn’t seem relevant to the case, for example, that my father had recently renovated the Rod and Reel Club. But the rest of it might have a bearing on our case.
I had asked Uncle Chin to see if anyone in a tong had a grudge against Tommy Pang. His parentage, it turned out, was an open secret among the tongs, Tommy’s connection to Uncle Chin being his ticket in. “Be careful,” I had warned as I left his lanai.
Uncle Chin had smiled. “To be old man in my business must be careful. No worry about me, Kimo.” He stood up quickly, and I was surprised at the vigor he could generate when he wanted to. “He was hard man, but he was my son. I find out what I can.”
“Great,” Akoni said. “First we get your geek friend to help us break into the dead guy’s computer, now we’ve got some old used-to-be tong guy checking out leads for us. We’re a great pair of investigators, you know that?”
Just the fact that Akoni still referred to us as a pair made me feel good. “This is a case that is not getting solved,” Akoni said. “These tong guys, they bring in a hit man from Hong Kong to do this kind of thing, and he’s already on a plane out of here by now.”
Peggy Kaneahe finally returned my call, and I went over to her office to work on a subpoena for Tommy’s cell phone records. She was having a bad week, it was clear, and she snapped at me three times during the hour we spent together. Her skin was pale and waxy, like she wasn’t getting any sun, and her nails had been bitten down to the quick. She wore a black business suit with a white silk blouse, and no jewelry, not even a ring or earrings. Her watch was a simple Timex, and her hair was almost as short as mine.
“I’m not your punching bag, Peggy,” I said after the third snap. “Tell me what’s wrong, or I’m going back to the station and we’ll finish this when you’re in a better mood.”
“I feel like I don’t know you anymore, Kimo.” She got up from behind her desk and walked over to the wall of law books. “When I came back to Honolulu, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to see you. I was still mad at you. Then we worked together on the Davis case, and I remembered the things that had made us friends, back at Punahou. But now, I think I’m right back where I started. I just don’t know what goes through your head.”
“Things have been pretty confusing lately,” I said. “Not just this case, but stuff going on in my life. I’ve had a lot of thinking to do.”
She turned to face me. “Is there anything you want to tell me? Have you been thinking about us?”
“I have. But I’m not done thinking yet. I just need a little more time.”
“A little,” she said. “I can give a little. Do you want to have dinner tomorrow night? Maybe we can both relax.”
I waffled. “Let’s wait and see how we both feel,” I said, knowing I was surfing with Tim at three. I knew Peggy, and knew if she was this stressed on Friday she was likely to cancel on Saturday. We went back to work on the subpoena, and then we went upstairs to Judge Yamanaka’s chambers, where she signed it with hardly a glance. I hand-carried it to the phone company office a couple of blocks away, and handed it to the Japanese woman behind the counter. “Do you want to wait for the printout?” she asked. “It’ll probably take a half hour or so.”
“I’ll wait.” I sat down in an uncomfortable plastic chair and tried to look through a couple of magazines, but I was too fidgety to concentrate. I felt like our investigation was finally moving forward, and I was antsy to get on with things.
Finally the woman came back, carrying my printout. There were two incoming calls the night Tommy was killed, one right after the other. I didn’t recognize the first number, though the second seemed familiar to me. I ran it through my brain until it came up with a match. Uncle Chin. Of course, Tommy was his son, after all. I pointed to the first call. “This number,” I said. “Can you trace it for me?”
She took the printout and walked to a terminal, where she sat down and typed something in. She waited a minute and then looked up at me. “It’s a pay phone.” She read off the address to me, and I realized it was a couple of blocks from the bar where we’d all gone after the failed black tar bust. I drove past it on my way back to the station, and saw it was a single phone attached to a post on the sidewalk. Anyone could pull up on the street and use it, or walk up after leaving a nearby bar.
I thought of Evan Gonsalves again, and tried to remember what time he’d left the bar. The details of that part of the night were fuzzy, but I thought he must have left around midnight. Just when the call came through to Tommy’s cell phone, as he was breaking up with Treasure Chen.
By the time I got back to the station, Akoni had left-he was taking Mealoha up to the North Shore for a family reunion weekend. It saved me having to share my suspicions about Evan with him, and let me table the whole investigation until Monday morning.
I passed on dinner with Harry, even though it was Friday night. I picked up a chicken breast at the grocery and left it marinating in a mango sauce while I went for a swim. I felt the heat of the pavement rising up through the cheap plastic of my slippas and crossed Lili‘uokalani to walk on the shady side of the street. There wasn’t a hint of a trade wind, and the palm trees at Kuhio Beach Park stood still. The air was heavy with humidity, sweat, and the smell of seaweed washed up on the shore at high tide.
I jumped in the ocean hoping it would be cool, but it was warm as bathwater until I swam out beyond the shallow breakers. I finally hit a pocket of cold water and it stunned me, raising goose bumps on my arms. It was as if I’d forgotten what cold felt like.
I swam for almost an hour but didn’t see Tim, and then went home and grilled the chicken breast on my barbecue, cutting a green pepper into slices and roasting them until their skins charred. I drank a macadamia nut brown ale in a twenty-two-ounce bottle with dinner, turned the ceiling fan on high, and relaxed for what seemed like the first time in days. It was a brief jump back into my old life, the one where I knew what was going on.
I slept late the next morning, a treat I almost never allowed myself, and it felt great to be able to look at the clock, smile, and then just roll over. I finally got up around nine-thirty, made myself macadamia nut pancakes, and then got back into bed with a surfing magazine.
The phone rang around eleven, and I half hoped it was Tim Ryan, and then worried he’d be canceling our surfing lesson. It was Terri Gonsalves, and she was crying. “Okay,” I said. “It can’t be so bad. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“This morning I told Evan that I wanted him to take back the bracelet he gave me, that it was too nice a present. He said he couldn’t.”
“Yeah?”
“He said he’d been doing some private security work, just like you said. A jewelry dealer visiting Honolulu who needed somebody to go along with him. For payment, he gave Evan the bracelet.”
“So what’s wrong?”
“He’s lying, Kimo, I know he is. I didn’t believe him, and he got mad, and he walked out.” In the background I heard her son come into the room. To him, she said, “It’s okay, Danny. Sometimes Daddy and Mommy get mad at each other. Why don’t you go to your room and play for a while, and then Mommy will come and get you?”
She came back on the phone, speaking softly. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“He can’t take back what he’s already done, however he got the bracelet. Just tell him not to do any more. Whatever he’s into, you have to say it doesn’t matter, you just want him to stop. I’d offer to talk to him myself, Terri, but you know we’re walking a fine line here. I don’t want to find out anything I don’t want to know.”
“I understand,” she said. “All right, I’ll tell him.”
“Good girl. Call me whenever you need to.”
I hung up, and then paced around the apartment for a while. I thought about Evan, about the growing list of ways he might be connected to Tommy Pang. Was the bracelet he gave Terri what Derek had seen his father give to the nameless cop? Had Evan been the leak on the black tar bust? I didn’t want to call Akoni and ruin his weekend; if indeed Evan was our guy, he would still be around on Monday morning.
It was a gorgeous day, too nice to stay cooped up inside, so I went for a walk, all the way through Waikiki past Fort DeRussy, to the Ala Moana Center, where I turned around and walked all the way back. It was wonderful to turn my brain off, just concentrate on the walk and the world around me.
When I got back there was a message on my machine from Peggy Kaneahe. I returned her call, and we talked about a case that was keeping her swamped. A pair of petty thieves had stolen some rare and valuable artifacts from the Bishop Museum, but were refusing to name their fence. She was sure they were part of a bigger plan to smuggle Hawaiian art treasures out of the country, and was frustrated because they wouldn’t cooperate.
“You sound beat,” I said. “Would you rather skip tonight?”
She paused. “You wouldn’t mind? I just, I need to, I guess, just relax.”
“Sure. Read a book tonight, or watch TV. We’ll talk next week.”
“You’re sweet, Kimo,” she said. “Aloha.”
I felt lucky, and guilty at the same time. I puttered around until just three o’clock, when Tim Ryan rang my bell, and as we walked down Lili‘uokalani toward the beach together, I gave him a brief lesson on surfing. “Light winds cause ripples out in deep water. The water molecules travel in stationary circles as these ripples travel over them, gradually getting stronger and becoming waves. As that wave hits the coral reef, its height and speed increase. That’s when the surfer jumps on and rides.”
“So that’s why some beaches are better for surfing than others,” Tim said. “Because they have different reef configurations.”
“Exactly.” We dropped our towels on the beach and swam out beyond the breakers, me dragging one end of my board. “Now we wait,” I said, once we were in position. There were more surfers around than I liked; that’s why I usually surfed so early in the morning or late in the day. On a beach like Waikiki, where there weren’t very many good waves, you didn’t want to have to compete for them with too many other surfers. I even saw Alvy Greenberg down the beach and waved at him.
“How do you know when the right wave is coming?” Tim asked.
“You can’t explain it,” I said. “You just have to feel it. Let’s hang out here and just let a bunch of waves wash over us.”
So we did. I relaxed, treading water and holding onto one end of my board, Tim on the other. We felt the waves, and watched the other surfers. “That wasn’t a good choice for him,” I said, pointing to one guy as he fell off his board. “See, there wasn’t enough power to sustain him.” We watched another and I said, “His balance is off. He’s going to fall,” and sure enough, he did.
“You jinxed him,” Tim said, with a smile.
“Surfing is hard. Nobody gets it right the first time.” After a while, I felt a really good wave building under us. “Get on the board,” I said, and I held it down a little in the water as he put one leg over. “Now crouch up toward the front.” As he did so, I swung myself onto the board, too, just behind him, not crouching but straddling the board with my legs in the water. The board rode lower in the water than usual, because of the extra weight, but if the wave was as strong as I thought, it would carry us.
“Hold on.” The wave started to carry us forward, and I paddled fast to help it. When it really had us, I stopped paddling, pulled myself into a quick crouch, and then stood up. Tim was still crouched beneath me, holding the sides of the board. “Stand up,” I yelled, over the roar of the water. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”
I held his shoulders, and then slid my hands down to his waist as he stood. He had good balance, especially with me holding him. “Wow,” he yelled, as we knifed through the water, the beach and high rise hotels rushing toward us, salt spray and sun and the noise of the water and the clear exhilaration of it all.
As the wave started to die, I moved back into a crouch, pulling Tim down with me. We lost our balance then and took a spill, but the water was shallow and the coolness felt great. I was surprised to find, as I came up for air, that the ride had given me an erection. Fortunately, it was already subsiding. “So?” I asked, as Tim appeared beside me. “You like?”
“That was amazing. I see why you like it. Can we do it again?”
“Let’s get you a board.” We headed down the beach toward one of the rental concessions. “The widest, longest boards are best for beginners,” I said. “They catch the waves earlier, and you get a chance to get accustomed to the wave before it gets too steep.” My board was six feet long, made of fiberglass and resin and specially cut, shaved and sanded by hand to my own instructions. His was a regulation beginner board, dinged up and bruised, and looked like a big fat older brother to mine.
We practiced for an hour or so, spending a lot of time just hanging out beyond the breakers, waiting for the right waves. Every now and then we’d see Alvy but I never did speak to him. By the end of the hour, Tim was starting to get a feel for which wave to choose, and he’d mastered all the beginning steps: getting on the board, paddling fast to catch the wave, standing up. He couldn’t ride for very long without taking a tumble, but that would come with time and practice.
Finally we quit and returned his board. “I’ll bet you’re kind of achy,” I said. “Your muscles really take a beating when you first start surfing.”
“You’re not kidding. I want to go directly home and tumble into the hot tub.” He looked over at me. “Want to come?”
“Sure.” We stopped at my apartment to drop off my board, and then walked down Lili‘uokalani to a low-rise building of six stories clustered around a central pool and patio area. The hot tub was off to one side, shaded that late in the day by a big koa tree.
It felt great to slip into the hot water. We both submerged down to our necks in front of jets, feeling the pulsing water massage our tired muscles. The buoyancy kept pushing us up to the surface, and our legs kept touching. I opened the top of my bathing suit to let a big bubble of air out, and then settled back to the shelf inside the tub. The toes of his right foot grazed my thigh. He sat back against the side of the hot tub and his legs rode up and brushed against mine.
After about twenty minutes, not really talking, just looking and each other goofily and smiling, Tim wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “I’m ready to get out. How about you?”
I agreed, and we dragged ourselves out and flopped onto lounge chairs nearby to dry off.
We lay in the sun for a while, but our suits were still wet when Tim said, “My place is just over there. Why don’t you come over-I’ve got fresh towels.”
“Sure.” We stood and walked across the courtyard to his first-floor apartment. He used his key on the patio door and we stepped inside. I followed him through a simple living room to a vanity area adjacent to the bathroom, where he opened a tall closet and pulled out plush dark green towels from a low shelf.
Standing again, he said, “Ow, that hurt,” and put his hand on the small of his back.
“The hot tub doesn’t do everything,” I said. “Come on, let me rub your back.”
He was still hunched over, crab-like, as he led me to the bedroom, where he flopped down on the big queen-sized bed in pain. “Shit, that hurts.”
I wrapped the towel around my wet bathing suit and sat on the bed next to him. Starting at the shoulders, I worked his muscles, feeling them ease under my touch. At first he twitched with pain when I pulled on sensitive tendons, but gradually he relaxed. “Oh, man, that feels great. Where’d you learn to do that?”
“The North Shore,” I said. “You really work yourself into the ground when you surf all day, every day. A bunch of us used to help each other out.”
“Mmm.” To get a better position I pulled the towel off and straddled his legs, kneading the muscles in his lower back. “Geez, you don’t need to be a cop,” he said. “You could make a living doing this.”
I was hard again in my Speedos. I was confused about what I wanted. I knew that sometime I would go to bed with Tim, but was this the right moment? How would we get there from where we were? I sat back on my haunches for a minute and Tim took that opportunity to twist around onto his back. He looked directly up at me and there was no way to disguise how I felt. He motioned to me with his finger.
“Come down here.”
I did. His skin was cool and his touch was slow and gentle, his fingers barely grazing the edge of my jaw, the center of my nipple, the inside of my thigh. I shivered and twitched under him like a rabid dog, unable to stand the teasing yet unwilling for it to stop. He wrapped his arms around my back and we kissed, deeply and hungrily, and then he pulled back. “Slow down,” he said. “We’re not in any hurry here.”
We explored each other’s bodies. His was all uncharted territory to me, from a tiny, half-moon shaped scar on his right shoulder to the discovery that his insteps were sensitive and responded to tickling. He worked my body like he knew what he was doing, licking and sucking me until just that knife-edge before release and then pulling back. Together we charted the regions of armpit and groin, the inner ear and the erotic zone just behind the scrotum.
I had never made love like this before. With women I’d been a tender and attentive lover, a good technician, making sure the patient was satisfied. My own pleasure had come easily and quickly, and had always seemed to me to be a separate part of the process. But with Tim, pleasing him and pleasing myself were part of one organic whole. We lingered so long over foreplay simply because it was fun. I shut off my brain and let my body take over, as I did on my best surfing days, and when we were both spent and exhausted and I looked at the clock, I saw that hours had passed. I lay there under his arm, my hand on his warm thigh and felt, finally, comfortable.