It was a typical Waikiki happy hour. Keola Beamer was playing on a stereo behind the bar, and around us people compared sunburns and drank fruity frozen drinks. When the waiter brought our beers, I showed him my badge and asked, “Do you work the late shift here, too?”
He said, “Sometimes. Why?”
I held out a picture of Tommy Pang. “Recognize this man?”
“Sure. He owns the place. Mr. Pang.”
I nodded. “He here last night?”
“He comes by almost every night. I think he was here last night. But not at closing. Fred and I had to close up ourselves.”
“Fred the bartender?”
The waiter nodded. “Look, I got customers. Can I take care of them?”
“Sure.”
The waiter walked away. “That was easy,” Akoni said.
“Too easy. You wait here. I’m gonna talk to Fred.” Akoni looked distinctly uncomfortable, and the idea that a guy his size would worry about anything made me laugh. “Don’t worry, anybody comes over to talk to you, you just tell them you’re my bitch.”
“Keep it up, you’ll see what a bitch feels like,” Akoni said, but he sat back in his chair and picked up his beer.
I carried mine with me to the bar. It took a couple of minutes for Fred to finish with a gaggle of pretty young boys at the far end of the bar, but eventually he came over to me. Up close, he was older than he looked from far away, the kind of guy who spent too much time in the sun when he was younger and too much time in the gym now. I showed him my badge and said, “Tell me about Mr. Pang.”
He shrugged. “What do you want to know?”
“Anybody ever threaten him?”
Fred laughed. “No, my guess is that Mr. Pang does all the threatening.” He leaned close to me. “What’s this all about? He in trouble? I’ve seen his tattoo.”
“Yeah? You know what it means?”
“Tong,” Fred said. “He’s some kind of gangster. But he only comes out here for a minute at a time-he doesn’t particularly like our clientele. And I only go back to his office to lock up the receipts for the night.”
“You do that last night?”
“Sure, just like always.” A light bulb seemed to go on over Fred’s head. “Say, there were a lot of police out there last night, when I was closing up. You have anything to do with that?”
“They were out there because your Mr. Pang’s body was out there.”
“Shit,” Fred said. “He’s dead?”
I nodded. “You have any idea who might have wanted him dead?”
Fred shook his head. “Not a clue. I said maybe five words to the guy on a daily basis, usually just a greeting.” He grabbed a rag and started wiping down the bar. “So who’s gonna take over here?” he asked. “Not that peckerwood kid of his?”
“Peckerwood?” I asked. “That some kind of tree?”
“Where I come from it means jerk,” Fred said. “That pretty much sums up Derek.”
“So Derek comes around here?”
“With his boyfriend. Usually when his dad’s not here.”
I started taking notes. “Got a description?”
“Derek’s a kid, just out of college. Chinese, about five-seven, hundred fifty pounds soaking wet. Black hair down to his shoulders. Sometimes he wears it pulled back into a ponytail, he looks like a gangster. Beautiful clothes-silk shirts, linen pants. Italian shoes. Guy has a thing for Italian shoes. Skinny. Moves like a dancer. Cute butt.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “So we get him in a lineup, we gotta turn him around so you can see his butt?”
Fred smirked. “You asked, I told.”
“Know the boyfriend’s name?”
“Wayne Gallagher. Six-four, I think. Maybe two fifty, maybe a little more or less. Hard to judge at that size. Curly hair, kind of halfway between blond and brown, cut just to the neck. He’s much looser than Derek. You know, sometimes he does the Ralph Lauren polo look, oxford cloth button down shirts and khakis, but sometimes he wears big aloha shirts and tight jeans. Caucasian, in case the name didn’t tell you that. Big hands, big feet. Dick the size of a beer can.”
I put my pen down. “I’m not even going to ask how you know.”
Fred held up his hand. “I was pissing next to the guy one night. ’Course I had to look.”
“’Course. Anything else?”
Fred shrugged again, and the party of boy toys called for him.
“One last thing,” I said. “Anybody else work back in the office there?”
“Arleen,” he said. “Secretary.” He looked at his watch. “She’s still there, at least another few minutes.”
I let him go, and went back to Akoni, where I told him almost everything I’d heard, leaving out the part about Derek’s butt and his boyfriend’s dick.
I drained the last of my beer. “You want to head back and say hello to this Arleen?”
“Why not,” Akoni said. “Though I got to tell you, Arleen’s a guy in drag, you do all the talking.”
BORN TO RUN
The waiter told us that the door into the office was locked and visitors had to go around to the alley side. The Rod and Reel Club occupied a square at the corner of Kuhio Avenue and Launiu Street. A group of tall trees sat at the corner, behind a wooden fence, and shaded a large open patio. The bar itself wrapped around the patio as an L, with one side facing Kuhio and the other Launiu. Roll-down grilles sealed off the bar area from the patio when the club was closed.
An alley ran parallel to Kuhio Avenue; it was narrow but cars often parallel-parked back there. The waiter pointed down the hallway where I’d seen guys coming and going the night before and said there was a door back there that led to the office, but it was locked, and we’d have to go out to Launiu and then up the alley to the first door on the left.
At the entrance to the alley I stopped. “I heard the guy dragging the body as I was standing in the shadows over there, by the patio entrance.” I remembered the giraffe following me out the door, making eye contact with him and shaking my head. “He’d just dumped the body over there, by that kiawe tree, when I came around the corner. I saw him run up to the Cherokee, which was parallel-parked up there, facing this way. He jumped in, and zoom down the alley toward me.”
“Where were you standing then?”
I pointed to the left about ten feet. “Under those trees over there. It wasn’t until the Cherokee had passed me that I walked over to the kiawe and saw Tommy Pang’s body.”
We walked down the alley to the office door, and I buzzed the intercom. “Who is it?” a woman’s voice said.
We identified ourselves, and the door buzzed. We walked right into an open reception area, where a young Japanese woman stood behind a desk. The room was slightly dingy and not very attractive-nothing on the walls, the furniture older, kind of crappy. A little boy, about five, sat on the floor in the corner, coloring. On the desk there was a little nameplate that read Arleen Nakamura. “Can I help you?”
“Are you Arleen?” I asked.
“Uh huh. What’s this about?”
I told her Tommy Pang had been killed, and she said, “Oh, wow. I wondered why he wasn’t answering his cell phone, why he didn’t call me.”
“What’s your job here?”
