“That’s an, uh…exaggeration. We just met on the ship. Besides, she’s mad at me.”
“Because you hard on Mrs. Massie today.”
“That’s right.”
I held her close.
“Nate.”
“Yes.”
“You at your full growth now?”
“Damn near.”
The next tune was fast. I adjusted my trousers, as best as possible, and we headed back to the table. But before we sat, Beatrice said, “You have a car?”
“Of course.”
“We can’t go my place. I live with my mother and two sister and two brother. Over Kapalama way.”
“I’m at the Royal Hawaiian.”
“No. Not there. Miss Bell might see.”
Good point.
She touched my hand. Softly, slyly, she said, “I know place where couples go. Down beach road. To park?”
“Lead the way,” I said.
Soon we were pulling out of the Waikiki Park parking lot.
“See that barbershop?” she asked, pointing across the way to the line of dingy shops. “See that
I glanced: a somewhat ramshackle two-story building (living quarters above) was given over to a barbershop with a traditional pole and a window that said ENA ROAD BARBERSHOP; through the window could be seen a woman barber snipping at a white male customer’s locks; next door, in the direction of the beach, was a vacant lot with a food cart (SUKIYAKI DINNER, SAIMIN, HOT DOGS) and some picnic tables scattered around, couples eating noodles out of bowls; a few cars were parked up on the lot, getting served by white-aproned Orientals, drive-in style.
“That where Mrs. Massie seen by witnesses,” Beatrice said. “Walking along with white man trailing after.”
“And that,” I said, nodding toward the big white two-story Store—GROCERIES—COLD DRINKS AND TOBACCO—that sat just ahead, on the corner of Hobron Lane and Ena, “is the building that obscured the witnesses’ view, when Thalia was grabbed.”
“If that true,” Beatrice asked, “what happen to the white man following after? Did he disappear around that corner?”
I looked over at her. “Beatrice—what’s your stake in this, anyway?”
“Before he die last year, my father work at the same cannery as Shorty’s father,” she said.
“Shorty?”
“Shimitsu Ida. Horace Ida. Turn here.”
“Huh?”
“Turn right. If you still wanna go lovers’ lane.”
I still wanted to go to lovers’ lane. Just as I was turning onto the beach road, the landscape of Ena Road had shifted somewhat: the eating joints and other small shops gave way to bungalows—little more than wooden shacks—and two-story ramshackle apartment houses clustered together.
She noticed my giving the area the once-over. “Bachelor officer from Fort De Russey rent those.”
I snorted a laugh. “You’d think they’d want something nicer.”
“Out of the way, for taking native girl. Close to the beach where they can meet female tourist. And Navy wife. Only not all officer are bachelor, hear tell.”
As we headed down the beach road, the landscape again shifted; we were on a narrow blacktop, and right now we were the only car on it. The road was in some disrepair, rather bumpy, its coral underlayer glowing white in the moonlight. Though the ocean was nearby—you could hear and smell and sense it but not see it—we might have been driving through a desert, what with the algarroba thickets and scrubby underbrush and wild cactus. No palms, here—the closest things were the telephone poles lining this sorry roadway.
“They use to fight,” she said suddenly.
“Who did?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Massie.”
“Like how?”
“He swear at her and tell her to shut up. Sometimes she walk out.”
I frowned. “Do you know what these fights were about?”
“She didn’t like it here. She was bored. She drink too much. He tell her to stop, he said she drive his friends away. She has sharp tongue, Mrs. Massie.”
