Damned in Paradise

illegal, violent act but are justified by the purity of their purpose.”

“Are you kidding?”

The gray gaze was steady. “No. I believe in taking into account cause and effect, not succumbing to hatred, fear, and revenge.”

“You mean the way Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie did?”

He twitched a frown. “I was referring to our court system.”

“Then do you want me to stop looking into the attack on Thalia?”

His eyes flared. “No! Just because our clients didn’t know the truth when they committed this act doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know the truth when we set out to defend them. If Joe Kahahawai was guilty, that is helpful to us. Our moral ground is higher, our case is stronger.”

“So I’m to keep at it.”

A slow nod. “You’re to keep at it.”

“What if I find out Kahahawai was innocent?”

One eyebrow flicked up. “Then we hope to hell the prosecution doesn’t know as much as we do…. In a few days, jury selection begins.”

“And then the fun.”

Now a little smile. “And then the fun. Speaking of which, I bear unhappy tidings from Miss Bell.”

“Yeah?”

He put on a sad mask. “It seems she has the nastiest little sunburn. Isn’t that tragic? She was wondering if you would meet her at her room at three o’clock, to rub lotion on her poor red skin.”

“I think I could manage. How is it she’s willing to associate with me again?”

His hand gesture was a flippant flip. “I explained that your job is, in part, to play devil’s advocate for me; that you are in fact helping poor dear Thalia, not hindering her.”

I laughed, once. “You know, I knew sooner or later it would come to this, C.D.”

“What’s that, son?”

I scooted my chair back in the sand, and stood. “You pleading my case.”

And I padded into the Royal Hawaiian, mind spinning with thoughts of Dr. Porter’s revelations, but other parts of me anticipating a reunion with Miss Bell.

I was no beach boy, but I knew all about applying suntan lotion to the shoulders of a beautiful woman.

12

Set back a ways from Kalakaua Avenue, the former tourist hotel turned nightclub that was the Ala Wai Inn sat perched on the rocky shore of the fetid drainage canal whose name it had taken. Spotlights nestling in palm trees called attention to the two-story white frame trimmed black and brown would-be pagoda, its occasional octagonal windows glowing yellow in the night like jack-o’-lantern eyes.

“It’s a roadhouse posing as a Jap tearoom,” I said, tooling Mrs. Fortescue’s sporty Durant down the drive.

“Looks like fun to me,” Isabel said next to me, puffing prettily on a Camel. She’d gone hatless this evening, the better to show off her new hairdo courtesy of the Royal Hawaiian beauty shop; it was shorter and curlier, a cap of platinum curls, vaguely reminiscent of Harpo Marx but one hell of a lot sexier.

I pulled the roadster into a packed parking lot and invented a place next to a grass-shack toolshed. We were nestled in pretty snug, and Isabel had to slide over and get out on my side. I helped. She was a bundle of curves draped in Chanel, and smelled much better than that swampy drainage ditch nearby.

She was in my arms, then, and we kissed, another of her smoky, deep kisses, her tongue tickling my tonsils. We’d spent much of the last couple days (except for when I was tracking down witnesses to talk to) patching up our romance. Very little discussion of our differences was involved.

Her crepe de chine dress had sideways blue and white stripes, as if she were standing in the slanting shadows of Venetian blinds. It was slinky and would have looked vampy, but she was a little too nicely rounded for that.

Hand in hand, we walked to the brightly lighted entry-way of the Ala Wai, pausing as Isabel crushed her Camel out under her high heel on the cinders. I must have looked pretty jaunty in my Panama hat, untucked red silk shirt with the parrots, and lightweight tan trousers. Or like a complete fool.

“So this is where Thalo’s trouble began,” Isabel said.

“Guess so,” I said, but I was starting to think Thalia Massie’s troubles had begun a lot earlier than that Saturday night last September. Which was why I was here. There were, after all, nicer places in Waikiki I could have taken the lovely Miss Bell dining and dancing.

As we stepped inside the smoky, dimly lighted joint, with its phony bamboo-and-hibiscus decor, a swarthy, stocky fellow in an orange shirt with flowers on it that made my parrots pale came forward with the ready smile and appraising eye of the doorkeeper he was.

“Evening, folks,” he said over the steel-guitar-dominated music, and the giddy chatter of customers. “Little crowded. Dine tonight, or jus’ dance?”

“Just dance,” I said.

He winked. “Sol Hoopii Trio tonight. Those boys keep it hoppin’.” He gestured with his hand toward the circular dance floor. “Some booths lef’ in back.”

“Is the Olds party here?”

“Ah yes. I get a girl show you.”