“He laughed?”
“Yup. He thought I was lying. I finally convinced him, and he wasn’t happy.”
“Shit,” Akoni said. “All right, let’s get this over with.”
We walked back to the lieutenant’s office, and this time he spoke mostly to Akoni. “Do you think you can wrap this up soon?”
“We’re making progress,” Akoni said.
“Progress!” Yumuri exploded. “Progress is a suspect behind bars! You don’t have shit, do you?” He paused, seemed to struggle to maintain his temper. “You have until Wednesday, end of shift,” Yumuri said. “I want results on this or I’ll have your asses. Is that understood?”
He looked at each of us. “Understood,” Akoni said.
“Understood,” I said.
“You are history,” Akoni said as we walked back to our desks. “Kiss your badge goodbye, sign up for the private security detail at the Ala Moana Mall.”
“Thanks for your support. You find out anything useful downtown?”
He shook his head. “Not a thing. I’m not giving up on the idea that there’s a dirty cop in this somewhere, but I still have my doubts about the son and his friend,” Akoni said. “After all, they’re the ones whose stories conflict.”
“I know. Wayne says they went to that bar by the Aloha Bowl, and Derek says they went up Mount Tantalus and parked.”
“Maybe they did both. Had a couple of beers, then went up the mountain to make out.” He shivered. “Thinking of those two parked together gives me the creeps.”
“Get over it,” I said. “All right, so tonight we check out the bar and see if they were really there.”
“I really don’t want to go to that place. Suppose somebody makes a pass at me? I don’t want anybody blowing in my ear.”
“Hold on a minute.” I picked up the phone and at the same time pulled Tim’s card out of my wallet. “Tim Ryan,” I said, when the receptionist answered. “Hey, Tim, it’s Kimo. Yeah? Good. Listen, I have to go out to a bar by the Aloha Bowl called the Boardwalk tonight, to show some pictures around and check out an alibi.” I listened. “Oh it is, is it? You want to go with me?” I laughed. “I promise. All right, I’ll pick you up around ten.”
“You’re off the hook,” I said when I hung up. “I’ve got a friend to go with me.”
“You’re not wasting any time, are you? That the guy who blew in your ear?”
“He’s a lawyer. I met him at Kuhio Beach Park.”
Akoni held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
I gathered my stuff from my desk and packed up. “I’m going to see Uncle Chin now. He said he had some information about Tommy Pang.”
“We’ve got to get this solved,” Akoni said. “Or it’s both our asses.”
“I know,” I said, as I walked out of the station.
DINNER WITH FRIENDS
My parents were already at Uncle Chin’s house by the time I arrived, the four of them sitting out on the lanai chatting, surrounded by birds and flowers. “You know your father built this house,” Uncle Chin said, as I settled into a lounge chair across from him.
“I didn’t know that,” I said. “How long ago?”
“This was my first project on my own,” my father said. “Right after you were born, when I left Amfac and went on my own.” In my memory, my father had always had his own business, but I knew that at some time in the past he had worked for Amfac, one of Hawai‘i’s Big Five companies, as a construction superintendent.
“This was new area back then,” Uncle Chin said. “I bought many pieces land. Sold your father one where your house is.”
They kept on talking about the old days, when they were young men and the world stretched out before them like a treasure chest of riches waiting to be plundered. It was hard for me to concentrate, because I kept thinking about my own future. What would I do if I left the force? I was too old to be a professional surfer by then; I had let that chance pass me by when I fled the North Shore. Like Akoni suggested, I could become a private cop, working security details for fancy condos or Ala Moana Center. I could become a private detective, chasing down errant husbands and bogus slip-and-fall claims.
I looked at my father. He was still a handsome man, graying, distinguished. He had once had many powerful friends and connections, but his friends aged as he did, and consequently the business he had built, which had provided for us all for so many years, was fading away too. Maybe I could work with him, rejuvenate the business, become a minor tycoon like he was.
But would he want me? I’d seen his face when he described Derek Pang as mahu. He didn’t want a gay son any more than Tommy Pang had. “E, Kimo, you gone away somewhere?” my father asked.
I looked up. “Sorry, Dad. It’s been a long day.”
“Time for dinner,” Aunt Mei-Mei said, standing up. “Lokelani and me, we have dinner ready chop chop.”
When the women had left the room, Uncle Chin said, “I ask many people about my son. What he do, who hate him.”
I looked at my father. He said, “I knew Tommy was Chin’s son. I helped him get his papers.”
I guessed my father was willing to stay and listen, so I said to Uncle Chin, “What did you find?”
He picked up a silver harmony ball from the table next to him and rolled it in his palm. “He was hard man, like I tell you, but no one know anyone who kill him. He was smart, my son. Not like his father like that.”
“You’re plenty smart, Chin,” my father said.
Uncle Chin smiled. “Good to have friends, no?” Then his smile faded. “My boy not have many friends. Not many enemies either, but not many friends. Many women, lots of money.”
“What kind of stuff was he doing, Uncle Chin? I know about the legitimate businesses-the bar, the pack and ship, the lingerie shop. But he must have been doing some illicit stuff too. Smuggling? Gambling? Prostitution? Drugs?”
“Hate drugs,” Uncle Chin nearly spit out. I remembered Robert, his death. Uncle Chin had always been adamantly against the drug trade. “Stupid business,” I remembered him telling me once. “Get customers, then kill them. How make life like that?”
“Did Tommy deal in drugs?” I asked gently.
Uncle Chin nodded. “Bad business. I told him many times, stop. Drugs kill his brother, he not care. Truth, I think he resent Robert’s memory, Robert born here, have advantages he no have. Even though I tried make up to him.”
“Was Derek involved in any of Tommy’s businesses?” I asked. “I know about the bar. How about the others?”
“Sounds like,” Uncle Chin said. “Two boys, Derek and friend. They collect money sometimes, carry messages. Like learning business.”
“The drugs, too?”
Uncle Chin shook his head. “No. Tommy said. Derek no in drugs. I make him promise.”
“He gets all the businesses now?” I asked. “Derek?”
Uncle Chin looked disturbed, like he was seeing where I was going. “Wife gets, but Derek runs. You think Derek kill Tommy?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. You think Derek could kill his father?”
“I’m a contract builder,” my father said unexpectedly. “You hire me, I work for you. There are men like that, who kill.”
I wondered again about the relationship between my father and Uncle Chin, how much my father knew about Uncle Chin’s business, how closely he was connected. “Could that be?” I asked Uncle Chin. “Could Derek have hired someone to kill Tommy?”
Uncle Chin looked very sad, very old. “Don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t know.”
