At the clinic, I showed my badge to the receptionist and asked to speak with Dr. Riccardi. “He’s with a patient now,” she said.
“I’ll wait.”
Once again, the reception area was filled with an interesting cross-section of locals who wanted discretion. I avoided eye contact with anyone, and sat in a corner-the location expressing something about how I felt being there. The People magazines I’d read the last time I was there were gone, replaced with newer yet still out-of-date editions. I was skimming one when the receptionist called.
I was struck again by how much Mike resembled his father. Mike had a slight epicanthic fold to his eyes, and a mustache, but the shape of the face, the cheekbones, the curve of his lips-they were all the same.
“What can I do for you?” Dr. Riccardi asked, escorting me to a run-down office that was clearly shared by a bunch of different doctors, since there was nothing personal there-just a collection of posters and pamphlets about STDs. “I hope you know I can’t reveal any information about patients without a warrant.”
“I’m not here on an official basis,” I said. “My name is Kimo Kanapa’aka, and I’m a detective with the Honolulu police department.”
“I know who you are, detective,” Dr. Riccardi said, turning to face me. “You’re the man who broke my son’s heart.”
Every now and then, in the homicide business, you run across someone who says something so totally unexpected that you don’t know how to respond. Sometimes it’s a confession, from someone who wasn’t even a suspect. Sometimes it’s the revelation of a life behind the facade we all present to the world.
Dr. Riccardi’s statement was one of those. I’d been so concerned about not outing Mike to his father that I’d never considered his father might already know.
“I may not have been the greatest father, detective, but I know my son. I’m sure Michael has had a few choice words to say about me, and my expectations of him, but I love him, no matter what.” He motioned me to a hard chair across from the desk, and he sat down behind it in a worn armchair.
“Michael’s mother and I always wondered why he never brought any young women home to meet us,” he said. “Was he embarrassed of us? Living in New York, we knew he was uncomfortable that his mother was Korean, and maybe that was why he didn’t bring friends home, but we thought that moving to Hawai’i had helped him get over that.”
He steepled his fingers and stared at me. It wasn’t a comfortable stare at all. I’m accustomed to being the interrogator and I didn’t like the role reversal. From the glare in Dr. Riccardi’s eyes it was clear he didn’t like me, and I didn’t know how I was going to tell him about the vodka in the water bottle without seeming like a tattletale as well as a heartbreaker.
“About a year ago, Mike stopped joining us for dinner, and he didn’t do anything except go to work and then lock himself up in his side of the house. One day, I got fed up.”
I could see from Dr. Riccardi’s eyes that it wasn’t a happy memory. But he worked in an STD clinic; he was accustomed to tough conversations.
“I found him passed out on the sofa, an empty six-pack of beer next to him. I woke him, and had some harsh words for him.” He sighed. “Not one of my finest moments as a father, I know. I demanded to know what was wrong with him. I said that I’d put up with a lot-his poor academic performance, which was far below what I knew he was capable of. His choice of a dangerous career. His Peter Pan complex-trying to remain a boy forever.”
“That must have been difficult for both of you,” I said.
“I suppose I should thank you for prompting the conversation, but I’m afraid I can’t.” Man, if looks could have killed, I’d have been dead in my chair. “He told me about you then.” A hint of a smile crossed his lips. “I still think of him as my little boy, you know. I want to fight his battles for him, though I know I can’t. When he told me how much you had hurt him, I wanted to hurt you in return.”
“Mike hurt me plenty on his own,” I said.
“But you were the one who broke up with him,” Riccardi said. “Because he wouldn’t become the kind of poster child you’ve made yourself for gay rights.”
“I haven’t made myself a poster child. I accepted the responsibility that comes with who I am and what I do. But that isn’t why Mike and I broke up.”
He waved his hand. “This is all old news, isn’t it, detective? Is that why you came here today? To ‘out’ my son to me?”
“Not at all.” I took a deep breath. “Mike and I are working together on a case again, and Monday morning I picked up a water bottle he’d been drinking from-just to take a sip myself. It wasn’t water.”
Dr. Riccardi’s brows closed together and he sighed again. “I was afraid something like this would happen. Seeing you has driven him to drink again. Why can’t you just leave my son alone?”
At that point I’d had enough of Dr. Riccardi’s attitude, and I stood up to leave. “I guarantee you, Dr. Riccardi, I didn’t want to come down here and speak to you. But I didn’t know who else to tell, and I do care about Mike and want to make sure he gets some help.” I took a deep breath. “But if you want to know the truth about why we broke up, it’s in your records here. Patient number 1423.”
I shouldn’t have said anything, and as I drove back to Waikiki I felt lousy. Not only had I told Mike’s dad that Mike was a drunk-I’d branded him as a careless slut as well. From the little I knew of Mike’s relationship with his parents, I could imagine his father’s icy stare, the disappointment radiating from him. I remembered Mike telling me that every time he got sick as a kid, his father took it as a personal affront. “How does it look when a doctor’s son is so careless about the flu,” I remembered Mike repeating to me.
How much worse would it be when it wasn’t the flu Dr. Riccardi was complaining about, but gonorrhea. Especially when he and Mike’s mom volunteered at the safe sex clinic.
It was after eight by the time I got home. I picked up a mystery novel I’d been reading, one of Charles Knief’s Honolulu private eye books, but I couldn’t concentrate. I got online and started making lists of homeless shelters and places that helped teenagers that Ray and I could check out the next day.
Around eleven I looked at the clock, yawned, and stripped down for bed. I’d just turned out the lights when somebody started pounding on my front door. “Jesus, hold on,” I said, jumping up and fumbling around in the dark for a pair of shorts. I looked through the peephole and saw Mike Riccardi there.
“You know what time it is?” I said, when I opened the door. “You’re gonna wake up the whole neighborhood.”
“You had to go and do it,” he said, slurring his words and pushing past me. I closed the door and turned around to look at him. “You had to tell my parents.”
“I was worried about you.”
“Fuck you, Kimo. You were pissed.” A wave of alcohol fumes washed over me. Mike was pissed, too-in more than one sense of the word. He was angry, and he was drunk. “Jesus, Mike, take a look at yourself. You’re drinking vodka out of a water bottle at eight o’clock in the morning. You don’t think that’s a problem?”
“What I do is my business. I’m maintaining.” He wavered a little on his feet, and I was worried he’d fall over on me.
“Yeah, and the first time somebody from the fire department catches you, you’re out on your ass.” I poked him in the chest and pushed him back. “Take a look at yourself, pal. How much have you had to drink?”
“None of your fucking business,” he said, and he burped.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t just walk away and pretend I didn’t see what I saw. I had to tell somebody, and the only person I could trust was your dad.”
Mike’s eyes glazed over, and suddenly he threw up-all over himself and the tile floor in front of my refrigerator. He looked at me and then he just collapsed. I caught him, getting his vomit all over me and my shorts, and he passed out.
I figured it was my penance. I stripped him, sponged him off, and laid him down on my bed. It was a level of intimacy we’d never shared when we were dating; we’d both been pretty self-sufficient, and the only times we’d undressed each other had been as a prelude to sex. But there was something sweet about the intimacy, despite the stink of vomit.
He started snoring as soon as his head hit the pillow. I cleaned myself up, scrubbed the tile floor, then took his dirty clothes and my shorts downstairs to the washing machine on the first floor of the building. There was a comfy chair there, and I sat there and read my book and dozed while the clothes washed and then dried.
It was almost two o’clock when I went back upstairs. Mike was still asleep, still snoring, spread-eagled on my
