figured out whose place to head to. But I hadn’t gotten much of a sex vibe from him and so I wasn’t sure what would happen next. I stuck my leg out and made contact with his.
“I don’t have sex on the first date,” Phil said, answering my unasked question. “I’ve found in the past that it doesn’t lead to second dates. And I’d like a second date with you.”
“I’d like one with you, too,” I said, smiling, and meant it.
“I’ve got your number,” he said, standing up. “I’ll call when I have a day off.”
“That would be great.” We walked out to the parking lot together. In the distance, a street performer was imitating Keali’i Reichel in a reedy tenor. Maybe I wasn’t going to sleep with Dr. Phil, but I certainly was going to kiss him; if he couldn’t kiss, then there wasn’t much point in a second date. In the shadow of my truck, I leaned down a bit and kissed his lips lightly.
He kissed back, and it was pretty good. Fireworks didn’t go off and my heart didn’t race, but it felt nice to chase a little romance. Then he backed off and said, “See you soon-hopefully not in a professional capacity.”
I slept in on Sunday morning, then spent a couple of hours in the surf off Diamond Head. I started my shift at eleven that night, and almost immediately my cell phone rang. When I saw it was Lui’s number I got scared.
My father had been in declining health, getting a new heart valve and taking a host of pills, and I was always worried that the next news about him would be bad.
“What’s up, brah?” I asked. “Mom and Dad okay?”
“They’re all right, but shook up. You know Dad’s favorite center, the one on Waialae Avenue? It’s on fire. He and Mom are freaking out.”
I knew my dad had a sentimental attachment to that center, even though he didn’t own it anymore. “I was just there yesterday.”
“Mom and Dad are heading over, and so am I. Can you get up there, too?”
“See you there.” I told my new partner, Ray Donne, where I was going, and drove my truck up to St. Louis Heights.
By the time I arrived, the flames had been doused everywhere except the acupuncture clinic at the far end from Tico’s salon. A single fire engine remained on Waialae Avenue, and bright arc lights illuminated the scene. The long, one-story building was now just a skeleton, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of burnt light bulbs, drywall, electrical wiring, and plastic.
My parents stood at one side, supported by Lui’s wife Liliha. All of them looked like they’d dressed hurriedly, my father in sweatpants and a UH T-shirt, my mother in a housecoat. Even Liliha, who never appears in public without perfect makeup and elegant clothing, looked rumpled and tired. I went over and hugged them all. Since my teen years, I’ve always been a little taller than my father, though he’s shrinking as he gets older, and his normally sturdy body felt frailer in my arms.
“Terrible thing,” he said, shaking his head. My mother grasped his hand and squeezed. Though he has a blustery temper, she’s always been the strong one in their relationship. She’s only about five seven, but she has a take charge attitude. Perhaps it comes from her childhood as a daughter of a Japanese father and a Hawaiian mother, living in near poverty on the windward coast. Or maybe they just feed off each other, the big, strong builder and the petite housewife, who made an exceptional team raising three sons.
Lui came over and said, “We heard that there’s a victim inside. Ralph wants a sound bite from someone in Homicide. Come talk to him, okay?”
“It’s not my case. There’s probably somebody coming up from downtown right now.”
Lui looked at his watch. “If I can get this wrapped up in the next few minutes, we get something at the end of the eleven o’clock news. There’s a chance somebody who’s watching will have some information. Don’t you want to make sure they know where to call?”
My oldest brother is a master manipulator. I couldn’t argue with that, so I followed him to where Ralph Kim was setting up a live shot. He was a trim, dark-haired Korean guy in his early forties, and we had a history; he was one of the newsmen who’d dogged my coming out, and I didn’t trust him, but as the ranking police representative on the scene I’d have to talk to him.
The lights went on and we were rolling, the shot framed by a couple of restless palm trees behind us. Ralph spoke first to an assistant fire chief, and then turned to me. “Also on the scene is Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka,” he said. “We understand that there was a fatality here. One of the tenants?”
“The victim has not been identified yet. But anyone with information about this fire, or about the victim, should call Crime Stoppers, 955-8300, or dial star-crime on your cell phone.”
When we were finished, I walked over to the far corner of the site, where Lui and Haoa were standing in front of what had been Puerto Peinado. The air was filled with bitter smoke, the arc lights from the fire engines casting eerie shadows. They were talking to someone, and it wasn’t until I was there that I realized it was Mike Riccardi. I caught a mouthful of smoke and started to choke.
As I fought for breath, my heart raced, and I felt an emptiness at the pit of my stomach. I’d always known I could run into Mike somewhere; it’s a small island, after all. But seeing my parents so upset, and then having to be on TV with Ralph Kim, had raised my stress levels, and Mike made them go off the charts.
The first time we met, after another fire, I’d been floored by his looks. He was handsome, with thick, dark hair, and a black mustache over full, sensual lips. He looked like the same guy I’d fallen in love with and spent six months dating and sleeping with, except around his eyes. They had always been dancing and full of fun, with a bit of an epicanthic fold over them, courtesy of his Korean mother, but in the glare of the arc lights, they looked tired and somber.
“Kimo,” he said, sticking out his hand. “You look good.”
I shook his. “You too, Mike.” The electricity of his touch raced through my body, and I wondered if he felt it, too. I struggled to stay professional when all I wanted to do was touch him, hold him-and maybe beat the crap out of him for betraying me. I cleared my throat. “My brother said there’s a body inside?”
He nodded. “In the back of the salon.”
I looked over at Tico, in sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. He was hugging Tatiana and crying, resting his head on her full, blonde hair. I was about to go over to them when my cell phone rang, and I saw from the display that it was Ray. “Hey, we caught a case,” he said.
I listened to the details and said, “Already on the scene, partner. You want to come up here?”
Ray shared a car with his wife, a graduate student in East Asian studies at UH, and I drove us wherever we had to go. But on nights, he was able to get around on his own, so I gave him directions, then slapped the phone shut. I told Mike that my partner and I had caught the case.
In the low light I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not. “Looks like we’ll be working together,” I said.
“Just like old times.” There was a flatness to his voice I couldn’t interpret.
We walked over to his truck, and just as we’d done the night we first began working together, we stepped behind it and pulled off our shirts, pants, and shoes, getting ready to don a pair of yellow fire suits. That first night, the air had nearly crackled with sexual tension, as I kept stealing glances at Mike’s body, and my dick rose up in appreciation of his finely chiseled abs, his biceps, and strong calves.
This time, though, the sexual tension that had been between us that first night was gone. There was a sadness in Mike that hadn’t been there before, and as I stepped into the pants, pulled them up by the waist, and then shrugged into the upper part of the suit, I kept remembering how we had broken up. I knew that I couldn’t trust my body’s reactions, because the last time I’d done so I’d gotten my heart broken.
The hood of my suit got tangled, and Mike had to help me fix it. I felt his hot breath on the back of my neck, the closeness of his body to mine. My traitorous dick jumped to attention and I had to force myself to ignore the way his hand passed over my back as he popped the hood into place.
Once dressed, we walked to the back of the salon, where we saw the charred remains of a body. Logic indicated it was the Chinese boy Tico had been sheltering in his back room, Jingtao, but it was going to be a pain to identify him, since there would be nothing to connect him to-no dental records, no fingerprints. We’d be lucky if his body type conformed to that of a pubescent boy of Asian origin.
Had the fire been set to kill him? Tico knew nothing about him, just a guess that he was on the run, that he had been abused. I regretted not forcing the issue the day before, when I had been in the salon. Perhaps if I’d called social services myself, had the boy taken away to a group home somewhere, the fire might not have happened, and he’d still be alive.
But that was getting ahead of myself. I looked at the burned-out ruin, finding it hard to believe that it had
