“Thank you so much.” Fouad pulled up his briefs and his pants, and then embraced first me, and then Mike. “You are good men.”
Since I’d just encouraged the victim of a crime to lie to the police, I wasn’t that good, but it was the best solution to a bad problem. Mike and I followed him outside and watched him drive away.
“You think he’s going to do it?” Mike asked.
“I don’t see that he has any other choice. Otherwise his wife’s going to have some very serious questions.” I paused. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I think his assault might tie into our investigation.”
The streetlamp lit Mike’s face, and I was reminded of how handsome he was and how much history there was between us. There was no hiding the fact that I was falling for him all over again. “Come on, Romeo,” I said, refraining from taking his hand, “let’s go back inside, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
PROPOSITIONING GUNTER
“How does his assault tie into our case?” Mike asked, as we climbed the stairs to my apartment.
“He’s been around the edges for a while-he’s the one who called 911 about the fire at the shopping center. He was having sex that night in an office across the street, the office of the Wah Shing Corporation, which is also the parent company for the acupuncture clinic. Plus Wah Shing owns the condo where he was attacked-the one where Ray and I found Treasure Chen hiding out. That means the guy who assaulted Fouad is tied to the prostitution, and maybe the arsons.”
“But you said your guy was Chinese, didn’t you? The guy who burned Fouad was Caucasian.”
The doorbell rang. Mike looked at me. “You think that’s Fouad again? Or are you expecting someone else?”
“Only way to tell is to open the door.”
It was Gunter. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t realize you had company.”
Mike and Gunter looked at each other, and I remembered that neither of them liked the other. Gunter was angry on my behalf about the way Mike had treated me. As for Mike, Gunter was the kind of gay man who made him uncomfortable-flamboyant, aggressive in his sexuality.
“I can come back,” Gunter said.
“No, stay,” Mike said. “I was just leaving.”
Mike gave me a hug and quick kiss on the cheek. “Call me tomorrow,” he said. “Nice to see you, Gunter.”
“You too.” When Mike was out of the apartment, Gunter turned to me. “You’re not getting back together with him, are you? Because you know that is a recipe for disaster.”
“Things are complicated. We’re working together on a case. And I needed his help with something tonight.”
“I could have helped you with that,” Gunter said.
“We did not have sex. A guy showed up here with burns and Mike brought over some burn cream.”
“Right.”
“It’s true.” I told him about Fouad.
Gunter shivered. “Kinky.”
“You didn’t come over to harass me about my love life. What’s up?”
“I may be out of a job. That is, unless I do what Stan wants.” He sat down in my easy chair and I sat across from him on the couch.
“What does Stan want?”
“He wants me to fuck around.”
“And you’re opposed to that?”
“I don’t fuck for money. And I’m sure as hell not going to get caught on camera fucking somebody so Stan can blackmail him.”
“Whoa! Where did that come from?” Immediately I thought of the blackmail attempt on Brian Izumigawa, and the haole who had pictures of himself having sex with Fouad Khan. How many gay blackmailers were out there?
“You know Stan’s company took over the contract at the Kuhio Regent?”
I nodded.
“Well, he started replacing all the employees with his own people. Half of the maintenance guys don’t speak English. I’ll bet they don’t have green cards either.”
“How does that connect to Stan wanting to pimp you?”
“He pretty much told me that if I didn’t, he’d replace me.”
I got us a pair of beers from my refrigerator. I was working my way through a six-pack of Big Wave Golden Ales. “How did this happen?” I asked. “Over drinks at the Rod and Reel Club? In his office?”
“He’s been hinting around for a while,” Gunter said. “You know, talking to me about sex, flattering me, asking me if I liked to be photographed, that sort of thing. And at the same time he’s been asking me all these questions about the people who live at the Regent.”
“Any good targets there?”
He shook his head. “You know I have excellent gaydar. The only gay men in that building are a couple on the twenty-third floor, and a few younger guys who aren’t rich enough for blackmail.” He moved to the floor, leaning back against the chair.
“Today, he asked me to meet him at his office before my shift.” He took a swig from his beer. “I was worried he was going to fire me, like the rest of the staff. But instead he said he had a proposition for me.”
“Not the kind of proposition you usually get.”
“All the way there, I was psyching myself up,” he said. “I mean, thinking about where else I could work. I know a couple of guys at buildings, but what I’ve got at the Regent is sweet. The residents all know me, I have a great shift, I can walk to work from my house.”
“What did he say?”
“He started out with all this bullshit, how happy he was with the job I was doing, how he only heard great things about me. But things were different with his organization, he said. He expected more from his employees.”
He twisted around so he was looking at me. “He told me that he knew I wasn’t making a lot of money, and he had a way I could have some fun and make some extra cash at the same time.” He frowned. “I told him I was getting along fine on my salary, but he insisted.”
I’d never seen Gunter looking so vulnerable, not even when he’d been hospitalized with burns after the Marriage Project fire. “I can quit, I suppose. Or I can wait for him to fire me, and then collect unemployment. But it sucks that he can just do this.”
“Did he say he had a particular client in mind for you?”
He nodded. “This Japanese businessman. He likes tall, blond guys, and Stan said he’d go crazy for me. That he had a place I could take the guy, this nice apartment, and that he would show me where the cameras were in advance, so I could make sure the guy’s face would be photographed.”
“Did you ever hear Stan mention a guy named Mr. Hu?”
“Mr. Who?”
“Hu. H-U. A Chinese man. He’s blackmailing that guy you met at the park. I wonder if Stan is connected to him.”
“He hasn’t given me any names,” he said.
“But I can’t imagine there are two separate gay blackmail operations going on at the same time. Stan has got to be connected to Mr. Hu somehow. I’m trying to crack this other case, and you can help.”
“Me?” Gunter said, and his voice almost squeaked.
I looked at him. Gunter is tall, and though he’s skinny, he’s quite muscular. I’ve never seen him be afraid of anything-not even a couple of drunk frat boys who were calling guys names outside the Rod and Reel Club one night.
