That stumped me. Had I said something about Dr. Phil? I didn’t think so. “How’d you know that?”
There was silence on Mike’s end. Finally he said, “You went to Raimundo’s.”
I remembered back to my first date with Dr. Phil, the day I’d gotten my hair cut at Puerto Peinado and had my hair washed by Jingtao. “Yeah?”
“Raimundo remembered you from when we used to go there. I was in a couple of days later and he mentioned it to me.”
That was interesting. I had occasionally obsessed about Mike myself during the time we’d been apart, once seeing his truck parked on Kalakaua and scouring the area looking for him. “We have a new lead,” I said. I told him about going out to Mililani to see Lenny.
“You had sex with Lenny?” Mike asked. “Me, too.”
“Really? Were you on MenSayHi?”
“Yup. That’s how you met him?”
“You didn’t have sex with Richard Hu, did you?”
“Don’t recognize the name. He a friend of Lenny’s?”
“You could say that.”
“Lenny and I didn’t click,” Mike said.
“Lucky you. At least there wouldn’t be any pictures of you.”
“Pictures?”
I told him about the photos I’d found of my ass getting plowed by Lucas. “I’m online,” Mike said. “I’ll have to check it out.”
“It’s nothing you haven’t seen,” I said, but I heard his fingers clicking furiously in the background.
“Where is it? One of the photo sets?”
“You have a premium membership?”
“Come on, fess up. Like you said, it’s nothing I haven’t seen.”
“Set 34,” I said.
There was clicking on his end, and then a low whistle. “Man, that is hot,” he said. “I’m jealous.”
“Jealous why? Because Lucas’s dick is bigger than yours?”
“I’m jealous because you have a hot ass that ought to belong to me,” he said. “You know, last night, if your buddy Gunter hadn’t come over, I might have…”
“I know. I might have too.”
“Well. Where does that leave us?”
“You at your computer drooling over pictures of my ass. Me here remembering your dick.”
“Are you naked?”
“I could be.”
“So could I.”
I closed my eyes and remembered Mike’s body. His chest was hairy, his stomach flat. A trail of black hair led from the cleft of his chest down to his crotch. I’d already pulled off my shirt when I got home; as I was thinking of Mike I shucked my shorts and boxers.
“I’m naked now,” I said, my voice catching a little. “I’m thinking about your body. You are so fucking hot.”
“So are you. I’m stroking my nipple, and it’s getting hard.”
We went on, each of us spurring the other on to orgasm. Mike groaned and caught his breath, and I knew he’d come. That was enough to put me over the edge.
“Man,” he said, when he’d gotten his breath back. “Are we ever going to do this in person again?”
“We might. In the meantime, I’ll call my friend in the ER. I haven’t seen him in a while. He’s pretty hot.”
“You bastard. Can’t you just check the department computer and see if there’s a report of his assault?”
“Yeah, but I like the idea of you being jealous.”
THE FEDERAL CASE
After I hung up with Mike, I logged into the department intranet and found an assault record for Fouad Khan. It read just the way we had told him to tell the story.
Then I went to sleep, thinking of Mike and how it would be to have sex with him again-this time with actual physical contact.
Frank O’Connor from ICE called the next morning. He asked me to set up a meeting with my source as soon as possible. When I spoke to Haoa, he was eager to get things moving. “How soon can we do this?”
I went back and forth between him and Frank, and we ended up with a ten o’clock meeting at Frank’s office. Haoa said he would bring Sergei, even if he had to tie him up and throw him in the back of the truck. “Do we need an attorney?”
I asked Frank.
“I want to get a line on who’s bringing these people in,” he said. “I’m not interested in putting your brother behind bars. Or his brother-in-law, as long as he’s willing to cooperate.”
Ray and I researched the rest of the guys on Lenny’s list. We ended up with a nice selection of who’s who in Hawai’i. The UH dean, a couple of corporate executives, a few politicians, a professional athlete, and a competitive surfer. All of them had something to protect.
“The next step is to see if any of these guys have been blackmailed,” Ray said, when we were finished. “And if any of them are willing to swear out a complaint. What’s your gut feeling on that?”
I shrugged. “If I were on the list, I’d be reluctant to air my dirty laundry. I might just sit back and hope somebody else brings the blackmailer down.”
Ray looked at his watch. “Time to get moving,” he said. “You okay doing this with your brother? Because I’ll handle it if you want.”
“No, I promised Haoa I’d look out for him. I’ve got to go.”
A group of Hawaiian nationalists from the Kingdom of Hawai’i group were picketing outside the Prince Kuhio Kalaniana’ole Federal Building. Young Hawaiian men in red T-shirts carried our state flag on poles, the British Union Jack in the upper left corner, surrounded by red, white, and blue stripes. Women in muumuus carried signs that read Ku I Ka Pono: Justice for Hawaiians. Men from luas, or schools of Hawaiian martial arts, wore traditional kihei -tapa cloth cloaks tied in a knot-and carried staffs and other weapons. Kids carried portraits of King Kamehameha and Queen Lili’uokalani.
The demonstration was peaceful, but it took Ray and me extra time to get through the crowd and security. By the time we arrived at the ICE office, Haoa, Tatiana, and Sergei were sitting in plush seats in the reception area. Tatiana had tamed her wild blonde hair into a severe French braid, and she wore a severe gray business suit I was astonished to see that she owned. She somehow forced my brother into a navy blazer with the green UH logo on the left breast, along with a green tie with a repeating logo pattern.
Sergei, though, was wearing an aloha shirt, khakis, deck shoes, and a puka shell necklace. Just a casual outfit for an interview with the Feds. I wondered if Tatiana had dressed him, too-deliberately and subtly highlighting who was who in the situation. I wouldn’t be surprised. Despite her artsy attitude, Tatiana’s very savvy.
From their body language, I could tell that Haoa and Tatiana were angry, and Sergei scared. “I’m not going back to jail, am I, Kimo?” he asked me as I sat down across from him.
“This is not my operation. I’m looking out for Haoa and Tatiana.”
“But Kimo, we…you know.”
“Yes, Sergei. We had sex. It’s not a secret. That doesn’t mean I’m on your side in this.” I knew we had to have his cooperation, so though I was angry with him for putting my brother and sister-in-law in jeopardy, I had to soften my approach. “But if you cooperate, you can walk out of this.”
As Frank led us into a conference room with an oblong wooden table and comfy chairs all around it, I made the introductions. “Why don’t we start with you, Mr. Baranov,” Frank said to Sergei. “What’s been happening at Kanapa’aka Landscaping?”
“I landed here in Hawai’i about two months ago,” he said. “I was kind of a fuckup in Alaska and I was trying
