by the time we’d worn each other out and drifted to sleep.
I woke at first light, despite how late we’d gone to bed, and rolled over to kiss the top of Mike’s head. He yawned. “What time is it?”
“A little before six. I think we got about two hours of sleep.”
He stroked the edge of my hairline. “I wish we could stay here in bed all day.”
“Me, too. But it’s what, Thursday? We’ll have the weekend.” I stood up and stretched. His ex had arranged for us to stay at least two nights, if we needed to, and as I pulled my clothes back on I told Mike I’d call him during the day.
I would have liked the luxury of surfing for a while that morning, to clear my head, but I had to get downtown. I settled for a walk through Waikiki as the city was waking up-food trucks making deliveries, maids on their way to work, street cleaners hosing down Kalakaua.
Ray was still shaken by the events of the night before, but Julie had sat up with him for a while and then dosed him with a couple of sleeping pills, and he was ready to get Stan behind bars. I told him about the fire at Mike’s, and he whistled. “The guy’s a piece of work.” Then he looked at me. “You went back to the fireman’s house.”
“We may be getting back together.”
“May be? Or already did?”
“Already did.” I couldn’t help grinning. “A couple of times, actually.”
“High five,” Ray said, holding up his palm. I slapped it just as Lieutenant Sampson came out of his office and beckoned us.
“I hope these high spirits mean you’re making progress on this case,” he said. “I want to catch this guy, and I want to catch him fast. What have you got?”
We ran it down for him, from the planned meeting at the Rod and Reel Club, through Sergei getting shot, to the fire at Mike’s house. I admit, I made it sound to Sampson like Mike and I had just gone back there to talk through the case. I don’t know if he believed me, but he didn’t lecture me, and that was a good thing.
“We can’t say for sure that was Stan on the motorcycle, or that he was the one who set the fire at Mike Riccardi’s house,” I said. “But he’s our prime suspect at this point.”
“Why wasn’t one of you waiting at his office, to follow him to Waikiki?” Sampson asked. “I thought I authorized you to do that yesterday.”
I looked at Ray and we both shrugged. “We knew where he was going to be,” I said. “We were chasing down other leads.”
“If one of you’d picked him up at his office, or at his house, we’d have a case,” Sampson said. “But that’s water under the bridge. The question is how do we nail him?”
“We don’t have enough evidence for a search warrant?” Ray asked. “Not even with everything we’ve got?”
“And what do you have?” Sampson asked. “You have Sergei Baranov, a felon from Alaska who says this fine, upstanding citizen supplied him with illegal immigrants. But he has nothing in writing, and the only evidence he can give you is a couple of cancelled checks to this man’s business. How about the illegal workers at the landscaping company-did you get anything from them?”
I shook my head. “Nothing on Stan. A couple of them implicated Richard Hu in the immigrant smuggling, and Frank O’Connor’s moving forward on that.”
“You have any other leads?” Sampson asked. “Any at all?”
I remembered the way that Stan had threatened Gunter. “I’ve got a friend who works for Stan.” I explained Stan’s attempt to get Gunter into his blackmail ring. “I’ve been trying to keep him out of this, but I don’t see that we have any choice. With Sergei out of the picture, the only chance we have of nailing Stan is to use Gunter.”
“Talk to him,” Sampson said.
I knew Gunter was tough and could take care of himself, but after seeing Sergei get shot, I was worried. At ten, I drove over to Gunter’s, leaving Ray at the station going over a couple of witness statements that the uniformed officers had collected the night before. The clouds of the night before were back, puffy cumulus piles that dotted the sky. It was garbage day in Gunter’s neighborhood, and I had to nose the Wrangler between a couple of cans, careful not to bang up my new ride.
Gunter answered his door in a white silk thong, and nothing else. “Why’d you bother to put that on?” I asked. “It’s not like it covers anything up.”
“You never know who’s at the door,” Gunter said, stepping back as I walked in. “Sometimes it’s somebody you want to see.”
He closed the door and stalked across the living room to the kitchen, and I followed. He may have been a tall, skinny guy with an average dick, but you could bounce a quarter off that ass and get change back.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” he asked, sticking an oversized mug of water into the microwave.
“Can’t I just drop in to see my good friend?” I asked, as he spooned some loose tea into a cheesecloth bag.
“Not at this hour. You want something, don’t you?” He looked at me. “You want to pimp me out to Stan LoCicero. Christ.”
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
The microwave beeped and Gunter pulled the hot water out. He poured it into a clear glass teapot, dipped the tea bag in, and put the top on.
“What would you call it?” Gunter asked, turning to face me. I was glad to avoid the distraction of that perfect ass, but it wasn’t as though his dick was hidden by the pouch of white silk. “Helping the police with their inquiries?”
“Putting an asshole behind bars,” I said.
We watched the water in the glass teapot grow darker. Gunter opened the cabinet for two cups and a plastic honey dispenser in the shape of a bear.
I debated whether I should tell Gunter about Sergei’s aborted meeting with Stan. I knew it would make him more nervous, but he was my friend, and I owed him the truth. “We need your help.” I sketched out the details of Sergei’s involvement with Stan as Gunter poured the tea into the cups, squeezing honey into his and passing the bear to me.
“He shot the dude?” Gunter squeaked. “And you want me to meet with him?”
I drizzled some honey into my cup. “Yeah, but Stan had reason to be suspicious of Sergei. Sergei wanted something from him that Stan didn’t want to give up. But with you, it’s different.”
“Different gun? Or different bullets?”
“Different because Stan wants something from you. You call him up and say you’ve been thinking about his offer, and you could use some extra cash. It’s the holidays coming up, after all. Maybe you’ve been thinking about going back to Jersey for a white Christmas.”
“Like that’s going to happen,” Gunter said. We both sipped our tea. “Where will you be?”
“Wherever you need me.”
“I could tell him to come by the Kuhio Regent,” Gunter said, considering. “There’s a balcony overlooking the lobby. You could be up there.”
“We’d have you wired up.”
“Let me do this before I realize what a stupid idea it is.” Gunter picked up his cell phone and dialed. “Mr. LoCicero? It’s Gunter Franz. I’ve been thinking about your proposition.”
Gunter laughed. “Well, one of your propositions. I’ve got my eye on a Bulgari watch, and I’m not going to be able to buy it on a security guard’s paycheck. You think I could earn enough money working for you to put that little bauble on my wrist?”
He listened for a minute, then laughed again. “It’s big, but not that big,” he said. “Though I do have a selection of rings that fit it.”
I could see what they were talking about was turning Gunter on, and I averted my eyes from the silk thong, focusing on my tea.
“I’ll be at the Kuhio Regent from three to eleven,” Gunter said. “I’ll see you later, then.”
He hung up the phone. “There. I hope you’re happy. If you break up with the fireman again, I am so collecting
