from you.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless the fireman is into threesomes?”
“I’ll ask him. Tell me the details.”
“Stan’s coming by the Regent later today. He wants to set up a meeting with that guy he told me about.”
I drained the last of my tea. “Then I’d better get moving. Can you come by the station before your shift? Say, two o’clock? We’ll get you wired up.” I looked at him. The excitement of talking to Stan had worn off, and it only looked like he had a coiled snake inside the thong instead of a toilet plunger. “But you’re going to have to wear something more than that to cover up the wire.”
“Don’t make me regret this.” Gunter poured a third cup of tea and squeezed some honey into it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a guest in my bedroom I have to say good-bye to.”
RENDEZVOUS AT THE REGENT
On my way back to the station I swung by the hospital to check on Sergei. Tatiana was at his bedside, sketching him. I kissed her first, then him. “How’s the patient this morning?”
Sergei smiled weakly. “The doctors say I’ll survive.”
Tatiana laughed. “He’s a big drama queen. He’s fine. They’re letting him out this afternoon.”
I sat on the edge of Sergei’s bed. “You catch that bastard Stan?” he asked.
“Not yet. We don’t have anything to tie him to the shooting other than circumstance.”
Sergei sat up, his body language changing immediately. “Who else on this island has a Night Rod?”
“What do you mean?”
As if he was talking to a child, Sergei said, “I recognized the bike. Stan has a Harley special edition, the Night Rod. I’ll bet there aren’t that many in Honolulu.”
I took out a pad and started making notes. “You know motorcycles?”
“I worked at a bike shop in Anchorage for a while.”
“Until the boss caught him screwing one of the customers,” Tatiana said. “How long did you last there? Six months?”
“This is good, Sergei. I’ll get somebody to check the registrations.”
“See?” he said to Tatiana. “I’m not a total screwup. Please don’t make me go back to Alaska.”
“I’ll leave you guys to work things out,” I said. I kissed them both again and took my notes back to the station, where I called the Harley dealership and asked about the Night Rod. As Sergei had said, it was a special edition, and the guy only knew of four on the island. One of them was Stan’s.
I added that to our growing list of information. By then, it was two o’clock, and Gunter showed up to be wired with a recorder and transmitter that would reach up to the balcony. Of course, Gunter flirted with the technician as he snaked the wire down my friend’s shirt, and to my surprise the guy flirted back. Maybe he was yet another undercover homosexual at the Honolulu Police Department. Or maybe straight guys were just a lot more comfortable these days.
Steve Hart and his partner, a Chinese-Hawaiian guy named Lee Kawika, left the station to set up surveillance on Stan at the Mahalo Manpower office. I drove Gunter over to the Kuhio Regent and Ray followed me in his Highlander. Parking is always a nightmare in Waikiki, but I snagged a metered spot around the corner from the building, and Ray pulled into a handicapped space across from me. We both left our police decals on the dashboard.
Gunter led us in through a back door and up to the balcony which overlooked the lobby. We tested the audio, then settled down with some sandwiches and bottled water, because it looked like it might be a long wait until Stan showed up.
It was interesting to watch Gunter work-for about the first hour. He checked in visitors, accepted deliveries, and flirted with every guy who passed his desk, including the elderly Chinese man who brought the dry cleaning, the FedEx guy, the letter carrier, and the hunky UPS guy, who filled out his brown shirt and shorts in a way that was almost pornographic. I’d have flirted with him, too, if I’d been single.
Around four-thirty Steve Hart called to let us know that Stan was on the move, and about a half-hour later he showed up in the lobby. He was wearing his faux-cop outfit again, the tight white shirt with epaulets and form- fitting black slacks.
Ray and I listened in as he walked up to Gunter. “Haven’t seen your friend Kimo lately,” Stan said.
He was a couple of inches shorter than Gunter, but they were too far away for us to read Gunter’s expression. “Not for a couple of days,” Gunter said. He shifted from foot to foot.
“You and he ever fool around?”
Gunter shrugged. “A few times.”
“Pretty sexy guy. You should see him on tape. He’s got some interesting tastes. Likes a big dick pounding up his ass.” He smiled. “But then, who doesn’t?”
I was imagining Lieutenant Sampson listening to the tape when the front doors slid open and Mr. Hu walked in, holding Treasure Chen close to him in a way that implied he had a gun on her.
“Just got more interesting, huh?” Ray said to me in an undertone.
Stan looked surprised to see Mr. Hu. Because they stepped away from Gunter, I couldn’t hear what they said, but it looked like an argument.
“Shit,” I said to Ray. “What the hell is Mr. Hu doing here? How did he get hold of Treasure?”
“I talked to Treasure yesterday,” Ray said. “She was antsy, wanted to get out of Norma’s apartment. I tried to reassure her, told her a bunch of stuff about what we’ve been working on. I’m sorry, Kimo. She must have gone to Mr. Hu.”
My mind raced ahead. What if Treasure had attempted to use whatever Ray told her about our investigation to leverage her position with Mr. Hu? That would explain why Mr. Hu had come looking for Stan. Did he know that Gunter was my friend? Would he suspect that Gunter was wired up?
Stan walked back over to Gunter. “You’re coming with us,” he said. He nodded toward Mr. Hu.
“I can’t leave the desk,” Gunter said. “Any of the residents find out, they’ll complain to the manager. I’ll get fired, even if I say I was with you.”
“Getting fired is the least of your problems,” Stan said.
Grabbing Gunter by the arm, Stan half-dragged him toward the front door, Mr. Hu and Treasure following. “Do we stop them?” Ray asked.
“We don’t have anything yet.” I was torn between my desire to protect Gunter and Treasure and the need to get something on the two guys that would stick. Ray looked to me as the front door slid open and the four of them walked out.
“We follow them,” I said.
THE HOUSE IN BLACK POINT
Ray and I dashed for the staircase to the first floor. I radioed Steve Hart; he was parked in the loading zone in the front of the building. He told me that Stan, Mr. Hu, Treasure, and Gunter were getting into a Mercedes in the semicircular drive in front of the Regent. “Chinese guy driving, Chinese girl in the front seat,” he said. “The other two in the back seat.”
“Follow them,” I said. “We’ll be behind you.”
Ray and I both caught up to Steve a few blocks away from the Regent. We slid into a pattern, no one car tailing the subject too closely, trading off. We were out of transmitter range so I couldn’t tell what was going on in the car, or if Stan or Mr. Hu had figured out Gunter was wired up and disconnected him.
The streets of Waikiki were jammed. A teacher led a group of tiny keikis, all wearing name badges and holding hands, across the street in front of the Royal Hawaiian, and a man dressed like King Kamehameha, in a yellow headdress and an imitation kihei cloak, handed out coupons for Hawaiian Heritage jewelry.
