Mr. Hu got stuck behind a bus, and we all had to drop back to avoid passing him. It looked like somebody had run into the bus shelter, knocking it into a coconut palm next to it. A few blocks on, the street was torn up for new crosswalks.
When Mr. Hu got onto the H1 he turned toward Diamond Head. “I know where we’re going,” I said into the radio. “Black Point.” I gave the other two cars the address and directions to the house where I’d met with Mr. Hu. “I’m going ahead.”
I moved into the passing lane, sped up, and zoomed past the Mercedes. It started to rain lightly and I turned on my wipers and my headlights, but by the time I got off the highway I’d passed through the shower.
When I reached the house, I radioed Steve and Ray. The three cars were bunched together down on Kahala Avenue, just about to enter Black Point. I parked uphill and jogged down to the mansion. The gates were locked, but I climbed a kiawe tree at one corner and jumped over the fence, landing hard on my right ankle.
I hobbled to the back of the house, where a cabana the size of a small bathroom sat just beyond the pool. It was unlocked and as empty as the rest of the yard, just a couple of broken-down old lawn chairs in one corner. It smelled like mold and chlorine. I saw light through a crack in the weathered old boards and lay down on the concrete floor, positioning myself so I could see out through the crack. I put the earpiece back in my ear, hoping that Gunter would still be transmitting.
“They’re approaching the gate,” Ray said on the radio. “Steve’s gone ahead. I’m parked just down the hill.”
I heard the gates opening, though they did not close again. Suddenly, I heard Mr. Hu’s voice in my ear. “We will have a conversation,” he said. “And depending on the results of that conversation, you may go free. Or not.”
Good. That meant that they hadn’t discovered Gunter was wired up.
“I already told you.” The new voice had to be Treasure’s. “I didn’t tell the police anything.”
Car doors opened and slammed. “They’re here,” I said to Ray and Steve on the radio. “Gunter’s still transmitting. Sounds like they’re going inside.”
The front door opened into a wide foyer and the living room, with big sliding glass doors on the far side leading to the pool and lanai. I remembered the room well. Two sofas with oatmeal-colored slipcovers sat at right angles, with a black lacquer coffee table between them. High-hat lights in the ceiling lit the room, and a big-screen TV was mounted on one wall. To the right was the dining room and kitchen, and a door to the garage.
The bedrooms were to the left. There were three, though most of the action took place in the master bedroom, which had sliding doors out to the lanai. The other two bedrooms were smaller and faced the street.
“Wait here,” I heard Mr. Hu say.
Two sets of footsteps faded away, Mr. Hu’s dress shoes and Treasure’s heels on the marble floor. Then I heard a fist hitting flesh.
“Ow!” Gunter said. “What the hell was that for?”
“You set me up, you little bastard,” Stan said. “Isn’t that what the girl was saying? You told your buddy Kimo about our deal. Somehow he managed to connect me to Richard’s operation.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gunter said. “I haven’t talked to Kimo in a couple of days, like I told you. And I wouldn’t tell him about this deal. He’s a cop, remember? He’d turn me in. And I wouldn’t get any money.”
“We’ll see if you change your tune when Richard hooks you up,” Stan said.
The second bedroom was the dungeon. The walls were painted black, the curtains nailed to the wall so no light came in. I’d only been in there once, but the experience had both frightened and excited me. All the toys there were designed to enhance sexual pleasure, but I was sure that Richard Hu had no compunctions about using them to cause pain instead.
I didn’t know what they had all talked about in the car, but I hadn’t heard anything on tape that was incriminating enough to bring either Stan or Richard up on charges. As much as I wanted to swoop in and rescue Gunter and Treasure, I had to hold out a little longer.
“What’s going on?” Ray said through the radio. “Can you hear anything?”
“Nothing yet. Mr. Hu took Treasure away somewhere.”
“SWAT team should be in position within ten, fifteen minutes,” Ray said.
I heard the sounds of footsteps returning-just one set, this time. “The girl’s in the third bedroom,” Mr. Hu said. “We can take your friend here into the playroom and see what he has to say.”
“I don’t appreciate being dragged around like this,” Gunter protested. “I thought we were going to make a deal, Stan. What’s going on?”
“You made a deal already,” Stan said. “With your buddy Kimo. Now you’re going to tell Richard and me exactly what that involved.”
Footsteps. A door opened. There was some scuffling. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Stan said.
I wondered what they were going to do to Gunter to get him to talk. Would they take his clothes off and discover the wire? “Handcuffs,” Gunter said. “Kinky.” I heard some rustling and snapping, and then he said, “Hey, those leg restraints are too far apart. That hurts.”
“Good,” Stan said.
“I’ll deal with this,” Richard said. “You go prepare the house.”
“The stuff’s still in the garage?”
“I haven’t touched it.”
Footsteps faded away, and then a door closed. “Stan’s on his way to the garage,” I said into the radio. “Is somebody in position to see what he’s up to?”
“I’ve got a visual,” Steve said. “The door’s opening from the inside.” There was a pause, and then he said, “Jesus Christ.”
“What’s up?”
“The guy’s got enough gasoline stocked there to burn down the Aloha Tower. He’s picking up one can. From the way he’s carrying it, it must be full. Walking around the back.”
Through the crack in the cabana wall, I saw Stan come around the corner and lay a can of gasoline on the ground. He pulled a cigar from his front shirt pocket, put it in his mouth, and lit it. He puffed for a minute, then blew out a smoke ring. Once the cigar was burning to his satisfaction, he picked up the can and began pouring gasoline at the base of the house. “He’s going to burn it,” I said.
“Your friend has ruined a very lucrative business,” Richard Hu said in my ear. “My cousin in Gansu recruited good-looking men and women and got them tourist visas. I put them to work and made a lot of money.”
“The kind of work Stan wanted me to do?” Gunter asked.
“Catering to sexual desire is the oldest profession, you know,” Richard said.
Gunter yelped. “That hurts.”
“Good. We’ll be walking that fine line between pleasure and pain, though I’m afraid things will lean more toward the painful.”
Where was the SWAT team? Did we have enough yet to charge Richard? He’d admitted bringing in the aliens and putting them to work as prostitutes.
“Those guys Stan brought into the Regent, are they hustlers who didn’t work out?” Gunter asked. Despite his earlier wimpiness, Gunter was showing himself as a trouper, keeping an eye on what he could get on tape.
“Some of them,” Richard said. “Chinese women are much better at performing sexual services for pay than Chinese men. But there is always a demand for young-looking Chinese boys. I worked them until their asses were too sore to continue and then turned them over to Stan. He found them jobs in security, maintenance, yard work.”
That was enough to get a search warrant. But we couldn’t go into the house until the SWAT team arrived. Where the hell were they?
“Any word on the team?” I asked through the radio. “I can see Stan, and he’s getting the house ready for a burn. I’m not sure how much longer we can wait.”
“The team’s stuck in traffic,” Steve said. “There’s a pileup on the H1, and they were right behind it.”
“So we’re on our own,” I said.
