discuss the meeting there over drinks.” The voice still even, smooth, but a nice lilt on the word “drinks,” a bit of interest there.
Why not? Safe place, young babe in a hotel bar, maybe hot to trot. What was it Violet was talking about, the old man saying something about his lawyer falling for the Hawaiian’s girlfriend, she was a real number. Okay, gonna meet her, maybe one of those nymphos. But how about this chicken-shit bastard sending his squeeze to do the dirty work. I’d never do that to Violet.
Only a few customers at the bar, some watching the fish swim under the bridge, a few couples talking at tables, one guy at the end of the bar staring into a drink.
“Mr. Marlin.” A woman’s voice, sweet and soft.
Harry turned around. Okay. All right. The Hawaiian had good taste in cooze. Harry gave her a grin that countless women had found resistible. “Yeah, that’s me.”
In a dainty sweeping motion, the young woman extended her right arm and shook Harry’s hand with a grip that couldn’t break an egg. “So pleased to meet you,” she said.
“You got a name, honey?”
“Lee Hu,” said the petite woman with a shy smile. “My friends call me Little Lee.”
Harry Marlin didn’t notice the man at the end of the bar watching them, didn’t notice anything but Little Lee’s big dark eyes and compact body. He ordered drinks, Perrier for Lee Hu, a Blue Hawaii — pineapple juice, vodka, and blue Curasao — for himself.
“Okolemaluna,” she said, hoisting her Perrier.
“Huh?”
“ Okole, that’s butt or bottom. Luna, that’s moon. So, bottoms to the moon, or bottoms up.”
“Gotcha,” he said, sipping at the straw, it being hard to toss down a drink served in a hollowed-out pineapple. Wouldn’t mind seeing her old-koley, Harry thought, a tight little bottom on this one.
They talked. Yes, Keaka had the coupons, had stashed them on the slopes of Haleakala, the extinct volcano. She would meet Harry in the morning, take him there. Keaka had a new proposition, she said, a fifty-fifty split.
Harry used the miniature umbrella to stir a second Blue Hawaii — not much vodka there — and said he would sleep on it. Shit, he would grab it, grab half the coupons and get the hell out of there. Then he asked her if she’d like to have a nightcap in his room. A polite no-thank-you. Okay, can’t blame a guy for trying, can’t get a hit if you don’t swing the bat. She’d pick him up at seven a.m. Better get some sleep. Maybe the digestive tract would be working in the morning, Harry hoped as he headed to his room.
A Hawaiian man, early forties, in khaki slacks and an aloha shirt, moved from the end of the bar where he had been nursing a drink and slid next to Lee Hu. “What do you think?” he asked.
“It should be easy. He’s a fool, he makes eyes at me like I’m a pushover, spends six-fifty for a drink that looks like toilet bowl cleaner. He has no sense of who he is, his limitations, or where he is, the dangers.”
The man smiled and squeezed her arm affectionately. “Good work, Little Lee. It’s no wonder Keaka likes you so much. You catch on quick.”
“Compared to bringing a load in from Colombia through Coast Guard and Navy reconnaissance, this is child’s play.”
“We’ll see you in the morning then.”
He started to get up, but she touched his arm lightly and said, “Tell Keaka not to get careless. There was a bulge in the sports coat, a gun I suppose.”
“I saw it halfway across the lobby. Don’t worry.”
“Mikala, you’ll take care of Keaka for me?”
The man nodded. “He takes care of himself pretty well. And he’s my flesh and blood. Anybody touches a hair of his head, I blow the guy away.”
Paul Levine
Riptide
CHAPTER 24
First-class on United, L.A. to Maui nonstop. To Tubby Tubberville, it was like dying and going to heaven. “You mean I can have all the little bottles I want?” he asked the flight attendant. “Just line up the Jack Daniel’s like so many tenpins and see them fall down.”
Jake Lassiter watched the bulk in seat 3A with concern. “Easy, Tub, we’ve got work to do when we get there.”
“Sure, bro, you’re looking for the dame what left you and I’m making sure nobody sticks a shiv in your back. A little angel tit to warm the throat ain’t gonna hurt none.”
“You’re not forgetting the coupons, are you?”
“The bonds and the blonde, I remember.” He yelled at the flight attendant. “Hey, sweetie, there a movie on this wagon?”
They were halfway across the Pacific and Jake Lassiter was trying to figure out where to start. He could have gone to the police in Miami, of course, and with his testimony could have gotten an arrest warrant, but for whom? For Lila. The only evidence of criminal conduct was the bond coupon on the floor of the cottage. He could have Lila arrested but not Keaka, and what he wanted was the opposite. He needed to trap Keaka, to find him with the goods, to get Lila’s help and win her freedom in return for her testimony.
It had better work, because there wouldn’t be a lot waiting for him at home. The executive committee at Harman amp; Fox had suspended him pending an inquiry of the charges brought by Thad Whitney, who was claiming a severe case of whiplash, not to mention mental anguish.
“This flight ain’t half bad, eh, bro?” Tubby said happily.
“Glad you’re enjoying it. It’s lasting longer than most of my relationships.” Lassiter put his head back and tried to sleep but could not, visions of Lila streaking across his mind. Lila laughing at him, waving handfuls of colorful coupons, tossing them like confetti, the dark warrior Keaka watching with evil amusement.
At the airport in Kahului, they rented a Pontiac Grand Am and drove to Makawao, a rural town upcountry on the lower slopes of Haleakala. It was only a few miles from where Lila grew up, and from the mountain, you could see the windsurfing beaches on the north shore. Because Lila loved the up-country, Lassiter believed she might be there. If not, it was a good place to start looking. What was it Keaka had said? The mountains and valleys talk, or something like that. Lassiter was ready to listen.
“Somehow, Tubby, I pictured you as a faster driver,” Lassiter said as they crept up the mountain in the rental car.
“Yeah, well ain’t in no hurry. Cindy complains too, says I drive too slow and screw too fast. Used to do ‘em both at the same time with biker chicks, but that was before Cindy. Settled down now. Cindy’s talking about marriage when she’s not telling me what to do — lose weight, get a real job, sell the Harley, buy a condo.”
Lassiter laughed and did his best to carry a tune, “She’ll redecorate your home, from the cellar to the dome, then go on to the enthralling fun of overhauling you.’”
“Huh?”
“ Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady.”
“Ain’t none of ‘em fair,” Tubby Tubberville said.
They were upcountry now, the temperature a few degrees cooler. The sugarcane and pineapple fields yielded to pastures with horses standing vigil, cattle grazing, and hibiscus growing wild. They registered at the Makawao Inn and headed down to Paia. He knew from the windsurfing magazines that Keaka and Lila lived in the little town near the Sprecklesville Beach. He doubted they would be there. On the main street and in the shops, they asked
