The King and I. Strutting around with your hands on your hips, only difference is he wore silk knickers, you’re letting your pecker hang out, but either way, I keep waiting for you to sing ‘Shall We Dance?’”
Lassiter laughed again, a wild laugh, and Keaka studied him silently. Lassiter looked him square in the eyes. “What’s the matter, King Cantaloupe, do you find this a puzzlement?”
And then Jake Lassiter began singing. And dancing. Hands on hips, feet splayed east and west, he pranced around the clearing and belted it out, an old show tune filling the jungle half an octave off-key, Lassiter describing the King’s “confusion in conclusions he concluded long ago.”
“What about it, Keaka?” he asked when he was done warbling. “Will you fight to prove what you do not know is so?”
Keaka self-consciously took his hands off his hips. It was working, Lassiter thought, a distraction from what Keaka wanted, which was for him to grovel and beg for his life. Forget it, Lassiter thought, he would die first. Then a rueful smile. Yes, that’s exactly what he would do. But for now he was onstage in the clearing, a space about the size of the area between the bench and the bar. He had performed there before for judges and juries. Now Keaka was the court of last resort, and Lassiter was acting for his life.
Lila knew what was happening, was laughing and applauding. Lee Hu looked confused, and Keaka was sullen.
Lassiter kept up the patter. “What’s the matter, Keaka, don’t you like Rodgers and Hammerstein? Too bad, they’re my favorites. When I was in college, I played Jud Fry in Oklahoma! Hey, you’d be good in that role, it’s the villain, but I guess you’re not into Americana. Wish I could remember the last verse of the king of Siam’s song, maybe you could join in, something about doing his best to live just one more day.”
“Shut up, haole!” Keaka barked. For the first time his eyes betrayed doubt, fear that he was the butt of some joke.
“No, I’m going to keep talking. And you can shoot me if you like. If that’s what great warriors do — strike down shivering, unarmed men. Will that impress your wahines?”
Keaka crossed his arms in front of his chest to make the biceps stand out and said, “You deserve to die. You miserable haoles stole our land and diseased our women and — “
“Don’t look at me,” Lassiter said with a shrug, interrupting the diatribe. “I don’t even own a condo and my urologist will testify I’ve never had crotch rot.”
Keaka raised his voice. “You made kala, money, your god. You are descended from pigs and goats — “
“There you go again,” Lassiter said, “insulting my ancestry. Reminds me of a trash-talking tackle from the Jets. Yo momma this, yo momma that.”
Lila Summers was laughing again, signaling Lassiter that this was the right approach: show no fear, mock the king. Lassiter wondered how long he could keep this up, when would Keaka end it with a short burst from the Uzi?
“Whadaya going to do, Keaka, kill me? I can see the headline, JUNGLE MUSICAL CLOSES; ENRAGED CRITIC KILLS STAR.”
“ Haole, you think you are so funny.” Keaka’s eyes were black slits. “Do you want to die laughing?”
“Sure, laughing or screwing,” Lassiter said, and Lila roared. “A dying man gets one last wish and Lila knows what mine would be. You don’t have any red satin sheets in your tepee there, do you, chief?” It was going so well Lassiter planned to come back in another life as a stand-up comic.
Keaka scowled. “Lila, you like the haole ‘s jokes, maybe you’d like to die with him.”
“If that’s what you want, it’s your gun,” Lila Summers said without a trace of fear.
Turning to Lee Hu, Keaka said, “The slut is only half a woman. She has no soul, so she cannot reach climax. Li’a, Goddess of Desire, hah. She is without desire. She is dead inside.”
“Hey, pal,” Lassiter heard himself saying, “if you can’t cut it in the sack, don’t blame her. When we played hide the sausage in Bimini, I had her lit up like a slot machine hitting jackpot. The birds fell from the trees and the fishes leapt from the sea. I’ll tell you, Keaka old buddy, when that woman comes, she registers a ten on the Richter scale, shock waves all the way to Pasadena.”
Lassiter was running out of tales, but he didn’t want to stop. Somehow, he thought that Keaka wouldn’t shoot a babbling man. “I’m not one to kiss and tell, but that’s the way it is. And from what I hear, you’re just a little quick on the trigger. Slow down. You’ll enjoy the scenery more.”
Lila picked up the cue. “Keaka always thought it was my fault that he couldn’t satisfy me. Jake, you’re the most exquisite lover a woman could ever want. In Bimini, I thought I would die from the pleasure. What do the French call it… petit mal, the little death.”
“Liars!” Keaka fumed, but his voice exposed doubt, and his manhood dropped a bit. Lassiter decided against making a crack about that. It was a fine line he was walking — one insult too many or too deep and the Hawaiian’s confusion could turn to rage. But it was working, Keaka’s mind occupied, thinking of the shame of the haole unlocking the mystery of his wahine, while his warrior’s body betrayed him.
Jake Lassiter used the time to size up the situation. As long as Keaka had the gun, there would be no chance. Even unarmed, Keaka would be the odds-on favorite to retain his title as king of the jungle. When’s the last time he had even hit anybody, Lassiter tried to remember, figuring the grief-stricken sergeant in a carpeted conference room didn’t count. Then there was the bearded guy in the bar, big guy with a big mouth. Should have figured he was a cop, needed a friendly judge to quash the assault charge. And how many years since he had hit a blocking sled? Latest physical contact was shoving around a paunchy bank lawyer, not worth any points here. Still, hand-to-hand was his only chance.
“C’mon, Keaka. Drop the gun. You’re a tough guy. Show the ladies how tough, just you and me, mano a mano, like in the swamp in Miami.”
Keaka looked puzzled. “The swamp?”
“He was my friend. Berto.”
A look of confusion gave way to recognition. Keaka smiled a cruel grin. “The Cuban in the swamp.”
“That’s right, tough guy. Why don’t you try to strangle me like you did him?”
Keaka lowered the gun barrel to think about it. Finally he laughed and said, “You haoles haven’t gotten any smarter in two centuries.”
Lassiter didn’t know what that meant, but no matter because he was busy measuring distances. Keaka stood fifteen feet in front of him. Lila had moved, a step at a time, closer to Keaka, almost in the line of fire. What was she doing? Did she think he wouldn’t shoot her? Was she trying to give Jake a chance to make a break into the jungle? Keaka still held the Uzi lightly by the clip, the shoulder strap carrying most of the weight. Lassiter wondered how long it would take — what millisecond of time — for the great athlete to turn the barrel toward him and squeeze off a rapid burst. And how long would Lassiter need to take two steps forward and dive at Keaka, knocking him into the fire? Too long. Keaka would catch him in midleap with a fusillade through the chest.
Lassiter saw it then. How could he have missed it? Six feet away from Keaka was a machete jammed into the exposed stump of a banana tree, handle angled up, blade glowing orange in the light from the fire. He could dive for it, the stump would give some protection. If only Lila would take one more step toward Keaka, he could leap behind her, two pass receivers on a crossing pattern. Okay, then what? Hit the ground and roll, yank it free from the stump — young Arthur about to be king — then come up swinging.
Keaka glared at him. “Are you ready to die, haole?”
“Not till I answer the pressing questions of our time. In the song Moon River, who the hell is ‘my huckleberry friend?’”
Can I do it? Is he too quick for me?
“And if a train leaves Chicago heading west at eighty miles an hour, and another leaves Los Angeles heading east at ninety miles an hour, which one gets to Omaha first, and why not stop in Kansas City, instead?”
“Are you through?” Keaka asked.
“No, I’d like to consider the question of how the iguana evolved over several million years on the Galapagos Islands when the islands themselves are only two million years old.”
No choice in the matter. Die either way, at least there’s a chance if…
“I am going to kill you now,” Keaka said, calmly.
“Some geologists think there are older islands that disappeared into the sea, and the animals drifted to the Galapagos on rafts of driftwood and seaweed…”
Waiting for the moment, a diversion.
