joke, or as close to a joke as Keaka ever came.”
“So where are the coupons?”
“Putting two and two together, probably buried on top of the Iao Needle about twelve hundred feet above the floor of the valley.”
“How’d he get up there?”
“The top of the Needle isn’t really sharp. It’s sort of a nob, just like…”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Keaka would have climbed to the top.”
Lila’s cheeks were flushed and strands of her hair were slick with sweat. She seemed animated, alive with excitement. Maybe the killing breathed life into her, Lassiter thought. The thought hung heavily on him. Two deaths by their hands. Okay, with Keaka, it was us or him. But Lomio? Lassiter told himself Lila did it to avenge Tubby. But she didn’t even know Tubby, so maybe she did it for good old Jake Lassiter. But she did it, he now believed, for the thrill. Maybe the money, too. And that was eating at him. The bonds belonged to Sam Kazdoy. Bring them back and half belong to Jake Lassiter. Lila Summers hadn’t said anything about bringing them back. They hadn’t talked about it. They hadn’t talked about much; they just did things, and every time they did something there seemed to be a body on the ground.
Holding the microphone loosely as he’d seen Neil Diamond do in Vegas, Guy Ryder led fifty tourists from the pavilion to the imu under the pink Tecoma trees. This was a shitty job, worse than being a disc jockey in Quad City, Illinois, but after you skip town eight months behind on the alimony, you have to feel lucky to be the assistant entertainment director at a second-rate hotel on Maui.
“This is Hawaii’s most authentic luau, an experience you won’t forget,” Guy Ryder was saying in his booming voice. “Get those cameras ready. But first let me say mahalo, a big Hawaiian ‘thank-you’ to these great guys who did the cooking. In ancient Hawaii, the men cooked and the women did the serving, and it’s the same here. Not like the mainland. Know what my ex-wife made for dinner? Reservations.”
The tourists tittered and gathered around as three local teenagers wearing made-in-Taiwan loincloths pulled off the leaves.
“When Captain Cook discovered Hawaii,” Guy Ryder intoned, “he didn’t call room service. No siree, the chiefs — and all the Indians — invited him to a feast. Of course, after feeding Captain Cook, the Hawaiians had him for dinner, but we won’t be too authentic, eh? Now have your luau coupons ready when Leilani comes to your table.”
Guy Ryder didn’t get too close to the imu. The black dirt would have stained his white cotton slacks, and the smell of scorched pig always made him nauseous. He stepped away as the teenagers hauled the blackened carcass out of the ground. There was a rush of air, fifty tourists sucking in their breaths. Then a management consultant from Newport Beach who would have rather been playing golf said to his wife, “First time I ever saw a pig wearing Reeboks.”
CHAPTER 34
Before Haleakala existed, there rose from the sea the shield volcano that was to form the West Maui Mountains. For the next million years, molten rock erupted beneath the Pacific and exploded two thousand feet into the air, its boiling rain cascading down the mountain. Time and again the hot magma withdrew into the earth and a caldera, a depression, formed. Carrying the magma to the surface were dikes, channels in the rocks, and with time, they grew hard and the eruptions ceased. Then clouds pushed by trade winds were snared on the craggy peaks and the rains came, torrents streaming down the rocky landscape, and after twenty thousand lifetimes, the rains had carved an amphitheater into the ancient volcano.
To the early Hawaiians, it became Iao, Cloud Supreme, a holy place considered the valley of kings, for it was there they buried the alii, their chiefs. Less than a dozen years after Captain Cook landed, the peacefulness of the valley was shattered when Kamehameha the Great launched his forces from the Big Island and pushed the army of Maui’s King Kalanikupule into the sacred valley. The pure waters of the stream ran red with warriors’ blood and skeletons remained visible for decades. A mile from the battlefield stands the Iao Needle, a spire of volcanic rock twelve hundred feet high.
Two busloads of Japanese tourists were clicking away, their Nikons and Canons recording the lush valley scenes for folks back home. Jake Lassiter and Lila Summers crossed the walking bridge over the Iao Stream and headed toward the Needle. The steep slope looked impossible to scale, at least without ropes and pitons and Sir Edmund Hillary leading the way. But Lila said she had done it before, with Keaka, naturally, when they were younger, sneaking around to the far side, away from the tourists.
Lassiter stretched, spit in his hands, and dropped into a deep-knee bend. He started gingerly up the overgrown trail, hand over hand. Lila scampered past him with feline grace, balancing on a rock, grabbing the roots of a small tree, steadily making progress until the angle of the Needle shielded her from view.
“Don’t worry about me,” Lassiter called after her. “I’ll catch you at the top.”
But now he was thinking.
Strange thoughts.
So many questions about Lila. How could she dispose of Keaka and never blink an eye? And how did she get the big Samoan to talk? What goes on in that brain of hers, and what code of conduct does she live by? And what would I have with her? What have we had so far? Just kissing and killing. And shtupping, Sam Kazdoy would say.
How is the old man doing? Is Violet Belfrey still hanging on? Have to get back to Miami, the coupons under one arm, Lila Summers on the other. Then what? Talk, plan our lives. She’d learn to be — to be what? — more civilized, less homicidal?
He was tired and his mind was running away again, a dinner party in Miami, Lila talking to him. Jake, the new attorney general doesn’t like the onion soup. Should I jam his hand down the garbage disposal?
Lila, we don’t do that here, we just wait for him to leave and then suggest to the other guests that he’s gay.
Welcome to polite society, Lila Summers.
A rock clattered down the slope, startling him. He let go of a tree branch and it snapped back and smacked him across the nose. The trail was no more than a drainage gulley now, thick trees blocking out the sun. Lila was far out of sight, clambering up the slope like a mountain goat. Lassiter tried to pick up the pace, but he was distracted, plagued by bizarre thoughts.
What if she found the buried treasure but said it wasn’t there? She could send him on his way, then get it later. Crazy. Estas loco, Berto would’ve said.
Poor Berto. Dead in a swamp, his woman runs off with the guy who snuffed him. Maybe women, like the rich, are different from you and me, Berto, old buddy. Tougher, I guess. The evidence was mounting in support of that case. Maybe not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, but look at the facts. Lee Hu, there’s some fidelity for you. And Violet the Vulture, cozying up to the old man, then wham, her boyfriend swipes the bonds. And Lila Summers. There’s more to her than kisses and a suntan.
The slope was even steeper near the knob of the Needle. Lassiter’s right knee — ligaments patched, cartilage removed — ached with every step. He was climbing through a fine mist that turned to a light rain. Finally, the trees gave way, and on all fours, he scurried into a clearing at the summit. He rested for a moment, hands on his knees, sucking in air. Time out.
Lila sat cross-legged near a sheer cliff on the far side. Sweat and dirt streaked her face, and her hair was matted with brambles. Beside her was a small hole, the dirt the color of cocoa. In her lap was a yellow waterproof backpack caked with mud.
Ignoring Lassiter, she peeled open the Velcro latches and dug in with both hands. She closed her eyes and let
