“How much would that be after taxes? And how much income would we earn on what’s left if we just invested it?”
Now she’s angling for an M.B.A. from Wharton. “I don’t know, Lila, I’ll ask my accountant. What difference does it make?”
“It wouldn’t be much, would it, I mean for two people to live on.”
“Maybe enough for a boat, some papayas and wine. Just drift to wherever the trade winds take us.”
“Oh, Jake.” She moved next to him and touched her fingers to his lips. Her warm breath brushed his cheek. “I want more than that. Sometimes you just see me in a bikini on the beach.”
Her breasts pressed against his rib cage. He fought off the distraction. “What’s wrong with that? It’s a glorious lifestyle and you fit there, outdoors, au naturel.”
Lila Summers smiled, an indulgent smile. “All of us have to grow up. Keaka understood. What he did wasn’t legal, but there are worse things than growing pakalolo. Then he started looking for a big score, and frankly, so did I.”
“Why? For the money? For material things?”
“Jake, it’s such a big world. There’s Paris and London and wonderful hotels and restaurants and shops.”
So that’s what the money means to her, he thought. Not just the time to read great books and drop a line in the water to catch your supper. No, she wants supper served by white-gloved waiters.
“Look, Lila, if you’re worried about us, about me, let’s make a deal. When we get the money, the half, let’s split it down the middle, four hundred thousand for you, four hundred thousand for me. Fair enough?”
She wrinkled her forehead and walked to the rail, turning her back and staring again at the horizon. Lassiter’s mind raced. What if she says no? They’re ours, Jake. We earned them. All of them.
He didn’t want to face the question. Would he give it up for her, turn his back on Tubby, who died helping him, and on Sam, who trusted him? Overhead a half dozen black-crowned herons circled the shoreline, their bleats mocking him.
But then Lila turned back to him and said, “Okay, Jake. We’ll do it your way. We’ll take the boat to Honolulu, then fly to Miami. The eight hundred thousand is all yours. And so am I, for as long as you want me.”
A quick turn, Lassiter thought. Slashback. One second she’s going one way, up a wave, then slash, she jibes and rockets down again. First she’s the Goddess of Desire, sun-drenched hair flying in an ocean breeze, then with a blade or hot rock in her hand, she’s a one-way ticket to the morgue. Another turn, the air calm after a squall, all sweetness and springtime.
He reached for her, and she kissed him, and he closed his eyes and lost himself in the kiss. When their lips parted, she smiled and laughed. “Hey, what’s a girl got to do to get some dinner around here?”
They showered and ate at a small restaurant, feasting on seafood Provencale — shrimp, scallops, and calamari cooked in a casserole with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and wine — and Lassiter had the waiter dust off a bottle of Cristal champagne.
When they returned to the room, Lila’s cheeks were glowing and she kissed him with an exploring tongue. They were both exhausted, but they made love as they had in the crater. She locked her heels behind his buttocks and demanded all of him, her grip loosening only when her moans built to a crescendo and she exhaled a series of short cries that caught in her throat.
When she lay next to him, her head on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck, his mind took over from his loins. So much she had kept from him. Why? Lassiter held her in his arms and pushed back the questions. He told himself he should be happy. He had the bonds and Lila Summers, too. But his mind wouldn’t let it go, kept asking questions. “Committing crimes,” he whispered in the dark, “doesn’t it bother you?”
“Taking the bonds from the little man after he had stolen them didn’t seem like a crime.”
“And the killing?”
She sighed. “Keaka was going to kill you, maybe me too. He had to die. Lomio killed your friend. He deserved to die. The Cuban would have sent Keaka and me to prison if he could. He deserved…” Lila stopped in midsentence, a cloud crossing her face. Her eyes darted quickly to Lassiter lying next to her. He saw the look and let it pass. Then it sunk in.
He rolled over to look her squarely in the eyes. “Why the mention of Berto? You had nothing to do with that.”
“Of course. But… I don’t know. He’s dead, too.”
And dead is dead.
Lassiter was still trying to focus, to see something tucked in the shadows of his mind. That night on Molokai. Everything had happened so fast then. What was it Keaka had said? Then he remembered.
“Lila, on the beach that night, I asked Keaka to fight me, mano a mano, like he did with Berto in the swamp.”
“Yeah?”
“Why was Keaka so confused? He looked like he didn’t know what I was talking about, finally said something about haoles still being stupid after two hundred years.”
“Did he say that?” she asked, yawning and stretching like a tawny cat.
“Yeah, he did. And one other thing. He said Lee Hu doesn’t care for you. Why not? What’d you ever do to her?”
Lila didn’t raise her head from the pillow. “I don’t know, Jake, maybe she’s jealous because I was Keaka’s old girlfriend.”
“Yeah, maybe. It’s just funny. Keaka kills Berto and walks off with his girlfriend, but she ends up hating you.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Berto was my friend, a guy soft as a dish of flan. Who killed him?”
She sat up. “What difference does it make now?”
Lassiter rolled onto his back, his lawyer’s mind racing, the evasive witness all but admitting the crime. Maybe she was right. What difference does it make now?
Dead is dead.
The words kept pounding at him. She already was a killer, sending Keaka and Lomio off to the happy hunting ground. But he still had to know.
“Lila, did you kill Berto?”
Lila ran a hand through the thick mane of her hair and looked away. “All right. Most of what I told you already is true. Keaka and I were going to bring coke in from Bimini in a hollowed-out board. Mikala tipped us. The Cuban, your friend, was a DEA snitch. Keaka was going to take care of it himself, get the money, and you know, kill him. But Keaka was being followed. On the beach he saw a man watching him through binoculars. Keaka doesn’t, or didn’t, miss those things.”
“That was Franklin, the DEA agent. He was guarding Berto.”
“Maybe sometimes. But once we hit town, he stuck to Keaka like a sunburn. On the beach, in the hotel lobby, everywhere. So a small change in plans. Keaka spent the better part of the night in the hotel bar, with the DEA agent two tables away watching him. I went to the swamp and took care of the Cuban. There wasn’t much to it, one karate punch to the throat, then I crushed his windpipe.”
Jake Lassiter closed his eyes and saw Lila squeezing the life out of Berto, showing no more emotion than if she were cracking a coconut on the beach. He stood up, but all the stuffing was out of him, his bones filled with mush. He sat down again and studied the top of his bare feet.
“Jake, now I’ve told you everything, why I left Keaka, the killing in the swamp. Don’t worry, that’s all there is, nothing more, really.”
That’s all, Lassiter thought. A homicide in Miami, conspiracy to transport drugs, receiving stolen property, two homicides here. At least she hadn’t tried to overthrow the government. He looked at her. She’d just confessed to first-degree murder but didn’t beg for forgiveness, didn’t shed a tear. You could grow old waiting for Lila Summers to cry over spilled blood.
“Jake, besides the fact that Keaka was getting to be a pain with his Hawaiian macho crap, there was another reason I left him.”
“Yeah?”
