The BMW drifted past, the driver holding up a phone, videoing the drive-by, the house and Kaipo both, her gun hand sweating. He was Asian, not Hawaiian, Kaipo giving him the side eye, the car continuing past. She craned her neck to follow it down the street, the car and its heat shimmer leaving her view multiple blocks away.
“Okay, I’m good,” she told her driver. “Let’s get my stuff.” She texted her friend, told her she was on her way in.
An animated Vena emerged from her house and bounced up the driveway to meet Kaipo, her arms opening wide. “Girl, what have you been feeding yourself?” Vena said, leaning back from their hug. “A steady diet of steroids? You look like you’re at your college weight. And those cornrows. Très chic… ”
“Let’s get inside, Vena, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
At a round kitchen table behind tall lemonades, and after Vena’s additional kudos about her hair, Kaipo quickly filled in her friend about her businesses as a personal trainer and massage therapist, her lack of a love life, her chemical addictions, and what those addictions had done to her physically. How they had broken her down, nearly killed her. How she needed to build herself back up, doing it the old-fashioned way with martial arts, boxing, running, hard workouts, and her sobriety: in recovery two years, four months, and twenty-seven days. How she had help in her struggle with these bad habits from a questionable source.
“Ka Hui,” a knowing Vena said, frowning.
“Yes.”
“They’re back, Kaipo. Here in Kauai.”
“Yes. The reason I’m here. But where are they? And how’d you hear about them?”
“At work. You want something to eat?”
Tortilla chips and cheese appeared front and center on the kitchen table along with napkins, plates, and salsa. Vena settled back into her chair, sipped her lemonade, and watched a hungry Kaipo dig in.
“Chatter at the Howling Sands installation,” Vena said. “Navy outpost personnel talking about gambling, or lack thereof.”
Statewide, Kaipo knew, there was no legal gambling of any kind in Hawaii. No casinos, no state lottery, no scratch-offs. No horse or dog racing, no sports betting. It made Friday night social poker games attractive to those who craved the action.
“Card players from the mainland in social games get pulled aside by someone who knows someone and are asked if they want more action. Whispers about high-roller poker games. Strictly taboo, too risky, too potentially compromising, so no one at work does it. But they know about it.”
Ka Hui’s M.O. From the old days here in the islands, before the Feds eliminated them, and one of the businesses the resurrected family soon put in place on the East Coast, in Philly. And now they were back. But illegal gaming wasn’t the only business Ka Hui brought back with them.
“You know anything about organ trafficking?” Kaipo said.
“How’d you…? Never mind. Yes, I do know something about it. Something’s going on. Word has gotten around. Here. Look.”
Vena picked up her phone, pulled up an advertisement online. She offered the phone to Kaipo, then pulled it back. “Do not judge me, Kaipo. Got that?”
“No judging. Cross my heart.”
Vena was logged into a personals website, with extremely explicit profile photos of men and women, some of the men very big boys.
Kaipo’s eyebrows rose, but only slightly. “So they’re mainstreaming porn in personal ads. Tell me something I didn’t know.”
“Okay then. It’s just that, you know, I had kind of a chubby, choir-girl image going for me way back when,” she said. “Not saying I can vouch for any of these hookups, mind you. Hell, I guess I can vouch for some of it. Two or three of them…” She snickered. “Or ten maybe. No more than ten. But let’s stay on target. See this ad here?”
Vena zoomed in on the ad so it took up the whole screen.
“DONORS WANTED. Ages 18-40. Indigenous Hawaiians. Not heavy drinkers, not overweight. Non-smokers preferable. For a medical study control group focused on the human liver. Blood type O ideal. DM your contact info here…”
“So here’s the deal,” Vena said. “A girlfriend of mine looking for some extra money to make ends meet messaged these people. They’re looking for organ donations. Livers. Partial livers, actually, because giving up a full liver could be, you know, hazardous to your health.”
“Donations? As in not paying for them? Because, you know, selling organs is illegal, Vena. She knows that, right?”
“Yes. The donors get reimbursed for their, um, expenses.”
“Let me guess. Their expenses include pain, inconvenience, lost wages, other incidentals…” Kaipo trailed off, her shoulder shrug saying she of course wasn’t buying it. She finished with, “Which, she said, can all add up.”
“Hey,” Vena said, “this isn’t an ‘I’ve got this friend’ kind of scenario here. It’s not my gig, it’s hers.”
Kaipo went limp, felt her blood turning cold. How bold a move was this as an approach, should this be who she thought? “Tell me she didn’t go any further. Tell me you talked her out of it.”
“If she goes no further, I have no
