So Philo waded into it. Why he now owned Blessid Trauma Cleaning. Grace Blessid’s dire need for new lungs. Wally Lanakai’s black market organ transplant operations, the guerilla surgeries in Philly. His parting of ways with Wally after they both got what they wanted.
Evan’s brown face turned a shade of red, his anger rising. “My Miya gets gutted, her organs put in dry ice… and you keep this info from me?”
“I didn’t know Wally was here. But if you think he is, the cops do, too. If he is here, they’ll run down those rumors. You need to let them do their job…”
“Nobody’s telling me shit, Philo!” His fist hit the table, food and empty beer bottles toppling, startling other patrons. He shoved himself upright from his seat. “I want that motherfucker. If he’s not responsible for that attack, he knows something—!”
Evan’s phone went off, a shrill noise that caught them all off guard. He retrieved it. “Commander Malcolm here. What is it, damn it? Hello?”
It wasn’t a call, it was a text. Evan pulled the text up, still agitated, and left the table to read it to himself. He keyed a response.
An auditory whirr that began in the background swelled in volume, soon overtook the white noise of the other picnic table chatter, then the crash of the waves on the beach. The low-decibel siren was unfamiliar to Philo, a warning or alert of some kind, a signal for the military.
Evan closed his eyes, composed himself, spilled. “What you’re hearing is an early-warning crisis signal. An airspace security breach needs my attention. Someone will be here to pick me up in two minutes.” He paced next to the table, still seething.
“I don’t care how you manage it, Philo, but you need to find out where the hell Lanakai is. I want the cops on his ass right—the fuck—now.”
13
“Only one of your facilities operates on Kauai. Am I correct, Wally?” she said.
Doctor Dolores Delphina, a chain smoker, blew the smoke away from Wally, a polite gesture that made no difference. The enclosed office was filled eye-high with a stale, swirling blue cloud of cigarette smoke. Polite was good, and Wally appreciated the effort, lame as hers was, but if she really cared she’d have aired the room out and not smoked while he was there. An impossibility for Doctor D.
He’d decided WTF, she was going to make him a lot of money. Magpie stayed in the hallway, not able to handle the smell or the dirty air.
Heavyset brunette in her mid-forties, Doctor D was a surgeon with a bad gambling habit to go with her cigarette addiction, clocking way too many hours on the offshore online casinos, an admission of hers. Years ago, it had been way too many hours at Wally’s by-invitation-only poker nights in the islands. She’d paid down that debt, one that had been only a few short months in the making but was taking long years across thousands of miles, via Hawaii-to-Philly bank wire transfers, for its un-making. She was now within striking distance of being rid of all of it. Here was a chance for her to pay off the balance by performing only a few surgical procedures.
“Two facilities,” Wally said.
“Oh. Right.” Inhale cigarette smoke toxins, exhale less toxins, smile. “One here on Kauai, one on Oahu. What are you calling yourself, ‘Livers ’R Us?’”
Haha, what the hell do your lungs look like, Wally mused, at four, five packs a day? She had to know how black they were, she was an organ transplant specialist. He had called her, said he had a business deal regarding her loans, found his way to her professional offices a day later, was here to make his pitch.
“I’m not forcing you, Doctor,” he said. “But I’d really like to get rid of my… older loans. If you don’t want to do this, I will, however, need to double the interest rate. Administrative costs are up. I’m sure you understand.”
“But that would make the rate—”
“A hundred twenty percent,” Wally said. “Yes, I know. Kind of prohibitive, right?”
“I feel good, Magpie, I really do. Doctor D rounds out our staff. Now make me feel better. Tell me you figured out who the hell ‘Y’ is.”
The Escalade left the curb, Wally, Magpie, and a driver inside. Wally popped open a juice can.
“Still working it, boss. I have people on the streets around Kauai now. Spotters. Only thing they’re seeing is the protection rackets. When we moved out, someone else moved in. Could be our guy.”
“A name?”
“Checking, boss. Trying to do it without starting a war. We’ll need to—”
“Wait.” Wally stiffened, on alert. “You hear that? Power down the window.”
With the window down, the siren became audible. Not loud, not gaining in strength, no Doppler effect, just a low, winding undertone not much more invasive than an earworm, hanging out there like an anemic bugle call.
“The Feds, boss,” Magpie said. “Something’s up with the military, or maybe it’s a test of the early-warning system.”
The siren wound down, faded, stopped, and was immediately replaced with a ringtone from inside the car. Wally’s new phone. He looked at the number, didn’t recognize it, let it go to voicemail. He listened to the message.
“Hi, Wally. I have a lucrative, fun proposition that might interest you. It’s from a friend of mine. Not leaving my name. Call me back at this number.”
A female voice, a smile no doubt fronting a haughty, alluring, self-confident delivery meant to elicit a visceral male response. Except he already knew who it was. She answered after one ring when he called her back.
“Hello.” Same soft, sexy voice.
“I see you’ve been working on your sex line voice, Shiko. Not bad. I have time to talk but it has to be right now. And I’m not interested in any cockfights. No bootleg saké either. What else you got, and who is this friend of yours?”
Shiko was Japanese, and during Wally’s last go-round on the islands, she was a middleperson.
