“You ever eat Miakamii snail meat, Philo? Miya fed the mollusks to me one time as a joke. Made me (burp) sick for days. ’Scuse me.”
Evan pushed himself upright, stumble-rushed to his powder room, and lost his stomach contents to the porcelain. Philo found the overnight pouch that had delivered the clinical papers, found and read the typed note that accompanied the package addressed to Commander Evan Malcolm, who continued his heaving in the background.
Joke of the Day: Female Miakamii dog makes unanticipated personal organ donations to her own study; American mobster Lanakai transplants them; the U.S. Navy mourns. One slaughter, three bucket-list groups embarrassed: Miakamii Island, Ka Hui, and the U.S. military. What do you call this? A good start.
There couldn’t have been enough alcohol in the house to numb the PTSD or blunt the anger that had arrived on Evan’s doorstep with this package. Philo lifted his head in the direction of the powder room and listened; he heard snoring.
The key words from the note, Philo decided, were actually among the first few: Miakamii dog. Sending the scientific study to Evan… Philo felt it was an afterthought, the research findings a tangent. Of primary importance was the note-writer’s opinion of Miakamii natives, calling them “dogs.” Three more of these “dogs” had faced similar horrific treatment.
A second late-night text beeped on his phone. What other drunk was contacting him at two a.m.?
How would you like to make $100K, Philo?
The origin phone number meant nothing to him, but including his nickname in the text forced him to read it, not delete it outright like other spam. Additional texts followed the first, legitimizing his interest.
First class airfare to Hawaii. I’ll cover your expenses.
Two weeks in the islands.
You need to come now.
This anonymous asshole now had Philo’s attention. Philo texted back, Who the hell is this?
His phone chirped with a new text.
Wally Lanakai.
Chunky crime boss, murdering loudmouth. Crooked businessman. Grandiose gambler. Felon. Dangerous. Philo’s eyes narrowed at the phone screen, his thumbs hovering, his blood pressure rising. Did he want to get into a conversation with this… criminal?
He would bite. The hell with texting. Philo called him.
“I thought you were back to jail, Lanakai. Where are you, and what do you want?”
“I’m in Hawaii. If you’re smart, you’ll hear me out, so don’t hang up. It’s worth a lot of money to you. I need you to fight someone, Trout. Bareknuckles. As a favor to me, but it will be for big money.”
The balls on this guy. Philo shook his head, unimpressed. “You fucking kidding me? You’re doing the same illegal transplant shit in Hawaii that you were doing in Philly. You ruined the life of one of my closest friends with your criminal organ trafficking. Lose my number, Lanakai, I’m not interested. By the way, I’m letting the cops know you contacted me.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Trout. I’ll make it up to you and your friend, damn it. You have my word—”
“My friend’s fiancée is fucking dead! An anonymous tip he just got says you’re the reason.”
“‘Just got’ means what? When did he get it?” Lanakai said.
“Today.” Philo didn’t mention the research docs that came with it.
“On my honor, I didn’t kill any of those people, Trout.”
“Someone out there is saying you did. You see the news? Three of them, all gutted like field-dressed deer, all on Kauai. My friend’s fiancée was a research scientist…”
Philo detailed the horrific murders with the precision of a crime scene cleaner. “Now there’s been a fourth. Her body parts were dropped around the Alakai Swamp after her evisceration. Too huge a coincidence that you’re back in Hawaii and all these people are getting gutted and hacked up…”
“Trout, listen to me. I swear on my island ancestors that I did not kill those people. Someone is framing Ka Hui. They do the deed, then they deliver their organs to me…”
“Framing Ka Hui? A crime family you told me no longer exists? What do you do with the organs? I’m thinking they find their way into someone else’s body for big payoffs—”
“That’s not the point. The point is I’m not killing people and taking their organs…”
“I guess I don’t really give a shit, Lanakai. The cops are onto Ka Hui, and I’m fine with letting that run its course.”
“It’s not me, Trout, goddamn it! It’s the fucking Yakuza!”
Invoking that name low-bridged Philo, forced him to hit the reset button on the conversation. He knew the Yakuza, knew about them way back when he was a new Navy SEAL twenty years ago. You couldn’t go out at night in the islands without seeing one or more of their head-case warriors terrorizing the nightclub owners. He’d found the Yakuza stereotyping to be true: slicked hair, sharp dressers, and full-body tattoos, genitalia included, something he’d personally validated in one barroom brawl involving saving a damsel in distress from a rape. Feared and revered, they were a menace to the Japanese-Hawaiian community, yet they occasionally acted as a benefactor. Classic mob family behavior. Steal you blind but hand out paper towels and water when your community gets hit with a hurricane.
And then there was the Yakuza affectation for severed pinkies: yubitsume, or “finger-shortening.” An odd punishment for one indiscretion or another, removing the tip of the pinky finger on the left hand, penalizing Yakuza swordsmen from centuries past. A generations-old practice. Misplaced machismo. Idiots. Add to this their newfound fascination with the U.S. Navy per Evan…
“You tell me it’s the Yakuza, and that’s supposed to make me enlist? You want to put me between you and them? I’d get killed in the crossfire. No thanks.”
“Philo. Please.” Lanakai’s tone changed. Philo sensed the desperation, could almost see his pleading face. “They’ve got one of my associates. If I don’t cooperate, she ends up like the others.”
She, Lanakai said. A female prisoner held by a crime cult that prided itself in
