Philo’s mind continued rebooting, recalculating. He needed more info, and Lanakai kept talking.
“You might remember her. She was with me the night of the Philly fight. She’s a cleaner like you, except she works for me. Or she did.”
She’d told Philo her name, then told him to forget it. Told him to forget her avocation, and to forget who she did it for. Knowing who she was, she’d said, would be too dangerous.
But Philo hadn’t forgotten her; no way could he forget so kindred a soul. To not betray what he felt for her—it wasn’t covetous or flirtatious, it was an affinity, an appreciation, an understanding—to not give Wally any sort of upper hand about her, he’d need to short circuit the rest of this discussion.
“I don’t want a name. The less I know about her, the better. So here’s the deal. It’s your lucky day, Lanakai. I’m already in the islands on vacation. I will help you—”
He needed to keep Lanakai off balance. Needed to keep him from sensing any of Philo’s personal connection to her. Better for him to come across like an opportunistic bastard.
“—for two hundred grand. Take it or leave it.”
24
A handcuffed Kaipo paced in her room in the one-story wing of a shitty pay-by-the-hour Kauai motel. One double bed. Cable TV with every other channel pay-per-view porn. A bathroom with a painted cement floor that extended into the shower, the shower floor flush with the rest of the bathroom. Easy to clean with a hose, like at a gym or the penguin exhibit at the zoo.
Her use to the Yakuza so far had been a posed soft-core porn photo taken on a cell phone. A degrading picture, but no other harm done. A marketing photo meant for one customer only, as bait: Wally Lanakai.
A fist pounded on her door. “Step back,” a man’s voice said. “We’re coming in.”
With breakfast, she hoped. She did as she was told, moved away from the door. Two Japanese men entered, well-groomed in their dark suits and shined shoes. Conspicuous in one man’s hands were leg irons and chains. The other man was the letch they’d posed her with in the racy photo, a big guy whose smile said he would totally enjoy seeing her in these chains.
“What, no breakfast?” she said.
“You will eat breakfast with the oyabun,” the man with the leg irons said, “but you will need to wear these.”
Mr. Yabuki’s motel room was next to hers. They walked her in, her chains dragging. Better accommodations than hers, but not by much. The table had been set for two: flowers, napkins, Chinet dishware and utensils. The bags the food came in said Uber Eats, their contents filled with local mom-and-pop restaurant containers. A deadpan Mr. Yabuki, seated and already eating, gestured at his men with his fork to deposit her in the seat across from him. The cuffs and the leg irons came off, but the handguns came out, all trained on her.
“American comfort food plus some fruit and vegetables and some sushi,” Mr. Yabuki said. “Eat.”
She raised a fork; the guns followed its path. She put the fork down, pissed. Mr. Yabuki grunted in Japanese. The weapons returned to the holsters under their jackets.
“Let me begin. We are not animals, Ms. Mawpaw. We are businessmen. I brought you in here with me this morning to A, feed you some breakfast, B, update you that Wally Lanakai has been properly incented and is now mulling over a proposition I made that concerns you. He is still, by the way, quite attached to you. And C, you are here to understand what is happening. It is something much larger than me ridding the islands of Ka Hui.” He glanced at her plate. “You are not eating. You need to eat.”
She eyed the food, chose to address her host. “Wally will not stay in the islands. He’s here to make a quick buck and to get leads on me, then leave. Law enforcement’s been through this with him one time already, will never let him stay. Once he leaves”—she raised her fork, took a small bite—“the police will become more interested in you.”
“Ms. Mawpaw.” Mr. Yabuki continued to eat, chewing through his words. “That does not worry me. Our organization is bigger, older, smarter, and more venerable than anything Ka Hui ever was. We are flourishing.”
“In Japan,” she said. “Here in the islands, you’re viewed as interlopers who should stay in their own lanes. Only the nikkejin revere you, afraid their Japanese-American heritage could betray them again. The rest of the islanders find you a pesky nuisance. A bug that needs to be squashed. The Feds eliminated Ka Hui first, with good reason. The big dogs. The cops will get around to you soon enough. They haven’t yet because you never mattered.”
Mr. Yabuki slowed his chewing, stayed interested in his plate, snubbed her rudeness, his deadpan face returning. His non-reaction was chilling, something Kaipo felt from across the table.
He put down his fork, used his napkin on his mouth, and moved his plate out of the way. He folded his hands on the table and finally gave her his full attention, evaluating her more closely. He cleared his throat.
“You were going to return to Wally Lanakai when we picked you up, correct?” he said.
“I need to talk him out of his organ trafficking efforts here in the islands.”
“Ah, yes. Sure. It would more likely have turned into you becoming his whore in return for him rethinking his transplant business. ‘I will let you fuck me if you stop exploiting the people here.’ Noble, but nothing more involved than that. You would satisfy his carnal needs, like a good whore does, with the whore hoping she might ‘change him.’” He air-quoted.
She stayed silent, didn’t snap at the chum Yabuki had tossed in the water.
“You are wasting your time, Ms. Mawpaw. Lanakai-san
