Chapter 1

When I entered Sandy’s and my office at Waikiki PI, the dynamics of the two strangers there could be cut with a plastic knife. The young man, blond and handsome, though less so from a weakness in chin and expression, stood kitty-corner to our large, neat desk. Standing made him a nervous presence in itself, because he had a perfectly comfortable desk chair to sit on but didn’t seem able to rest there. He moved his glance from me back to my lovely partner, middle aged but showing no sign of succumbing to any lessening of her svelte appeal. Her body still taut in a Haoli surfer girl sort of way. Her face still deeply tanned, similarly. Deep azure eyes held their intelligence and intensity, with lines radiating out towards the temples the only real clue of the actual years she had moved gracefully through. The hair that partially hid those temples bleached by the sun to a straw blonde, the thickness and the roughness of the sea on it making it nearly untamable, wisps of it uncaptured by the golden scrunchy she wore. He looked like the sort of man who liked his women younger and more easily impressed by whatever he might have to impress: a little more knowledge of the world; a lot more money; drugs. Some of which currently moved through his veins. Cocaine most likely, with his sheen of sickly sweat, and his cloudy, nervous eyes. His gaze at my partner, his interest in her, may have added confusion to his list of weaknesses, attraction to this much older woman who could put him down both verbally and physically without all that much effort on her part. Shouldn’t be his type, but nevertheless, he gazed.

The other man who stood--he had been seated--looked like a much stronger version of his son, despite being decades older, or maybe because of it. A couple inches shorter than me made him a tall man. His son actually equaled my height. Both had long, lean bodies, though the father revealed roundness the way his expensive aloha shirt draped his belly like a woman mid-pregnancy. That and his silver hair, replacing the blond of his son, and the start of jowls, showed his age. Aside from its color, the hair revealed no other sign of age, being full with no suggestion of balding. Not long, by any means, but expertly coiffed, and the bit of firmness to it revealed its recent acquisition. It made me think of my former girlfriend and still occasional lover, Michi, and her mentor, Paul Brown, figuring it to be the latter, or at least someone in his salon, who had done the deed.

As expected, the elder had an overly firm handshake when he introduced himself. “William Whiteman,” he told me proudly, adding, “You can call me Bill.” And far less proudly, he introduced his son, “My youngest, Jason.” Jason didn’t offer his hand. Thankfully. Slimy sweat doesn’t make for an agreeable handshake. Just the most subtle of nods, which I returned. Since he decided not to sit, I sat where he would.

I hid my amusement at the perfect surname. “Whiteman indeed,” I thought.

“You know we have a mutual friend,” Bill continued. “Or did have, since his terrible demise.”

“Charles Russell Boyle IV,” I thought. “The Monster.” No surprise, he confirmed it.

When he said, “We had similar interests,” I could feel hair rise at the back of my neck even though I realized he couldn’t mean those interests, the ones that had eventually led to his demise for which my beautiful best friend had been blamed and for which I helped exonerate him, and which led to my friend’s suicide most probably.

“You’re in real estate as well?” I asked.

“Among other things. Similar things. Buying and selling.”

“Ever bought from Charlie?”

“A bit too rich, even for me. Washington’s mostly my territory.”

“The state?”

“Of course.”

“Cool,” I thought. “I can visit my friends.” Still, I had to ask, “You know, even if she doesn’t look it, my partner’s as capable as me handling situations.”

“Fuck you, Joe,” Sandy smirked. I winked. She chuckled and shook her head.

“That may be, and she’s most pleasant to look at,” Bill explained, “but, like I said, I knew Charlie.”

“He recommended me,” I nodded. “Expecting trouble in paradise?”

“He said you could be trusted to be discrete as part of his high praise. If I needed someone to look at things from outside of my territory. Not influenced by those inside it.”

“You’ve made enemies,” I thought, and again kept it to myself. I also kept Dotty to myself. She would be closer, living in Oregon, and cheaper because of it, as well as being more familiar with Washington and having the same exceptional resource, Kenneth, hacker extraordinaire, who actually lived in Washington, and, despite his distance, I considered a best friend, and she had a similar fondness for him. But, obviously, her gender would be a factor.

“What problem can I help solve?” I asked.

“Finding the murderer of my son’s wife,” he said. “Surprising, considering my son, I had become quite fond of my daughter-in-law. She was far better than he deserved.”

Though sotto voce, I heard Jason’s grumble, and his father probably heard too, although age brings hearing loss. “Fuck you,” had been those words.

“What was that?” his father growled.

“Nothing,” the son grimaced, as if scolded and slapped by a rolled up paper, a disobedient pet disciplined by its owner. “I ... agree. She was better than I deserved.”

“Damn right,” his father rubbed it in.

“We don’t solve murders,” I responded, not exactly truthfully, but it wasn’t supposed to be our duty.

“Solving isn’t the problem,” Bill muttered. “Finding is. You find people, don’t you?”

“Yes, but not fugitives at that level of crime.”

“Well, the police have proved useless, and I’m certain he left the state.”

“Then that would be the FBI’s jurisdiction.”

“Not much better there.”

“They have a great deal more resources than I have,” I pointed out.

“But maybe not the resourcefulness. Besides, Jason thinks he might be in your neck of the woods.”

“Who is this suspect?”

“Not a suspect,” said Jason. “The murderer.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes. I saw him at her body before he ran off.”

“Him being?”

“Kyle Oates,” Bill answered. “At least that’s what he called himself.”

“An alias?”

“Apparently. The police could find no reference to him. No background. What’s weird was, I’d grown to trust him.”

“I never did,” Jason proclaimed.

“You just brought him into our house.”

“My sister did.”

“He was friends with your sister?” I asked.

“And Emily. Emily was my sister’s friend. They went to Reed together.”

“And Kyle was a student there as well?”

“Supposedly.”

“Let me guess. No Kyle Oates registered there.”

Both father and son shook their heads. “Your daughter’s name?” I asked Bill.

“Jeanne.”

“Not married?”

“Still Whiteman.”

“So you said it was weird that Kyle didn’t check out,” I stayed with Bill.

“I was thinking about hiring him as an executive,” Bill explained. “He had an exceptional business mind. Unique, certainly. Nothing like the conservative mindset I prefer in my executives, but more than once his advice proved exceptional.”

“So you listened to him.”

“He could be ... persuasive.”

“Apparently,” I said, getting more shakes of heads. “So why Hawaii? It’s not the first place I’d escape. Not exactly a porous border, even if it’s a state.”

“A couple reasons,” Bill muttered, frowning out his son. “Jason?”

“Uhm, a couple of friends of Kyle’s visited,” Jason explained reluctantly. “Like great gusts of wind they sort of swept us up in their ... enthusiasm.”

“Go on,” Bill prompted, distaste in his mouth.

“Yeah, uhm, so, these two wild ladies insisted we visit a strip club.”

“Two women suggest two men join them at a strip club,” Sandy interjected.

“Yeah. They said they had an amateur contest. Turns out they didn’t, but that didn’t stop them.”

“And Emily joined you?”

“No. She had no interest in it. But my sister did.”

“She...”

“She didn’t dance, but she acted like the guys tossing dollars at them.”

Glancing at his father, seeing the grimace, I asked, “So your sister...”

“No! It was just fun.”

From his father’s grimace I guessed otherwise, but left it alone. “So afterwards?”

“Yeah, so, uhm, I got convinced to rent a suite in a downtown hotel...”

“By Kyle?”

“Uhm...”

“Your balls convinced you, son,” Bill muttered.

“Kyle encouraged it,” Jason argued, “saying it would be our little secret. The suite had two rooms: one for me and one for Kyle. One of the girls joined me. Later, the other girl joined in. I awoke with the first girl, worried about sleeping. She told me we could just say we got too drunk to drive. After ... playing some more, she told me it would have cost me a mint if this had been Honolulu.”

“They were prostitutes?” I asked.

“Even worse, stripper prostitutes,” Sandy added. We knew they tended to cost more to turn teasing into reality. I noticed her typing on her computer, suspecting her purpose.

“And you think Kyle was close to them?” I asked.

“They seemed quite fond of him. And quite enthusiastic in the next door bedroom.”

“With your sister?”

This time both Whitemen cringed. “Yes” Jason answered.

“But ... you had one of them in bed.”

“Not the entire night. I woke up at least once hearing sex, and the bed without my girl in it.”

“Okay. So Bill, you said two reasons you suspect Kyle to be here.”

“Yeah. Though I haven’t found the FBI all that helpful, they did get a match to Kyle at Hawaiian Air a couple days after the fact. A ticket agent and a stewardess recognized his picture. Though the stewardess seemed reluctant.”

“How do you mean?”

“After the agent remembered him, and they figured out who the stewardess would be, they gave her a sort of lineup to look at, pictures, and, even though the agent could see her eye focusing on Kyle, it took him reminding her of the price of aiding a fugitive before she pointed him out.”

“Hunh,” I said. “Interesting,” I thought.

“Interested?” asked Bill.

“Before answering,” Sandy interrupted. “You should know Mr. Whiteman offered twice our rate and no questions regarding expenses. And an extra ten thousand in reward for finding our man.”

“You want him that much?” I asked Bill. I glanced at Jason, and found a weird expression. Guilt maybe? Could have been paranoia with all that cocaine running through his system.

“He killed my daughter-in-law and betrayed my trust,” Bill said coldly. “And I can afford to be encouraging. And I want him found where I can confront him. No arrest until then.”

“And if finding him causes us to protect ourselves?”

Bill shrugged.

“So, dead or alive, a bounty hunter’s most clichéd expression.”

“Yes, but I’d prefer him alive.”

“Why?” I thought to myself, but didn’t ask. I glanced at the son and saw a similar expression of puzzlement. Hmm.

After signing the contract, writing the extra-large retainer, and shaking hands again, and thankfully again not the sweaty palms of the son, Sandy turned her monitor to the young man. “See anyone you know?”

My longest friend, and briefly a lover, George, had been an expensive prostitute, and continued the work, extremely exclusively. She also provided information on colleagues, often offering unlicensed therapy and advice for some of them, but also letting us know who the current flock of escorts were, including those who probably did more than dance for clients at strip clubs. These had their own file which Sandy brought up. Jason found both of his brief acquaintances in the photos.

“So,” Sandy smirked after the men left. “Undercover work?”

“If I must,” I shrugged.

Being Thursday, not a weekend, but the busiest weekday, I figured the ladies would be working. I proved right for at least one of them, the brunette. Pretty and curvy, not too much to be fake curves, her picture depicted her in glasses. “Going for the smart look,” I thought. A particular niche of attractiveness, appealing to the intellectual john.

Julie, or Laura as her dance alias, ended up being one of the more aggressive dancers, going from table to table soliciting private lap dances. Luckily I had come early enough for there to be a sparse audience. I had managed to find out before I sat that May, known as Maura, whom Laura often danced with both onstage and off, happened to be absent. It had been their infamous pairing that brought the question to the bartender. I pretended to be there because they had been recommended as a set. Aware of their lesbian tendencies, I decide to invite George to grease the wheel for renting the girl after her more legitimate work ended.

So when Laura looked at me, I beckoned her with eyes hooked to hers between glances at her body, easily discernable underneath a tight mesh mini dress, blue/violet accentuating her remarkable eye color that seemed to match Elizabeth Taylor’s legendary shade, and she sat her sexy ass on my lap, firm and just full enough to not overdo it, much like her breasts, and purred her come-on directly into my ear over the loud, suggestive dance jam, asking if I wanted to get to know her more privately, I replied, “I’m waiting on a friend, but I think we both would be interested.”

She smiled and nodded. I saw the smile tainted by something beyond the pretense of seduction or its mercenary purpose. A touch of sadness with a dab of concern.

“Will you be dancing soon?” I asked her.

“After the next dancer.”

“I look forward to it. Perhaps a drink will coax you to stay until then?”

“That would be very nice of you,” she smiled a little brighter.

“And this,” I handed her a hundred.

“But...”

“I can tell you’re a smart girl,” I said, looking through her glasses which held no magnification. “Smart ones tend to be the most interesting, and being beautiful on top of it. I don’t want you monopolized by another man. Promise?”

“Promise,” she smiled.

“Good,” I said, handing her another hundred.

“Wow,” she grinned.

“And we’ll pay for the dances,” I whispered.

“You want the VIP room?”

“Most definitely.”

“Your friend...”

“Will be allowed to join us.”

“But...”

“You’ll see.”

She ordered a 7up, which I figured was a code for vodka and 7, something I learned from bartending and waiting tables briefly at one of the Monster’s former restaurants, though coded as water there, but a bottled water wouldn’t do. The drink doesn’t smell all that alcoholic. Her wink at the scantily clad waitress promoted my suspicion.

We talked over the loud music. She remained in my lap as much to be heard as to be enjoyed. She did have a nice ass, and it squirmed with delightful subtleness. My excitement couldn’t help being felt. Our conversation held truth within the lies probably for both of us.

She claimed to be born and raised on the island. Though absent of local slang or anything pidgin, middle or upper middle class Haolis tended not to resort to it, especially with visitors, unless they wanted to pretend it, like some misguided white man attempting Ebonics. But she had the accent of her class, though its similarity to southern Californian didn’t specifically place her here.

Her erudition and surprising knowledge about various unexpected things made her claim to be paying her way through graduate school more believable. Of course it would be what the smart girl trope would claim. That unexpected knowledge led us to our first connection. She knew jazz.

“I listen to Fresh Air,” she said, explaining it, referring to the local University station for which I once DJed.

“Then you might have heard me,” I said. “I called myself the Sour Mash Kid.”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, her eyes for the first time thoroughly delighted. “Sometimes you go out there, but I learned to enjoy even that music, in a way because I heard you explain how you enjoy it. How you let it be visceral. Not intellectualizing or challenging it, but letting it move you. The same way you appreciate abstract expressionism. It opened my mind to both things. You taught me.”

“I’m glad,” I smiled back. “Did you listen to the show that preceded it?”

“Penny for your thoughts? Of course,” she chuckled. “She could be even wilder than you got.”

“She’s a good friend.”

“She seems really cool. And nice.”

“She is. And not nearly as crazy as she sounds.”

We shared a laugh.

She lifted herself off my lap. I missed her there despite her weight, which gradually felt more but never too much. “Gotta get ready,” she smiled and kissed my cheek. I watched the way her ass moved when she walked away. Mesmerizing.

George arrived half way through Laura’s performance, still a beautiful and sexy petite raven haired bombshell. Petite in height, not in bust size. Her oversized augmented breasts challenged her gorgeous face for focus.

She kissed my lips before sitting beside me, tossing a twenty on the stage. That got Laura’s attention, nude by then.