Iryna ripped off her blindfold, grabbed Audra, and pulled her to the floor, out of the line of fire.
Tam turned the .357 on me, but before he could get off a shot, Lian planted her knife through the bottom of his chin and stabbed upward until blood poured from his mouth.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Duran shouted.
Scott casually stepped over to the phone.
“Why don’t you come down here and find out, cocksucker?”
I rushed across the room to Audra’s side, removed her blindfold, and looked into her blackened eyes. She was beaten and drugged, and for a moment I wished Tam were still alive so I could kill him myself.
The line went dead and that awful dead-line noise filled the bar.
“See?” Scott said to me, punching the button to silence the room. “Every motherfucker in the room is dead, and you still have three bullets left.”
CHAPTER 63
I had been about to dial 911 when I thought better of it. Instead I called Special Agent Neil Slauson, and he and his team arrived within ten minutes. Down the street another FBI SWAT team took down Lok Sun, aka the Pharmacist, and four of his men at the abandoned brothel they’d been watching since Audra informed Slauson of Lok Sun’s whereabouts.
I told Slauson nearly everything that had transpired inside Tam’s bar after telling Scott to keep his mouth shut. My only real concern was the guns. I didn’t know where they came from and I didn’t want to know. Luckily, after telling him about Scott’s being on parole in New York, neither did Neil Slauson.
Hours later, as the sun rose over Chinatown, Slauson informed me that Thomas S. Duran, aka Orlando Masonet, had been captured.
“He wasn’t even on the island when you were talking to him,” Slauson said. “He had indeed given Jansen the slip and was already in his jet heading west. Of course, no flight plan was filed, but it appears he was headed to Hong Kong.”
“How did you catch him?” I said.
“Immediately after you called me, I contacted the FAA. Turns out, a commercial airline pilot had just received a warning via his collision-avoidance system. Air traffic control requested that the pilot of the unidentified aircraft squawk IDENT, but the pilot failed to respond. When I got off the phone with the FAA, I contacted a friend who is a lieutenant colonel at Hickam Air Force Base. Hickam scrambled two fighter jets to escort the unidentified aircraft back to Oahu. Said craft held none other than Thomas Duran, his wife, Holly, and a Chinese crew.”
I swallowed hard as I considered the implications of Orlando Masonet’s remaining at large. If not for Slauson’s quick thinking, Audra, Scott, Iryna—none of us would ever feel safe again.
I took a deep breath. “You have enough to convict Lok Sun?”
Slauson frowned. “Nothing found at the abandoned brothel implicates Lok Sun in Oksana Sutin’s murder, or the attempted murder of AUSA Karras.”
“But you have Zhi Zhu,” I said. “You have Zhi Zhu’s testimony.”
Slauson shook his head. “Zhi Zhu was found dead just over an hour ago. The ME suggests suicide, but we won’t know for sure until the autopsy.”
My head sank into my chest. “Now that I’ve rested my case in Turi Ahina’s trial,” I said softly, “can you at least tell me whether you’re going after the dirty cops in the Honolulu Police Department?”
“There’s an open investigation,” Slauson said cryptically.
I looked him in the eyes. “You could have testified.”
Slauson shook his head again. “You wouldn’t have wanted that, Counselor.”
“You weren’t investigating Kanoa Bristol?”
“Oh, we were investigating Kanoa Bristol. In fact, at the time of the shooting, the agent you met in my office, Wendy Chan, had been undercover, posing as a single mom with kids at the school Bristol’s own children were attending.”
“And?”
“And that’s all I can tell you, Counselor.”
* * *
A few minutes later, ducking through the crowd of agents, I pulled Scott aside. “So tell me, Scott, how did you know Lian was going to turn on that son of a bitch?”
“She’s my massage therapist.”
“You mean she jerked you off a few times.”
“Whatever.” He lowered his head and spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone. “Look, I’m all right with the hand-job part, but the massage itself makes me kind of uncomfortable. So, Lian and I got to talking. Around my seventh or eighth visit—”
“Seventh or eighth? Jesus, Scott, how many times have you been there?”
He shrugged. “Four or five times a week since I got here. Anyway, Lian told me all about this son of a bitch who owned a bar down the street, how he likes to smack her around and shit. So I offered to take care of him. She said no, she wouldn’t let me go near him. So I didn’t, though I thought about it a lot.” Scott glanced over his shoulder to make sure no agents were within earshot. “So last night, soon as I saw her, I grabbed her. And I said in her ear, ‘Is that the guy?’ She nodded. Soon as she did, I knew we were getting out of there alive. So when the time came, I handed her the knife and said, ‘Run straight at the motherfucker like you’re running for help and then bury the blade in his throat.’”
I reached around and felt the bulge at the base of my neck. No more professional massages for me. Masseuses were just too dangerous these days.
Up the street I spotted Flan’s jalopy pull over to the curb. Jake exited the passenger side and hurried along the sidewalk. Twice he was grabbed by an agent, twice he pushed the agent aside.
“Kevin!” he shouted. “Kevin!”
Jake’s face was pale as paste, his eyes bloodshot. When he reached me, he grabbed me by my arms as if to make sure I wasn’t a hallucination. “The local news stations are reporting that you’re dead.”
I thought about it, then shook my head. “I’m not, Jake.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Everyone’s fine. The FBI has Lok Sun in custody. Tommy Duran, too.”
Together, Jake and I stared down at the pavement. In a few hours the blacktop would burn hot as a stove.
Finally, Jake turned his face toward the sky, the fresh light making him look older than ever before. “Where do we go from here, son?”
I shrugged. “Back to the office, wait on Turi’s jury, I guess.”
He stared at me. “That’s not what I meant.”
I shrugged again. “Nothing changes, Jake.”
He nodded slowly, without looking at me, his gaze again fixed on the street. “That’s what frightens me most.”
I turned my head, watched as the giant, covered by a large white sheet, was finally rolled out on a gurney. I didn’t know the giant’s name. I didn’t want to know it.
Three bodies, one after another after another, were rolled out after the giant’s. All anonymous under their white sheets.
Jake looked away from the bodies, away from me. “You spend your entire life trying to do some fucking good, all the while everyone around you is fighting it. There’s no way out, Kevin. We’re all captives of society. And there aren’t enough well-intentioned people to change a fucking thing, you know that? Not nearly enough.”
I thought about Turi’s trial, about what a not-guilty verdict could mean for Detective Ray Irvine and the rest of the Honolulu PD.
“We can effect some change,” I said absently. “One thing at a time, one place at a time.”
“And where do we start, son?” Jake smirked. “Here?”
I looked at the street signs and windows, all adorned with mysterious symbols, and slowly shook my head. “Maybe. Maybe in Hawaii. Maybe in Honolulu. Maybe we already have right here in Chinatown, Jake.”
CHAPTER 64
I stepped into the courtroom carrying nothing but a single yellow legal pad and William F. Boyd’s Montblanc pen.
The jury had been out four full days. Was that good for the defense? Bad for the defense? As Milt Cashman once told me, “Nobody really knows, and anyone
who says they do is a fucking schmuck.”
I took my place at the defense table and opened my legal pad to the first clean page. Most defense lawyers I knew jotted down three letters before any verdict was read: G and NG. I usually jotted down two: W and L.
But not today. Because this wasn’t just a game. This wasn’t win or lose with no extra points for owning the truth. The truth mattered. Only when it came out was justice ever truly done.
Dapper Don rose from his chair at the prosecution table and walked across the aisle, offering his hand. “I find it is seldom possible to shake hands after a verdict is read, so I thought perhaps we could shake hands now.”
I took Dapper Don’s outstretched hand and shook it without saying a word.
Five minutes later the defendant was led in. It struck me that this would probably be the last time Turi and I would be in a courtroom together. We’d stood beside each other so many times before. More than I’d ever stood beside any other client in my career.
We hugged after he was uncuffed.
“We goin’ home today, brah?” he said with a smile.
“I know I am.”
For a moment I thought he was about to burst into tears, but then his face contorted and broke into laughter—a big, bad belly laugh I hadn’t heard since the raid on the Tiki Room.
“No be so sure,” he said, still chuckling. “Judge find you in contempt again, you might be movin’ into my cell, eh?”
Maybe, I thought. Either for that or for shooting Tam’s giant in the face.
When I glanced back at the crowd in the gallery, I had to do a double take. Scott Damiano was seated alone in the back row.
“Excuse me, Turi,” I said, walking toward the rear of the courtroom.
“Hey, Magnum,” Scott said.
“So what the hell are you doing here?”
He grinned at me for a long while, then motioned with his chin to the empty jury box. “I just love to hear the words not guilty.”
I smiled back at him. “Yeah, me, too.”
“That and on the house.”
I nodded. “You know, Scott, you and I may have a hell of a lot more in common than I originally thought.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later I was seated at the defense table with Turi again.
“All rise.”
The grand entrance of Judge Hideki Narita was announced, then His Honor blew in.
“You may be seated,” the judge said. “I understand the jury has reached a verdict. Let’s bring them in.”
While the court officer went back to retrieve the jury, Judge Narita provided the ubiquitous warning to the gallery. No excessive outward displays of emotion or I’ll clear the courtroom. That sort of thing. I tried to count in my head how many times I’d heard those words uttered in court. Too many for a lawyer my age, I thought.
Once the jury was seated, Judge Narita asked the foreman if they had indeed reached a verdict.
“We have,” the foreman said.
As the form passed from the foreman to the judge, then back to the foreman, I turned and said to Turi, “No matter what happens next…”
“I know, Mistah C,” he said seriously. “I know you got my back.”
I nodded just as Narita said, “Will the defendant please rise.”
I helped a wobbly Turi to his feet.
At this point, time doesn’t freeze as a lawyer fresh out of law school might expect it would. Merely a few seconds passed between the time Turi and I rose to our feet and Judge Narita read aloud from his copy of the verdict form, “As to count one named in the indictment, murder in the first degree, how do you find?”
The foreman cleared his throat and said, “As to count one named in the indictment, murder in the first degree, we, the jury, find the defendant, Turi Ahina, not guilty.”
* * *
“Not even guilty on the charge of illegal possession of a firearm,” I said to Flan over the phone as I walked through the courthouse lobby with Scott.
Turi, of course, wouldn’t immediately be released. It would take a few hours for paperwork and to gather his things.
“No worries, won’t take too long,” Turi had said to me. “With you as my lawyer, I figure I no can lose, so last night I packed my things and got ready to go.”
I closed my phone, then paused in the courthouse lobby, knowing I would be overwhelmed by reporters the moment I stepped outside. I gathered myself and started walking through the lobby toward the courthouse exit again.
As the doors opened before me, I was immediately struck with a mad sunlight. I shielded my eyes with my right hand as I stepped up to the microphones with Scott Damiano at my side.
With a broad smile I said, “I’m even going to let you take my picture today. No hat, no sunglasses. Just one hundred percent pure, unadulterated Kevin Corvelli this morning, folks.”
Those reporters who knew me—all of them, I suspected—laughed.
I’m back, I thought as I adjusted the group of microphones. This is how it was when it all began, me in front of the lights and cameras, me speaking into dozens of microphones right on the courthouse steps. I glanced down and noticed the shadow gathering around me.
“Today,” I said to the reporters, “justice was done. One of my heroes, the American lawyer Clarence Darrow, once said, ‘There is no such thing as justice—in or out of court.’ Today, twelve men and women proved him wrong. There is justice both in court for Turi Ahina, and out of court for the rest of us. Because today, those twelve men and women didn’t just make a statement about the innocence of Turi Ahina; they made a statement as to the guilt of the Narcotics Intelligence Unit of the Honolulu Police Depar—”
From the crowd I heard someone shout, “Nico Tagliarini says to keep it in the family.”
The sound of a single gunshot filled the light Hawaiian air, and without thought I stepped in front of Scott.
As I moved, I suddenly felt as though I’d been punched in the chest. I gazed down at my gray suit jacket as it turned a liquid black, and next I dropped to my knees. Then fell to the side, rolling down one, maybe two, concrete courthouse steps before coming to a stop and hearing a scream.
“He’s been shot in the chest!”
Another three, four, maybe five shots fired in the distance. Quickly drowned out by an odd humming in my ear. I opened my eyes, not realizing I had closed them, and saw that the humming was emanating from Scott Damiano’s lips.
“You’re going to be all right, buddy,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
“Someone call an ambulance!”
“There’s too much blood! He’s not gonna make it!”
“Make sure you’re getting this on film, goddamnit!”
Scott ripped my tie off, then tore my white, button-down shirt open to get to the wound. I heard the buttons rattle down the courthouse steps and thought of my meeting with John Tatupu not long ago in my conference room.
I tried to lift my head but Scott held it down. “Don’t look at it. Just look at me. Stay focused on my face.”
I did as he said, stared up at Scott’s head. The look on his face was intense and not once did it shift into anything other than determination.
In the distance, sirens.
My vision blurred. I could barely see Scott produce the vial. Before my eyes he twisted the cap and poured a generous helping of white powder into his hand. I felt a gurgling in the back of my throat that frightened me more than anything else had ever frightened me in my entire life.
“This may burn a bit,” Scott hummed. “Stay with me, Kevin. Don’t you go into fucking shock.”
The sirens grew closer.
I thought, Thirty-five years wasn’t enough. Where are the cheerleaders? Bring on the halftime show. We still have another two quarters to play.
My chest burned and suddenly heaved up.
“Relax, Kev,” Scott said. “This will help absorb the excess bleeding just like it did for Nico Tagliarini and the Vietcong.”
I sta
red at him through wet eyes, a white fog washing over me.“What are your two favorite words again, Scott?”
He smiled, leaned over, and kissed me on the forehead. “Not fucking guilty.”
“That’s three words, you bastard,” I rasped, blood spilling over my lips.
Then I passed out, unsure whether I’d ever wake up again.
NOWEMAPA
(NOVEMBER)
CHAPTER 65
Lying in a bed at the Queen’s Medical Center, I opened my eyes to find Audra standing over me, a fifth of Glenlivet resting in her delicate hands.
“For when you get better,” she said.
I parted my lips to ask her to move in with me, but I couldn’t speak. A lawyer without his voice is … almost human, I thought.
Hours earlier I’d had a chat with Jake through Hoshi via instant messaging. They were at the office and kindly let me know that the pink message slips were piling up.
By the end of our chat, we’d decided to have the law firm of Harper & Corvelli go on indefinite hiatus so that I could fully recover, both from the gunshot and my addiction to narcotic painkillers. We’d refer out our current cases and close the office, though we’d continue to pay the rent at South King Street for as long as we could, hopefully with the help of a sublease.
Audra set the bottle down on the nearby tray table and sat on the edge of the bed, taking my left hand, IV and all, into both of hers. She still appeared frail, but she’d clearly gained back a few of the pounds she’d lost since she was poisoned. The torture she’d endured at Tam’s bar was another story altogether. She refused to talk about it, and I didn’t push. Whatever came of our relationship, we’d always have scars, both physical and emotional, to remind us of our inauspicious start.
Truth is, I wasn’t sure if I should be more surprised by the number of people who died during these past four months, or by the number of people who survived.
Wade Omphrey survived. Though not on Election Day. The governor had been six points ahead on the first of November. Then someone anonymously sent Rolando Dias of the Herald a copy of the DVD depicting the governor in Oksana Sutin’s apartment.
Last Lawyer Standing Page 23
