“May?”
“Yes, Steve?”
“Feel well enough to lock the front door? Come into the office, both of you. Official pow-wow.”
She sprang to do his bidding, wanting to show him she was still on the ball. Kono trooped into the office, knotting a goodsized first-aid bandage compress to his arm. McGarrett finished off the job for him. Kono was back to normal, his face showing no pain or discomfort. McGarrett sat on one corner of his desk and pendulumed a leg, gesturing May and Kono to chairs. When they were both seated, he launched right into what he thought and felt about the Governor’s assignment, as of noon that morning.
“This will only take a few minutes and then you can go down and call an ambulance for that character on our lawn. He’ll keep for that long.” He took a deep breath again, his ribs still aching from Tornier’s treatment. “Danny and Chin are okay. Busted up some but not permanently. From what Danny remembers about the accident—” He explained to them his feelings about the stunt driver being out-of-town talent and added Chin Ho Kelly’s eye-picture of the driver just before the moment of collision. “Now, we got this caller downstairs. Looks French to me. He cursed in French anyway. And he used la savate and his coloring doesn’t indicate he’s been around Honolulu at all. So—more outside talent. And another slice at us. I read it this way. Mr. Endore is marked for a hit and somebody thinks well enough of us to want to slow us up, if not put us out of commission, so we won’t be in the way. Make sense?”
Kono nodded. “Plain as an apple in a pig’s mouth at a luau.”
“Sure Steve,” May added. “It makes sense that way.”
“Okay.” McGarrett was satisfied too. “Now they’ll very probably go for me next. I think they figured with my helpers out of the way I’d be easier game. I’ll buy that. I’m good but with you I’m better. Without you, I’m worse. Meanwhile, back at the Kahala Hilton—there’s Rogers Endore. Why would anyone want to kill him? He’s a famous statesman, of course, but he’s a sweetheart. No radical, no left winger or right-winger. Just a man who reflects his government’s position. Think about it.”
“Nuts always take shots at big men,” Kono offered.
“I see what Steve means,” May offered brightly. “They do but not in an organized way. Not thinking it all out. They just stand up and shoot or throw bombs.”
“Good girl, May. Now did you find anything at all on Endore that might indicate what he’s really doing here or why he’s going to the mainland?”
May thought, thought hard, rubbed the back of her neck ruefully and finally shrugged. “No. Nothing. He could have stopped off here just for the heck of it.”
McGarrett shook his head. “That’s the key to the whole thing. Why did Endore stop off here instead of going right on to the mainland? I wish the Governor had let me in on that. I’m sure he knows. If I knew, I’d have a better idea of just how to go about protecting Mr. Endore.”
Kono glowered. “Some protection. Nobody’s on duty at the Kahala now. Should I run over?”
“Not just yet. Endore’s at the University doing a spiel. The Governor’s with him and some of his own private guard. He’s due back at midnight. Time enough then.” McGarrett eyed his wrist watch. “That gives us approximately four hours—”
“Four hours to midnight,” May attempted brightness. “Wasn’t there a movie by that title once?”
“I wouldn’t know,” McGarrett said. “I haven’t got time for movies. Okay, Kono. Go see about the sleeping beauty downstairs. He’s hurt bad, so he won’t be doing any talking tonight. I doubt if he’ll have any cards or clues on him. Assassins usually work stripped down. Chances are his prints aren’t even on file. But we’ll try. Get a make on him and we’ll put it on the teletype. May, you go on home, now. That’s my order, see you tomorrow. Eight thirty sharp. I’ll take over here.”
He sat down behind his desk and put his hands up to his eyes. For really the first time, May and Kono were aware of the terrible condition of his clothes. The jacket was nearly sleeveless, his collar was gone and a huge patch of material was missing from his shirt front. McGarrett’s tanned throat bore the imprint of ugly, gouging fingers. In all the uproar, both Kono and May had been too shocked to allow their usual responses and impressions to register.
“Steve—” May almost whimpered.
“Sweet Halemaumau,” Kono said, awed, naming his favorite volcano, the fire-pit sensation of the island of Hawaii. “What did happen to you downstairs?”
McGarrett raised his head and leaned back in his chair.
“A funny thing happened to me on the way to the palace,” he said. Kono and May exchanged glances.
So he told them about the fight.
By noon of the next day, it became the talk of all police circles in the cosmos of Hawaii. A story travels faster when it’s true.
The condition of Tornier’s incredibly broken arm was merely the visual proof that any doubters and scoffers needed. Nobody had ever seen an arm broken by the hammerlock before.
Kono grinned admiringly when McGarrett was done. And then May went home. When she was gone, Kono had one more question about business.
“What about Kelly’s description? The suede windbreaker, crew-neck shirt, light brown slacks thing?”
“Put it on the teletype, as is, Kono. It’s a long shot and our man has probably changed his clothes already but there’s no guarantee he won’t put the same duds back on tomorrow. It could be a lead. Never can tell.”
You never could.
A scant three hours later, the All Points Bulletin ordering the lookout for a man wearing a suede windbreaker, crew-neck shirt and light brown slacks, wanted for questioning in a motor vehicle accident on Kalakaua Avenue, paid off.
Like three cherries on a slot machine.
Igor Dorkin’s island vis-à-vis for the night was an Oriental beauty with almond eyes, an exotically fleshed-out body in a beaded, slit-skirt dress and an asking price of twenty dollars for two hours of illicit pleasure in a tropically styled hotel along the beach at Waikiki. Dorkin was just far enough along in liquor consumption and the luxury of careless fun not to be on his best guard.
Desire had filled him up to the throat and Nancy Wing, that was her name, was working her ample hips into his thigh as they careened happily along the boardwalk leading down to the low, squat, bambooed building nestling among the palms. Dorkin was wearing the suede windbreaker, the crew-neck shirt and the light brown slacks. Scuffed suede loafers covered his feet. He had seen no need to change once he had returned to the Kahala Hilton after leaving Tornier.
For a night on the town, what better guise than this? Coupled with his totally American look, Dorkin felt as if he had blended into the tropical scenery. Real malahini style.
Miss Wing, squeezing his hand, murmuring enticements, sure she had garnered a playboy type with a thick wallet, navigated him down to the front of the hotel. Her skin was the color of tapioca. She hurried.
State Trooper William Alanaka sauntered out of the glass front of the hotel where he had paused to use the bathroom. He had been listening to the radioed description over and over again since he had come on duty at eight o’clock.
He spotted Igor Dorkin, tightened visibly and blocked the oncoming couple’s path. Nancy Wing’s face collapsed and she felt all her plans for a profitable evening go up in smoke. For Dorkin it was much worse.
“Pardon me,” William Alanaka said politely. “I’ll have to ask you to come with me. For questioning—”
That was all Igor Dorkin had to hear. Through a blur of alcohol and a painfully fierce suspicion that somehow his comrades had betrayed him, that he had been traced to the rented car, he did the wrong thing.
He ran, thrusting sexy Nancy Wing to one side, fumbling for the automatic pistol tucked in his waistband. The state trooper hadn’t even had his gun out. The idiot. Dorkin flung up the boardwalk, whirled and brought his gun up. Guns weren’t his speed but a man needed them.
Two unfortunate things happen
ed.
For Igor Dorkin.
State Trooper William Alanaka was the fastest gun in his department and his personnel record bore ample testimony to his skills. His gun was up and out and shooting before Igor Dorkin could fire.
And most unfortunately of all, Igor Dorkin still had pinned to his inside shirt pocket, the one over his heart, the fountain-pen bomb device. And William Alanaka never made a better shot. Or a more telling one.
The world where Igor Dorkin stood exploded in flame, thunder and obliteration. The boardwalk disintegrated in flying wood and metal.
Nancy Wing screamed and fell to her excellent knees, sobbing hysterically. People ran out of the hotel, shouting, yelling staring.
William Alanaka stared hopelessly at the gun in his hand, a bewildered Thor whose lightning has turned into Judgment Day.
At twelve o’clock that day, the tally had stood as Assassins: 6 Hawaii Five-O: 4.
The list had thinned down considerably.
It was now Assassins: 4, Hawaii Five-O: 1.
Perhaps, counting Kono’s continued mobility, one and a half.
7. KILL ME AT THE KAHALA
Racial amity, one class of people getting along with another, is neither a raging human issue in Hawaii nor a Utopian pipe dream for a future, better way of life. In the Aloha State, it is working now. On any given day in Honolulu, you will find practically all the races of the East: Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean and Polynesian, all healthily mixed with handsome brown Hawaiian natives and just about every national strain of the white man. Intermarriage has worked a miracle that no amount of political idealism and wishful programming could have wrought. The people of Hawaii live in peace and harmony, no mater what their origins are. Once you’re an islander, you’re an islander. That is bond enough. The maturing into an official state of America merely sealed the spirit, thinking and hopes of roughly one hundred and thirty-three thousand people who voted for statehood in 1959 against only eight thousand holdouts for the status of Organized Territory.
McGarrett, a white man and a policeman, was never alien in Oahu. Never the outsider come to crack the whip of authority over the local populace. He was accepted from the very beginning. Indeed, he had become an Oahu fixture, as much a part of the Honolulu complex as one of the new, improved highways.
When he showed up at the Kahala Hilton as the big clocks neared midnight he was made welcome. There was no question of the hotel staff not cooperating with Five-O. After a brief talk with the manager, McGarrett was given a room on the same floor that housed Miss Myra Endore’s room. A wing and a bend away from Rogers Endore’s suite of rooms. McGarrett was given carte blanche. No one seeing him would have believed he had battled for his life earlier that evening. He was smartly groomed in a fresh gray suit, blue tie, clean-shaven and thoroughly presentable. He had a black attaché case with him. No extra luggage. McGarrett’s greatest vice was that while working on a case he had no interest in time. Or sleep. Or food. He generally nourished himself from small cartons of dry cereal at Headquarters, eating on his feet, brain always working. He had decided to take the bull by the horns. When Igor Dorkin’s curious demise had come over the Five-O communications setup, Kono had muttered, “Who walks around with explosives in his pocket?” and McGarrett’s brain had clicked. Assassins.
The next move was indicated.
The Kahala Hilton. And a private chat with the daughter of the man McGarrett had been ordered to protect. There were aspects of the daughter’s sudden unannounced appearance in Honolulu which McGarrett remembered all too well from the afternoon interview with Rogers Endore.
Once parked in a small yet stylish room down the hall from her, McGarrett put in a call to her room. The manager had told him that Miss Endore was still in. Her room key had not left the rack behind the registration desk.
The phone rang about seven times before she answered. Her crisp voice was now blurred, husky. McGarrett restrained a snort of exasperation. Milady had been saucing it up, obviously. Poppa spanked so she retreated into a bottle.
“Miss Endore, this is McGarrett. Remember me?”
“Oh—” Sudden hauteur used to try to rescue the lady from confusion. “I don’t know—”
“You met me this afternoon when you first saw your father again. Hawaii Five-O.”
There was a brief pause, then a short laugh.
“Of course. Mr. Nosey Parker. Don’t tell me you need a woman, Mr. McGarrett? Tsk, tsk.”
McGarrett stared at the phone, shaking his head.
“I beat women away with clubs, Miss Endore. Forget that for now. Can I see you?”
“In a word—why?”
“I think I can save your father’s life. But I need your help. I have a room on this floor. I can be there in five minutes.”
He heard her sigh. It was a strange sigh. He wasn’t quite sure what kind of a sigh it was. For a moment he frowned.
“Miss Endore?”
“Still here, Mr. McGarrett. I was just deciding what would be proper to wear to greet a rather handsome detective at practically an ungodly hour—do you think, my silken peignoir would be a bit thick?”
“Wear the truth,” McGarrett said flatly, “and lay off the booze. I need a clear head on your shoulders. See you in five minutes.”
He hung up while she was beginning to tell him in a mocking voice how she was waiting with her maidenly heart fluttering. McGarrett moved to the bed, opened the black attaché case and extracted several items he had unearthed from the supply room at Headquarters. There was a pencil-beam flashlight in the form of a pocket fountain pen. The power of the torch was incredible in proportion to the length of the pen. The next item was a portable hand-pistol machine gun of new design. When the drum, stock and barrel were assembled, the weapon was a destroyer that could spew twenty-five rounds rapid-fire, without reloading. The last valuable implement in the case was a small smoke bomb, no bigger than a hand grenade but much lighter. McGarrett eyed the items with a rueful grin. When in Rome . . . he decided, and restuffed the bag, parking it under the bed. But he dropped the pencil-beam flashlight in his right side pocket.
Locking his door, he went down the hall to Miss Myra Endore’s room. There was no one in the hall. No incoming guests. Not even Carraway or one of his special agents. Rogers Endore had not returned from the University of Hawaii yet, though he was a bit overdue, already. McGarrett didn’t worry about that. Endore was with the Governor. The headache was out of his hands, temporarily.
Miss Endore answered his soft knock with a murmur of his name, and he eased into the room.
She walked ahead of him. Slowly, almost with put-on sensuality, but he knew it was her natural gait. She hadn’t been kidding about the peignoir, either. With one mild and distinctive difference. He could tell by its shimmeringly ivory lightness and swirling material that she wore practically nothing underneath it. Her pale flesh glowed invitingly. Also, she had only a night lamp on in the room. McGarrett checked the room from force of habit. Wide window facing the back of the hotel, door to the bathroom open, showing a yellow light. Small frosted window closed and latched. The attractive bed under the wide window was rumpled, worry-wrinkled, and a pack of Players lay crumpled beside the pillow. Miss Endore had obviously been unable to sleep. A tall bottle of Scotch gleamed emptily on a night stand by the bed. The window was raised high, the night air making the gauzelike curtains flutter. McGarrett locked the door behind him and walked farther into the room. It was a neat, attractive little room, bearing out the motif of Hawaii in rattan furnishings, bamboo odds and ends. But Miss Myra Endore would never lose her British great-lady look. Peignoir on no peignoir. Sauce or no sauce.
“What an awful way to live, Mr. McGarrett.” She had turned on the heel of one of her mules and flung the remark at him with low emphasis. Her hazel eyes were glinting.
“It’s a life, Miss Endore.” He studied her, eye to eye.
“Is it? You come into a lady’s boudoir, after hours, and I can see the police mind at w
ork. Checking locks, doors, and windows and all sorts of things.”
“It’s my job.”
“Your job?” She shrugged and indicated the Scotch bottle. “Do you indulge or is this strictly a duty call?”
“I indulge,” McGarrett agreed. “But not now.” He had to take his hat off to her. She had been drinking alone; the Scotch was gone but she was holding it beautifully. A high-class drinker.
“Sit down then,” she said, a trace of disappointment in her tone. “And do be brief. I will have to get to bed sometime.”
He took a deep, plush chair which faced the foot of the bed. Myra Endore draped herself along the short, tropically-patterned lounge across from him. Her long red hair, glinting with sparks every time she turned her head, was disconcerting. Coupled with her pure white ivory skin, hazel eyes and lovely slash of mouth, she was altogether a knockout. Hepburn at twenty-five again.
“Miss Endore, I’ll make my spiel and you listen. I saw enough and heard enough today, with your father, to indicate that you are the right person for me to see at this time.”
“You’ve fallen for my charm? Mr. McGarrett—”
“Don’t play Great Lady with me. Please. Your father’s life is up for grabs. Will you hear me out?”
She almost flushed. “Sorry. Ignore the humor. Do go on.”
“Thanks. Okay. I’ve been assigned to protect your father while he’s here. The Governor gave me the job but he can’t tell me why he’s adding my outfit to the security setup. Now today, all in the space of perhaps twelve hours, my people have been badly cut up—” Briefly, he outlined his story for her. The car accident, Tornier, the death of the exploding man, his suspicions and his certainty that an organized plot was afoot to kill or maim Rogers Endore. When he had finished, letting her absorb what he had said, she stirred impatiently on the lounge. Again, her soft flesh showed through the peignoir.
Hawaii Five-O - 2 - Terror in the Sun Page 8
