Mahu Vice m-4

by Neil S. Plakcy

  I had a flash of inspiration when I saw a collection of cock rings in different sizes, stuffed into a zippered plastic bag. I grabbed the bag and the cloaks and limped back into the hallway.

  The smoke was almost impenetrable, and it felt like my whole body was coated in sweat. I couldn’t stop coughing and I felt an acrid burning in my throat. Using the wall for guidance I stumbled to the master bedroom, which had begun to fill with smoke as well. Gunter pointed out toward the lanai, where the flames had grown. “We can’t get through that, Kimo.”

  “We can’t wait here until the fire gets put out, either,” I said, choking out the words. “We don’t know how long that will take.” I spilled the cock rings out of the plastic bag and said, “Give me your transmitter.”

  “Cock rings?” Laughter alternated with his choking.

  “Gunter. Focus. Take off the transmitter so I can put it in this bag.”

  He pulled off the transmitter and wrapped the wires around it. I zipped it into the bag. “We’ll see if these really are watertight. Now put the cloak on.”

  “Are you losing your mind?”

  “Just put it on.” I slipped the cloak on over my clothes. The effect was claustrophobic, pressing my sweaty shirt against my body, especially as I was already having trouble breathing. The hood and the long sleeves covered almost all of my skin except for my face. I grabbed a couple of pillows from the bed and dumped them out of their cases.

  In the mirror over the bed, I saw our reflection. Gunter and I looked like a pair of Sith lords from Star Wars. “Put the pillowcase over as much of your face as you can,” I said. “Then we run through the fire and jump in the pool.”

  “You’re crazy,” Gunter said. But he wrapped the cloth over his mouth.

  I slid open the glass door, and there was a momentary influx of fresh air. I took a deep breath, grabbed Gunter’s hand, looked him in the eye, and nodded.

  Then we ran.

  It felt like a hundred-yard dash through hell. There were flames all around us, and I thought my chest was going to burst. It took us a half dozen big strides to push through the flames. We opened our mouths, took deep breaths, then jumped feet first into the deep end of the pool.

  My body couldn’t keep up with the disorienting changes-from heat and fire to cold and wet and chlorine. I thrashed around underwater for a minute, losing the pillowcase over my mouth and shedding the cloak. The pool water doused the smoldering fabric and I didn’t feel the pain of chlorinated water meeting open wounds, so that meant I hadn’t been burned.

  I surfaced first, choking water out of my mouth. The house was engulfed in flames, and I saw water from the fire hoses spitting over the roof. At the far end of the house, a couple of firefighters in yellow suits dragged a hose around the corner.

  Below me, Gunter was having trouble, flailing around under the surface of the water, the heavy cloak dragging him below. I dove down and grabbed him, but he was frightened and tried to shake me off.

  One thing about being a surfer, you get a lot of experience dragging people out of the water. I knew not to fight with him. Instead, I focused on getting the cloak off him, letting him battle on his own, and once the heavy thing was off his shoulders, he rose up to gasp for air. We were in the deep end of the pool, eight feet by the marking on the side wall. I turned on my side to swim up to the shallow end, dragging Gunter along behind me. We both collapsed on the steps, which had been inlaid with a tile pattern of hibiscus blossoms.

  “You okay?” I asked, panting heavily.

  He coughed, spitting out water, but managed to say, “Never a dull moment with you, Kimo.”

  “You burned at all?”

  He shook his head. “Me neither.” One of the cloaks drifted toward us, and I saw a big hole burned through the back. The other cloak spread out at the deep end like a dead man floating. As we leaned back against the tile of the pool and caught our breath, the firemen aimed their hose at the back wall of the house.

  More firefighters came around the side of the house to fight the fire at the back, and one of them helped us up out of the pool. He radioed that he had two guys soaking wet, needing blankets.

  I’d lost my deck shoes in the pool, but I wasn’t going back for them. Gunter and I hobbled together across the lawn, as the fireman who’d helped us went back to fighting the flames. As we turned the corner, Mike came loping up the lawn, carrying blankets and throwing himself in my arms. “Don’t you know I’m the one who’s supposed to fight fires?” he asked, then he kissed me.

  GO BIG OR GO HOME

  Mike wrapped Gunter and me in the blankets. I slung one arm around Mike, the other around Gunter, and we walked down the lawn together. There was a fresh breeze sweeping in from the ocean, and the air was clear down there. Despite all the chaos behind us, I felt safe and secure.

  We’d almost made it to the street when the garage exploded, all that stockpiled gasoline going up in one big blast that shook the ground and sent waves of heat and fire toward us. The noise was so loud that it knocked my hearing out for a minute. I smelled singed flesh and burning grass as the three of us fell to the ground in a heap.

  Waves of flame swept down from the garage. I closed my eyes and faced down in the grass. Mike rolled on top of us, splaying his arms out to keep us flat to the ground. The flames were quickly doused by the hoses, and a couple of EMTs rushed over to help us all up.

  There was dirt all over Gunter’s face, and he’d gotten a bunch of scrapes on his chest. He couldn’t stop coughing, so they hooked him up with an oxygen mask. I saw him try to flirt with the EMT, but even Gunter is defeated sometimes.

  I thought I might have a cracked rib or two, and there was a bruise on my forehead that hurt like a bastard. Mike had been wearing his yellow fire jacket, so the worst that had happened to him was that some of the black hair on the back of his head had gotten singed off.

  The three of us sat down at the curb by the EMT wagon, watching the firefighters douse the rest of the blaze. Because of the spacious yard around the house, they’d been able to keep it from reaching the neighbors, though the street was crowded with onlookers and I saw a truck from Lui’s station, KVOL. I ducked my head down so that Ralph Kim wouldn’t see me and try to get me on camera.

  The EMT insisted that we all go to The Queen’s Medical Center for evaluation. None of us had the energy to complain.

  Dr. Phil was on duty, and as I stepped down from the van, holding Mike’s hand for support, he hurried forward in his hospital scrubs, a stethoscope around his neck. “You’re turning into a frequent flyer here, Kimo,” he said. “If you ever want to see me, though, you can just call. Don’t feel you have to have a professional reason.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. He took my vitals, directed the EMT to take me to a curtain, and then turned to Mike and Gunter.

  A few minutes later a nurse came in to hook me up to oxygen, and I asked him for a pad and a pen. After he helped me peel off my wet, smoky clothes and put me into a backless hospital gown, he scrounged through a cabinet and found a pad from one of the drug companies, and a pen advertising a medication I’d never heard of and hoped I never had to use.

  I started scrawling notes as the curtain next to me was pulled open. Mike was sitting back down on the bed next to mine. “Not what I was thinking of when I dreamed of sharing a room with you,” he said.

  The curtain on the other side of his bed swung open, and Gunter said, “Hey, we could always make it a threesome.” Then he started to cough again, returning to his own bed, and the nurse hurried over to make sure he kept the oxygen mask over his face.

  After a long while, Dr. Phil came by and said that all three of us were good to go, provided we took it easy and avoided running through any more fires for a few days. I used Mike’s phone to call my parents and let them know I was okay. I called Lidia, too, and she said she would swing over to the hospital and take Gunter home. Dr. Phil lent Mike and me each a set of scrubs. We were barefoot, and the scrubs were tight
and only came down to the tops of our ankles, but they were better than nothing.

  Gunter said he preferred to remain in the hospital gown. “You never know when one of these will come in handy,” he said. On our way out of the hospital we stopped in the lounge to watch KVOL broadcast a teaser for the late news.

  They had some spectacular footage of the fire, including a shot of me and Gunter hobbling around the side of the house, soaking wet. Ralph Kim’s voice-over promised a full report at eleven o’clock. I knew my brother Lui would get hold of me before then, and that he’d complain that I hadn’t given him a heads up on the fire. I’d make it up to him by giving Ralph Kim an interview.

  Lidia arrived as the fire segment was ending. We made a quick stop at a Long’s, where she went inside and bought three sets of rubber slippas, all in bright pink. “It’s the only color they had in your size,” she said.

  Mike protested, but laughed and slid them on his feet.

  A few minutes later, Lidia dropped Mike and me off at the station, then headed to Waikiki with Gunter, who was already talking about playing some doctor/patient games in the future. The man has a one-track mind.

  Mike and I looked pretty funny, hobbling into the station, wearing the skimpy scrubs and the pink slippers. Ray was at his desk when we walked in. “Jesus, shouldn’t you guys still be in the ER?” he asked.

  “Can’t leave you with all the paperwork,” I said. “Stan in the system?”

  “He’s downstairs in a holding cell until they can get him in front of a judge. And there’s a cop at the hospital with Richard Hu.”

  The three of us began to reconstruct everything we had done, in mind-numbing detail. Ray had the transmitter, which had been protected by the zippered bag, and he played it for Mike and me. It had recorded everything Richard and Stan had said to incriminate themselves. With testimony from Gunter, Treasure, and Long and the other immigrants, we had enough to put them both away for a long time.

  Around eight, Dr. Phil called. “Thought you’d want an update on Richard Hu. He lost a lot of blood, but we removed the bullets and he’s in recovery.”

  I thanked him.

  “You might be interested to know that when we emptied his pockets, he had four different driver’s licenses, each one with a different name and a different address. Hospital billing is going to love tracking him down.”

  “We’ll see if we can help,” I said, and passed the news to Mike and Ray.

  “I hope he has a painful recovery,” Ray said.

  A little later, Steve Hart and Lee Kawika showed up. They had gotten a search warrant for Stan’s house in Hawai’i Kai, where they found enough incendiary materials to burn all the way down to the Pacific.

  “I’ve never seen so much stuff,” Steve said. “It’s a wonder the whole place didn’t just spontaneously combust.”

  “What about the dog?” Ray asked.

  “Had to call the Hawaiian Humane Society,” Lee said. “Beautiful dog, that husky. They’ll take care of him until the bastard makes arrangements for him.”

  “You know we have a mountain of paperwork ahead of us,” Ray said. “Tracking down everything about Richard and Stan, about their businesses, and then finding all those illegal immigrants.”

  “Frank O’Connor can handle the Mahalo Manpower stuff,” I said. By ten o’clock, we were all ready to call it quits. Steve and Lee were finished with their inventory of Stan’s house, and Ray wanted to head home to Julie. There was still a lot more paperwork to do, but that would take time. I called Brian Izumigawa and let him know he was off the hook, and suggested he find himself another closeted guy, maybe another banker, rather than meeting strangers online. I’m not sure he appreciated the thought.

  I e-mailed Fouad Khan and let him know that Stan wouldn’t be contacting him anymore. After the cool response I got from Brian, I didn’t make any suggestions to Fouad. Though I did think for a minute or two about hooking the two of them up.

  Mike and I agreed to stop at Raimundo’s for a late dinner. We were surprised as we walked in to see Doc Takayama and Lidia Portuondo, sharing an intimate table.

  “So, you guys have discovered our little romantic hideaway,” I said.

  Lidia blushed. She had her hair down around her shoulders, instead of up in her regular French braid, and she looked pretty in the candlelight.

  “Officer Portuondo and I were just discussing a case,” Doc said.

  Mike and I both laughed. “Come on, Doc, you’re busted,” I said. “Though I can’t say I see what a lovely young woman like Lidia sees in a ghoul like you.”

  “Paul is not a ghoul,” Lidia said. She reached over and took Doc’s hand, and I realized I’d never known the medical examiner’s first name until then.

  “Enjoy your dinner,” I said, smiling, and Mike and I sat down at our own table, still wearing our scrubs and pink slippas.

  We didn’t talk much; the day had taken a lot out of both of us, and we’d already talked through everything about the case at the station. Instead, we just sat back and enjoyed the antipasto salad and the restorative powers of pasta, chicken, and tomato sauce in various combinations.

  When we got back to the Halekulani, we pulled a couple of Big Wave Pale Ales out of the minibar and sat out on the lanai together, drinking and staring at the view of Diamond Head. I felt ready to tackle the unspoken issues between us.

  “That was a pretty ballsy thing you did today,” I said, sipping my beer.

  “Which thing was that?”

  “Running up to me, hugging and kissing me. All those firemen watching you. Pretty dramatic way to out yourself.”

  “It was going to happen sooner or later. You know what they say, go big or go home.”

  “So we’re going to give this a try again?”

  “That is my intention.”

  He looked at me and took my hand. “I went out to Tripler at lunch, and my dad and I had a talk,” he said. “I think it was the first time in a long time that we actually communicated, you know? Not him lecturing and me arguing. We talked. I was pretty surprised to hear that stuff my mom said last night.”

  He looked out toward Diamond Head. “He said that I was a lot more like him than either of us wanted to admit. He did go nuts when he thought my mom wouldn’t marry him. And he recognized I was doing the same thing, and he just wanted to make things easier for me.”

  “He cares about you.”

  “I know. Like your folks care about you.” He smiled. “I was jealous, you know? Seeing you with your parents. How much they love you and accept you. I didn’t think I had that.” He squeezed my hand. “But now I know that I do. And knowing that, I can get on with things. I’m sure I’m still going to have some issues. But you can help me out.”

  “It is handy having somebody around who’s been through it before.”

  “So we’re back on? Together?”

  “Just try and get rid of me.” We leaned across and kissed, and then I yawned.

  He said, “Am I boring you?” But then he yawned himself.

  I stood up. “What do you say we go to bed?” I asked.

  “Those are words I hope I never get tired of hearing,” he said, standing up beside me.

  We stood together for a moment, staring out at Diamond Head. In the distance we could hear car horns, late-night revelers on Kalakaua, a far-off siren. I was in the city I called home, within sight and sound of the ocean. My family and friends were safe out there in the darkness, and the man I loved was beside me.

  It didn’t get better than that.

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