by Michael Lion
“Lou.” Again, the matter-of-fact tone.
“You got a last name?”
He turned and looked at me for the first time. His face went a little bleary and then he said, “Yeah.” And that was all.
I tried again, more gently. “Be cute some more. Who the fuck are you?”
“I could be a friend, little lost one, if your mouth don’t screw you over.” He returned his attention to his canvas, and punctuated this last bit with a short hiss of red onto the cloth.
“OK,” I said, “I’ll quit being an asshole if you quit being one.” I put out my hand.
He looked at it, set the airbrush down, and then took it in the brotherhood handshake that everyone uses in the islands. “Lou,” he said once again.
I smiled and tried not to look cunning. “Bird.”
He didn’t ask me about my nickname. His concentration went back to the apparently troublesome red portion of his most recent creation. “How long you been in town?”
“Less than a day,” I offered, busting a smoke.
He didn’t look at me but his eyebrows went up. The expression wrinkled his forehead and made him age. “And you already find your way to Kuhio? Not bad, friend, not bad. But whoever you looking for ain’t here.”
“How do you know I’m looking for somebody?”
“’Cause you been fallin’ all over the street for hours like you was drunk and can’t find the can, man.” He laughed deeply at that one, and his thin, pale body shook. I noticed that he hadn’t moved or done anything with his left hand since I had sat down. It lay in his lap, carelessly, like a damp towel draped over the edge of a bathtub. “I told you what your problem was.”
“Yeah, I’ve been made.” I studied the ash on my cigarette. “Too many questions?”
“To the wrong people.” He nodded in agreement with himself. He put the airbrush down and sat back on the crate. His good hand massaged his neck. “How much you give Tinker there?” He pointed to a guy at a hot dog cart I had braced about two hours earlier. Four inches of cocoa-colored stomach protruded from between the bottom of his t-shirt and the top of huge yellow shorts. He was barefoot, smiling at nothing in particular and not selling any hot dogs. Part of the reason he was smiling was because he had twenty of my dollars in his pocket. I told Lou how much.
“Twenty bones to find out the names of ten or fifteen hookers and a worse than average weed connection. That’s funny. I don’t know how you do it on the mainland, but over here that approach gets you grief.”
Suddenly Lou decided he wanted a smoke. This was a big decision for him. He looked forlornly at the deck of Carltons for a minute, hoping they would get up by themselves and jump to his lips. Then he took the pack, shook it, put a stick precisely in the center of his lips, and laid the pack gently back on the planter. Then he stared at the box of matches the same way, but added a little sigh. He picked up those, slid the cardboard drawer open, placed it on his thigh, and pulled out a match. The match went next to the cigarette between his lips so that he could place the box between his knees, striking side up. Then he retrieved the match, struck it, lit up, and let out the first exhale of a satisfying lung-full. He earned every one.
While he was adjusting the cigarette pack to even up with the sides of the box, I let out a breath and said, “What happened to your arm?”
“That’s the way,” he said, smiling. “Get folks to talk. You don’t need to be shovin’ money everywhere.” Through the smile he told me the story easily, like a well-rehearsed scene in some play. “First job I ever had in the islands was on a private fishing trawler out of Kahului Bay on Maui. Hardest motherfuckin’ work I ever done in my life. Anyway, one day we pull up a net, and there’s a thresher shark tied up in that thing and whippin’ around like a loose fire hose. It’s chewed the net all to shit and we can’t get close enough to it to cut it out, so I grab the baseball bat we used to stun tuna and wade in there to pacify the sonofabitch. Fucker’s on its back, and I wind up to give it a good one in the face when he flips over and sends his tail up into my arm. Ever felt raw sharkskin?”
I shook my head.
“It’s like a coarse grade grinding wheel. Severed the main nerve that goes through my shoulder.” Lou reached in the collar of the cheap flower-print shirt he wore and pulled out a leather thong with a shark tooth on it. “This’s one of his teeth.” He tucked it away and snatched the cigarette from his lips so his eyes wouldn’t water. “Right after that’s when I took up art.”
I sat and watched for a minute while he worked out some of the kinks on his canvas. Five feet from us people walked by in a haze, not noticing, not caring. The ocean was less than a quarter-mile away, but you couldn’t smell it for all the sweat and perfume and tanning lotion. I said, “You want to do a portrait of me? Or is this some special project you’re working on?” I tapped the corner of the canvas.
He pointed to the sign and said, “No, I don’t particularly want to do your portrait, but for the regular price I certainly will do it.”
I shook my head and pulled a hundred out and gave it to him. He looked at it like both me and the bill suspiciously. “I don’t want one of those flat, stupid tourist portraits,” I said. “Really paint. Let’s see what you can do when you’re properly motivated.”
He stared into my right eye for a while and then said, “OK, haole. But you don’t get to look ’til I’m done.”
I nodded and sat up straight. I just wanted to keep him talking. I would have offered him the money without the painting, but I knew he wouldn’t take it. It also protected him. He had to live here. He didn’t know me from Judas, and somebody throwing him C-notes might not be taken lightly by people who pay attention to that sort of thing. He knew the money wasn’t for the painting—it was for the conversation. I let him start it.
He popped a small reservoir of black paint onto the airbrush and said, “You got a girl?”
“No,” I said, but the answer came too fast. Tanya jumped through my head. Then Del. His eyes caught mine while I was remembering her in the water off of Malibu. Lou just smiled, didn’t press. “Yeah, nobody does down here.”
“You?” I said.
He motioned over his shoulder with the brush. “Works right back there at Herman’s Hideaway.” I squinted. The end of the alley was a wall of short palms, and through the leaves I could vaguely make out cocktail tables. “She’s a waitress. Name’s Moonbeam.”
That was too good not to be true. His eyes sparkled when he said it, a combination of love and gratitude. It was an expression out of place in this neighborhood. “That’s nice, man. That’s real nice.”
“Yeah,” he said humbly. “She is.” He let a few seconds pass and then said, “So who you after?”
I said, “Why?”
“See man, that’s your fuckin’ problem, right there. You wanna find this dude, but you too scared.”
“What do you mean, scared?”
“I mean scared. Here I am, willin’ to help, and you won’t tell me nothin’. ’Cause you scared. You scared I’m gonna go run tell somebody, ‘Hey, we gotta dumbass, fresh-off-the-boat haole down here, whack him and I’ll take twenty percent of what’s in his wallet.’” He shook his head loosely. “You gotta relax, man.”
I smiled a goofy smile. He ignored it and went on.
“So, what you know about this guy? Not much, it sound like.”
“Yeah. All I know is what he looks like, and where he was flying to. So I decided to follow him out here and flop around in front of the locals until somebody decided to shoot me and put me out of my misery.”
Lou laughed. “So this dude could be on one a the outer islands, maybe fuckin’ Guam, for all you know. Sounds to me like you got some ass-sittin’ to do. Good thing you got a mentor like me.” He shook his head disdainfully.
“Hey, now, that’s not fair.”
“Cool your jets. You should learn to take a little criticism.”
I let his smirk fly.
“You wanna find som
ebody, Mr. Bird? You ain’t gonna. So just relax.”
It was out of my mouth before I realized it. “And what, let him find me?”
In answer, he turned the canvas around. There was nothing on it but a field of black with two huge, blue, astonished and staring eyes. Below them was a disembodied cigarette, the smoke drifting up past the right eye and out of the frame. I told him he could keep it.
The next time I saw Lou, the painting was gone.
“Room 1724.”
“Thank you, sir. One moment, please.”
I stood at a payphone that was pretty much in the sand of Waikiki Beach. Subtle clicks came over the line as the Hyatt’s switchboard routed the call to Tanya. I watched pretty people with tans and pale tourists without them wander back and forth on the boardwalk. She picked up on the third ring. Her groggy voice mumbled, “Zis you?”
“Get a pen.”
“What?” she said, her voice quickly losing its sleepy edge.
“Get a pen.”
“All right, all right, Christ,” she muttered. I could hear a drawer being slid open as she breathed heavily into the receiver. “When did you lan—”
“There’s a place called the Newsroom Café a few blocks away, just south of Beverly Boulevard on Robertson,” I said, cutting her off. “There’s a payphone next to the bathroom inside. Go there right now and call me at this number.” I read the phone number off the payphone. “If it’s busy, keep trying. Keep an eye out for tails. Talk to you in fifteen minutes.” I hung up before she could protest.
I planted myself on the low wall separating sand from concrete and watched Asian surfer girls, their skin glowing in the early morning light. Li’s image tore through me like hot steel. Fifteen minutes went by. Two people used the phone, making me nervous. Twenty-two minutes later it rang. No one seemed to notice as I answered. People who ruled their worlds from payphones were probably fairly common on the beach.
“You’re lucky I’ve got a phone card,” Tanya snapped.
“I checked your purse before I left,” I shot back. “You doing OK?”
She softened a little. “Just cranky is all. You could’ve called when you landed. That would’ve been nice.”
“Sorry. I had stuff to do. You still got that pen?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m at the Ala Moana Hotel in Waikiki, room 811. If you call me, here’s the drill: let it ring twice, then hang up. Call back and let it ring again once, and hang up. I’ll call you in twenty minutes at the phone you’re at now.”
“OK. You find that lawyer yet?”
“No. That’s why I called you. I’m coming up empty.”
“What can I do?”
“You can look behind you, for one.”
Tanya was silent for a minute. “OK. What am I looking for?”
“Is there a heavyset black guy in there somewhere?”
“Yeah. A couple.”
“This guy is about sixty, sixty-five. Gray hair, spotty gray beard. Looks a little bit like Uncle Remus. Wears a porkpie hat pushed way back on his head.”
Tanya said, “Hold on,” and the receiver went silent. Sounds of breakfast in a quiet café floated over the line—glasses clinking, muted conversation. “Nope. Nobody here older than about forty.”
“All right. What time is it there?”
“A little after nine-thirty.”
I noted the three-hour difference. “Well, he’ll be there. He has breakfast there almost every morning about now. His name’s Cain. His friends call him Big Daddy.”
“Big Daddy Cain?” Tanya snorted. “What is he, a pimp?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact. And he takes care of his girls, too, and is just about the nicest old man you’ll ever meet, so don’t even go there.”
She huffed disgustedly. “I can’t believe you want me to talk to some fucking pimp. That’s sick.” We were silent for a second and then she said, “What am I supposed to ask him?”
“Ask him where a guy with money would go to get some sex in Honolulu. A guy who maybe wanted to be discrete, and had a taste for the best stuff around.”
“All right. I’ll get some coffee and wait. What if he doesn’t believe me?”
“Just tell him you’re a friend of mine, and that I’m in trouble. I’d call him, but I’m sure the cops are on him as a hobby, and I don’t have his number anyway. Don’t tell him more than that.”
“OK.”
“And you’re sure you’re all right? Do you have enough money?”
“Yeah.”
Her answers were flat, and it worried me. “Tanya? Did something happen?” I asked sternly, my grip on the receiver tightening. “Did you see someone?”
“Yeah.”
My legs got weak. “Shit. Who? When?”
“I’m sorry, Bird. I didn’t really see anyone. But...I know you said not to...but I went to my place last night, you know, to get a few things.” Her voice quivered just the tiniest bit.
“Oh, Christ. Who saw you?”
“No one, I swear. There was no one there.” She couldn’t stop her voice from quivering, so she just forged ahead. “But there had been. Jesus, my place was wrecked, Bird. It was torn to fucking pieces. Everything was turned over and torn up, a bunch of my clothes were slashed. Some of my underwear...where they slashed it...” She took a loud, long breath and recovered a little. “They wrote things on my walls in Chinese. I don’t know what they meant. They used my lipstick and nail polish...Jesus, it looked like blood. I thought it was blood.” She sniffled and then went suddenly silent.
I sat, helpless on the other end, hating myself.
When she spoke again, her voice was solid and strong. “FUCK, I’m scared.”
“I know. Me too. Hang in there, Tanya. Just get me what I need, OK?”
“OK,” she said evenly. “I’ll call you in a little while.”
“All right.”
There was a pause. It seemed like I needed to say something other than ‘bye.’ I never got the chance. I held the phone until the dial tone buzzed. Then I hung up and wandered back to the hotel and some sleep. When Cain called, it was night again.
Pure Platinum.
It was a strip joint on Kalakaua Avenue that called itself a “gentleman’s club.” I bribed my way past the dress code, and inside it was all white neon and silver glitter and streamers—some of that on the girls. With one exception, all were medium height, curvy, blond in some form, and caucasian. The exception was a rangy Asian girl dancing in a far corner with nobody watching her. I sat down at the bar so Cassandra could give me a drink.
She had straight, platinum hair that was obviously a wig, large breasts she wasn’t born with, and was the kind of attractive that happens if the lighting is right. She was also naked from the waist up, except for silver glitter on her chest and shoulders. She had a twin sister working the other end of the bar. Forty bucks and twenty minutes later she introduced me to my mark.
She said her name was Beverly, which was about as honest as the glass chips in her ears trying to pass for diamonds. She pronounced it “Bebuli” in a strong Filipina accent. Beverly, it seemed, didn’t feel that military guys throwing twenties at her for hours on end was a fulfilling career, so she pulled some sheet action on the side. According to Cassandra, a little action with Beverly cost a lot of money. There was a rumor she’d had three men die under her—two heart attacks, one brain aneurysm. Thus the high price. Cassandra said that Filipinas knew stuff about pleasing men that other girls didn’t. I told her if it was so good it killed you, I wasn’t all that interested.
Beverly slunk over after finishing a table dance and gave me a look I had only seen on the faces of some animals. She was the only female in the place who wasn’t at least partially naked, but she didn’t look like she made a lot of dough—everything about her was cheap cover-up. She had on a clingy white mini-dress a size too small, a black belt cinched tightly around a tiny waist, and black pumps with stiletto heels so high they bent her foot at a right angle to
the floor. Her nails were two inches long. Bright red lipstick was mashed into her heavy lips, and dark brown hair dyed blond at the ends was teased out around her face in a hair-sprayed mane. She and Cassandra looked like they both shopped for breasts at the same place.
Cassandra finished the amenities and Beverly said, “You don’t look like much.”
“I’m not,” I said, lighting her cigarette. She smoked those long skinny things and held them between her nails, not her fingers, like a piece of spaghetti in a pair of forceps. “But I’m looking for somebody who is.”
“And you think I know them?”
“Maybe. He likes what you sell. And I hear you’re the best, which he also likes.” I finished my drink and pushed it at Cassandra, who instantly produced another one like she had been waiting for a cue.
Beverly said, “Buy me a drink and we’ll talk.” She glanced at Cassandra and they exchanged a look that could have meant anything. Then she turned her back to me and said, “You will come with me.”
Men stared at me like I was the anointed one as she cut a swath through the tables toward a curtained doorway in the middle of the wall opposite the bar. Through the curtains was another room with more dancers that, unlike their underwear-clad associates out front, were completely nude. Some of them had special talents that more men were laying out more money to witness. One girl near the front was bent in half backwards, on her hands and feet, slowly rotating on a small turntable. She had a lit cigarette that she was puffing with her vagina. Another girl was slowly stuffing ping-pong balls inside herself. Beverly caught me staring. “She’s going to shoot them across the room,” she said.
