Another reporter asked Tommie the same question.
“I’m not afraid of punishment,” he said, an arm around the sulky Thalia. “The Navy is behind us to a man.”
“Go Navy!” Jones said.
Lord nodded and said the same thing, shaking a fist in the air. You know what? I think I would rather pick my backup out of the crowd at a Wednesday night prayer meeting.
Another reporter called out: “How about you, Mr. Darrow? What’s your reaction?”
“Well,” Darrow said, gathering his briefcase and other things off the defense table, “I’m not a Navy man, but this does bring to mind a certain phrase: ‘We have not yet begun to fight.’”
“You beat the second-degree murder rap,” the reporter reminded him.
“The verdict is a stunning travesty on justice and on human nature,” he said, working up some steam. “I’m shocked and outraged. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
And as Chang Apana lead Darrow’s clients into the waiting arms of the Shore Patrol, C.D. turned and winked at me, before trundling out, along the way filling the ears of the reporters with more expressions of his surprise and disappointment at this gross miscarriage of justice.
I caught up with Chang in front of the courthouse. Flashbulbs were lighting up the night as the defendants were piled into two Navy cars; Thalia was allowed to ride back to Pearl with Tommie.
“Chang!”
The little cop in the Panama hat turned and cast his poker-faced gaze my way.
“What was that about this afternoon?” I asked him.
“I owe you apology, Nate.”
“You owe me an explanation.”
People were lingering in front of the courthouse. Kelley and Darrow had been buttonholed by reporters, and we were in the midst of a chattering crowd, mostly haole, mostly unhappy.
“This is no place to talk,” Chang said. “At later time.”
And he slipped away from me, into the crowd, stepping into a patrol car that pulled away from the curb, leaving me just another unhappy haole in the crowd.
That evening, I kept an appointment at Lau Yee Ching’s at Kuhio and Kalakaua Avenue, a sprawling, spotless pagoda palace that put any Chinese restaurant back home to shame. The beaming host, in black silk pajamas and slippers, asked if I had a reservation; I gave the name of the party I was joining and his face turned grave before he nodded and handed me over to a good-looking geisha.
The geisha, whose oval face was as lovely and expressionless as the white-painted women in the Chinese tapestries along the walls, was expecting me.
She was Horace Ida’s sister.
“My brother is innocent,” she whispered, and that was all either of us said as she led me through a fairly busy dining room that seemed more or less equally divided between tourists and locals, to a private dining alcove where her brother was waiting.
Then the geisha was gone, closing a door on us.
“Victory dinner, Shorty?” I asked, sitting across from him at a table that could have sat eight.
“We didn’t win anything today,” Ida said sourly. “That guy Kelley will prosecute us next.”
“Sure this place is safe? It’s hopping.”
A steaming plate of almond chop suey was on the linen-covered table; a bowl of rice, too; and a little pot of tea. Ida had already served himself and was digging in. There was a place setting waiting for me—silverware, not chopsticks like Ida was using.
“Reporters don’t bother tail me here,” he said, shrugging. “They know my sis works at Lau Yee’s, I eat here all the time, on the cuff.”
“Your sister sleeping with the owner?”
He glared at me; pointed with a chopstick. “She not that kinda girl. I don’t like that kinda talk. Her boss believes in us.”
“Us?”
“Ala Moana boys. Lotta Chinese and Hawaiian merchants put up dough for our defense, you know.”
“That’s the rumor I heard. Of course, this is an island full of rumors.”
This meeting was my idea; I had let him pick the place, as long as it wasn’t the damn Pali. I’d wanted somewhere public, but not too public. Neither one of us wanted to be seen together, particularly by the press. Officially, we were in opposing camps.
“Rumors like the story that you fellas got blamed for what some other carload of boys did,” I said. “It’s all over the Island…but nobody seems to know who these invisible men are.”
Ida, mouth full of almond chop suey, chuckled. “If I know who really do it, you think I wouldn’t say?”
“Maybe. Of course, back where I come from, it isn’t honorable to rat guys out.”
He looked up from his food with spaniel eyes. “If I knew…if I hear anything, I’d say.”
“I believe you. Of course, maybe they don’t exist; maybe the second gang is nothing but a rumor.”
“Somebody attack on that white woman, and it wasn’t us.”
I leaned forward. “Then, Shorty—you and your friends, you need to beat the bushes for me. I’m an outsider, I can only do so much.”
He frowned. “Why do you want to help? Why don’t you go home now? You and Clarence Darrow who is too big a shot to meet with us.”
The chop suey was delicious; best I ever had. “I’m here on his behalf. I believe if Darrow is convinced of your innocence, he’ll help you.”
“Help how?”
“I don’t know exactly. But I know he’s dealing with the governor for his clients; he might do the same for you.”
Ida snorted. “Why?”
“Maybe he agrees with you. Maybe he thinks he was on the wrong side of the courtroom in this one.”
Ida thought about it. “What can I do? What can we do?”
“I know the Island’s crawling with rumors, but I need leads, and I need leads with substance.”
“There is one rumor,” Ida said, frowning thoughtfully, “that does not go away. I hear it over and over.”
“What’s that?”
“That Thalia Massie have kanaka boyfriend.”
“A beach boy.”
He shrugged, ate some rice. “Maybe a beach boy.”
“I don’t suppose he has a name.”
“No. Sometimes I hear he’s a beach boy. More times I hear he’s a music boy.”
The doorman at the Ala Wai Inn said Thalia had talked to a music boy before she went out in the night.
And the music boy had a name—Sammy.
“Thanks for dinner, Shorty.” I rose from the table, touched a napkin to my lips.
“That all you gonna eat?”
“I got enough,” I said.
The dark, stocky doorman at the Ala Wai was wearing the orange shirt with flowers on it again. He didn’t recognize me at first; maybe that’s because I wasn’t in my parrots-on-red silk number, though I did dress up my brown suit with a blue tie with yellow blossoms I’d bought in the Royal Hawaiian gift shop.
I held up a five-dollar bill, and that he recognized.
“We talked about Thalia Massie,” I reminded him, working my voice up over the tremolo of the George Ku Trio’s steel guitar. “This is the fin you were gonna get if that music boy, Sammy, showed up….”
“But he hasn’t, boss.”
I put the five-spot away and fished out a ten. Held it up. “Has he been here for a sawbuck?”
A rueful half-smile formed on his moon face. He shook his head, saying, “Even a double sawbuck can’t make him here when he never was.”
“Tell ya what, Joe—that’s what you will get…a double sawbuck…if you call me when you see him. You still got my name and number?”
He nodded, patted his pocket. “Got it right here, boss. You at the Royal Hawaiian.”
“Good. Good man.”
“He may show, anytime.”
I frowned. “Why’s that?”
“I seen another guy here from Joe Crawford’s band. So they must be takin’ a break from that Maui gig.”
His use of “gig”—a term I’d heard
jazz players in Chicago use—reminded me how small the world was getting.
“Any of Crawford’s music boys here tonight?”
He shook his head, no. “But one of those commanders you was here with last time is.”
“Commanders?”
He grinned. “I call ’em all ‘Commander.’ They get a kick of that, those Navy officers.”
“You know which ‘commander’ is here tonight?”
“Let me look.” He had a clipboard hanging from a teakwood lattice. “Sure. Bradford. Lt. Jimmy Bradford.”
I thought for a second. “Joe, are the private dining rooms in use upstairs?”
“No. Earlier tonight, not now.”
“Where’s ‘Commander’ Bradford sitting?”
Joe pointed, and I moved through a haze of smoke past the Chinese woodwork of booths and the press of couples on the dance floor, weaving through the mostly kanaka crowd until I found Bradford, casual in white mufti but no tie, seated in a booth off the dance floor. He was with a woman whose name I didn’t recall but, from my previous visit to the Ala Wai, remembered as the wife of another officer. She was brunette and pleasantly plump and half in the bag.
“Good evening, Lieutenant,” I said.
Hollowly handsome Bradford, a drink in one hand, a smoke in the other, looked up; his face went from blank to annoyed to falsely affable. “Heller. Uh, Judy, this is Nate Heller, he was Clarence Darrow’s investigator.”
Pretty, pretty drunk Judy smiled and bobbled her head at me.
“Actually,” I said, “I still am.”
“You’re still what?” Bradford asked.
“Darrow’s investigator. Sentencing isn’t for a week; we’re tying up some loose ends before going to the governor for clemency.”
Bradford was nodding. “Slide in. Join us.”
I stayed where I was. “Actually, I wondered if I could have a word with you, in private.”
“Sure.” He shrugged, grinned, nodded out toward the packed dance floor where couples were clinched, swaying to the soothing three-part harmonies and seductive rhythms of the George Ku Trio. “But where would we do that, exactly?”
“I need to get a look at the private dining room upstairs, where Thalia crashed the Stockdale party. Maybe you could point it out, and we could use that for a private chat.”
He shrugged. “Okay. If you think it’d be helpful to the cause.”
“I think it would.”
He leaned forward and touched the brunette’s hand, which was tight around her glass. “Can you take care of yourself for a couple minutes, hon?” he asked.
She smiled and said something unintelligible that passed for “yes,” and then Bradford and I were wending our way through the crowd at the edge of the dance floor, heading for the front of the club. There were stairs to the mezzanine on either side; Bradford, carrying his drink in a water glass, was in the lead as we wandered toward the right.
“Don’t get the wrong idea about Judy,” Bradford said, looking back with a sickly grin. “Her husband Bob’s out on sub duty and she’s kinda lonely, needed some company.”
“I won’t.”
He frowned in confusion. “Won’t what?”
“Get the wrong idea.”
Up the stairs, past a few booths where couples cuddled and kissed and laughed and smoked and sipped their spiked Cokes, we came to the first of several small dining alcoves, not unlike the one at Lau Yee Ching’s where I’d spoken earlier with Horace Ida.
“Which one was the Stockdale party in?” I asked him.
Bradford nodded toward the middle one, and I gestured like a gracious usher toward the door; he stepped inside, and I followed, shutting the door behind us.
The walls were pink and bare but for, at left, a small plaque of a gold dragon on a black background; straight ahead, a window looked out on the parking lot; a cheap version of a Chinese chandelier was centered over a small banquet table.
“This is where Thalia was,” I said, “when you came looking for her.”
“I wasn’t looking for her.” He shrugged, sipped his drink. “She was just here already when I stuck my head in. I was, you know, socializing, goin’ around the club, table-hoppin’.”
“I think you’d noticed what a bad mood Thalia was in,” I said. “And how drunk she was getting.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“You were concerned about her behavior. You were aware, that ever since you dropped her…I assume you dropped her, as opposed to her dropping you, but that is just an assumption…that she’d gotten involved with a rougher breed of boyfriend.”
He took a step toward me. “You’re supposed to be helping Tommie Massie.”
“You’re the one supposed to be his friend. I’m not the one who was fucking Thalia.”
He took a swing at me—in fairness, I should point out he might have been a little drunk—but I ducked it easily and threw a hard right hand into the pit of his stomach. He doubled over, reflexively tossing his water glass—it shattered against the left wall, splashing the dragon—and went down on all fours and crawled around like a dog, retching. What he puked up was mostly beer, but some kind of supper was in there, too, and it made an immediate awful stink.
I went over and opened the window; a breeze wafted in some fresh air. “What was it about, Jimmy? Did you want Thalia to dump her native musician boyfriend, and come back to you? Or did you just want her to be more discreet?”
He was still on all fours. “You fucker. I’ll kill you, you fucker…”
I walked over to him. “You know, Jimmy, I don’t really care about your love life, or your sense of naval decorum. So whether you were dogging after Thalia’s heels to get back in her pants, or just to settle her back down, I don’t really give a rat’s ass.”
He glared up at me, clutching his stomach, breathing hard. “Fuh…fuck you.”
I kicked him in the side and he howled; nobody out there heard it: too much booze and laughter and George Ku Trio.
“You trailed after her, Jimmy. It’s time you told the truth. What did you see?”
Then he was up off the floor, tackling me, knocking me backward into the hard wood table, scattering chairs, and I had my back on the table, like I was something being served up and Bradford leapt on top of me, and his hands found my neck and he started to squeeze, fingernails digging into my flesh, and his reddening face looking down at me would make you think he was the one getting choked to death.
I tried to knee him in the nuts, but he’d anticipated that with the twist of his body, so I dug the nine-millimeter out from under my arm and shoved the nose into his neck and his eyes opened wide and the red drained out of his face and I didn’t have to tell him to let go. He just did, getting off me, backing off, but I was getting up, too, and the snout of the automatic never left the place in his throat where it was making a painful dimple.
Now we were standing facing each other, only his head was raised, his eyes looking down at me and at the gun in his neck.
I eased up the pressure, took half a step back, and he gasped a sigh of relief right before I smacked him alongside the head with the barrel of the automatic. He went down on one knee, moaning, damn near sobbing. I’d torn a nasty gash on his cheek that would heal into a scar that would remind him of me every time he fucking shaved.
“Now, I’m not a trained killing machine like you, Lieutenant,” I said. “I’m just a slum kid from Chicago who’s paid to bring in pickpockets and other lowlife thieves, and I’ve had to learn my killing the hard way, in the street. Are you ready to tell me what happened that night, or would you prefer to retire on a disability pension after I shoot off your goddamn kneecap?”
He sat on the floor. Breathing hard. He looked like he was about an inch away from weeping. I pulled one of the chairs over that had got scattered, and sat and didn’t train the gun on him, just held it casually in my hand.
“I…I wasn’t interested in Thalia anymore. She’s kind of a…” He swallowed and pointed to
his temple. “…She’s not all there, you know? After I broke off with her…you’re right, it was me that broke off with her…she started to flaunt her loose behavior, runnin’ around with this beach boy—they call him Sammy, he was here at the Ala Wai that night, did you know that?”
“Yes. Does Sammy have a last name?”
“Not that I know of. Anyway, people were talking about her sleeping around with colored trash, and when Ray Stockdale called her a slut and she slapped him, I knew things were really getting out of hand.”
“So you followed her.”
“Not right away. A couple people stopped me, to talk. So she was out the door by the time I got down there, but I saw her, tagged after her. She was moving quickly, not wanting to see me or talk to me, keeping out in front.”
“You followed her down John Ena Road.”
“Past Waikiki Park, yes. She was pissed off, wouldn’t talk to me…. Frankly, I think this whole business with Sammy was her wanting to get back at me, to make me jealous.”
He didn’t look like much of a prize to me, not with blood on his face and puke on his white linen suit coat.
“She was almost running, and got herself so that she was up a good ways ahead of me, and some guys in a touring car pulled up…”
“A Ford Phaeton?”
He shook his head, no, shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t notice. Couldn’t swear to it. To be honest with ya, I was a little drunk myself. I did notice the ragtop being torn, flapping. Anyway, these guys, these niggers, how many I couldn’t say, two or more, cruise along by Thalia and one of ’em yells something to her out the window. I don’t know what exactly, you know how those colored guys are—‘Hey, baby, wanna go to a party.’ I think one of them said, ‘Hey, Clara Bow, want some oke?’ That sort of thing.”
“How did Thalia react?”
“Well…you gotta understand, I’d been lecturing her, as we walked along, about how she was gonna get herself in trouble, hangin’ out with this rough crowd, I mean, she was screwing this nigger Sammy, can you believe it? So I think, maybe just to show me, she said, ‘Sounds like fun’ or some such. I don’t know what she said.”
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