Louie whispered into his mic, “Here’s where you have to be both careful and dramatic.”
He flicked on the lighter and held it above the rum float. The lights dimmed on cue. The liquor caught fire, and the flame danced above the martini glass, glowing blue and beautiful in the low light of the ballroom.
The audience clapped wildly. Photographers snapped photos. The judges hunched over their score sheets. Louie slowly scanned the audience and asked for silence. Everyone immediately complied.
The cocktail was still flaming as he lowered his voice and said, “No living soul has ever reported seeing the Manic Monkey skull again.”
The drummer started beating with a frenetic pace. The crowd was on its feet. Louie was taking a bow when the door to the left of the stage flew open, hit the wall, and slammed shut again. Loud screeches brought a halt to the drumming. The bongo player jumped up and hid behind the bar as the fugitive monkey Alphonse came loping into the ballroom with a fez on its head. The animal kept screaming as it leaped onto the bar and ran toward the flaming martini glass.
Everyone in the room watched in shock and awe. Em couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Nor did she have the vaguest notion how her uncle managed to get the monkey to enter on cue. Then the door banged open again, and Little Estelle swooshed in on the Gadabout.
“Come back here, you disgusting rodent! Give me back that hat!” Little Estelle screamed. Em immediately realized the monkey’s entrance wasn’t scripted. They’d gone live and uncensored.
A second later the flame died, but not before the tassel on the fez caught fire. The monkey threw the hat at Little Estelle, grabbed the martini, and knocked back the drink. Then it smacked its lips and jumped onto Louie’s shoulder, kissed him on the cheek, and jumped on the floor. It raced out the opposite door.
Little Estelle batted out the flaming tassel and shoved the fez on her head. A fishing net with a bamboo handle was shoved into her handlebar assembly. She grabbed the net and waved it over her head.
“Don’t worry, Louie, I’ll get that furry sucker if it’s the last thing I do!” She revved up the scooter engine and drove out the open door, hot on the monkey’s trail.
The crowd went absolutely wild. The press surged forward and crowded around the bar. DePesto was seated down the row from Em. She saw him slump forward and bury his face in his hands.
Behind the bar, Louie calmly filled the line of martini glasses for the judges’ taste test. Taste was the final score element.
The audience remained on its feet as Louie touched the wand to one “Manic Monkey” after another until the entire row of drinks flamed like a host of tiki torches at sunset.
Em was thrilled for Louie and so proud she was about to burst when her cellphone vibrated in her pocket.
She pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID.
38
“HERE YOU GO, ladeeeze. We’re now in Chinatown.” Pat negotiated the van around a turn and passed a public parking lot on Beretania across from the Chinatown Cultural Plaza. “All fifteen blocks of it.”
Kiki stared out at streets crowded with shops displaying signs written in Chinese characters. Boxes of goods and produce were stacked on the sidewalks. Shoppers crowded around the boxes inspecting the fruits and vegetables. Apparently they were on the fringe of a street peoples’ settlement. Two beat patrol cops rolled by on battery-powered Segways.
Lillian had her nose pressed to the window of the rental van. “I’m certainly not in Iowa anymore.” She sounded amazed. “I won’t have to go to China now that I’ve seen this. I can’t wait to get back to Kauai and tell MyBob.”
Precious piped up, “Are we going to eat some dim sum?”
Flora said, “For sure, and den some!”
Kiki rubbed her temples. The drive from La Mariana Sailing Club hadn’t taken all that long, but it was far longer than she liked being cooped up with the Maidens.
“So where does Damian live?” Pat asked.
“Damian? What is he? Your best friend now? You mean Bautista the murder suspect?” Kiki looked at the GPS screen. “According to this thing, we’re almost there.”
Pat followed the GPS instructions, made another right on to Smith Street, and stopped across from a small grocery store. The windows were cloudy but not enough to hide the piles of goods inside. Pat pulled into a ten minute parking space and killed the engine.
“I’m goin’ with you,” she told Kiki. Then she ordered, “Everybody stay put.”
Precious and Flora started chanting, “Dim sum! Dim sum!”
“What’s dim sum?” Lillian wanted to know.
“Steamed or fried Cantonese food served in bite-sized pieces,” Trish said.
“Good lordy, how can you possibly be hungry? We just had lunch,” Kiki reminded them.
“Always room for dim sum,” Flora said.
“And den some!” Precious shouted. “Dim sum! Dim sum!”
Everyone joined in except Kiki and Pat.
“We aren’t getting any if ya’ll keep that up,” Pat warned.
The chanting abruptly stopped. Kiki looked at the scrap of paper, stared at the store, and reread the address.
“Maybe there’s an apartment upstairs,” she said.
“Maybe. Then again, you said this Damian was a hoarder. The inside of that store looks about right. Maybe he sleeps somewhere in those piles.”
They walked in past fresh produce that was mainly tropical fruit, rambutan, papaya, coconut, pineapple, and bananas. Kiki saw a box full of huge mangoes and paused as she debated buying one.
“Would’ja look at this?” Pat was staring though the glass of a small meat case.
Kiki forgot about the mango and joined her.
“What the heck?” Pat pointed. “Gross.”
“Pig feet,” Kiki said. She pointed to the tray on the left. “Pig head.”
“Now that’s just some kind of sin,” Pat said. “That would put me off eating if I saw it on a plate.”
A man in a butcher’s apron stepped up behind the meat case. “Hep you?”
“I’m looking for a man who lives upstairs.” She pointed at the ceiling. “Damian Bautista.”
“Nobody rive up there,” he said.
Kiki waved the piece of paper. “This is the right address.” She read it aloud.
“No. Nobody.” He shook his head. “Ask owner.”
“I will. Where is he?”
The butcher pointed across the store at a short Asian man wielding a pole with a hook on the end. He was balancing a prom dress on a hanger, lifting it toward the ceiling. By the time Kiki reached him, he had hung the blue chiffon gown from the ceiling above a triangular stack of canned bamboo shoots.
“Need a fluffy prom dress?” Pat whispered to Kiki. “Maybe we’d get a discount if ya’all ordered ten of ’em.”
Kiki ignored her. She gave a slight bow and said, “Hello. I’m looking for Damian. Damian Bautista. He lives upstairs?” She held out the paper.
The old man started shaking his head. “No. Nobody dat name rive here.”
“I was told this is his address.”
“Police a’ready here rooking for him yestaday. No apartment here. Onry storage upstairs.”
“Damian stores stuff here?” Kiki figured finding Damian was now a matter of linguistics.
The man raised his voice, as if Kiki hadn’t heard him the first time.
“Onry me. Onry my stuff. My things up there. Things for shop. Now you buy or go.”
Kiki sighed. Maybe the guy was covering for Bautista.
“I’m his friend. I need to see him. Are you sure he is not here?” she said.
“No. Why somebody say he rive here? He don’t. He don’t rive here.”
“Do you know if he lives anywhere el
se? Maybe next door?”
By now a small cluster of old Asian women had gathered and were listening intently.
“How I know? I don’t know heem. You go now.” The man shook the long pole at them.
Pat looked at Kiki. “Give up. He don’t rive here.”
Kiki gave up. She bowed again and said, “Mahalo. So sorry. Mahalo.”
They virtually backed out on to the street, bowing as they went. While Pat stopped a passerby to ask if they knew where to find the best dim sum, Kiki pulled out her cell and dialed La Mariana.
“A-lo-ha,” she said and asked to speak to Joe. When he came on the line she said, “Hi, Joe. This is Kiki Godwin again. Apparently Damian doesn’t live at the address you gave me.”
Joe said, “I got it off of his emergency card. Maybe he faked it.” There was a pause and then, “After you left, I got to thinking. Today’s Saturday, so he wouldn’t be at home anyway. On Saturday and Sunday he works a booth at the Aloha Stadium Swap meet before his shift here. I know ’cause I’ve seen him there.”
That would explain the piles of Hawaiiana, Kiki thought.
“Aloha Stadium Swap Meet? How long does it last?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ten to three or so.”
“Mahalo, Joe.” Kiki hung up and told Pat what he’d said.
“If the police are looking for him, would he be there?”
“He needs money. He’s not working at the restaurant right now. Besides, that swap meet is huge. He could be wearing a disguise, hiding in plain sight.”
“I hope he hasn’t sold Uncle Louie’s Booze Bible.” Pat glanced across the street. The Maidens were hanging out of the van windows waving and yelling for them to hurry.
“We’d better go. There’s gonna be an insurrection if we don’t get some dim sum.”
“And den some.”
39
PAT DUMPED THEM out in front of Mei Sum Dim Sum a block from the grocery. Kiki instructed them to order take-out because they had to get to the swap meet before it closed, and they still had to tackle Sunday afternoon traffic. The restaurant was clean but crowded, and surly was the only word that aptly described the squadron of waitresses.
Precious turned out to be a dim sum expert. Kiki was relived. Pat didn’t know a dim from a sum, and after four days, Kiki was exhausted from wrangling the Maidens 24/7. She was in no mood to educate them on the finer points of ordering the bite-sized dumplings.
Since they’d all had lunch, they settled on tasting the house specialty—deep fried garlic eggplant—and two desserts, the custard tarts and sweet coconut balls.
“Sweet coconut balls” quickly replaced “dim sum and den some” as the phrase of the day.
Armed with Styrofoam take-out boxes of stinky garlic eggplant and sweets, the Maidens piled back into the van and headed for the swap meet in the parking lot of Aloha Stadium, a short walk from the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.
“Do we have time to go to the Memorial?” Lillian asked around a mouthful of custard tart. “I’ve never seen it.”
“This from the woman who didn’t want to see the site of an internment camp,” Trish said.
“No time,” Kiki said. “Have MyBob take you sometime.”
When they reached the stadium, Lillian said, “It’s too hot to wander around this parking lot.” She had her nose pressed to the side window. “It looks like the asphalt is melting. I can’t take all this sun. It will ruin the color of my hair.” She patted her pink bouffant.
“So buy a hat,” Kiki told her. She turned around to address them all. “Make sure your cell phones are on. I want you to spread out in twos. Flora and Precious. Lillian and Trish. Big Estelle and Pat. We don’t have much time before this thing closes down. Go different directions and check out all the booths. I think Bautista, if he’s here, will be in a booth that sells secondhand Hawaiiana. Collectibles, old newspapers, things like that. Any antique thing that says Hawaii. Old plates. Whatever. If you find a booth like that, do not approach. I repeat, do not approach. Call me, and I’ll hightail it to wherever you are. I’ll alert Pat, and she’ll call all of you. Got it?”
“Got it!” They shouted.
“We gotta get outta this van,” Pat said. “It smells like the inside of a rancid garlic clove. I can’t breathe.”
“It costs a dollar to get in the gate,” Kiki said. “Get out your money and let’s go. We’ve only got forty-five minutes.”
“This’ll be a good way to get your exercise.” Pat made sure they were all out and then pressed the auto lock.
“Who exercises?” Flora checked to see how much “special” water she had left.
They each paid their dollar and went through the entry gate.
“Sweet coconut balls!” Pat hollered. “It’s hotter’n Hades out here. I think Lil’s right. The asphalt is meltin’ my shoes.”
“I’m heading for a hat stand.” Lillian charged off with Trish at her side. They looked right and left, checking out the various booths as they flew past. The swap meet consisted of a sea of silver awnings stretched over aluminum frames. Folding tables lined up beneath were loaded with every kind of tourist trinket imaginable, not to mention some local favorites.
Kiki hustled along as fast as she could without getting distracted by straw bags lined with Hawaiian print fabrics and knock off Prada backpacks. She finally had to stop for five minutes at a stand that sold hula implements. She chatted up the seller, asked about used stuff and Hawaiiana, found out that kind of thing was mostly sold early Sunday mornings. He said if she went around the circle to the far side she might get lucky.
It wasn’t long before she noticed the exact same items were for sale every half a dozen booths or so. It was like being trapped in a recurring nightmare. Huge beach towels with colorful flowers, dolphins, and scenic wonders of Hawaii flapped in the trade wind breeze that gave little relief from the heat waves emanating from the asphalt lot.
She paused to catch her breath in the shade of one booth and watched a tourist with huge feet let a vendor try to shove a toe ring onto her little toe. The vendor was nothing if not determined. Kiki left when the tourist started screaming.
Passing a bread booth, she was tempted to stop again when her cell rang. It was Pat.
“I found a booth that sells old stuff. Used stuff. Looks like garage sale stuff, not the souvenir crap.”
“Where are you?” Kiki tried to see around the sea of awnings but found herself trapped in the maze of aisles.
“Head away from the sun, that’s all I can tell ya. Wait a minute . . .” Pat mumbled to someone. “Booth 1211. Ask somebody which way.”
“Don’t tip off Bautista if you see him.”
“No worries. I’m not right in front of it.”
“Call the others.” Kiki was already on the move.
“Roger that. Then I’m gonna get me some wrinkle cream while I’m waitin’ for ya’ll.”
“Wrinkle cream?”
Pat didn’t respond. She’d already ended the call. Kiki checked the time on her phone. They had a little under twenty minutes until closing.
She rounded a corner and found an intersection, then crossed over to another aisle where the numbers were getting closer to 1211. She saw Flora, Pat, and Big Estelle in front of a dried fruit booth. Big Estelle had a bag of shrimp chips in her hands. Precious was in the aisle leaning against a carved wooden tiki as tall as she was. Flora dipped a plastic spoon into a jar of liliko’i butter spread and ate it.
“How are you going to get that thing to the van?” Kiki asked Precious.
“Roll it. I’ve rolled it down every aisle so far.”
Kiki said, “Estelle, pay for those chips pronto. Where is Lillian?”
“There they are.” Pat pointed down the row of stalls. Her face was coated in some kind of
oil.
Kiki asked, “What have you done?”
Pat showed her a small plastic bag with a logo of some kind on it. “I bought me some kukui nut oil. It takes out all your wrinkles overnight.”
“You look like a greased pig at a county fair,” Kiki said.
“You’ll be wantin’ to borrow it tomorrow when my face is smoother than a baby’s butt.”
Trish and Lillian came panting up to join them. Trish hadn’t purchased anything. One look at Lillian’s hat, and the rest of them were goggle-eyed. Flora stuffed another spoonful of liliko’i butter in her mouth.
“What’s with the hat, Lil?” Pat asked.
“What’s with that oil on your face? If it’s sunblock I need some.” Trish shifted her camera strap.
Lillian raised a hand to her wide straw hat brim. “What’s wrong with it? I thought the colors were very tropical, and I love these big leaves.”
Kiki closed her eyes and counted to ten. The hatband was knitted green, yellow, and red yarn with a spray of green plastic leaves attached to one side.
“For one thing, those are Rasta colors, Lil,” Big Estelle said gently.
“Rasta?”
“Rastafarian. As in Bob Marley. As in Jamaica and reggae music.”
“As in marijuana,” Precious said.
“As in, those are plastic pot leaves stuck up there on your hat, Lillian,” Pat said.
Lillian slapped her hands on her cheeks. Her mouth formed a huge O.
“Am I going to be arrested?” She was poised to run.
Kiki grabbed her by the shoulders. “Plastic pot leaves, Lil. Plastic. Get a grip on yourself.”
“MyBob will have a fit if I take this home,” Lil cried.
“MyBob don’t have to know,” Big Estelle said. “It’s keeping the sun off your face. When we get back to the hotel you can give it to Mother. She’ll love it. Maybe it’ll inspire her give up rap and get into reggae.”
“Ten minutes to closing,” Pat announced. “If we’re gonna catch that Bautista guy we’d better get goin’. Kiki, what do you wanna do?”
Too Hot Four Hula: 4 (The Tiki Goddess Mystery Series) Page 22
