I recognized the girl behind the desk immediately, but covered it. There was amusement in her eyes, telling me she was in on the joke.
“Hello,” she said. “How may I help you?” She made it sound as if it would be surprising indeed if I might actually have some legitimate business with the company. And her English had suddenly improved. She had a British accent that bespoke upper-class origins and the best preparatory schools. Chawlie, you old dog, I thought, bringing in an accomplished actress for the part. She was so good it was difficult to believe it was the same woman as the little China Girl whore who had visited my boat. But those were the same eyes, eyes a man could fall into and drown.
“Good morning. My name is Harold Jenkins from the Fidelity Casualty and Life Insurance Company of Seattle. Would Mr. Thompson be in, by any chance?” I handed her one of Jenkins’s business cards, letting her see the others behind it.
“You don’t have an appointment, do you?” she knew her lines and performed them flawlessly.
“No. Sorry I didn’t call first. I need to speak with Mr. Thompson about his former tenant, Mary MacGruder. I don’t mean to inconvenience Mr. Thompson in any way, but if I could speak with him it would help to clear up some final details. I’d like to close the file.” I managed to include both a conspiratorial and a slightly suggestive tone to the last sentence.
“Please wait here, Mr. Jenkins,” said Jasmine, the joy of the game unmistakable. She winked at me as she got up and pranced back to the inner office with the enthusiasm of a young colt. There was no trace of her other role. I suddenly worried for her. She was enjoying it too much. So much so that it showed. Chawlie would have to rein her in. People were dying. She was a little too headstrong to play this game with those kinds of risks.
“Mr. Thompson can see you right now but he asked me to tell you that it can only be for a few minutes. He is a very busy man.” Jasmine was standing at the door, holding it slightly ajar.
It was not surprising Thompson would see me, if only for a few minutes. Anything even vaguely related to the death of Mary MacGruder would be of interest to him. He either had some sentiments about the girl, or he had some involvement and would want to see if he could learn what other people knew about the investigation. The insurance con had been the perfect approach because it was both innocuous and believable. I hoped it wouldn’t be wasted. There would not be another chance.
“Thank you,” I said.
She stepped out of the way as I went through the door, giving me a wide berth.
Carter Allen Thompson stood behind a marble slab that served as a desk, allowing me to get the full sense of the man. He was big, and he was tall, a bodybuilder with a lot of free weights and chemical muscle development in his past. Dark, with an almost perfect machine tan. In his midthirties, he seemed bursting with health and power, yet there was little life in him. His eyes were small and dark, devoid of expression and just a little too close together for the broad brown face. I could read nothing in those eyes. He had a square jaw filled with square white teeth. Everything about him was blunt. I got the impression of a chunk of lava.
Dai-sho hung on the wall behind him, a matched pair of samurai swords that would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars if they were authentic.
“Mr. Jenkins.” Thompson’s voice was surprisingly high and thin for a man his size, and unmistakably Australian. He extended his hand to me and I shook it, recognizing the calluses I felt as the hand of a serious karate-ka, evidence of thousands of hours of work at the craft. Combined with the weightlifting, I understood that I was in the presence of a man who worshiped at the altar of the body. On another level my mind began planning how I could make this work against him.
“As my secretary told you I only have a couple of minutes, but I want to do anything I can to help. Sit down, please.” He pointed me toward an overstuffed leather chair in front of the desk, one of a pair.
I decided to abandon my pretense and go for the big lie.
“My name isn’t Jenkins and I have nothing to do with insurance,” I said, watching his response. When none came I continued. “My name is John Caine. I needed to see you and I thought that pretending to be an insurance agent would allow me access to you. It worked.” I studied his expression as I was talking and was astounded to see absolutely no trace of a reaction. His expression could have been carved from stone.
“You have a young man named Garrick Choy working for you,” I continued, launching into the carefully written script. “He’s into a bookie and a loan shark and he can’t get them off his back. He’s trying to pay the loan shark by skimming off your take of an operation he’s overseeing for you in Chinatown. The word is that he’s been skimming for months, and he’s into you for over a quarter million dollars so far. I know he’s disappeared. And I know where to find him.”
The bluntness of my statement, made without preamble, shook Thompson. He was not good enough to hide it when it finally hit home.
“What do you want?” He had taken the mental leap over the fact that I was not here to talk about Mary MacGruder.
“Parity. Check out what I told you about Choy. It’s golden. Call me. Then we’ll talk.” I gave him a white business card containing only my name and cellular telephone number and got up to leave.
“Wait. How do you know about Choy?”
“Think of me kindly. You won’t find him on the streets. Call me when you’ve audited your books.”
I wasn’t sure but I thought I saw him reaching for the telephone on his desk as I left his office.
Jasmine had one foot on her chair and was inspecting her toenails when I came through the reception room. For a second time in several days I was treated to the sight of lovely thighs. She smiled and winked at me. Harold Jenkins would have chastely averted his gaze, but John Caine looked her straight in the eye and winked back.
12
If what Chawlie and I suspected about Thompson was correct he would have people watching for me to exit the building. I made it easy for them and stopped at the bank on the first floor to exchange a couple of hundred-dollar bills for twenties and tens.
It was raining in the mountains above Honolulu and the sun was behind me. A broad rainbow straddled a peak, one of its feet planted in Punchbowl Crater at the end of Bishop Street. As I slowly wandered up Bishop admiring the rainbow I noticed two men twenty yards back, following me on foot. We had anticipated a car, too. If Thompson was serious there would be two cars.
I crossed the street and traveled the short block to the Fort Street Mall, a pedestrian thoroughfare. That eliminated the cars. As I crossed, I memorized every vehicle on the street. If I saw any of them again, I would file it as a possible. We didn’t want a confrontation. Chawlie and I had agreed that would be counterproductive. We wanted to demonstrate to Thompson that he was not dealing with either the police or an amateur. And we didn’t want anyone hurt in the process.
The two men shadowing me were haole bodybuilder types, not first-string material any way you looked at them. I named them Tweedledum and Tweedledee; they vaguely reminded me of those two characters from Alice in Wonderland. They looked like bouncers from a tough club, gym rats taking on a day job.
When I was certain they were following me I reversed course and went down Fort Street toward the harbor, then ducked into Liberty House and paraded through women’s wear and cosmetics and then back out onto Bishop again. Once outside I headed east toward the Iolani Palace.
Traffic was unusually light in a city that reluctantly admits to more automobiles per capita than any other place on earth. I noticed a red Maxima traveling slowly in the same direction but on the opposite side of the street. It had been behind me on Bishop when I crossed earlier. Two men were in it, both intent on my itinerary.
I cut across the grounds of the palace, taking the narrow footpath between the grounds of the state capitol and the barred iron fence of the royal palace. My Jeep was parked in the underground municipal garage one block away. Tweedledum and Twee
dledee were doggedly following and now looked as though they were trying to decrease the distance between us.
We emerged from the footpath together and waited for the light to change. My shadowers had closed the gap to less than ten feet, letting me know they were there. We were almost at the underground garage and I sensed that their intentions were not merely watchful. They had a message to deliver. If they were just going to follow me they would have been more discreet. This was about to get physical.
I took off my jacket, feeling the solid impact of the Honolulu summer sun on my back through my thin shirt.
Just as the light changed I felt the two men closing in on either side of me. We stepped off the curb and crossed the street in unison. Naked aggression was out in the open but I continued to ignore the two men. I centered myself in anticipation of what was coming.
I attacked as we entered the gloom of the concrete ramp to the underground parking structure. They might be concerned with witnesses but that wasn’t a concern of mine.
I dropped my aluminum briefcase. Both men looked down at the source of the noise. While Dee’s head followed his gaze, I hit him in the temple with my right elbow, spun left and kicked Dum’s shins as he reached for me. I followed the low kicks with kites delivered to his throat and face. He backed off, startled but not injured.
Dee had gone down. He started to get up. A roundhouse kick caught him on the point of the chin and he fell back, his head bouncing off the concrete. Dum recovered and grabbed for my arms. I reversed his grip, getting inside of his grasp, elbowed him in the chin, pounded his ears and raked my fingernails down the front of his face. He backed off again. I backpedaled and kicked him in the solar plexus.
Dum wasn’t finished. Neither was Dee. They were merely angry. There was no room to maneuver in the narrow passage and they were crowding me. Dee grabbed my right arm and pulled me toward him. I went with it, using his momentum and the power to get inside his reach. I dropped my shoulder and smashed into him. We went down together. I shoulderrolled over Dee and got to my feet as Dum charged, roaring in pain and anger.
I glanced behind to be certain I had room, and stood my ground.
As Dum charged, I caught his outstretched arms and rolled backward, one foot planted solidly in the middle of his chest. As my shoulders touched the concrete I brought the other foot up and launched him overhead. He sailed over me and I heard his heavy body hit the cement beyond. I completed my roll and stood up.
Dee was on his feet again, staggering toward me. I could hear Dum cursing behind, still down but working on getting up. I jumped over him and retreated to the expanse of the garage.
They followed. Dum was enraged, his bleeding face purple in the dim flourescent light. He had lost the bandanna that covered his head pirate fashion. His bald head was bleeding. An ear was torn where I’d noticed a gold earring before. Dee looked dazed but angry. This was going to get nasty unless I ended it now.
Dee was first. I kicked him in the leading shin, knocking his legs from under him. As he fell I reversed and kicked him in the temple. I whirled and attacked Dum, driving him back under a barrage of kicks and kites that would have killed a smaller human being. He absorbed the blows but didn’t fight back. He couldn’t fight, but I couldn’t down him. I increased my attack, my arms and legs straining to sustain the rhythm. I was tired and I would be sore, but this thing had to end.
I backed Dum into the side of a parked van. He cowered, covering his head with his massive arms. I worked on his stomach muscles. They had been hard as stone when I first started hitting him. Now they were loose, a good sign. When he covered his middle I went to work on his face. Blood flew from my hands as I struck him. It was brutal. A referee would have stopped it and given me the decision. But this wasn’t sport, there wasn’t any referee and the only decision was for Dum to quit.
That’s just what he did.
He put his hands out in front of him, palms forward. “Enough,” he said.
He began to slump but I supported him, holding him upright until he could stand on his own.
“You okay?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Going to be sick.” And he was.
I left him to his business and checked his partner. He was down, but he was conscious. I extended my hand to help him up. When he took it I helped him to his feet and then walked up the ramp and retrieved my jacket and briefcase. Both men were still there when I returned, as if moving was too painful to contemplate. They had no fight left.
“Give Mr. Thompson a message for me, will you?”
They nodded, pain and confusion written on their faces.
“I live at the Rainbow Marina in Pearl Harbor aboard the yacht Duchess. I gave him my telephone number and now he’s got my address. After he finds out I was telling the truth, have him call me.”
They nodded.
“You going to be all right?”
They nodded again.
“You boys are tough. Better go see a doctor, though, just to be sure.”
I carried my briefcase to the Jeep and stuck it behind the seat. I folded my jacket. It would have to go to the cleaners. My shirt and pants were torn and bloody. They’d go into the trash. It was a small price to pay to learn what I had learned.
The consensus was correct. Thompson was not a nice man. He had people working for him who weren’t very nice, but they weren’t very good, either. If this was an object lesson directed at me it had backfired, leaving him in even greater ignorance than before.
The John Caine whom Thompson had seen was an enigma. He had come bringing gifts and then beat up Thompson’s bouncers. He shook the tail Thompson had hung on him and then volunteered his address. None of it would make any sense.
If Katherine Alapai and Chawlie were right about Thompson it would keep him off balance and interested enough to want to keep me alive until I could find out if he had anything to do with Mary’s murder.
I drove out of the garage and nearly collided with the red Maxima. I stopped at the entrance and motioned to the driver to roll down his window.
“They’re in there,” I said, pointing back toward the garage. “Better call an ambulance.”
I drove off, content with the confusion I saw on their faces.
13
The next two days dragged as I waited for the bait to be snapped up by the big fish. Somewhere out there something was happening, but it sure wasn’t happening where I could observe it. Chawlie agreed that Thompson was not the kind of man who could ignore the bait. It bothered me to know he was out there doing something, but not to know exactly what he was doing.
My body was sore from two fights in less than a week. That was a record, even for me. I limped. Somehow I’d acquired a deep bruise on the top of my shoulder. I was getting too old to be rolling around on the ground with men half my age.
For punishment of my sins I looked for hard physical labor. That isn’t difficult to find aboard any boat. It’s even easier aboard a wooden sailboat in the tropical Pacific. I discovered some railing that had become infested with dry rot. It was curved railing and had to be pieced. I spent some slave time and earnest money removing the damaged wood and replacing it with new solid teak. By the time I’d sanded the last section of railing smooth and oiled the new teak to match the old, the second day had nearly ended without contact from Thompson.
It was beginning to appear that Chawlie and I had erred in our assessment of the man.
I went for a run, showered and changed, and was sitting on my fantail watching the sunset, drinking a good merlot and thinking about a steak dinner, when my cellular telephone buzzed.
“Caine.”
“Mr. Caine. My name is Anthony Choy. We met the other night. The man you know as Chawlie wishes to speak with you tonight, if possible. He says it is most urgent.”
“Is he all right?”
“He would appreciate a visit from you at your earliest convenience.”
“Please tell him I’ll be there this evening.”
“Thank you, Mr. Caine. I shall inform him.”
I pushed the End button. A feeling of dread passed through me. Had we miscalculated? Chawlie was not calling for me because he wanted to celebrate. Mr. Choy was another of Chawlie’s nephew-sons, possibly a brother or a half brother of Garrick Choy. Chawlie was sending me a message. In the convolutions of his thought processes this was probably a fairly straightforward proposition, but I was having trouble keeping up.
I finished the merlot and went below to put on my sandals. Chawlie would be there by the time I could drive to Chinatown. There was no reason to delay the inevitable.
Passing through the lounge I spotted the morning’s Advertiser. Remembering a headline I hadn’t explored earlier I picked it up and glanced through it again. On the third page of the first section I found the small article. A young Asian male had been found dead in a cane field near Waipahu. He had suffered a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, execution style. He had also suffered other, unspecified injuries. The story didn’t say so but implied that the man had been tortured. Police suspected organized crime involvement. His identity was being withheld pending notification of the next of kin. End of story. It was short, simple and succinct. I made a bet with myself the name of the young man was Garrick Choy.
Chawlie’s eyes held no emotion when he saw me. He motioned for me to sit in a vacant chair next to him, not the chair across from him, my usual position. That one was occupied by the young Chinese man I’d known as Mr. Anthony Choy. Mr. Choy was dressed in a business suit with a bright red silk tie and handkerchief. Chawlie directed a string of harsh Cantonese at the young man.
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