One Man's Paradise

by Douglas Corleone

  “I’m sorry for before,” she says. “I just don’t want some haole girl to steal you away from me.”

  “No haole or Hawaiian is going to steal me away from you, Nikole.”

  “It’s just that it seems I lose everyone,” she whispers. “First my father to prison, then my mother to death. Now my brother to ice. Everyone slips away.”

  The candlelight illuminates the tears falling down her cheeks. In the glow, she looks like a nude hula dancer, like the ones that adorn the covers of all the local tourism magazines.

  “I have no one now but you, Kevin.”

  “But you do have me, Nikki.”

  We make love in the glimmer of the candlelight, her tanned, toned body radiant in its gleam. As we drift off to sleep, entangled in an embrace, she whispers words more frightening to me than Palani, the Feds, and the Mafia combined.

  “I so love you, Kevin.”

  CHAPTER 31

  “Son, did I ever tell you about my last case as a capital defender in Houston?”

  Jake and I are sitting together in the concrete coffin here at the jail, waiting on the corrections officers to produce Joey for our scheduled attorney-client conference. This will be the first time Jake and Joey meet. I asked Jake to join me so that we could use the good-cop/bad-cop routine since, despite my best efforts, I have been less than effective at eliciting from Joey any semblance of the truth. Milt and I played this routine all the time. But Milt and Jake are like night and day. Although I’ve diligently gone over with Jake his role, I remain skeptical that Jake Harper has what it takes to convincingly play a no-nonsense bad cop.

  “Only that the end result was an acquittal,” I say.

  “My client was a thirty-four-year-old white male. He was filthy rich. So it was one of those rare occasions when I got paid by the client, a nice five-figure fee up front. His name was George Washburn, and he was charged with killing a twenty-two-year-old black male, a skinny kid by the name of Rudy Rivers.”

  “Was it a hate crime?”

  “I guess you could call it that. Rudy Rivers was attempting to jimmy his way into Washburn’s car, a brand-new, high-end Mercedes. Washburn had one of those alarms rigged up to his car, the kind that page you when your vehicle is being broken into.”

  I look at my watch. We’ve been waiting now twenty-six minutes.

  “It was late at night,” Jake continues. “Washburn was upstairs in the living room of his high-rise apartment building, six floors up. His pager went off. He looked out his living room window and saw this skinny black kid trying to break into his Mercedes. He went into his bedroom with a key in his hand. Then he unlocked and opened a desk drawer to find another key. Then he went into his closet. Then he unlocked and opened a long, steel case with the second key. He loaded the rifle. He attached the scope. He went back into the living room. He pointed it out the window. He set his sight.”

  “That’s premeditation.”

  “By that time, Rudy Rivers had broken into the Mercedes and disconnected the stereo. Rudy Rivers was pulling the stereo out of the car when Washburn squeezed off two rounds. Nearly blew Rudy’s head clear off.”

  Jake covers his eyes with his hands, and I steal another glance at my watch.

  “As far as that jury was concerned,” he continues, “Rudy Rivers was executed for trying to steal a nine-hundred-dollar car stereo. And that was fine by them. It took them not ninety minutes to return a verdict of not guilty.”

  I shake my head but say nothing.

  “Rudy’s family had just moved to Texas from Louisiana. The family was large; he was one of eight children, the only male. When the verdict was read, the entire family was sitting there in the courtroom. They had to watch that bastard Washburn hug me and listen to him thank me for all I’d done. They were screaming and crying, every last one of them. Rudy’s mama grabbed me by my shirtsleeve on my way out the courtroom. With tears streaming down her face ruining her makeup, she asked me, ‘Is this justice?’ ”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘No, ma’am. This is Texas.’ ”

  Jake’s eyes are watering, the way my eyes sometimes water for Brandon Glenn. There is a rap at the door. Some timing. Jake’s eyes look like a Maui waterfall. Some bad cop.

  An oversize guard escorts our client into the room. Joey is so thin now, the guard could probably just have slid him under the door.

  Jake puts on his best bad-cop face. Despite my objections, he practiced it in the mirror for forty-five minutes back at the office. I make the introductions and have Joey take a seat across from us.

  I am used to clients lying to me. It’s certainly nothing new. It is the criminal defendant’s mantra: lie to the police, lie to the prosecutors, lie to your lawyer, lie to the jury if you take the stand. I have just recently come to the inevitable conclusion that Joey might just have told me the ultimate lie, that he did not murder Shannon Douglas.

  I decide to start by throwing some softballs. This will hopefully lull Joey into a sense of security, such that he will feel at ease with telling some truths. This way, I’ll better be able to gauge when he shifts gears and starts telling more lies.

  “What’s with the name Joey Bangs?” I ask.

  Joey seems annoyed with the question. He looks around the room, twisting his head this way and that. Trust me, Joey, there’s absolutely nothing to look at. I’ve stared at these four fucking walls waiting for you for more minutes than I care to count.

  “It’s just some stupid name my uncle gave me when I was in high school. I don’t even know what it’s supposed to mean.”

  “Who is your uncle?” I ask.

  “My mother’s brother. Married twenty-six years to my aunt Marie, but they don’t get along very well. Look, did you come down here to talk to me about my family tree?”

  Jake slams his fist down on the table. I eyeball him and mouth, Not just yet.

  “Joey,” I say, “did you know that Shannon was working for the FBI?”

  Joey scrunches up his face as if I just placed roadkill on the table in front of him. “No, she wasn’t. She was working for Carter, Backman and Knight. They’re personal injury lawyers. She brought home her work all the time. Files with police reports from automobile accidents, discovery motions, pleadings, deposition transcripts. We even ran into one of her clients at the Willowbrook Mall.”

  “Carter, Backman and Knight had some legitimate cases to keep up appearances,” I tell him. “Just like any firm, they took in new clients and handled matters in court. But, in reality, the firm existed so that federal agents could work undercover. To everyone around them, it seems they are a group of ambulance chasers, and their targets never suspect a thing.”

  Joey doubles over and begins to sob.

  “Joey,” I say, “we think the Fiordano family was one of their targets.”

  Joey sits up and looks at me through wet eyes.

  “We think it’s possible,” I say, “that your father’s syndicate knew this and that a member of the Fiordano family is responsible for Shannon’s death.”

  “I’m not listening to this,” Joey says, rising from his chair.

  Jake slams his fist onto the table again. It sounds like a gunshot in the cramped concrete room. He stands, points his finger at Joey, and yells at the top of his lungs, “Do you know some lazy-eyed bitch-tits?”

  I put my hand on Jake’s shoulder and lower him into his chair. His face is red, and I can smell the booze on his breath. He’s a really bad bad cop.

  “Sit down, Joey,” I order, and he does. “Do you know Salvatore Lopardi and Anthony Antonazzo?”

  “Yeah. They’re friends of my dad.”

  “What were they doing in Honolulu on the day Shannon was killed?”

  Joey pauses, eyes up and to the left. “I don’t know. If anything, they were here watching over me. I told you I let my dad know I was going to Waikiki. I think he was worried about me doing something stupid.”

  “Did you?” I ask.

  “D
id I what?”

  “Do something stupid.”

  Joey shakes his head. “If you mean to ask me whether I killed Shannon, the answer is no, I did not.”

  “Joey, there’s no easy way to put this. It’s halftime and we’re down by five touchdowns. We know you were at the beach where Shannon was killed.”

  Joey looks away from me, shaking his head. He doesn’t get it.

  I give Jake the signal, and he’s up so fast his metal folding chair tips over, landing with an awful resonating bang.

  “Police found your fucking sneakers spattered with Shannon’s blood at the scene!” Jake yells. “You want to know what else they found? They found your fucking lip print on the inside Plexiglas of the lifeguard station a few yards from where Shannon’s body was discovered!”

  Joey is silent.

  Jake remains on his feet, pacing the two and a half steps from wall to wall. Bad cop on the prowl. “I think we need to consider a plea,” Jake says. “Maybe we can get you twenty-five years or so. You’re a young guy. It’s better than life.”

  Tears stream down Joey’s face, but he says nothing.

  “If we go to the prosecuting attorney,” Jake continues, “we can show him evidence of your intoxication. He might knock it down to a second-degree murder charge, since voluntary intoxication would eliminate the specific intent needed to convict you of murder one. Maybe, if you’re lucky, he’ll let you plea to murder two, and you’ll do fifteen years.”

  Joey looks at me, at me and not at Jake. “I was there.”

  I know you were, Joey. You thought you had me fooled.

  “But I didn’t kill her.”

  How can I believe you now?

  “You have to believe me.”

  You know the saying. Fool me once, shame on you.

  “I’ll tell you everything that happened that night.”

  Fool me twice, and all that jazz . . .

  CHAPTER 32

  Joey was drunk, he tells us, as drunk as drunk could be. He exited a bar on Kuhio and stumbled through the streets of Waikiki in search of Shannon. The night sky was crystal clear, but he was in a fog. Too many tourists were walking ahead of him and behind, far too many to the left and to the right. So he escaped to the quiet, empty beach. He walked along the water for ten, maybe fifteen minutes. He grew dizzy, then dizzier. So he stopped and seated himself on the stairs of a deserted lifeguard station on an isolated stretch of sand.

  Joey sat there for a bit, thinking thoughts drunk, desperate men sometimes think. He immersed himself in the silence and solitude, until the silence was broken and the solitude was no more. The voice sounded like hers, but it couldn’t be. Could it? It could, yes, and it was, because the laugh, the laugh was unmistakable. It could belong to no one but her. It angered him that she could laugh at a time like this. It angered him more that she was not laughing alone.

  Something prompted him up those steps. It could have been fear, but with all the liquor coursing through his veins, it likely wasn’t that. It could have been curiosity. It could have even been something sinister, that much he admits. Whatever it was, it led him up those steps and through the unlocked door. It put him on his haunches and pressed his nose and lips to the glass. It was dark. But it was her. All five foot ten without heels and a body that could kill.

  And there was him. Joey didn’t know his name. He couldn’t see his face. He didn’t know his occupation, his religion, or the color of his skin. All Joey knew was that he hated him.

  Joey watched as the pair plunked down together on the sand. He felt sick but managed not to puke. He kept silent and watched. He watched as they undressed each other. He watched as they did things to each other, things he cannot now say aloud.

  It was all too much for him. He collapsed backward, knocking over a metal first-aid kit. He froze, certain they had heard the noise. A couple seconds that seemed like hours passed, then he heard her tell him, “Stop.” He wanted to see what was happening, but he knew he could not pop his head back up, or he would surely be discovered.

  And so he waited.

  “My recollection becomes vague after that,” Joey says. “I heard her sob, and I didn’t know what to do. I was angry and sad and terrified. Then I heard two other voices, a man’s and a woman’s. They were speaking loudly; it sounded like they were drunk. I think they said they were on their honeymoon. Anyway, I smelled marijuana, and sure enough, a few moments later, they offered Shannon a hit off the joint they were smoking. After some coaxing, Shannon took a puff, and the couple asked her if she was okay. I heard one of them say she was bleeding.”

  I am listening to Joey’s story, and even as I recall the newlyweds’ statement to the police, I’m wondering how much to believe. Under any other circumstances, I’d say nearly none of it. He fooled me once; why risk being fooled again? But he speaks now with a certain sincerity. And if nothing else, I feel compelled to listen to the end.

  “So when I was certain the couple had walked away, I opened the door to the lifeguard station and quietly walked down the steps. I said her name. She turned and saw me. She was startled at first, and then she seemed scared. I told her I didn’t care what she did or what happened. I just wanted to hold her, help her, bring her back home.”

  “How did she react?” asks Jake.

  “She yelled at me and called me a stalker. She demanded that I leave her there on the beach. The situation, her being drunk and crying, reminded me of the night back at her apartment in Manhattan, the night that led to my arrest. So I did what she said. I kept my mouth shut and I left.”

  “What happened to your sneakers?” I ask.

  “My sneakers were wet from the surf and covered in sand. So I tossed them somewhere. As for the blood, Shannon was bleeding; some blood may have dripped on them when we spoke. I picked up a cheap pair of flip-flops at an all-night convenience store and wore them the rest of the night.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier, Joey?” I ask.

  “Because I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I did.”

  You’re probably right. “What does that tell you about what the jury will think, Joey?”

  “That’s why you have to find who killed her, Kevin. That’s the only way you’re going to get me home.”

  Easier said than done. “I’m trying my best, Joey.”

  “I promise I’ll make it worth your while, Kevin. After all, I can assure you, I’ll be a returning client.”

  “Oh, yeah, Joey? How’s that?”

  “Because as soon as I know who murdered Shannon and I get out of here, I’m going to go out and find him.”

  And then what, Joey?

  “And then, I’m gonna kill the motherfucker.”

  PART III

  SHAKA & AWE

  CHAPTER 33

  It is six o’clock on this, the eve of trial. The sun is setting above Waikiki Beach, turning the sky a brilliant red. The tourists are thinning out, returning to their rooms to shower for dinner and shows. In the parks, the barbecues are firing up, and the tiki torches are being lit. The restaurants and bars are bracing for the nighttime crowds. The street vendors are closing up shop. The street performers are painting themselves in silver and bronze. The streetwalkers still have five hours to go. It is six o’clock and the Hawaiian day is done. Waikiki is turning night.

  I stand in the sand with Jake and Flan, on the spot where Shannon was killed. It is nearly six months to the day, and not a clue is left to be found. It simply seemed the right place for us to be.

  I have since moved up North Shore to Waialua, a place more country than town. It is an hour from the hustle and bustle of Honolulu, a place more befitting the man I am trying to become. Not that I’ve had all that much success. I still curse at the top of my lungs at the dreadful traffic heading in and out of Honolulu. I eat my nails as if they were a delicious, nutritious New York delicacy. I still hate cigarette smoke, cell phones, and car alarms, and I’m unafraid to say so. But I like to think I’ve gained a modicum of tolerance
and patience. Maybe even a little happiness.

  Turi Ahina’s case was dismissed for want of prosecution as planned. A steady flow of clients is now coming to my door, business cards in hand, singing Hoshi the same great song: Turi sent me. They all walk in with an unmarked envelope filled with $5,000 cash. And they all walk out with nothing but the lint lining their oversize pants pockets.

  The Gianfortes have generously provided me with a second $50,000 retainer, exclusively for trial. Between that and the stream of clients sent by Turi, I could again be living the lifestyle I grew accustomed to in New York. But, for some reason, I have neither the need nor desire to.

  I have avoided Palani Kanno and the Waikiki Winds hotel since the day I was attacked. Flan managed to interview J. J. Fitzpatrick, who claimed to have spent the night with his longtime girlfriend, Tracy Thorne. Flan’s follow-up revealed that Tracy is a junkie with multiple boyfriends. Fortunately, she cannot recall which one she was with on the wild night in question.

  Sometime after our meeting at the Whale Watcher Bar & Grill, Professor Jim Catus went to the Honolulu police and informed them of his scheduled tryst. He also informed them that he spent his first night on the island with one of Waikiki’s working girls at the less-than-luxurious Leilani Inn. Flan attempted to locate that particular lady of the night, but was unable to penetrate this witness as he had one Carlie Douglas. Only a single bellhop admitted to seeing the professor on that ill-fated Sunday night, but that was apparently enough for Detective John Tatupu to clear Catus as a suspect.

  I have not heard from the Feds since the night they warned me off Lopardi and Antonazzo. To my surprise and delight, neither have I heard from Lopardi and Antonazzo, despite our overt investigation into Paolo “Small Paul” Nicoletti, a well-known capo of the Fiordano crime family. That investigation has yielded little. The well of Milt’s sources seems to have dried up. And there are no records of Nicoletti being on Oahu on or after the day Shannon died. The only evidence of his being here is the identification made by my girlfriend. Yes, I said it: girlfriend. The beautiful Hawaiian princess Nikole Kapua is now my one and only.