Mahu Box Set

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “I did something bad, Akoni,” I said. “I need you to stand by me, all right? But if you can’t, then tell me. Just tell me straight out so I know what I have to do.”

  Akoni looked at me. “You’re my partner, man, my friend. What did you do?”

  “I checked the guy for a pulse. It’s my fingerprint they’re going to find on his neck. They’re going to run the prints through the computer, and that one is going to match mine, and everybody is going to wonder how the hell my fingerprint got on a corpse I didn’t see until the autopsy.”

  Akoni put his coffee cup down. “Start at the beginning of the story, Kimo,” he said. “Tell me what you did.”

  I sat there for a minute, my coffee cooling in my hands, trying to decide how much I had to tell. I had an urge to go back to the beginning, to tell him about the first time I had sexual thoughts about another guy. Through all the years of denying it, trying to be a big stud with a string of girlfriends. How else could he understand how I’d ended up at the Rod and Reel Club that night, how I’d stumbled out into the alley and seen some guy drag a dead body to the street. How I’d run away, and how much that act shamed me.

  “Last night I stayed at the bar until about one,” I said. “Alvy was still there, and maybe a couple of the guys from the fifth squad. But I didn’t go home.” I took a deep breath. “I went to the Rod and Reel.”

  Akoni was looking at me. A couple of sparrows pecked around under the table next to us, and in the background I could hear upbeat jazzy background music that was directly at odds with how I felt. “I had a couple of beers there and a guy tried to pick me up. I walked outside. I was just heading toward the alley when I saw this guy dragging something toward the street. It was dark, so I didn’t see what it was, and I didn’t think anything of it. Then he ran back up the alley, jumped into a black Cherokee and peeled out. I didn’t even see if he was alone or if there was someone else driving.”

  I tried to pick up my coffee cup but my hand was shaking. “I kept walking down the street, and I saw that what the guy had been dragging was a man’s body. I leaned down and took his pulse. He was dead. I started looking for a phone, and I had to go two blocks down on Kuhio to find one. I called it in to 911 but I hung up when they asked who I was.” I lowered my head and looked down at the table. “Then I went home.”

  “Jesus, Kimo.”

  I waited for him to say something else. He just said, “Jesus,” again and shook his head.

  “You goddamned motherfucker!” There was a loud thud immediately after that, and both of us turned toward the sound, which caused a momentary stop to the bustle of the Makai Market. A young guy with long, scraggly blond hair and a brownish blond goatee was screaming at another loser across an overturned table from him. “Why the fuck’d you do that, man?” the blond guy screamed again. “Why’d you fucking do that?”

  “She was fucking there, man,” the other loser said. He was about the same build, drug-thin and disheveled. Akoni and I both looked around for security, but like a pay phone when you’ve just gotten an emergency beep, they were nowhere in sight. “She fucking wanted it, anyway.”

  The two guys started pushing and shoving each other, and the crowd backed away, giving them a clear circle. I looked at Akoni and he looked at me, and we both stood up.

  He took the blond and I took his friend, and we strong-armed them out of the Market in different directions. I talked low and calm to my loser as I walked him to the parking lot, though my heart was racing. “You just gotta take it outside, man,” I said. “You got a beef with your buddy, you just take it outside, you work out your differences, and nobody gets hurt, all right?”

  “I knew she was his girlfriend, but, fuck shit, man, a stiff prick has no conscience, right?”

  “All depends on your definition of friendship,” I said. I released his arms when we got to the parking lot. Because of the configuration of the mall, I knew Akoni and his friend were around the corner, out of harm’s way for now. I watched the guy stumble down to the bus stop, and it seemed the danger had gone out of him.

  I met Akoni back at the table where we’d been sitting. A couple of cleaners had materialized from the shadows and righted the chairs and tables, and the conversational buzz had returned. We sat back down.

  “Now let’s get back to you,” Akoni said. “What the hell were you doing at the Rod and Reel Club at two o’clock in the morning?” He crumpled his coffee cup and I could see he was mad. I knew him inside and out. He’d wanted to punch the blond guy, but he hadn’t, and his anger had to go somewhere. It was all mixed up with me, the blond guy and his friend, and having to get up so early in the morning for a murder case. “Were you tailing somebody again? We’ve been through this before, Kimo, the Allen case. I told you I can’t have a partner who goes off on his own, tailing people and doing stuff without telling me…”

  “I wasn’t tailing anybody, Akoni.”

  He stopped talking. It took him a minute, then he said, “Then tell me what the hell you were doing at a gay bar at two a.m., drinking beers and talking to a guy who tried to pick you up.”

  “I didn’t talk to him,” I said. “He stuck his tongue in my ear and I walked away.”

  “He stuck his…” Akoni was almost speechless, stuttering. “He stuck his tongue in your ear and you walked away. Jesus Christ, why didn’t you clock the guy!”

  “I guess he was just trying to be friendly.”

  Akoni put his left hand over his face and shook his head. When he put his hand down his face was dead serious. “Brah, you in a heap of trouble. And I don’t know what to do. Man, I thought I knew you. But I can see I don’t know dick about you.”

  I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh. “It’s a figure of speech, man,” Akoni said. “Jesus, Kimo, you got to take this seriously.”

  “Akoni, if I wasn’t laughing, I’d be crying. I mean it, man. You have no idea how broken up about this I’ve been. I mean, leaving that guy in the alley, it was the hardest thing I ever did. I thought I could walk away, I wouldn’t have to admit what I’d been doing.” My throat suddenly got dry but I knew I had to keep going. “I thought I’d never have to sit here and tell you I’m gay.”

  “Oh, man. What do you got to be gay for? You were always such a stud, Kimo.”

  “I was trying to avoid the truth. But now my fingerprint’s on that dead guy’s neck and I’ve got to explain why.”

  There was a moment when the noise in the Makai Market died away and I could hear the birds chirping. In the background I heard a blender making some frothy drink, the sizzle of meat on a grill. The sun must have come out from behind a cloud, because suddenly the center of the food court was flooded with a much brighter light. I didn’t exactly feel good, but there was a weight off my chest, something that had been keeping me from breathing. And that was okay.

  “You know you could get fried for this,” Akoni said after a while. “Being gay is one thing. But you witnessed a homicide and you walked away.” He shook his head. “That’s a hard rap to walk out of.”

  “I didn’t witness a homicide.” Two elderly Chinese women came over and sat down at the table next to us, and I lowered my voice. “I saw a guy drag something down the alley, and it wasn’t until the Cherokee was gone that I realized that something was a body. I checked the guy’s pulse, and when I couldn’t get one I called for help. And I walked away. I know I did wrong. But I didn’t do anything an ordinary citizen wouldn’t have. Hell, I did more than your average Joe.”

  “You’re a cop, Kimo. You have a different standard to live up to.”

  I didn’t know what to say. He was right. The two women next to us began gossiping in Chinese, their voices high and chattery. I think life is like some kind of ongoing movie. Sometimes you play a minor character, sitting back, commenting on the action around you. Then sometimes, you have to step forward, take the starring role. This was one of those times. I was moving out of the background, up to center stage.

  We sat there for a w
hile, not talking. Finally Akoni said, “When we get back to the station, you run the guy’s prints and the print Doc pulled off his neck through the computer. I don’t want to know about it.”

  “I can’t put you in that position.”

  “What position?” Akoni said. “What position is that? We don’t do everything together. You question some people, I question some people. You fill out some reports, I fill out others. We work together. You run those prints through. Who knows, maybe that one from the neck is smudged. You never know with prints.”

  “I can’t wreck evidence. That would make it even worse.”

  “You stupid?” he asked. “Did I say you should smudge the print? No. Did I say you should destroy evidence or lie about anything? No. Put it in your goddamn report. The fingerprint on the victim’s neck matches the index finger of Detective Kanapa‘aka. If that’s the finger you used. Leave it there. Who’s going to challenge it? You’re the detective on the case. End of story.”

  “I had to tell you,” I said.

  He looked at me. “No, you didn’t.” Then he stood up. “Come on, let’s get back to the station.”

  Happy Hours

  The print from the guy’s throat was a clear match. Detective Kimo Kanapa‘aka, Waikiki Station. More important, though, was the match to the dead guy’s prints. We now had a name to go with our stiff: Thomas Pang. He had a couple of minor arrests in the past, nothing for the last few years. He was suspected of tong activity, but nothing was ever proven.

  I dutifully made notes for the case file, then turned back to the computer and punched in a few keys. After a minute, a list began scrolling down the screen.

  Tommy Pang had a long record, from possession of illegal weapons to armed robbery. It was clear he had been a low-level jack of all trades for one of the tongs, the kind of guy who takes the rap for whatever goes down. But he had served remarkably little jail time given all his time in court. He’d often been acquitted, or charges had been dropped, and the few times he’d actually been convicted he had paid fines or served at most a few months behind bars.

  I pulled up Tommy Pang’s address, then looked at the clock. It was just after three. “You want to take a ride up to Maunalani Heights with me, break the news to the widow?”

  Akoni shrugged. “Can’t let you out of my sight,” he said. “Only this time, you drive.”

  Tommy Pang had lived pretty nicely, on a ridge overlooking Diamond Head, Black Point, and the Pacific Ocean. We stopped at a wrought-iron fence, and I identified myself through a speaker phone. The gate buzzed and we drove up a curving driveway to a sprawling one-story house, part ranch and part Chinese pagoda, with a blue tile roof curved up at the ends.

  A very beautiful woman opened the door as we drove up and stepped out. She was about forty-five, perfectly dressed and made up, with a kind of China-doll beauty that made her seem like she was belonged in a magazine. On her best days, when she was dressed up for a party or special event, it was the look my mother strove for. On this woman, however, it appeared effortless.

  “I am Genevieve Pang,” she said, extending a tiny, manicured hand to me. I introduced myself, and Akoni, and then the two of us stood there with Tommy Pang’s widow, rocking a little back and forth, neither of us knowing quite what to say.

  She smiled. “You don’t have to be shy, detective. You can tell me. Have you arrested my husband again?”

  The air around us was still, and I heard the chirping of birds and a slight rustle in the underbrush. The driveway and yard were as perfectly manicured as the woman before us, the gravel raked, the bushes carefully pruned.

  “I’m afraid not,” I said. “Your husband was killed late last night, outside a bar in Waikiki. We’d like to talk to you about him, if you think you can.”

  Genevieve Pang didn’t look surprised. Rather her face hardened a little, like this was something she’d expected for a long time. “Of course,” she said quietly. “Please come inside.”

  She turned and led us into the house. We sat in a formal living room, on elaborately carved mahogany chairs, in front of a Japanese lacquered screen that probably belonged in a museum. There was a display of Javanese puppets on a mahogany table, and on the wall above it was a collection of what looked like Balinese masks. The room was elegant and tasteful, much like Genevieve Pang herself. I found it hard to imagine the man whose body we’d seen on the autopsy table, the man with that long record, there in that house. “When was the last time you saw your husband?” I asked.

  “Let me tell you about our house, detective,” she said. “You are in the south wing now. That’s my part of the house. My bedroom is behind us. To your left is the kitchen, and beyond there the family room. On the other side of the family room is my husband’s part.” She smiled. “He has his privacy there. If he wishes to have company for the evening, he can do so.” Her smile hardened again. “I don’t have to know about it.”

  “Do you know that your husband was here last night?” Akoni asked.

  “We are not total strangers, detective,” she said, turning to him. “We had dinner together last night at a restaurant in Waikiki. Then he brought me home and went on to what he said was a business meeting. I don’t know if that was correct. I was reading until midnight, and if he had come home before then I would have heard his car come through the gate.” She looked at me. “You may have heard, when you drove through, that the mechanism needs oiling. My bedroom window faces in that direction. I hear it often. I suppose now I can have it repaired.”

  “Do you know anyone who might have had reason to kill your husband?” I asked.

  Genevieve Pang laughed lightly. “I am sure there are many people who wanted to kill Tommy,” she said. “But he was careful to keep his business dealings secret from me, and I was careful not to pry. You see, in many respects I am a good Chinese wife.”

  “I’m sorry to have to ask this, ma’am, but it’s routine,” I said. “Do you know if Mr. Pang had a will?”

  “We made wills a long time ago, detective. If my husband hasn’t changed his, then I inherit everything. I can have his attorney call you, if you’d like.”

  “That would be good of you,” I said. “Is there anyone you would like us to call for you? Children, a sister or a brother?”

  “I have a son, Derek. But I will call him myself.”

  “May we have his number?” I asked. “Perhaps he knows more about his father’s business.”

  Genevieve Pang laughed, and I saw that she was still a very attractive woman. “My husband was even more careful with Derek than he was with me,” she said. “He was determined that Derek would have all the advantages he did not have, that Derek would become a respectable person. He is going to run an art gallery, as soon as he gets himself organized.” She smiled. “He just graduated from Yale in May.”

  “We’d still like to talk to him,” Akoni said.

  She looked at her watch. “You can probably reach him now,” she said. “He has a friend staying with him, from college. They are both such lazy boys, late sleepers. Not like my husband and me. But then, Derek is different from his parents in many ways. Very American.” Then she straightened her back in a mocking kind of way. “Very Yale,” she said. “But then, it’s what we wanted for him, isn’t it? To be American?”

  I didn’t know what to say. After a minute, Akoni said, very gently, “Your son’s phone number?”

  “Of course, detective.” She took a pen and a pad from the gilt-covered stand by the phone and wrote the number down, then stood. “My husband’s…remains?”

  “The medical examiner’s office will release the body,” I said. “If you contact a funeral home they’ll take care of the arrangements for you.”

  With Genevieve Pang’s permission, we searched Tommy’s part of the house, but he was very meticulous, and we could find nothing that indicated any illegal dealings, and certainly nothing that gave anyone a motive for murder.

  She thanked us again, and stood on the front step of the ho
use until we had driven out the gates. I heard them squeal as they closed behind us.

  I dialed the phone number Genevieve Pang had given me, but got her son’s answering machine. I left a message.

  Akoni was quiet for a minute, as I negotiated the entrance to the Lunalilo Freeway. Finally he said, “It’s just after four. They have a happy hour at that bar?”

  “The Rod and Reel? I think so.”

  “And fortunately our shift is over. I could definitely use a beer.”

  “I’ll second that emotion. You’re sure you want to go there?”

  He frowned at me. “Don’t think we really have a choice. We’ve got to find out who owns the bar, what Tommy Pang was doing there.”

  I parked back at my apartment, and we walked the couple of blocks to the club. It was funny, but I felt none of the tense expectation I’d felt the night before. Now it was just business, just me and my partner going in to a bar to ask some questions. Yeah, right.

  The Rod and Reel was a different place in the afternoon. Liquid sunlight dropped down through the trees overhead, and mixed couples, tourists, and guys in tank tops sat at the plastic tables in small groups. The testosterone level seemed to have dropped about a thousand percent, and there were no restless, horny guys circling the room. The back room, where they showed X-rated videos on big-screen TVs, was closed.

  Akoni and I sat down at a clean table right underneath a big overhead fan that moved the warm air around, and ordered a couple of beers.

  It was a typical Waikiki happy hour. Keola Beamer was playing on a stereo behind the bar, and around us people compared sunburns and drank fruity frozen drinks. When the waiter brought our beers, I showed him my badge and asked, “Do you work the late shift here, too?”

  He said, “Sometimes. Why?”