Hot Lava (6 page)

“And turning a hundred percent of the profits,” Koni replied. “Guess it’s a tradeoff.”

The two “men” nodded. And that was our chance to get some much-needed info. “What happened to this Jed guy?” Brandon asked, already sliding Buck’s fourth drink his way.

Buck grimaced. “Fuck if I know. His boyfriend gets busted for smuggling and he up and vanishes. Only thing is, Jed ain’t no drug dealer, and he’s got some sleazy lawyers for any time the cops start nosing around. So why he vanished is a mystery. Plus, when he’s gone, he ain’t making no money. And Jed loves his money. A lot.”

“Maybe he’s just lying low until the cops finish their investigation of his boyfriend. Makes sense,” I suggested, omitting the fact that said boyfriend was now quite dead.

“Not really,” Buck said. “If anything, it makes him look guilty of something. Only reason to run is if you’re guilty.”

Brandon moved the subject in a new direction. “Did you know the boyfriend?”

Buck snickered. “Met him once. Some stewardess. Cute and stupid.” (Seems to have been an agreed-upon opinion.)

Koni asked the next question. “Too stupid to be a drug smuggler?”

Buck paused before answering. “Maybe. I mean, I don’t know how smart you have to be to do it, except if he was doing it for as long as they’re saying, I’d guess you couldn’t be that much of a moron. Still, if you met the guy, you’d never in a million years believe it.” (Also an agreed-upon opinion.)

“There was some damning evidence, though,” Brandon said. “The traces of coke up his ass, the excess of money for a lowly flight attendant.”

Buck snickered. “Dude, coke up your ass doesn’t mean you’re a smuggler, necessarily.”

Koni explained, “Nope. Some guys put coke on their dicks to numb ‘em up, keep ‘em harder, longer. Also, it numbs the bottom’s hole so they can get fucked longer. And, in terms of the money, you don’t need to be dealing drugs to come into a lot of cash. Trust me, sometimes it just falls into your lap.” He looked at us knowingly, causing a hot blush to creep up my neck.

“Meaning,” Brandon said, “he could’ve just as easily been set up and the evidence was circumstantial?” The two of them nodded at the two of us. “Which would mean,” Brandon continued, “the dealer, Makani, turned in someone who was innocent in order to get a lighter sentence and not get in any deeper shit with the bad guys. But why Lenny?”

“And more bad guys seem to have been caught anyway,” I quickly added.

“Happens all the time,” Buck said. “Not a long-term career, drug dealing. Most dealers get caught sooner or later. Turned in by each other or their customers.”

I shook my head and downed my drink. The whole thing was giving me a migraine and not getting us any closer to the truth. “So,” I eventually thought to ask, “if you were Jed, where would you be hiding?”

Buck held up his palm, asking us to grease it. “This ain’t no idle questioning, is it, dudes?” The guy was obviously smarter than we gave him credit for.

Brandon discreetly slipped him a twenty. When no further information was forthcoming, he added another to the pot. “Well?” he asked.

“Jed has a house at the North Shore. Only reason I know about it is because I overheard him talking about it this one time. Meaning, if you find him up there, better not tell him how it is you came by this little piece of knowledge. And if I was you, I wouldn’t go looking anyway. Jed don’t like to be found if he doesn’t want to be.”

In any case, and after another fifty bucks, Buck wrote the address down on a Hula’s napkin. It was then that I thought of Lenny and his fate. Did
he
find Jed when Jed didn’t want to be found? A pang tore at my heart at the thought of it. Then again, we had found his body in Waikiki, the opposite end of the island from the North Shore. If that’s where Jed was in hiding, it seemed unlikely that Lenny would turn up where he did.

We left Buck at Hula’s, heading back to our hotel with at least a modicum of information -- well, more than what we started out with, anyway. Halfway back, my cell phone rang. I read the screen. It was Will. I’d given him my number the night before.

“Howdy,” I said, mighty glad to hear from him.

“Don’t turn around,” he said. “I’m twenty feet behind you.”

I laughed. “Dude, you’ve got a big dick, but it’ll never reach.” My companions looked at me quizzically, but I ignored them.

“Wanna bet?” he said, with a snicker. “Anyway, I’ve been watching you guys, just to be on the safe side. Learn anything?”

“Uh huh,” I replied. “You?”

“A little. After we dropped Lenny off at the morgue, I went back to the substation, as you’re now well aware. The locals were glad that I decided to stay around a bit longer. Seems the press isn’t reporting everything. See, the cops know that Lenny’s boyfriend is a pimp, and a successful one at that. They figured that he has some connection with all this, hence his disappearance. Could be he set Lenny up and then killed him. Only problem is, he was never in the drug trade, just the flesh one, so the tie is tenuous at best. No warrants for him just yet, but they, too, are keeping a watchful eye out for him. Oh, and the bonus info: until Makani turned Lenny in, Lenny was never even on their radar. Not even a blip. They think he was too stupid to be a smuggler.”

“Them and everyone else,” I lamented. “I’ll see you in the you-know-where and we can compare notes.”

He laughed. “Ah, the bathroom yet again. See you in ten.”

“Roger. Over and out.”

We continued walking in silence until Brandon said, “Well, that was cryptic.”

“Yeah,” Koni chimed in. “Who’s this big-dicked Roger dude, and when can we meet him?”

I turned the invisible key in front of my lips just as we reached our hotel. Will, I was sure, ducked in the other entrance. The three of us then hunkered down on the outdoor veranda, rocking quietly on the comfortable wooden chairs and watching the tourists stroll by. Soon after, I excused myself to go to the restroom. Brandon looked up but didn’t blow my cover; he merely winked and stared back ahead.

I walked inside the hotel and down the corridor. As planned, Will was waiting for me with a kiss and a single red rose. My heart beat a pitter-patter at the sight of him. I quickly filled him in, and then got him off. Bathrooms were, for better or worse, becoming Pavlovian for me: the mere sight of them sending all the blood flowing to my cock.

Will then followed me back to the boys. “Aloha,” he said, taking a rocking chair.

“Um, look who I bumped into,” I announced sheepishly.

Brandon crinkled his nose and shook his head back and forth, while Koni said, “Oh, so this is Mister Big Dick. Good to know.”

I sat in between them and told him, “No, it’s not. Promptly forget about it.”

And then Will changed the subject. “So,” he said. “Who’s up for a trip to the North Shore tomorrow? I’d like to see these boss waves everyone talks about.”

We all raised our hands. But then Koni slowly lowered his, and his chair stopped rocking. “I guess count me out. My back-scratching twenty-four hours will be up by then.”

I looked at Brandon and grinned. “It’s been extended. We’ll need a guide.”

“Just so happens,” Koni said, returning to his grinning and rocking, “I know this island like the back of my hand.”

“So now, one more question,” Brandon thought to ask. “Anybody have a car?”

For a change, I actually had an answer to that one. “Will a limo do?” I asked, already dialing the number on my cell. It looked like that card Liko gave me was going to come in handy. Luckily, Liko was wide open, and our hunky limo driver was only too happy to drive us anywhere we wanted to go. We arranged for him to pick us up the next morning bright and early at ten. (For Brandon, that was about as bright and early as he could muster.) Then we sat there and again watched the happy masses go by.

“Strange,” I said. “There are as many Japanese tourists as there are Americans.”

“Yep,” Koni responded. “They account for something like thirty percent of the tourist trade around here. And all those ABC Stores you see everywhere, they all take Japanese yen. And all the restaurants have their menus in English and Japanese. Heck, they get married here at this very hotel practically all day long.”

I hesitated, but then added, “And the Japanese men appreciate the Hawaiian girls and boys for, um, other less wholesome activities, as well?”

He paused. “Yes, which they pay for in yen, too.”

“Which you don’t take,” I added.

“I’m not the fucking bank of Tokyo,” he replied, almost in a whisper.

“Sorry,” I said. “Not my business.”

He sighed. “Nah. It’s okay, Cute Dude. You’ve been dying to ask me about this shit all day.”

I laughed and asked, “How could you tell?”

And he also laughed. “Because you never brought it up, which is a sure sign that you were thinking about it.” Smart kid. Smarter than us by a long shot.

“And the reason you don’t use a pimp, like your friend Buck does?” Brandon asked. “It’s not only because you get to keep all the money, is it?”

He turned to us and smiled. “Partly. But mainly it’s so I can pick and choose who I... who I, um,
do
. Buck has to take whatever Jed gives him. Like it or not. And mostly it’s not.”

“And he can’t quit if he wants to, can he?” Brandon added.

The smile dropped for the briefest of seconds. “No, he can’t. Remember what I said: this is a small island. Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. Maybe that’s what happened to Lenny. Maybe he tried to quit smuggling. Who knows?”

“So no pimp means you can quit whenever you want to, right?” I asked.

He turned his head to stare at the street, gleaming as it was in the silvery bright moonlight. “Look at all these tourists,” he said, by way of an answer. “Funny how they see the same things I see. The same sunsets. The same hotel lobbies. The same crappy gift stores. Except those things make them happy. Me? They just remind me of what I don’t have. And all I do have is the freedom to do something different someday. If I lose that, what’s left?”

I stifled a tear. Even Brandon had to look away for a second. “Hey, kid,” he said.

“What is it, Brandon?”

“You’ve got one more thing,” my friend said.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

Brandon reached out and put his hand over Koni’s. “You’ve got us, kid.”

Koni smiled, though it now looked somewhat forced. “Yeah, Brandon. But for you, this is a vacation. Two weeks, and then back to reality. For me, this is my reality. Fifty-two weeks a year.”

For that we had no answer.

At least not yet.

***

The next day, as planned, the limo pulled up just as we trotted down the hotel steps and over to the sidewalk. Liko hopped out, dressed in a pair of smart shorts and a tight, short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt. The gods had clearly smiled on him. And us. His own smile faltered only briefly when he saw that Brandon and I were now a foursome, one of whom was the FBI agent he’d driven upon our arrival and the other a teenager, one he most likely recognized as the street trash everyone thought Koni to be. In truth, we did make an odd menagerie. Liko, the professional that he was, merely wished us a good morning and escorted us to the limo, where a chilled carafe of mimosas awaited us.

Liko then ran around to the driver’s side and jumped in. His voice greeted us over the speaker. “Aloha, gentlemen,” he said, his voice as smooth and silky as the drinks Brandon and I now had grasped in our greedy little hands. “A good day to you all.”

“Aloha,” we shouted back.

“Where to this fine morning?” he asked, the engine revving and the limo pulling away.

“The North Shore,” we said in unison.

“Any place in particular?”

To which I replied, “The most beautiful beach you can think to take us to.”

He laughed. “You’re on Oahu, sirs. They’re all beautiful. But I think I know just the perfect spot.”

Then Will added what I’d been dreading since we’d discussed it the night before. “Afterward, Liko,” he said, “we’d appreciate it if you could drive us to two other places; they should be near to one other, and we hopefully won’t be at them for very long.”

“Whatever you like,” he told us. “You’ve paid for the whole day.”

Waikiki being long as opposed to wide, we were on the H-1 highway in just minutes, driving west, the Koolau mountain range to our right, sprawling suburbs on either side of us, the ocean now far to our left, mostly out of sight. We cranked up the radio. Journey was blaring, taking me back to a time in my distant, youthful memory. “God, I love Journey,” I said.

“Who’s Journey?” Koni asked.

We groaned and ignored the question. “How far to the other end of the island?” I asked instead.

“About fifty miles, close to an hour’s drive,” Liko replied over the intercom.

Brandon looked at the carafe and then back to me. “Just enough time,” he noted.

“Just enough mimosas,” I amended.

Will turned off the intercom. “Hey guys, remember, this is only partly a joyride.”

Brandon grimaced. “Then I’ll only get partly drunk.”

I clinked my glass with his, adding, “And I’ll take the other part.”

Journey turned to Blondie, and we sat back, rolled down the window, and stared out at the passing scenery. I nodded my head to the rhythm. “Ah, Blondie.”

“Who’s Blondie?” Koni asked.

“Shut up, kid,” Brandon admonished. “Just please shut the fuck up.”

***

We turned north, now heading up H-2 toward our destination. The city gave way to rolling countryside, small communities, middle-class houses, and middle-class lives. Koni looked out the window glumly. I patted his hand but didn’t ask any more questions; I’d found that the answers weren’t to my liking.

Minutes later, we approached a Hawaiian landmark. “Look,” I said, pointing. “The Dole Plantation and Pineapple Garden Maze.” I’d read in our guidebook that over a million tourists visited every year to experience Hawaii’s “premier pineapple experience.” (Which begs the question: what’s an inferior pineapple experience like?)

Brandon shook his head. “Tourist hell. Besides, you’re lost half the time as it is. Put you in a maze, and we might never see you again.” He hesitated. “Then again...”