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Authors: Charles Knief

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The author wishes to thank the members of the San Diego Police Department's Special Intelligence Unit, Sergeant Manuel Rodriguez, Detective Fausto Gonzalez, and Detective Jesus Cesseña, who introduced me to the world of cross-border law enforcement, and who taught me how it works along The Line. San Diego is fortunate to have such men.
For her support and for sharing her wisdom, I cannot thank my aunt, Dorothy Harrell, enough. When she wrote her stories so long ago, she gave me permission to write my novels now. I can't say I wouldn't have written, but she made it so much easier.
Thanks have to go to Ruth Cavin, who always makes sense out of chaos, and who possesses the inerrant ability to find what must be fixed, and then gives her writers the tools to do the job.
I also owe a great debt to Jim Allen—friend, agent, and first-line editor with a nose for the right stuff. Thank you, Jim. You are a perfectionist's perfectionist, a cruel taskmaster, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
And for all those wonderful booksellers who made the selling of Diamond Head a much more pleasant experience than anticipated-especially Maggie Griffin and the gang at Partners & Crime, who became good friends and who gave Diamond Head the Nevermore (which is marginally better than the finger); Barbara Peters from The Poisoned Pen; Elizabeth and Maryelizabeth from Mysterious Galaxy; and because he generously loaned his name and temperament to one of the major characters of this book, Ed Thomas of Book
Carnival. We've seen you before, Ed, and we might see you again.
And of course there's my best friend, my confidant, my lover, my wife, Ildiko. I've been all over the world, but with you, sweetheart, life is finally a trip worth taking.
Édes Ildikémnek
I made sure I had my balance and could move when I needed to. Stevenson put both hands on the gun, aiming it straight-armed at my face. A .38 isn't a large caliber, but it's big enough. Six feet away and pointed at your head, the barrel looks enormous.
His hand shook as he pulled the trigger. I dove across the bed, rolling under the tongue of flame, landing on the balls of my feet. He fired again as I charged him. Something tugged at the collar of my jacket. I reached him as he fired the third bullet, kicked his feet out from under him, deflecting the gun with my elbow. Glass shattered in another room.
He still had the gun and the gun still had two rounds …
 
 
“Readers who miss John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee will be pleased to meet John Caine …”
-Booklist
 
“Rings with authenticity. Taut, tense, never a false note.”
—Robert B. Parker on
Diamond Head
 
“A high-spirited, high-casualty tale.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
on
Diamond Head
 
“Knief's writing is smooth and seamless, and he's concocted an involving plot to go with his likeable, attractive macho hero and exotic setting. The result: an action-packed, satisfying debut.”
—Booklist
on
Diamond Head
Dear Mystery Reader:
 
Charles Knief, the award-winning author of DIAMOND HEAD, is back with SAND DOLLARS. Private eye John Caine, Knief's endlessly likable sleuth, is reeling from the tragedy of losing both his girlfriend and his beloved boat. Down in the dumps with nowhere to go, the retired U.S. Naval officer is called back into action when a wealthy San Diego woman needs him to track down the truth behind her husband's death.
 
His search for the truth leads him on a murderous tropical trail that takes him from Hawaii to California to Mexico. With justice hidden beneath the sultry south-of the-border sun, Caine must keep his eyes open and antenna up for any clues that might lead him through the sex, sand, and speeding bullets to his final destination …the truth.
 
After you've read SAND DOLLARS, you'll have your bags packed and your sunblock ready and waiting for more fun in the sun with PI. John Caine. Enjoy!
 
 
Yours in crime,
Joe Veltre
Associate Editor
St. Martin's Press DEAD LETTER Paperback Mysteries
Other titles from St. Martin's
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SAND DOLLARS by Charles Knief
THRONES, DOMINATIONS by Dorothy L. Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh
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Here's a preview of Charles Knief's latest book
Coming soon from St. Martin's Press
The first time I saw Margo Halliday she was stark naked, running for all she was worth down a Honolulu alley in the middle of the night.
A big man chased her. Every thirty feet or so he'd stop and fire a round from an automatic pistol. The woman was in more danger of stepping in broken glass than getting hit by a bullet. The big guy's heart wasn't in it. Unsteady on his feet, just tipsy enough to be overcautious, he would come to a complete stop, carefully aim way to the right or way to the left, and pull the trigger. He'd watch the bullet powder brick on either side of the alley, then start chasing her again. It reminded me of a cat chasing a mouse. A lot of fun for the cat, sure, if he felt sadistic, but the mouse would just as soon prefer to be otherwise occupied.
This time neither party appeared to be having fun. The man cried as he chased her, mouthing unitelligible words, tears streaking his cheeks, his nose running. He looked like a wounded man, the way a man can only be wounded by a woman. And for all his pain he looked grimly intent on inflicting pain of another kind on the source of his misery.
I'd just left the back room of Chawlie's Chinatown restaurant where he'd beaten me once again at Go. That made it about twenty-five gazillion to two, and I was very proud of those two.
The big man jogged past and I dropped him with a flying kick. He went down easy but refused to let go of the pistol, so I broke his wrist and he gave it up. All the fight went out of him.
He deflated like an octopus brought up on a lure and dumped into the bottom of a canoe, when it knew it was going to die.
I released the pistol's clip and eased back the slide. A bright brass 9mm cartridge popped out. The gun was a Glock, one of those new automatics that carried half a box of ammunition. Load it up in the morning and shoot all day. It was good for those unsure of their marksmanship, or for those loonies who imagined themselves facing hordes of enemy lurking between their homes and the corner 7-Eleven. The gun safed, I stuck it in my hip pocket.
“Is he dead?”
The naked woman had returned. She stood near the big man, who lay curled against Chawlie's back wall. Hip slung, she presented an explicit representation of female anatomy.
“Not unless he's had a heart attack.” I squatted and felt the big neck. The slow, strong heartbeat was reassuring. “He's okay,” I said, looking up. She had moved closer and my face was now in direct proximity to her sex.
I stood and pulled off my sleeveless SKI THE VOLCANO sweatshirt and handed it to her. The sides gapped, but if she kept her arms down it would cover her. She was not a particularly small woman, but it was an XXL.
She silently accepted the sweatshirt but held it against her thigh. She stood naked in the filthy Chinatown alley, as still and as beautiful as a Grecian statue. And as unremarkable. All flesh is equal, regardless of its age or condition. Her body was one I could admire as I would admire a work by a master sculpture, but like a statue, no heat radiated from it and I was not drawn to her.
“Put it on,” I said.
“Oh.” Her eyes focused suddenly. She had been far away, but she came back from wherever she'd been and shrugged the shirt over her head.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice shaky. Now she looked scared.
“You know this guy?”
She nodded, her arms wrapped around her body, long fingers gripping the gray sweat cloth. “He's my husband. Or
was. We're divorced. Have been for years. But he keeps coming around, making demands.”
“Come on,” I said, reaching for her. She flinched away.
“Where?”
“In here. It's a restaurant.” I pointed to Chawlie's back door. “There are people in there. Other women. They'll take care of you. Get you some clothes. Then you can decide what to do.”
She nodded again. “What about him?”
I looked down at the man. He still lay against the wall. I couldn't tell if he was unconscious or if he was faking. It didn't matter.
“What about him?”
“He's hurt,” she said. “Shouldn't we do something for him?”
“Why?”
She thought about it. Then she nodded again and I knew she was going to be all right.
 
“John Caine. You only man I know who can walk out the door and come right back with naked woman.” Chawlie whispered, his smile large and generous, his eyes twinkling.
We lounged at his bar sharing one more beer. His bar girls had taken charge of Margo, wrapping her in silk and taking her back to Chawlie's private quarters. Eventually one of the girls returned with much ceremony and giggling to present me with my sweatshirt.
“Anthony checked man in alley. His arm broken, he no move. Next time he look, man gone. You do him, eh?”
“He was chasing the woman and shooting at her with this.” I pulled the automatic from my hip pocket and handed it to Chawlie.
“Grock.”
“Yeah. A Grock. He was shooting, but he didn't mean to hit her. He aimed wide.”
“This her husband?”
“Ex-husband.”
Chawlie shook his head. The lack of clarity and the vagaries
of haole relationships were alien to him. He offered me the gun.
“You keep it,” I said. “I don't like those things.”
He laughed. “You old-fashioned.”
“A nine's too small,” I said.
“You like what you like. Forty-five your gun.” Chawlie examined the automatic again. “Expensive,” he muttered, and put it away behind the bar. “You know this man? You recognize him?”
“Who? The woman's husband?”
“Yes.”
“No. Do you?”
“Never saw him before,” said Chawlie, sipping his Tsing Tao. “Just wondered. All you haoles look alike to me. Especially in the dark.”
“Funny, Chawlie.”
“You see bruises on young woman's face? Or you just looking at her tits?”
I hadn't seen any bruises, but it was dark in the alley. “So what you going to do, John Caine? You going take young woman home, be her big hero? Hope to get lucky, or what?”
“Somebody's got to take her home.”
“I send girls and a couple of my people. She feel safer that way, I think.”
Chawlie was trying to get rid of me. That meant there was something he could use to his advantage. And he didn't want me involved.
That Chawlie would send the woman home with his girls was certain. He might be a criminal, he might break the law, but unlike most of those who craft the laws, he is a man of his word. Although I didn't know her name at the time, Margo Halliday was safer than she'd ever been in her life. Whatever advantage he might gain by assuming the responsibility for the woman's safety would not adversely affect her in any way.
“I'll take that hint,” I said, sliding off the bar stool, “and go home.”
“Leave by front door this time.”
“Good night, old friend.”
“Good night, John Caine. If you find any more strays tonight, you keep them.”
That was the first time I'd ever seen Margo Halliday. It would riot be the last.
The next time I was aware of her was seven months later, when news of the murder was the
Advertiser'
s lead story, her photograph prominently displayed on the front page, her feathers instantly recognizable, bringing back the events of that warm summer evening. Her ex-husband had been shot to death in her Hawaii Kai condominium. Police wasted no time in charging her with a variety of crimes, curiously excluding any of those indictments that can be brought when one human being takes the life of another. The crimes were all misdemeanors and minor felonies and she made bail with the help of a high-priced defense attorney from Bishop Street.
The paper reported the sanctioned police statement that they were investigating and would have further announcements. It didn't look good for the woman I'd briefly met in that dark, dirty alley.

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