The Butcher's Granddaughter (27 page)

I woke up with my face in the pillow and my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. I was still wearing all my night-before clothes, reeking of perfume, cologne, booze and cigarettes. A small tapping came from outside the door. Then it stopped. A few seconds later it started again.

I rolled over and let the tapper wait. He got neither louder nor more hurried. He just tapped. I looked around futilely for a weapon, settling on a brass letter opener atop the desk blotter next to some hotel stationery. I went to the door.

More tapping greeted me. I wrapped the letter opener in a tight fist behind my back and turned the knob.

We stood and blinked at each other. When it looked to him like my eyes had gotten used to the fluorescents, he said, “I’m lookin’ for a hundred bucks. You got a hundred bucks?”

“Sometimes,” I said thickly. “What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“A .M.?”

“Yeah. A.M.”

I squinted like the information had given me a headache. His nametag said Kalani, but he was an ethnic mix who would have passed for white anywhere. He wore a busboy’s apron over the hotel uniform, and had apparently bathed in cheap cologne before coming to work. I said through the squint, “You look like a man who can get coffee. Go get some and I’ll see if there’s a loose C-note lying around.”

He shot down the hallway and around the corner. He came back with an entire pot and a cup. No coffee for Kalani. I had a cigarette lit and ready, and out of reflex he poured me a cup and set it up nicely with cream and sugar. I took it and enjoyed the view of Ala Moana Park through the window. Then I sat down on the edge of the bed and gave him a sleep-worn glare.

His sharp little eyes darted back and forth, trying to decide which one of my eyes to look at. He was short, but not a stump, with wrestler’s shoulders and the narrow, gently muscled legs of a surfer—the kind of guy you can never quite get a good hold on in a fight. His right cheek was twitching, and he stood there like he needed to take a piss and was waiting for me to excuse him.

I said, “Have a seat,” and introduced him to one of the assembly-line-plush chairs.

“No thanks.”

“Sit down,” I said. “I’m not going to ask again.”

He picked up an ashtray from the dresser by the door and carried it with him to the chair. “Geez, you’re a nervous son of a bitch. ’Course, I would be, too, if I’d pulled what you did last night.”

“Oh yeah? What do you know about where I was last night?”

“Some. I know some other stuff, too. Put it together the right way and maybe it’s worth a little something.”

I sipped and tried to look serious. All I could manage was tired. I yawned and said, “Look, kid, I tossed a lot of money right down the toilet’s throat last night, so a bill buys a lot of information with me right now. But if you just came in to sit there and be tough and scare me, you did it, OK? Go tell your girlfriend what a man you are before she gets bored.”

He took out a pack of the world-famous Kools and popped a black and ivory scrimshaw Zippo to one. “Funny you should mention my girlfriend,” he said flatly, letting smoke dribble out between his lips while he talked. “She’s the cashier down at the Cadillac. She came home last night and we did our usual thing, and when we’re finished she tells me about this crazy motherfucker that came in the bar and pissed all over Bev from Platinum.”

I remembered the girlfriend. She had been sitting doe-eyed in the booth next to the bouncer that didn’t want to mess with me. She’d given me a look that made me feel cheap. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothin’ maybe. Maybe somethin’. I didn’t think anything about it except me and you almost crashed into each other last night coming in to the hotel. My shift starts at four. Before that, me and the lady were shootin’ the shit as I got ready for work and she describes you. When we almost knock heads, I flash that this dude she was talkin’ ’bout looks like you. I figured it was worth checking out. So far so good.”

I got up and opened a window and let some ocean in. The breeze was cool and moist and did more for me than the coffee. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Kalani, and I’ll be sure to say hello to your girl. I’ll probably be back there tonight. After that I’ll come back here for another night, eat some, hopefully get that little local girl’s phone number, and then I’ll switch hotels.” I picked up a pen and grabbed a blank bit of stationery so I could file some thoughts. “Now beat it. I’ve got sleep to get and work to do.”

“I came up here after a C, man. I’m gonna earn it.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him.

“You don’t seem to realize what kind of shit you started last night. There’s a whole bunch of people lookin’ for you, I think, and I know a couple of ’em.”

I was doodling on the sheet, trying to think. “You don’t know squat about me, Kalani, or where I came from, or why I’m here. How do you know folks are looking for me?”

“Not true. I know something big’s gonna happen, and I know that as soon as word got around that some haole was makin’ a nuisance of himself, a certain group got very excited, and a few got very nervous. One in particular, guy name of Sonny T. He does some business with big boys once in a while.”

“What kind of business?”

“Couple different things. Known for guns. Does some blood work once in long while. I don’t know him super well, but he’ll talk to me if I buy him a drink or two and show him a little respect. Sometimes he’ll even remember it for more than five minutes. I send people to him once in a while, and he treats me a little better than most of the folks he doesn’t consider friends. And that’s comforting when a guy is Ohana.” He looked at me like that in itself was worth a hundred bucks.

“What’s Ohana?” I asked innocently, but I had a pretty good idea.

“Hawaiian mob. Don’t fuck with them. There, don’t say I never gave you any advice.”

I was getting impatient, so I had some more joe. “So you know some minor league player. Congratulations.”

“He’s minor league for a reason,” Kalani continued, brushing off the jab. “He’s got a big mouth. And when he’s nervous, he’s like a shrink’s dream. Dumps on the nearest available person. Couple nights ago that person was me.”

There was some more quiet, and Kalani’s eyes got narrow through the smoke. I toyed with the paper and then fiddled with the ashtray. He won the waiting contest.

“And what revelations did this Sonny T person give you?” I asked through a sigh.

“You willing to front for it?”

“Look, kid, if the shit is good, I’ll pay for it. That’s as good as you’re going to get, so either spill or get the fuck out and let me get some sleep.”

“Fine. Here’s a hundred dollars worth of shit. Turns out Sonny’s a little freaked ’cause he doesn’t know how to keep his allies straight. He’s a little bit Ohana and to the Ohana that means a lot Ohana. So this nobody comes up to him one night and says he needs some guns for a big job. Lots of ’em. Sonny sets him up with some pieces, mostly big handguns, and the next thing happens is some sushi bar gets decorated with little pieces of Danny Ohana, a high level punk who’s just waiting for old relatives to die off so he can become the Big Man. Anyway, it’s a real clean job, in and out, twenty seconds tops—surgical gloves, no descriptions of anybody, and they toss the pieces on the body and split. Cops throw a fuckin’ party, write it off as inter-gang hostilities, case closed.

“So now Sonny’s up to his neck ’cause the pieces have his name all over them, and he’s afraid that Papa-san Ohana is gonna put two and two together and come after him.”

I took a long drag on the cigarette and sat back. “But he’s not going to, is he?” I asked.

Kalani
shook his head, smiling almost to himself. He got up and went into the bathroom and got a water glass so he could put some coffee in it. He sipped it black. “Kona,” he said, smiling and licking his lips. “Better than any mainland sludge, huh?”

I shrugged and glanced in my cup. “I don’t know, Kalani, so far you’ve brought me a page-three headline and a good story. You’ve earned a little extra tip for the coffee. What gives?”

“Aren’t you a little curious about why Sonny T is freakin’ out and I think he shouldn’t be?”

“Not really. And I for sure don’t see a hundred bucks in it. I don’t know this Sonny T guy from dirt, and he doesn’t know me either. Tie it all up and maybe I’ll pay out.”

“How about if I told you that Sonny’s got a big connection to a couple of families?”

“You did already. These Ohana people.”

“That’s just the mob. They’re customers. But in the Ohana, one of the families is named Nguyen. Ever heard of them? Would you hand over a hundred bucks for what Sonny’s doing with them?”

He finally had my attention. I sat silently across from him and tried to keep some blood in my face. My throat creaked out a dry, “Yeah. I’d pay for that.”

“Where’s the bread?”

“Information. First.”

Kalani
shrugged. “The nobody that came to him for backup just before the job on Danny was a kid named Tran Nguyen, but Sonny didn’t recognize him.” Kalani paused and gave me a look that said I should be impressed by this last bit. I wasn’t. Being named Nguyen in Vietnamese is like being named Smith in English. Maintaining the expression, he said, “The reason he didn’t recognize him was because Tran Nguyen died in a car wreck four years ago, along with his two sisters.”

I got up very slowly and grabbed a wad of cash out of my pants. I gave Kalani a hundred-dollar bill. He took it, folded it very carefully twice, and stuck it in his shirt pocket. I stood there staring at a speck of dust on the table until Kalani got nervous. “Any questions?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” I said distinctly, and waved the roll around in front of him. Kalani’s eyes dialed in. “The sisters. What were their names?”

“Li and Song.” He licked his lips as he said it.

My stomach was an empty pit. I flicked another hundred from the roll. “How much do you know about them?”

He drooled at the bill but said, “Nothin’. They’re dead.”

“So Tran somehow survived this car crash?”

Kalani
looked puzzled. “Sure, I guess. I mean, Sonny sold the guy some guns. He didn’t sell anything to any sisters.”

“But it’s possible they all could have survived?”

Kalani
shook his head, then thought twice. “I guess. Maybe. But I think I would’ve heard something. I don’t think Tran would’ve surfaced without some connection to his sisters. Nah. They gotta be dead.” Kalani wasn’t reeking of confidence anymore.

I filed it away and said, “You said a ‘couple’ of families. What’s the other one?”

Kalani
shrugged. “Not a family, actually. Just one dude. Guy named Robert Waterston.”

I tried not to let it show on my face. I had to sit down to do it. “What about Waterston?”

“That part I don’t know. I just been hearing the name around for about a week. Especially from Sonny.”

“Anything specific?”

He shook his head. “I could make somethin’ up if you want, but no. Except for that when Sonny mentions him, he doesn’t sound too happy.”

“Why not?”

“If I had to guess? The only thing that makes Sonny T angry is money. He’s got a lot of it, but that don’t matter. Someone stiffs him, he fucks ’em up. Doesn’t matter if it’s five bucks or five-hundred thousand.” Kalani emptied the glass, set it on the table and didn’t refill it. “So I think somebody’s late on a payment.”

I flashed on the taillights of a big BMW. “He ever mention a guy named Parenti? Benjamin Parenti?”

Kalani
screwed up his face and then shook his head. “No. Why? Who’s he?”

In answer I peeled yet another hundred off the roll and said, “Your silence for forty-eight hours.”

Kalani
nodded and forked another C-note.

I repeated the motion, the crisp bill making an audible pop as it came off the roll. I held it up for him in splendorous sunlight. “Where Sonny T would be right now.”

This one he paused over, then casually reached across and pulled the bill out of the light and into the darkness of his pocket. He spoke. Then he got up and left.

“Oh, by the way,” I said to his back on the way out the door, “if I wander into somebody in the hotel who doesn’t seem to like me, I’ll find you.”

Chapter 19

I slept off the daylight.

It was five-thirty when I finally woke up from a sweaty nap and deep, disturbing dreams filled with liars and ex-girlfriends and people speaking bizarre languages. The sun was getting ready to set, and dark, broken clouds were dropping an intermittent rain on the beach. I stood at the window and watched the action on Ala Moana Beach. The worshippers were still out strong, wringing the final rays from a fading sun. Every ten minutes or so a little sprinkle would come up, and sun hats would go on, and towels would be wrapped around tanning legs. Then it would pass, and they would all open up again like indecisive sunflowers.

I stood in the warm orange light while I phoned room service. I told them to bring me two eggs scrambled, some pineapple, a slice of ham, and lots of coffee. Then I flashed on the photo peeking out from the back pocket of my jeans and told them to send it up with somebody who could read Chinese. They said it would be no problem. I hung up and cracked a window so some noise could come in.

I showered quickly and shaved the stubble that was growing in a decidedly not-blonde color, threw on a pair of black jeans and a white t-shirt, and read the room brochure while I waited for breakfast. I had gotten to the aerial photo of the rooftop pool and was wondering why they even had one with the sapphire-blue Pacific a hundred feet away, when the knock came. I grabbed the letter opener again and said, “Yeah?”

“Room service.”

I opened the door to the smell of breakfast. My Chinese interpreter was the beautifully difficult little girl who had delivered the saimin the night I arrived. She held the tray before her and didn’t say anything, so I did.

“Oh, hello.”

She bowed slightly and when that was over gave me an arched eyebrow that I knew a lot of men had seen, right before they ran off with their ego crumpled into a pathetic little ball between their legs. I pushed the door all the way open to show her that I didn’t have a big friend inside who liked to pounce on petite women, and she moved carefully past me into the room, walking as if trying not to hurt the carpet. She checked every little corner of the place with quick sideways glances, without being intrusive. When the breakfast tray was sitting just so on the table, she turned and put her arms to her sides and said, “You requested someone who could read Chinese, sir?” Her voice was gentle to the point of being hypnotic. She could have yelled at the top of her lungs and not disturbed a papal mass.