The Butcher's Granddaughter (30 page)

His eyes were trying to look angry and mean but the pain was too intense to be masked. I took hold of the next finger over. Sonny started to cry and lash out incoherently. “I’m gonna fuckin’
paste you
, faggot! Just wait,” he said heavily, drooling on his rumpled tie, “just fucking wait! There’s no place far enough away! They’ll never find most of you!”

“Let me tell you something, Sonny,” I said almost passively. “As you sit here yanking my dick, there’s a hitman sitting in a posh Los Angeles hotel room that
I paid for
, sipping booze that
I paid for
, with nothing to pass the time but rape an innocent girl that I
owe my life to
. So threaten me some more, you fat prick. Ask me again how much I care about what you’re going to do to me.”

His eyes bobbled back and forth between mine and found no fear, no remorse, and finally realized he was dealing with a man fueled purely by rage. I could feel my voice changing wildly, rising and falling, rushing and then calming down. I felt balanced on the edge of sanity, with Sonny tipping me back and forth.

“Now, I haven’t told you the deal yet,” I continued, trying to calm down, “so don’t jump the gun. First, you start telling me interesting things about my situation. Just keep going until I tell you to stop. Every time you tell me something I think is full of shit, I break a finger. If I run out of fingers, I start putting bullets in joints, starting with your right shoulder. Is this all very clear? Just nod.”

He clamped his jaws and nodded. His face was red through his tan, and sweat had soaked his hair and collar.

“Good,” I said, getting a reassuring grip on the fresh finger. “Sing.”

“All I know is that Cynthia and her fuckin’ whore ship are in some big hock to the Ohana,” he said through heavy breaths. “She doesn’t like paying dock rights to the local mob. Honolulu is a big port for her, but the boys want fifty percent of the action. That’s a nasty chunk when you’re also payin’ for local pigs to look the other way. And now the mainland is on her case, too, which means she’s gonna be spending even more time in other ports, so the mob put on the cash screws.”

“Keep going.”

His eyes were fully concentrated on my fist, the one holding the good finger. He didn’t blink while he talked. “So that’s it, punk. You wanted what I knew.” He sucked air through his teeth.

I tightened on the finger. “Why did Danny Ohana get clipped?”

“I don’t know, man, Jesus! Like your little pigeon said, I didn’t even recognize Tran when he came to me—”

I yanked. It was a clean snap, and an even cleaner scream. While he was still blind with hurt I grabbed his thumb, ready for the next stupid move. “You know what, Sonny? I think that last little bit was a fib.”

He nodded weakly, in the middle of a prayer for his thumb.

“You’re not hiding out in this toilet because you’re afraid of retribution, are you, Sonny? Whoever this kingpin is doesn’t give a shit where the guns came from, does he? That’d be a waste of time. He’s looking for the shooters. And he has to come through you to find out who they are. Once he does, he’s going to kill you, because your usefulness will be over, but your liability will continue, won’t it?”

Another weak nod.

“It’s Tran, isn’t it?” My voice was like a mausoleum door slamming shut. “And you knew who Tran was when he came to you, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he answered in a hoarse whisper. “I knew him. I’d known he was alive for a while.”

“How?”

“Chinatown. Word was there was some new talent on the scene, some kid runnin’ a minor numbers racket in and out of the less profitable fronts, gift shops and shit. I got a couple connections down there, tell me he’s building face, working through respect so he won’t get snuffed by the old men before he can turn a profit and get bought out.”

“And,” I said slowly, “get an invite to join the Triad.”

“Right. Chinese protection racket. Runs like any big corporation. Closer to fuckin’ AT&T than the Mafia. Controls all the major action goes down in Chinatown—gambling, prostitution, drugs, all the regular stuff. They let small timers go ’til they can be bought. That’s where they tend to be smarter than the fuckin’ spics and niggers, who just kill each other. The Triads at least make a civilized offer before they start getting trigger happy.”

“Sonny,” I said, waggling his thumb to keep him alert, “don’t make me have to break anything else. My hand’s getting tired.”

He shook his head vigorously. “No man. No shit. Swear to God.” With his free hand he took the pocket square out and mopped his forehead.

“How long have you been working for Cynthia?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Years. She came to me a long time ago and said she needed a little help with the whole protection thing in the islands. Said she’d give me five percent of anything I could siphon off and funnel back to her. So I set up a couple of false investment accounts, here and on the mainland, got a bag man to handle the actual payoffs and do the deposits, and I’m in business.”

“Parenti,” I said coldly.

The pain was tiring him out. He nodded weakly.

I dropped his hand and backed off him. He winced and drew the fractured paw in next to his chest. I held the piece in front of him. “I’m going to keep this,” I said, glancing over at the still snoozing Mack. “I don’t think he’s going to mind.”

Sonny followed my glance and then suddenly looked away from his bodyguard. “Oh, yeah,” I said menacingly, “I don’t expect any heat from your end of this mess, you dig? The Ohana may not be looking for you right now, but I could pique their interest if I thought I had a reason.” I drew my finger across my throat. “A little revenge is better than none. If I can’t get the triggerman, I’ll take you as a consolation prize.”

He was gently probing the two broken fingers.

I gave him a second and then leered down at him. “Do I really have to ask?”

He momentarily stopped nursing the hand. Then he drooped his eyebrows and looked at the ground. “He’s in the penthouse suite of the Royal Hawaiian, down in Waikiki.” He looked up at me with true fear in his eyes. “Don’t fuck this up, punk. Just say your piece and get the hell out. There’s gonna be a whole lotta people lose a whole lot more than money if this thing goes bad.”

That stopped me, and pushed another player out of the shadows and into the light. “Waterston,” I said.

Sonny didn’t even respond. He knew I knew.

“Greedy son of a bitch,” was all he said.

Chapter 21

I walked in out of the early evening heat and strutted across the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel like I had just bought the place. One of the most expensive resort hotels in the world and no one gave me a second look. Tourists of various ages and shapes were milling around, with no one checking in or out. The front desk staff was busy with phone calls and people asking for the bathroom. A bellboy dressed in blinding white stood against a bank of house phones waiting for someone to tip him. I passed him on the way to the elevators, and he glanced at me with all the interest of a bartender at a drunk. I stepped in the car and left him looking under his fingernail.

A chime and the elevator doors hissed apart. The penthouse foyer that the elevators emptied directly into was a miniature of the lobby—cool and quiet and white as a marble crypt. There was a penthouse at each end, guarded by double doors that were made expressly for giving the impression of money. One beach view, one city view. I flipped a mental coin and went city side.

There was no sound. The door to the stairwell was a hidden job cut out of the wall next to the penthouse. I gave it a push and swept it open, checking my options. The air-conditioning breathed gently at the nape of my neck as I put an ear to the penthouse door. Soft music and running water greeted me. I tried the white enamel knob. No go. Another ear press brought a couple of voices. Giggling. Kids just off the beach. Family sounds.

I spun on a heel and marched back to the beach view. When I put my ear to the door it gave a little. The latch hadn’t caught, and slightly warmer air flowed out against my cheek. I pushed it open and walked carefully to keep from tripping over the rock in my stomach.

The suite probably went for two-grand a day, not including room service. The entryway could have slept a large family and had enough little benches and chairs for all of them to take their shoes off at once. There were vanity mirrors in gilded frames every four feet or so, and from where I was I could see through two rooms to a large bay window that undoubtedly held the requisite breathtaking ocean view. Ivory curtains were drawn over it. I pulled the nine-millimeter I had borrowed from Mack the Softie out of my belt. It didn’t make me feel any better.

The first door on the left was a bathroom as big as the entryway and foyer put together. All the knobs were chunks of crystal like glass fists, and they glinted in the soft light in concert with the brass fixtures. The tub was a four-seater done in white marble with pink and black veins and had water in it that had been standing a while, the bubbles evaporated to a milky foam residue around the water’s edge. A shaving kit lay broken open next to the sink, a man’s razor in the soap dish. I sniffed for perfume. Nothing to suggest a woman.

The next room was a study with expensive books in expensive shelves around an expensive desk. What wasn’t wood or paper was leather and hadn’t been touched since the last pass of the cleaning crew. I let it keep looking clean.

The carpet was new enough that it crackled softly under my sneakers. The warm breeze off the water suddenly unsettled the curtains in the corner of my vision, and I froze momentarily against the wall opposite the study. The huge front room came to me in slices around the edge of a palatial archway. There was a fresh bouquet of flowers on a small tea table, and the breeze carried lilac and pikake scent with it. Beyond that a full-size grand piano appeared, stuck in the corner like they had gone to all the trouble of moving it in and then couldn’t decide where to put it. Just in front of its stringbed was the spine of an ivory-colored sofa. I relaxed and dropped the piece to my side. There was no need.

The curtains billowed inward again as I crept up to Parenti. From the side he looked asleep, his head resting serenely against the back of the sofa like he had dozed off in front of the tube. Before him on a small ottoman was a crystal ashtray with a single cigarette in it that had burned undisturbed into a neat roll of ash. His hands were resting just so on a white towel thrown lazily across his lap. It was all he was wearing, pinched in the roll of his stomach. From the look of his skin and the smell of cordite that still hung in the air, he couldn’t have been dead more than half-an-hour.

I stood over him for a long time and then said quietly, “You couldn’t have told me the truth, could you? You dumb son-of-a bitch.”

The curtains’ windy motion was getting creepy, so I stepped over and closed the window. Stepping back behind the couch, I closed Parenti’s eyes because it seemed like the thing to do, and it got rid of a weird feeling in my gut. The deep red stain that stretched down the back of the sofa was still shiny damp. On impulse I looked behind me at the piano. The bullet had gone into the soundboard behind the extreme bass end of the keyboard. I checked the hole. The slug had been removed.

I took off my t-shirt and wiped everything I remembered touching. Then I went back to the front door, shut it with the Do Not Disturb sign on the handle, put my shirt back on, and threw the place.

It was immediately obvious that had he lived, Parenti was not planning to return to Rodeo Drive any time soon, if ever. He had twenty or thirty two-piece double-breasteds in the walk-in closet. They all went in a pile. Nothing. In the pocket of a raincoat I found a pair of leather gloves and put them on.

I decided the study looked a little too clean. I tumbled all the books from their cases and pulled all the drawers in the desk, flipping them over and looking for false bottoms. Came up dry.

Parenti
was lolled on the middle cushion of the sofa, and I took the chance that whatever I was looking for wasn’t under it. The other two cushions went for nothing. A small coffee table with a letter drawer held a pen and pad of paper with a phone number on it. I grabbed the phone and dialed. A pizza joint. I asked the mouth-breather taking orders if he had one listed for Ben Parenti. He asked me what was on it. I said I didn’t know. He said there was no Parenti on his current order list. I hung up.

Across from the bay window was a gas fireplace, which struck me as being even more worthless than the pool. There was nothing to suggest that anything but gas had ever been burned in it. I wandered into the bedroom and sat on the end of the unmade bed with my chin in my hand and wrote a little play.

Parenti
comes flying into town because he knows something and can either sell it or save himself with it. To who? Could be anybody. Meanwhile, Cynthia is killing her own girls like a lion eats her cubs, an odd course of action at a time when the last thing she needs is more attention from the press and the cops. What information could set them both in motion? It ultimately doesn’t matter much, because Big Ben decides he wants to take a bath in his penthouse suite. While he’s soaking in the bubbles there’s a knock on the door. He ignores it since he didn’t order room service, and that turns out to be the last mistake he ever makes. The next thing he hears is a voice asking him to get out of the tub, it’s got some things to say. Parenti gets up, grabbing a towel, and is guided into the living room. There, he realizes his predicament. He decides to play his trump early and hoses the room with information. Whoever came in isn’t impressed with what Parenti has to offer. Why? Only one possibility—he, or she, already knows the story.

So they calmly put a bullet in his brain, take the time to remove the slug from the premises, and split.

Now, I’m sitting in front of someone with a gun, and I think I have something they want. If I can’t prove it, they’re going to kill me. I would want my proof with me.