“Y
ou look good, John Caine, for a man with a bullet in his back and a price on his head.”
Chawlie rose to greet me, shuffling across his private reception room, arms raised, welcoming me home. I felt like some prodigal, returned after depleting my stolen inheritance.
“The bullet's gone to some evidence locker,” I said, accepting his unexpected embrace, “but thanks all the same. What about the price on my head?” I didn't like the sound of that.
“Sit. You have had a long trip.”
I sank down into a comfortable chair, lowering myself slowly and carefully, not wanting to dislodge what was inside of me, not comfortable with the thought of the stent, although I could not feel a thing other than the usual ache. Percodan and Tylenol had helped. But the pain was always there, lurking behind the chemicals like some caged animal, impatient to unsheathe its claws.
“You look tired, my friend,” I said. Chawlie looked as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He was a serious man with few light moments. But this time he seemed to have more on his mind than usual.
“Wish you were healthy, old friend,” he said. “Chawlie find himself fighting a battle he does not understand. Very few things make sense anymore.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“You can get healthy. Then we see what we can do.”
“What's happened?”
“Fires, bombings. Somebody wants to put Chawlie out of business.”
“Do you know who?”
He shook his head. “When I know who, I stop it. We are looking. We will find out, More worried about you right now, John Caine.”
“Me?”
“According to my understanding, the San Francisco authorities are considering charging you with first-degree murder. Mrs. Chang, the woman who died because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, she is the murder victim.”
“I didn't shoot her.”
“I know that. They know that. But the one who did shoot her is dead, and the authorities wish to punish someone for the crime. California law says that if you commit a felony, and as a result of your actions somebody dies, you are guilty of first-degree murder.”
“That's insane.”
“That's California. Land of crazy people. They make everything complicated. It has to do with balance, I think. Lotus Eaters' yin and yang. But do not worry. Charges are to go to the grand jury some time soon. Your lawyer says the facts are such that they might not indict you.”
I had heard that grand juries would indict a fish for swimming in posted waters if the prosecutor asked them to, but Chawlie was there smiling at me, telling me not to worry, so quite possibly the fix was in. Even in California. The man had some reach from his little island perch here on River Street. But of course the Triads in California had similar power, and they now owed Chawlie a big favor for his presence, and for his support. I wondered if their power went all the way into a grand jury room, and decided that it probably did.
“Did you know that Mrs. Chang had grandchildren that she cared for? They had no mother or father, I guess.”
The old man's eyes crinkled. “Yes. But they have an uncle, Uncle Chawlie. They are now provided for. Not to worry, John Caine. Chawlie does not forget his responsibilities.”
“And the police will know that?”
“And who is responsible for the children's sudden wealth and security, yes.”
“Money can buy just about anything, eh?”
“In this country, money can buy everything. But why should here be any different from the rest of the world?”
Why, indeed? “I am in your debt, Uncle.”
“No. I am in yours. You saved me and you saved Daniel. There is no way I can repay you.”
“I heard that the shooter was killed.”
He nodded. “Young man, full of piss and vinegar, not thinking of consequences. Always consequences, no matter what you do.”
Unless you had the money and the connections. That thought I left unsaid. We both knew its truth.
“So there is peace in San Francisco?”
Chawlie nodded again, smiling. “There would have been a terrible conflict had you not prevented my death, John Caine.”
Remembering that old saw about the fate of those who perform good deeds, I kept my mouth shut.
“Your old friend Kimo has been around, asking about you. The good lieutenant was asked to make inquiries about your handgun, the one you lost before you traveled to San Francisco. He has also been aboard your boat to take samples of your .45 ammunition. He had a court order, issued by a judge in Honolulu, the result of a request from that detective in California. The judge is a good friend. I am happy to tell you that Kimo found no such ammunition. He could not find your firearm, either. You no longer have such a weapon.”
“You've been busy.” The way he explained it, Chawlie would have known about the warrant before the Honolulu police.
“Yes. California police not lucky. Your attorney tells me if they find nothing, they probably can charge you with nothing.”
“Thank you, Uncle,” I said, wondering about attorney-client
privilege, knowing that it didn't exist in this case. The lawyer reported to the one who paid him. That, too, was no surprise.
“Other problem. Because you were identified in the San Francisco newspaper, young rebels put a price on your head. They hired an assassin to kill you.”
“And so, my bodyguard.”
“Young Felix. Just so.”
“You think he's necessary.”
“Chawlie think that bodyguards are always necessary. Worked well for me in San Francisco.”
I nodded. Carefully.
“How is Daniel?”
“He is well.” Chawlie fingered the wattled flesh under his neck, lifting his chin. “He will wear the scar forever, but no matter. He still breathes.”
“I am glad of it.”
“It is best that you go now.”
“You look tired, my brother,” I said.
“It is difficult keeping everything together. I am an old man. And I am tired.”
He looked tired. The bags below his eyes had bags. His face, which had always had a narrow, pinched look, was becoming skeletal. I wondered if he suffered from a fatal disease.
“Are you well?” I asked.
Chawlie smiled. “Thanks to you, yes. It is best now that you go.” He rose and helped me to my feet. Chawlie was right. I was tired, exhausted from the flight, even though I had slept for most of it. But then, the dreams had not been restful.
“Chawlie understand that you lost your woman. If you need the warmth of a soft breast, Chawlie can send two or three little friends for you. They will help you relax.”
“No thanks, Chawlie. It's a pleasant thought, but it might kill me.”
He looked alarmed. “Everything all right?” He unconsciously grasped his own private parts through the rough cotton pants that he wore.
“I suppose. The doctor told me not to push it. Not right away.”
His face brightened. “Oh, you are not shot there, but your doctor told you not to have sex! Stupid man! He does not know what you need.”
“I need sleep. As you said, Uncle. Nothing more.”
He nodded. “Chawlie understand.”
“Thank you, Uncle,” I said, hoping that he would forget the girls, thinking that at my age, even without my debility, their kind ministrations might cause me more pain than pleasure.
“Go now. Felix will go with you.”
“Is Daniel around?” I wanted to confront him, to ask about his father's health.
“He is in California at the moment, but will return in a few days, and he will visit you.”
So Daniel had come over on the jet that took me home. It made sense. If there were loose ends to tie up, Daniel was the guy to do it. Even injured, he was about the toughest guy I knew. Outside of Max. Or Kimo. Or me.
Chawlie leaned toward me, bringing me into his private space. “What can I do for you, old friend?” he asked. “You must rest. You must heal. You must have peace. And for that you must have privacy. I have opened my Royal Hawaiian suite for you. Nurses are there, good girls. They will help you heal.”
“I want to go home. I want to go to my boat.”
“How are you going to take care of yourself? Your wounds? You cannot live on your boat. Later, maybe. But not now. You live hard when you do not need to do so. That is your choice. But no need now. Now you need to let someone take care of you.”
Chawlie was right and I knew it. For such an independent cuss, it was a difficult thing to admit. “Okay. For a few days.”
“For a few weeks. Stay longer, sure, but a few weeks, at least. You must rest. Your doctor told me.”
So the old man had been very busy on my behalf. I understood that it was a part of his gratitude. “Thank you, old friend. I shall stay there. For a few weeks.”
Chawlie beamed at me, and I realized that I had almost
insulted him, something that I never wished to do again. The last time had had near fatal consequences. For both of us.
“You rest, John Caine,” he said. “And do not worry about California laws. They cannot harm you now.”
Chawlie ushered me to the door of his private quarters. Gilbert, his number one son, escorted me to the dining room of his restaurant where I found Felix waiting at the bar. He was drinking grapefruit juice. Through a straw. The things I knew about the young man made me doubt that it held anything other than grapefruit juice.
He smiled when he saw me. “Everything okay?”
“Fine. Is this your first time to Hawaii?
“Yeah.” His admission had an almost guilty resonance to it.
“So you're happy to be here.”
“I've heard a lot about this place.”
“That's why you jumped at this assignment.”
“Okay, you got me.” He smiled shyly.
“Gilbert, Felix Chen here is a malihini, a newcomer.”
Gilbert smiled his four-star smile, his teeth square and perfectly white. “Welcome to the islands, Mr. Chen.” Always the consummate host, Gilbert seemed to ooze charm. Chawlie's oldest son, educated in only the best schools, he ran the legitimate businesses as the dutiful son and the restaurant as his personal fief-dom. Chawlie depended on Daniel for his operations. I wondered at the division of labor: Gilbert for the business enterprises, Daniel for the shadow empire. Somehow, Chawlie kept them in line. Only Chawlie could do that.
We said good-bye to Gilbert and went outside. “Don't worry, I'm not making fun of you,” I said to Felix, patting him on the back. “Your age, I don't blame you. I'd probably do the same thing, I was you.”
He smiled. “You know where we're going?”
“Royal Hawaiian.”
“Where's that?”
“Waikiki. The heart of it. The Pink Lady's the grand dame of
the beach. One of the best hotels in the world. She's the best place to be, if you have to be here.”
“You make it sound rough. We're going to camp out there?”
“A suite.”
He mulled that one over. “Chawlie's taking good care of you.”
“He feels grateful.”
“So how we going to get there?”
“Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that,” I said, approaching Chawlie's silver limousine parked in the red zone in front of the restaurant, the same one that had brought us from the airport. “This is Chinatown. Chinatown is Chinatown, the same no matter where you are. But Waikiki is different from anyplace else in the world.
“And I think, young man, that your first taste of Waikiki is going to be in style.”
I
nstead of going directly to the Royal Hawaiian, I asked the driver to take us first to the Rainbow Marina at Pearl Harbor. I wanted to see my home. Just a glimpse. That was all I needed. I'd started to get the shakes from the trip and didn't think I could make it out of the car and down to the dock. So I took a long, long look from the marina parking lot, if only to satisfy myself that she still floated.
Olympia
looked forlorn and neglected in her slip at the far end of the Rainbow's mauka dock, but she was still there, waiting like a faithful friend. For all the necessary work implied by her condition it was reassuring to see her. She needed work the way a wooden boat in the tropics needs work and she had not received any recent slave time. My condition precluded my performing the needed maintenance on her in the near future, either, so her predicament was unlikely to improve anytime soon.
She looked gray instead of her normally black shiny finish. A fine film of ash covered her decks and her sail covers, the result of a Hawaiian snowstorm. The sugar farmers out at Waipahu and West Loch had been burning cane again, the smoke and ash falling on Pearl Harbor when the winds shifted. I could not see them, but I knew that termites and wood-boring worms had probably taken up housekeeping in her hull, and barnacles, moss
and weed were beginning to sprout their own colonies. I knew that the wooden laps would soon begin to move and leak if they were not constantly cared for. It was the curse of the wooden sailing vessel, this constant mandate for attention. Living abroad, with no obvious means of support, and therefore no obligation to be elsewhere, I'd always thought I would have the time to keep up with the required maintenance. But I hadn't planned to be away from her for this long. And I had never dreamed of this length of convalescence.
My body had suffered injury before. I had been close to death before. At my age this type of thing can really put the skids to you. Until you get over it. Until you master it.
I knew that it would be a long road back.
I also knew that I would have to find a way to get
Olympia
ship-shape again. Maybe I could con Felix into doing some of the work. Convince him it was a necessary part of his bodyguard duties.
Hell, I had the money, I could hire it done. Maybe this was a good time to have her hauled out and worked on. When I was honest with myself I knew I would not have the energy to live aboard for some time.
“Okay,” I said to the driver, taking one last look. “Let's go.”
In times like this I'd almost always done my wound licking alone.
Now, of course, I wouldn't be alone.
I knew that Felix's presence was both a kindness and a necessity. But part of me still resented the intrusion. I'd had all the intrusion I needed for awhile, every orifice trespassed during my hospital stay, including some new ones the doctors had made on their own. Felix was both a blessing and a curse, a typical Chinese conundrum.
Chawlie survived swimming with the sharks because he was brilliant and because he was careful. And also because he was ruthless. Trusting few people, his tentacles reached everywhere, farther than I had guessed. In his business information was everything.
He just didn't wish that he knew what others were thinking, he
knew
. If he didn't possess a way, he would find a way. I thought Chawlie trusted me. He had every reason to do so. But that didn't mean he trusted me so far he would not keep an eye on me, providing me with a bodyguard and a protector who would also report back to him about my activities, my contacts, my likes and my dislikes. Even if nothing I did posed a threat at the moment, he might learn something about me that he could use one day, should the need arise.
I knew his intelligence operation was one of the best in the world, nearly as good as the Swiss. I had used information gleaned from Chawlie's sources before and probably would do so again. That knowledge made it difficult to resent this particular invasion of my privacy.
Still, I wanted to be alone.
I wanted to relax.
I wanted to sleep.
On my own turf.
The limousine turned off Kalakaua into the little lane between high-rise hotels and shopping centers and immediately lost nearly a century as it stopped under the porte cochere of the venerable pink stucco Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Built by Matson, the steamship company that had opened Hawaii to tourism so many years before, it had been the crème de la crème of accommodations for the cruising crowd. The passengers first stopped here on their way to the Orient, and later made it a destination in its own right. In the days before airliners, when Waikiki was a sleepy little section of Honolulu, the Royal Hawaiian and Moana Surfrider were the only hotels in town worth mentioning. Some still feel that way. I'm not sure I'm not in that crowd, but the Royal Hawaiian is one of the few places where the feeling of old Hawaii remains. As a bonus, it is where they invented the Mai Tai.
The doormen swarmed around the car as we stopped. Our bags were swiftly carried away. Chawlie's driver barked orders and the bellmen assumed a new attitude, switching instantly from
attentive competence to a mixture of awe and fear. They knew for whom they worked. It put a little extra bounce in their step.
Someone produced a wheelchair and asked me to sit while they took me upstairs. My fatigue was so great I didn't argue. I allowed them to push me into the grand lobby and then into an ornate elevator, in which we sped to the top floor.
Felix stood beside me all the way, watching the surroundings, watching the bellmen, and watching the other guests in the hotel. I didn't think anyone would want to harm me here, but then I looked at him again and realized that he was drinking it all in. It appeared he had the same reaction to the Islands that I did when I first arrived. Felix seemed to be a Hawaiian at heart. He looked like a man whose soul had suddenly felt at home for the first time in his life.
His almond eyes became rounder and rounder as we reached the top floor and my minders pushed me down a corridor thick with the scent of fragrant island flowers.
“Welcome, Mr. John Caine,” said a young woman, opening the door to Chawlie's suite. The driver rolled me into the living room of the suite, a spacious, well-lighted place with white wooden shutters on windows overlooking the beach, and with expensive Oriental carpets adorning the floors. French doors opposite the entry opened onto a sunny, tiled balcony. If all the interior doors opened on bedrooms, this was a four-bedroom suite.
Four nubile ladies welcomed me at the door, young Chinese women with fresh, beautiful faces. Nurses, Chawlie had told me. Nurses, he had said. Well, they were wearing nurse uniforms and white hose, and they each wore one of those silly hats that nurses wear that would tell you, if you were one of the initiated, what school they had attended. Nurses. They would dress my wounds, bathe me, and help make me feel better.
This was not what I had wanted, but it was what Chawlie had wanted for me, and it would have been churlish to register an objection. And besides, I was exhausted, wanting nothing more
than to drop into a soft bed somewhere and fall into a deep and total sleep, a slumber with neither dreams nor fears. Chawlie's suite looked comfortable. And the view was terrific.
“You think you can make yourself busy for a while, Felix?” I asked.
“Sure. You, ah ⦠?”
“I'm going to sleep. By myself. For a long time. You're in Waikiki. It's fun out there. Go knock yourself out.”
“You'll be all right?”
I gave him a Look. “I've got sunlight on the sand, I've got moonlight on the sea ⦔
“I'll take a walk on the beach.”
“Go down to the Mai Tai Bar. It's right on the beach. Or head on over to Duke's. It's at the Outrigger, next door. They filmed that private eye television series over there.”
“Really?”
“Really. The food is good and the drinks are generous.”
He looked at me with a wounded look.
“I know. I noticed. You don't drink. But you can get an honest grapefruit juice over there, I'm sure.”
Felix looked dubious.
“There's plenty of protection here. Chawlie didn't hire you as a nursemaid. Take some time off.”
“Thanks.”
“Have fun.”
He turned and left the suite, apparently happy to have a destination, happy to explore. And happy, I thought, to be rid of the old man for a little while. He would not be a problem for me while he remained, and his company was intelligent and interesting. He could fade into the background when necessary and he might be helpful if ever he were needed. Chawlie had done well for me. But then, Chawlie always did. Chawlie always paid his debts.
I didn't know how long this enforced retirement would last. I didn't know how long I could stay down. After a life filled with travel and trouble I was not certain I could merely stay calm and quiet and safe and not go out of my mind.
But tired as I was, that prospect didn't seem so bad at the moment. And there would be the challenge of getting stronger every day, the challenge of rebuilding what the bullet had taken away.
I could do it.
It would just take time.
And time, it seemed, was the one thing I had in abundance.
“Mr. Caine?” One of the sweet young things asked. “Would you care for something to eat or drink? I'm sure you're thirsty and hungry from your trip.”
“I just want to sleep.” Food and drink were still strangers to me. I had memories of dining on great food and enjoying wonderful wine. But at the moment my stomach was a sour pit, able to tolerate little. Like my sex drive, my hunger for food and drink was flat.
“Of course.”
She took my hand and helped me to the master bedroom, where the big king-sized bed had already been turned down over crisp, white linen. While I undressed, she pulled the shades and closed the windows. I was in bed before she turned around.
“I need to check your drains,” she said.
When I protested, she smiled indulgently and did what she wanted, unimpressed by my feeble objections.
I lay quietly while she worked, watching her “tut-tutting” with her mouth while she checked my bandages and drains, lightly touching the unimpaired skin around the incisions, as if feeling for the heat of infection. Her fingers were cool, her touch not unpleasant.
“You sleep, Mr. Caine,” she said quietly, apparently satisfied with her inspection. “You sleep as long as you like.”
“What's your name?” Her lovely face paused over mine, the face of a tiny guardian angel, hovering over me.
“Angelica,” she said.
“Of course it is,” I murmured, thinking that even Chawlie's little playmates were more than playmates, and that Angelica's professional inspection gave me confidence that everything was
going to work out just fine. The best I could do was to surrender myself to her care, and live each day as it came, and try not think too far ahead.
Just the way I'd always lived my life.