Kula (Surfing Detective Mystery Series) Page 11
When I went home to dress for dinner, another message awaited: “Georgie, now doan yah let me down, boy.”
Sammy Bob Picket’s twang was unmistakable.
“Remember, yah owe me another hundert when yah git that golden. Jus’ put it in the mail, general delivery. Or bring it by now.”
* * *
Madison sat at her usual oceanfront table when I arrived for dinner that night at the Waikīkī Canoe Club. Her cigarette, martini, and cell phone were all going—Maltese in her lap. Her cherry hair fell darkly to her shoulders. When I saw her I felt a mix of emotions. But one clear thought: we had to break it off.
Maybe Tommy was right. Maybe I was lonely. Or maybe loneliness was just an excuse—a smokescreen for the undeniable fact that Madison was somebody else’s wife. Even if her husband was almost never around.
Then there was my old friend Maile—confident and wise enough to be just who she was: tough and independent. Yet she had a soft spot for animals and people in need. Luckily, that had always included me. I couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing at that moment.
I took a chair. Twinkie leaped from Madison’s lap into mine and planted her wet nose against my crotch. Madison snapped her cell phone shut.
“Twinkie! Show some restraint, girl!”
I pushed the dog’s nose away.
“Did I tell you, darling,” Madison flicked her cigarette ash into the tray, “that I decided to buy gold from Barry Buckingham?”
“No.” I tried not to show concern. “Is that who you were on the phone with?”
“Of course not.” Madison laughed. “Have you found Barry’s dog yet?”
“Still working on it.” I didn’t want to jeopardize Kula’s rescue. Not after all I’d gone through to find him. And the truth was, I wasn’t really sure I could trust Madison.
“Enough about him. Conrad’s still threatening to fly to Hawai‘i, you know, but he doesn’t say when. How can I plan my life?”
“Have you ever thought of divorce?” I asked, and then wished I hadn’t.
“If I divorced Conrad, I’d get nothing. His lawyers would see to that.” She took a drag from her cigarette. “Can you imagine me economizing at my age?”
“You’re not even forty, Madison. And you look barely thirty.” It was a politic thing to say—and true. But she wouldn’t stay young long if she kept that pace of smoking and drinking.
Her face brightened. “You’re a gentleman, Kai. That’s why I keep you around.”
The cocktail waitress approached and Madison pointed to her now-empty martini glass. “The same,” she said.
* * *
After a Canoe Club burger for me and lobster bisque and scallops for Madison, she invited me to her penthouse for a nightcap. I told her I had a case to work that night.
“If you don’t want to be with me,” she snapped, “don’t make excuses.”
“It’s not an excuse, Madison. I do have a case.”
“Well, would you at least walk Twinkie and me home?”
We both knew what that meant. Once again, I found myself saying yes. We stood, she kissed me, and I felt a familiar rush.
* * *
When we arrived at her swanky Diamond Head apartment building, I noticed a limo leaving the garage with personalized plates that started with H. The long black Lincoln pulled away before I could read the rest of the plate. We rode the elevator to the top floor and walked the carpeted hall to her penthouse. Madison slipped in her key and turned the knob.
“That’s odd,” she said. “It’s not locked.”
“Are you sure?” I tried the key myself.
“What if somebody’s in there, Kai?”
“I’ll go first.” I pushed open the door and stepped into the dim, sprawling apartment, Twinkie at my heels.
Someone walked toward me. Madison reached for my hand. Twinkie recoiled in fear.
A bald portly man in a satin robe and carrying a highball said: “Dear?” He spoke in a soprano that seemed at odds with his bulk.
“Conrad . . .” Madison hesitated a moment. “What a surprise. When did you get in?” She dropped my hand and put her arms around his substantial self.
“Just ten minutes ago,” he said. “I had one of our resort cars drop me off. I wanted to surprise you.”
That vanity plate I had spotted on the limo probably said HIGHCAMP.
“Conrad,” she giggled, a little too loudly. “Oh, darling, this is a private detective.” Madison pointed to me. “I didn’t want to worry you, but someone has been stalking me. So I hired Kai Cooke here. I heard he’s very good.”
“Kai,” he shook my hand, “the pleasure is mine.”
“Mr. Highcamp,” I said, “it’s an honor to meet you, sir. Mrs. Highcamp has told me all about you.” It was a lame thing to say, but the best I could come up with at the moment.
“That so?” He shrugged and then laughed. “Now listen, Kai, I want you to send your bill to me personally. Will you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call me Conrad,” he said. “Madison will give you my address in Los Angeles. She can be a little tightfisted, as I guess you know.” He winked at me. “I’ll expect a statement at the end of the month.”
“Right, sir.” I handed him one of my cards. “In case you need to get in touch with me.”
He took it.
“Well, you two no doubt have a lot to catch up on,” I kept talking. “Mrs. Highcamp, you probably won’t be needing my services now that Mr. Highcamp is in town. But if I can assist you in the future, please give me a call.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Cooke,” she said with distant politeness, but I doubted her husband was buying it. I sensed that he knew what she was up to.
I turned on my heels and walked to the elevator. By the time it reached the ground floor I decided that this would be my last date with Madison Highcamp.
twenty-eight
When I met Buckingham later that night at Wonderview, he looked more like a mugger than a millionaire. No charcoal suit and ruby tie. Instead, black sweats, sneakers, and a wool cap pulled over his brows. His ruddy face looked ashen, his blue eyes eerily pale. Was this Billy Brighton, the sailor who’d stolen his partner’s fortune and bride?
Buckingham led me into his living room overlooking the lights of Honolulu. He walked to a bookcase and from behind a row of gilt volumes—more for show than reading—he drew a snub-nosed pistol. He fingered it for a moment and then tucked it into a pocket in his sweats.
“Have you heard any more from Scanlon?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Did you get the cash?”
Buckingham gestured to a leather briefcase on the Berber carpet—monogrammed in gold, B.B.—and consulted his Rolex. “It’s almost eleven thirty. Shouldn’t we be going?”
“Let’s talk through what we’re going to do first,” I said.
“Yes, good idea.” He seemed relieved to have me there to work out logistics.
“We’ll take your car, since Scanlon is expecting you alone. I’ll ride in the backseat and stay out of sight. When we reach Sand Island, we’ll wait by the gate for his call. Scanlon will probably want you to carry the briefcase to a drop point. If he does, I’ll shadow you. If anything goes wrong, I’ll move in.”
“No heroics, Mr. Cooke. This is my daughter.”
“I only want to protect you and your daughter, if she’s actually there.”
“If she isn’t, I won’t leave the money,” Buckingham insisted.
“Of course.” I tried to calm him.
“Let’s be off then.” His ashen face showed a determination he might need before the night was over.
I followed Buckingham through his rambling villa to an attached three-car garage, past his daughter’s mint green Mini and the empty space once occupied by his wife’s Bentley, to his red Rolls. Atop its mile-long hood stood that silver figurine and beneath that his vanity plate: GLD DLR. Whoever was waiting for us could never miss this car.
As he negotiated the last few turns on lower Tantalus Drive, the gold dealer turned back to me and said out of the blue, “Like my Rolls?”
“Yes, sir, it’s very nice.”
“Nice?” He said in his pitchman’s voice, his confidence clearly returning. “This car cost me more than your average man’s home. But I’m not your average man. Am I?”
“Definitely not, sir.”
It was a strange thing for him to say, dressed as he was like a hoodlum and, stranger yet, on his way to ransom his daughter. I wondered how many average men’s life savings had gone to buy his Rolls. And what price his wife and only child would ultimately pay.
“I’m not being boastful, you see.” He shrugged. “Just proud. I built my business from scratch. Nobody gave me anything.”
Nobody but Abe Scanlon, I thought. And as many people as you could sucker along the way. But who was I to cast stones? I was working for the man!
When we turned onto Nimitz Highway, I wondered about the resourcefulness of our opponent. Was it likely that the old man would return Lehua for the briefcase? And what about Cheyenne? A blackmailer usually wants more. I didn’t picture the old man tossing any grenades, but I didn’t doubt he might enlist some muscle who would.
As Buckingham hung a left into Sand Island Access Road and crossed the bridge, a container ship slipped silently from Honolulu Harbor, its illuminated rigging resembling strands of Christmas lights. Sand Island sat in the middle of the harbor, leaving only the narrow channel for the ship to pass through. The beach park rimmed the south shore of the mile-and-a-half long island, where we were soon stopped by a chain across the entrance.
I’d been to Sand Island Beach Park in the daylight. It’s a tranquil spot to grill burgers and tilt back a few beers. But at two minutes to midnight the park was black. That there was only one road in made me wonder about Scanlon’s plans. I could not imagine an old man alone restraining a kidnap victim and collecting a ransom at the same time.
At midnight Buckingham’s cell phone rang.
“Yes, just like you asked for . . .” He took a deep breath. “Abe, it’s all there. But I have to see my daughter first.” There was a long pause. “I’m on my way.”
Buckingham whispered to me in the backseat. “He wants me to carry the briefcase into the park. He’ll call me again near the drop point. He still hasn’t told me where it is.”
What was Scanlon’s game? Although his criminal history had been nonviolent, as far as I knew, I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with what he might have planned for his late-night rendezvous with his former partner.
“If you don’t like what you hear or see once you get there,” I said to Buckingham, “tell Scanlon to wait and come back to the car. I’ll meet you here.”
“Right.”
Buckingham stepped out of the car. I gave him a few seconds’ lead and then followed behind. In the dark park he was nearly invisible in his black sweats, toting his briefcase. We walked less than twenty feet when his cell phone rang again.
He talked animatedly into his phone, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Soon he walked to a nearby trash bin and carefully balanced the briefcase on the rim. Then he rushed back toward his car.
Already he was veering from the plan.
I ducked behind a tree as he walked by, keeping an eye on the briefcase. Buckingham’s cell phone rang again. He was close enough to me this time that I could hear him clearly.
“Yes. Yes. I kept my end of it. Now you keep yours.”
He put away the phone and walked back to the Rolls, opened the door, and slid into the driver’s seat. I stayed out of sight, waiting for Scanlon to emerge from the darkness. Buckingham continued to sit in his car.
What was he doing?
Nearly ten minutes passed. No more phone calls. No sign of Lehua.
About to leave my post, I was stopped by a movement near the briefcase. From the shadows appeared the bent outline of an old man. I couldn’t say he was running, he seemed incapable of that. But he was walking as fast as someone his age could—a halting, awkward gait.
Just as Scanlon reached the prize, Buckingham’s door opened. I saw three quick flashes and heard pop-pop-pop. I couldn’t tell if the old man was hit. He grabbed the briefcase and hobbled away.
Then in the darkness, somewhere behind where Scanlon had been, there were two more flashes and pops. Somebody was firing back!
I ran to the car. Buckingham was leaning against the open door, holding his snub-nose.
twenty-nine
“I trust I hit him,” Buckingham said calmly. “I trust I hit Abe at least once.”
“Get in,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Buckingham slid back into the driver’s seat and closed his door. I jumped in the backseat. He turned the Rolls around and left Sand Island Beach Park behind. I looked through the back window, but saw no more flashes coming from the park.
“Who was that with the gun?” I asked. “It wasn’t Scanlon. He was too busy with your briefcase.”
“I don’t know,” Buckingham said. “I also assumed Abe had compatriots, but have never myself come face-to-face with one.”
“You shouldn’t have fired.” I was furious. “You could have hit your daughter. Not to mention me.”
“Lehua wasn’t here.” Buckingham slumped back into the seat. “He said she would meet me at the car if I left my briefcase on the bin. Damn him . . .”
“And now he has your daughter and your money.”
“Well, not exactly, Mr. Cooke.” A smile crossed his face. “I filled the briefcase with old newspapers. This was a little cat and mouse game, you see, between Abe and me. Abe had hoped to fleece me for another fifty thousand, and I had hoped to kill him. Neither one of us succeeded tonight, but there will be other nights, believe me.”
“But your daughter . . . and your wife.”
“Nothing means more to Abe Scanlon than money. If he harms Lehua or Cheyenne, he’s lost his meal tickets.”
“So you think he has your wife too?” I recalled Mrs. Gum’s very different version of events.
“Of course. It’s the only explanation for her disappearance.”
“Then why no ransom note?”
“Abe is twisting the sword in me. He wants me to suffer. The note will come—when he’s ready.”
Just as I realized there was no sense in arguing with him about Scanlon’s motives, Buckingham’s cell phone rang again. He kept his hands on the wheel. He didn’t answer.
“Abe wants to shame me,” he said, “but I won’t give him the satisfaction. He is not a man of honor.”
Did Buckingham think of himself as honorable?
“Mr. Cooke,” he cleared his throat, reclaiming his usual pompousness, “since Abe cannot be counted on, and my family’s life is still at stake, I’d like to defer to your expertise at this point.”
I looked in disbelief at the actor-sailor-turned-pitchman who just this morning told me his history of swindling others. Even if I didn’t hate working for a crook who would throw me the sort of curveball he just had—what kind of miracle did he expect me to perform? What on earth made him think that I could find a way to get the girl from Scanlon, especially after Buckingham himself had just spooked the man with a double cross and an attempt on his life? Then I thought of Lehua and the danger she was in.
“Well,” I sighed, “my fee just doubled.”
“Agreed.”
“First let’s see if we can intercept Scanlon. We might be able to catch him on the access road, unless he’s gone by boat.”
I had Buckingham pull off the road after about a half mile behind a big Matson truck. He shut down the motor. In less than five minutes we saw a pair of headlights. He started his Rolls again and grabbed the wheel.
“Wait,�
�� I said. “If that’s Scanlon, we need to follow him at a distance.”
The headlights got bigger and soon an SUV appeared. It fit the description of the vehicle that the elderly tutu I’d interviewed on Kailua Beach thought she saw Kula riding in. I could see two people inside as it passed: a man hunched in the backseat, and a man wearing a baseball cap driving. Soon the SUV’s taillights faded into two tiny red dots.
“Keep your headlights off,” I said. “And follow him. Stay about a quarter mile back.”
As we crept along in darkness Scanlon’s driver turned from the isolated road onto the more heavily-trafficked Nimitz Highway. They were heading west, toward Pearl Harbor. Buckingham switched his lights back on as we entered the ramp onto the H-1.
Freeway lights revealed the SUV to be a bronze Chevy Tahoe. As the road made its sharp bend near Aloha Stadium, the Tahoe merged into the far right lane. When the H-3 Kāne‘ohe exit approached, the Tahoe’s right blinker came on and it took the ramp.
“Is he going back to the scene of the crime?” I wondered aloud.
Buckingham said nothing. He seemed focused on Scanlon’s taillights.
The Tahoe climbed the H-3 grade to its summit and then descended through the tunnel toward Kāne‘ohe and Kailua. At the Kailua ramp, they pulled off and aimed straight for Kailua town. Before long the SUV swung into a side street and then into the driveway that led past the auto parts store to the Windward Sands.
“Spyder Silva,” I said. “And Reiko Infante.”
Buckingham didn’t react to the names.
“I’ve been here before,” I added.
The Windward Sands looked less seedy at night than when daylight revealed its cracked windows and rotting wood. But more eerie. Flickering TVs glowed from inside through open jalousies, emitting the ghostly noise of disembodied voices. While Buckingham parked his Rolls out of sight by the auto parts store, I walked along the overgrown hedge flanking the property and positioned myself where I could see and not be seen.
The driver of the Tahoe hopped out and waited for Scanlon. Though his face was hidden by the bill of his baseball cap, I could see tattoos on Spyder Silva’s arms. In his right hand was the Berretta pistol I’d seen in his truck.