Finders Keepers, page 17
Flash shook his head. “No, but what about Peterson?”
“Well, I don’t want to piss on anyone’s grave, but, if I were a cop, I’d be following that Peterson thread a little more urgently. Old Peterson was a bad dude. I can’t tell you how I know that, but I do. He was not a good person, and yes, we’re talking drugs. I can confirm that.”
Flash thought about this, then decided to ask the obvious question, even though it might cost him. “And why might the local police be moving slowly?”
“This is the way I would say it: Our local police force will do their best, only they’ll do it very carefully because Peterson was a part of the island family, so to speak. Family investigations are more— What? Subtle, quieter. The cops are very careful not to injure or unsettle islanders. Peterson was part of the family, a bad apple for sure, but still, family.”
Fred pushed his cup and saucer away from him on the bar. “The cops will eventually get it right, at least I think they will. But the journey will be a slow and careful one. That’s how it works around here. Now, if the person killed had been a tourist, well, that’s panic time. Clear the decks and move fast, lots of overtime, urgency, solve the thing as quickly as possible and get the story out of the news. That’s the island mantra—don’t scare the tourists, whatever you do. I’m a big fan of that mantra, by the way.”
“I’ll bet,” said Flash, rising from his seat. “Well, thanks, Fred. I’ll see you around. Oh, and you might think about giving young Dennis a raise. He’s damn good for business.”
That afternoon, the gin mostly out of his system, Flash took a taxi to Salt Pond Beach to have a talk with Paul. The boy had called him, so that was progress. It would be a chance to find out what Paul knew about Peterson, which would be progress too. He sat down to wait for Paul at a picnic table looking out toward the ocean.
He considered Paul’s predicament. If the boy could get clear of murder and drug charges, that would be a big win. But Paul might be facing extrajudicial complications. Everyone on the island now knew that Mr. P. had a huge drug stash and forty-thousand dollars in small bills hidden in his house. The people who supplied the drugs to Kauai would hear the news too. A good chance those people, probably from Oahu, would be looking to make an example of Keanu and/or Paul.
“Hey, Flash. No beer?” Paul asked as he came up beside his mentor.
“Nah, too early for me.” Flash smiled.
“Yeah? That’s not what Auntie Mia says. In any case I’ve got my mom’s car, so I can drive you back.”
“That would be great.” Flash looked at the boy. “How you doin’?”
Paul was holding an orange cup with a plastic top and a straw sticking out the top. He slurped, went to the other side of the picnic table, put the cup down in front of him, and said, “Okay, I guess.” He slurped again, sat with his back to the ocean, both hands holding the cup, looking down at the tabletop.
Flash waited. The best ploy to induce witnesses and perps to talk to you was silence—just shut up and wait them out.
Paul looked up. “Janet says they might not prosecute. She could make some sort of a deal where they treat me like a minor or something cuz I just turned eighteen. I don’t know, but she said she was hopeful. That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is good, very good. If you don’t mind me asking, though, what did you tell them about Keanu?”
“Just like you said. I did the middle thing, path, whatever. I didn’t lie, but I couldn’t tell them everything I know. He’d be in the shit for sure if I did.” Paul smirked and shook his head.
Omertà—the Mafia code of silence—but Hawaiian style. Funny, maybe, but not so funny in this case, at least not so funny if the cops found out that Paul knew more.
On the other hand, the police weren’t likely to learn the whole story on their own. That would take digging, maybe digging hard, and Flash suspected that hardassed policing methods were out of bounds among the island family, especially when a revered judge’s eighteen-year-old grandson was involved. Flash wondered how the island family dealt with the really bad guys, the Peterson type, for example.
Flash asked Paul, “When do you hear what they’ll do?”
“Janet said they’re close, maybe a couple of days.”
“Good.”
Paul smiled and said, “Yeah. She’s a tough lawyer. I’m glad she’s on my side.”
“Me too,” said Flash. “Now tell me what you didn’t tell them about Peterson, and Keanu, and the rest of it—all of it—because even though you may be off the hook with the law, this isn’t over, not by a long shot.”
Paul didn’t look pleased. “No way. If I tell you—”
Flash interrupted him. “If you tell me, what you say goes no further. I won’t tell anyone. But this isn’t over. Trust me, Paul, I need to know what you know about Mr. P. and Keanu and the drugs. So why don’t you start with Keanu?”
“Okay, Keanu—Look, you gotta remember we went to school together, all the way through. He was my best friend. Then we didn’t see each other for a couple of years, then I see him again. I was so happy to run into him, and he seemed glad to see me too. But he wasn’t the same dude, really. Something had changed in him. I didn’t get it at first, but he used to be a good guy, and now he had a mean streak, ya know? I was afraid of him. I really was. So yeah, about him…”
He sounded as if he was reciting, like he was on stage. His voice was strained. Flash realized Paul had rehearsed the story and was being very careful about what he said.
Paul licked his lips. “Well, he got into a drug deal with Peterson. Peterson and four or five runners. But Keanu became the head runner, and since Peterson was the boss and all, and since he worked as head of security at the docks, well, Keanu ran a lot of the drugs, selling them after the drugs arrived.”
Paul slumped a little and gave Flash a calculating look before continuing. “Peterson would give K the drugs, and K would train and manage the runners. Then he’d give the money to Peterson, and if one of the runners stole or took some of the drugs, Keanu would beat the shit out of them, or at least that’s what I think.”
Flash nodded. “So Peterson bought the drugs and got them to the island how?”
Paul gave Flash a crooked grin. “Yeah, pretty cool, huh? Sit on your ass and the runners take the risk while you take the money. I didn’t see much, but Keanu handled a lot of money, and Peterson got almost all of it.”
“Maybe not so cool,” Flash said dryly. “Peterson’s dead.”
“Yeah, I know, just talking.” Paul shook his head as if waking up. “Yeah, I know, I know.”
Once a cop, maybe always a cop. “Where did the drugs come from—do you know? How they came to the island?”
Paul’s mouth turned down and his brow furrowed. In an angry whisper, he said, “You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you? Keanu will kill me! For all I know, he might have killed Mr. P.”
“No, I’m not telling anyone,” Flash answered. “Look, thanks to Mia and your mom, Paul, my job is to help you through this mess. Why would I betray you to Keanu or anybody who wanted to hurt you? If you really think I would, let’s stop right here. Don’t tell me anything else. But if you trust me, the more I know, the better chance you’ll have to get through this mess.”
Paul settled on the bench, his dark eyes moving as if searching for something. “Chance? What are you talking about?” he asked.
He was so young. And the young so easily get into trouble.
“This whole thing is a dog’s breakfast—” Seeing Paul’s confused look, he clarified. “It’s an ugly mess, and we need to wake up to how dangerous it is. You and the others think this is all going to go away. I’m not so sure, but I can’t help you unless I know what you know.”
“You sound like a cop, you know that?” Paul said.
Flash groaned quietly. “I’ve been told that, yes, but I’m not a cop. Do we keep going here, or are we done?”
“You hitting on my mom?”
“No.” Flash watched the boy, saw him shift on the bench, and thought of Pippa, wondering how she would react in a situation like this.
“Okay, the drugs come from Oahu. They come from some big dude there. Mr. P., see, thought Keanu was a dumb kid. Keanu’s a jerk, but he’s not dumb. He watched the old fart, watched him a lot, and sometimes went to his house. He figured out that P. paid for the stuff up front, cash, then some time later the stuff appeared on one of the inter-island boats, or a Zodiac boat night delivery. The shipments are easy, cause P. was head of security at the port, no problem there.
“The Zodiac deliveries, well, Mr. P. wasn’t exactly a physical specimen. He was a geezer, ya know, smoked and always complaining about his health? So, he’d take Keanu to do the physical stuff—go down to the beach, get the stuff, and bring it up to Mr. P.’s car. P. told K. that he’d kill him if he ever told anyone about the deliveries.”
Paul winced but didn’t shut up. “Keanu thought Mr. P. was afraid if the other runners got wind of the Zodiac deliveries, they’d rob him. I believed him. Keanu’s a jerk, but he was really scared of Mr. P., for sure.”
Paul looked up; his eyes opened wide as if asking if he could stop now. The kid was scared, but Flash knew Paul had more to say, and now was the time.
“When is the next shipment? The next Zodiac shipment?”
Paul shifted on the bench, then looked down uncomfortably. Flash had seen the same reaction hundreds of times: some minor crook not wanting to go too far, pleading without words to get out of the interrogation room. He needed to make this a little easier.
“Look, I know you know, just tell me. We can’t protect your mom or other islanders unless we know what’s going on. When will it arrive, and where?”
Paul’s eyes were on the tabletop. “They come in at night, something like midnight. But Keanu didn’t trust me all that much, either. I only know this much because he likes to brag when he gets a couple of beers in him.”
“Where do they come in?” Flash asked gently.
“I’m guessing here. Keanu described the place once, and it sounded like Koloa Landing. Oh, and when they deliver by Zodiac, P. had to give the people on the boat cash for the next shipment. Cash up front.” Paul raised his head and looked at Flash.
Flash nodded. “How often did they use the Zodiac?”
“Pretty often, maybe once every week or ten days.”
“How did Mr. P. know when the Zodiac would arrive, or where?”
Paul grimaced. “I don’t know. Really. But Keanu might know. He likes to brag, but he didn’t trust me all that much. He thought I was kind of a wimp, and his job was to show me the real world, toughen me up, I guess.”
“How about the inter-island deliveries through the port? Why the Zodiac thing at all?”
Paul shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe the stuff through the port was like for big shipments? I think K. mentioned something about them being big but irregular? P. was always bitching about it, that they were slow and irregular, couldn’t get what he needed when he needed it on the inter-island boats, something like that.” Paul sucked the last of his drink out of his cup.
“When was the last time he went for a Zodiac pickup?”
“About ten days ago, just before the rave. He mentioned that after the rave they would be low on junk until the next Zodiac.”
As long as Paul was answering, Flash would go on asking. He never turned down information. “What do Mr. P. and Keanu sell? What drugs, I mean.”
“Roofies and E, and coke and heroin when they can get em. I never saw the heroin, but a couple of folks at the rave were pissed that I didn’t have any. Keanu told me some might be in the next shipment, but that I wasn’t going to be running it. H had its own route, a kind of undercover runner. He wouldn’t tell me who that was, though.”
“Do you know anything about how Keanu would rate a big-time attorney from Honolulu? Like where that would come from?”
“No, last I heard he had a public defender, like me.”
Remembering something Mia had told him over coffee, Flash asked, “Do you know a woman Keanu might hang out with? Sachiko Allen, I think her name is?”
Paul’s face fell. He went pale and slouched on the bench. “Shit,” he said. “Shit, what the fuck is he doing with her? Oh man, he’s going to kill me!”
Shaking his head back and forth, he said, “She knows about the drugs, and she hit on me, for some reason, probably drugs, but I don’t remember much. She took me to her house, and we drank a lot. I could have told her anything. Shit.” He bent over, head in his arms on the table.
That was a pretty interesting tidbit. “How do you know her?” Flash asked.
After a long pause, without looking up, Paul said, “I didn’t, well, I did because I sold her some E at the rave. Only I didn’t know her. She called me up out of the blue and we got ripped at her house in Princeville. She’s rich. Then she called a taxi for me, cause we were both drunk, and that’s all I remember.”
Lights started going off in Flash’s head. “When was this?”
The words came slowly, in a whisper. “Ten days ago. No idea how she’d know Keanu, unless they were doing something together, trying to find out about me. Shit, he’ll kill me.”
“No, he won’t,” Flash said. “Paul, look at me. He won’t, because we won’t let him. Tell Janet about this, though. You might need some protection at your mom’s house. Tell your mom, too, so she can be vigilant, a little more careful than usual.”
Flash stood up and stretched his legs. The wooden picnic table benches were murder on your legs and back. The aches reminded him he wasn’t as young as he used to be.
Paul bounced up. No aching joints there, thought Flash. He thought again about Pippa and smiled at Paul. As they walked toward Paul’s mom’s car, Paul said, his voice low, “Why are you doing this, anyway?”
“Mia, that’s why. Mia. She made me get involved, and now I’m interested in what’s going on. Not quite sure why, but I’m interested in the whole mess.”
“In the dog’s breakfast?” Paul asked.
Flash laughed and said, “Yes. One part puzzle and one part dog’s breakfast.”
CHAPTER 23
Flash watched as a green-and-white Toyota sedan marked as a Kauai Cab, pulled into a parking place in front of the Kauai Surf Shop. It was 9:30 a.m., so most of the stores and restaurants along the boardwalk were still closed. Flash recognized the driver, but couldn’t remember the man’s name. Paka? Puka? Something like that.
He walked to the driver’s side window. “Sorry, I forgot your name. But okay if I ride in back this time?”
“No problem, Mr. Flash, and the name is Pika, Pika Kekoa.” He handed Flash his Kauai Cabs business card, which had his name, his phone number, and the motto Any Time, Any Day in Paradise.
They drove out of Koloa past the old sugar mill, then onto Maluhia Road through the tree tunnel, then onto Highway 50, where they began the forty-five-minute drive through Lihue, Wailua, Kapaa, and Kilauea to Princeville.
Pika was a quiet guy. Flash had been in his cab a couple of times before, so he didn’t feel the need to chat. Besides, the drive gave him a chance to think, to prepare for Princeville. Kellie and Bob had told him to back off and to let them do their jobs, but he was worried about Paul and Paul’s mom. Paul knew too much, or at least Keanu probably thought so, which counted as the same thing.
Flash also saw the signs of an ominous pressure below the happy-go-lucky, day-to-day life of Kauai’s family. An active drug presence fuels tension, mostly because of the intimidation, extortion, and desperation that always surrounds the drug trade. With an increase in the flow of drugs, what follows is increased violence—first, among the bad guys, but ultimately out in the community, affecting people like Paul and his mother. And in this particular community, the violence could scare the tourists, too, the goose laying all the golden eggs.
The residents and their police force were acting as though they couldn’t see it coming. The Kauai cops were good people, decent people, Flash believed that. They were working the Peterson case, certainly, but seemed oblivious to why he was killed, what was happening behind the scene. Flash wondered if they had ever dealt with a severe surge of drug activity before.
His trip today was a calculated stirring of the pot, albeit an unauthorized one. He needed to head one of the bad guys off at the pass.
Due to Kauai’s “rush hour” leaving Lihue around the Wilcox Hospital, they were crawling along. The trip would take more than an hour, a lucrative fare for Pika.
Flash said, “So, Pika, do you think the island has a drug problem?”
The cabbie answered in a quiet voice, “No, sir. This is a good place. No drug problem that I know of.”
I rest my case, thought Flash.
He had Googled Sachiko Allen, daughter and only child of Touma Allen, a prominent Oahu developer. She was a piece of work, a debutante who became a thirty-something party girl, hell on wheels if the gossips were to be believed.
Every time Sachiko was mentioned in the local stories or the Honolulu press, she was Touma Allen’s daughter. Touma was the chairman of the Allen Group, which was currently building Village in the Sky, a high-rise condominium project on Oahu, a true mega-project. They had broken ground two weeks prior in a big, flashy ceremony, featuring a golden shovel and Honolulu’s mayor.
The big surprise in researching Ms. Sachiko was that Flash had heard of the Village in the Sky project before, from the other world, his past life in Seattle, while undercover.
Sachiko’s house was a strikingly modern green slate construction. The entry was through a gray-steel, automatic gate that stood open. They drove through the gate and along a hundred-yard-long pebbled driveway to the front door. As the cab stopped, the giant wooden front door opened slowly, revealing a woman in a maid’s uniform with black and white fringes. She stood, waiting to greet them.
