David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 4

I walked up beside her, had a cup of the punch and almost let out a yip myself. It was so strong they probably had to change the flowers every fifteen minutes. Then I said, “Hi.”

She didn’t say anything, just smiled and wrapped her arms around me and we started dancing. Then she stopped. “You scratch,” she said, looking up at me. “Haven’t you got a suit?”

“Sure. In the car.”

“Get it. And hurry. We’ll have a dance, and a swim. I’m Betty.”

I went flying off down the path, changed in the car, and was back in two minutes. Betty, I was pleased to see, was waiting for me. We had a couple dances, and it was really much better without scratching. Then she said, “Come on,” and ran toward the beach. I followed her down the path and caught up with her at the sand’s edge.

On our right flames leaped from a pit dug in the sand. “What’s the bonfire for?” I asked Betty.

“That’s where they’ll cook the pig pretty quick,” she said. “Big luau. Really doing it right, huh? The pig’s for the big dinner later — along with poi and raw fish and I don’t know what all. Come on.” She raced into the water.

When we got back to the clearing, the music and dancing was getting even wilder. It was almost dark, and somebody grabbed Betty and whirled her away. I didn’t try to stop her; there were dozens more around, including the blonde Elaine, who was dancing at the moment. This was marvelous. Nothing was going to get me to leave this party. I went over to the punch bowl and had another drink as a woman older than most here, a gal about forty, came up beside me and dipped half a coconut into the punch, gulped the drink down, and then had another immediately after it. I shuddered. She weighed about a hundred and fifty pounds, was maybe five-eight, and had a flat, rather unpleasant face.

She looked at me and said, “Dance with me. I’m Mrs. Brevoort. I’m the hostess, so you have to dance with me.”

She was soused to the eardrums. I said, “Sure,” and latched onto her. We took about four steps and she stopped. “I don’t want to dance,” she said. “Go wiggle with those naked women.”

I swung around eagerly, looking for the naked women, then realized she’d referred to the gals in bikinis. Mrs. Brevoort was dressed in skirt and blouse, and I guessed she’d been trying to have a good time, but not succeeding. It suddenly occurred to me, as I looked at all those lovely, startlingly shaped dolls gyrating near us, that this might well be the first dance Mrs. Brevoort had had — and she’d asked me for it.

I started to make small talk, so small it was almost invisible, but she waved her hand at me and said, “Go away. Go wiggle wi’ nake’ w’mn.” Her eyes were getting glassy. Those two fast punches must have been suddenly catching up with her. I left her at the hollowed-out cake of ice.

It was dark now, and the glow from the fire down on the beach was warm and red; a few Japanese lanterns had been lighted here in the clearing, and a half dozen Hawaiian torches were lighted. I wondered where L. Franklin, the host, was. But then I forgot about him; I was having too much fun to wonder about the host or hostess — it was a typical party. I never did see Dolly.

A couple hours, maybe more, passed in a kind of delightfully Hawaiian delirium. And it seemed that the music got more sensual, the dances wilder, the women lovelier. From somewhere came three gals in hula skirts and the music took on a headier beat and the three gals started shaking like maracas. Right in front of me I saw a beautiful blonde gal doing a hula, especially for me it appeared, and it was my blonde; it was Elaine.

“Well, hello,” I said.

She kept doing her unique hula, unique because it must have been the kind popular before the missionaries came, and she said, “Like?”

“Lovely, lovely.” The three gals in hula skirts were stirring up a storm, and somebody yelled that we were all to join in when the spirit moved us. One guy grabbed a little doll and they leaped into the middle of the clearing with the other three gals and started improvising. The music got wilder, more frantic and pulse-stirring. Another guy and gal started jumping around, and soon this seemed less like Malibu than a strip of Hawaiian beach of a hundred years ago.

More guys and gals got up and leaped around, and it seemed there were more bouncing, quivering, jiggling and jangling bodies than I’d ever before seen quivering practically in unison. There were squeals and yips and howls among the hulas, and with half the people here already gyrating — the spirit moved me.

I let out a whoop with a lot of vowels in it so it would sound Hawaiian, and I jumped into the middle of the people letting out oofs and uuffs and huuhs and similar Hawaiian-like sounds, while shaking all over like a plucked banjo string. Elaine came toward me at what seemed a hundred miles an hour, but making little forward progress. The drums kept thudding, throbbing, and suddenly there was nobody at all standing on the sidelines. The last guy, a tall Texan I’d met earlier, let out a “Yahoo” and came twirling around the edge of the crowd hanging onto the hand of a black-haired tomato who was throwing everything at him but the palm trees, while he continued to let out yips like he was calling all the little dogies in Texas. Elaine sort of rammed herself up against me so close that she might have grown there, and in a few moments we were on the edge of the crowd, next to the path leading to the beach.

She spun around and raced down the path away from me. I ran after her.

At the sand’s edge she stumbled and I almost caught her, but she regained her balance and ran toward the booming breakers. I followed her past the pit where huge hot coals now glowed, and I saw something from the corner of my eyes that jarred me oddly, but I kept on running. I ran clear past the pit where the pig was now being roasted for the luau dinner later, then I slowed and stopped.

I went back and looked down into the pit dug in the sand, heat bouncing against my face. It did look like a pig at first, not much like a man. It was a man, though. I heard Elaine laughing.

I got down on my hands and knees, moved as close as I could. The guy was face down, but even face up he’d have been unrecognizable, so horribly was he burned. Still sticking out of his throat was the sharp metal spit that would have been used for holding the pig. One arm was outflung, the hand in a somewhat more protected spot than the rest of him, and I could see the big ruby ring on his finger. Mine host.

“Come on! What’s the matter with you?” It was Elaine calling me. I could barely see the dim white blur of her body outlined against the darkness of the sea. Behind her a comber broke and frothed in toward us. I stood up and walked toward Elaine.

Five minutes later we were both in the house; I hadn’t told Elaine a thing and she was a little angry with me. She pointed out the phone and I told her to wait in the next room, then phoned local Homicide. After that I found Elaine. “Where’s the kitchen?” I asked her.

“The what? Don’t tell me you brought me here because you’re hungry !”

I shuddered. “No, but I’ve got to sober up. I’ll explain all of this later.” She led me to the kitchen where I drank half a quart of milk while water boiled for some instant coffee. Elaine stared at me as if I were crazy while I found meat in the icebox, some roast beef, and made a thick, sloppy sandwich with an inch of meat between two slices of french bread. I gulped coffee, grabbed a frying pan and big spoon, then took Elaine’s arm and led her back to the clearing where people were still squealing and dancing. “Are you crazy?” Elaine asked me in exasperation.