Билл Пронзини - The Paradise Affair

A scowl warped Millay’s handsome features when he spied Quincannon. He came striding toward him, stopped a few feet away. His bloodshot eyes and sweating face bore witness to the hangover he was suffering, and to an attempt to cure it by taking more okolehao along on his ride.

“What the hell are you doing back here?” he demanded. “I told you yesterday I don’t want you on my property. Get off and stay off.”

“Not until I’m good and ready.”

“ Now, goddamn it.” Millay laid his hand on the butt of the sidearm holstered at his belt.

Quincannon immediately swept the tail of his jacket back, gripped the Navy’s handle. “Draw your weapon, Millay,” he said, cold and hard, “and I swear you’ll regret it.”

Short, tense standoff. The paniolo, Keole, wanted no part of it; he moved several paces to one side, out of the line of fire. Grace Millay did the opposite. She stepped forward, not quite between Quincannon and her brother, and in one quick movement she jerked the pistol out of his holster and backed off with it.

Millay made no attempt to regain control of the weapon. All he did was yank off the sweat-stained cowboy hat he wore, slap it hard enough against his thigh to raise a thin puff of dust. His eyes avoided Quincannon’s now. There would be no further trouble from him.

“We’ll go into the house, the three of us,” his sister said to him.

“What for? Listen—”

“No, you listen.” She made a shooing gesture to Keole. Then, when the paniolo was out of earshot, “Sam is dead.”

“... What?”

“You heard me. Sam... is... dead!”

“Oh, Christ. How—?”

“Not out here. In the house.”

Millay followed her there without protest; Quincannon followed him. They went into the large front room containing the array of pagan objects. Grace Millay crossed to the mantelpiece, laid the pistol down next to one of the feathered fetishes displayed there. While she was doing that, Millay turned abruptly and faced Quincannon, his bloodshot eyes flashing.

“You! You killed Sam Opaka—”

His sister said, “No, he didn’t,” and then stepped in close and fetched him an open-handed, roundhouse slap. The blow had the force of a whip crack, staggering him. “They fought and the tide dragged Sam into the blowhole. A terrible way to die.”

Quincannon said, “I believed he was trying to kill me. On your orders, Millay.”

“No! I didn’t tell him to kill you. Only to follow you and scare you off if you...”

“If I went into the ruins and found the burial chamber — and what you left there.”

That brought a faint moaning sound out of Millay. He sank heavily into the chair he’d occupied the day before, reached for the decanter on the adjacent table. Grace Millay made a move to take it away from him, but he swung away from her and clutched it tight to his chest the way a child clutches a favorite toy. She watched disgustedly as with both hands he poured okolehao into a glass, then took a long, shuddery swallow.

Quincannon said to him, “I found Vereen’s body in the heiau . Why did you kill him?”

“I—”

“Don’t waste my time denying it. Why?”

Millay lowered the glass, wiped his free hand across his mouth. His voice, when it came, was low and thick with self-pity. “Self-defense. The bastard gave me no choice. He was angry enough to use his pistol on me when he saw there was no cloak among the artifacts...”

“Cloak?”

“Damn nonexistent ‘ahu ‘ula .”

“You stupid fool!” his sister snapped at him. “What possessed you to claim there was an ‘ahu ‘ula in the ruins?”

Millay couldn’t look at her. He said nothing.

“A mahiole, too, I suppose?”

His chin dipped in a jerky affirmative.

Quincannon asked, “‘ Ahu ‘ula? Mahiole? ”

“Feathered cloaks and helmets,” she said, “made of hundreds of thousands of colored feathers from the mamo and other birds tied into woven nettings. Symbols of the highest rank of the noho ali‘i , the ruling Polynesian chiefs believed to be descended from the gods.”

“Valuable?”

“Very. And extremely rare. No such garments were ever in the heiau here. They were not made for high priests, only chiefs like Kamehameha for spiritual protection.”

Millay took another swallow of okolehao, his hand so unsteady that his front teeth clicked against the glass and some of the liquid spilled down over his chin. “I was trying to impress a... a woman in San Francisco... I didn’t see any harm in making the claim so far from home.”

“A whore, you mean,” Grace Millay said in harsh tones, “and you were drunk at the time.”

“All right, yes, a whore and I was drunk. Those two, Varner and Reno or whatever their names, were there and overheard. They struck up an acquaintance... claimed to be businessmen, sports... asked me questions about the cloak and helmet.”

“And you told them more lies.”

“I didn’t think I’d see them again. But then I... I made the mistake of saying I was about to sail for home and they turned up on the steamer.”

“With a proposition, no doubt,” Quincannon said.

“Yes, but not right away. After we docked they talked me into staying over in Honolulu for a few days, showing them the... the nightlife.”

Setting him up, Quincannon thought, while pandering to their vices in a new and exotic locale. No wonder they had seized the opportunity to come to Hawaii. A fatally bad choice for both of them, as it turned out. There was a certain fitting irony in that, he supposed, despite the fact that he had had no hand in their downfall.

“So then you sent them to Justo Gomez.”

Another jerky nod. “They said they didn’t like hotels, that they wanted a private place to stay.”

“And Gomez not only supplied them with the Hoapili Street bungalow, but with female company.”

“... I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

His sister muttered something under her breath.

Quincannon asked, “When did they spring their proposition on you?”

“Last Saturday, at the bungalow.”

“What was the game?”

“I’d give them the cloak and helmet, they’d broker them to a rich collector of antiquities they knew about, and we’d split the proceeds. But I think... now...” A muscle in Millay’s cheek flexed and commenced a nervous fluttering. “Just a lie, a damn ruse. All along they were planning to...”

“To steal the cloak and helmet,” Quincannon finished for him, “and dispose of you once they had them.” Like as not true, if such artifacts were as valuable as Grace Millay had indicated. Those two jackals had been entirely capable of cold-blooded murder if enough money were to be had.

“That’s right,” Millay said, “but I didn’t think so then. I thought... I don’t know what I thought. I tried to tell them I’d made up the story but they wouldn’t believe me. They threatened me, threatened Grace... I had to keep playing along. What else could I do?”

Quincannon produced the crude map, held it in front of Millay’s face. “Who drew this? You?”

“Yes.”

“Willingly?”

“No. The fat one, Reno... he insisted.”

And Vereen had overlooked the map or been unable to find it after Nevada Ned’s demise. “They both intended to take the inter-island steamer with you on Sunday?”

“That’s what they said.”

“Did Vereen tell you why he was alone when he met you at the dock, that his partner was dead?”

“No,” Millay said. “I didn’t know about Reno until you told me. All he said was that the heat and humidity had laid his partner low.”