Aaron Elkins: Twenty blue devils

Brenda turned her head from the receiver and sighed. Her brother was not one of the world's great telephone personalities. The Stanford-educated Nelson was the only one of the Laus who had gone back to Tahiti from Hawaii, accepting Uncle Nick's job offer of the company's comptrollership fifteen years ago, almost the minute he'd gotten his MBA. And there he'd been ever since, very likely the most straitlaced man in French Polynesia and getting more so every year. Nelson actually wore a suit to work. In Tahiti.

"Nelson, how can I help being concerned? People have been hurt. Brian's almost been killed, and Therese-"

Muffled noises of exasperation came from the telephone. “Oh, for heaven's sake, you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Therese has always had a way of blowing things up out of proportion. You know what an extraordinarily suggestible-"

"Nelson, I want to know: Do all these accidents have anything to do with that awful gangland business?"

"Does what have anything to do with that awful gangland business? You mean all that rain last April?"

"Don't be funny, it doesn't suit you. Tell me honestly: Is this some kind of sabotage? Revenge? Are they getting back at Nick?"

"Now, really, how would I possibly know that?"

"What do you think?"

"I think…Brenda, I simply don't want to discuss it."

"Fine, but what are you doing about it?” As always, talking to Nelson brought out the bossiness in her in self-defense.

"Doing about it?” Nelson laughed, a sharp, incredulous whinny. “What would you suggest?"

"I think we should get John's advice."

Pregnant pause. “Thank you, no."

"Nelson, be reasonable. John's an FBI agent. Surely-"

"Brenda, the FBI is absolutely the last thing we need."

"I don't mean officially. He wouldn't have any jurisdiction in Tahiti anyway. But he'd know about this sort of thing; it's his job."

"Absolutely not. Out of the question."

Brenda sighed again, which she did frequently when speaking with her older brother. Nelson had a way about him that made it next to impossible to have a simple difference of opinion with him. All you could do was have a fight with him. Either that, or give in.

"Nelson, John's part of the family too. For God's sake, he's our brother. He's your brother. He has a right-"

"Brenda, no. There's nothing John can do. He wasn't involved before, and nothing's going to be served by getting him involved now. That's the crux of it."

No, that wasn't the crux. The crux was that the FBI agent in the family was Baby Brother; a baby brother who, like Brenda, took more after the Hawaiian side of the family than the Chinese. Consequently, John was five inches taller and sixty muscular pounds heavier than Nelson, with umpteen light years more-well, presence. When John was in a room you noticed him. Nelson could swing from the light fixtures by his teeth and have a hard time getting anyone to notice.

As a child, being four years older, Nelson had been the more dominant one, and if he hadn't been exactly despotic, he had been pretty damned high-handed; with Brenda too, for that matter. Then John had hit puberty and things had turned around, and Nelson had never gotten over it. To ask John for help was for Nelson an unnatural act. And he was never going to change.

"All right, Nelson,” she said, “all right."

"Brenda, I mean it! Now I want you to promise me. No John."

"All right, Nelson."

"I want a promise."

"I promise, Nelson."

"You promise what?"

Sheesh. “I promise I won't call John."

Nelson sniffed. “All right, then."

"John, this is Brenda. There's some funny stuff going on in Tahiti."

She had waited until the weekend to call, not out of deference to Nelson, but because she wanted to think things over. Was she making a mountain out of a molehill? After brunch, when Gus and the kids, stir-crazy from the week's incessant rain, left for a Disney matinee in Hilo, she made herself a pot of tea, put her feet up, and pondered. The longer she thought about it, the less it looked like a molehill, and finally she had placed the call to Seattle and laid it all out for John.

To her annoyance he didn't agree with her. “Look, sis, all I can say is, if the Mob was out to get Nick, they'd get him. They wouldn't be piddling around with sorting machines. Besides, it's ancient history. Why would they wait all this time to come after him?"

"Well, how do you account for it, then? I mean everything put together. And don't tell me Pele."

"How about coincidence? Businesses have bad luck. That's why they're always going under."

Looked at honestly, it was what she would have said herself-if it had involved somebody else's family, somebody else's business, but of course it didn't. “You're probably right,” she said meekly. “I'm sure you are. I-I guess I'm being silly, but I can't help worrying and I didn't know who else to turn to but you."

John let out a long exhalation. He was resigning himself, she thought complacently. She'd always been good at getting around John.

"Oh boy,” he breathed, and then, after a moment: “All right, what do you want me to do, Brenda?"

She laughed. “That sounds more like my kid brother. One thing you could do is check your FBI files, or the Justice Department files, or whatever, on the whole Gasparone case and see what you can find."

"What is there to find? It's ten years old."

"Twelve. But maybe somebody who's been in jail all this time just got out. Couldn't that be why these things just started happening?"

"Well, yeah,” he said grudgingly. “But I still don't think those guys would be fooling around with stuff like this if they really had it in for Nick."

"But you'll check?"

"Yes, sis, I'll check."

She plowed ahead. “And I think you ought to talk to Uncle Nick and the others about it. It just occurred to me-they'll be coming into Seattle soon, won't they? Aren't they due for a visit to the roastery?"

This, John thought, was nothing but soft soap on her part. Since it was the end of October, she knew as well as he did that they would shortly be making their fall trip to Seattle. There would be three of them: their brother, Nelson, in his role as comptroller; their cousin Maggie-Nick's daughter and Therese's older sister-who was the plantation's personnel manager; and, of course, Nick Druett himself, the founder, the owner, and the force behind it all. They would be coming for their quarterly business conference with Rudy Druett, another nephew of Nick's, but from his own side of the family. Rudy, the son of Nick's long-dead brother, was manager and toastmaster at the Caffe Paradiso plant on Whidbey Island, where the company's beans were roasted and its American business strategies plotted.

"Yeah, I'll bet it just occurred to you,” grumbled John, who wanted it understood that while he might be malleable enough, he wasn't any dunce.

"And don't they usually come to your house for dinner after the cupping?"

"They always come,” John said. “We're having them out next Thursday. I'll be picking them up at the roastery."

"Great, that'll give you a chance to bring it up with them."

"I don't know, sis. Nick's not the kind of guy who's going to appreciate my butting in. If he wants to talk about it he'll bring it up on his own."

"John, you know that Uncle Nick is never in a million years going to admit there's something he can't handle. You're going to have to do it."

"Yeah, but I don't like-"

"I'm relying on you, John."

Silence.

"John?"

"Jeez,” he exclaimed, “you know something, Brenda?"

"What?"

"Sometimes you can be every damn bit as bad as Nelson."

"Heaven forfend,” Brenda said.