Paul Levine - Riptide

Lila was bent over the bleeding man. “Now, Lomio, tell me where they are. You would have been with Keaka when he hid them.”

The man was silent.

“Oh, Lomio, Lomio! Wherefore art thou… bonds?” Lila said to him theatrically. Enjoying the moment.

Lomio spoke through swollen, bleeding lips. “Up my ass, wahine laikini.”

“Lomio, that’s very crude, calling me a whore.” Then she smashed the mast extension into his ankle. Metal shattered bone. Lomio’s face contorted in pain but he made no sound.

Lila scowled and turned to Lassiter. “C’mon, Jake. Let’s put him in the back of the truck. We’ll have to baby-sit him until he tells us where the bonds are.”

“What if he doesn’t know?”

Lila laughed, the same mocking, chilling laugh. “We’ll find that out, too, if we handle it right. By the time he dies, he’ll tell all his family secrets.”

By the time he dies. What the hell does that mean? The big man was hurt, sure, but the injuries weren’t fatal. And here’s Lila talking about him dying like it was inevitable, like they were going to… well… finish him off.

Lila was very businesslike, no trace of emotion. No anger, no fear. Okay, she’s not like me, Jake Lassiter thought. So what? She’s not like anybody I’ve ever known.

Except that laugh, the taunting of Lomio, that was familiar.

It reminded him of someone, and the memory gnawed at Lassiter, calling back a night of terror and doom.

She sounded just like Keaka Kealia.

Lomio refused to move, so they propped him against the pickup, and when Lila threatened to break both his kneecaps, the giant used his one good leg to hop into the bed. Lila gagged him and pulled an old sail over his head, the smell of sweat and blood fouling the morning air.

They drove down the mountain and across the Central Valley into Lahaina. On a deserted street near the waterfront, Lila parked the pickup under an angel’s-trumpet tree, huge white flowers hanging downward in the shape of a horn, the exotic scent of musk heavy in the air.

“What’re we going to do with him?” Lassiter asked.

“Get him to talk, then find a hole to stuff him into.”

“It’d have to be big enough for a moose.”

Lila’s eyes lit up. “Or a pig. Jake, have you ever been to a luau?”

“No, and I’m not too hungry just now.”

“That’s okay, we don’t have time to eat. We’ll just let Lomio soak up the cultural experience of his ancestors, a long line of Samoan goat-fuckers.”

Her voice was hard. Lila continued to surprise him — so much toughness, so little compassion. Lassiter wondered if part of the attraction was her strength and the danger it courted. Was his button-down life so boring that he needed battles in the jungle and attacks on mountain roads to keep the blood flowing?

They drove another block before turning into an alley where the sign said DELIVERIES ONLY, LAHAINA BEACH HOTEL. Close to the beach a pavilion was set up for the evening luau. Lila pulled to a stop behind a row of pink Tecoma trees and killed the engine.

She pointed to a pile of leaves and banana stalks in the shade of the trees. “That’s an imu, an earthen oven. The boys would have put the pig in there a couple of hours ago. It will take six or seven hours to cook this way, so they shouldn’t be back for a while.”

Lila found a pair of windsurfing gloves in the pickup and they walked to the imu, where she started peeling away the leaves on top. Underneath was a mound of black dirt. “Jake, bring the shovels from the truck.”

He did, checking on Lomio in the back. The man was conscious, but he wouldn’t be doing calculus today. Lila began digging and uncovered sweet potatoes, bananas, taro, and fish wrapped in ti leaves. She removed the food gingerly, feeling the heat through the gloves.

“The leaves make steam,” Lila explained. “They gut the pig and put hot stones in the body cavity to cook from the inside out.”

“The first microwave,” Lassiter said. “Didn’t know you were so domestic, a real Hawaiian homemaker.”

She laughed. “A luau was not done every day, more of a celebration during makahiki, a period of peace.”

“Not very appropriate today.”

“No, this is war and Lomio is the enemy. Jake, I’ll need your help to get the information — smoke it out of him, you might say.”

Lassiter’s look stopped her, but she recovered quickly. “Just to scare him, Jake, that’s all.”

“He doesn’t look like he scares too easily.”

She studied Lassiter a moment. “Lomio has to think we’ll kill him or it won’t work.”

Lassiter paused, listening to the distant traffic. In the heavy foliage alongside the imu, they were hidden from the street and the hotel.

“Okay, what do we do?” he asked.

It took both of them to haul out the pig, the pungent smell of the steaming pork rising from the ground. Then they went after Lomio. He seemed even heavier now, trussed with the line, sagging his three hundred pounds onto the ground after they dragged him from the truck bed. They tried to pick him up but he struggled, so they rolled him like a beer keg to the edge of the imu. Then Lila removed the gag and pushed him in, Lomio landing on his back on top of the leaves.

A cloud of steam rose from beneath Lomio and his face turned a scorching red, but still he was silent. Again Lila read the look on Lassiter’s face. “Don’t worry, Jake. It’s no worse than a sauna. Unless we keep him there all day, he’ll be okay, just lose a few pounds, which he ought to thank us for.”

They waited several minutes. Lomio seemed to have mastered the pain.

Lila squatted at the edge of the pit and leaned close to the big man. “Where are the bonds?” she demanded.

Lomio spat in her face. She calmly picked up a large banana leaf and placed it on his chest. Then she dropped a hot lava stone on top of the leaf and stepped into the pit, her sneaker pushing stone and leaf against him, his massive chest caving inward to avoid the pain. The leaf was sizzling, leaving its shape as a tattoo on Lomio’s skin.

Jake Lassiter had seen enough. “Lila, no… forget it!”

“Only a second, Jake. This should do it. Lomio, where are the bonds? Or would you like me to remove the leaf and leave the stone there?”

They both heard it at the same time, a rustling of bushes in the direction of the pavilion, someone walking toward them. Jake Lassiter reacted quickly, standing up, putting a finger to his lips, letting Lila know he would take care of it. She nodded and whispered to Lomio. “One sound, and you’re dead, fat man.”

Lassiter walked in the direction of the noise, his mind flashing like a neon sign with the crimes he had committed — assault and battery, false imprisonment, kidnapping, extortion, and now maybe desecrating a luau in violation of some old Polynesian law.

Coming through the oleander trees, walking straight toward him, was a man in his thirties wearing neatly pressed white slacks, moccasins, and a bright green aloha shirt. The man didn’t see him. He was preoccupied with the task of walking and unzipping his fly at the same time. A second later, the man had his precious cargo in hand. He was no more than twenty feet from the imu, hidden behind the trees.

“Howdy,” Jake Lassiter called out in his good-neighbor voice.

“Whoa, whoops.” The man took two steps backward and tucked himself in. “Didn’t expect to see anybody out here now.

Just about to take my pre-luau piss. For good luck. Name’s Guy Ryder, master of ceremonies.”

Lassiter decided not to shake hands. Guy Ryder had a booming voice and a smile filled with porcelain crowns. Lassiter smiled back. “Don’t let me stop you. When a man’s gotta go…”