Paul Levine - Riptide

When she lay next to him, her head on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck, his mind took over from his loins. So much she had kept from him. Why? Lassiter held her in his arms and pushed back the questions. He told himself he should be happy. He had the bonds and Lila Summers, too. But his mind wouldn’t let it go, kept asking questions. “Committing crimes,” he whispered in the dark, “doesn’t it bother you?”

“Taking the bonds from the little man after he had stolen them didn’t seem like a crime.”

“And the killing?”

She sighed. “Keaka was going to kill you, maybe me too. He had to die. Lomio killed your friend. He deserved to die. The Cuban would have sent Keaka and me to prison if he could. He deserved…” Lila stopped in midsentence, a cloud crossing her face. Her eyes darted quickly to Lassiter lying next to her. He saw the look and let it pass. Then it sunk in.

He rolled over to look her squarely in the eyes. “Why the mention of Berto? You had nothing to do with that.”

“Of course. But… I don’t know. He’s dead, too.”

And dead is dead.

Lassiter was still trying to focus, to see something tucked in the shadows of his mind. That night on Molokai. Everything had happened so fast then. What was it Keaka had said? Then he remembered.

“Lila, on the beach that night, I asked Keaka to fight me, mano a mano, like he did with Berto in the swamp.”

“Yeah?”

“Why was Keaka so confused? He looked like he didn’t know what I was talking about, finally said something about haoles still being stupid after two hundred years.”

“Did he say that?” she asked, yawning and stretching like a tawny cat.

“Yeah, he did. And one other thing. He said Lee Hu doesn’t care for you. Why not? What’d you ever do to her?”

Lila didn’t raise her head from the pillow. “I don’t know, Jake, maybe she’s jealous because I was Keaka’s old girlfriend.”

“Yeah, maybe. It’s just funny. Keaka kills Berto and walks off with his girlfriend, but she ends up hating you.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Berto was my friend, a guy soft as a dish of flan. Who killed him?”

She sat up. “What difference does it make now?”

Lassiter rolled onto his back, his lawyer’s mind racing, the evasive witness all but admitting the crime. Maybe she was right. What difference does it make now?

Dead is dead.

The words kept pounding at him. She already was a killer, sending Keaka and Lomio off to the happy hunting ground. But he still had to know.

“Lila, did you kill Berto?”

Lila ran a hand through the thick mane of her hair and looked away. “All right. Most of what I told you already is true. Keaka and I were going to bring coke in from Bimini in a hollowed-out board. Mikala tipped us. The Cuban, your friend, was a DEA snitch. Keaka was going to take care of it himself, get the money, and you know, kill him. But Keaka was being followed. On the beach he saw a man watching him through binoculars. Keaka doesn’t, or didn’t, miss those things.”

“That was Franklin, the DEA agent. He was guarding Berto.”

“Maybe sometimes. But once we hit town, he stuck to Keaka like a sunburn. On the beach, in the hotel lobby, everywhere. So a small change in plans. Keaka spent the better part of the night in the hotel bar, with the DEA agent two tables away watching him. I went to the swamp and took care of the Cuban. There wasn’t much to it, one karate punch to the throat, then I crushed his windpipe.”

Jake Lassiter closed his eyes and saw Lila squeezing the life out of Berto, showing no more emotion than if she were cracking a coconut on the beach. He stood up, but all the stuffing was out of him, his bones filled with mush. He sat down again and studied the top of his bare feet.

“Jake, now I’ve told you everything, why I left Keaka, the killing in the swamp. Don’t worry, that’s all there is, nothing more, really.”

That’s all, Lassiter thought. A homicide in Miami, conspiracy to transport drugs, receiving stolen property, two homicides here. At least she hadn’t tried to overthrow the government. He looked at her. She’d just confessed to first-degree murder but didn’t beg for forgiveness, didn’t shed a tear. You could grow old waiting for Lila Summers to cry over spilled blood.

“Jake, besides the fact that Keaka was getting to be a pain with his Hawaiian macho crap, there was another reason I left him.”

“Yeah?”

She rolled onto her knees and hugged him from behind, her breasts warming his back. “I wanted you.”

Jake Lassiter was silent.

“And I still do,” she said. “I care for you. You’re like an overgrown puppy that needs protection.”

Sure I need protection, Jake Lassiter thought. Who wouldn’t after hanging out with a woman who strangles, slices, and buries them, one after another? He thought about it some more. The violence hadn’t bothered her at all. Should have figured that, the way she’d dispatched Keaka and Lomio in the past two days. A man dies and her missing orgasm roars into town like a runaway train. Another man dead, her engine heats to the red line. Keeping her satisfied could decimate the male gender. And what did she see in him, Lassiter wondered, a dreamer in wing tips and button-down shirts who thinks he can take this strong, beautiful, violent woman and wrap her up in a pink ribbon.

“Do you still care for me, Jake?”

He wasn’t proud of the answer, but there it was just the same. “Does the sun still rise in the east?” he asked quietly.

Lila Summers arose before dawn and silently gathered her belongings. She looked down at Jake Lassiter, lying on his side, clutching the pillow where she had been. She reached into her duffel bag and pulled out a dive knife, felt the jagged edge, cool to the touch. Kneeling by the bed, she placed the sharp point within an inch of Lassiter’s jugular and held it there. Seconds passed. She held the knife steady, studying him, listening to his breathing. She moved the knife to his temple, then brushed back his shaggy hair over an ear. She leaned close, grazed his ear with a soft kiss, and whispered, “I love you, Jake, as much as I can love.”

Lila carefully placed the knife on the nightstand, making no sound, pulled on a pair of shorts and a halter top and quietly left the room. Over one shoulder she carried a duffel bag with her clothing. Over the other shoulder, just as it had been in the race to Bimini, was a waterproof yellow pack crammed with treasure.

Jake Lassiter thought he was dreaming. He heard Lila’s voice saying she loved him. Must be wishful thinking or wishful dreaming, his mind was saying, shaking off the sleep. He stretched out a leg to find her.

Nothing. He reached with a hand.

The bed too cool.

His eyes opened.

Nothing.

He got up. No Lila in the bathroom. A quick look around, no yellow pack.

It was happening again, Lila gone, the emptiness spreading. He jumped into his pants. Barefoot, he ran outside and stopped. The dock was only two hundred yards away. It was not quite dark and not quite light, a slice of the sun behind him rising over the peak of Haleakala in the distance. Puffy clouds dappled the calm bay with pale silver shadows.

Barely twelve hours since he’d saved her life, and she chooses the money instead of him. His mind racing, the image from the top of the Iao Needle flashed back. How strange that the great athlete would stumble. How unlike her to show such fear.

Then he saw it all for the first time. Her eyes were pleading with him not to let go.

He’d had a good grip on her and the leverage to haul her up. And he was strong. No way he would drop her. Unless he meant to. Which is what she feared. Keaka Kealia would have dropped her, she said. And she would have pushed Keaka off the cliff, too. Or anyone who happened to be in the way at the time. Including Jake Lassiter. Because there wasn’t much difference between Keaka and Lila, and Jake Lassiter had known that for longer than he cared to admit.