Neil Plakcy - Mahu Vice

Clouds covered the moon, but the truck’s headlights and the flames lit up the area like daytime. The firemen hustled Mike out of the way and I met up with him alongside the house, where we had a view of the back but were out of the way.

“What the fuck?” he said. “Somebody tried to burn my house down.”

He was agitated, yelling and jumping up and down. I tried to grab his arm, but he shook me off. We were both drenched in sweat, but the adrenaline was running out, and I just gave up and leaned back against a tree.

“Had to be Stan LoCicero,” I said, when he’d calmed down. “Unless you’ve got some other case going?”

“Not one where they’d try to burn me out. Damn, we’ve got to catch this bastard.”

I wondered if Stan was still around, if he’d found some vantage point to watch the fire and make sure he’d been successful. “He must have come back to the Rod and Reel Club after the shooting and heard me and Lieutenant Sampson talk about nailing him. I bet he thought he could get me out of the picture.”

Mike’s parents came around the corner then. His father had pulled on a long raincoat, and his bare calves made him look like a flasher. I couldn’t laugh, though. He wore plastic rubber slippas, and his gray-and-black hair was tousled.

His wife, whom I’d only seen previously in her nurse’s uniform, was wrapped in an elaborate embroidered dressing gown. She wore fuzzy pink slippers and her short dark hair hung sleekly around her face.

“It’s okay,” Mike said, going over to hug them. “We caught the fire before it got to your side.” By then, the firefighters had extinguished the flames, but were hosing everything down just to be sure. Mike led his parents down to the street where they could talk privately, and I followed just behind.

“What happened, Michael?” his father asked.

With an utterly straight face, Mike said, “I’ll have to investigate the source and conditions of the fire before I can make any conclusions.”

His father looked from him to me. I walked over to them. “I’m afraid this might be my fault.”

“Kimo,” Mike said.

“I’m not surprised,” Dr. Riccardi said. “Since you came into my son’s life, detective, we’ve seen nothing but trouble. You break his heart, turn him into an alcoholic, now you burn down our house?”

“Dominic,” Mike’s mother said. She put her hand on his arm.

“No, Soon-O, these things need to be said. I’m tired of watching Michael throw his life away.”

The wind picked up and I felt a sudden chill, the sweat on my arms and chest giving me chicken skin. I rubbed my hands over my upper arms and said, “You have every right to be upset. I guarantee you, if I’d known what was going to happen tonight I never would have come over here. Mike and I have been investigating a case together. The suspect we’ve been looking at for a couple of arsons shot at a police officer this evening in Waikiki. I think this guy followed Mike and me up here and started the fire to kill us, or at least distract us from the case.”

“He obviously doesn’t know my son,” Dr. Riccardi said. “When he sets his mind to something, he doesn’t let anything get in his way.”

“I inherited that from you,” Mike said. “Grandpa told me he and Grandma weren’t happy when you brought Mom home, but you didn’t let that stop you.”

“What happened between your mother and me is a totally different story.”

“Oh, let’s see,” Mike said. “Forbidden love. Unnatural love-isn’t that what Aunt Teresa called it? White wasn’t meant to mix with Asian.”

“Michael,” his mother said.

“No, Mom. It’s time we talked about this, about all the things Grandma and Grandpa used to tell me. How you wouldn’t marry Dad at first, and when he came home from the service he wouldn’t talk to anybody except to argue, and he used to get drunk and get into fights.”

He turned to his father. “You broke your cousin Eddie’s jaw, didn’t you, Dad? And you had the nerve to criticize me when I was drinking. Sanctimonious prick.”

“Don’t you talk to me that way, Michael.”

Mrs. Riccardi reached over to take her husband’s hand. “I didn’t want to marry Dominic at first. I didn’t want to leave my family and my country. But Dom’s father sent me a plane ticket, to come to the U.S. and visit.”

In the background, I could see the firemen rolling up the hoses. A crowd of birds had returned to the tree behind us, chattering noisily. “My father sent you the ticket?” Dr. Riccardi turned to his wife. “How come you never told me that?”

“He was worried about you.” She smiled. “Just like you were worried about Michael. The difference is that your father overcame his prejudices because he saw that I made you happy.”

The doctor looked at his wife, and a kind of unspoken communication passed between them. I found myself hoping that Mike and I would be able to do that someday and realized I’d crossed a line, and not just because Mike and I had ended up in bed that night. I was falling in love with him all over again.

Mrs. Riccardi let go of her husband’s hand and hugged me. “We’re glad you’re both all right,” she said. “That’s all that matters.”

Mike’s dad hugged him, and then we switched-though his father simply extended his hand to me to shake.

I didn’t take it, though. I hugged him just as I’d hugged his wife. “I love your son,” I said into his ear. “I’m never going to hurt him again.”

Another fire investigator Mike worked with showed up to check things out. Once he and the firefighters had gone, Mike’s parents went inside and Mike got a couple of high-powered flashlights so we could evaluate the damage to the duplex. Fortunately, the flames hadn’t reached Mike’s parents’ half, and the damage to Mike’s side wasn’t as bad as it might have been. His back porch had been destroyed, and the rear wall of his garage had almost burned through. The yard was muddy and a hibiscus hedge had been trampled. “It’s not terrible, but it’ll all look worse in the morning,” Mike said.

When his parents came back outside they were fully dressed. His father announced that they were going to stay with a colleague. “In case your arsonist decides to come back and finish the job.”

“We’re not staying here either,” Mike said. “Stan LoCicero might still be out there watching us.”

They walked toward their car, and I said, “Where do you want to go? A hotel? I don’t want to put anybody else we know in danger.”

“I know a guy I can call.” He stepped away from me, dialing a number on his cell, and from the way he shielded his voice I could tell he didn’t want me to hear what he was saying.

“I got us a room,” he said, when he hung up. “At the Halekulani. I hope that’s okay. It’s on the house.”

The Halekulani is one of Honolulu’s most expensive hotels, on Waikiki Beach. “How did you do that?”

He shrugged. “I know a guy.”

“In the Biblical sense?”

“Hey, you’re not the only one who fooled around while we were separated.”

“Works for me,” I said. “You sleep with any gourmet chefs while you were at it? I wouldn’t mind getting comped a nice meal now and then.”

“Get dressed, goofball. They’re not letting you into the Halekulani looking like that.”

We had to shower before we left, to get the smell of smoke out of our skin and our hair, and we did it together, to save time and water. But the idea that Stan might be skulking around outside put the damper on romance, and we finished quickly and got out. The watch commander for District 3, which included Aiea, said he’d get a car to pass by Mike’s house every half hour for the rest of the night, just in case.