Neil Plakcy - Mahu Vice

Neither of us spoke much on the way down to Waikiki. I wondered about the guy Mike knew at the Halekulani, and where Stan was. I wanted to drive right over to his house, rip open his door and punch his lights out, though I knew that wasn’t the solution to anything.

We left Mike’s truck with the valet at the Halekulani, and I walked through the lobby to the ocean while he negotiated with his former flame. The huge pool was lit up, highlighting the orchid painted on the bottom. The lounge chairs had been folded up and the umbrellas closed. I wondered if Stan had followed us. I doubted he’d be able to cause any trouble at the Halekulani, though.

A few minutes later, Mike joined me out by the pool. “We’re all set.”

The clouds had cleared, revealing a full moon and an array of stars splayed across the sky. The waves made a gentle rushing sound meeting the beach, and in the distance we could hear the faintest echo of dance music. Mike took my hand. “Been a busy day, huh? When I woke up this morning I couldn’t have imagined everything we’d go through today.”

“I knew we’d end up like this, though. I guess I’ve known since I saw you at the shopping center fire.”

“Me, too.” He turned his head toward me, and we kissed. The breeze picked up and wafted the smell of salt water and plumeria blossoms around us.

The room Mike had arranged for us was the most luxurious I’d ever stayed in. It was on the twelfth floor, overlooking the ocean and Diamond Head, with a lanai, a king-sized bed, and a Roman tub in the bathroom. “This room is too nice to sleep in,” I said, when we walked in. I went straight across to the lanai and opened the sliding glass door, stepping outside.

There was a glittering necklace of lights at the foot of Diamond Head, clouds massing over it, illuminated by the moonlight. “Who says we’re going to sleep?” Mike asked, coming up behind me. He wrapped his arms around me and we kissed. I savored every place where our bodies touched, chest to chest, hip to hip, hands on shoulders.

Since we’d worked out the urgency of our lust earlier in the evening, we took our time. We stripped down out there on the lanai, kissing and running our hands over each other, naked against the ocean breeze. He leaned forward against the railing and I stood behind him, arching my back so my dick pressed up against his ass. I reached around and cupped his nipples in my hands, kissing the back of his neck as he breathed deeply.

We moved back inside, rolling around for a while on the lush, carpeted floor, wrestling for dominance. Then we climbed on the bed in a sixty-nine position, me on top, as if I was doing pushups over him, and we sucked each other to climax. From there, we stumbled into the Roman tub and cuddled in the hot, soapy water. It was after four by the time we’d worn each other out and drifted to sleep.

I woke at first light, despite how late we’d gone to bed, and rolled over to kiss the top of Mike’s head. He yawned. “What time is it?”

“A little before six. I think we got about two hours of sleep.”

He stroked the edge of my hairline. “I wish we could stay here in bed all day.”

“Me, too. But it’s what, Thursday? We’ll have the weekend.” I stood up and stretched. His ex had arranged for us to stay at least two nights, if we needed to, and as I pulled my clothes back on I told Mike I’d call him during the day.

I would have liked the luxury of surfing for a while that morning, to clear my head, but I had to get downtown. I settled for a walk through Waikiki as the city was waking up-food trucks making deliveries, maids on their way to work, street cleaners hosing down Kalakaua.

Ray was still shaken by the events of the night before, but Julie had sat up with him for a while and then dosed him with a couple of sleeping pills, and he was ready to get Stan behind bars. I told him about the fire at Mike’s, and he whistled. “The guy’s a piece of work.” Then he looked at me. “You went back to the fireman’s house.”

“We may be getting back together.”

“May be? Or already did?”

“Already did.” I couldn’t help grinning. “A couple of times, actually.”

“High five,” Ray said, holding up his palm. I slapped it just as Lieutenant Sampson came out of his office and beckoned us.

“I hope these high spirits mean you’re making progress on this case,” he said. “I want to catch this guy, and I want to catch him fast. What have you got?”

We ran it down for him, from the planned meeting at the Rod and Reel Club, through Sergei getting shot, to the fire at Mike’s house. I admit, I made it sound to Sampson like Mike and I had just gone back there to talk through the case. I don’t know if he believed me, but he didn’t lecture me, and that was a good thing.

“We can’t say for sure that was Stan on the motorcycle, or that he was the one who set the fire at Mike Riccardi’s house,” I said. “But he’s our prime suspect at this point.”

“Why wasn’t one of you waiting at his office, to follow him to Waikiki?” Sampson asked. “I thought I authorized you to do that yesterday.”

I looked at Ray and we both shrugged. “We knew where he was going to be,” I said. “We were chasing down other leads.”

“If one of you’d picked him up at his office, or at his house, we’d have a case,” Sampson said. “But that’s water under the bridge. The question is how do we nail him?”

“We don’t have enough evidence for a search warrant?” Ray asked. “Not even with everything we’ve got?”

“And what do you have?” Sampson asked. “You have Sergei Baranov, a felon from Alaska who says this fine, upstanding citizen supplied him with illegal immigrants. But he has nothing in writing, and the only evidence he can give you is a couple of cancelled checks to this man’s business. How about the illegal workers at the landscaping company-did you get anything from them?”

I shook my head. “Nothing on Stan. A couple of them implicated Richard Hu in the immigrant smuggling, and Frank O’Connor’s moving forward on that.”

“You have any other leads?” Sampson asked. “Any at all?”

I remembered the way that Stan had threatened Gunter. “I’ve got a friend who works for Stan.” I explained Stan’s attempt to get Gunter into his blackmail ring. “I’ve been trying to keep him out of this, but I don’t see that we have any choice. With Sergei out of the picture, the only chance we have of nailing Stan is to use Gunter.”

“Talk to him,” Sampson said.

I knew Gunter was tough and could take care of himself, but after seeing Sergei get shot, I was worried. At ten, I drove over to Gunter’s, leaving Ray at the station going over a couple of witness statements that the uniformed officers had collected the night before. The clouds of the night before were back, puffy cumulus piles that dotted the sky. It was garbage day in Gunter’s neighborhood, and I had to nose the Wrangler between a couple of cans, careful not to bang up my new ride.

Gunter answered his door in a white silk thong, and nothing else. “Why’d you bother to put that on?” I asked. “It’s not like it covers anything up.”

“You never know who’s at the door,” Gunter said, stepping back as I walked in. “Sometimes it’s somebody you want to see.”

He closed the door and stalked across the living room to the kitchen, and I followed. He may have been a tall, skinny guy with an average dick, but you could bounce a quarter off that ass and get change back.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” he asked, sticking an oversized mug of water into the microwave.

“Can’t I just drop in to see my good friend?” I asked, as he spooned some loose tea into a cheesecloth bag.