Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘Mr. Opolo is in the bungalow across the way,’ says the clerk.

‘Good,’ says Dana.

‘Who’s Mr. Opolo?’

‘I’ll introduce you in a minute,’ she says.

I sense there’s some surprise coming. ‘Tell me now,’ I say.

‘You’re going to meet him in just a minute.’

‘Then humor me.’

‘He’s a friend. From Honolulu.’

‘What kind of a friend?’

‘Professional colleague,’ she says.

‘Dana.’

‘Okay. He’s with the FBI. Agent in charge of the Honolulu office.’

‘Son of a bitch,’ I say. ‘I thought we had a deal.’

‘Listen, you’re not going to get anywhere on your own. Jessie can help.’

I’m shaking my head. ‘Wonderful.’

‘He knows the people. This is an insular place,’ she says. She makes it sound like the Ozarks of Polynesia. ‘The locals want to run you in circles, they’ll do it. There’s a thousand houses in these hills, from estates to the stars to one-room stone huts. The Merlows could be in any one of them.’

‘And they could be here in the hotel, in the room next to us,’ I say.

‘They’re not. We already checked,’ she says, droll.

‘Great.’

The clerk hands me a map of the hotel grounds. At this moment I could spit on it. A bellhop grabs our bags and loads them into an electric cart, Dana giving me a million and one reasons why I should thank her for calling in the FBI.

I’m beginning to think Harry was right, and wondering who fucked who last night.

She’s still talking at me minutes later when the phone rings in her room.

‘Jessie.’ Relief in her voice. The troops are here.

‘Where are you? Come on over,’ she says.

Two minutes later there’s a knock on the door, and Dana opens it.

Outside is a man, maybe late forties, hair like white silk, skin the color of burnished wood. He’s barrel-chested, a big man, a face like a totem, austere. He’s wearing one of those loud print shirts, flowers in every color of the rainbow.

‘Hey, girl. It’s good to see you,’ he says.

‘It’s been a long time,’ Dana greets him.

‘Let’s see. Since San Francisco,’ he says. ‘What — five years?’

She agrees with him, puts her hands on his shoulders, and gives him a peck on the cheek.

Opolo has to bow his neck a little to get under the low lintel of the door.

‘Jessie Opolo. Paul Madriani.’ She makes the introduction, unsure how I’m going to respond.

‘Glad to meet you.’ He smiles. I wonder if it’s as artless as it looks or the face of Polynesian guile.

I won’t be an asshole, so I take his hand.

‘A pleasure,’ I say.

‘How long have you been here?’ she says.

‘Since this morning,’ he tells her. ‘Coptered in about nine.’

‘Anybody with you?’

‘Two agents,’ he says.

It’s a fucking army, I think. I’m waltzing away, rolling my eyes.

Dana can read my mind. ‘I assume you’re keeping a low profile.’

I have visions of Humvees with recoilless rifles mounted on the back.

‘The other two agents are in the room,’ he says. ‘The only thing we’ve done is check the post office for the package.’

‘What package?’ I ask.

‘The ring,’ he says.

I’d forgotten about this. The ring Kathy Merlow mentioned in her letter, the one she wanted Marcie to send to her.

‘It was picked up yesterday afternoon,’ says Opolo. ‘Unfortunately we were too late.’

‘Did anybody sign for it?’ I ask.

‘Yes.’ He pulls a small notebook from his pocket and opens it, then unfolds a sheet of paper that’s been placed inside it. It’s a copy of the postal receipt.

‘It was addressed to Alice Kent, and the receipt was signed in that name.’

‘Can I see it?’

He hands the sheet over.

I flatten it on the table, then take out the note from my pocket, the one sent to Marcie Reed by Kathy Merlow, and compare the handwriting with the signature on the form. Like peas in a pod.

‘She’s here,’ I say. ‘She signed for it herself.’

Dana looks at me. ‘Maybe we’re halfway home.’

Dana and the agents are huddled in the next room around a coffee table, discussing methods for locating the Merlows. The adjoining door between the rooms is open, so I watch from a distance. They’ve already exhausted several avenues of search. Utility records, telephone, and power show no new hookups under the names Merlow or Kent. If they’re living in the area, they’re using another alias. They’ve checked the rental car agencies, figuring that the Merlows would need wheels.

‘If they rented a car on the island, they used some other identification,’ says Opolo. ‘No record of a rental in the name of Merlow or Kent, and no charges on George Merlow’s credit card since the couple disappeared from Capital City.’

Dana was right about one thing, Opolo and his agents have been able to gain access to information that we could not: personal credit-card data.

‘I think we talk to the carriers.’ Opolo wants to concentrate on the mail carriers who service the area around Hana.

‘It’s a small place. Even if they don’t deliver mail to these people, they might know who’s new and where they live.’

‘There’s six carriers. Five are out on their routes. We can’t get ’em all until later this afternoon.’ One of the agents has already checked this out.

I’ve drifted into the room, standing in one corner like the proverbial potted plant.

‘There’s the grocery store, and the little ranch market,’ says one of them. ‘The only places to buy food for two hours in either direction. They gotta eat,’ he says.

‘Maybe,’ says Opolo. ‘People may have seen them in the stores, but will they know where they live? The Merlows aren’t going to volunteer this information.’

‘We could stake out the stores,’ says one of the agents. He’s young and eager.

Opolo looks at him, wrinkled eyes of skepticism. ‘An army of strangers loitering outside the market?’ he says. ‘We’d stand out like bumps. Word’d be out in an hour. This is a small town.’

‘That’s charitable,’ I say.

‘Okay, so it’s a village,’ he says. He smiles at me.

‘Still, if one person talks,’ he says, ‘a clerk at the post office, one of the employees at the hotel. In an hour everybody in town’s gonna know who we are, that we’re looking for somebody. The word won’t take long to spread. If Mr. Madriani is right, the people we are looking for know how to lose themselves. We won’t get a second chance,’ he says.

Despite Dana’s going behind my back, I’m warming to Jessie Opolo. Maybe she was right.

‘What about the realtors?’ he says. ‘The ones who rent out houses and cabins? The Merlows would have to obtain accommodations from somebody. Do we have any pictures of them?’ he says.

This sends one of the other agents scurrying through an open attaché case.

‘Not a great copy,’ he says. ‘We got this from the mainland. State DMV. Faxed this morning.’ He hands Opolo two poor-quality fax transmissions, tortured pictures like Rorschach cards of human images, so bad the subjects would not recognize themselves.

‘Nothing better?’ says Opolo.

‘We can try to get wirephotos,’ says the agent. ‘It would take a while.’

‘Fine. In the meantime we run down a list of realtors in the area,’ says Opolo. He looks at his watch. ‘We meet back here in an hour to go talk to the mail carriers.’

They’re up on their feet, going over a few last-minute details. Dana and Opolo in one corner talking privately. I take the opportunity to slip back into my room.

I’ve ditched my coat in the closet. Even in winter the Hawaiian sun is too hot. I slip my hand into the patch pocket and remove the photograph of the little church. Two seconds later I’m out the door, heading up the path toward the office. It’s a five-minute walk, and by the time I reach the shade of the lanai near the office I am wet with perspiration.