Donn Cortez - The Killing Jar

“Like spend it all on meth?”

“No, but-the drugs were part of it. He thought they were making his thoughts more… I don’t know, cosmic or something.”

“Cosmic. What was he going to do, build a spaceship?”

“No, he was more interested in old gods and stuff. He was always talking about Pele and Kamahua and Lono-Hawaiian gods, you know? I just used to tune him out. Sounded too much like my grandmother.”

“Anybody else listen?”

“Sure. Lester and him would talk about that stuff for hours.”

“Lester Akiliano?”

“Yeah. They’ve known each other forever, though I don’t think Lester really cared about any of that mystical stuff-he was just there to get high. He woulda talked about senior citizens getting kinky if it meant a free hit.”

“How’d Lester feel about you trying to convince Kanamu to quit?”

“What do you think? Went off on me. Told me to stop being such a buzzkill-I didn’t stick around long after that. Wasn’t healthy, in too many ways.”

Catherine sensed there was more to her words than what she was saying. “Did Lester threaten you?”

“Nah, I’ve known Lester a long time-longer than Hal, even. But the guys he was hanging around with? Bad news.”

“What guys?”

“Oh, no. I don’t wanna talk about them. Go talk to Lester, see for yourself. Just don’t say I pointed you his way, okay? He needs to get to rehab, but he doesn’t need to know I sent him there.”

“You look like you could use some time there yourself.”

Leilani gave her a wan smile. “Nah, kicking meth’s easy. I do it every day, you know? Sometimes more than once…”

Lester Akiliano liked to drink in a bar called the Cross-Eyed Jack, a place that might have been glamorous when mobsters ruled the Strip but was now a dusty mausoleum of peeling chrome, scarred tables, and torn carpet. Lester himself was at the bar, nursing a longneck beer and watching women’s basketball on the TV. The bartender squinted at Catherine warily when she came in, as if he were highly allergic to the natural light that spilled through the doorway behind her and was trying to remember where he put his epinephrine.

“Lester Akiliano?” she asked. “Catherine Willows, Las Vegas Crime Lab. I’d like to talk to you about Hal Kanamu.”

Lester was a bulky Hawaiian with shoulder-length, straight black hair and a scraggly black goatee that looked like it was trying to escape his face. He wore a shirt of bright yellow silk missing the top two buttons, with irregular stains spreading from the armpits. He took a long swallow of his beer before responding. “What you want from me, huh? I don’t know nothing except Hal’s dead.”

She took a seat next to him. “Well, that’s the thing, Lester. Kind of my job to find out how that happened.”

“Don’t look at me. I wasn’t there.”

“And where would that be?”

“Out in the desert. That’s wh ere you found him, right? That’s what I heard.” He took another drink. “No place for a kanaka to die, I’ll tell you that. Too far from the ocean. Too damn far from home.”

Catherine studied him for a second. “You knew him a long time, right?”

“Forever. He was a good friend. Maybe a little crazy, but he always had your back.”

“Liked to have a good time, right?”

“You better believe it. I can’t remember how many times we couldn’t remember.”

“Got to catch up with you sometime.”

“Maybe so. Maybe so.” He finished his beer, signaled for another. The bartender ignored him. “But that’s life, right? You have fun while you can.”

“When was the last time you saw Hal?”

“Oh, must have been three, four days ago. We used to hang out every day, but-”

“Hey, Les. Who’s your friend?”

Three men stalked out of the bar’s gloomy recesses, two of them holding pool cues. The speaker was a muscular man in a sleeveless shirt, every visible inch of his arms covered in tattoos. His head was shaved, his face wide but uneven; the right side of his jaw bulged like he was storing nuts for the winter. His friends were taller than he was but not as wide, and despite the dimness of the bar they both wore sunglasses.

“Hey, Boz. She’s no one,” Lester muttered.

“I’m Catherine Willows,” she said. “ Las Vegas Police. And you are?”

“Didn’t you hear Les? I’m Boz.” He grinned, exposing receding gums. “You here for the wake? We’re honoring our poor dead friend, Hal.”

“So am I-I’m investigating his death.” She eyed the three men coolly. “When was the last time you saw your good friend Hal?”

Boz shrugged. “I don’t know-couple days ago, maybe. Hal was always on the go, you know? Lot of energy.” He fished a cough drop out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth, wincing as he did so. His breath smelled like rotten fish in mint sauce.

“I’ll bet.”

“Anyway, we’re just gonna go back to our wake, okay? Respect for the dead and all that.”

“Uh-huh. I’m going to need to see some ID, Boz.” She nodded at his two friends. “You too. Come on, guys, dig out those wallets.”

Catherine kept her own hand near her gun. She knew tweakers when she saw them, and anyone high on crank was a dangerous and unpredictable commodity. An armed meth head was one bad impulse away from murder.

Nobody produced a gun, though-just identification and dirty looks. She took them, jotted down their names, and gave them back. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Boz’s smile had been replaced by a look of wary confusion. “What for? Are you arresting us, or what?”

“Not yet, Boz.” She smiled. “But I’d really like to get to know you-and your friends-better. Thing is, I’d prefer to do it at my place…”

Bosley “Boz” Melnyk, Catherine discovered, was no stranger to the system. In fact, she was pretty sure Boz and the system were about ready to pick out drapes together.

His earliest arrests had been for shoplifting. He’d graduated from that to B and Es, with the occasional car theft thrown in. He’d been busted several times for possession of narcotics, been to rehab twice, and barely skated on a dealing charge the last time he’d been arrested. It was a pretty typical career arc for a petty criminal, one she’d seen too many times before; start small, work your way up, learn just enough from your mistakes to avoid serious jail time. The type of crime escalated, not from any sense of ambition but through the same kind of process that told a shark to keep moving or die. Boz was still moving.

His friends were another matter. Diego Molinez was an unrepentant thug, one who’d spent nearly half his thirty-six years in custody; he’d done time for aggravated assault, possession of an unregistered firearm, and narcotics trafficking. Aaron Tyford had been arrested on both narcotics possession and conspiracy to commit murder, but the charges had been dropped due to insuffici ent evidence.

The file on the Tyford case told an interesting story. Tyford had apparently been a dealer for a local gang and during the course of his business had learned the location of the drug lab used to manufacture product for sale. Deciding that wholesale prices just weren’t low enough, Tyford had tried to rob his own supplier; unfortunately for him, he’d learned the hard way that volatile chemicals and gunfire just don’t mix. While the resulting explosion had destroyed his reason for the robbery, it had also wiped out any evidence tying him to the lab itself.

She could see why a small-timer like Boz would attach himself to Hal Kanamu; he was more remora than shark, hanging around in the hopes of feeding off any scraps. But Tyford and Molinez were another breed entirely, more predator than scavenger. The only reason they’d spend time with someone like Boz would be because they saw an opportunity waiting to be exploited.