“Certainly, Nate. That was my pocket you saw me reach into, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know whose money you dug out.”
His gray eyes were impish. “Why, your money, Nate. Your money, now.”
I grunted another laugh. “I’d put you under oath, but what difference would it make?”
“What do you mean?”
“What good’s it do, having an agnostic swear on a Bible?”
He was chuckling over that as he closed the door behind me.
The top was down (and I left it down) on the Durant, a two-tone blue number with wire wheels that was surprisingly sporty for a society matron like Grace Fortescue, even if she was an accomplice to murder. The buggy handled nicely and the three-and-a-half-mile drive from Honolulu to Waikiki—straight down King Street, right on Kalakaua Avenue—was a pleasant combination of palm-shaded drive, strolling locals, and budding commerce. I tossed my fedora on the floor on the rider’s side, because the motor-stirred breeze would have sent it sailing, and it felt good, getting my hair mussed. The steady stream of traffic was divided by a clanging trolley, and halted occasionally by Polynesian traffic cops with stop-go signs—no traffic lights in Honolulu, though they had street-lamps. Pretty soon the coral-pink stucco spires of the Royal Hawaiian began emerging up over the trees, like a mirage playing peek-a-boo.
Turning right off Kalakaua into the hotel driveway, I was swept into lushly green, blossom-dabbed, meticulously landscaped grounds along a palm-lined gentle curve of asphalt that wound around to the Pink Palace’s porte cochere, where my rubbernecking damn near ran me smack into one of the massive pillars at the entry way.
The doorman, a Japanese, wore a fancier white uniform and cap than Admiral Stirling. When he leaned his smooth round face in, I asked him where the parking lot was, and he told me they’d park “the vehicle” for me.
I left the motor running, grabbed my bag out of the back, took the claim stub (imagine giving an automobile to somebody like you were checking your damn hat!), tipped the doorman a nickel, and headed inside. A Chinese bellboy in an oriental outfit tried to take my bag as I bounded up the steps, but I waved him off; I only had so many nickels.
The lobby was cool and open, with doorless doorways letting in lovely weather, chirping birds, whispering surf.
The massive walls with their looming archways and the high ceiling with its chandeliers dwarfed the potted palms and fancy lamps and wicker furnishings, not to mention the people, who seemed mostly to be staff. There were enough bellboys—some in those oriental pajamas, others in crisp traditional red jacket and white pants, all in racial shades of yellow and brown—to put together a football team; and room enough to play, without stepping off the Persian carpet.
But there were damn few guests. In fact, as I moved to the registration desk at left, I was the only guest around at the moment. As I was signing in, a honeymooning couple in tennis togs strolled by arm in arm. But that was about it.
Even the fancy lobby shops—display windows showing off jade and silk and high fashions, for the moneyed man or woman—were populated only by salesclerks.
An elevator operator took me up to the fourth floor, where I found a room so spacious and beautifully appointed, it made my cabin on the Malolo look like my one-room flat back home. More wicker furniture, ferns and flowers, shuttered windows, and a balcony that looked out on the ocean….
It was late afternoon, and the sunbathers and swimmers were mostly indoors; a spirited game of surfboard polo was under way, but that was all. No outrigger canoes in sight; no surf-riding dogs.
The day was winding down and I was, frankly, exhausted. I dropped the sort of immense window shade that was the only thing separating the balcony from the room itself, and adjusted the shutters till the room was as dark as I could get it, stripped to my shorts, and flopped on the bed.
Ringing awoke me.
I turned on the bedside lamp. Blinking, I looked at the telephone on the nightstand and it looked back at me, and rang again. I lifted the receiver, only half-awake.
“’Llo.”
“Nate? Isabel.”
“Hi. What time is it?”
“Eight-something.”
“Eight-something at night?”
“Yes, eight-something at night. Did I wake you? Were you napping?”
“Yeah. That old man Clarence Darrow wore me the hell out. Where are you? Here in the hotel?”
“No,” she said, and there was disappointment in her voice. “I’m still at Thalia’s. She’s not moving out to Pearl Harbor till tomorrow, so I’m staying with her, tonight.”
“Too bad—I could use the company. I seem to have this whole barn to myself.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I hear business at the Royal Hawaiian is terrible since the Crash.”
I sat up. “Listen, I’d like to talk to Thalia again—without C.D. and Leisure around. There’s hardly anybody at this damn joint—maybe you and she could come around for breakfast. I don’t think there’ll be too many gawkers.”
“Let me ask her,” Isabel said. She was gone for a minute or so, then came back: “Thalia would love to get away. What time?”
“How about nine? Just a second, let me look at this…” There was an information card on the nightstand with room service and other restaurant info. “We’ll meet at the Surf Porch. Just ask at the desk and they’ll shoo you in the right direction.”
“This sounds delightful, Nathan. See you tomorrow. Love you.”
“Back at ya.”
I rolled out of bed. I stretched, yawned loudly. I was hungry; maybe I’d put my pants on and go down and charge a great big fancy meal to my room. That was one way to stretch fifty bucks a week expenses.
Yanking the cord, I lifted the big window shade and let the night air roll in off the balcony. Then I wandered out there in my shorts and socks to drink in the night. The sky was purple and scattered with stars; the moon, full and almost golden, cast glimmering highlights on the ebony ocean. Diamond Head was a slumbering silhouette, barely discernible. I drew in the sea breeze, basked in the beauty of the breakers rolling in.
“Please excuse intrusion,” a quiet voice said.
I damn near fell off the balcony.
“Did not wish to disturb you.” He was seated in a wicker chair, to the left, back away from the ledge of the balcony, a skinny little Chinese guy in a white suit with a black bow tie, a Panama hat in his lap.
I stepped forward, fists balled. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”
He stood; he was no more than five foot. He bowed.
“Took liberty of waiting for you to wake up.”
His head had a skull-like appearance, accentuated by his high forehead and wispy, thinning graying hair. His nose was thinly hawkish, his mouth a wide narrow line over a spade-like jaw; but his most striking feature was his eyes: deeply socketed, bright and alert, and the right one had a nasty scar above and below it, the entire socket discolored, like an eye patch of flesh. Knife scar, I’d wager, and he was lucky he didn’t lose the eye.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Detective First Grade Chang Apana. Care to see badge?”
“No thanks,” I said, letting out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “It would take Charlie Chan to sneak in here and not wake me. Any special reason you dropped by unannounced?”
“Roundabout way often shortest path to correct destination.”
“Who said that? Confucius?”
He shook his head, no. “Derr Biggers.”
Whoever that was.
I asked, “You mind if I put on my pants?”
“By all means. You mind if I smoke?”
We sat on the balcony in wicker chairs. As we spoke, he chain-smoked. That wasn’t a very Charlie Chan-like thing to do; and, as I recalled, the fictional detective was roly-poly. But maybe Chang Apana and his storybook counterpart had other things in common.
“What are you doing here, Detective Apana?”