One of Darrow’s tanned escorts—the one paddling right at the front of the boat—was the king of the beach boys himself: Duke Kahanamoku, a “boy” in his early forties. An infectious white smile flashed in the long dark handsome face, and sinewy muscles rippled as the Duke stroked the water.
“Took Tarzan to beat him,” Clarence Crabbe said.
We were sitting under a beach umbrella at a little white table on the sand with the pink castle of the Royal Hawaiian looming beautifully behind us. The young Olympic hopeful looked like a bronze god in his black trunks with matching athletic T-shirt. I was in tourist mode—white slacks with sandals and one of those colorful silk shirts like my kidnappers of the night before had worn: a red print with yellow and black parrots, short-sleeve and sporty and loud enough to attract attention back in Chicago’s Bronzeville. This wardrobe—which also included a wide-brimmed Panama hat and round-lensed sunglasses that turned the world a soothing green—was courtesy of various shops in the hotel, and charged to my room. If there’s anything a detective knows how to find, it’s ways to pad an expense account.
Crabbe had called this morning; I didn’t place him at first, but when he offered to buy us lunch with his silver dollar, it came to me: the kid who dived from the Malolo deck! We’d had lunch on the lanai (that’s “porch” for you mainlanders) outside the hotel lounge, the Coconut Grove, only I didn’t let him pay for the tab, which the buck wouldn’t have covered, anyway—I signed it to my room.
Now we were spending the early part of the afternoon watching Darrow caper on the beach for the press, giving them plenty of frivolous photos and the occasional questionable tidbit (“There is no racial problem whatsoever in Hawaii”), while along the way paying the Royal Hawaiian back for my room with the publicity his famous presence attracted.
“Huh?” I asked, in response to Crabbe’s statement about Tarzan beating Duke Kahanamoku.
“Johnny Weismuller,” Crabbe explained. He was watching Kahanamoku wistfully. “He’s the guy who finally took Duke’s title away, as world’s fastest swimmer. In Paris, in ’24.”
“And ’32’s gonna be your year?”
“That’s the plan.”
Though the Royal Hawaiian was way under capacity, its beachfront was aswarm with sunbathers, swimmers, and would-be surf riders. Here and there, a muscular Hawaiian in a bathing suit was attending a female—either conducting a friendly class in surfing, or sitting on the beach beside her, rubbing coconut oil on pale flesh.
“These beach boys,” I said to Crabbe, “do they work here?”
“Some do. But all the beaches in Hawaii are public—the boys can come and go as they like. Hey, I used to be one of them.”
“A haole like you?”
He flashed me a grin as white as Kahanamoku’s. “You’re picking up on the lingo, Nate. Yeah, there are a few white boys out there hustling surfing lessons.”
“And hustling the women?”
His grin turned sly. “Since I never pay for sex, I make a general of policy of not charging for it, either.”
“But some beach boys do charge for their stud services?”
He shrugged. “It’s a point of pride. Say, what’s Clarence Darrow foolin’ around with Duke and the boys for? Shouldn’t he be waist-deep in the case?”
Right now Darrow was ankle-deep in surf. Kahanamoku was helping Darrow out of the boat and onto the sand, the reporters and photographers scuttling in like crabs, snapping shots, hurling questions.
“He is working on the case,” I said. “On the public relations front, anyway—not to mention race relations. Hanging out with Duke Kahanamoku, he’s sending a message that he doesn’t think all the beach boys are rapists.”
“Those Ala Moana defendants,” Crabbe said, “aren’t beach boys. Just typical restless Honolulu kids, drifting through life.”
He said this with a certain sympathy.
“Guys in their late teens, early twenties,” I said, “are restless everywhere, not just Hawaii.”
“Yeah, but a lot of kids here are really adrift. All these different races tossed together here, their cultures, their traditions, in tatters.”
“Then you don’t think the Ala Moana boys are ‘gangsters’?”
“No, and I don’t think they’re rapists, either.”
“Why’s that?”
Crabbe sighed. The cool wind was cutting through the warmth of the afternoon, making his dark blond hair dance; handsome damn kid—if he wasn’t so affable, I’d have hated his guts.
His gaze was steady. “There’s an old Island saying—‘Hawaiians will talk.’ But the cops couldn’t get anything out of the boys.”
“So what? Lots of suspects in all kinds of cases keep their traps shut.”
He shook his head. “Not Hawaiian suspects. If the cops and their billy clubs and blacksnake whips didn’t get the story out of ’em, oke and curious friends and relatives would. And the word would spread across the Island like the surf rolling over that beach.”
“And it hasn’t?”
“Nope. Why do you think support among the colored population is so overwhelmingly on the side of the ‘rapists’? Besides, you don’t have to rape a woman on Oahu. There’s too much good stuff ready for the asking.”
Maybe if you looked like this kid, there was.
“That area Thalia Massie was walking along when she got grabbed,” I said, “was a red-light district. Maybe Horace Ida and his pals were riding along and mistook her for a chippie and decided to tear off a free piece.”
He thought about that. “That’s the best case anybody’s made for the prosecution so far. That’s certainly the way it could’ ve happened. But not by the Ala Moana boys.”
“Why?”
“Because Hawaiians will talk! Word around town, among the colored population, is it was another gang of boys. How many dozen convertibles full of Island boys looking for a party d’you suppose are prowling around on a given Saturday night?”
This kid would’ve made a good lawyer. Maybe after he got this Olympic stuff out of his system, he’d finish up law school.
“You got the time, Nate?”
I checked my watch. I told him it was getting close to two.
He stood; his musculature had the same sinewy rippling quality as the Duke’s. “Guess I better scoot. I’m supposed to be over at the Natatorium by two.”
“The what?”
“Natatorium. It’s a saltwater pool over near Diamond Head. It’s where I’m training.”
“Good luck to you,” I said and offered my hand.
He shook it and was gathering his towel to go when I asked casually, “Why’d you wanna have lunch with me today, Buster?”
That was his nickname, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what he told me on the pier after the Malolo docked?
Must’ve been, because he answered, “Why, I just wanted to repay your kindness on the ship the other day—”
“You ever met any of the Ala Moana boys?”
He blinked. “Yeah, uh…I knew Joe Kahahawai. I know Benny Ahakuelo, too.”
“Local athletes, like you.”
“Yeah.” Now he gave me an embarrassed grin. “And you caught me at it—trying to put in a good word for my friends, without letting you know they are my friends….”
“I’m a detective. They pay me for catching people at things.”
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to mislead you—”
“Don’t apologize for trying to help out your friends. Listen, Buster—you didn’t tell me any lies, did you?”