Ida, mouth full of almond chop suey, chuckled. “If I know who really do it, you think I wouldn’t say?”
“Maybe. Of course, back where I come from, it isn’t honorable to rat guys out.”
He looked up from his food with spaniel eyes. “If I knew…if I hear anything, I’d say.”
“I believe you. Of course, maybe they don’t exist; maybe the second gang is nothing but a rumor.”
“Somebody attack on that white woman, and it wasn’t us.”
I leaned forward. “Then, Shorty—you and your friends, you need to beat the bushes for me. I’m an outsider, I can only do so much.”
He frowned. “Why do you want to help? Why don’t you go home now? You and Clarence Darrow who is too big a shot to meet with us.”
The chop suey was delicious; best I ever had. “I’m here on his behalf. I believe if Darrow is convinced of your innocence, he’ll help you.”
“Help how?”
“I don’t know exactly. But I know he’s dealing with the governor for his clients; he might do the same for you.”
Ida snorted. “Why?”
“Maybe he agrees with you. Maybe he thinks he was on the wrong side of the courtroom in this one.”
Ida thought about it. “What can I do? What can we do?”
“I know the Island’s crawling with rumors, but I need leads, and I need leads with substance.”
“There is one rumor,” Ida said, frowning thoughtfully, “that does not go away. I hear it over and over.”
“What’s that?”
“That Thalia Massie have kanaka boyfriend.”
“A beach boy.”
He shrugged, ate some rice. “Maybe a beach boy.”
“I don’t suppose he has a name.”
“No. Sometimes I hear he’s a beach boy. More times I hear he’s a music boy.”
The doorman at the Ala Wai Inn said Thalia had talked to a music boy before she went out in the night.
And the music boy had a name—Sammy.
“Thanks for dinner, Shorty.” I rose from the table, touched a napkin to my lips.
“That all you gonna eat?”
“I got enough,” I said.
The dark, stocky doorman at the Ala Wai was wearing the orange shirt with flowers on it again. He didn’t recognize me at first; maybe that’s because I wasn’t in my parrots-on-red silk number, though I did dress up my brown suit with a blue tie with yellow blossoms I’d bought in the Royal Hawaiian gift shop.
I held up a five-dollar bill, and that he recognized.
“We talked about Thalia Massie,” I reminded him, working my voice up over the tremolo of the George Ku Trio’s steel guitar. “This is the fin you were gonna get if that music boy, Sammy, showed up….”
“But he hasn’t, boss.”
I put the five-spot away and fished out a ten. Held it up. “Has he been here for a sawbuck?”
A rueful half-smile formed on his moon face. He shook his head, saying, “Even a double sawbuck can’t make him here when he never was.”
“Tell ya what, Joe—that’s what you will get…a double sawbuck…if you call me when you see him. You still got my name and number?”
He nodded, patted his pocket. “Got it right here, boss. You at the Royal Hawaiian.”
“Good. Good man.”
“He may show, anytime.”
I frowned. “Why’s that?”
“I seen another guy here from Joe Crawford’s band. So they must be takin’ a break from that Maui gig.”
His use of “gig”—a term I’d heard jazz players in Chicago use—reminded me how small the world was getting.
“Any of Crawford’s music boys here tonight?”
He shook his head, no. “But one of those commanders you was here with last time is.”
“Commanders?”
He grinned. “I call ’em all ‘Commander.’ They get a kick of that, those Navy officers.”
“You know which ‘commander’ is here tonight?”
“Let me look.” He had a clipboard hanging from a teakwood lattice. “Sure. Bradford. Lt. Jimmy Bradford.”
I thought for a second. “Joe, are the private dining rooms in use upstairs?”
“No. Earlier tonight, not now.”
“Where’s ‘Commander’ Bradford sitting?”
Joe pointed, and I moved through a haze of smoke past the Chinese woodwork of booths and the press of couples on the dance floor, weaving through the mostly kanaka crowd until I found Bradford, casual in white mufti but no tie, seated in a booth off the dance floor. He was with a woman whose name I didn’t recall but, from my previous visit to the Ala Wai, remembered as the wife of another officer. She was brunette and pleasantly plump and half in the bag.
“Good evening, Lieutenant,” I said.
Hollowly handsome Bradford, a drink in one hand, a smoke in the other, looked up; his face went from blank to annoyed to falsely affable. “Heller. Uh, Judy, this is Nate Heller, he was Clarence Darrow’s investigator.”
Pretty, pretty drunk Judy smiled and bobbled her head at me.
“Actually,” I said, “I still am.”
“You’re still what?” Bradford asked.
“Darrow’s investigator. Sentencing isn’t for a week; we’re tying up some loose ends before going to the governor for clemency.”
Bradford was nodding. “Slide in. Join us.”
I stayed where I was. “Actually, I wondered if I could have a word with you, in private.”
“Sure.” He shrugged, grinned, nodded out toward the packed dance floor where couples were clinched, swaying to the soothing three-part harmonies and seductive rhythms of the George Ku Trio. “But where would we do that, exactly?”
“I need to get a look at the private dining room upstairs, where Thalia crashed the Stockdale party. Maybe you could point it out, and we could use that for a private chat.”
He shrugged. “Okay. If you think it’d be helpful to the cause.”
“I think it would.”
He leaned forward and touched the brunette’s hand, which was tight around her glass. “Can you take care of yourself for a couple minutes, hon?” he asked.
She smiled and said something unintelligible that passed for “yes,” and then Bradford and I were wending our way through the crowd at the edge of the dance floor, heading for the front of the club. There were stairs to the mezzanine on either side; Bradford, carrying his drink in a water glass, was in the lead as we wandered toward the right.
“Don’t get the wrong idea about Judy,” Bradford said, looking back with a sickly grin. “Her husband Bob’s out on sub duty and she’s kinda lonely, needed some company.”
“I won’t.”
He frowned in confusion. “Won’t what?”
“Get the wrong idea.”
Up the stairs, past a few booths where couples cuddled and kissed and laughed and smoked and sipped their spiked Cokes, we came to the first of several small dining alcoves, not unlike the one at Lau Yee Ching’s where I’d spoken earlier with Horace Ida.
“Which one was the Stockdale party in?” I asked him.
Bradford nodded toward the middle one, and I gestured like a gracious usher toward the door; he stepped inside, and I followed, shutting the door behind us.
The walls were pink and bare but for, at left, a small plaque of a gold dragon on a black background; straight ahead, a window looked out on the parking lot; a cheap version of a Chinese chandelier was centered over a small banquet table.
“This is where Thalia was,” I said, “when you came looking for her.”
“I wasn’t looking for her.” He shrugged, sipped his drink. “She was just here already when I stuck my head in. I was, you know, socializing, goin’ around the club, table-hoppin’.”
“I think you’d noticed what a bad mood Thalia was in,” I said. “And how drunk she was getting.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“You were concerned about her behavior. You were aware, that ever since you dropped her…I assume you dropped her, as opposed to her dropping you, but that is just an assumption…that she’d gotten involved with a rougher breed of boyfriend.”