“Best to let Mei-Mei,” my father said. “She and Norma, they go back a long way. They were both finalists for Miss Chinatown, you know, way back when Chin and I were in college.”
“Aunt Mei-Mei?”
The disbelief must have crackled in my voice, because my father laughed. “We were all young once.”
I thanked him and hung up. “I can see that, you know,” Mike said. “I’ll bet Aunt Mei-Mei was quite a babe.”
“What do you think she meant when she said that if Norma was around there wasn’t any acupuncture going on?”
He shrugged. “Could be she knows about the gambling. You said her husband was a crook, yeah? You think she knew about his business?”
I shook my head. “She was always just a housewife. Uncle Chin never let her know anything that could have hurt her.” I paused. “I’ll tell Ray about your list tomorrow. I can take it down to Honolulu Hale, and run it by Akoni, too, in case Organized Crime knows anything. You got any other ideas?”
I realized I wanted to know if Mike had any ideas about the two of us-but I didn’t say that. Mike shook his head. “Making the connection to those other fires was my big leap. I’ll start going over the case files tomorrow. Maybe there’s a lead.”
I pulled into my parking space, wondering how the night was going to end. Mike yawned theatrically. “Got to get my beauty sleep,” he said. We stood next to each other beside my truck, both of us unsure how to part. Should I hug him? Shake his hand? Or just walk away?
We both made little movements toward each other, and I gave up and hugged him. It felt good to be close to him again. “It’s been good seeing you again, Kimo,” he said, as we pulled apart.
There was a warmth in his voice that thrilled me a little. “Me too. See you around.”
As he walked away I tried to make myself stop thinking about him, about the way his body had felt against mine. I watched him get into his truck, then wave as he drove past. I waved back, unable to shake the feeling that the evening had felt almost like a date.
I was too antsy after that encounter with Mike to go upstairs and go to sleep, so instead I changed into casual clothes and walked through the evening tourist crowds to the Rod and Reel Club. A tall Chinese transvestite and a haole surfer dude were laughing and talking in front of an ABC Store, and tiny orange-billed mynah birds pecked at crumbs on the sidewalk. Slack key guitar music spilled out of every other shop. I put my hands in the pockets of my board shorts and felt like whistling.
My neighborhood gay bar, the Rod and Reel Club, was like a second home, and as I hoped, Gunter was there, having just come in from his shift at the Grand Kuhio. There was another guy with him, a haole in his fifties wearing what looked at first glance like a police uniform-but wasn’t.
“Hey, Kimo, I want you to meet my new boss,” Gunter said, waving me over. “Stan LoCicero, Kimo Kanapa’aka.”
“The homicide detective,” Stan said, reaching out to shake my hand. “Nice to meet you. I admire everything you’ve done.”
He had an unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth, a ruddy complexion, and the lines and wrinkles that come with a life well lived. But I could see he’d been quite handsome when he was younger. “You don’t know everything I’ve done,” I said, and we all laughed.
I ordered a beer and we talked for a while. I couldn’t help checking Stan out; as Gunter had said, he was hot. His body was in good shape for a man his age-but it was something about his attitude that made him attractive. He looked like the kind of guy who’d learned a few tricks, and who’d be happy to show them off.
“You know, you’re not the only gay cop in Honolulu,” Stan said to me. “I could tell you stories about a captain in the traffic division, for example.”
“Really?” I didn’t know every cop in Honolulu, but I had a feeling that if there was a gay captain somewhere I might have met him.
“No names, of course,” Stan said. “A fella has to be discreet. But if this guy ever pulls you over, it won’t be for speeding. And once you start blowing him, he never says stop.”
We all laughed. “He’s in traffic?” I asked. “Haole, Hawaiian…what?”
Stan pretended to run a zipper over his lips. “My lips are sealed. That is, unless there’s a dick in the vicinity.”
He looked at his watch. “Speaking of which. I’ve got a date with a hot little piece of Japanese ass. Much though I’d like to hang out with you gentlemen, Big Stan needs to have his fun.”
He stood up, shook our hands, and said it had been nice to meet me. “I’ll see you Friday, Gunter.” He laid a bill on the counter. “You guys have a round on me.”
“Thanks, Stan,” Gunter said.
When he’d left, I said, “Big Stan?”
“I told you, he’s hung like a horse.”
“But come on. Do you have a name for your dick?”
“Dick?”
“More like Little Richard,” I said.
“You didn’t say that the last time I plowed your ass,” Gunter said.
“Speaking of assholes. I saw Mike Riccardi tonight.” I told him about running into Mike at the fire on Sunday night, about working with him, and then about our dinner at Aunt Mei-Mei’s.
Gunter had never liked Mike much, because Mike was so closeted, and Mike disapproved of Gunter’s flamboyance and sexual adventuring. “You’re not getting back together with him, are you?” Gunter asked. “Because if you say you are, I’m going to tie you to your bed until you come to your senses.”
“You mean tie me to my bed and fuck me till I’m senseless?”
“You are the best-looking guy in the bar at the moment,” he said. “Well, second best, after me.”
I could go home by myself, I thought. Be good, be celibate. But I was damned horny, after the date with Dr. Phil, seeing Mike, then flirting with Stan LoCicero. Chances were, if I went home by myself, I’d end up online, looking for sex at MenSayHi, and I knew that was a bad idea.
Sex with Gunter wasn’t the smartest idea in the world either. But at the time, it seemed like the safest path to take. I drained the last of my beer and said, “Well, you’re not Big Stan, but you’ll do.”
BEAUTY AND HIDDEN DANGER
I surfed in the early morning, trying to avoid thinking about Mike, Gunter, or the fact that the arson investigation had stalled. We’d interviewed all the tenants except the owner of the acupuncture clinic, for whom the Hong Kong address was a dead end. Everyone we spoke to represented a successful, thriving business without a motive for arson. Even the corporation that had bought the center from my father checked out.
We knew nothing about the victim, other than that his body type matched that of Jingtao, the boy Tico had picked up in the alley. Jingtao may not even have been his name. We passed Tatiana’s sketch out to the cops in the area, and Ray and I canvassed the stores and offices to see if anyone recognized him. No one did.
Ray and I got roped into a stakeout for another case, and we spent the rest of the day sitting in my truck, hoping that a teenaged gangbanger would show up at his mother’s house in Wahiawa. The gangbanger was a suspect in the murder of two drug dealers in Waikiki, one of whom was his girlfriend’s brother. “Want to get this case resolved before Thanksgiving,” Ray said. “Be awkward having that big family dinner when you’re worried your boyfriend might have killed your brother.”
“Think about bringing him home to meet Mama,” I said. “Nice to meet you. Did you kill my son?”
We sat like that, just shooting the shit, and I felt damn lucky that Ray was the guy who’d stumbled into the department when I needed a partner. He was smart, in brains and street knowledge, he was patient, and he had a good heart. Plus he liked Hawaiian music, so we went through CD after CD of Sam Alama and his Islanders, Pua Almeida and his Club Pago Pago Orchestra, and the Brothers Cazimero.
Most days, you spend more time with your partner than you do with your significant other. You’ve got to find a guy who’s on the same wavelength you are, or else you butt heads all day long. Ray and I argued sometimes, but neither of us held a grudge for long.