Coca-Cola signs, Standard Oil pumps, drugstore window posters advertising Old Gold Cigarettes were a reminder that this was America, all right, despite the coconut trees and foreign faces.
Soon we were climbing into an area that Leisure labeled Manoa Valley, and that our youthful Navy chauffeur further identified as “The Valley of Sunshine and Tears.”
“There’s a legend,” the driver said in a husky voice, turning his head to us but keeping an eye on the road, “that in olden days, a maiden who lived in this valley met with tragedy. Lies were told about her virtue, and it made her man jealous, and all involved came to a bad end.”
“Such stories often turn out thus,” Darrow said gravely.
Right now we were moving through a silk-stocking district, spacious near-mansions with beautifully maintained gardens and spacious golf-course-perfect lawns. We were on the incline that was well-shaded Punahou Street, and the college of that name was off to our right, up-to-date buildings on lavish royal palm-flung grounds.
“Somebody has money,” I said.
Leisure nodded toward a stately mansion that might well have been an estate outside London. “This is old white money—they call them kaimaaina haoles…missionaries, Yankee traders, and their descendants. We’re talking second-and third-generation, now. You’ve heard of the ‘Big Five’?”
“Isn’t that a college football conference?”
Leisure’s narrow lips pursed a smile. “Hawaii’s Big Five are the plantation, shipping, and merchandising companies that own these islands. Matson Lines money, Liberty House, which is the local version of Sears…”
“The white man came to Hawaii,” Darrow intoned suddenly, as if from a pulpit, “and urged the simple natives to turn their eyes upward to God…but when the natives looked down to earth again, their goddamn land was gone.”
We rose into the upper portion of Manoa Valley, where the estates gave way to a network of shady lanes and a concentration of cottages and bungalows. Though we were on a steep gradient, the boundaries of the valley were steeper still—mountainous slopes providing a dark blue backdrop; it was as if this were a stadium scooped from the earth by nature, and we were down on the Big Five’s playing field.
I posed a question to the driver. “How far are we from Pearl Harbor?”
“A good half an hour, sir.”
“Is it common for a Navy officer to live this far from the base?”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said. “In fact, quite a few Navy officers live in Manoa Valley—Army as well. Lt. Massie and a number of other younger officers live within close proximity of one another, sir.”
“Oh. That’s nice. Then they can get together, socialize…”
“I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” the driver said, strangely curt.
Had I touched a nerve?
Number 2850 on the narrow slope of Kahawai Street was a precious white Tudor-style bungalow, its gabled roofs decorated with vertical and diagonal slashes of brown trim, and large brown-striped canvas awnings so determined to keep out the sun that they almost hid the windows. Though the yard was tiny, foliage was plentiful, well-trimmed boxcar-shaped hedges hugging the little house, several oriental trees like absurdly large bushes providing sheltering green. I wasn’t sure whether the effect was one of coziness or concealment.
There was a driveway, where the Navy driver pulled in; the street was too narrow to park along. Soon, Isabel and I, heads craned back, were standing in the street, admiring the way the mountains provided a misty green backdrop to the little house.
The Navy chauffeur was helping Darrow out of the backseat as the sound of a screen door closing announced a lanky guy of about thirty, in white shirt with sleeves rolled back and crisp canary trousers, legs knifing as he rushed out to greet us. His brown hair was rather thin, but his smile was generous; he was bestowing it on Darrow, who was standing in the drive next to Leisure.
“Pleased to meet you, sir—I’m Lt. Francis Olds, but my friends call me Pop. I’d be honored if you’d pay me that compliment.”
The enthusiastic Olds was extending a hand, which Darrow took, shook, saying, “Much as I’d like to please you, Lieutenant, I’m afraid I couldn’t quite bring myself to that. This suit I’m wearing is older than you.”
“Well,” the lieutenant said, folding his arms, grinning, “at thirty, I’m the old man around here—Tommie and the rest, they’re just a buncha fresh-faced kids barely outta college.”
Darrow’s gray eyes narrowed. “You’re a friend of Lt. Massie’s?”
“I’m sorry! I haven’t explained myself. I run the Ammunition Depot, out at Pearl. My wife and I have been taking turns keeping Thalia company, making sure the press and any curiosity-seekers don’t bother her here, during the day. We post armed guards at night.”
Darrow frowned. “The situation’s that severe?”
He nodded. “There have been bomb threats. Word of gangs of Japs and native trash driving around Manoa Valley in their junker cars…. You know, I’m afraid you have me to blame for your involvement in this, Mr. Darrow.”
“How is that, Lieutenant?”
The lieutenant pointed at himself with a thumb. “I’m the one brought up your name. I’m the one encouraged Mrs. Fortescue to hit up her rich friends on the mainland for the dough it would take to get a really top lawyer. And I knew you were the only man for this case.”
Wry amusement creased Darrow’s face. “You have excellent judgment, young man.”
“And, well…I’m also running the fund-raising drive, at the base, to raise your fee to cover Lord and Jones.”
“Who?”
“The two enlisted men you’re defending!”
The accomplices to Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie Massie in the killing of Joseph Kahahawai. I didn’t think C.D. had spent much time going over those transcripts and statements back on the Malolo. Leisure was wincing.
“Well, then,” Darrow said, with no apology for forgetting the names of two of the clients he’d come thousands of miles to defend, “I guess I will have to capitulate to your request…Pop.”
Darrow introduced Isabel, Leisure, and myself to Pop Olds, who greeted us warmly, glad to see anybody who was part of the great Darrow’s team. He walked us behind the hedge to the front door.
“We’re friends of the Massies,” he explained. “My wife and I were in a play with Thalia and Tommie, at the local Little Theater.” He grinned shyly. “Actually, Thalia and I are the hams…. I arranged walk-ons for our spouses so we could all spend some time together.”
So Thalia Massie was an actress; I’d have to keep that in mind.
Darrow was laying a hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “I’m grateful for your attentiveness to Mrs. Massie, Pop…but I have to ask you a courtesy.”
“Anything, Mr. Darrow.”
“Wait out here while I speak to Mrs. Massie. I view her as a client in this case, and wish to limit the audience for the painful memories I must go probing after.”
Olds seemed a little disappointed to be left out, but he said, “Certainly, sir—certainly. I’ll just catch a few smokes out here….”
A maid in a brown uniform with white apron met us as we stepped inside; she was Japanese, petite, quietly pretty, without an ounce of makeup, her shiny black hair in a Louise Brooks bob.
“Miss Massie resting,” she said, lowering her head respectfully. She was addressing Darrow, who stood at the head of our group, crowding into the little living room. “But she ask I wake her when you arrive.”
And she went quickly off.
The place was pretty impersonal; my guess was they’d rented the bungalow furnished—with the possible exception of a new-looking walnut veener console radio-phonograph in one corner. This was dark, functional, middle-class nicked-up stuff whose point of origin was probably Sears—or, rather, Liberty House. They’d dressed it up a little—the wine-color mohair davenport and matching armchair had antimacassars; the occasional tables had doilies but almost no knickknacks.