With Lyman’s mug shot in mind, I furtively scrutinized the faces of the kanaka pimps and bootleggers, roughnecks in loose shirts and trousers, hands lost in pockets, hands that could emerge with money or reefers or guns or knives; men with dark eyes in dark faces, round faces, oval faces, square faces, every kind of face but a smiling one.
For a place where sin was for sale, there was a startling absence of joy here.
Up ahead was a central area, or as close to one as the randomly laid out village had; a gentle fog of smoke rose from a shallow stone barbecue pit where a coffeepot nestled among glowing orange coals. Nearby, cigarettes drooping from their lips, a pair of Polynesian pimps played cards at a small wooden table not designed for that purpose; they had to hunker over it, particularly the taller of the two, a broad-shouldered bearded brute in a dirty white shirt and dungarees. The other cardplayer, a wispy-mustached pig in a yellow and orange aloha shirt, had more chins than the Honolulu phone book.
I got out of the way of a couple haole college kids who were heading home (or somewhere) with two jugs of oke, and I almost bumped into somebody. I turned, and it was a Chinese girl with a cherubic face and a flicker of life in her eyes.
She asked, “Wan’ trip ’round world, han’some?”
Second time tonight somebody called me that; unfortunately, the male who called me that had sounded more sincere.
I leaned in so close I could have kissed her. Instead, I whispered, “You want to make five bucks?”
The red-rouged mouth smiled; the teeth were yellow, or maybe it was just the bamboo-torch light. She was drenched in perfume and it wasn’t Chanel Number Five, but it had its own cheap allure. She was maybe sixteen—sweet sixteen, as Darrow had said of Thalia. The angel face was framed by twin scythe blades of shiny black hair.
“Step inside, han’some,” she said.
That time she sounded like she meant it.
As she was about to duck inside her hut, I stopped her with a hand on her arm, easily; her flesh was cool, smooth. “I don’t want what you think.”
She frowned. “No tie me up. Not even for five buck.”
“No,” I said, and laughed once. “I just want a little information.”
“Jus’ wan’ talk?”
“Just want talk,” I said softly. “I hear there’s a kanaka who needs a boat to the mainland, no questions asked.”
She shrugged. “Lot kanaka wan’ go mainland. Don’ you wan’ go ’round world, han’some?”
Very softly, I said, “His name’s Daniel Lyman.”
She frowned again, thinking. Now she whispered: “Five buck, I tell you where Dan Ly Man is?”
I nodded.
“No tell ’im who tol’ you?”
I nodded again.
“He got temper like lolo dog.” She shook a finger in my face. “No tell him.”
“No tell him,” I said.
“I tell you where. I not point. You let me go inside, then you go see Dan Ly Man.”
“Fine. Where the hell is he?”
“Where hell five buck?”
I gave her a fin.
She pulled the hem of her sarong up and slipped the five-spot into a garter that held a wad of greenbacks. She smiled as she saw me taking a gander at the white of her thigh.
“You like Anna Mae bank?” she asked.
“Sure do. Kinda wish I had time to make another deposit.”
She laughed tinklingly and slipped her arms around my neck and whispered in my ear. “You got more dollar? We go inside, you talk Dan Ly Man later. Make you happy.”
I pushed her away, gently. Kissed my forefinger and touched the tip of her nose. Her cute nose. “Save your money, honey. Go to the mainland and find one man to make happy.”
The life in her eyes pulsed; her smile was a half-smile, but it was genuine. “Someday I do that, han’some.” Then she whispered, barely audibly: “Beard man.” And she nodded her head toward the two pimps playing gin.
Then she slipped inside the hovel.
The full-face beard had been enough, added to the dim, otherworldly torch lighting, to keep me from recognizing him. But as I wandered over to the barbecue pit, I could see it was him, clearly enough; the deep pockmarks even showed under the nubby beard.
And those were the blank eyes of Daniel Lyman, all right. And the many-times-broken lump of a nose.
I drifted over, stopping by the barbecue pit, very near where they were playing.
I spoke to the fat one: “What’s in the pot? Tea or coffee?”
The fat one looked up from his hand of cards with the disdain of a Michelangelo interrupted at his sculpting. “Coffee,” he grunted.
“Is it up for grabs?” I asked pleasantly.
Lyman, not looking up from his cards, said, “Take it.”
“Thanks.”
I reached for the pot, gripped it by its ebony handle.
Casually, I said, “I hear somebody’s looking for a boat to the mainland.”
Neither Lyman nor the fat guy said anything. They didn’t react at all.
Some tin cups were balanced along the stones; I selected one that seemed relatively clean—no floating cigarette butts or anything.
“I can provide that,” I said, “no questions asked. Private boat. Rich man’s yacht. Comfortable quarters, not down with the boiler room boys.”
“Gin,” the fat man chortled.
“Fuck you,” Lyman said, and gathered in the cards and shuffled.
“You’re Lyman, aren’t you?” I said, slowly filling the tin cup with steaming coffee.
Lyman looked up at me; his face had an ugly nobility, a primitive strength, like the carved stone visage of some Hawaiian god. The kind villages sacrificed maidens to, to keep him from getting pissed off.
“No names,” he said. He kept shuffling the cards.
I set the coffeepot on the stones that edged the pit. Tried to sip my cup, but it was too hot.
I said, “Tell me what you can afford. Maybe we can do some business.”
“I don’t know you,” Lyman said. His dark eyes picked up the orangish glow of the torchlight and the coals in the pit, and seemed themselves to glow, like a goddamn demon’s. “I don’t do business with stranger.”
That’s when I threw the cup of coffee in his face.
He howled and got clumsily to his feet, overturning the table, cards scattering, and the fat man, quicker than he had any right to be, pulled a knife from somewhere, with a blade you could carve a canoe out of a tree with, and I grabbed the coffeepot and splashed the fat bastard in his face, too.
It wasn’t scalding, but it got their attention, or rather it averted it, the knife fumbling from the fat man’s grasp, while I drew my nine-millimeter. By the time Lyman had wiped the coffee from his face and eyes, I had the gun trained on him.
“I’m not interested in you, Fatso,” I said. “Lyman, come with me.”
“Fuck you, cop,” Lyman said.
“Oh, did you want sugar with that? I’m sorry. We’ll get you some downtown.”
He was facing a gun, an automatic, the kind of weapon that can kill you right now, and he had every reason to be afraid, and I had every reason to feel smug, only feeling smug is always dangerous when you’re facing down the likes of Daniel Lyman, who wasn’t afraid at all and came barreling at me so fast, so suddenly, I didn’t think to shoot till he was on top of me and then the shot only tore a place along his shirt, cutting through the cloth and a little of him, only, shit, it was me going backward into that barbecue pit, and I had the presence of mind to clutch him like a lover and squeeze and roll and we hit not the coals but the stones, which was good, but we hit them hard, or I did, my back did, which wasn’t good, pain sending a white lightning bolt through my brain.
We rolled together, locked in an embrace, onto the ground and his shoulder dug into my forearm and I felt the fingers of my hand pop open and the gun jump out. Then I was pinned under him, and when I looked up into the contorted bearded orange-cast face hovering above me, the only thing I could hit it with was my forehead, and I did, hitting him in the mouth, and I heard him grunt in pain as teeth snapped, and he let go of me and I was squirming out from under him when the same massive fist that had no doubt broken Thalia Massie’s jaw slammed into mine.