If she just lay there and let them have her, maybe they wouldn’t hit her. But could she do that without losing her mind? She had no idea of anything just then, except how many places she hurt and how disgusted with life she was.
“God damn you, Yosh,” she muttered. “Why didn’t you tell me what they wanted me for?” He’d probably been too embarrassed to come out and say it; middle-aged local Japanese were downright Victorian. But why, oh why, oh why, hadn’t she taken the hint and lit out for the tall timber?
OSCAR VAN DER KIRK PACED HIS CROWDED little apartment like a tiger going back and forth in its cage. “For God’s sake, will you cut that out?” Susie Higgins said. “You’re making me nervous.”
He did stop-for about thirty seconds. Then he was going back and forth again. “Something’s happened to Charlie,” he said.
Susie rolled her blue, blue eyes. “How can you tell?” she said in tones obviously intended for sweet reason. “He’s a surf bum. He’s even more of a surf bum than you are. He doesn’t know today what he’ll do tomorrow-and he doesn’t care, either. If he disappears for a few days or a few weeks, so what? Maybe he’s gone up to the north shore again or something.”
“Not now.” Oscar’s dismissal of that was altogether automatic. “It’ll be flatter than a pancake up there this time of year.”
“Then he’s got some other harebrained scheme going instead.”
Oscar shook his head. “I don’t think so. We were supposed to go out together this morning, but he didn’t show. You can count on Charlie. If he says he’ll be somewhere, he’ll be there.”
“Maybe a shark ate him.”
“Maybe one did,” Oscar answered. “You can joke. You don’t go out there like I do. It doesn’t happen very often, but it happens. Or maybe the Japs got him.”
Susie snorted. “Why would the Japs want a half-breed surf-rider, for crying out loud? Get serious.”
He didn’t answer. He could think of some reasons. He’d had an encounter with an American sub skipper out there on the Pacific. Maybe Charlie Kaapu had, too, or with the crew of a flying boat, or… Who could tell? Oscar had never said a word to anybody-Susie emphatically included-about his meeting. If Charlie had any brains, he would have kept his yap shut, too. The fewer people you told, the fewer people could blab. Living under the Japs had taught the people of Hawaii what living under the Nazis taught the people of France: keeping your head down, not drawing the occupiers’ notice, was a damn good idea.
Charlie didn’t even tell me anything, if there was anything to tell, Oscar thought. That hurt his feelings, even though he’d just gone through all the reasons keeping quiet was a good idea, and even though he hadn’t told Charlie about the sub. Logic? None at all. At least he could laugh at himself for realizing it.
Susie was studying him. She’d never been to college-he wasn’t sure she’d finished high school-but she was better at reading people than he was. “You’ve got that knight-in-shining-armor look on your face again,” she said. “Don’t do anything dumb, Oscar. You can end up dead. Easy.”
“Me? Don’t be silly.” He laughed-uneasily. “Some knight. I’m just a surf bum myself-you said so. Besides, when did you ever see that look on me before?”
“When you took me in,” Susie answered. “Oh, I knew what you wanted. Fair enough-that’s the knight’s reward. But a lot of people wouldn’t have wanted to go on with it when things got tough. You did.”
“You walked out on me,” he reminded her.
“That wasn’t on account of the Japs. We were driving each other squirrely,” Susie said, which was true. She sent him a sidelong look. “But Charlie can’t give you what I could-or he’d better not be able to, anyway.”
His cheeks heated, as much in anger as in embarrassment. He was no fairy! If Susie didn’t have reason to know that… Her eyes sparkled. She’d wanted to get under his skin, and she had. But he wasn’t going to write Charlie off just because she’d annoyed him. Stubbornly, he said, “He’s my buddy, darn it.
I was going to go round his place, see if anybody knows anything, that’s all. Safe as houses.”
“And then you wake up,” Susie said, which sounded a hell of a lot more caustic than Yeah, sure. She looked at him again. “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of it, am I?” She shook her head. “No, of course I’m not. You do have that look. Well, for Christ’s sake be as careful as you can, you fool.”
He managed a lopsided grin. “You say the sweetest things, babe. I didn’t know you cared.”
To his surprise-hell, to his amazement-she turned red this time. “Damn you, Oscar, sometimes you’re an even bigger blockhead than usual,” she muttered. He almost asked her what the devil she was talking about, but he had the feeling that would be letting her win, so he kept quiet.
When they went to bed that night, she reached for him before he could reach for her. She slid down and took him in her mouth till he was close to exploding, then straddled him and rode him like a racehorse.
By the time she finished, he thought he’d just won the Kentucky Derby. She leaned forward to give him a kiss, her breasts pressing softly against his chest. “Wow!” he said sincerely.
“You’ve got something to remember me by, anyway,” she said, “in case I never happen to see you again.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. Susie squeezed him and didn’t answer. She’d already given him her opinion.
When morning came, she was out the door before him. Her job had regular hours, which he’d always despised. And she had to get over to Honolulu, while he only needed to wander over to the shabby part of Waikiki. Tourists, jammed hard against the beach, didn’t think Waikiki had any shabby parts. The farther inland you went, though…
Charlie’s apartment building made Oscar’s seem like the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. On the mainland, stray dogs would have been sniffing at garbage on the corners in this kind of neighborhood. Here, they’d probably been caught and cooked and eaten. He didn’t see any, anyhow.
A woman who looked as if she worked on Hotel Street came out of the building. “Hey!” Oscar called to her. “You seen Charlie any time lately?”
“Who wants to know?” She eyed him. “Oh, it’s you. You hang around with him. Maybe you’re okay.” She stayed cagey, though. “How come you wanna know?”
“He owes me a bottle of okolehao,” Oscar answered, which wasn’t true but was plausible. With liquor imports from the mainland cut off, the stuff distilled from ti root was the best hooch around, and correspondingly important. You would want to find out about somebody who owed it to you.
“Yeah?” the woman said. Oscar knew what that hungry tone of voice meant: she wondered if it was still in Charlie’s apartment. But her shoulders slumped as she went on, “I ain’t seen him since the cops took him away night before last.” Plainly, she figured that if the cops had him, they had his okolehao, too. Oscar would have bet the same way.
“The cops?” he said. “What do the cops want with Charlie? If you know him, you know he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” That wasn’t a hundred percent true; when Charlie had a few too many, he’d get into bar fights. But even those were on the friendly side. He’d never ground a broken bottle into anybody’s face or anything like that. Oscar didn’t think he’d ever gone to jail for one.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I just mind my business.” The woman dripped righteousness. By the way her eyes darted now here, now there, she also minded other people’s business every chance she got. She said, “Maybe he couldn’t pay his rent.”
“Nah. They just throw your stuff out on the street then.” Oscar spoke from experience. “Besides, he catches fish. Way things are now, that’s a heck of a lot better than money.”
“Beats me.” The woman shrugged. “I gotta go, buddy. They come down on me like you wouldn’t believe if I’m late.” Away she went, hips working under her short dress.