“Jimmy’s a good kid,” I said. “He’s smart and he’s got a sweet nature. He’s been coming to the self-defense classes I lead at the Waikiki Gay Teen Center. But that’s my only involvement with him.” I took a deep breath. “I know you don’t want to ask this but I’ll tell you anyway. I am not sexually involved with him in any way, shape or form. He’s just a kid I feel like needs a friend.”
“What you did was pretty stupid,” Sampson said. “You know how vulnerable you are to any innuendo in the press, don’t you?” He took a sidelong look at Lui. “If somebody gets hold of the connection between you and a teen-aged boy prostitute, just the speculation could lose you your badge. It would hurt you and it would hurt the department.”
“He didn’t have anybody else to look out for him.” I turned to look at the fire again. “I understand what you’re saying, but I’d do it again if it came to that.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said. “So you don’t know how he got up on the mountain with Kitty?”
I shook my head. “I know Jimmy was back on the streets, though I’ve been looking for him for two days and I couldn’t find him. I saw Jeff White out on Kalakaua late one night, and I think he might have been out looking for prostitutes himself. Maybe just to bring them into the church, maybe not. And maybe somebody from the church took Jimmy in. The helicopter also saw another car, a Volvo, looked like it had been abandoned along the trail. We know Kitty was meeting the Hardings and their two children, and there might have been other church members at this picnic.”
“So there could be a whole church full of picnickers out there in this fire,” Sampson said. “Lovely.”
I turned to Lui. “Do you or Liliha know anything about this church we should know?”
Haoa and Sampson turned toward him as well. “Don’t tell me, brah,” Haoa said. “You’ve been going to this dumb church? Your kids, too?”
“We just went to a couple of their meetings,” Lui said defensively. “Liliha thought they had a good, family-friendly message.”
“Get a pair of balls, brah,” Haoa said. “Your wife expects you to choose between her and your brother, who you gonna choose?”
Lui is two years older than Haoa, and since childhood they’ve been sparring, each determined to be the best. When Lui threw a luau for his oldest son Jeffrey’s eight-grade graduation, Haoa had to throw a bigger one the next year for the birth of his youngest child. I was lucky that I’d avoided rivalry with them; the only times it seemed that they’d collaborated had been to pick on me, the baby brother.
But there was no time for rehashing old family rivalries. “All right,” I said. “Let’s table this discussion for later. Nobody’s choosing between anybody right now. And besides, Liliha and I kissed and made up before she left.”
My brothers were glaring at each other as my father came to the back door and called out, “Come take a look at the maps of the park and the ridge.”
We went inside, where he had spread a faded topographical map on Uncle Chin’s dining room table. I saw Sampson glance over at Uncle Chin’s coffin, at the incense and platters of food, but I guess he knew enough of Hawai’i not to be surprised.
The four of us clustered around the table with my father, who leaned heavily on the table. His hospitalization, and the death of Uncle Chin, wore heavily on his big frame, and though he was clearly healing, I felt very protective of him. I wanted to make him go home, lie down and rest, but there was too much to do and we needed whatever help he could provide.
“See how the Wa’ahila trail continues up the ridge?” he said. “There are some old homestead cabins up there, just outside the park boundary. No one lives up there full time, but people still use the cabins.”
“So somebody set one of those cabins on fire,” Sampson said.
“Looks like it. The good news for you is that there’s only one road in or out of the area. It leads down into the park.”
“My partner from Waikiki, Akoni Hapa’ele, and another guy from Organized Crime have already gone up there to coordinate a blockade and any evacuation.”
My father continued. “The bad news is that the road snakes back and forth up the hill. So if your suspects are on foot, they won’t bother using it. There are at least two trails that lead down the mountain, but go in different directions.”
Akoni came walking into the kitchen then. “We’ve got a bunch of black and whites, and a SWAT team at the park entrance, ready to head in.” He’d hitched a ride over with some campers who were leaving. “Tony’s over there, but he needs to know what to do.”
“Lui, Haoa and I can each take a team into the park,” I said. “We know the trails and the road better than anyone, from all the time we’ve spent hiking and camping in the park and up on the ridge as kids.”
Sampson looked grim. “I don’t like to involve civilians, but we’re in a crisis situation here,” he said. “Let’s head out.”
We went out front, and I saw the elderly gamblers were still there. Their duty was to protect Uncle Chin’s corpse, and nothing short of flames licking at their heels was going to drag them away.
Behind us, my parents, Aunt Mei-Mei and Genevieve Pang clustered around the front door. My father leaned against the door frame, and my mother stood close to him, fiercely protective, clearly torn between her responsibilities to him, to her sons, and to her lifelong best friend.
Lui, Haoa and Sampson took Haoa’s panel truck again, and Akoni climbed in with me for the ride down the hill and around to the park entrance. For a couple of minutes it was like we were partners again. There was so much that I wanted to tell him and no time.
By the time we reached the park entrance, the smell of smoke was overwhelming. The narrow neighborhood roads were crowded with black and whites and undercover cars parked in driveways and on grassy verges, as every available unit had been called to the ridge to help search for the fugitives. We could barely snake through in my truck.
The two-lane entry to the park was lined with tall Norfolk pine trees, with wild roosters and hens wandering around below them. We parked next to a stone wall by the wooden park gate.
I assembled the cops and my brothers into a semi-circle. “We all know what we have to do.” I pointed at my brothers. “You guys remember, you’re tour guides, not cops. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Haoa knelt down to finger some leaves, then held them up to us. “This mountain is dry as a bone. If you see a small fire, you can try to stamp it out, but anything bigger you’ve got to get the hell away.”
I thought of Mike Riccardi then, and hoped he would be all right. I didn’t like the idea of him running into forest fires, but then again, he probably didn’t like my going after bad guys with guns either.
I took Akoni, Lidia Portuondo, and Gary Saunders, a uniform I’d known in Waikiki, on my team. I punched Saunders in the face after he called me a faggot once, but at least I knew him, his strengths and weaknesses. He was a big, strong guy, too, which might help us if we ran into somebody up on the ridge who needed to be restrained.
Haoa took Tony Lee, Frank Sit, Steve Hart and another uniform, and Lui got Alvy Greenberg and three uniforms.
I was just ready to pull out when Mike Riccardi arrived, loping up the hill from where he’d parked his truck. I was so damn glad to see him-but at the same time, I knew that his presence meant he was about to go into that fire.
THE HARDINGS
Lui’s team and Haoa’s team went up the mountain in separate directions, so it wasn’t long before I lost sight and sound of my brothers. I worried about them, but I knew they both were smart and strong and knew the park well. I turned my attention back to Mike, who was explaining the fire department’s plans to Lieutenant Sampson