“How did you know Tommy?” I asked, as Akoni and I sat down in chairs across from Dong’s broad mahogany desk. The office was decorated with classic Chinese antiques, Persian rugs and exquisite calligraphy. It was hard to imagine Tommy Pang in these surroundings.
“We met in Hong Kong,” Dong said. “My family left Vietnam shortly before the Communist takeover and relocated there. Tommy was already a successful businessman. We were introduced and did some business together, and gradually became friends. In 1984 his father sent for him and Tommy moved here. We continued to do business together across the Pacific until I relocated my family here. I could not consider staying in Hong Kong under Communist rule.”
“When you say business,” Akoni asked, “Can you be more specific? What kind of business do you do?”
“I am a trader. I find someone who wants something, and then find someone who has it. Sometimes I match them up and collect a fee; sometimes I buy the needed good and then resell it.”
“Do you know anyone who might have had a reason to kill Tommy?”
He shook his head emphatically. “No one at all. He was respected in the community and loved by his family.”
“Did he ever express any anxiety to you?” I asked. “Any business deals that might not be going right, any person he had problems with?”
Dong steepled his hands, and looked down at them for a minute, then looked up at us. “How can I put this diplomatically?” he asked, not really expecting an answer from us. “Tommy was a good businessman. To be good, sometimes you have to be strong. Other people can see that as hardness. There were people Tommy dealt with who were not happy with the outcome of their dealings. But that happens to any businessman from time to time. I don’t know of anyone who felt strongly enough against him to kill him.”
I looked at Akoni. It was obvious we weren’t going to get much more of Dong Shi-Dao. As we stood, though, I said, “By the way, I think I saw someone I knew coming out of your office as we were coming in. A young woman?”
Dong stood with us. “Ah, yes, a friend of Tommy’s. She was looking for financial backing for a business enterprise. Sadly, I was unable to help her.”
“That young woman was arrested in a drug deal in Waikiki,” I said. “She and an accomplice were about to sell me a pound of heroin before someone warned them off. I know she was Tommy’s mistress, as well. Was he her backer?”
Dong tried to look horrified. “I don’t know anything about this.”
“We may be back with more questions,” I said. I handed him my card, which he took as if it was contaminated. “If you think of anything else you want to tell us, about Tommy or his mistress or a pound of Mexican heroin, you’ll know where to find us.”
Dong closed his office door sharply behind us. “You think he was telling the truth?” I asked as we walked toward the garage where we had both parked.
“About what?”
I shrugged. “Anything?”
“I think he probably doesn’t know who killed Tommy,” Akoni said. “And that means we’re no closer to figuring it out either.”
“If Luz Maria was Tommy’s mistress, then he was behind the drug deal. I wonder if Dong was in it with them.”
“You think he might have killed Tommy to take over the business?”
“I don’t know,” I said as we reached the garage where we’d both parked. “There are a lot of pieces floating around and most of them don’t seem to fit together yet.”
Akoni and I met up at the station, where we ate lunch at our desks, take-out sandwiches from the deli across Kalakaua Avenue, and tracked Luz Maria through the system. She and Pedro had been processed at the main station, but without any evidence, no charges had been filed. I checked my city directory for the address they’d both given, and big surprise, it didn’t exist.
“I think we need to sit down and go over what we’ve found,” I said, leaning back in my chair.
“Agreed.”
“According to their accounts, Derek Pang and Wayne Gallagher were with Tommy Pang at the Rod and Reel Club around midnight.”
“Wait a minute,” Akoni said. “What time did Treasure Chen say she left Tommy?”
I looked at my notes. “She just says she met him at ten, when she got off her shift, and they were together for a couple of hours. That could put him back at the club at midnight.”
“All right. Go on.”
“Derek and Wayne say Tommy met with a cop. If that’s true, then the meeting was probably related to the deal that failed.”
“Maybe this mystery cop is the one who tipped off Luz Maria and Pedro, and Tommy was showing his appreciation.”
A light bulb clicked on. “Derek said he saw his father give this cop a jewelry box, the kind you’d put a bracelet or a necklace in. That could have been the thanks.”
There was something else rattling around in my brain about a jewelry box, but I couldn’t pin it down. Finally I gave up. “Derek and Wayne say when they left, the cop and Tommy were together. Wayne says they went to the Boardwalk bar; Derek says they went up to Mount Tantalus and parked and made out for a while.”
“Lies,” Akoni said. He reached for his coffee cup, found it was empty, and got up to refill it.
“Well, we have to clear that up,” I said. “And we have to see if we can find the cop Tommy was with.”
“If there was a cop, and not just the two fags blowing smoke up our asses.” He looked at me. “You’re not going to get pissed off if I use the word fag, are you?”
“Did I ever get pissed off before? I don’t want you to change anything because of me. That’s what being partners is about. I accept you, you accept me.”
“Deal,” he said. He took a long drink of his coffee. “So you believe that there really is a cop somewhere in this story.”
“Too many independent sources,” I said. “Melvin Ah Wong says Tommy had a haole cop with a Portuguese name on his payroll. Derek and Wayne say there was a cop at the office that night. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
“Quack, quack.”
“Going on,” I said. “Tommy Pang was bashed in the back of the head between 1:30 and 2:30, by person or persons unknown. The event undoubtedly took place in the back alley behind the Rod and Reel Club, adjacent to the door to Tommy’s office.”
“And our suspects would be…?”
I started ticking them off on my fingers. “Derek Pang. Wayne Gallagher. They alibi each other, but their alibis are weak. Treasure Chen, Luz Maria, and Genevieve Pang. He’d just broken up with Treasure; she could be lying to us. Maybe they actually broke up at the office, and she got mad and whacked him.”
Akoni shook his head. “I checked her out. Didn’t have the upper body strength.”
“So she has a brother. I’m leaving her on the list. Maybe he and Luz Maria argued over the drug deal that didn’t work and she killed him.” I looked at Akoni. “You check out her upper body?”
“She could do it. But Genevieve Pang couldn’t.”
“Genevieve Pang could have hired someone. Final suspect is the mystery cop. We need to do something to try and track him down.”
The station was particularly busy, with a pack of skateboarders in receiving. They all seemed to have streaked hair, baggy clothes and body piercings, and they all wanted to talk at once. The desk sergeant was having a hard time keeping them in line.
“That’s a needle in a haystack, Kimo. We got thousands of cops on the force.”
The desk sergeant was yelling at the skateboarders by then and Akoni had to move closer to my desk so he could hear me. “Yeah, but not every one has information Tommy can use,” I said. “You think we can look up Tommy’s past beefs, maybe find somebody he might have crossed paths with?”
“Still a needle in a haystack.” Akoni was not getting convinced.
“We could start with the black tar bust,” I said. “We know Tommy was behind that, because we’ve got a connection between him and Luz Maria. We also know somebody tipped off Luz Maria at the last minute. That could have come from a leak.”