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“Good timing. I was just getting ready to go out.”

“Isn't it past your bedtime?”

“This is paradise. Who has time to sleep?”

“Really?”

Chad sounded skeptical. Frances tried to sound blasé.

“Really.”

“Maybe I should come over and you could show me a good time.”

Francis looked at his cock. He really wished it would go down. “I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“You know, I'm working all day. You'd be bored.”

“I could hang out by the pool.”

And fuck everyone who came within a ten-foot radius.

“I'll think about it.”

“You're still mad at me.”

“Yeah, Chad, I am.”

“I said I was sorry.”

Francis didn't say anything. He looked at the movie playing on the TV and saw the two leads throw their arms around each other in what looked like the Delta Airlines terminal at LAX.

“I
am
sorry.”

“I'm sure you are.”

“I'm trying to change.”

“Don't do it on my account.”

Francis was agitated. Whatever vestige of relaxation he'd had was shot. He opened the drawer by his bed and pulled out the little plastic Baggie of crystal meth. He dumped some on the table.

“Goddammit, Francis, cut me a break here.”

“I'm tired of the lies, Chad. I'm sick to death of them.”

Francis hated himself for being so melodramatic, for sounding like a fucking soap opera. He bent over, stuck a rolled-up bill in his nose, and hoovered up a line of speed. Chad didn't say anything.

“I've got to go.”

Francis started to hang up the phone. But he could hear Chad trying to say something before he did. It sounded like he was apologizing. Apologizing for the ten thousandth time.

...

Lono walked slowly down the street. He stopped casually and window-shopped. Sometimes he'd nod a quick greeting to one of the streetwalkers cruising for tourists. He kept one eye fixed on the young woman across the street. He could tell by her stride that she wasn't cruising. She was on her way somewhere. So Lono played it cool and kept his distance.

He followed her through the Kuhio Mall and the International Market. He waited as she stopped and looked at tie-dyed sarongs at one kiosk, handmade raffia beach bags at another. Lono had never liked the International Market. It was like a low-rent Disneyland: no rides or attractions, just a place for tourists to come and buy earrings made out of coconut shells, T-shirts with stupid slogans like
I GOT LEI'D IN HONOLULU,
or plastic trinkets with the word
ALOHA
imprinted on them. Little souvenirs of Hawaii made in China and Malaysia. He was glad to see she didn't buy anything.

She crossed Kalakaua Avenue and headed down the drive toward the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. This was where Lono had to close the gap between them. He had to see if she was a guest of the hotel or if she was a working girl on her way to meet a client. It was dark on the grounds of the hotel, tiki torches lighting the path at night, and he was able to get within about ten feet of her.

He was relieved to see her take a room key out of her pocket and go directly to the elevator. She nodded at the doorman as she passed.

Lono stopped. He didn't need to follow her anymore. In a few minutes he'd learn everything he needed to know about her from the front desk.

...

Yuki got into the elevator and waited for the doors to close. A sharp tingle, a kind of heebie-jeebie feeling, crept up her spine and gave her a delicate spasm. She thought her aura must've picked up someone else's energy and that energy had bounced from chakra to chakra up her spine like a pinball until it hit the top lotus in her third eye and sent it pinging. Someone was watching her, sending her sexual energy. It felt good.

When the elevator doors opened on her floor, Yuki saw Francis standing there. She could tell right away that he was amped up on something. He was tapping his feet and chewing on the skin around his thumbnail.

“Going out?”

Francis stopped chewing his nail and looked at her.

“Yeah.” He started to get into the elevator but suddenly stopped, holding the door with his hand. “Say, would you like to join me for a drink?”

“I don't drink alcohol.”

“How sensible.” He made that sound like a put-down.

“Not very often anyway.”

“Have you tried a mai tai? They make really good ones downstairs. And they have nice music.”

Yuki was going to decline his offer. She wanted to go to her room and get into bed. She wanted privacy so she could relish the residual effects of whatever had happened to her. But then she remembered her promise to herself. She'd promised to help Francis get over his negativity. It was supposed to be her mission.

“Okay. But just one.”

Francis grinned at her as he ground his teeth. “You won't be disappointed. They're yummy.”

...

The hitman's name was Keith. He'd been with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and was well trained in urban assault, sabotage, infiltration, extraction, and assassination, an education provided by the government, his tuition paid by the taxpayers. He had learned the art of the kill, spent time in Afghanistan perfecting it, and gone on to relish it during black ops in the Philippines and Colombia. Now discharged, he was offering his services, the only thing he knew how to do, to the general public.

He gave Jack the creeps.

Keith had wanted to talk in a more private location, so now he and Jack stood in front of the Bellagio, watching the water fountains boom and swing through the air, as patriotic music blared from loudspeakers.

“Do you want to know why?”

“Just the target's name and location.”

“He's Samoan. Last name's Tanumafili—something like that.”

“I'll need you to be precise.”

Jack reached for his wallet and pulled out one of Sid's business cards. “Here.”

Keith looked at the card and then handed it back to Jack. “You can keep it, I don't need it.”

Jack nodded. He didn't know why Keith couldn't keep it, but he wasn't about to argue with him.

“Honolulu?”

“Yes.”

Keith nodded. He turned and watched as the fountain sent multiple sprays up in the air, the water swaying and dancing like a giant octopus in an animated musical.

“It's amazing.”

Jack looked at the professional killer. “What is?”

Keith pointed to the fountain. “That. I don't know how they do it.”

Keith's eyes glistened in the light as he watched the fountain perform its water ballet to Aaron Copland's
Appalachian Spring.

Jack shook his head. He didn't give a flying fuck about the Bellagio's water fountain. He wanted to get back to business: find out how much this was going to cost him, when it would happen, how it would go down. He had questions. He needed answers. But Keith didn't even look at him; he watched the fountain like a little boy watching the trapeze act at Barnum and Bailey's.

Jack sat on a bench and turned his attention to the tourists walking by. They were couples mostly, men and women out for a fun time in Las Vegas. They were going to see a show, maybe something with an avant-garde circus act from Budapest and contortionists from Bangkok or a spectacular where effeminate magicians risked their leather-clad asses teasing
tigers through flaming hoops. Some of them were on their way to see saggy-boobed showgirls in campy productions that only a drag queen could love. If they weren't going to any show, they were getting plastered and emptying their wallets in the casinos. Las Vegas. You gotta love it.

Jack noticed a middle-aged man sitting in a car near them. He didn't look like a tourist. Jack studied him. He looked like a cop. Jack sat up straighter. He turned and looked at Keith, but Keith wasn't paying any attention; he was mesmerized by the dancing fountain.

It suddenly occurred to Jack that this could be a setup. What if Keith was an undercover cop? What if Paul Rossi had betrayed him? Jack began to regret the whole thing.

“Maybe we should just forget it.”

That got Keith's attention. “It's almost over.”

“I'm just having second thoughts.”

The fountain display ended with a booming crescendo of sound, lights, and spray.

Keith turned his attention to Jack. “Did you ever see anything like that?”

Jack shook his head. “I don't think so.”

Keith looked at the now dark and quiet pond in awe. “Amazing. Really amazing.”

“Yeah, it's real nice.”

Jack watched as the man sitting in the car opened his passenger door and a young woman, still in her dealer's costume, jumped in. The man started the car and then merged with traffic, driving off down the street. Jack turned back to Keith.

“How much is this gonna cost?”

“Twenty grand.”

“Twenty?” For some reason that seemed like a lot of money to have a fat Samoan killed.

“I can't take my guns on the plane. Have to work by hand. Price goes up.”

Jack nodded. It made sense. “Okay.”

Keith smiled. “We have a deal?”

Jack nodded and extended his hand. “We got a deal.”

The two men shook hands.

“You'll get a call about where to wire the money.”

Jack dragged his walker over and clambered to his feet. “Thanks.”

He began walking away. Keith grabbed his shoulder. The killer's touch sent an icy shiver through Jack's body.

“Don't you want to stay for the next show?”

Jack winced a little smile in the killer's direction. “I've seen it.”

...

Lono knew everything he needed to know. He sat at the bar and nursed a beer while he took in the scene on the patio. Yuki—that was her name—sat at a table with another guy. Her body language told him the guy wasn't her boyfriend. He was probably a colleague, maybe her boss.

He watched as she sipped a mai tai, not really drinking it. The guy, on the other hand, was already on his third. He'd ordered for her with each of his rounds, and now she had cocktails stacking up in front of her like planes circling O'Hare the day before Christmas.

Lono watched as a trio under a little cabana began to play a kind of watered-down Hawaiian elevator music for
the tourists. Lono didn't recognize the two older men playing guitar and ukulele, but the middle-aged woman singing softly and swaying her hips in a grass skirt was a former employee. She saw him sitting at the bar and gave him a wink. Lono nodded back and shot her a smile. It was nice to see people move on and find gainful employment doing something they like. How many times had he seen prostitutes grow ungracefully into middle age? Cutting their prices until they were the Costco of blow jobs, the Pic-N-Save of fucking.

She had a sultry voice, slightly husky from years of Marlboro Lights, and Lono wondered if she didn't run a little business on the side. She still had her figure and, judging from the leering old men in their brand-new Hawaiian shirts who stared at her coconut-shell-covered breasts, she could still work the magic. It made Lono laugh. Maybe this is what happens when we get old. We do the same tricks, only slower.

He turned his head, casually eyeballing Yuki. He saw the guy was now working his way through Yuki's collection of watery mai tais. From the look of it, the way he was leaning in close and pawing at her, he was trying to come on to her. He could see her resisting. But the more she resisted, the more she pulled back, the more pressure he applied.

The trio began playing a nauseatingly slow version of “Tiny Bubbles”; it was dirge-paced, more lethargic than Don Ho at a funeral. Lono wondered how such a song could become a Hawaiian classic. We don't drink too much champagne around here. He looked over and saw Yuki get up from the table and walk off the patio toward the beach. Outside the soft tiki glow of the patio, she was immediately swallowed by the blackness of the beach at night. Lono watched the guy stumble to his feet and run after her, calling her Yoko.

Perhaps they were lovers. Lono wasn't interested in getting in the middle of a domestic dispute. That's where the well-meaning Good Samaritan gets killed and the couple bond over the disposing of the body. But they didn't act like lovers, not even lovers having a fight.

Lono stood and paid his bill. He walked up to where the trio was playing and dropped a twenty into their tip jar. The singer blew him a kiss. Lono walked off the patio along the sidewalk until he was out of sight and then discreetly stepped off the path into the night.

It took a couple of minutes for his eyes to adjust as he strolled cautiously toward the sound of the crashing surf. He couldn't see anything for a while, couldn't hear anything over the sound of the waves but the faint murmur of music coming from the patio and a car alarm going off somewhere. But as he moved deeper into the night, his eyes adjusted, and eventually he could see two figures silhouetted against the dull silver ocean.

Lono went into a crouch and circled around, trying to be casual, trying not to be seen. As he got closer he could hear them. The woman was agitated, angry, almost in tears; the man's voice sounded breathy and threatening.

Lono moved closer and froze. It was an unmistakable image, like some kind of Balinese shadow-puppet porno show. The man was standing in the sand, his pants crumpled around his ankles, his erect cock pointing up toward the big dipper, his right hand whacking away as fast as he could.

Lono could hear them.

“You want it, don't you?”

“I told you. No.”

“You want to touch it. You want to serve me.”

“I should sue you for sexual harassment.”

“Watch me do it. Look at it.”

“No.”

She turned her back on him.

Lono saw the man shuffle a couple of steps toward the woman, his pants hobbling him, the sand dune-ing up in front of them as he dragged them toward her. Lono watched as the man reached out with his free hand and grabbed her. She struggled to get away from him, but he had a maniac's grip.