Hot Lava (12 page)

“Great,” he said. “I just have to test you both out, and then we’re good to go.”

“Test?” I asked, a nervous trickle streaming down my cheek.

“An easy one; fear not,” he replied, lifting a hand up and snapping his fingers. In an instant, we were joined by two unassuming Japanese men, both in brightly colored floral shorts and nearly matching button-down, short-sleeved shirts. “Ladies, meet Mister Yamasuka and Mister Morioka. Regular clients of mine. Impress them, and we have a deal. Otherwise, you’re back to being, well, agentless. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.”

He stood. We stood. My heart threatened to explode from within my sarong. This, of course, was not what we had planned. Nope. Suddenly, I felt sick -- especially since I was being led off by Mister Yamasuka and Brandon was going the other way with Mister Morioka. At least I thought as much; they looked quite similar. I glanced over my shoulder at Brandon, and he was doing the same to me. “Now what?” I mouthed.

“Keep ‘em tucked,” he mouthed back, echoing Briana’s prophetic sentiments.

My john’s car was waiting for us around the corner, a large Cadillac, all black. Apparently, said
client
was some sort of big shot. He opened the door for me, holding my hand in his as I got myself situated. No mean feat, mind you; those sarongs are tight. Then we were speeding off.

“So,” I said in my best girly voice, “my name is Liza. What’s yours?” He sat there, stone-faced, staring ahead as he drove us to Lord knows where. “Not into small talk, huh? Me neither.” Still nothing. Not a peep. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if he was breathing. “Do you, um, speak any English?”

“Engrish, no,” he managed, the car now driving up, up, up around winding, tree-lined curves, the ocean popping into view from far below.

“Scenic,” I muttered, now talking to myself, seeing as he was the strong, silent type. Well, silent anyway.

And then we were there: a sprawling, split-level house, well-manicured, obviously seen to with tender loving care. A small patch of grass hugged the front walkway. Plot-sized. I gulped audibly. I prayed that my first day as a hooker with a heart of gold wasn’t also to be my last.

He walked around to the side of the car and helped me out before escorting me inside. The place was massive, richly appointed, very Asian, just like my host. I walked to the front of the foyer and spotted the koi pond in the center. I bent down to have a look-see as he walked behind me, cupping my ass in his palm. Instinctively, I turned around and punched his chest.

Time itself stood still in the moment after that. His eyes became mere slits. I was, I figured, a dead duck. And then, as if someone was looking out for me, the smallest of grins appeared on his otherwise lifeless face. I socked him one again. The smile grew wider. My client, it seemed, dug pain -- the upper hand, apparently and literally, was now mine.

I reached out and slowly unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a hairless chest, dense with taut, compact muscles. I tweaked a thick, pink nipple, twisting it ninety degrees. He winced and his shorts began to tent. Seeing as my own cover would soon be blown, the sarong capable of doing little to cover my own burgeoning appendage, I turned him around and leaned him against a wall. He obeyed, humming in rapt content.

I shucked the shirt off his back and raked my fake nails across the exposed flesh. Thankfully, the glue held. More thankfully still, he moaned in pleasure. I reached around and unbuttoned his shorts. They fell to the ground and he kicked them off.

“Going commando, I see,” I said, my voice suddenly raspy.

He replied by widening his stance and bending farther down, his lily-white ass jutting out, his robin’s egg balls dangling down. He was now stark naked save for his sandals, and was nearly hairless, like a little boy. I spanked his ass, hard, harder still. His knees buckled and he groaned with a fiery intensity.

My hooker’s golden heart was turning coal black. “A girl could grow to like this,” I cooed.

My hand reached up for another spank as his legs went farther apart in anticipation. It was then that I spotted it. I bent down for closer inspection. “Someone’s been naughty,” I said, pushing at the butt-plug he had nestled up his ass. He responded by reaching down to stroke his schlong. Well, schlong in training, at any rate. The guy was hung like a tse-tse fly.

I grabbed at the base of the plug and gave a pull, the cream-colored latex coming into view, which kept on coming, inch by rubbery inch. “Damn,” I said, with a whistle. “You’re like the Grand Canyon of johns. No wonder you weren’t talking in the car back there; this
toy
here was probably blocking your windpipe.”

I gave it a shove back in, adding a slap across his ass for good measure. He howled in ecstasy, the sound echoing down the marble halls. I pulled again and then crammed again, pull, cram, pull, cram, until sweat poured down his back and his ass was ruby red from the abuse I was giving him with my free hand.

He pointed his needle of a prick downward as his legs began to tremble, the tight muscles quivering and quaking as he spewed like Mount Fuji.
Splat, splat, splat
he went, as his rather hefty load hit the floor. He turned around. Luckily, I was still in crouch position, my own rock-solid prick hidden away between my thighs. He bowed, with a grin and a wink, then shoved the plug back in, his eyelids fluttering for the briefest of seconds.

He disappeared around the corner, returning with a stack of paper towels and a wad of cash.

“Crean mess,” he commanded, handing me the towels and the money as he got dressed.

Since cleaning up a stranger’s spunk isn’t much of an aphrodisiac for me, my boner quickly and gratefully diminished. I stood back up, found a trash can, and got rid of the evidence. That was that. Well, almost. Besides my
payment
, he came back with a tip: a gaudy necklace dripping in rhinestones. I bowed and tried, as best I could, to thank him, but he was already out the door and on the way to the car, with me running after him.

We rode back in silence. No surprise there. He dropped me off where he’d picked me up. Not a smile, not a word, nothing. Well, not nothing. I did have the stack of bills, a kitschy trinket, and the lingering scent of butt-plug to remind me of my day’s work. I waved at him as he pulled off.

“Sayonara,” I yelled, and turned around. Much to my great relief, Brandon was standing there, smiling and nodding.

“Do I hear wedding bells?” he asked.

“No, fuckwad. That’s that screw loose inside your head you’re hearing, rattling around in that vacuous cavity of yours.” I hugged him long and hard.

“How much did he give you?” he whispered in my ear.

I pulled back and counted my pay. “Holy hell,” I said, with a whistle. “Five hundred. You?”

“The same. And all I had to do was let him suck my toes while he jacked off.”

“Then we were lucky,” I said.

“Very,” he agreed. “In more ways than one.”

I tilted my head. “How’s that?”

“Besides the cash, which is gonna pay for four much-needed hot stone massages, we also have new information on Liko.”

“Ah,” I said, wrapping arms in his as we started our short walk back to the hotel. “I almost forgot. Guy’s rich as Rockefeller, no doubt. I’m sure the sweat off his talents’ backs paid for those capped teeth.”

“No doubt. Plus, with Jed out of the way, at least temporarily, it would seem he has a monopoly on the Japanese trade around here. Hence his need for us. He’s probably expanding while he’s got the chance,” he said.

“Which means,” I added, “that we can trade him for Will. It’s gotta be Liko that’s after Jed and who killed poor Lenny. Maybe Lenny had too much information on Liko, and maybe Liko had the perfect opportunity to off him while he was running from the cops.”

“That’s a lot of maybes, though. And that doesn’t explain how he set Lenny up for the smuggling, or his connection with Makani. Also, one other troubling thing: the other day, when he drove us to Jed’s hideout, he seemed to know where we were going, trying to get us to stay clear. If he knew where Jed was all this time, why didn’t he just turn him over to the cops, or worse, kill him? Either one would’ve got Jed out of the pimping picture for good.”

We reached our hotel and started to our rooms. “Fuck,” I said, with a heavy sigh. “So then someone else might be after Jed. But who?”

“Guess we’ll have to wait and see, Chase. We still have two days left before Will is supposed to call. And maybe Briana and Koni discovered something this morning. Maybe we’ll even score big with David Schwartz tonight.”

Again I groaned as we made it back to our room. “That’s two more maybes, then, and that’s four too many. Still, at least the evidence is mounting. Now we just have to figure out a way to turn over Liko to Jed in exchange for Will -- and that’s not going to be easy, no maybes about it.”

We de-saronged, un-make-upped, and re-bathing-suited. “Chins up, dear one. We got off two Japanese men and made a thousand smackers in under an hour, all without being caught. The Hawaiian gods are clearly smiling down on us.”

I punched him in the arm. “Chin,” I corrected him. “Chin up. Not
chins
. Fucker. But you’re right; so far, so good. Now we just have to enlist a certain attorney’s help without him knowing it and we’re one step closer to rescuing Will.”

“And pray that David’s got a bigger dick. That last one was scary small. No wonder the guy didn’t crack a smile the whole time,” he said as he wrote a note to our friends to meet us along our usual stretch of beach.

“You shoulda checked his asshole out, then. Guy was probably so plugged up that a smile might’ve set the gears irrevocably in motion. Mess-y.”

He stared at me and shuddered. “I don’t want to know, Chase. I don’t even want to know.”

***

It was nearly noon by the time we made it to our now-familiar umbrellas. The sun was high overhead and killer strong, the ocean cool and a radiant blue. We ordered drinks and lunch for four, hoping our friends would arrive shortly.

“We have to call Liko soon,” Brandon told me with a grimace, much to my shock and dismay.

“Why the fuck so?” I asked, staring down at my feet as they disappeared beneath the pleasantly warm sand.

“Because Judy and Liza are the only connections to him. They can’t just vanish now. Plus, we obviously passed that test of his.”

“With flying come.”

He groaned. “Gross, but true. Meaning, we’re now in his employ.”

“Great, a real résumé booster. I’m sure the offers will be pouring in.”

“On the bright side,” he said, choosing to ignore my wit and dripping sarcasm, “our alter-egos make good lures. Liko said that he’d be there to protect them. What if the
there
is at Jed’s?”

“Hard to picture that as a bright side, but I see your point. And who knows, maybe Liko offers health insurance and vacation pay.”

“See,” he chuckled. “Already one step closer to retirement, Chase.”

“Or an early grave, Brandon.”

We were interrupted by, “What’s this about graves?”

It was Briana, looking radiant as ever, not to mention smug. Koni was at her side, the same knowing grin stretched from ear to diamond-studded ear. The chairs, as always, magically appeared, and our foursome once again convened.

“What’s with the stupid-ass smiles?” Brandon asked. “Did the fleet just pull into port?”

She turned to glare at him. “You have a smudge of lipstick on your teeth, oh, butch one. If you’d care for round two of the verbal parleys, maybe you should wipe it off first.”

“Cease fire,” I shouted. “We surrender.”

“Finally,” Koni muttered.

“Temporarily,” Brandon muttered back.

I quickly changed the subject, filling them in on what we’d learned, omitting the part where we got off two teeny-weenied Japanese guys. “Did you two have any luck today?”

That, apparently, was the reason for the grinning. “Well, if you call sitting in Liko’s living room luck, then yes, we had some luck today,” Briana crowed, practically glowing.

“Huh?” was all Brandon and I could manage, our eyes wide, our mouths agape.

“Let me tell it, let me tell it,” Koni pleaded, jumping up and down and nearly knocking over the waitress with our food and drinks.

“Okay, okay,” Brandon shouted. “Just watch the booze.”

Koni sat back down, taking a massive bite of his burger and a huge chug of Coke before relating their day to us. “Okay,” he began, gulping it all down. “So I got on the phone this morning and started asking around if anyone knew anyone that works for Liko. Turns out, he usually only pimps out the local girls, which is why I’d never heard of him before. Jed’s more of an equal opportunity scumbag, so him I knew about. Anyway, it took a few calls, but I finally reached someone who works for him.”

“But not as a hooker,” Briana interrupted, causing Koni’s smile to turn upside down.

“Um,
my
story,” he reminder her.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Please continue,” she said, starting in on her chicken and mango salad, which shut her up for a few chews.

He paused. “Okay, where was I?”

“Friend, not a hooker, works for Liko,” I reminded him.

“Oh, right. Jackie. She used to deal drugs for Makani, actually. Then her mother found out and made her quit. Now they run a house-cleaning service together.”

“Heartwarming,” Brandon said, sipping at his liquid diet.

“Not really; they steal from most of their clients. But at least they don’t deal drugs. Her mom’s got some twisted morals, I guess you’d say.”

“Yeah,” I said, “those we know about.” Briana and Brandon both kicked sand at me. “Sorry. Continue,” I told him.

He took another gargantuan bite and super sip and did just that. “So I called Jackie, made some small talk, and, lo and behold, not only does she know Liko, but she’s at his house at that very moment.”

“Fortuitous,” Brandon said.

“Huh?” our young friend huhed.

“Lucky,” I interpreted.

“Yeah, lucky,” he agreed, finishing off his lunch on his third and final chomp.

“And getting even luckier,” Briana added, drawing another mean stare from Koni. “Oops.”