Hot Lava (22 page)

So we skedaddled. Tucked our tails between our legs and took off down the other side of the hill, first wiping our fingerprints off of everything we remembered touching and then reaching the road a short while later. We’d already arranged for our cab to pick us up an hour after we were dropped off, and it arrived just in time, taking us back to our hotel and away from that gigantic mess we (illegally) left behind.

We quickly changed out of our stolen clothes, tossing them in the hotel’s Dumpster, and planned to begin our search early the next morning for the one person left who could still lend some support.

***

And so another day in fucking paradise began.

“He’s never going to help us,” Briana said with a low, deep sigh as we first searched the food court, our initial point of contact.

We split up, Briana with Brandon, Will with me. I looked to my partner and said, “You look glum. We’ll find him and he’ll help, I’m sure.”

“It’s not that,” Will replied, his head turning from side to side, looking for, yes, Koni, who sadly wasn’t anywhere in sight. “It’s just, I hate that we left the ranger house like we did. I could lose my job if they ever find that out. Not to mention, it’s a blatant crime.”

I paused and gripped his hand in mine. “They were already dead. There was nothing more we could do to help. Now, searching for Koni, that’s how we can help them, to find their killers. Telling the police everything we know might’ve had the opposite effect, causing the bad guys to cover their tracks even more.”

He nodded, forcing a smile on his handsome face. “I know. Still, it goes against everything I’ve been taught. But you’re right; this is the only way.”

And it was. There were at least two rogue cops and an evidently dangerous Japanese businessman to contend with, and none of them knew for certain that we were (hopefully) hot on their trail. Then again, without Koni’s assistance, there was no longer a trail to follow, hot or otherwise.

We regrouped, the four of us shaking our heads. Our lithe, little friend was nowhere inside the International Marketplace, so we walked the couple of blocks to his sleeping quarters. The mattress was gone, as were his meager belongings. We looked at each other, our faces all frowning.

“Not good,” said Brandon.

“Nope,” agreed Briana.

“Any other ideas?” asked Will.

We paused, each of us deep in thought.

“Drinks?” suggested Brandon. (Seems some of us were deeper in thought than others.)

“Later,” I responded. “After one more stop.” I started walking back to the main strip, the others following in my wake. “I think I may know where he is,” I hollered over my shoulder. At least I prayed as much.

We hailed a cab and somehow I remembered the address.

“Ah,” ahed my friends, picking up on my thinking. “Makes sense,” added Briana. “As good a place as any to go.”

“Yep,” I told her. “A spare bed and a mother desperately in need of someone to take care of.” I suppose, had it been me, it’s the one place I, too, would’ve gone.

We drove the rest of the way in silence, hoping my hunch proved correct as we admired the passing scenery, the lush vegetation that sprouted up on both sides of us, made all the more brilliant by the pounding sun. We arrived and were greeted by a surprised Koni, sitting on the porch, his feet propped up on a rickety railing, a stunned look on his adorable face.

“How?” he asked, his face scrunched up, trying and failing to squelch a smile.

We walked from the waiting cab and stood on the grass, staring nervously up at him. “We looked everywhere else,” I told him. “This seemed the only other place you could go.”

He sighed, his eyes shutting tight for the briefest of moments. “Funny,” he eventually said. “I went looking for the people who took Lenny’s life and found the ones who gave him life instead. Bitter irony, I think they call it.”

I smiled, as did my friends, as did Koni, despite the awfulness that had brought us all to that location, to that spot in time. “They took you in, huh?”

He nodded. “Gladly. With open arms. No questions asked. Even gave me a job at their store. I was just about to go there. Hard work, but better than... well, you know.” He slumped his head to his chest, probably not so much in shame as regret. “Weird to sleep in
his
bed, though. Still, they seem happy to have me here.” His head rose, the smile fast returning. “Is that why you stopped by, came looking for me? To make sure we’re all happy as clams now?”

He was being ironic. And bitter again, to boot. “Yes and no,” Brandon replied.

“More of which?” he asked, clearly on to our usual games.

Brandon laughed. “What do you think, kid? The latter, of course. Still, really, honestly, we couldn’t be happier that you found a home. Indoors.”

Our young friend nodded. “Okay, I get it, dude. You need me for something, right? Need the little island boy to help you out of a jam?”

“We always needed you,” I said, sensing his growing hostility. “And we’re sorry we deceived you, however much we did so because we cared about you.” The four of us nodded in unison. And then I added, “And now we need you even more. Liko and Jed are dead, and we may be the only ones able to get the bad guys now; except, we can’t do it without your help.”

He paused, the grin growing as bright as the midday sun. “Well,” he said. “Will wonders never cease?”

“Dude,” Brandon interjected. “Wonders ceased about three murders ago. So get the hell off the cross, we need the fucking wood.”

Koni laughed. A good sign, considering Brandon’s sacrilege. “Fine,” he eventually replied, pretending to think it over. “So long as we’re all equal partners this time.”

Brandon shrugged. “Fuck if I care. You can take over the whole damn thing if you want. Just get off that cute little ass of yours and help already.”

Again he laughed. “Gee, you think my ass is cute?” We turned and walked back the way we came. Exit, stage right. “Wait,” he shouted after us.

We stopped and turned. “Are you coming or not?” Brandon yelled.

“Coming. I mean, yes,” he hollered back, his head bobbing up and down. “Just give me five minutes to tell Mrs. Hallanah what’s going on, as abstractly as possible. I’ll meet you in the cab.”

We nodded, smiling as he ran inside. “Thank goodness,” I said as we piled in.

“Oh, hell no,” Brandon said, getting into the front side. “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” (As if it ever did.)

As promised, five minutes later, he came running out. Fortunately for us, he really did have a little ass. Four in the back seat was a snug fit.

We drove back in silence, choosing to explain the situation to him in the privacy of our hotel room. Lord only knew how far Mister Yamasuka’s tentacles spread. If the cops were reporting back to him, we could only imagine that the cabbies were as well.

“Home sweet home,” the prodigal son commented upon his return, soon after the cab dropped us off out front.

I put my arm around him and said, “And not a moment too soon.”

We made it back to our room, surprisingly in one collective piece. By dinner time, we’d ordered room service (and ample quantities of fluids) and filled him in on everything he’d missed thus far.

“Geez,” he groaned. “I’ve barely been gone, and just look at the mess you’re in.”

We echoed his groan with our own. “We know,” I said. “But can you help? I mean, can you find out where Mister Yamasuka lives? And then, somehow, get us in there?”

He flopped on the bed, his face buried in the soft down. “Mrbx,” we heard some minutes later.

“Huh?” I huhed.

He turned his head sideways. “I said, maybe. I mean, this Yamasuka dude was obviously a regular of Liko’s. Stands to reason there are others that have been up to his estate before. Other locals who’d know how to get back up there. I mean, if the price was right.”

“Meaning, we pay for the information?” Briana chimed in.

“More than likely,” came the response from the bed.

“But how do we find the person with the information?” she asked. “Do you know how to find everyone who worked for Liko?”

He chuckled. “Not everyone, but enough. Besides, once word gets out that Liko and Jed are no more, there will be plenty of loose, eager lips.”

“But,” I butted, “word won’t get out. Not while the police are investigating their murders. At least not in the short term. Which is all we have, right now.”

He sighed, whipping out his cell phone from his back pocket. “Guess that’s why I call you Cute Dude and not Smart Dude.”

“Ouch,” Brandon said, wincing and chuckling to himself.

Two against one: no fair. “Hey,” I grumbled, then realized that I should just settle for being called cute. In any case, Koni was already putting his plan into action, whatever plan that was.

Ten minutes later, we were set -- though, still, we hadn’t a clue what he’d done. Much of the conversations were one-sided and in street lingo. (And, apart from our excessive use of the word
dude
, we had little knowledge of his lexicon.)

“Well?” I asked when he turned over, apparently done with his phone calls.

“
Well
,” he replied. “The maybe has grown to a distinct possibility.”

“Oh, joy,” I groused. “I revel in the possible.”

He laughed. “Stop being so bitter, Cute Dude; you’ll get frown lines.”

That indeed got my attention. I turned my frown upside down and asked, “So what now?”

“Now?” he replied, hopping back up to stand before us with a worrying shrug. “Now, we wait.”

“But time is not on our side,” I tried.

His smile widened. “I didn’t say we’d wait for very long.”

He pushed past us and out the hotel room door. With little option, we followed close behind. He got on the elevator and then so did we. Seconds later, we were outside, behind the hotel. He walked to the bar and ordered five drinks, four alcoholic and one not. “To keep you guys quiet,” he informed us.

“Just one?” Brandon whined. “We won’t be quiet for long.”

He nodded and doubled the order. And then, with our hands full of booze, we marched to the beach and waited off to the side of the hotel, darkness fast approaching.

One drink down and his phone calls began to pay off. One girl and one guy emerged, young, like Koni, world-weary looks on their too-young-to-be-troubled faces. They high-fived him and gave him air hugs, their chests just barely bumping. He handed them both of his Cokes and bade them to wait a few more minutes. They hunkered down in the sand, as did we, forming a protective ring around them. Minutes later, more like them arrived, all young, all with smiles on their faces.

“What gives?” I whispered into Brandon’s ear.

“Beats me,” he whispered back. “It’s like some sort of odd reunion.”

“Is that why they all look so happy?”

He shrugged as we watched and waited for an answer.

Thankfully, it was soon forthcoming.

A half hour had transpired since we’d left the room and found ourselves on the beach. By then, a dozen of Koni’s friends had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. They sat bunched together, all smiles, gabbing away in the foreign language of youth. And then Koni stood up, casting a hush across the crowd that had gathered.

“Thanks, everyone, for coming,” he announced, a mischievous grin on his lovable face, the pied piper of the down and out. They nodded, matching him grin for grin. “As I told you all already on the phone, Liko and Jed are dead.”

Strangely, or maybe not so much, they all started to clap. It was then I realized what was happening. It was like that scene in
The Wizard of Oz
when the Wicked Witch gets the bucket of water thrown over her; only it was two wicked pimps that got melted this time around, freeing the group from the invisible chains that bound them.

Koni continued. “The four people sitting around you are responsible for this.” They all turned and stared. We shrugged awkwardly. “The thing is,” he added, “now they need your help.”

“Name it,” one of them hollered.

“To find their killers,” added Koni.

“Oh, fuck it, then,” the same one quickly rescinded.

Koni laughed. The four of us squirmed in our sandy seats. “Yeah, I would’ve said the same thing. Only, there were more needless deaths than theirs, and there’ll be more tragedy down the line. And others will come to take Jed and Liko’s places, others who will gladly steal our very souls for a quick buck. Maybe we can prevent this. Not forever, no. I mean, none of us are that naïve; but at least for a while, anyway, we can put an end to this, to stand up for ourselves, to take our lives back.”

I was shocked at his eloquence, but not surprised. Nothing Koni said or did surprised me anymore. Still, a lone tear managed its way from my eye and down my cheek. The sniffling around me meant I wasn’t alone. And then, to our great relief, fists went up in solidarity. Koni smiled, big and full-moon bright. I was sure that he knew he’d get his way, even before he gave his impassioned speech. And I smiled as well. Proudly.

“But what can we do?” asked one of them. “Not like the cops are gonna listen to anything we have to say.”

“Nope,” Koni agreed. “But you can still help.” He paused and glanced around at the motley crew that circled around him. “There’s a john of Liko’s, a Mister Yamasuka, digs pain, rich Japanese guy, has a koi pond inside his house. Any of you trick with this dude?”

Nothing. No reply. My heart leapt to my throat. We were fucked.

And then one lone, small hand resting above a bony wrist rose above the crowd. A girl. Waifish, slight, timid at first, and then all smiles, glad to be the one with the knowledge that we needed. “Easy money,” she whispered. “Small balls and a butt-plug, right?”

I jumped from my seated position. “That’s him!” I shouted.

The others turned, smiled, nodded. “Right on,” one of them said, high-fiving me.

“Exactly,” Koni said, wiping the sweat that had formed on his brow. “Now, where does this teeny-balled dude live?”

She paused and scratched her head. I sucked in my breath and waited, prayed, hoping beyond hope that she’d remember. She snapped her fingers, the slightest of grins spreading from east to west across her narrow face. She pulled her cell phone from her back pocket, hit some numbers, and proclaimed, “Got it. Liko texted me the address a while back. Here it is.” She handed Koni the phone. He smiled, committing the address to memory, and handed it back to her.