Livin' Lahaina Loca (15 page)

At
eleven-ten, I got up and peered out the window to see if Keith and Nicole were
cruising for parking. Except for my Geo the alley was empty, with at least a
half-dozen open spots going begging.

I
called their cells but in both cases it went directly to voicemail. I left the
same message on both phones: 
Hi, it’s Pali. I’m hoping you’re on your
way down for our meeting today. Everything looks good. I just want to go over
the final schedule with you. See you soon!

When
the minute hand on my desk clock clicked on the six for eleven-thirty, I
started pacing. Up to that point Nicole and Keith had never been late for a
meeting and I was feeling the weight of not returning Keith’s call from last
weekend. What if something had come up with Crystal and they’d needed my help?
What if Nicole or another girl had also gone missing? I plopped down in the
guest chair and put my head in my hands.

Sifu
Doug had said I knew what I needed to do. Problem was, I didn’t. I only knew
how I felt. And how I felt was worried. Worried and sick at heart.

CHAPTER 14

No
sense sitting around waiting for the bridal couple to show up. It was
nerve-wracking and I’m not a patient person. Better to drive up to the Ritz and
see if they’d overslept—or if they hadn’t checked their cell phone messages and
weren’t aware I’d asked for the meeting.

I
locked up and went down to the alley. My car had a folded piece of paper stuck
onto the front windshield. No biggie. Every few days I get a flyer on my car.
Usually it’s for things like outcall massage, an all-you-can-eat luau, or a
timeshare solicitation with a
fantastic
offer of a free sunset cocktail
cruise in exchange for only ninety minutes of your vacation time.

I
plucked the paper from under the windshield wiper and flipped it open. The
handwriting was in a childish print, black ballpoint pen.
We got the girl.
$500,000 US or she dies. No cops. Tell him he nows were to send the money.

Aside
from the obvious misspelling of ‘knows’ and ‘where’ and the reference to the
money in US funds, the note provided few clues as to who’d written it. I called
Wong on his cell but it immediately went to his voice mail. Then I took off for
the Ritz, hoping against hope Keith and Nicole might have some answers.

I
parked in the upper lot and made my way down to the lobby. At the desk, I asked
the clerk to ring room number 2371.

He
picked up the house phone and put his hand over the receiver, “And your name
is?”

“Pali.
Pali Moon.”

“Oh,”
he said, putting the phone back down. “I believe we have a message for you.” He
flipped through a box with tabs marked with room numbers. “Yes, here it is.” He
brought out a bulging cream-colored business-size envelope with my name written
on it and the Ritz Carlton logo thickly embossed in the upper left corner next
to the return address. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to tip him or not, so I
settled for flashing a big smile and offering a sincere ‘
Mahalo’
.

I
asked if Keith Lewis was still registered at the hotel. The clerk tapped on his
keyboard, paused, then tapped some more. He stared at the screen, then tapped
the ‘enter’ key about ten times. I wondered if he was messing with me for not
offering a tip or if locating a registered guest really required that many keystrokes.

“It
says here he checked out this morning. At eleven thirty-two. Our normal
checkout time is eleven, but since Mr. Lewis was in the Hanalei Suite, we
allowed his party a little leeway.”

In other words
, I thought,
you’d already extracted an obscene sum
of money from him so why quibble over an extra half hour.

“And
the others in his party? Have they checked out as well?”

“Hmm.
Let me see. His file shows he was responsible for six additional rooms. It’ll
take me a moment to review the status.” He typed. And typed.

“Yes,
the entire Lewis party departed this morning and the bill is paid in full. Is
there anything else I can help you with?”

I
turned and noticed a line had formed behind me.  

“No,
mahalo
for your time.”

I
wandered into the lobby wondering if Keith had run out on me without paying. If
so, I’d be kicking myself for years to come. Most couples provide me with a
credit card to pay their expenses, and then I present them with an invoice on
the day of the wedding—a detailed receipt for their records even though their
card has already been charged. Keith had been unwilling to give me a credit
card. Instead, he’d offered a three thousand-dollar retainer with a promise to
pay the bill in cash the day before the wedding. The retainer, along with his pricey
on-island address of the biggest suite at the Ritz, had convinced me he’d be
good for it.

Now
I felt like an idiot for not demanding a card. I sat down heavily in the same
comfy chair I’d occupied when I’d met with Keith the previous Friday. I carefully
unsealed the flap on the envelope. The envelope was so chubby I wondered if
he’d enclosed photos or maybe a rambling letter of excuses for ditching at the
last minute.

Before
I could allow myself to look at what was inside, I calculated my situation. The
Lewis/Johnson wedding expenses were already at nearly five thousand dollars,
even before the seventy-five-dollar-a-plate wedding dinner and the
two-thousand-dollar photo shoot. Keith had given me three thousand, which meant
I’d need more than five thousand to come out whole. I’d owe at least three
thousand in cancellation fees and non-refundable costs like the printing. I
shut my eyes and took out the contents of the envelope. Right away I could feel
it wasn’t photos or pages of Ritz-Carlton stationery; it was cash. I clutched
the wad in my fist for a few seconds, conjuring up good vibes. I vowed that if
Keith had made me whole on the money I owed, I’d donate any extra to charity.

 I
looked down at the money. It was a thick wad—all hundred-dollar bills. I
flicked through the stack, then looked up, wondering if it was wise to be
flashing so much
kala
around in a public place. I shifted in my seat,
allowing me to count the money while hiding it between my hip and the
upholstered arm of the chair. It took me nearly five minutes to count it and
then count it again.

***

The
ride back to Hali’imaile ended up taking less than an hour but it felt like an
eternity.

“Hey,
what’re you doing home so early?” Steve said looking up from reading the
morning paper. “You’ve got some messages over there by the phone.”

“I’ll
bet one of them is from my buddy, Keith Lewis, blowing off his wedding this
Saturday.”

“What?
No, he didn’t call, and when I talked with him yesterday he seemed rarin’ to
go. He even asked if we could maybe move the bride’s photo shoot up to Friday.”

“Well,
they didn’t come to their countdown meeting this morning and when I went up to
the Ritz to find out what happened, the entire wedding party had checked out.”

“Sounds
like maybe Ken and Barbie got cold feet. But at least you’re covered with his
credit card.”

“He
didn’t give me a card.”

“Whoa,
I thought you always got a credit card.”

“Normally
I do, but in this case he insisted on paying in cash. He gave me a three grand
retainer when we signed the contract, and promised to settle up the rest on
Friday. But I’m okay. Look what he left me at the hotel desk.” I reached into
my beach bag purse and pulled out the Ritz Carlton envelope. I removed the cash
and fanned it out on the table.

Steve’s
mouth gaped open. “Wow, how much you got there?”

“Ten
thousand bucks.”

 “Did
he owe that much?”

“No,
he owed only about half that. Once I pay my people and take my commission I’ll
still be ahead almost four grand.”

“Are
you giving him a refund?”

“I’ll
offer if I hear from him, but for now it seems he’s in the wind. I’ve left
three messages on his cell and he hasn’t called back. The only mainland address
I have is a post office box in Del Mar, California. Which brings me to my next
problem. Look at this.” I handed him the paper I’d found on my windshield.

“Holy
crap, Pali, this is a ransom note!”

“Yeah,
it sure looks like it. I left Glen Wong a voicemail but I haven’t heard back
from him yet.”

“Pali,
this is serious. They could be torturing that poor girl right now. I think you
should call the police station and tell them you’ve got an emergency. Make them
track Glen down immediately.”

He
was right, of course. Sometimes I don’t trust my emotions. I’d learned long ago
to tuck them away where they couldn’t bite me in the ass. But I’d been fretting
over Crystal for almost a week. Finding the fingernails and then the ransom
note had ramped my fret level up to near full-blown panic, but panic was an
emotion I’d been taught to disregard. For me, panic was right up there with
crying. It’s okay to
want
to do it, but not okay to
actually
do
it.

CHAPTER
15

Nobody
likes getting interrupted in the middle of something, but since Wong worked
homicide, he was probably used to it by now.

“What’s
it now, Ms. Moon?” he said when he called me four minutes after I’d called the
station number on his business card. “I’m going to have to turn my phone off in
a couple of minutes so this better be good.”

“I
got a ransom note.”

“A
ransom note,” he echoed. “And what does your ‘ransom note’ say, specifically?”

“You
want me to read it to you?”

He
blew out a breath that came across the phone line as a loud
whoosh
.

“Okay,”
I said. I motioned for Steve to bring me the note and I read the four short
lines to Wong. “Notice how he mentions US money. Oh, and although I read you
the words ‘know’ and ‘where,’ he actually spelled them wrong. He left out the
‘k’ in ‘know’ and he left out the ‘h’ in ‘where.”

“What’s
going on with you, Ms. Moon? Why are you still messing around with this? I was
dead serious when I requested that you not concern yourself further with
official police business.”

“Look,
Detective, I’m not enjoying any of this. I don’t know why I was picked to be
the go-between with all of this stuff, but I was. I’m concerned about the
welfare of the woman they’re referring to in the ransom note, that’s all.”

“Ms.
Moon, I’m about to board a flight to Honolulu on official business. But in the
interest of showing good faith I’m willing to reschedule my trip on one
condition:  you promise to hand over the note and leave this entire case
up to us. From this point on, I don’t want you snooping around, or telling
kidnapping tales to your kung fu buddies. Do I have your word on that?”

“Absolutely.
Look, I’ve got my own problems, Detective. My big Saturday wedding’s been
cancelled. The only people I’ll be talking to are my suppliers when I call to
pull the plug.”

“Huh,
so that wedding got cancelled. Do you know why?”

“No
clue, the bridal couple just up and left.”

“When?”

“What
do you care? You said yourself this whole bridesmaid thing was a hoax.”

“Ms.
Moon, I’m going to have to call my boss and rearrange my schedule in order to
deal with your situation. I’d appreciate you granting me the courtesy of
straight answers.”

“Okay,
right after the ransom note was put on my car I went up to the Kapalua Ritz
where they were staying and they’d already checked out. I don’t know why they
left or where they’re going, but they paid me what they owed and they won’t
take my calls, so I’m assuming that’s the end of it.”

“My
plane’s already left without me. Give me a minute to clear things up with my
superiors and I’ll come up there and get your so-called ransom note. Stay right
there. When I arrive, be prepared to tell me
everything
you know about
this situation so we can put this thing to rest.” He hung up.

 “Wow,
what a grouch,” I said to Steve. “I don’t know why you think that guy’s so
hot.”

“I
didn’t say he was ‘hot.’ I said he was—oh, forget it. So, what’s going on?”

“Well,
mister hot-or-not Glen Wong’s coming up here to get the note. And—I’m quoting
here—‘put this thing to rest.’ Not one word of concern about Crystal.”

“He’s
probably playing it close to the vest,” said Steve. “Doesn’t want you to get a
big head ‘cuz you’ve brought him something important after he blew you off
before.”

I
shrugged.

“No,
think about it,” he went on, “they’re gonna have to start taking Crystal’s
disappearance seriously now. They’ll probably call in the FBI or something.”

Steve
and I sat in the living room until Wong’s car pulled into the driveway. When
Steve got up to go to his room, he put a hand on my shoulder.