Mele Kalikimaka Mr Walker (3 page)

Getting off the plane and through customs was a breeze also compared to the shitfight at Los Angeles. They filed into a couple of small buses that took them the short journey to the baggage area; while they waited to board Les noticed it was warm, quite windy and it had been raining. Next thing they went down some stairs beneath a rainbow-coloured sign that said ‘Aloha. Welcome to Hawaii' and into the customs area and lanes with shiny, chrome rails and chains. The other passengers were mostly young surfie types with their girls, or the usual easy-going Aussie tourists on holidays. The airport staff wore blue floral shirts, caps, and blue trousers; the customs and security officers wore neat blue uniforms
and they mostly looked a cross between Maoris and Japanese. But they were all extremely polite and efficient; Les had his documents filled out properly and before he knew it he was standing with his bags and Warren outside in the Passenger Pick-up and Put Down area underneath a huge concrete overpass.

‘Well, I'll see you back here on Saturday night, Les,' smiled Warren. ‘Don't forget, we leave at one-thirty Sunday morning.'

‘Yeah, righto, Woz,' answered Les, still a little confused. ‘So which way do you go?'

‘That way.' Warren nodded to his right.

‘Okay. So how do I get in touch with you?'

Warren shook his head. ‘You don't have to. I'll get in touch with you.'

Mildly frustrated, Les shook his head too. ‘Fair dinkum, Warren. What is this?
The Ipcress File
or some fuckin' thing? What's going on?'

Warren was still smiling. ‘Don't worry, Les. It's all sweet. I'll be in touch. Now there's a cab over there. Good luck.'

‘Yeah, righto. You won't forget to ring us, will you?'

‘I will, Les. No worries.'

They shook hands, Warren disappeared wherever it was he was disappearing to and Les piled into the back of some monstrous blue Chevrolet taxi that was like a Cadillac.

‘Where to?' asked the driver. He wore a plain shirt and a floppy gaberdine hat, and looked Hawaiian.

‘The Regency Hotel, Waikiki. It's on Kalakau Avenue.'

‘Okay, buddy.'

The taxi took off smoothly, Les settled back into the soft leather seat and tried to see what he could see. What Les mostly saw through the misty rain was gigantic American-style freeways and highways and heaps of gigantic American cars — at least this time Les was used to sitting on the wrong side of the car and driving on the wrong side of the road. Now and again he could make out signs with strange Polynesian-sounding names: Kamehameha Highway, Kaluaopalena, Kanakanui, Waiakamio. They must've named all the streets round here after a Maori football team, mused Les. Whether the driver was giving him the tourist runaround Norton didn't know and the driver definitely wasn't a member of the Hawaiian debating team. It wasn't until they came into some kind of downtown area full of stores and highrises that he finally spoke.

‘I'll take you past all the decorations.'

‘Yeah, righto,' grunted Norton, half wondering what the driver was on about.

They merged onto a flat, wide road with trees and more highrises when suddenly the whole place lit up as if covered with millions of fireflies. Every tree, pole and building was covered with rows and rows of tiny multicoloured lights. They looked not only spectacular as they glowed quietly in the dark but absolutely beautiful. Spread right across one high building in huge red neon letters was written ‘Mele Kalikimaka'.

‘What's that mean?' pointed Les

‘Merry Christmas,' replied the driver.

‘Oh yeah. Right,' answered Les, trying to hide both his ignorance and the fact that he'd clean forgotten it was almost Christmas. ‘Well, Merry Christmas to you, mate.'

‘Thanks. I thought you'd appreciate the decorations.'

The light rain eased off and the taxi finally eased in with the other cars onto Kalakau Avenue, a wide road that ran one way towards Diamond Head. Now it was car rentals, restaurants, traffic lights and nonstop highrise hotels with shopping arcades underneath. Norton was somehow reminded of Surfers Paradise. The traffic was fairly solid and every now and again a blue and white police car would drift in amongst the other cars and taxis. Les got a glimpse of darkened ocean on his right, what looked like a police station, then the name of his hotel next to another one-way street on his left. The driver took the next on the left, went round a fairly big block, back into the one-way street, then pulled up in the driveway of a typical monster American hotel chain with ‘Regency Hotel' above and a parking area directly across the road.

Les took his bags and got out, gave the driver a twenty and briefly watched him motor off. There was no lei, no red carpet, no girl in a grass skirt with a ukulele. Not even a porter in a uniform. Norton gripped his bags and trudged up a small flight of stairs into the foyer, where he noticed it was around one in the morning and he'd forgotten to set his watch. He did that while he waited for the girl in a grey and pink uniform to finish whatever she was doing so he could book in. The hotel appeared nice enough. More Christmas decorations around a fountain and garden next to a closed bar with a small stage. There were shops around the lobby and an arcade with more shops sloped down towards what Les surmised must be the ocean side of the hotel. The girl looked Japanese, spoke American
like a newsreader for CNN, then blinked as Les placed his documents on the counter and tried to explain in good old Australian about his booking. Then he eased back into second gear and the girl checked everything bar the size of Norton's wozzer while she clicked away at a computer and did her best to give the impression that she was looking forward to staying up all night listening to tourists, especially almost incomprehensible Australians. But there was no great drama, Les got his key, half a smile, and was pointed towards the arcade that led down to the lifts. Aloha, now piss off. You've got bugger-all luggage and you're a big enough Aussie to make it without a porter.

The arcade led down past more shops and a car rental into another foyer facing a flowered rockery and fountain with the hotel complex towering up around it. The six lifts were tucked away to the left, past a couple of tired-looking security guards in blue uniforms who gave Les a once up and down as he trudged by. It was quiet and apart from one or two Japanese couples in shorts there was no one around. The lift at the end was waiting, Les stepped inside and pushed the button for the fifteenth floor. The doors opened onto a lobby that smelled strongly of some oily, perfumed disinfectant. Les checked the numbers on the wall then turned left past doors to a laundry service and an ice machine.

Norton's room was down the very end of the corridor and the lights were on when he stepped inside. It was big enough — a clothes closet on your left as you walked in and the bathroom on your right, with a small fridge, and a digital safe under the sink. The main room had two double beds, a table, TV, a desk and a small radio
and phone next to a lamp between the two beds. There was no main light, just lamps hanging or standing everywhere. The decor was mainly yellow and brown. A set of brown curtains opened onto a small balcony that would have given a sensational view of Diamond Head only it was blocked by another monstrous highrise. Another set of curtains near the far bed opened to give an uninterrupted view of both Diamond Head and the inky night-time blue of the ocean. Les gazed down for a few moments and could make out the beach, an open-air pool, streaks of traffic going past, but very few people walking around beneath the streetlights on the opposite side of the road. Les drew the curtains, tossed his bags onto the bed nearest the hallway and noticed there was no bar fridge. This suited him in a way, but at the moment he felt like a nice cold beer and a walk to stretch his legs after the journey; he didn't particularly feel like going straight to bed on his first night in Honolulu and he didn't have to meet Mick till ten in the morning. Les emptied his shave kit out in the bathroom, splashed some cold water on his face then found a blue cotton shirt in his bag that wasn't too crushed and wore it hanging out over his jeans and T-shirt. After punching six numbers into the digital safe — his house number and postcode in Bondi — Les snookered his traveller's cheques and whatever, then, without bothering to even comb his hair, set out, still sweaty and crumpled from the plane trip, to have a cool one and maybe check out Waikiki on Saturday night.

The courtyard straight in front of the lifts led past a smattering of portable chairs, tables and poster ads for different sporting gear, an entertainment area behind
the fountain and some more shops on the right. There was a hotel restaurant called the Carvery, a mini supermarket opposite called an ABC store, then a short walk straight out onto Kalakau Avenue. Diamond Head was on the left, the shops and hotels on the right; Norton headed right. It wasn't the greatest night — the streets were wet, it was cloudy, kind of warm with great gusts of wind bursting down the streets.

Les trudged by a McDonald's, World Gym, Burger King and various other shops with an ABC store about every fifty metres. The beach on the left ended, then it was all hotel highrises, arcades and streetlights above more streets named after Maori football teams. The other punters on the streets were mainly Japanese, either in couples or small posses, lots of loud young men, a cop in black every now and again plus the usual denizens of the night you see in any tourist trap anywhere in the world. A quick perusal gave Norton the impression that Waikiki was a cross between Surfers Paradise, Kings Cross and Tokyo. Now and again, reasonably attractive women of all shapes and sizes, though predominantly with big boobs, would appear out of doorways or on corners, smile syrupily and say, ‘Hi, honey. Need some company?' There were a few blacks, but mainly blondes, either in minis with low-cut tops or lycra bicycle shorts that tight round the crumpet you could read their horoscope for the next three weeks. They zeroed in mostly on the older punters and the Japanese men. But when they saw Les they not only completely brushed him, they almost recoiled in horror. Isn't that nice? mused Norton. I can't even get a root off the local molls if I want one. Surely my head isn't that rough? Bugger
it anyway, he thought as another buxom blonde turned away from him. You can stick all your old fannies in your arse. If it comes to a pinch I'll have a three-bags-full and save my money.

Les trudged on past some department store called Liberty House, the crowd thickened slightly, then at a set of lights he spotted what looked like a bar of some description just around the corner from a Burger King opposite where Les was standing. There was a solitary doorman at the entrance downstairs and out on the street above him a sign said ‘Bison Jacksons'. Les started to cross the road. As he did, he noticed another doorman and another bar called ‘Mahias Grill and Cabaret' directly opposite. The first doorman, in a white Bison Jacksons T-shirt, gave Les a smile and Norton trotted upstairs.

The stairs doglegged up one flight into an alcove with a few video games and a dartboard. In front of that was a counter stocked with Bison Jackson's T-shirts, caps, mugs and other souvenirs. Inside was parquet floors, stucco walls and a fairly spacious, haphazard set-up of two bars under low ceilings with a scattering of stools and seats against some walls with the toilets next to each other in one corner and a band banging away in the opposite corner. American college pennants hung from the ceiling and framed surfing and sports hero posters, along with framed bric-a-brac and ads for everything imaginable — Wild Turkey, Matilda Bay Wine Cooler, Old Grandad — vied for space on the walls. There was even the cover of Germaine Greer's
The Female Eunuch
stuck between a poster of Jim Everett and Muhammad Ali, which was alongside
another bar sign that said ‘Liquor Up Front — Poker in the Rear'. It looked like your typical tourist-type bar that every young punter hits to get pissed and try to score a root. What was mainly on Norton's mind, however, was a nice cool one; and the cooler the better. There was a bar almost as you walked in. Les got a bottle of Budweiser and took a hefty swallow; it was deliciously cold but didn't have a great deal of taste. Norton took another swallow and moved across near some empty tables almost in front of the Gents toilets to check out the band and the punters.

The four-piece band, called Surf Psycho Frenzy, were loud and pretty ordinary — a sort of cross between Nirvana and the Doors. At the moment they were disembowelling ‘Roadhouse Blues' loud enough for Jimmy Morrison to hear in France, where he would have been rolling over in his grave. There weren't many girls there and those that were were no oil paintings — either squashed into old blue jeans or squeezed into cheap cotton dresses. The blokes were a bit dweeby looking too, though at that time of the morning they were probably half pissed. Most wore jeans and T-shirts with baseball caps jammed on their heads and were either half wrestling with each other or standing around blowing bubble gum. They were all fairly fit looking though and somehow seemed to resemble each other with country-fried, corn-fed faces, wispy moustaches and hair shaved close to their skulls so their ears looked like wing nuts. Then Les noticed a tattoo on one dark-haired bloke's arm — a rope and anchor and the words ‘Semper Fidelis. US Marines'. Jarheads, Les nodded to himself. Eddie told me about these peabrains from Vietnam. Les
knocked his Budweiser off and got a bottle of Millers, which was just as cold but had a little more flavour.

The place wasn't all that crowded and there was nobody standing near Les and nobody seemed to notice him — they were all too interested in the band, which was doing grievous bodily harm to Creedence Clear Water's ‘Before You Accuse Me'. Les took another swallow of beer, almost emptying half the bottle, and was thinking he might have another one when some tall, thickset bloke, wearing grubby jeans and an equally grubby blue T-shirt, shoved his way moodily out of the crowd heading for the Gents. The bloke had untidy brown hair and an untidy moustache stuck on a sour, half-drunken face and although Les moved aside the bloke still ignorantly bumped Norton hard enough to spill beer all over his arm.