CHAPTER 20

Late that night I was back in my Jeep, again outside Oksana Sutin’s Diamond Head apartment building, this time with Scott Damiano sitting beside me. For the third time in the past half hour he asked if he could smoke a cigarette, and for the third time I said no.

“This is fucking boring,” he said.

“I could use some boring.”

Just as I said it, a long, white limo turned off Diamond Head Road and into the chic building’s parking lot. I lifted a small set of binoculars I’d borrowed from Flan, who’d observed a familiar black Lincoln picking up an exotic brunette a few hours earlier.

This driver exited the limo and rounded the vehicle to greet a young woman dressed expensively and sexily, a lithe blonde with legs that went up to her neck. With the blue eyeliner and scarlet lipstick it took me a moment to recognize her. It was Iryna Kupchenko.

“Gimme those,” Scott said, grabbing the binoculars from my hand. “Holy shit. And here I thought New York was the ass capital of the world.”

I turned over the engine and waited for the limo to roll back onto the road. Then I followed.

The stretch limo didn’t take us far. Just down the road to a breathtaking piece of property sitting right on the ocean in Black Point.

“So much for affordable housing and preserving the waterfront,” I muttered.

I parked the Jeep on the road, and Scott and I crept toward the monstrous property on foot. We watched the limo pull out from behind a colossal yet ornate steel gate and turn back in the direction of Diamond Head. Which meant that Iryna Kupchenko was staying for a while. And who could blame her.

We silently climbed a hill opposite the property, and Scott held the binoculars to his face.

“Can’t see shit. We’re gonna have to go ring the doorbell.”

He was right. Iryna wasn’t talking, and I didn’t want another blade pressed against my kidneys. If my suspicions were correct, we needed to identify the man she was visiting in order to get some answers. But ringing the doorbell probably wasn’t the best way to do it.

I took the binoculars. “Over there.” I pointed. “Think we can get over that part of the fence?”

“We don’t have to. There’s a door in the gate over there.”

“I saw it. It’s probably locked.”

Scott shook his head. “Not locked enough.”

Right again. Because after a mere three minutes of fiddling with the lock with some small tools Scott carried in his pocket, he had us in.

Quietly we skirted the edge of the property. We stopped behind the cover of some tropical bushes and scanned the windows for some sign of life.

Scott motioned to the back deck. “There’s an easy way in right there.”

I shook my head. “We’re already trespassing. We’ll wait for the woman to leave then—”

I never finished my thought.

I couldn’t.

The cold barrel of a handgun was being pressed to the back of my head.

*   *   *

Scott and I stood facing the ocean with our hands raised high above our heads. Behind us two men shouted questions at us in Japanese. I couldn’t understand the questions, but their tone was universal. They sure as hell weren’t inviting us in for Kona coffee.

I summoned what Japanese words I could. “Watashi-wa bengoshi-desu,” I yelled over the sounds of the Pacific washing onto the rocks.

Scott looked at me, startled. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Means, ‘I am a lawyer.’ It’s the only Japanese phrase I know besides ‘the sushi was delicious.’”

Scott shook his head. “We can’t just stand here, waiting for one of these assholes to get jumpy and accidently set his gun off.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

Scott pursed his lips as though he were contemplating his next chess move. “How many men did you see?”

“Two.”

“They both have guns?”

“Yeah.”

Scott gave me no warning, so when I heard the words emanate from his mouth, I nearly pissed my pants. Literally.

“Hey, fuckheads,” he said.

My stomach instantly dropped into my pelvis. Two men with guns pointed at our backs, and here was an unarmed wiseguy egging them on in a language they didn’t understand.

“Hey, fuckheads,” Scott shouted again.

I chanced a glance back and saw one of the men approaching us, pistol raised. I swung my eyes back onto the ocean and listened to his footfalls crush the grass behind us. I took deep breaths.

When the armed man was all but on us, Scott swung around, grabbed the man’s wrist, twisting it quickly until it snapped. The man went to the ground, screaming in pain.

Scott raised the gun on the writhing fellow’s friend as he rushed toward us.

“Whoa,” Scott shouted. “Where the fuck you think you’re going?” From the side of his mouth, Scott said, “Kev, tell this fucker to drop his gun.”

“I don’t know how,” I reminded him, my pulse racing, my arms still slightly raised.

Scott shrugged. “Then tell him the sushi was delicious. I don’t care. But if he doesn’t drop his gun in the next five seconds, I’m gonna drop him.”

Suddenly, on the upstairs deck, a Japanese man in a colorful silk robe appeared, unarmed. “Taku,” he shouted down, followed by something I couldn’t make out.

Immediately the man standing directly in front of us dropped his weapon.

Scott backhanded the guy with the butt of the gun he was holding. The man dropped to his knees as blood spewed from his broken nose.

Scott pointed his index finger at the man on the upper deck. “We got questions for this guy?”

I glanced to the left and saw Iryna Kupchenko staring out at us from a high window. She looked scared. Sirens sounded in the distance and they were getting closer and closer.

I shook my head. “Let’s save the questions for another night.”

We darted off the property and made it safely back to the Jeep. I turned the key in the ignition, and we took off before the flashing lights came into view.

I sped back into Diamond Head, slowing only after we passed the building clearly occupied by at least two of Oksana Sutin’s surviving associates.

“Mind if I smoke a cigarette?” Scott said, holding up a crumpled pack of Camels.

I glanced at him as shadows played across his hard face, one eye clearly smaller than the other. “Go right ahead. Be my guest.”