After being tossed around court like a rag doll this morning, I could use a drink or twelve. Fortunately, Nikki worked the early lunch shift today, and she has agreed to meet me at Aqua Bar in Waikiki for some drinks after she’s relieved at the Bleu Sharq. My meeting with Nikki will not be all pleasure today. It will include some business, though I’m hoping a fair share of pleasure will find its way into the meeting, too. With the lip print, misdemeanor conviction, and blood-splattered sneakers all waiting for us at trial, it has become all the more important that I find Shannon’s real killer, since it is all the less likely I’ll be able to create, in the minds of the jurors, a reasonable doubt. Thus, tonight, I’ll ask Nikki the question every girl dreams of being asked: can you identify the man who asked you to help feed the sea lions at the aquarium?
I arrive at Aqua Bar twenty minutes earlier than our scheduled rendezvous time. As one would guess, the bar boasts an overly aquatic theme. The walls are more fish tank than plaster, and the dance floor is some clear gelatinous substance that houses more fish than most lakes. Boat bottoms are above our heads, and man-made coral lines the floor. The only redeeming feature of the motif is the staff’s sexy costumes. Every woman working at the bar is dressed like a mermaid, complete with sexy swimsuit tops and fins.
I find an empty clam-shaped stool at the end of the bar. It, like all of my seats of late, faces the entrance. I am far more vigilant since my recent run-ins with Palani and the Feds and my oversize paisan.
A green-eyed mermaid swims over to me and asks me what I’ll have. “I totally recommend our Shipwreck on Ice,” she says. “It’s strong, and oh, so good.”
I’m in no mood to experiment. I want something I know will get the job done. So I order up my faithful Scotch. “Thank you, but I’ll have a double Glenlivet on the rocks.”
She gives me a wink and shimmies on over to the top shelf. I grab the knot in my tie and loosen it, so that I can breathe.
The bartender returns with my drink. “Why are you all dressed up?”
That’s something you’d never hear in Manhattan. “I’m a lawyer. I had court today.”
She leans into the bar, her cleavage inching closer to my drink. “Ahhh, what kind of lawyer are you?”
“A criminal defense attorney,” I say, checking my drink for fish.
She takes my silk tie in her hand, pulling me closer to her. Her fragrance is dizzying, and I wonder how long she’ll spend working the tip. “Do you like being a lawyer?”
“Not today,” I manage to say, my eyes moving from her mermaid lips, down her mermaid shoulders, to her mermaid ti—
Just then I spot Nikki, standing at the entrance, still as a statue, gazing angrily at my Scotch. Or, maybe even at me.
I take back my tie, drop a twenty on the bar, and head over to Nikki. I lead her by the arm to a booth in the corner. She’s scoffing at me before I have the chance to slide in across from her.
“Who the hell is she?” Nikki asks without looking at me.
“The bartender?” I ask, donning my mask of incredulousness.
She nods like one extremely pissed-off bobblehead doll.
“She’s the bartender,” I say lamely.
“Why was she touching you?”
“She wasn’t touching me. She was touching my tie.”
Nikki tilts her head to one side and glares at me. “Why was she touching your tie?”
“Because she likes it.”
A grim smirk plays on her lips. “If she tells you she likes your cock, are you going to let her touch that, too?”
Is this what a relationship is like? No wonder I avoided one for so long. No wonder Milt has gone through so many wives.
“Nikki, what’s wrong?” I ask with a sigh.
“What’s wrong is that I walked in here and found you flirting with some haole slut.”
“She’s the bartender.”
“So. Was. I.”
A valid point. I fear I’m losing my second argument of the day. Time for the champ to change the subject. “Would you like a drink?”
“Are you cheating on me?” she asks in a controlled, even tone.
“Of course not.”
“Are we even together?”
“Sure, we’re together,” I say. “We’re seated in the same booth.”
Nikki doesn’t like my joke. “Will you drive me home, please? I’m not in the mood for drinks anymore.”
A merman steps up to our table and kills what was left of my underwater fantasy. I tell him we changed our minds, and Nikki and I get up to leave.
We take my Jeep to the windward side of Oahu. Despite several of my attempts at conversation, Nikki refuses to speak more than a word or two. I pull into her driveway and wait, hoping she will still invite me in.
“You don’t want to come in, do you?” she finally says.
Close enough. “Yeah, sure, I’ll come in for a while.”
I step around the Jeep and remove my briefcase from the trunk. We step inside the empty cottage and go directly to her room. It’s far more orderly than it was the last time I was here. No clothes are strewn about the room. No ledgers or loose papers are scattered over her desk. The hair and beauty items are aligned neatly on her dresser. The mementos and photographs are nowhere to be seen.
She doesn’t say a word for she does not wish to speak. And she doesn’t tear her clothes off, asking me for sex. So with nothing else to do, I ask her if she’d mind looking at some photographs.
“What fo’?” she asks, a hint of pidgin in her angry tone.
“I’d like you to tell me if you recognize anyone, like the man who asked for help feeding the sea lions at the aquarium.”
“Why would you have a picture of him?”
“Don’t be alarmed, but he may be connected to my case.”
She shrugs and takes the photos from me. They are arranged in a makeshift album. She moves through the pages slowly, studying each and every face. Approximately halfway through, she points. “That’s him.”
The name underneath the photograph is Paolo “Small Paul” Nicoletti. He looks to be in his fifties. One eye is open more than the other, giving him that sinister Lucky Luciano look.
“Will you excuse me while I go outside to make a call?” I say.
“Whatevahs.”
Outside, it is evident how windward Oahu got its name. I speed-dial Flan from my cell phone and he answers, but the wind is chopping at his voice.
“Flan,” I yell above the whipping wind, “I have the name of the third goombah. It’s Nicoletti. Paolo ‘Small Paul’ Nicoletti. Can you run it and see what you find? Specifically, I need to know if he was on Oahu when Shannon was murdered.”
“Sure, Kev. No problem.” There’s some discomfort in Flan’s voice. “Listen, we didn’t get to speak after the conference today. I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to put you in that position. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but once I did, I should’ve told you. I figured she’d tell the prosecutor who I was, but I never dreamed she’d tell him we slept together.”
“I have one question for you, Flan.”
Despite the wind, I can hear him swallow hard. “What’s that, Kev?”
“Was she any good?”
Some uncontrolled laughter comes from his end, and I can tell that he is pretty drunk. “She was a wildcat, Kevin.”
“You didn’t bill me for that night, I hope?”
“I’ll have to check my invoices. You should’ve seen the look on your face when the prosecutor said I slept with her, Kev.”
“Trust me, I have a good idea of what I looked like, Flan. Listen, just forget about the whole thing. It never happened.
We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. The judge is one mean son of a bitch, and he doesn’t like me one bit.”
“I know. I heard most of it, Kev. That’s why I left. I figured you’d be in a foul mood, and after what I had done, I decided to turn tail and run.”
“Check on Nicoletti. Let me know as soon as you have something.”
I snap the phone shut and head back inside. I open the door to Nikki’s room, where the lights are out, but candle flames are aglow. Nikki is lying on the bed naked, patting the space beside her with her hand, as though I were a puppy. I take the invitation and crawl under the covers beside her. Before I can remove my clothes, her lips are upon me.
“I’m sorry for before,” she says. “I just don’t want some haole girl to steal you away from me.”
“No haole or Hawaiian is going to steal me away from you, Nikole.”
“It’s just that it seems I lose everyone,” she whispers. “First my father to prison, then my mother to death. Now my brother to ice. Everyone slips away.”
The candlelight illuminates the tears falling down her cheeks. In the glow, she looks like a nude hula dancer, like the ones that adorn the covers of all the local tourism magazines.
“I have no one now but you, Kevin.”
“But you do have me, Nikki.”
We make love in the glimmer of the candlelight, her tanned, toned body radiant in its gleam. As we drift off to sleep, entangled in an embrace, she whispers words more frightening to me than Palani, the Feds, and the Mafia combined.
“I so love you, Kevin.”