Page 71 of Deadly Aloha
He stumbled to his feet. “I need to go to the hospital.” When he fumbled with his clothing due to his missing thumbs and the knife still in his shoulder, Lucifer came over to assist him. The man shouted in agony when Lucifer finally pulled the blade from his shoulder.
Once naked, he tried to reach for the pile of clothing, but I stepped in front of him. He jolted to a halt, paling. He must have seen something in my eyes because he stuttered out, “N-no! Yo-you promised! I told you everything!”
“You did, and therefore you aren’t being fed into the woodchipper.” I leaned forward, “As I promised. But you also shot up my house with my pregnantwahineand my baby niece inside. For that, you die.”
Then I grabbed his arm and bloody shoulder, spun us to get momentum, and tossed him overboard into the crimson water. We all walked to the edge of the boat to watch as gray skin met pale flesh and the screams of the dying were soon pulled down into the depths of the sea.
When the predawn fell silent, I rolled my neck, my muscles stiff and the stitches on my back tight. “Anyway you guys could not tell Lu about me tossing a man into water?”
All three shook their heads. Fuck.
Chapter Fourteen
Bacon’s house looked like a transit station filled with the homeless. Lu, Pua, and I had one of the guest rooms, Tangaloa had another, and we let the rest duke it out for who got the remaining beds or had to sleep on various furniture. No one was surprised when Neo got a room all to themself. Bacon’s rule was that the sex dungeon was off limits, because he didn’t want any of their grubby little hands all over his little owl’s things.
I tried all yesterday to get ahold of my sister. One would think she’d be concerned about her baby by now, but she’d moved onto a new motel at a new resort. I was pissed enough that I sent the twins to retrieve her, not giving her an option about coming back.
Normally I would send Spirit on a retrieval like that, but I needed him here. The twins did not know Kahoku, nor had they ever worked for him. Lucifer knew the name, as did Saga and Tick. Because I wanted Saga here so we still had an unbiased record of the meeting we were about to have, I sent Tick and Lucifer to Rory’s boat to see what they could find.
Lu, Pua, and Holly were upstairs in the house’s movie theater. I was not calling this meeting Church, since I had somemissing members. Just an unofficial meeting that had a lot of resemblances to Church.
Once the women and Pua were situated upstairs with a large breakfast buffet, I called the not-Church meeting to order.
“We have reason to believe Kahoku is the Bloody Scorpions’ new heroin dealer.” The disbelief around the room was palpable. Before the arguments could start, though, I held up my hands to stop them. “I know. I don’t understand it either, but how else would a Bloody Scorpion evenknowKahoku’s name? Even the police only refer to him as ‘Lapu’.” It meant ghost, an apparition, because no one ever seemed to be able to find him. They thought Kahoku was sitting in some hidden place giving orders, not realizing that he was always right there in the thick of things, getting his hands dirty like the rest of us.
It took a lot to earn my respect, but Kahoku had it almost from the beginning. He was honorable and he shared the same values I did in wanting to protect our people and our way of life. We might be Americans by definition, but we were of theKanaka ?Oiwi, the bones of our ancestors, first and always.
Bacon was the only one in the room who looked confused. “Who is Kahoku?”
Tangaloa looked up at the high living room ceiling. When he spoke, his words were clipped, like he didn’t want to say them but felt he had to. “He’s an activist. We’ve all worked with him, taught a lot of us the things we know. He’s very vocal about the fact that we’re Pacific Islanders, not Americans. We will never be Americans. Thehaolemay come and put their flag in our sands, but they will never take our spirit. He protects our islands and our way of life. With his help, we’ve gone after large corporations, oil companies, western farmers, and,” he gave me a sharp look, “drug dealers.”
Bacon glanced around the room, as if trying to get a read on all of us. “You all admire him.” He didn’t say it as a slight, but factual. “In the simplest explanation, he’s your mentor.”
“Well, we never called him ‘Daddy’,” Neo quipped, “but yeah.”
A few of us chucked at Neo’s joke, but it was dry, stilted. To Bacon, I said, “He calls drugs ‘haolepoison’. I got out of the game years ago, but I took out a lot of dealers and distribution centers while working for him.”
Bacon nodded slowly, scratching his chin. “In a twisted, fucked up way, him being a dealer makes sense.”
As others started to protest, I put my teeth to my lips and let out a loud whistle. “This is a controversial topic, and a personal one. We aren’t going to get anywhere if we all start arguing at once. Bacon has an outside perspective and the brain of a cop. That’s why he’s here.” The others settled down. I gave them another second before I turned back to Bacon, “Why do you say that?”
“It’s unfortunate, but a pattern I’ve seen before. Some of the biggest advocates against a crime are actually behind the biggest crimes themselves. It’s not always, and I’m not saying all who fight for a cause have a hidden agenda, but it’s common enough that it’s not a surprise anymore.”
“You’re saying he used us,” Spirit said, his jaw tight. “To take out his competition?”
Bacon shrugged, “I’m saying it makes sense, but yes.”
Tangaloa, though, shook his head. “It doesn’t actually. There are a lot of dealers on the islands. And not just H. Meth, cocaine, X, opioids…” He tallied off on his fingers. “The Bloody Scorpions just got here. They’re the new kids on the block.If,” he emphasized strongly, “Kahoku is dealing, why would he work with the Bloody Scorpions? They’re not even small fish at this point. They’re the algae small fish eat.”
“That I don’t have an answer for, but the rest…” Bacon let the sentence trail off.
I turned to Neo, who had taken position in the living room’s sex swing again. Thankfully Pua was too young to ask questions about it, though we had moved a large plant in front of it so it wasn’t just an attractive swing for a two year old.
“I need you to do a deep dive into his life.Everything, Neo. I want to know everything from where he was born, to who he lost his virginity to, to where he took a piss last night. Understood?”
Neo’s chin quivered, but they nodded. “I don’t like it, but I want to know too. Ineedto know. Kahoku was the first person I came out to when I was thirteen. If he…” Their voice cracked. “I need to know,” they repeated more firmly.
“Something else to consider,” Tommy spoke up. We all shifted to look at him in the back of the room. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “Someone paid the Bloody Scorpions to kill you. There were pictures in that warehouse of your house, the barn, the horses, the property… It could have been Rory or it could have been some random stranger on the street that someone else paid to do the transaction. We need to upgrade security around the property.” He looked to Bacon. “Including your home. We’re here enough with the barn under construction that someone watching will put two and two together.”
