Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Who’d have thought a scrawny pimply-faced guy could have sent a Mack-truck-sized man into the pavement with such caliber and zeal? The impact had surely loosened a few teeth. Blood oozed from the prone truck’s nose and lips like a Rocky mountain stream during spring thaw.

Pimple Guy shook his head, cursed three times, hawked loudly and graced Truck Man’s soiled bargain-store running shoe with a large gob of phlegm before sauntering into an early evening that veiled the local world with a blackberry-plum shroud. Truck Man’s friends appeared embarrassed and unsure as to whether they should assist their fallen comrade or maintain a semblance of dignity and walk away. Heat took its toll on some tempers, but then, so did a late afternoon of lagers and rum chasers under a baking sun.

“Clean up by the fountain!” Faith shouted to Wayne, an attractive beanstalk of a man hoisting a crate of wine bottles onto a rear counter.

“Hey, Shooter Lady! Three KDs, times three,” Paco ordered hoarsely as he hastened past the bar with a sizable tray supporting frosty mugs of beer and fancy (pricey) appetizers.

Faith Suren, recently dubbed “Shooter Lady”, was a former diner waitress I’d met during the agency’s first official case. Instead of slinging loco moco and burgers, these days Faith was serving different shooter cocktails—mini mixtures—each unique and each a specialty. One was the U.S. Kentucky Derby, or KD for short. While there was a shooter named after a special event in each state, KD seemed the most popular this balmy, breezy Saturday night.

Three months ago, my friend had ended up working at Flaming Daisies, a popular upscale lounge, when Rog’s diner burned down, courtesy of an exploding oil vat. Faith and Pollo, the cook, had already left for the night after pulling double-duty, as had the customers. It was Rog’s misfortune to have chosen that particular evening to [finally] perform minor maintenance on said vat. The greasy spoon had been leveled, much like Rog.

Having served greasy but tasty diner fare for too many years to count, it was a blessing in disguise when she had to find a new job. A friend of a friend of a customer of a cousin had recommended her to Ritch Lea and Izzie O’Rourke, owners of the popular venue. Customers had taken a quick liking to the amiable, even-tempered woman and Faith was given better shifts as well as bartending training from Josho, who thought she’d make a great replacement when he finally took early retirement.

It was 6:45 according to a huge prawn-shaped wall clock suspended on a rear wall above a long table where twelve young people sat, celebrating two friends’ birthdays.

“Sorry I couldn’t get out at 6:30, like planned.” Faith topped off my wine glass. “Tamara’s on her way, so we’ll still make it to the theater in plenty of time, yeah.”

“No worries.”

With a wink, she went to see to a beckoning man’s eager bidding.

A friend had offered Rey, Linda and me tickets to a classic comedy playing at Hawaii Theatre. Unfortunately Linda had eaten something that had disagreed with her, so she was bed-bound for the evening while Rey—who’d already seen the play twice—was on a mission to test domestic decorating skills by painting the laundry room and pantry in our recently acquired house in Kalama Valley, which was part of Hawaii Kai. We’d gotten the five-bedroom house—with ohana—for a song, as the saying went, but only because it was a fixer-upper … in every sense of the word. When Faith had called the day previous to see about getting together, I invited her. The third ticket wouldn’t go to waste; Sach Morin, our neighbor and new pal, would meet up with us in the lobby before the start.

“Hey, Shooter Lady, two times three KDs.” Pierre winked and waited for Faith to fill the order. Young and cute, in an extraterrestrial sort of way (remember E.T.?), he loosened a lavender bowtie, part of the venue’s white-shirt-black-pants ensemble and muttered something about wishing the gentle winds wafting through six open doors would pick up because the rapidly rotating fans above were doing d**k.

A valid comment. The muggy evening felt like a layer of nylon clinging to sweaty skin: confining, cohesive, suffocating. The heat and mugginess magnified the usual scents and odors: smells of fried and grilled foods wrangled with hops and barley and malts while a sundry of scents wafting from foodstuffs and bodies fought for supremacy with a host of perfumes and colognes (some which may well have been applied with a soup ladle).

Faith motioned Felicity, a plump and pretty blonde bartender, to see to two arrivals on my left. They reminded me of young versions of Ricky Ricardo and Fred Mertz from I Love Lucy; the one seated was dark and handsome but solemn-faced, and the other standing alongside with an elbow on the bar, was dumpy but cute, in a Cabbage Patch doll sort of way.

I took a sip of Chardonnay. Custom-made glasses at Flaming Daisies were tinted gray-blue with a black-mesh pattern in keeping with the color scheme of the establishment. Glossy black molding complemented gray-blue walls. Fragile-looking bar stools with argent-gray patterned seats were supported by thin black chrome legs. Beams and rafters over the bar were black, as were pillars and posts that supported esoteric, customer-created paintings housed in black frames. It wasn’t very Hawaiian, but it was rather cool.

Pierre wrinkled a flat, scrunched nose and set his tray on the corner of the bar, nearly upsetting a bowl filled with maraschino cherries. Resting one hand on a lean hip, he silently challenged Fred M with a sinister dare-to-say-one-word-about-me-standing-in-your-space smile.

“Hey, Felicity, grab me a couple of Wild Turkeys—and not those two leather-vested boys sitting by the pretzel bowl,” Faith called over bottles of multi-colored ambrosias (or banes, depending on your viewpoint). With a weary chuckle, she motioned a glossy black door that led to the owners’ offices, a change room, locker and storage areas, and rear exit.

I followed and waited outside a small change room for her to step out of her bartending uniform. Crash N. Bern, real name unknown, stepped from Izzie’s office and offered a curt nod as he hastened past. A new addition to the bartending team, the twenty-two-year-old was damn skilled, not simply at the bar, but on the bongos, bass, and banjo. An aspiring musician, he looked the part with long mahogany hair, pierced ears (a skull hung from the left lobe, a saber from the right), muscles that would have made Mr. Universe jealous, and a colorful serpent tattoo that curled around the base of a long, heavily veined neck and slithered down to sights unseen. If he weren’t so attractive, with a gleaming Crest smile and intensive grass-green eyes, never mind the obliging disposition, he could prove intimidating.

Faith opened the door, looking attractive in a rose-pink peasant blouse and gray straight-leg pants. During Rog’s diner days, she’d looked weary, thin, pale. The new job agreed with her, so much so she’d decided to do things never dreamed of: have teeth fixed and whitened, face toned, new make-up regime acquired, and unruly curly walnut-colored hair highlighted and fashioned into a stylish bob.

“Remember the guy you called Howdy-Doody a few nights back when you were sitting at the bar with Rey and Linda?”

“Who could forget those crazy freckles? That beaver smile and mango-orange hair?”

“I was checking for a text re next week’s schedule and accidently hit a news app. Look at this.” She held up her cell phone. There was a small full-face shot of the fellow Rey had dubbed Howdy-Doody. His name according to the article was Van T.L. Quist. Very “was”. Yesterday morning, his body had been found in an alley not far from the bar, under a pile of cardboard. Apparently, it had been a few days since he’d died. Speculation regarding cause of death: d**g overdose. There’d been traces of a suspicious powder on his person, a short-needle syringe in a back pocket, and a crop of dot- or pin-like marks on his chest. Injecting into the chest was less conspicuous than an arm, I supposed.

With the island heat, you had to wonder why no one had discovered the poor guy; surely the stench from the ripening body must have been overwhelming. I mentioned this to Faith.

“They’re often strewing garbage in that alley,” she said, draping a polished-leather tote from one shoulder and closing the change-room door. “The smell of death wouldn’t penetrate the smell of rotting foods, and whatever additional ugliness may lay there, yeah.”

“But they must collect garbage on a regular basis,” I pointed out as we stepped from the rear exit into a small, well-lit parking area.

“Way at the rear?” She appeared dubious and shrugged. “It does go to prove, though, that appearances aren’t everything. Would you have thought that fresh-faced guy was a d**g user?”

I recalled the young man who might have been labeled wholesome, like a choir boy or Boy-Scout leader. “No, but he was pretty good at tossing back the booze.”

“He reminded me of a university kid, out for alcohol-infused fun. And an unwelcome morning hangover.” She slipped into the passenger seat of my Jeep when I opened the door. “Do you suppose he bought the drugs at the bar? Or sold them?”

“Anything’s possible.” I got into the driver’s seat. “I wonder when the cops will come calling at Flaming Daisies.”

“They only just found the body, so they have to figure out the wheres and whens and whos. Apparently, the fellow who wrote the story was in the vicinity when it all came down and, so, the ‘scoop’.”

“My Vancouver friend would call him a keener.”

Faith chuckled and adjusted the seat belt.

The following morning found the three of us at Flaming Daisies, where we’d agreed to meet Faith and an HPD detective who’d requested a meeting to discuss Van T.L. Quist. She, in turn, had requested we attend; given our profession, she felt we might have something of note to add.

Ritch and Izzie had personally opened the bar to observe the police investigation. Organizing bottles and jars, they not so surreptitiously watched as Faith sat with a new HPD detective, Detective Petroni Carter Hammill. Felicity and Paco were also there, waiting to be interviewed re the Howdy-Doody Murder, as Rey had labeled it, even if it hadn’t officially been confirmed as one.

Save for the closely cropped chocolate-brown hair, the attractive man bore a striking resemblance to singer-songwriter-model Shawn Mendes. I tried not to gape, unlike Rey and Linda and Felicity, whose jaws were hanging between their navels and knees as they leaned into the bar counter. Faith simply sipped coffee and waited for the man to talk, her gaze as expressionless as her face.

“I understand you were serving Van T.L. Quist last Friday night.” His voice, somewhere between gravelly and raspy, wasn’t asking a question but making a statement. The hint of an accent was hard to place.

“Mr. Quist was sitting at my counter for an hour, an hour and a half, give or take,” Faith advised, gesturing the bar. “He was chatting with one of the regulars a lot of the time.”

“What’s the regular’s name?”

“Morris. I don’t know his last name, but I do know he works at the university in an administrative capacity.” She glanced over at Felicity. “Do you know Morris’ last name?”

She shook her head and started slicing limes.

The man’s shapely sensual lips drew into a tight line as he keyed something into his cellphone.

I gave him a casual once-over. Defined facial features. Long thin neck. Adam’s apple bearing a tiny scar. Broad shoulders that saw weights regularly. He was too attractive by half.

As he pulled a black lizard-skin card holder from the inside pocket of a trim-fit navy-blue blazer, eyes as black as eight balls and as deep as abysses glanced over and eyed Rey for several seconds. He then smiled tightly. “Can you three spare a few minutes?”

Grabbing chairs, we sat next to Faith and eyed Hammill expectantly. The man seemed in no hurry to ask questions.

My gaze traveled to the unbuttoned portion of a white linen shirt. His chest was smooth and brawny, and a partial tattoo—a red and black wing—was visible on the left breastbone. It probably belonged to a hawk or an eagle (couldn’t imagine it being a sparrow or swallow). Noticing where my gaze rested, he smiled in a way I was tempted to call arrogantly smart. My eyes rolled skyward.

Rey crossed slender arms and regarded him intently. “You’re here because Howdy-Doody was murdered. Are you thinking someone here committed the dastardly deed?”

He offered a fleeting smile and arched a strong shoulder. “We’re simply tracing the deceased man’s last few days… Howdy-Doody?”

“The first nationally televised kid’s show featuring Buffalo Bob Smith and Howdy Doody, a puppet, which ran from, oh, 1947 to 1960, thereabouts.”

Linda slapped her BFF’s back. “Your TV trivia knows no bounds.”

Hammill gazed from Linda to Rey and back again. “She gives names to people?”

“We all do, when inclined.”

He smirked. “Who do I remind you of?”

Rey smiled saltily. “Rocky Balboa. After losing a pathetic nine rounds.”

He smirked again. “Cute.”

“You asked.”

“Yeah. Serves me right.” Hammill turned back to Faith. “Okay, so you were his bartender that night. From?”

She drew a long breath and rubbed her thin face thoughtfully. “From 8:00 to 9:15 or maybe 9:30. Thereabouts. As I said, he sat beside Morris most of the time.”

“Quist was drinking”

“Most people in a bar do that, yeah.”

His eyes narrowed slightly and he scratched a sun-burnished cheek at length, as if he were contemplating something—like a castigating remark. “What was he drinking?”

“Red-Blue-Whites primarily. As opposed to White-on-Red-Blues.”

Hammill held up a tanned and scarred hand that had surely kissed a knife blade or two. “What the hell are those?”

“Patriotic shooters. One type for those who don’t want to handle something too intense and one type for those who do.”

“Patriotic shooters?” He laughed. It was a pleasant, throaty sound, like a Porsche slipping into fifth. “Did the guy look like he was flying?”

“On the wings of some euphoria-inducing d**g? Or on one of her shooters?” Rey asked bluntly.

He eyed her at length. “Are you always so cocky, Ms. Fonne-Werde?”

Placing a palm to her chest, she feigned child-like innocence.

With the shake of the head, he returned to Faith. “Was he on drugs? As far as you could tell?”

“He didn’t look or act drugged, nor did he mention drugs. In fact, he talked mostly about his third-year med studies … and some commercial or ad thing.”

Hammill stared at something beyond her shoulder. “Did he at all look or act suspicious, strange, like maybe he was doing something illicit? Was he talking to anyone who appeared out of the ordinary?”

“He chatted with Morris and the odd person that leaned into the counter beside him. No, he didn’t look like someone doing something illicit or trying to buy drugs, but then I’d not have that emblazoned on my forehead if that were my intention. As for someone out of the ordinary, no, I didn’t see or notice anyone I’d never seen before. I tend to remember new faces.”

He rubbed his chin, looking pensive. “And he didn’t appear depressed, down, suicidal?”

“The kid was into having simple, bar-time fun.”

Tapping the table absently, the detective’s gaze fell on a lithograph of an absurdly fat pink-faced man reclining in a tub with flabby arms outstretched. Hammill frowned. Either he didn’t like the artwork or he didn’t care for Faith’s flat response.

“Do you recall anything of note, Ms. Suren?”

“Not particularly.”

“Not particularly suggests a little something. Maybe you have a little Miss Marple in you, like your private-eye friends here?” He jerked a thumb toward us and, smirking, regarded us with a critical eye. “Did you ‘not particularly’ notice anything that night?”

“After Morris left, he talked to a woman and not long after her, a jock.”

A perfectly shaped eyebrow arched. Did he pluck them? Probably. Vanity, thy name was not always woman. “A little something is better than a big nothing. Tell me about them. Maybe they’ll be able to provide some useful information.”