Chapter 4
1200 Words
Chapter 4Four o’clock Friday afternoon found Rey, Linda and I driving along the H2 toward Wahiawa. No, we weren’t naïve or dense enough to believe we’d find Xavier Konani at the house with Zeus, Dale and Joel; he was a druggie (as Rey kept calling him), not stupid. Still, it was worth checking.
The drive was slow. People were finishing work and eager to get home. We didn’t mind. It was cloudy and cool (cool in Hawaiian terms, meaning 76 degrees instead of 84). Open windows allowed a refreshing, fragrant breeze to flow through an orchid-white Nissan Cube SL. All was well with the world. Or so you could convince yourself with the right attitude and outlook.
Honey hadn’t yet heard from her son, but she’d grown used to his “flights of freedom”, as she called them. She fretted as a mother would, but no longer experienced hysterics or despair as she had the first couple of times. Her belief in God kept her sane and calm, and hopeful that her son would one day see the light. And stop doing drugs. Yes, she’d known for a while, but hadn’t voiced it. To do so would have meant acknowledging a bleak truth.
“Hang a left,” Rey directed, looking up from a map.
“Thank you, Miss GPS.” I put on the turn signal.
“My directions are reliable, Jilly. The last GPS we used, courtesy of a subcompact rental, would have driven us into the dolphin pool at the Aquarium,” she attested. “Should be about ten houses up.”
“This is a brand new vehicle,” I pointed out. “The GPS works fine.”
Rey made a funny face while Linda pointed. “There!”
Pulling the Nissan to the side of a narrow side road, we eyed a tiny, two-story wooden-frame dwelling with a large mossy driveway. At one time it had been Cattle Egret white; now it was more Java Sparrow gray. “It looks empty.”
“The boys could be watching TV,” Linda suggested.
“Or getting high,” Rey murmured.
“Or surfing,” I offered, preferring to think of a more positive or healthy activity. Turning off the engine, I climbed out. “It’s time to find out.”
Clad in jeans, lightweight cotton hoodies, and baseball-type caps—US Air Force for me, Texas Rangers for Rey, and Brooklyn Dodgers for Linda—the detectives from the Triple Threat Private Investigation Agency strolled casually to the rear door. (Rey and I really needed to chat about the business name.)
Squaring knobby shoulders, my cousin knocked boldly. “Place needs work.”
Fern-green paint was peeling on a heavy pine door and its frame, as well as on a small square window to the right. A thick unwashed lace curtain obscured an interior view. I turned to the rear. It didn’t look much nicer. A rickety picket-style fence ran from the back of the house around a long, narrow backyard that hadn’t seen a recent mowing. Four cheap plastic lawn chairs were parked behind a matching rectangular picnic table on which lay empty bottles of soda and water; chocolate wrappers and chip bags were tucked underneath.
“Munchie time?” Rey knocked determinedly again.
“Teen boys nutrition time,” Linda responded.
We jumped when the door swung inwards and a lean blond fellow weighing no more than 140 pounds and sporting a badly maintained chin curtain eyed us curiously. He might have been attractive if he hadn’t possessed an acne-ravaged face and three-inch scar across a low brow.
“Howzit, sistas?” squeaked past chapped lips.
“I’m Jill. This is Rey and this is Linda,” I gestured with a cheery smile. “We’re looking for Xavier.”
“Isn’t everybody?” The quiet voice held a touch of scorn. Small ash-gray eyes regarded us. “He hasn’t been here in a coupla days, yeah.”
“His mom’s worried,” Linda offered, looking appropriately concerned.
“Most moms worry, don’t they?” he responded with a shrug. “It seems that’s all they do.”
“Know where he is?” Rey scanned his threadbare jeans and long, dirty feet before meeting his searching gaze.
“Who wants to know . . . besides his mom?”
“His family misses him,” Linda said. “They’re concerned he may be in trouble. We’d like to help.” She gestured his T. “Fan?”
He nodded and rubbed a long thin hand across the Kings of Leon logo.
She gave a thumb’s up. “Me, too. I’ve seen them like fifteen times. . . . Even met Caleb Followhill.”
“No way!” His gaze widened and a huge smile displayed pearly dentist-perfect teeth. Who’d have thought? “For real?”
“Maybe you two can exchange band tales later. We need to locate Xavier,” Rey interjected, not concealing impatience very well. “He could be in trouble. Lots of it.”
“You wouldn’t happen to be Zeus?” I asked casually, wishing Rey would learn to keep annoyance in check.
“Dale.” His eyes remained on Linda as if she were a life-line to his idols.
Her smile was cheerful and her attitude laid-back as she gave his forearm a teasing punch. “I’d really enjoy sharing stories, but at the moment we’re desperate to find him. Is there anything you can tell us, like where he is, or something he said that could lead us to him?”
“I’d prefer to hear your stories.” His smile was almost shy.
She bah-hah-hahed, something I’d not heard her do since Connecticut. The loud frat-boy laugh had always seemed incongruous with the woman’s bookish personality. It did affect Dale, though: it made him laugh and loosen.
“I have an extra signed photo of the band. It’s yours if you tell us about Xavier. I’ll be happy to swing by Sunday and drop it off.”
A sparse eyebrow arched and he eyed her inquisitively. “For real?”
She punched his forearm again. “Absolutely, brah, absolutely.”
Rey was about to butt in again, but a sharp pinch to the backside kept her in line.
He motioned the lawn chairs and we moved over to take seats.
“Xav’s been having issues.”
“Drugs,” I said quietly as we sat.
He nodded solemnly. “Zeus, Joel and me, we don’t do nothing heavy, just grass now and again. Xav got into ice more than a year ago. Maybe more like two. I can’t really recall. Anyway, he said he had it under control, but it got control of him.” Dale looked into the neighbors’ well-maintained yard, thick with palapalai ferns and plumeria, and appeared to consider how much he wanted to reveal.
“No one seemed to mind or care?” my cousin demanded with a deep frown.
“Course we minded and cared. He and Zeus been tight since grade school.” Anger crossed his face. “I’m not sure how he manages it, but Xav’s been paying for groceries and a small percentage of the rent, coz he stays here a lot, yeah.”
“Like whenever he runs away from home?”
“And when he feels like hanging out.”
“Who owns the house?”
“Zeus’ cousin, Jules. He’s a salesman, so he’s not around much. As long as we don’t do any damage and give him seven-hundred a month, he’s cool.”
“None of you is over eighteen,” Rey commented with a skeptical gaze.
“Zeus and me’s eighteen. Joel’s sixteen.” His smile was scorching dry. “Are you looking to adopt?”
Before Rey could offer a scornful retort, Linda jumped in. “Do you have any idea where Xavier is?”
Dale shrugged. “He could be in Kalihi, Palama, or Chinatown. He knows some dealers, and he’s met some guys who have the same issues.”
“Do you know any names?”
“Duke. Benny. Tietjen.” He shrugged again. “Those are ones he’d mentioned a coupla times when he was tweaking or desperate.” He leaned back and sighed. “Zeus tried to get him to see someone. He’s got an uncle who’s a social worker and a cousin who works at a clinic.”
“But no go?” I asked.
He looked sad. “We talked about maybe having the dude stay elsewhere, coz we were getting worried. We even considered telling him he couldn’t hang here anymore so it would help straighten him out, but then Zeus thought maybe it’d be better to have him around—to keep an eye on him, you know?”
“If you were Xavier, where would you go?” Linda asked. “Especially if you didn’t want to be found?”
“With them issues, sistas, I’d lose myself in and around the streets makai of Farrington Highway.”
Rey looked at me quizzically.
“Toward the ocean. Mauka’s toward the mountains.”
She smiled with recognition.
- Writer
