Synopsis

Renowned management consultant Dr. Dan Trix has been hired to market a luxury golf course in Hawaii. So why is someone trying to kill him? Trix is no stranger to violence. And he particularly doesn’t appreciate being attack by dogs or thrown off cliffs. From opulent resorts, through spectacular landscapes and deep into the dark soul of the islands, Trix and his war buddy Lester search for those responsible. It’s not all gumshoeing. They have the opportunity to enjoy an exotic array of the islands’ culinary and feminine delights. Trix initially resists the gorgeous women who are readily available. However, his smart, beautiful, devoted new girlfriend Elaine has joined him for a romantic week. But when Elaine has to cut her vacation short, Trix is left defenseless. Will he be true to his new budding love or will he lose it all because he can’t let go of any of it?

Chapter 1.

Stepping off the airplane into the Honolulu night was like stepping into a warm, scented shower without the water. Not heavily scented. More like the shadow of a scent. Those who live in the Mojave think Honolulu is humid. Those who live in Florida think it’s heaven.

You hear those perspectives from fellow travelers as you stroll none too hurriedly, from the gate to the baggage claim. From the air, the place looked much different. It was sparkling lights crawling up the valleys of east Oahu; the dark, quiet ridges, and the mega-glow from Waikiki, the same from Honolulu; the persistent twinkle of traffic marching along the coast. Down here it was over-lit high-rise buildings typical of any-city USA.

As a first-class passenger, I received the first, and still fresh, thank-you-for-flying-United. I’ve noticed that after a hundred or so of those, the flight attendants lips move, but there’s not enough gas left in the tank to power the words.

First Class on United from San Francisco to Honolulu should really be re-titled. Bourgeois class might do. Something between economy plus and business class. The seats a little wider, the service a little more prompt. The food horrifies the gourmet, titillates the obese. I brought a sandwich.

Sometimes, and this was one of those times, they do unload first class luggage before that of the hoi polloi. I had one Hartmann tweed bag, loosely packed. A few things to make me look Oh So Continental. The rest I planned to buy here. Tommy Bahama silk shirts with subdued tropical flowers, fashionable sandals by Ecco, satin shorts by Kahala. Underwear optional. I was meeting Elaine Newman, and if all went well, wouldn’t have much need.

I was surprised to find a guy with a sign that read “Dr. Daniel Trix.” My contractor knew I was coming but I hadn’t indicated exactly what day or flight. The Polynesian guy with the sign was big. His face was so fat his smile sunk into his cheeks. I could have used his aloha shirt as a shower surround.

“I’m Trix.”

“Aloha. Come wid me, brah.” I didn’t know if the guy was speaking in a local dialect or vocally impaired.

The guy didn’t walk so much as waddle. I followed. We waited for the stoplight outside of baggage claim then crossed to the parking garage. He wasn’t talkative and I was tired. That worked out well. He pointed at a white Toyota Camry parked in a handicap spot. Tricked out, as they say. Enormous exhaust pipes, spoilers, and those wheel covers that spin by themselves. How quaint, this Hawaiian limo.

The guy started to get in the car, paused, remembered I was there, opened the trunk without helping with the luggage, then returned to the drivers seat. He must have been paid in advance. I slipped in the back.

It was a short drive out of the garage and onto the H-1. This was my first visit to Hawaii and I had a Bali Hai notion of the place – palm frond bungalows, banana leaf roofs, swarthy bear-breasted maidens in grass skirts serving rum drinks from coconut shells. It may have been fronds and maidens and coconut shells for Captain Cook, but for Dr. Trix it was industrial warehousing, clogged freeways, and light-festering, high-rise concrete carbuncles.

I could see the glow of Honolulu in the rearview mirror when the driver left the freeway. Short-cut. Avoid traffic was my guess. Another couple turns and it got dark real quick. Open fields on either side of the road.

Suddenly the guy slammed on the brakes. He opened his door, scooted out and said, “Haole go home, if you still live.”

I unhook my seat belt as he slammed the door. The rear passenger side door opened at the same time. I heard the growl. I spun and brought my legs up. The dog leaped. I caught his body on my knees, his front quarters in my hands and accelerated his momentum straight into the window behind me. The safety glass didn’t break. His neck did. It was that fast.

I think I heard a car accelerate away, but that could have been my heart. The dog was heavy, but I pushed him off and lay there on the bench seat while my systems normalized. There was more adrenalin in my blood stream than there was gin in a good martini.

The only dogs I had as a kid were mutts, so I don’t know dogs. This one was big and brown with a head the size of a calf. It would look at home lying by Zeus’s sandals.

I scooted out of the car and gulped a few breaths. Then a few more. The air was as wonderful as it had been at the airport. Even better. The breeze gently flapped my shirtsleeves. The lights again had a Christmas twinkle. The traffic was white noise. I had lost neither body parts nor pints of blood. It was a good night.

I dragged Fido out of the car and off to the side of the road. No collar. No identification. Given the ways of nature, he would make a fine feast for something.

I was mulling how to get my bag and how far would be the walk, but that got preempted when I noticed the key still in the car. I checked the glove compartment. No registration. No insurance form.

It was a snappy piece of equipment. Scooted promptly. There was an entrance onto the freeway a couple miles down the hill. I headed back toward the bright lights.

Nine o’clock on a weekday night and the freeway was busy. Since I didn’t know exactly where I was going, I let everybody pass me. Almost exclusively Hondas, Toyotas, Mazdas, Nissans, and a few Hyundais and Kias. Allegiance to the homeland maybe. Or maybe the people with the franchises know their business.

The exit signs were little help. Words that start with K’s and W’s followed by lots of vowels. From the pilot’s spiel on the plane I knew Honolulu was between the airport and Waikiki. Figured if I drove through Honolulu to the water and turned left, I should find my hotel.

The Bishop Street exit took me past a busy YMCA, then quickly to a Y in the road with no signs. Most were going left. Me too. Bishop Street seemed to be the financial center of the city. Four or five blocks long, several banks, some insurance companies, mortgage brokers, wireless providers, and hole-in-wall restaurants to feed the worker bees.

Down to the water, then left on Nimitz Highway. Maybe a highway once, but now just a busy street with the usual commercial suspects lining the road. A few miles down the way, and there was a big park on the right, an even bigger shopping center on the left. Ala Moana, read the sign.

My suspicion was that my chauffeur did not hold clear title to this car. I had no interest in a sweat-stink room explaining to one of Honolulu’s Finest how it was that I was in possession of a stolen car. The shopping center was busy, and so were the open-air garages that surrounded the place. I found a spot street level, opposite some shops catering to the young and the restless, “Foxy” this, and “Juicy” that. I lowered the windows, left the keys in the ignition, and with wheeled carry-on, walked away. If this was a city like any other, that Toyota and my car troubles would be gone before dawn.

After hours on an airplane, and an adrenaline surge, I needed a walk. I was told it was a half-hour, or an hour walk to Waikiki, depends on where you’re going.

A nice walk, made even better by those same trade winds that greeted me when I exited the aircraft. No shortage of hotels, big and small, luxurious and modest, and that was just the few blocks up to Ft. Derussy. May have been a fort one day, but this day it was a park on one side, beach and a couple more hotels on the other. A couple more blocks and I was on the main drag in Waikiki. Lots of glitz, lots of schlock. Something for everyone. And lots of people strolling, many with shopping bags from those glitzy shops. Who knows, maybe they bought the bag at Louis Vuitton and stuffed it with a Quiksilver t-shirt. I get skeptical when I’m tired.

The Moana Surfrider was near the end of the shopping area. The hotel was one of the Grand Dames of Hawaii. Built in 1901, it had had more facelifts than Joan Rivers, but looked a hell of a lot better. The guest is greeted by a giant porte cochere, supported by gigantic white columns, maybe Greek, maybe Roman. Maybe white concrete over telephone poles

A white Rolls Royce was parked to one side of the porte cochere. It may have been a rental. It may have been a guest. It may have been the equivalent of that jar of tips at the coffee counter that the staff stuffs with bills to encourage you to tip well. It’s that tired thing again.

Check in was prompt, the staff polite, knowledgeable and outstandingly photogenic. If the customer assistant had been a man, I doubt I would have been so effusively gracious. Sun tanned Asian women with bright smiles, luminous eyes, dressed in a kimono silk blend that hugs the curves like a BMW in the Alps. Let me tell you, I was pleased with check-in.

The lobby has the traditional sculpted sitting areas, lots of them. But what immediately caught my attention was the beautiful hardwood floors and the many white columns that echoed those in the porte cochere. And the breeze. The conventional wisdom holds that Hawaii is an expensive place to live. My intuition said that air conditioning and Hickey Freeman suits were not part of that expense. Nature was providing the air cooling, and aloha shirts were clearly the uniform of the day.

My high-floor ocean view suite in the tower was easy to find. Easy for the bellboy at any rate. I followed him.

The young man opened the door, and, curiously, rather than leading me in, simply held the door while I entered. I palmed him a couple bucks, closed the door, turned, and from a single glance, felt pressure on my zipper.

She was lounging on the dining table, resting on one elbow, one leg straight out, the other akimbo. Spiked heels strapped around her ankles. Fishnet stockings up to mid-thigh. A transparent black bra. Lipstick the color of a vixen’s blood. Brown eyes as dangerous as black holes in space. A martini glass gently rolling back and forth on her cheek. Bangs and hair glistening as though shined by a jeweler. Bettie Page lives.

“You look like you could use a drink, big boy,” she purred.

“Elaine?”

“I thought for sure you’d say Bettie Page,” she murmured.

“You weren’t due in till tomorrow.”

“You had other plans tonight?” she pouted.

“Yeah. I was going to plan what outfit to wear when I met you at the airport tomorrow.”

“Oh, I think whatever you don’t wear will be quite nice.” She slithered off the table. “Much too warm for all these, don’t you think?” she said as she began to unbutton my shirt. Pressure on the zipper mounting. By the time she found her way there, it was somewhat difficult to unzip because of the peculiar angle it had attained.

Over the course of the next hour or so, we had the opportunity to test the comfort and resiliency of the various couches, easy chairs and ottomans in the suite. All proved satisfactory.

In comfortable cotton bathrobes, we slouched on the lanai chairs and watched the stars over the ocean, what few could be seen through the ambient glare from the hotels on the beach. A Far Niente chardonnay the drink of choice, compliments of the management.

“How was the flight?” was her perfunctory question. It was difficult to tell whether she was sipping the wine, or merely massaging the rim of the glass with her lips.

I explained my concept of bourgeois class, then continued, “but the massive canine that was loosed on me in the back of the limo was quite a surprise.”

Non sequitur statements like that will guarantee a pause in the conversation.

She paused, then asked, “Is that a punch line to a shaggy dog joke?”

“It’s what happened. But anything more than that, I certainly don’t know.” I recounted the tale from the time I met the driver, till I walked in the hotel room, excluding the prurient check-in experience.

“Could it have been a mistake?” she wondered.

“Until this moment, I hadn’t thought about the episode. It was so quick and viscous and stunning. Then I had to deal with traffic, and dumping the car, and absorbing the glitz and gaudy of Waikiki. And then exercising a long-dormant fantasy of unusual-body-posture sex with Bettie Page. Mistake? The driver had a sign for Dan Trix. Maybe he got the wrong name? I truly hope so.”

She turned to me, both leggy legs over the arm of her chair. “If it wasn’t a mistake, then whose shit-list are you on?”

I slowly shook my head in bewilderment. “Even if I weren’t tired, sexually sated, and pleasantly in the bag as I now pour my second glass of wine,” which I did, “I would not be hard pressed to conjure a list of those who dislike me, but very hard pressed to guess who would want me dead.”

“Sexually sated?” she asked as those legs began to part slowly.

“Lord, help me. This is going to be a long night.”

He didn’t. And it was.

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