WILLIAM STARR MOAKE grew up in Michigan and worked as a newspaper reporter in South Florida for several years. He is the author of three fiction books, two novels and a short story collection all published since 1999. This year Moake won a first-place award from the Society of Professional Journalists for his Honolulu Magazine article about five fishermen lost at sea. When he is not writing, he dabbles in freelance web design and software programming from his home in Hawaii, where he has lived since 1972.

ONE

Kona winds had been blowing for more than a week and I felt irritable as usual. This weather phenomenon had nothing to do with the tourist district of that name on the Big Island. It referred to a hot and humid southerly wind that occasionally interrupted the cooling northeast tradewinds in the winter months, turning Hawaii into a tropical steam bath. Everyone sweated more than normal and tempers got frayed. It had the same effect as the Santa Ana winds in Los Angeles. The police were kept extra busy breaking up fights and the jails were overflowing.

Normally Kona winds only lasted a few days, but this time there seemed to be no end in sight. Each morning when I woke up and opened the door to the tiny lanai of my apartment, hoping to feel the refreshing tradewinds again, I was struck by a blast of air so humid it wilted my hopes for the day. The sky was hung with a low overcast, but even if it rained there was no relief from the discomfort. I made a cup of instant coffee and went outside to read the Sunday newspaper.

I had sold my land on the Big Island and moved to Honolulu the year before to find more work as a private investigator. I decided that I was getting too old to continue living in the rainforest without electricity or paved roads. That was fun when I was younger, but now I wanted the conveniences of city life. I had lived in Honolulu fifteen years earlier when I was in the Air Force. The city had grown since then and there was more traffic, but Honolulu was still my favorite big city. It was composed of neighborhoods that seemed more like small towns than parts of a city and each had its own particular style. I lived in Nuuanu Valley because it was quiet, but I hung out in Chinatown for fun. All I needed was an interesting case once in awhile to keep my life running smoothly.

Lately the cases had been routine, the kind of stuff that turned PIs into old men before their time. As I went through the motions of investigating insurance frauds and doing background checks for paranoid employers, I could almost hear my brain cells dying. At least I wasn't repossessing cars any longer or spying on unfaithful wives. I had done so much of that when I first got into PI work it had left a bad taste in my mouth. Now I had a monthly retainer from a large Japanese corporation and I could afford to be somewhat selective in the cases I accepted.

When the phone rang, I decided to let the answering machine handle it. At the end of my taped message I heard a female voice.

"Mister Hamilton, I got your name and number from my attorney," she began. "I need your help with a personal problem."

I liked female clients. They were so much more cooperative than male clients and generally nicer to look at. I went inside and picked up the phone.

"I'm here," I said.

"Oh, I thought I was leaving a message."

"You're up early for a Sunday morning," I said. "What can I do for you?"

"I'd rather not discuss this on the phone. Could we meet at your office?"

"I work out of my home," I explained.

"Perhaps we could meet at the Outrigger Club. Do you know where it is?"

"I can find it."

"An hour from now in the bar?"

"Let's say two hours," I suggested. "I haven't had my breakfast yet."

"I'll see you then."

"Haven't you forgotten something?"

"What?"

"Your name would help."

"Of course," she laughed. "Natalie -- Mrs. Natalie Foxworth."

"Okay," I said and hung up.

She had a sexy voice that sounded young, plus she seemed scatter-brained. That was a nice combination in a woman if you liked to indulge in fantasy. The Foxworth name seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on where I had heard it. It was still too early in the morning for memory exercises.

After a shower, I got dressed and walked to a restaurant to have breakfast. It was a mom and pop establishment that served eggs and Portuguese sausage and rice for a reasonable price -- no extra charge for the grease. I inhaled my breakfast with another cup of coffee and went to collect my car. It was a 1989 green Plymouth Reliant that needed a new paint job but ran like a dream. I always tried to park it somewhere out of sight so my clients wouldn't see it. Most clients had the foolish notion that if a PI drove an ugly car he wasn't very good at his job. They were snobs who didn't understand that an ugly car was less likely to be noticed in surveillance.

The Outrigger Club was harder to find than I had anticipated. I arrived ten minutes late and hurried to the bar. The only woman in the place was an attractive brunette sitting alone in one of the booths. She looked about thirty and flashed a smile as I approached.

"Mrs. Foxworth?" I said, mopping my forehead with a handkerchief.

"Pleased to meet you," she said. "Would you like a drink?"

I took a seat across the table from her. "It's a little early for me," I said.

"I thought private detectives drank whisky for breakfast," she remarked.

"Only in the movies," I said. "My doctor advised me to avoid hard liquor if I wanted to see fifty."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-something."

"You look younger."

Like hell I did. When a woman client flirts with you, it's a bad omen because it usually means she is trying to hide something.

"What can I help you with?" I asked.

"I want you to find my husband."

"Is he lost or missing?"

"I'm not sure I understand the difference," she said, sipping her drink.

She was scatter-brained all right. "Lost means he vanished in a jungle expedition or something like that," I explained. "Missing means he left home to buy a pack of cigarettes and never came back."

"Anton doesn't smoke," she said. "Do you know who my husband is?"

All of a sudden I made the connection and I nodded. Anton Foxworth was the founder of Gideon Software, which was second only to Microsoft. He was an eccentric genius who had parlayed several innovative business programs into a billion-dollar corporation in Silicon Valley.

"Don't you live in California?" I asked his wife.

"We bought a house in Kahala last year," she replied. "Anton loves the islands and he wanted to get away from work."

"How long has he been missing?"

"Since Friday night."

"That's only a day and a half," I said. "Maybe he went for a long drive around the island."

"Is that supposed to be funny?" She glanced at me and ordered another drink.

"Mrs. Foxworth," I started to say.

"Please call me Natalie."

"Natalie, what makes you think your husband is missing?"

"Anton was having a nightcap by the swimming pool when I went to bed Friday night," she said. "I woke up a few hours later and he was gone. He wouldn't just go somewhere in the middle of the night without waking me or leaving a note or something. He's a very considerate man."

"Did you report this to the police?"

"I don't want the police involved."

"Why not? They're pretty good at finding people."

"It would embarrass Anton if this got into the newspapers," she said. "He treasures his privacy more than anything."

I didn't like the way this case was starting. Her story was hinky at best and I wondered how much she wasn't telling me. I decided to poke around even if it might cost me a nice paycheck.

"Did you and Mr. Foxworth have a fight Friday night before you went to bed?"

She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in my face. "I wouldn't call it a fight," she said. "We had a few words, that's all."

"About what?"

"Is it really necessary to go into details?"

"Only if you want to hire me," I said.

"It's a private matter I would rather not discuss."

When I stood up, she grabbed my arm.

"Have you ever been married?" she asked.

"Once," I said.

"Then you should understand that husbands and wives sometimes have arguments about intimate subjects they would never discuss with strangers."

"You mean sex?"

"You're very blunt, aren't you, Mister Hamilton?"

"I don't care about your sex life," I said. "I have enough of a problem with my own to worry about anyone else's. I just want to know if the argument with your husband had anything to do with his disappearing."

"Possibly," she said.

"That's not much of an answer. Does he want a divorce?"

She looked stunned. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"

"Divorces happen in unhappy marriages."

"We don't have an unhappy marriage," she said defensively.

"Was he seeing another woman?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Are you sure?"

Now she was mad. "I'm afraid I made a mistake calling you," she said, reaching for her purse.

I clasped her hand. "Take it easy. I apologize if I hurt your feelings, but I can't help you unless I have all the facts. You want me to find your husband, don't you?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed.

For a PI, getting a new client often played like a boxing match. You had to feel them out with a few jabs to find their weak spots and then move in with some hard body shots. I had won the first round and it felt good, but I knew I was still a long way from the final bell.

I learned from Natalie that they owned two cars, a Mercedes and a BMW, but Foxworth had taken neither when he disappeared. I was pretty sure he hadn't walked away, so that meant he either called a taxi or someone picked him up. I would check with the taxi companies and if that came up negative, then I would know he caught a ride with a person he knew. At least that narrowed it down to two possibilities since rich guys didn't hitch-hike.

"My fee is two hundred per day plus expenses," I told Natalie.

"I'll pay you ten thousand dollars when you find Anton," she said.

"That's not the way it works. I get paid whether I find him or not."

"Of course. What I meant to say is I will give you a ten thousand dollar bonus if you find him."

"A bonus would be nice," I admitted.

"Do you think you can find Anton?"

"I don't have much to go on," I said, "but I'll give it my best shot."

She seemed pleased and wrote out a thousand-dollar check for the first five days.

"Don't call me," I told her. "I'll call you when I have something to report."

"Our number is unlisted," she said, digging in her purse again for the pen. She wrote her number on a card and gave it to me. "Leave a message with the answering service if I'm not home."

"Wouldn't an answering machine be more discreet?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The girls who work for answering services gossip a lot."

"I never gave it a second thought," she said with a worried look.

"You said you wanted to keep this private."

"You're right. I'll have an answering machine installed today."

I wondered why a woman that rich and good looking could be manipulated so easily. It was almost always the other way around. But I wasn't complaining because a docile client was hard to find.

"May I ask you a question, Mister Hamilton?"

"Only if you call me Dex."

"What a strange nickname," she smiled. "Is it short for Poindexter?"

"Do I look like a Poindexter?"

"Have you ever found a missing person before, Dex?"

"A couple years ago."

"Who was it?"

"My ex-wife," I said. "Only she wasn't really missing. It was her conscience that was missing."

"I don't understand."

"It's a long ugly story," I said. "You don't want to hear it."

 

 

TWO

I only went once to see my ex-wife Sharon at the women's prison in Honolulu. I thought I owed her one visit since I had put her there for murdering my best friend on the Big Island. I brought her a carton of cigarettes, which she threw in my face. She told me to never come back and I took her advice. She was lucky to only be serving a 20-year sentence with the possibility of parole in nine more years. If I had been the judge, I would have given her life without parole.

After leaving the Outrigger Club, I decided to drive over to Lauren's apartment in Manoa Valley. Lauren was a secretary at the University of Hawaii and the one of the few lady friends I had made since moving to Honolulu. She was sweet to put up with me as we had an on-again, off-again type of relationship. I liked her a lot, but not enough for us to live together. At thirty-six she was divorced and strung too tight to be permanent company for a man like me. But we had fun when she was in the right mood.

I parked the Reliant and took the elevator to the second floor of her apartment building. I never used the stairs. Like Mark Twain, whenever I felt the urge for strenuous exercise, I usually laid down until the feeling went away. I rang the doorbell of Apartment 212 and when I got no response, I pounded loudly on the door.

Lauren opened the door in her pajamas. Her hair was a mess and she looked hung over.

"Oh, it's you," she yawned.

"It's almost ten o'clock," I said. "Wake up, sleepyhead."

"I had a late night," she said as she stumbled back to the bedroom.

"Anyone I know?" I asked, following her.

She collapsed into bed. "What are you doing here, Dex?"

I sat down next to her. "I longed to see your lovely face. Why don't you get up and put it on?"

She cracked one eye open. "You're a very funny man."

"You going to sleep all day?"

"I'm considering it."

"Where did you go last night?"

"To a party in Kaimuki," she said and closed her eye.

"With who?"

"None of your damn business."

"Oh, I see. Didn't work out, huh? Well, we all strike out once in awhile."

That woke her up. "As a matter of fact, he was hung like a horse."

"That's great if you have a thing for horses," I said.

She hit me with the pillow and rolled over.

"Get dressed and I'll buy you brunch in Waikiki."

"I hate that word," she said.

"It's after breakfast but before lunch. What else could you call it?"

"I'm not hungry."

"We'll go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay after brunch."

Lauren was always up for the ocean. She swam like a mermaid and loved to go free diving. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes.

"I'm not sleeping with you tonight," she announced.

"How could I compete with a horse?" I grinned.

She shook her head and stared at me. "You son of a bitch. I don't see you for weeks, you don't even bother to call once in awhile, and now you show up on my doorstep like everything is fine between us. Were you raised by wolves?"

"My father was only half wolf," I said and bared my canine teeth.

She tried not to laugh, but she couldn't stop herself. "I hate you."

"I know, but get dressed anyway. We're burning daylight here."

Lauren had two bloody marys with brunch while I drank coffee and watched her eat. The alcohol loosened her tongue and she jabbered about the party and her date, some guy named Russell. I wasn't listening very closely and just nodded from time to time like I was interested. What I was really doing was looking her over. She had a tight little body and short blond hair. Her face wasn't exactly beautiful, but it had a certain pixie-like cuteness. She was great in bed and, like most women who were, she knew it. She was too smart to be a secretary, but she didn't have a college degree to prove it. Which was funny since she worked at a university.

On the drive to Hanauma Bay I told her I had a big case.

"How big?" she asked.

"Over ten grand if I can find the missing person."

"Who is it?"

"A rich husband."

"You're working for the wife?"

"Yes."

"Let me guess. She's young and beautiful, right?"

"You better believe it."

"I'll bet you're already thinking about screwing her," Lauren smirked.

"It's just a job," I said. "What are you getting sore about?"

She gave me a disgusted look. "Don't try to fool me. I know why men become private detectives. You all think you're Humphrey Bogart in some movie with sexy women tripping over each other to go to bed with you. It's a juvenile delusion. You're all cases of arrested development."

"Are you finished?"

"It would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic."

"First, I'm a private investigator, not a detective. And what I do is a helluva lot better than working for wages. I set my own hours and I work at my own pace. If I don't like a client, I don't take the case. I don't have to kiss anyone's ass to make a living."

"Uh-huh," she said and rolled her eyes.

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to drown you when we get to Hanauma."

"You can't keep up with me in the water," she boasted.

"We'll see."

The truth was she could swim circles around me. After we went snorkeling, we spread a blanket and lay in the shade of some palm trees. I felt the paradoxical combination of relaxed and exhilarated as I always did following an hour or two of peering into the underwater world. Half the beauty of Hawaii was underwater and you missed it if you never went into the ocean with a diving mask.

Lauren took a short nap while I stared at the cloudy sky. When she woke up, I leaned over and kissed her.

"Why did you do that?" she said.

"To show you I'm not mad at you."

"That's a relief," she said. "I was planning to cry myself to sleep tonight."

"Sarcasm is a crutch, you know."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," I said and kissed her again.

"Don't get horny," she warned.

"I wouldn't think of it. Listen, how would you like to take a vacation to some place like Fiji in the near future?"

"Fiji? What are you talking about?"

"You and me for a week in Fiji. I hear the diving is great there."

"I can't afford it."

"My treat."

"With what money?"

"I told you I have a big case."

"Aren't you counting your chickens a little early?"

"Piece of cake," I said. "I'll find the bastard in two weeks max, dead or alive."

"If he's dead, wouldn't you rather take the widow to Fiji?"

"You never give up, do you? Here I am trying to be nice and you -- "

"Oh, shut up. I'd love to go to Fiji."

"Then it's settled," I said.

"If you find the husband."

"Show a little confidence."

"Okay, Marlowe. But work your magic by the end of the month because I can't take vacation next month."

Copyright© 2005 William Starr Moake

Read William Starr Moake's Fallen Angels And Other Converts To Noir Fiction