O'ahu Lonesome Tonight? (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series #5) (8 page)

“And this fine
gentleman is my brother, Michael,” said Stuart. “Or should I say,
our
brother
Michael.” He gestured toward a guy standing three feet behind him. Michael gave
me a shy wave. He wore a faded
HiLife
tee-shirt,
rumpled gray cargo shorts, and
rubba
slippas
. He had at least forty pounds on Stuart and he
had longer hair and a dark tan, but his face still bore a striking resemblance
to our father.

“I go by
Moko
,” he said as he stepped up to shake my hand. His hands
were calloused. He seemed ill at ease in the posh surroundings.

“It’s great to
meet you both,” I said.

“We better get
seated,” said Stu. “These people don’t operate on ‘island time’.”

“You’ve been
here for high tea before?” I said.

“Oh, yeah.
My wife’s a big fan. She likes to get all dolled
up and come down here.
Thinks it’s a great time.”

“I thought your
wife would be joining us today,” I said.

“Yeah, that was
the plan. But she’s got a bun in the oven and she’s being real careful. She was
worried she might catch a cold or something if she came out in the rain.”

There was an
awkward silence.

“So, you’re
going to be a father?” I said, trying to keep the conversational ball rolling.
From the way things were going, it looked like it was going to be a long hour.

“Yep, first
time.”

“Congratulations,”
I said. I looked over at
Moko
. “Pretty great news,
don’t you think?”

“I already got
four,” said
Moko
. “So for me the last thing I want to
hear is, ‘Honey, guess what’?” He talked with a heavy local accent, dropping
final consonants and not bothering with diphthongs. It came out like,
I
‘ready
gah
fo
’.
So
fo
me,
las
’ ting I
wanna
hear is,
‘Honey, jess
wha
?
It seemed odd that he and Stu
were from the same family, and only a year or two apart. They seemed like guys
from two different walks of life.

The maître d’
didn’t seem at all pleased with Stu’s tardiness. “Your reservation was for two
pm,” he sniffed. He glowered at his computer as if he was going to have to
rearrange a complicated seating arrangement to accommodate us. There were more
than a dozen tables on the veranda and less than half of them had someone
sitting at them. It was hard to believe fifteen minutes could create so much
angst.

“Wait here,” he
said. “I’ll see what I can do.” He blew out a sigh and left us standing there.

Once he was out
of earshot, I leaned over to
Moko
. “I guess we messed
up.”

“How
dat
?”

“For being late.”

“Like hardly,”
he said.

“Yeah.
I’m kind of hoping this guy can’t find us a table.
I’d rather go down there,” I pointed to the beachside bar.

“
Fo
’
sho
’ dat.”

The maître d’
returned. “Follow me,” he said. He grabbed three menus from a stack on the
podium and, with his chin up and modeling erect posture that would do a Marine
proud, he marched us to a table set for four.

“Can we sit out
there?” Stu said. He pointed to a table at the far end of the veranda
overlooking the beach.

The maître d’
shot him a look of utter contempt.

“I mean,” said
Stu, tapping his watch. “This tea only goes for another forty-five minutes. You
expecting a last-minute rush or something?”

There was a
silent stand off as the maître d’ stared down Stu while Stu resolutely eyed the
beachfront table.

“Very well,”
said the maître d’. But as you noted, we conclude our formal high tea service
at three.
Promptly
at three.
We need to get the
tables set up for dinner.”

“No worries,”
said Stu. “We won’t occupy your table one minute longer than necessary.”

Moko
whispered in my ear, “Stu got attitude just like the
ol
’ man.”

“And how about you?”
I said.

He shrugged. “I
guess I mostly take after my mom.”

Once we got
seated I looked at the menu. At first I thought maybe there’d been a mistake.
Thirty-five bucks for a cup of tea and a couple of tiny finger sandwiches?

“Whew,” I said.
“Look at these prices. Do they put real fingers in the sandwiches or
something?”

Moko
smiled but Stu shot me a hard look. “Oh spare us,
Pali
. It’s not like you can’t afford it.”

When my father
died he’d left me in charge of his estate, much to the dismay of my newfound
half-siblings. I’d taken the high road and made sure everyone got taken care
of, but it obviously still rankled some.

 The
waiter sidled up to the table and we ordered.
Moko
asked if he could have a beer instead of tea and the waiter shot him a pained
look.

“Look,” said Stu.
“Your establishment serves beer right down there.” He pointed to the beachside
bar. “How much trouble can it be to just bring a bottle of it up here?”

“This is our
high tea service,” said the waiter in a low voice.
“White
glove.”
He shot a look at the maître d’ stand and bit his lower lip.

“So, where are
your gloves?” Stu said. The waiter’s hands were bare.

“It’s a form of
expression, sir. It means this is a formal service. Silver pots, china serving
ware and scone towers. We serve clotted cream and jams, along with a delightful
array of finger sandwiches.”

“But it says
here we can have our tea iced.”

“Yes, you may.”

“So use the
same glass you’d put the ice tea in and make it a beer instead.”

“I’m not sure I
can—”

Moko
broke in. “No worries, man. I’ll take the iced tea.”

“No you won’t,”
said Stu. “You want a beer, you get a beer. Do you know who we are?”

The waiter
looked around the table, ostensibly trying to put a name to any of our faces.

“No, sir, I’m
afraid I don’t recognize you.”

“Well, that’s
too bad. Because if you did, there’s no way you’d be hassling my brother about
his order. Make it three beers and that’s that. We don’t want any of that other
stuff.”

The waiter’s
face had paled to a shade just a tad darker than the crisp white tablecloth.

“Very well,
sir. I’ll bring your order right out.”

As the waiter
turned to leave,
Moko
leaned toward me and whispered.
“See what I mean?”

The beers came
and soon we were talking like old friends. “So you went to public school over
on Maui?” said Stu. “How was that?”

“It was good.
Things aren’t so hectic over there. The public schools are pretty decent. We
had our share of lowlifes and screw-offs, but mostly it was just a bunch of
regular kids from the neighborhood.”

“Huh. Well, Dad
insisted we all go to private school.
Moko
messed up
a little and ended up in a Catholic high school, right
Moko
?”

“Yeah.
It was just boys. No girls.”

 “But it
didn’t slow him down. He got his girlfriend pregnant
twice
before he
graduated.” Stu laughed and clapped
Moko
on the back.

Moko
shook his head.
“Big mistake.
First time she got rid of it and I felt so bad. Still do. But the next time, I
do right by her. We got married right outta school.” He reached into a shorts
pocket and brought out a worn canvas wallet. “You
wanna
see a picture? This one’s a little old, but it’s my favorite.”

Moko’s
kids were darling, with big dark eyes and
mischievous grins.

“Two boys, two
girls,” he said. “I got one extra of each.”

“Wow. So that
makes me an auntie,” I said.

“Yeah.
These kids already got a bunch of aunties to spoil
them rotten but I’m sure they’ll be excited to find out they got a new one.”

The
conversation turned to Stu’s anticipation over the birth of his first child.
After that, things started to wind down. The dregs of our beer had grown warm
and the veranda had emptied out. The waiter had come back twice to inquire if
we needed anything else.

Stu had a
flashy watch strapped to his wrist so I asked him the time. He extended his arm
my way so I could read the time on it myself, as well as to show off his Rolex
Oyster.

“Whew. That’s
quite a timepiece you’ve got there.”

“Yeah.
It was a present from my dad.
When
I graduated from the U of Dub.”

“You went to
the University of Washington? My brother, Jeff, went there. You guys might have
been there at the same time.”

“When did he
graduate?”

I did the math.
“He’s three years younger than me and he got a five-year master’s, so it
would’ve been around 2004, maybe 2005.”

“Yeah.
I got out in 2005.”

As if on cue,
my brother Jeff appeared at our table. He didn’t look pleased.

“Did you turn
off your phone?” he said in lieu of a greeting.

“Uh, no.
I don’t think so.” I rummaged through my beach bag
purse. My phone wasn’t there. “I must’ve left it in the apartment.”

“Don’t you
think I would’ve heard it ringing if you left it there?” Jeff said in his
‘cranky’ voice.

“I don’t know.
Maybe I set to ‘vibrate’ or something.” Then I remembered my manners. “Jeff,
these are my half-brothers, Stuart and Michael. And guys, this is my other
brother, Jeff Warner.”

At hearing my
brother’s last name both men seemed to wince ever so slightly. The sad
connection between the Warner and Wilkerson families was painful for both
sides. But the two men stood to shake Jeff’s hand.

“Hi, I’m Stu,”
said Stuart.

“And I go by
Moko
,” said Michael.

“Good to meet
you,” said Stu. “
Pali
tells us you’re some kind of
rocket scientist. That true?”

“Something
like
that.”

“And you work
for the feds on some top-secret weapons project?”

“Not exactly.”
By this point Jeff was shooting me major
stink
eye
.

“You have
anything to do with that drone stuff? You know, killing unarmed people from a
mile up or whatever.”

Jeff said
nothing but kept the
stink eye
going.

Moko
spoke up. “So, you and
Pali
are related through your mom’s
ohana
?”

“Yeah,” said
Jeff. Actually, Jeff was also related to Stu and
Moko
via my father’s family but from the look on his face I knew better than to whip
out a genealogy chart and make the connection.

“It’s past
three,” Jeff said. “You said we had to leave at three.”

“Oh, that’s
right.” I turned and put a hand on
Moko’s
shoulder.
“I’m sorry, but I need to run.”

Stu took the
leatherette folder containing the bill off the table and held it up. “You want
me to handle this?”

“No, that’s
okay. I’ve got it. You guys leave the tip, okay?”

“I can give you
my part,” said
Moko
.

“No. It’s my
treat. I’m the big sister.” I smiled and
Moko
returned it but Stu’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s right,”
said Stu. “Dad put you in charge of all us ‘little’ kids, didn’t he?”

I let it slide
and gave Stu and
Moko
a hug good-bye.

It was still
raining when we left. When we got about a block away, Jeff said, “Did you set
it up so I’d have to come down and meet those two?”

“No. It was an
honest mistake and I’m sorry. But they’re actually nice guys. In fact, Stu was
at the U of W when you were. He graduated in 2005.”

“Huh. Well, I’m
not surprised. From all appearances, it looks like he’s made excellent use of
his BS degree.”

CHAPTER 11

We headed to
the Shore Bird restaurant that night. I hoped grilling his own steak would
improve Jeff’s sour mood. At least it gave us something to do besides sitting
at the table staring each other down.

“You think this
thing is done?” said Jeff as he hoisted a thick slab of beefsteak off the hot
grill. He’d speared it on a long barbeque-style fork and it dangled from the
implement like caveman food. 

“I wouldn’t
know,” I said. “Ask the guy.”

There was a
“grill sergeant” stationed by the huge grill racks to help those who found
cooking their own dinner a challenge. Jeff flagged the guy and after a quick
probe with a thermometer, the steak was declared “medium-rare.”

I’d ordered the
fish. I was given a fat chunk of mahi-mahi that only required a few minutes on
each side. At home, Steve is the cook in our household. I’m an appreciative
diner, but the extent of my cooking prowess pretty much ends with soup (out of
a can) and salad (out of a bag).

I slid the
steaming fish onto my dinner plate and made my way back to our table. Luckily,
we’d arrived early enough to get a table out front, near the beach. The tables
in the back were like sitting in a smokehouse since the trade winds pushed the
rolling smoke from the six grills back that way and it got trapped by the rear
wall of the restaurant.

“Sheesh.
Who’d want to sit there?” I said.

“A ham, maybe?”
said Jeff.
“Or maybe a side of bacon or beef jerky.
They smoke jerky, don’t they? Or is it just dehydrated?”

“How’s your
steak?” I said. I had no idea how meat was processed and I didn’t want to dwell
on thinking about it while I enjoyed my fish.