CHAPTER 17

 

.17.

The click of the door behind Jimmy had felt like a lock turning. I was alone in a room that smelled of money and reeked of ambition. Ole didn’t go back to the desk. He walked toward the window, looking out over the Hollywood hills with the proprietorial gaze of a man who thinks he already owns the view and everyone in it.

"A 'friend,'" he mused, the Danish lilt in his voice turning the word into a question. He turned to face me, the afternoon light catching the silver at his temples. "An interesting choice of words for a man like Junior. He usually prefers the company of people with... a more predictable pedigree. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. O’Neill? Or should I say, 'Stingray'?"

Surprise hit me, cold as a Pacific swell. He didn't just know my name; he had the nickname – the one used by the beach boys at the Tavern and some of my buddies at the University of Hawaii. He looked at me with a lazy, hunting confidence, and in that moment, the fog cleared. A man like Karlsen Senior wouldn't have let his only heir wander the backstreets of Waikiki for three months without a leash. There had been a shadow following us through the taro patches – a private eye with a camera and a notebook, sending reports back to this stone fortress.

I was ready to bet that Ole had kept an eye on those reports as well. He probably also knew about my one-eighth Hawaiian blood, the History Professor father, the derelict bungalow, and probably what I liked in my coffee.

"So, Stingray," Ole continued, leaning against the window frame. "What exactly are you doing in this house?"

My hands didn’t leave my pockets as I leaned into the cynicism that had become my second skin when dealing with people who thought they had me pegged. "Didn't the PI tell you that in his final report? If he didn't, Mr. Karlsen, I’d ask for a refund. Your brother was paying for a lot of detail he wasn't getting."

Ole smiled. It wasn't the kind of smile that went beyond his mouth; it was just a movement of his lips, a choreographed display of teeth. He walked over to a sideboard of dark, heavy oak and picked up a crystal decanter.

"As we say in Denmark, 'Man skal ikke kaste med sten, når man selv bor i et glashus.' One should not throw stones when one lives in a house of glass." He poured two fingers of what looked like whiskey into a faceted glass. "But this house is made of stone. I'm made of the stone, Mr. O’Neill. Very new, very hard stone. I don't break easily, and I don't forget… anything." 

He didn't offer me a drink. That was the first move – a reminder that in this temple, he was now the high priest and I was just a trespasser.

"My brother was a sentimental man," Ole said, his voice dropping to a confidential purr. "He liked the idea of his only son rubbing shoulders with the 'noble waterman.' But the islands are a long way from Hollywood, are they not? Here, the currents are less predictable. More violent. Dangerous. Out here, a man with a 'mixed' history and a silent typewriter is a very easy thing to lose in the fog. It can happen very fast."

"I noticed," I said. "Usually, funerals wait for the mourners. Here, they seem to run on a time-study. Maybe your PI can explain the physics of that to me later."

Ole’s gaze sharpened, the avuncular mask slipping for a fraction of a second to reveal the predator underneath. The "Danish Wolf" had run out of sugar coating.

"Enjoy the house, Stingray," he said, turning back to the desk. "But don't get too comfortable. In this place, guests seldom overstay their welcome. And, believe it or not, I’ve never been a man who likes a crowded room."

Uncle Ole didn't have to dismiss me again. I turned my back on him and walked out of the study. As my footsteps echoed loudly on the terrazzo, I couldn't shake the feeling that, if I'd somehow stepped into a "pulp" mystery, I'd just found its villain. And he’d been watching me through someone else's lens since July.