Chapter 2
Kono leaned against the metal table in the corner of the interrogation room to watch the drama unfold.
She loved her job. She'd never regretted joining the team, even if her progression had been unorthodox, but she was painfully aware of her inexperience in policing. She'd skipped walking the beat to leap straight into the Governor's high profile and highly charged elite squad. While none of her colleagues ever questioned her innate abilities and enthusiasm, they all recognized her need to learn and develop and the Five-0 members took time to teach and to share their own knowledge.
Family was family and Kono relied most heavily on Chin. Always available. Always generous with advice and answers. Steve was still feeling his own way in law enforcement but brought immense experience and authority from a different field. However, it was Danny's style that fascinated her the most.
Danny was a cop's cop.
Aware of rules but prepared to bend them to make the law work for him. The fact that he had won Chin's admiration so immediately told Kono enough. He'd earned his reputation on the mainland with an enviable arrest rate and, even as a haole, had won approval in just six months with HPD. Since joining the task force, it was generally Danny's counsel and experience that ensured a conviction when Steve's strong arm tactics might otherwise be damaging ammunition for defense lawyers.
All means and immunity gave Five-0 freedom, but Danny fought against too much lee-way in procedures that might allow the same for the felons they sought to put away.
Since her own rookie mistake in interviewing a suspect had led to his escape, Kono had made a special effort to watch and learn from the others' techniques. It was still early, but today seemed something of a masterclass.
It was not as simple as good-cop, bad-cop.
For half an hour, Danny and Steve had been working Soda Martinez in a tag-team of attrition. Cajoling, joking, threatening. Sometimes simply ignoring.
Since their first dramatic meeting, their partnership had grown into a close friendship and with that came an implicit understanding of each other. Kono noted, once in their flow, they were really something to watch.
Danny was well into his stride."See, Soda...I'd like to help you here, I really would, but I've gotta say, I didn't get much sleep last night. And when I don't get much sleep I get cranky."
"It's true – he does get cranky." Steve's voice came from behind Soda's head as he eyed Danny at his front.
There was an edge to his tone that Danny knew was directed at him rather than their prisoner – an edge that echoed the brief conversation they'd had when his partner arrived in the office to berate him for his social no-show.
Danny had been fully expecting it and quickly headed off the underlying concern...don't go there...with a believable diversion...the best lies contain truths...His excuse had been practised and delivered even as he rose to lead the way to the interview room...moving target, harder to hit...and Steve had to follow.
"See Soda...I should have been out last night with my team mates, sinking a few beers, sharing a few laughs..." Danny studiously avoided Steve's pointed look. "But do you know what I was doing instead?" He waved a fat file with one hand and tapped it with the back of his other. "I was reading, Soda."
He opened up the file and leafed slowly through it, flipping the pages just inches from Soda's nose.
"Now, see, I like a good read. I do. When my job allows it. When I'm not wasting my time with low-lifes. I like a good thriller and I've been known to delve into the classics."
A quiet snort of disbelief from Steve and he turned his truculent gaze upon his partner.
"What, you don't think I read? You think New Jersey isn't a literary kind of place, is that it, Mr Assassination- For-Dummies? You know, there is life beyond Adventures Of A SuperSEAL by Ivor Rubberfetish. "
Steve held up his hands but Danny was only just beginning his defense of a perceived slight of his home state.
"We got plenty of great authors from New Jersey. You like poetry?" The question seemed to be thrown open to any of the three others in the room. "I'll have you know, Allen Ginsberg was from Jersey. And Fran Lebowitz – great author. And The Boss..."
"Springstein? You're kidding me..."
"Great lyrics. Great writing," Danny affirmed. He was on a roll. "Then there's Richard Kuklinski..."
"Who?" Steve demanded, incredulously.
"You'd like him...Killed over a hundred people for the mob, wrote a book about it from his prison cell." Danny turned on a now gaping Soda. "Prison memoirs...something that you might even consider my friend, 'cos this..." he waved the file once more and now addressed his partner earnestly. "This is what I would call a tragedy."
Steve moved around to look interestedly over his shoulder at the file's contents and the conversation became between the two of them, like some housewives' book club. Kono smiled at the charade.
"See, it starts out with a young boy – full of promise and hope." Steve nodded his appreciation. "He's the product of a broken home - mother uninterested, father absent - he seeks solace where he can."
"A sad reflection of modern America then?" Steve prompted.
"Well, of a certain sort of modern America, yeah." Danny conceded, sounding like a psychologist considering an interesting client. Until he suddenly leaned forward and smacked the file hard into Soda's chest. The slap resounded in the quiet room and Soda bolted straight upright in his chair.
"The criminal sort."
Danny's voice was hard now, his face inches from Soda's as he continued with his eyes locked onto the startled wide gaze.
"The sort that thinks the world owes them. The sort who'll use anyone and anything to make a buck. The sort who moves from petty little crime to petty little crime, scrabbling for crumbs amongst the big boys...shoplifting...car theft...fake cheques...conning old ladies...a mugging here..a mugging there...
Danny's hands punctuated each phrase and Soda flinched with every gesture.
Danny stood up once more, and his voice dropped to conversational again. "And then ...gun crime. And that's the tragedy here. Because you see, Soda – this is going to end very, very badly. For you."
Steve took his cue and reached across for Soda's file, managing to swipe the side of his head with it as he took it from Danny's hands.
"Guns, Soda!" His voice came like a shot itself, ricocheting off the walls, making their prisoner duck involuntarily.
"Guns that we know about. That you know about. Guns that we want to trace. Guns that we need to find. Guns that you are going to lead us to." Where Danny had used his hands, Steve used his body, nudging and bumping at Soda with each shouted assault.
A silence fell, Soda's heavy breathing was the only sound.
Danny watched him, taking in the clammy, sweaty skin. Pale and doughy, he looked desperate now.
Danny had seen so many like him in his career – skidding along on the surface of more serious crime. Dipping their toes into deeper and deeper trouble in the hope of coming up with the treasure of a money spinning scheme, but suddenly realizing they were in way over their head.
The dampness of stress gave Soda's fleshy face the look of a ripe cheese. Danny could smell his anxiety as his small dark eyes flicked between his antagonists.
They had him.
"I've got nothing to do with them," he blurted. "I don't know anything about no guns."
It was a weak effort and they all knew it.
Crossing over to the table where Kono was leaning with crossed arms, Danny gave her a slight grin and reached for a plastic wallet behind her.
"Then why did we find this on you?" Danny dangled the wallet containing a .44 in front of Soda's nose. "Like I told you before...you're an idiot! You don't think we can trace these things? You don't think we can tell that this is part of a shipment that went missing from a batch our Federal Bureau friends have been tracking?"
Soda gulped audibly.
Steve flicked a glance across to his partner. Danny was taking a risk here. They actually had absolutely no proof, had so far not traced the weapon to any shipment, and, in fact, had no idea where Soda had come by the gun. All they had was a street whisper of an involvement in something and a suspect who ran.
Steve found he was surprised at how well Danny could lie.
Soda, however, didn't see it and appeared to visibly deflate in front of them. His fleshy arms shrugged helplessly, like a bird too heavy to lift itself.
"I got it off a guy."
Steve nodded over at Kono and she pressed the recorder and scooped up her pad and pen to note down Soda's story. It was lengthy, repetitive and rambling. Steve and Danny urged it along with their staccato beat of questioning.
He had a contact who knew of a job that was going down..."Name?""Can't remember"....He could get Soda in with the people running the job …"What was his name?""Just a guy"...He just had this job... "What's the job?""Deliveries"..."Of what?""Just stuff"..."What stuff?""Okay, guns-n-stuff"... Thought maybe it would be a way into the big leagues..."What was the guy's name?""Don't remember"..."Name!""Soon Li!"... He didn't know about the source, just that they were planning on using local companies to cover the shipments, passing them on through the islands to Hong Kong and the Chinese gangs..."Which companies?""I don't know!" ..."Where are the guns coming from?""Don't know!..."Where?""Didn't ask"... "US?Russia?Where?"Don't know"..."Which companies?"...They hadn't trusted him yet..."Which companies?""Local companies!"..."Names!""I don't know!"...His contact was going to introduce him..."Where's this Soon Li?""Don't know"...He wasn't on the inside, wasn't close yet, was supposed to find storage..."Where?""I hadn't found anything yet"..."What companies?""I don't know"..."What companies? What companies, Soda?"
Danny and Steve fired question after question. Probing and niggling and repeating, until, finally... "Okay! Okay!...There's a florist!...some flower company!"
"Name?"
"Can't remember." But Soda was utterly beaten and in the next breath he began spewing details in a dull monotone of exhaustion.
"It ...it had a picture of a flower...a red flower or something on its logo, or a lei or something ...And a fruit distributor...Hawaiian Delight...or Delightful, or something...And a company that hires out boats..."
Once he started, it seemed he couldn't stop, his voice dropping lower and lower with each addition to the list.
"There's one that exports stupid coconut stuff – you know those fat figures with banana leaves for hair...Freaky things...sitting on surfboards or dancing a hula...Some market stalls...And a couple of bars..."
Soda looked up, then dried up.
Steve was nodding his approval. "See!" He exclaimed triumphantly. "Was that really so hard? We knew you'd be worth saving from that ledge."
He patted Soda comfortingly on the shoulder and turned to Danny with a satisfied smile, expecting to see one in return.
But Danny was staring hard at Soda, his face unreadable, his body rigid...Oh shit!
"Danny?...You got a prob..."
"I've gotta go." Danny interrupted and before Steve could finish his question, he'd turned on his heel, hauled open the door and left.
Kono and Steve glanced at each other before Steve took off after his partner, catching up on the dark stairs leading to the ornate foyer of the Palace.
"Danny?"
Danny kept climbing and was almost at the top.
"Danny!"
He stopped but didn't look around immediately, instead running both hands through his hair in a gesture that Steve recognized even from below and behind. In the moment of silence that followed Steve felt a stomach clench of dread. Something was wrong here.
As Danny finally turned, Steve suddenly saw the changes he'd noted before but now with a startling clarity, as though his friend had just given up trying to hide them. He looked drawn and pale. The lines on his face appeared to be etched more deeply and his shoulders slumped a little with what seemed like resignation...Jesus, Danny...what's going on with you?
"I can't be involved in this case," he said simply. "I have to recuse myself."
He was looking down on Steve and they held their positions for a moment before Steve stepped up to the stair below him. Now, unusually, their eyes were level but Danny glanced away.
Repeating the thoughts that were racing in his head, Steve grabbed his arm to force him to look at him. "What's going on, man?"
Danny sighed. "The flower company Soda mentioned...If it's what I think it is, you're gonna find it's called Big Island Flowers – the picture is a Red Ohia. It's the official flower of the Big Island."
Danny saw Steve's eyebrow rise in puzzlement over how he could possibly know that. He took a breath, pausing before going on...There's no going back now...
"It's part-owned by Pedro Fuentez."
Steve knew the name immediately and Danny nodded at the recognition he saw on his face.
"Yeah, the same slimy shit who recruited my brother into money laundering for a drugs cartel."
The true implications of the situation were beginning to dawn on Steve. This was not just professional but personal.
"I have an interest."...Yeah, we have a problem...Steve's mind processed fast.
"You've been investigating him." It came as a statement not a question. Even as he said it, so much fell into place.
"You couldn't leave it alone."
Danny gave a surprised humorless smile.
"Did you really think I would?"
He turned again and walked away. Steve watched him go and realized it really was that simple...No, my friend, I guess I never did.
Tbc...
A/N: thanks so much for reading and especially for reviewing - I love to hear your thoughts.
