Read Online Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout by Chip Hughes - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chip Hughes
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swinging glass door, and Ididn’t want to stand there. So I joined the line of a half dozen customers outside on infamous River Street, where colorful thieves, con artists, drug runners, and occasional murderers once plied their dark trades.
Ah Fook’s best-kept secret was a fancy menu for such a funky place: Shark Fin Soup, Stuffed Clams with Crab Meat, Peking Duck Dim Sum . . . Regular customers like Tommy and me never praised Ah Fook, for fear it would be overrun. Instead we embellished its deplorable reputation (which had some slim basis in fact): cockroaches roaming the walls, ants crawling on the tables, dog meat in the pork fried rice, payoffs to the health department and liquor commission.
Tommy was coming from a rehearsal for one of his jazz gigs and warned me he might be late. How he managed to wrap up a late-night session at 2:00 a.m., then cruise into his legal offices—eyes wide open—by eight the next morning is anybody’s guess.
I checked my watch—ten after seven—just as a familiar black profile emerged from the darkness and joined me at the front of the lengthening line.
Tommy.
“Hey, Kai, what do you call a guy who hangs out with musicians?”
Tommy Woo always wore black and always had a joke on the tip of his tongue. Over my shoulder I scanned the waiting customers lining River Street for ears that might be too tender or young for one of Tommy’s doozies.
“Cooke, party of two.” Fortunately, the hostess stepped out and led us inside. Our cramped corner table was so close to our fellow diners that I could smell their perfume and aftershave, but it was thankfully too loud inside the tiny restaurant to distinguish their words. A dozen animated conversations bouncing off the walls drowned out one another, making Ah Fook an unexpectedly intimate place.
I watched my friend’s loose-jointed and lanky form squeeze behind the tiny round table. Divorced, pushing fifty, with a shock of grey hair and tortoise shell glasses, Tommy resembled a cross between a parish priest and Yo-Yo Ma. An only child, his father had been Chinese, his mother Jewish; he attended Catholic schools, and was exposed from infancy to the jazz and blues of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and B.B. King. Tommy Woo had the wisdom of Confucius, the funny bone of a rabbi, the pomp and circumstance of the Pope, and the musical soul of an African. He could spin ethnic and off-color yarns until your face turned blue, then thrill and inspire you at the piano with “Take the ‘A’ Train” and “Body and Soul.”
“A drummer,”
Tommy said while taking his seat.
“What?”
“That’s what they call a guy who hangs out with musicians.”
“Oh.” I scratched my head at the tamest tale Tommy had ever told. “You must not think much of drummers, I guess.”
“Actually, I do.” Tommy cracked a wry smile. “Good ones.”
After two more of Tommy’s salty and unrepeatable humdingers, we ordered the “usual”—the $8.95 dinner special: Egg Drop Soup, Sweet Sour Spareribs, Shrimp Fried Rice, Lemon Chicken, Fortune Cookie (a rarity in Honolulu), and hot tea. The tea arrived almost instantly.
“So what’s new with your practice, Tommy?”
“Jus’ laugh’n n’ scratch’n,” he joked. “Actually, I’m defending a mainland guy who sold some ‘ice’ to an undercover cop. The Narcs were laying a trap for the Sun organization, and my client—who has no connection to Frank O. Sun—got busted. He comes from a good family, has a good job here, and has never been arrested. Just thought he’d try a little ‘meth’ on a lark. Then he got engaged to a nice local girl who reviles drug users and he tried to recoup his investment by selling the stuff to some other sucker.”
“He should have flushed it down the toilet.” I shook my head as the Egg Drop Soup arrived. “Do you expect a judge to believe him?”
Tommy sipped the hot soup and shrugged. “No, the Narcs want to make an example of him.”
“Frank O. Sun.
Ah Fook’s best-kept secret was a fancy menu for such a funky place: Shark Fin Soup, Stuffed Clams with Crab Meat, Peking Duck Dim Sum . . . Regular customers like Tommy and me never praised Ah Fook, for fear it would be overrun. Instead we embellished its deplorable reputation (which had some slim basis in fact): cockroaches roaming the walls, ants crawling on the tables, dog meat in the pork fried rice, payoffs to the health department and liquor commission.
Tommy was coming from a rehearsal for one of his jazz gigs and warned me he might be late. How he managed to wrap up a late-night session at 2:00 a.m., then cruise into his legal offices—eyes wide open—by eight the next morning is anybody’s guess.
I checked my watch—ten after seven—just as a familiar black profile emerged from the darkness and joined me at the front of the lengthening line.
Tommy.
“Hey, Kai, what do you call a guy who hangs out with musicians?”
Tommy Woo always wore black and always had a joke on the tip of his tongue. Over my shoulder I scanned the waiting customers lining River Street for ears that might be too tender or young for one of Tommy’s doozies.
“Cooke, party of two.” Fortunately, the hostess stepped out and led us inside. Our cramped corner table was so close to our fellow diners that I could smell their perfume and aftershave, but it was thankfully too loud inside the tiny restaurant to distinguish their words. A dozen animated conversations bouncing off the walls drowned out one another, making Ah Fook an unexpectedly intimate place.
I watched my friend’s loose-jointed and lanky form squeeze behind the tiny round table. Divorced, pushing fifty, with a shock of grey hair and tortoise shell glasses, Tommy resembled a cross between a parish priest and Yo-Yo Ma. An only child, his father had been Chinese, his mother Jewish; he attended Catholic schools, and was exposed from infancy to the jazz and blues of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and B.B. King. Tommy Woo had the wisdom of Confucius, the funny bone of a rabbi, the pomp and circumstance of the Pope, and the musical soul of an African. He could spin ethnic and off-color yarns until your face turned blue, then thrill and inspire you at the piano with “Take the ‘A’ Train” and “Body and Soul.”
“A drummer,”
Tommy said while taking his seat.
“What?”
“That’s what they call a guy who hangs out with musicians.”
“Oh.” I scratched my head at the tamest tale Tommy had ever told. “You must not think much of drummers, I guess.”
“Actually, I do.” Tommy cracked a wry smile. “Good ones.”
After two more of Tommy’s salty and unrepeatable humdingers, we ordered the “usual”—the $8.95 dinner special: Egg Drop Soup, Sweet Sour Spareribs, Shrimp Fried Rice, Lemon Chicken, Fortune Cookie (a rarity in Honolulu), and hot tea. The tea arrived almost instantly.
“So what’s new with your practice, Tommy?”
“Jus’ laugh’n n’ scratch’n,” he joked. “Actually, I’m defending a mainland guy who sold some ‘ice’ to an undercover cop. The Narcs were laying a trap for the Sun organization, and my client—who has no connection to Frank O. Sun—got busted. He comes from a good family, has a good job here, and has never been arrested. Just thought he’d try a little ‘meth’ on a lark. Then he got engaged to a nice local girl who reviles drug users and he tried to recoup his investment by selling the stuff to some other sucker.”
“He should have flushed it down the toilet.” I shook my head as the Egg Drop Soup arrived. “Do you expect a judge to believe him?”
Tommy sipped the hot soup and shrugged. “No, the Narcs want to make an example of him.”
“Frank O. Sun.
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