Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

out with a redhead in a BMW? Or was it really Corky they had seen?
    I left my card at each and every surf shop in Hale‘iwa and asked to be called if any board resembling Corky’s turned up. Though I had not yet discovered much, Summer was definitely getting her money’s worth of my time.
    Guiding my Impala back to Honolulu, the allegation that Corky had a redhead girlfriend started bothering me. I decided I wouldn’t mention it yet to Summer. In her condition, she needed to think the best of her husband.
    It was late afternoon by the time I returned to Maunakea Street. Beyond Mrs. Fujiyama’s display cases I caught a glimpse of Leimomi in the back room, stringing a rose bud lei.
    Leimomi.
We had a date tonight. If I missed it this time, I’d be hard-pressed for an explanation.
    Inside my office the red message light was flashing again. I first dialed Leimomi’s Punchbowl duplex and I left a message that I would pick her up at seven. My conscience salved, I reached over to my answering machine and pressed Play.
    “Hello, Mr. Cooke. This is Summer McDahl. Any chance I could see you? Same place? Tomorrow morning at nine?“
    Why not at my office? When I returned Summer’s call there was no answer, then a recorded announcement came on—a gravelly male voice with a thick foreign accent: “Leave message at tone, if you please. Cannot talk right now.”
    The accent was different than any I had heard before. Middle Eastern? Asian? European? As I left my message I wondered if that voice might belong to the owner of a black Mercedes. I hung up and stared at the phone.
    Before leaving my office that afternoon I tried track down the convertible Corky was allegedly seen driving. There was only a handful of “high-line” dealerships in Honolulu that traded in pre-owned luxury vehicles like BMWs. I dialed up each number. But aside from trying to sell me one of their fine automobiles, none were much help. I moved on to Honolulu’s sole BMW dealership. The salesman who answered was smoother, but just as persistent as the last.
    “The Ultimate Driving Machine . . .” he announced, sounding like a TV commercial. “Can I put you behind the wheel?”
    “Swell, I’d love to.” I gave him hope. “How about tomorrow morning?”
    Little did he know I could no more afford a new BMW than a Porsche or Ferrari. I made a mental note to park my old Chevy down the block.
    That night I showered and dressed, then drove to Leimomi’s duplex. She shared a dingy shack with three other women on the shadowy backside of Punchbowl. A narrow, pot-holed driveway led past two other duplexes to her place, which sat amidst a red tangle of bougainvillea. Aside from this splash of color, her only view was of laundry hanging on the neighboring lanai.
    A full-time student with a part-time job, Leimomi was constantly strapped. My own threadbare life probably looked bright and glistening by comparison. At least I surfed and, through my work, traveled to the neighbor islands and sometimes to the mainland. Maybe that was part of my attractiveness to her?
    Swinging into her dusky lane, I felt the same surge of excitement that I always did approaching her place. And an equally strong twinge of guilt. While the dank duplex gave off a certain moldy, rotting odor, it also smelled like . . .
love
.
    This was the place Leimomi and I had discovered each other for the first time, her rusty bedsprings singing a high-pitched siren song that drowned out even her scratchy clock radio. The room got as steamy as a sauna. We stayed in bed through that first night and the whole next day—snoozing, whispering, making love. Leimomi cried. I comforted her. We made love again. Neither of us wanted to leave
.
By four in the afternoon we got so hungry we ordered two Domino’s pizzas and ate them both.
    With Leimomi’s euphoric first taste of love came, for me, an unspoken responsibility. After our breathless twenty-four hours together in bed, she glommed onto me like a faithful pet. Every time I turned around, she was there. I hadn’t counted on that. Sometimes, I admit, I longed for a way to slip away without hurting her.
    Leimomi was unusually quiet on the ride to dinner at Cafe Diamond Head. She had chosen the Pacific-Rim establishment with its reputation for flamboyant fusion cuisine. Filet mignon
wasabe
with mango-macadamia chutney staked on Kahuku sweet potatoes. That sort of thing. Its high prices did something toward assuaging my guilt.
    We sat at a table