Relapse In Paradise. Roxanne Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ a bunch of homeless guys. But I bet I’ve got enough right here to pick up an old used oven at the appliance yard downtown. Relax, man. We’re in paradise, remember?” He gave Hani his best cheesy smile, the one he might use on folks if he ever turned to selling cars to make a buck.

      The big man stopped fooling with the lost cause of an oven to put a hand over his large belly and laugh lazily.

      Like Boston knew he would. If the famous Chef Hani of The Canopy, Honolulu’s poorest and smallest soup kitchen, didn’t have a sense of humor, no one did.

      He shook his head, a slight smile on his wide mouth. “You’re funny, Boston. Real funny. You try that paradise talk on the next straggler who finds his way in here. Wait till I can watch, though, ’kay? It’s been too long since I seen you get your ass handed to you. In fact, I think it was Jordan who gave you your last shiner, huh? A girl, even.”

      Boston’s insides seized up in his gut like a bad toe cramp. Not the result of nostalgia, loss, or even heartbreak, but fear. Happened every damn time Jordan’s name found its way into a conversation. Or into his head. Or he caught a glimpse of the tattoo in his reflection. He absentmindedly rubbed the spot on his ribcage where the ink etched into his skin, barely visible through the threadbare white T-shirt he wore.

      A hui hou, it read. Until we meet again.

      So much for that.

      Hani must’ve caught his expression. He ran a flat palm over his face as if to wipe away the grin he’d already dropped. “Hey, man. I’m sorry.”

      Boston waved him off and forced a smile. “Don’t be. We’ve got bigger problems.”

      Hani was back to fiddling with the knobs of the broken oven. “Damn thing.” He sighed. His shoulders drooped. “I like to see the money but hate to see it spent before you even go over the books. Tell me about this new job you got before I call Thompson down here to help me move this thing.” He kicked the bottom of it. “Stupid piece of junk.”

      “What about Kale? Did he finally do the right thing?”

      Hani grunted. “Whatever that is. Like either of us would know.”

      They were certain Kale was an AWOL soldier from the army base at the center of Oahu, but neither of them felt any compulsion to turn him in. Boston would be damned before he’d do it.

      The Canopy was a soup kitchen/sometimes shelter when weather hit and they brought a few poor souls inside, not a halfway house or rehab facility. They fed people a couple times a day, as many as they had rice for and nothing more. Hot food, no soapbox talk. Guys like Kale and Thompson relied on the place for a safe haven, and Boston relied on them for help maintaining the shelter. Damn hard to make payroll without liquid assets.

      Hell, without any assets. The building itself wasn’t worth the broken industrial oven they were about to toss on the curbside.

      Hani’s thick, black eyebrows drew together in a concerned wrinkle. “I ain’t seen Kale in a while, but something tells me he didn’t turn himself in at the base. His face would be all over the news if he had.”

      “How would we know? You see a television in here?”

      Hani rolled his eyes. “I may not get out much, but you do. You would’ve seen something, heard something. One of the boys would probably know.”

      The boys. That’s what Hani called them even though a few women made their way into The Canopy from time to time. The stragglers, the panhandlers, the bottom-feeders. Sometimes, in his more poetic moods, they were the lost souls or the forgotten.

      Boston ran a weary hand through his shoulder-length hair. “Nothing I can do for a street kid on the run from the Army. But I can tell you about the job. About two years ago, when I first started doing the guide thing, this couple came from London on their honeymoon.” He scratched his chin. The lady was American, he recalled. “Or was it California? Can’t remember. Anyway, great couple. Totally laid back.” He snapped his finger. “Jack, that was the husband. Jack and Quinn. If all my clients were as chill as these two, I’d love my job.”

      Air blew from Hani’s lips with a rude noise. They called it a raspberry back on the mainland, but there was probably some Hawaiian word for it Boston didn’t know. “Whatever, man. You know you love dragging mainlanders all over the island. Don’t lie.”

      Okay, yeah, so he loved it, but what wasn’t to love? Oahu did the work; Boston only had to drive and point. “Well, they called last week. They’re surprising some family member, a cousin or something, with a plane ticket and hired me to meet her at the airport and show her around the island.”

      Hani finally gave up on the oven dials with a disappointed, thin-lipped grimace. “You’ll probably have it easy if you liked Jack and Quinn so much, eh?”

      Boston sucked in air through his teeth. “Nah, I don’t think so. Quinn booked this lady’s room at the Hilton. Right on Waikiki. She and Jack, they were down for the full experience, you know? They stayed in a little cottage on North Shore that didn’t have air-conditioning or sealed windows. Given that, the lofty hotel reservation gives me the impression their cousin—aunt, sister, whatever—isn’t made of the same stuff. You smell what I’m cookin’?”

      “Oh, I smell it, brother. Smells like you got a rough job ahead.” Hani stopped short of whatever he’d been about to say next to give Boston a lingering head-to-toe appraisal. “She’s gonna dig for spare change when she sees you, man. Then, when she finds out who you are, she’s gonna call the lady who hired you and ask her what the hell she was thinking. Then she’s gonna go straight to the Hilton Village and hire one of them real guides. The ones who wear the mint green polo shirts and have official stuff like clipboards and name tags.”

      Upper crust business rivals. Well, not really rivals. The people who came to Boston were usually the ones intent on avoiding things like client rosters, preplanned lunch menus, and name tags. Especially name tags.

      Boston ran a critical eye over his shorts, which were doing their job offending Hani. “She’ll get used to me. She’ll have to. If Quinn’s buddy ditches me, I’ll owe her back the deposit. Since I’m about to spend it on an appliance we need to operate this place, I’d better have something up my sleeve, huh?”

      An anxious grunt escaped Hani’s lips. “Damn right, you better. Hey, you heard what happened to Ryder, didn’t you?”

      Boston nibbled the inside of his cheek and thought hard. Ryder…Ryder, sure…. Or, wait. No, that was Robert. Wasn’t it? He scratched his neck. “Too many, man. Not enough time for me to get to know them all.” At the rate their homeless patrons came and went, who but Hani could keep track? He had the benefit of both working and living at the shelter. Boston’s part was making the money to keep it going. On a good week, he’d get to The Canopy once or twice. During a bad week, he made it daily, but it meant no money coming in. “Remind me.”

      “Guy could’ve come straight from some bank downtown. Like he might be the CEO or something. Suit and tie.”

      “Oh, yeah, I remember him. Expensive haircut, trimmed nails, tailored slacks. As recent as they come.” Boston had spotted him twice. The first time had stopped Boston in his tracks. His heart had thudded in his chest, stupidly hoping some benevolent rich dude had discovered their operation and came to donate. Until Boston saw him chowing on one of Hani’s rice plates. The second time, Ryder hadn’t looked so СКАЧАТЬ