ch2 pg11-13

"YOU can't find him?" I asked.
"He doesn't answer the phone and he hasn't been to work. No one has seen him." Samantha poured herself a fresh drink and took a sip. She sat back down on the couch and crossed her legs. I wondered if that was part of a show.
"Maybe Greenie got arrested."
"No, I think he would have called either Chucky or myself."
That made sense, then again it didn't. If you got arrested for booking bets, the last people to call were your partners. I sat down at my desk and began making some notes. "What did Greenie do for a living?"
"He worked as a clerk for the City and County. I got his work number right here." She reached into her purse and revealed a worn address book. Samantha's demeanor suddenly changed. "What does all that have to do with all this?"
I know it's not good to judge people under times of stress. I didn't know what to make of Samantha.
"It might be important, it might not." I continued to make notes on my pad while she composed herself. She settled back on the couch.
"What about this Chucky person. Have you tried getting in touch with him?"
"I tried to call him last night but there was no answer."
Samantha gave me a description of both Greenie and Chucky and some information on where I might find them. That seemed to be the first thing to do. Two guys missing and the appearance of a large sum of cash didn't seem like too much of a problem. the two of them were probably off on some wild bender somewhere. Then again, it wasn't even time for lunch.
"So you went home and thought that someone had searched your place?"
"I'm not imagining things. I sweated out Sunday night thinking maybe they had something to do. On Monday, I went to work hoping that one of them would get in touch with me. I found my apartment had been trashed. I opened the door, looked around inside and left. The only things I stopped to grab were Daddy's badge and some cash I had hidden. I knew I couldn't stay there." Samantha paused and hit her drink again. "I don't know why, but I stopped to check my mail. The manager handed me two packages. That caught me off guard."
"Any idea how they got in?"
She stated at me. "No."
She didn't look like she was making things up. When people lied, they usually looked you in the eye or tried to avoid them. She just stared out the window and recanted the past days events.
"My first instinct was to leave the boxes. But I got this thing for mail order stuff so I took them with me. I called a cab, took the boxes and my stuff to a friends house. She and I check on each others places when we're on trips so I had the key."
"Weren't you worried that maybe someone was following you?"
Samantha downed the last of her drink. Her eyes closed for a second before they opened up and regained focus. She looked tired.
"I made the cabby go around in circles until I was sure that we weren't being tailed. Something I read in a book."
Maybe she was a Clancy fan too. Samantha had decided to head toward a friends apartment on the other side of the island. She sent her friend home to her parents house until all this blew over. Samantha realized she was in trouble.
She was a sight to behold. Her innocent eyes and oriental features hid the smarts of a street hustler. Then I remembered her father had been a cop.
"I didn't feel safe in the apartment alone so I took a bus into Waikiki. I hid out in a nightclub until four."
"And after?"
"Breakfast in a coffee shop across the street from the Hilton. It was there I thought of you."
Samantha closed her eyes again. "I caught a cab to the bank. I wanted to check out our stake and make sure it was all there. I wanted to make sure he hadn't sent me my share of the money to cut me out."
"You have access to the bank?"
"Greenie said it would be better for us if the safety deposit box was in my name. That way, if he got busted, they wouldn't be able to touch the cash."
"Now he's missing, and you got two fifty large that you think belongs to someone else."
It sounded like somewhere along the line, Samantha and her friends had bitten off a bit more than they could chew. "Samantha, what was largest bet you were asked to cover?"
She had to think. "Single bet? One game? Maybe twenty five thousand."
"You win or lose?"
"We won. I remember the bet. It was against the Tiger Sharks. In fact we covered that amount a couple of times."
It sounded like Samantha and Greenie were big time. I turned back to my window and sighed. My view of Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach looked like an airbrush that consisted of a hundred hues of grey. Even the usually bright Royal Hawaiian Hotel looked old and rundown. While most of the United States enjoyed a white Christmas, we got out the raincoats and watched the rain fall.
This was winter in the islands.