Hawaii Five-O - 1 Read online

  The Cyanide Cocktail

  was a real cool touch—the hallmark of a contemptuous and lethal dilettante. One after another the victims fell: the shipping magnate, the stripper, the thieving punk. And there was the near-miss with the magnate’s beautiful daughter, an unforgivable error about to be corrected.

  Hawaii Five-O

  —special task force of highly trained police on the world’s most exotic deadly beat—1600 miles of Polynesian islands where the cop is the gambler, playing a killing game with a faceless adversary . . .

  Jack Lord and James McArthur star as Steve McGarrett and his side-kick Danny Williams on the exciting new CBS series, Hawaii Five-O

  Miss Wo Ho Woo, luscious Polynesian stripper, was given a diamond and teak chess set by the now deceased and widely mourned shipping tycoon, Paul Burger.

  Miss Wo Ho Woo didn’t really have the brains to play chess, but her body was educated enough to play anything else, by her own rules. Therefore, it didn’t occur to the sexy redhead that she could be anything but Queen—until somebody used her as Pawn in the Final Move.

  HAWAII, land of beautiful people, liquid sunshine, perfumed flowers, electric guitars. Paradise. But not to Steve McGarrett, head of an extraordinary police force, who’s got to flush out another snake in the garden—a highly successful entrepreneur with a murderous medium of exchange.

  Copyright © 1968 by Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.

  All rights reserved

  SIGNET TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.

  SIGNET BOOKS are published by

  The New American Library, Inc.,

  1301 Avenue of the Americas,

  New York, New York 10019

  First Printing, October, 1968

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Dedication:

  TO STEPHEN MICHAEL AVALLONE,

  MAY HE BAT .400 AND LEAD THE LEAGUE.

  Acknowledgment:

  I am indebted to Richard Joseph’s book, World-Wide Travel Guide, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1952, for its graphic chapter entitled “Hawaii—Yankee-Doodle Garden of Eden”—a superb view of one of the truly lovely countries of the world.

  FOR TOURISTS ONLY

  Hawaii is a land of enchantment and mystery, its people reflecting every nationality and origin. Visitors from East and West include tourists, fortune hunters, diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, students, socialites, gamblers and soldiers.

  The fiftieth state (entered the Union August 21, 1959) is composed of eight principal islands. Only five of these offer any interest to the average visitor. These are Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, Kauai and Molokai.

  Of the five, Oahu is by far the most important, for Honolulu is there, as is almost three quarters of the entire population of the Hawaiian Islands. Oahu is the central point of all things Hawaiian. Ships and planes from the mainland land there. Oahu is the hub of Hawaii, which is why the Japanese elected to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941.

  To maintain law and order in this island complex of 1600 miles, a special kind of police force is required. That force is Hawaii Five-O, a highly mobile organization ever alert to move into action when cases demand secrecy, discretion and special training.

  Hawaii Five-O is stationed on the island of Oahu.

  Oahu is so important that all other islands in the Hawaiian chain are referred to as the “neighbor islands.” It takes an eighty-mile circle-tour by automobile to see Oahu with its mountains, palm forests, native villages, sugar and pineapple plantations.

  For the men of Hawaii Five-O, it is the most exotic, most beautiful, most deadly “beat” in the civilized world.

  1. ALOHA, OE, DEATH

  Of the eight golf courses that beautified the desolate stretches of Oahu, all of which were within driving distance of Honolulu, the Manapula Country Club was one of the best—as green as some mammoth pool table, with a clear look at Pearl Harbor to the north and Diamond Head to the south. Steve McGarrett had always found it a pleasant place to unwind. He golfed in the low eighties and posed no threat to the Arnold Palmers of this world. The time he might have spent perfecting his game, and a rather unique blending of physical coordination and ultra-cool nerves, was willingly surrendered to his first love: police work.

  Still, somewhere on the fourteenth hole, in a quiet twosome with Paul Burger of Venus Shipping, he began to fret. Somewhere in the investigative mind that saw a potential hand grenade among the cluster of pineapples nestling on an Oahu wharf, a noisy bee was buzzing. He tried to think why.

  The course was placid and lovely. The blue-green sky overhead was pure chamber of commerce soft-sell. Hawaii twinkled in the sunlight. Paul Burger, corpulent and sweaty in incredibly colored shirt and slacks, was addressing his ball. Hunched over and intensely occupied. Burger’s approach shot from the thirteenth tee had been a long hard beauty. Now, he had come along to within fifteen feet of the cup. He was superior on driving. The hole was a par five and the shipping magnate had a fine chance to make it in three strokes.

  Both of their caddies, dark-skinned island boys, buck-toothed and solemn, hung back respectfully. McGarrett waited, not daring to breathe. Burger abhorred the slightest sound when he was shooting. And yet McGarrett could not contain the bee buzzing in his brain. Something was wrong. What was it?

  Burger tapped the ball with his club. The small white sphere seemed to plod for the lip of the cup. Suddenly it veered and avoided the hole as if it had a mind of its own. Burger cursed roundly in the sunlight. His ball was poised six inches beyond the target.

  Fat face wrinkled in disgust, Burger spanked the ball in, then scooped it out, pausing to mark four strokes on his card. The solemn caddies wagged their heads sadly.

  McGarrett went back to his own ball, smiling his mutual sorrow. His own lie was a full twenty yards from the cup, the ball parked on the virtual edge of the green. Burger bellowed something in the fine air.

  Still, golf fling and all, the bee hummed busily in McGarrett’s skull. Sighing, he ignored his shot and looked across the green toward Burger. The head of Venus Shipping was as sweaty as a wild pig eluding a spear-carrying islander. Burger was a golf buff, but not even your favorite game should do that to you.

  “Want to tell me about it, Paul?”

  “Why I didn’t make the shot? Because I’m the perfect amateur, that’s why!”

  “Something’s eating you. And it isn’t your golf game. What gives?”

  Burger squinted, checking a pudgy hand mopping at the open throat of his Hawaiian shirt. The white panama hat shading his face made it difficult to judge his expression.

  “You sound like a policeman, Steve.”

  “I am a policeman. Remember?”

  Burger shrugged. “Don’t know what gets into you people. Must be in the blood. You look at everything sideways and crossways. I ask you out for a quiet round of golf—”

  “Exactly. It just hit me. You called up out of a clear blue sky. I haven’t seen you in months. And here we are. I’d like to think it’s because you think I’m the only man on the islands that can keep up with you. You are good and you know it. But I suddenly get a different message. You’re in trouble of some kind. You need a copper and a pal. Since I’m both, I’m more than willing to listen. So do I shut up about it and make my shot or are you going to level with me?”

  Paul Burger’s chortle of sarcasm was ripped from his chest.

  “Make your shot. Sun’s got the best of you, Steve. I’ve never had that kind of trouble. And you know it. Right now all I care about is skunking you good.”

  McGarrett settled behind his ball. But the bee refused to go away. Instinct and intuition, those twin thi
ngs that make up the true police mentality, had told him that Paul Burger had invited him to Manapula to tell him something. Something important. Somehow, the exporter had changed his mind. It was true about Burger’s golf enthusiasm though. He had once topped a visiting golf pro in a charity tournament by carding a brilliant 67, a five-under-par score for the course in question. He had lived in the memory of that triumph ever since. But it wasn’t just a single burst of glory. Even the worst player can make a hole-in-one. No. Paul Burger was a fine golfer. One of the best on the islands.

  McGarrett halved the distance to the cup with a sliced shot to accommodate the angle of his lie. Thirty feet remained. With a true follow-up putt, he rolled into the cup. Burger, for all his desire to win, clapped his hands enthusiastically.

  “Good show, Steve.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re a real, ringer, McGarrett. A cop who shoots golf like a pro.”

  “A little lucky, too.”

  “My foot. You’ve got ice water in your veins. You know how to concentrate. The Ben Hogan of Honolulu. Surprises me too, I hear so much about your famous temper. You’ve stepped on quite a few big toes with that special outfit of yours. Hawaii Five-O. Sounds like a musical combo.” Burger laughed at his own comparison.

  “That’s different. Police work involves people and they don’t always act like human beings. How can I get mad at a golf ball or punch a Number Four iron?”

  “It’s easy,” Burger said sourly. “Try landing in the water sometime. Or finding yourself behind three palm trees.”

  “No thanks. Shall we proceed?”

  The fifteenth hole of the Manapula was a lulu. It abounded on one side with a water hazard and on the other with a grove of palm trees, tightly huddled like a group of frightened children. The rough got thicker and deeper the farther one strayed off the fairway. The green itself plunged upward at nearly a forty-five degree angle before flattening onto an expanse of lawn marked off with a flag poking from the distant cup.

  “This will make a man of you, my son,” Burger said, grinning as he adjusted a tee in the soft earth.

  “I’ve been here before, dad.”

  Burger grunted. “Any luck?”

  “Not as bad as I expected. Did it in four strokes.”

  Burger winced. “But it’s a five-par hole.”

  “I know. Who said otherwise?”

  McGarrett watched. Burger went into his crouch. For all his corpulence and sweatiness, his swing was easy, controlled and powerful. A pleasant performance to watch. The two caddies, off to one side, were silently vigilant. One of them was chewing gum, working the wad quietly in his tanned jaws as if the sound of mastication would upset Paul Burger’s drive. McGarrett was to remember that later, when he tried so hard to remember a lot of things.

  “Steve,” Paul Burger said suddenly, his eyes and his attention still on the ball lying serenely on the tee. “You guessed it, you know.”

  “That’s nice. What did I win?”

  “My confidence. And my trust. Both of which you may remember I don’t give away very easily. There is something you ought to know. Before it’s too late. I may have waited too long as it is.”

  “Make your shot,” McGarrett said lightly, the old feeling of tension and apprehension closing in on him. The back of his neck was suddenly taut. The twin things and the bee had not been wrong. There had been trouble in the air and he had sensed it. From the moment that Paul Burger had made a breezy all’s-right-with-the-world phone call to Hawaii Five-O, asking its chief investigator to play a round of golf. “We can wait until we get on the green.”

  Burger nodded and on the gesture, swung rhythmically. The ball rose on a long line of power and grace and plunked down in the grass quickly before it could get lost in the opposite hazards. It rolled up the fairway. A shot of over two hundred yards. A beauty.

  “Ouch,” McGarrett said. “With shots like that, you shouldn’t have any troubles at all.”

  Grinning happily and proudly, Burger stepped back and waved a hand for the head of Hawaii Five-O to make his own tee shot. McGarrett restrained a mock shudder and shook his head.

  “Chicken,” Burger chuckled. For answer, McGarrett straightened, smiled wanly and stepped right in.

  With no frills or long pauses, he drilled his own ball up the fairway, watching it hook to the left where it vanished like a bat into the huddled palms. His own caddie threw up both hands in dismay.

  “Tough luck, Steve.” Burger was sympathetic.

  “Ain’t it the truth?”

  They fell in step, the caddies jabbering excitedly behind them. Burger held his club like a weapon, poking the brisk air with it as if he was trying to find a hole in space.

  “Tell me about it, Paul. Now’s a good time.”

  Burger fingered a globule of sweat from his porcine nose. He looked around, peering over a rounded shoulder, but his short legs kept pace with McGarrett, whose six feet were lean, wide-shouldered and tigerishly lithe.

  “I trust you, Steve.”

  “So?”

  “What do you know about Venus Shipping? I mean—really know?”

  “You’re tied in with most of the pineapple industry on the islands. They grow them and you ship them. You’ve been doing it since ’56 when you came out here from Detroit, wasn’t it? You took over your father’s business. He died in a car accident on River Street in downtown Honolulu. Your business is very profitable and shows a profit every year for which the island is very grateful. What else do you want me to know?”

  Burger’s gimlet eyes opened wide.

  “You do your homework, don’t you?”

  “It’s my job. Now what’s eating you, Paul? It can’t be your golf game. That’s fine.”

  “I’ve gotten myself in a bind, Steve. In the beginning, I didn’t think it would come to this. But I can’t wait any longer. I’m sitting on something that could blow me and Venus Shipping right off the map. Soon as we finish this game, you and I are going to have a long talk. You’re the only one who can make it right.”

  McGarrett started to say something, then shrugged. He smiled to show Burger he could wait. After all, three more holes and the game had been going pretty fast thanks to Burger’s skill. Whatever it was could wait another hour or so.

  The rigid rules of golf are as circumscribed and prescribed as any other sport in the world. Burger played the fifteenth under par and McGarrett, thanks to the trees, slaughtered his score with a horrible ten-stroke total.

  By the time they approached the eighteenth and final hole with the cooler, palmier environs of the clubhouse beckoning some one hundred yards away, McGarrett had somehow removed the buzzing bee from his brain.

  His cotton shirt and green chino slacks had begun to cling to his skin. His mouth longed for a refreshing chilled pineapple drink. Or even a frozen daiquiri. Anything to remove the parched condition of his mouth and throat. Paul Burger was sweating like a wild pig; the one he so unfortunately resembled. Despite the prevalent Oahu climate of eighty-three degrees for July and the open air and space of Manapula, even the thick-skinned caddies were perspiring freely.

  Yet McGarrett could not totally shake the impression that Paul Burger was about to reveal something to him that was a whole lot more damning than a little unethical business practice.

  Or an embezzlement of funds.

  Or a thieving employee.

  Or a scandal of some remote kind. Perhaps a woman—

  Paul Burger was too eminent a tycoon to dabble with petty matters. Hell, the man was even one of the appointed board of trustees for the island of Oahu. Vaguely, he recalled some newspaper item of a year or so ago where Burger had donated fifty thousand dollars to the University of Hawaii. The man was big potatoes, all the way. What could he have gotten involved in that was so bad he had to confide in an organization like Hawaii Five-O.

  On the eighteenth, McGarrett had his answer.

  Or rather, the problem was posed.

  The true depth of the mat
ter was finally plumbed.

  Paul Burger was making his last shot. He was carding a superb 74 score for a course whose par was 72. He had thoroughly humiliated McGarrett’s game, that outclassed player coming in with a 95 at the very least.

  McGarrett stood back. Burger would put the kiss of death on the game with a mere putt of two feet and several inches needed to sink the ball. The caddies were already beginning to square accounts with each other on the outcome of the game. It was very obvious that McGarrett’s boy had lost a fistful of cash.

  “A fine game,” McGarrett called out as Burger readied his stroke. “I’ll never be able to show my face around here again.”

  “Luck of the Irish.”

  “Yours or mine?” McGarrett said and fell silent.

  Burger had blasted a long, high drive up the fairway to the last green. Another bullet in flight. Then he had followed up with a really superior shot from the bunkered ground, to within the short distance from the cup. But not once during the dreary walk toward the ball hidden beyond the rise of ground had he rubbed his excellence into McGarrett’s hide.

  Now Burger drew back, still sweaty in the sunlight, and tapped the ball gently.

  In the tiny second before the world exploded with thunder, violence and death, a tropical bird soared from a nearby palm tree and flitted across the yawning sky, dazzlingly red and yellow against the azure blue.

  It was the last peaceful thought that Steve McGarrett had that day.

  The last thing he saw before the earth opened beneath him and swallowed him whole.

  Sky, bird, golf green, caddies, palms, Paul Burger and the little round white ball all disappeared in a holocaust of noise, agony and violent lightning.

  Someone had switched golf balls on the last hole and Paul Burger’s last swing was a finishing stroke all the way.

  2. THE PINEAPPLE RING

  Like the late George Apley’s Boston, Hawaii is not a place—it’s a state of mind. A mood. One that kamaainas never lose and malahinis always acquire. The former are long-time residents of the islands; the latter are visitors from the mainland. Both fall under the spell of the most healthful climate in the world, the flood of flowery perfume and the sound of true Hawaiian music heard for the first time in its proper environs. Whether you land by plane or walk down a ship’s gangplank, as soon as a lovely island girl drapes a lei around your neck, Hawaii’s impact registers until your inner scales of values go Tilt! The trade winds carry liquid sunshine down from the clouds covering mountaintops. The sun seeps into your flesh. Your soul begins to sound like the electric guitars thrumming all day and night long. You’re a bird in Paradise.