"Haole, you dead," he whispered. "You pau, all over, no moh, yah? Not now, maybe. Sometime, you pau."

It was hard to pretend that much hatred didn't faze me, but I managed to shrug unconcernedly. "You're right about that, Te Purewa," I said evenly. "I was with Scott when he was geeked. You think Tokudaiji's not going to have me aced too, to finish the job? Of course I'm fragging dead, brah. But you think I'm scared of you when I've got yakuza samurai on my hoop?"

That got through to him as I'd hoped it would. "Yak?" He blinked. "That Tokudaiji? He da kine… he oyabun. Nui big yak."

"You've got that right," I confirmed.

"Yak kill Scott? Tokudaiji kill my aikane?"

"That's what happened," I paused. "I don't know any of the background, Te Purewa. I came to Hawai'i to deliver a message-Scott knew who I was supposed to deliver it to, I didn't. I never heard of Ekei Tokudaiji before today. I need to know more. What can you tell me about him?"

It had worked, I saw. The multiple shocks-Scott's death, the identity of his "killer" (the way I was telling the story, at least), then the straightforward admission that I needed his help-had done their job. Te Purewa didn't know quite how to take me. Eventually, he might decide the haole had to die. But for the moment, I'd broken down his resistance.

The almost-Maori blinked again. Then, "Lots of Japanese in the islands," he began. I noticed that the intensity of his accent and his pidgin dialect were a lot less, as though in the effort of remembering he'd forgotten to be quite so Polynesian. "You know about the yakuza, yah? Traditionally, they always been the 'defenders of the people.' When some lord causes too much pilikia, the people can go to the yaks, say 'help us out with this ule,' and the yaks do it. Even today. No lords no moh, but corps and cops and politicians and li' dat, yah?

"So yaks, they got nui respect from the Japanese, the common folk, like, yah?" he went on. 'Tell 'em no worry, no huhu when they get riled up. Settle 'em down, like.

"Happen wi' Na Kama'aina, happen wid ALOHA…"

I raised a hand, asking for a time-out. "Hold the phone. What happened with Na Kama'aina and ALOHA?"

Te Purewa snorted. "Corps out, haoles out, yah? All that kanike, li' dat." He hesitated and frowned again. "Scott didn't tell you 'bout that? Scotty, he got big hard-on for ALOHA kanike."

My turn to blink. He did, did he? But now wasn't the time. "Yeah, he told me some of it," I said reassuringly, "but he didn't give me much in the way of details. Dumb-hooped haole, remember?"

He chuckled, and I knew I'd set his suspicions to rest again… for the moment. "ALOHA, they try to stir up big pilikia," Te Purewa continued, "big trouble, everybody huhu, yah? Some yaks say, 'So what? Not my problem, Jack.'"

I thought I was starting to understand-some of it, at least. "But not Tokudaiji?"

"You got dat, hoa," he agreed vehemendy. 'Tokudaiji say ALOHA stuff all kanike, make no sense, yah? Hawai'i need corps. Hawai'i need haoles-some, maybe." He snorted again. "Hawai'i need money, bruddah, I know dat for true. No corps, where we get money, huh? Where we get food? Can't eat scenery."

I nodded slowly. "So ALOHA and Na Kama'aina tried to get the people up in arms against the corps, is that right? And Tokudaiji calmed them down again?"

"Calmed Japs down," Te Purewa corrected. "Japs only people really listened to him." The Maori wannabe paused, and his face set. I thought 1 knew what he was going to ask next.

I was right "What Scotty do to" get whacked, huh?" he asked me quietly. "Step on oyabun's toes? Spout ALOHA crap? Get oyabun all pupule-all pissed off, yah?"

What the frag, I'd have to tell him sometime. "You could say that," I agreed.

"What Scotty do to oyabun, huh?"

"He killed him," I said.

I'd been here before, and I hated it.

Well, not here precisely, but enough places just like it that the surroundings were depressingly familiar. After a while, one single-room rundown squat is just like another-they all kind of blend together in the memory. Granted, there were differences-cockroaches replaced rats in this one, and it was air-conditioning I craved instead of central heating. Other than that, though, little enough difference.

I lay on the mistreated mattress, shifting around to find a position where as few springs as possible dug into my flesh. I stared at the ceiling.

What the frag had I gotten myself into here? (That question was depressingly familiar, too.) I thought I'd gotten a handle on it; I thought I'd gotten at least part of the story chipped. Suddenly, it didn't look like I knew squat about what was really going down. I sighed.

At least I had a resource now; I had a sometime ally. Te Purewa, of course. I couldn't depend on him too far. At some point he might notice some of the inconsistencies in the story I'd told him and come on by with some of his overgrown friends to ask me hard questions. Better not to push my luck.

For the moment, though, he'd come through in spades. I needed a doss-he'd gotten me a doss, a squat in a trashed-out rooming house on the fringe of downtown Ewa. I needed wheels-he'd gotten me wheels, a fifteen-year-old 250cc Suzuki Custom motorbike. I needed cold iron-he'd gotten me cold iron, a Colt Manhunter that he swore up and down wasn't registered and wasn't in anyone's ballistic database. And I needed sleep. I was on my own for that one.

But I couldn't sleep, of course. I was still stoked up from the hit and its aftermath, and my mind was racing like a high-speed flywheel. I kept going over things again and again, trying to slide the puzzle pieces around into their proper places, so everything would make sense. Fat fragging chance.

It had all looked so simple, for a couple of hours there. Corporate hit against Tokudaiji-orchestrated by Barnard- using me as camouflage and Scott as the hitter-both expendable, of course, and to be expended via belly-bomb. About as straightforward as anything ever is, these days, neh?

But there had to be more to it than that. For one thing, Tokudaiji the oyabun seemed to be a major corp supporter… if I could trust Te Purewa on that point. When ALOHA and the other hotheads tried to stir up the population against the megacorps, it was Tokudaiji who worked to calm them down again. Surely then, it would be in Barnard's best interest-in Yamatetsu's best interest, and in the best interest of all megacorps making big cred out of Hawai'i-to keep Tokudaiji breathing. With him gone…

Well, Te Purewa's reading on the situation-and I had to agree with him-was that there'd be some major backlash. The hit would be seen as a megacorp operation. Rumors to that effect had already been buzzing down the streets while I was still sipping dog with the quasi-Maori. How would the general populace-particularly, the numerous (and quite influential) Japanese populace-read that? The evil, wicked, mean, and nasty megacorps had just whacked an important "defender of the people." Suddenly, ALOHA and Na Kama'aina would find it a frag of a lot easier to stir up the populace against the corps, right? I could easily imagine retaliation against corporate facilities and personnel.

So why-why, and again why-would Barnard arrange to off the oyabun! Unless he was trying to stir up the locals against the corps.

How did that hang together? Pretty well, actually.

Cack the oyabun. Provoke the locals. Lose some megacorp resources. Then-more in sorrow than in anger, of course-move in corporate security personnel, private armies to "pacify" the islands. While they're at it, remove the government that had proven itself incapable of protecting megacorporate interests within its jurisdiction. Frag, drek like this had gone down before successfully. Ask any historian.

Was that it, then? Was I involved in a plot-another plot, for frag's sake-to oust the sovereign government of the fragging Hawai'ian islands and put a plutocrat on the throne? Sanford B. Dole in the nineteenth century, Jacques Barnard in the twenty-first…?