With nothing to do and no one to bother, ne'er-do-well private dick and man-about-town Kinky Friedman ponders life and discusses world affairs with his equally bored cat. His reverie is short-lived, however, when he gets the news that stalwart Village Irregular Mike McGovern has disappeared while visiting Hawaii. Knowing McGovern's penchant for inebriated side trips, Kinky isn't too concerned -- until a few days turn into several weeks.

Worried about their pal, Kinky and his motley crew of comrades head to Hawaii to look into McGovern's disappearance -- and find themselves caught in a big kahuna of a mystery chock-full of ancient myths, sacrificial cults, totems, taboos, native drinking practices?and, if they're lucky, the occasional lei.

Contents

PART ONE: On the Blower

PART TWO: On the Fly

PART THREE: On the Beach

PART FOUR: On the Money

PART FIVE: On the Nod

PART SIX: On the Town

PART SEVEN: On the Mo

PART EIGHT: On the Trail

PART NINE: On the March

PART TEN: On the Other Hand

Steppin' on a Rainbow

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By Kinky Friedman

Pocket Books

Copyright © 2002 Kinky Friedman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0671047442

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Chapter One

The cat was looking at me again with pity in her eyes.

"My heart isn't broken," I said. "I'm just mourning the passing of Thousand Island dressing."

The cat, of course, said nothing. There was nothing much to say. It was the dead of winter in New York and for the first time in my memory all of the Village Irregulars had fled the city. It's not something you'd want to try at home, but it is possible to be alone in New York. As my dearly departed brother Tom Baker once said: "There are worse things in life than being alone." One of them was looking at a cat who was looking at you with pity in her eyes.

"Well, let's see," I said. "Stephanie's on some traditional vacation trip with her family on some private island in the Caribbean where rich people go to laugh. Ratso's out somewhere in Montauk with his black girlfriend Christy who writes for the Globe. He's probably busily ghostwriting another autobiography for Howard Stern, which very possibly won't rise to the literary level of the Globe but will definitely sell as well."

A slight moue of distaste crossed the countenance of the cat. She did not like Howard Stern. She did not like Don Imus. She did not like Rush Limbaugh. She had no respect for anyone that millions of people listened to. I wasn't sure if she had a point there or not. I was having enough trouble just carrying on a conversation with a cat.

"McGovern's off in Hawaii someplace frenetically gathering recipes for his new book Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky. I'm not kidding you. That's the name of the book. And keeping to a literary theme, believe it or not, Rambam's in Israel going over the manuscript for his new book entitled Nice Jewish Boy (How a Kid from Brooklyn Chased Nazis, Terrorized Terrorists, Made the Russians Nervous, and Had a Good Time). Hell, even Chinga's out of town. He majored in poetry in college and now he's opening up a new branch of his advertising agency in Miami. He'd better not go too far because he's the only one who can afford to buy any of these books. It just goes to show, you be careful what you wish for, because you're probably not going to get it."

The cat had nodded off somewhere in the middle of my recitation of Rambam's book title, so I contented myself with trying to fire up a half-smoked cigar with a childhood lighter, while staring down at the gathering gloom of Vandam Street. The truth is, of course, you can never really tell whether a cat's asleep or not. It could be merely feigning sleep. It could be dead. Then again, you could be dead. I continued my rambling narrative in the sad, reckless fashion of a man striving vainly to win back a lost lover.

"I ran away once myself," I said. "But you know what happened?"

The cat, who was now lying upside-down on the counter, half-opened one green rather jaded eye. It was obvious that she didn't give a damn what had happened.

"I'll tell you what happened," I said, undeterred by my feline companion's apparent dearth of empathy. "I ran away and then about two weeks later I looked in the rearview mirror and there I was."

And here I was still, I reflected, vaguely becoming aware of my own shadowy image on the windowpane. Here I was, trying to converse with a cat who appeared as if she'd recently returned from a visit to the taxidermist. Here I was, endeavoring to operate a plastic pocket device designed to protect little children and irritate middle-aged amateur private investigators who lived alone in their lofts with their cats, and who, whilst between cases, desired to ignite their half-smoked cigars not to mention their half-dead spirits. Here I was, as Stephanie DuPont had so well put it, "hangin' by spit." She'd been referring, of course, to my relationship with her, but hangin' by spit pretty well described my current relationship with the world. Man cannot live by little Negro puppet heads alone, I thought.

The little black puppet head on the mantel smiled gaily down at me. The fire burned gaily in the fireplace. The world spun gaily around the sun. Maybe I was gay. Maybe that was why most of my friends were men, while women merely scurried rapidly through the crawl space of my existence. Then I thought once again of Stephanie DuPont -- that young, five-alarm, acid-tongued Grace Kelly of a woman -- and I realized I wasn't gay. I was merely mentally ill to think I had a chance with her. Why would she be interested in an amateur private investigator who was more than twice her age, lived in a dusty, drafty loft with an antisocial cat, and once in a while solved a mystery or two, which usually earned him just enough money to keep him in gourmet cat food and Cuban cigars?

"How often do we find in life," I said to the cat, "that talent is its own reward?"

Since it was a rhetorical question I did not expect the cat to answer and she didn't let me down. Why would any self-respecting cat care about the wonderings and wanderings of a feckless human being anyway? According to the 1999 Calendar and Datebook of the Animal Protection Institute, a slim document I'd been busily poring over lately, "only two out of ten kittens born in the U.S. ever find a lifelong home."

"Maybe we're both lucky," I said to the cat. "Who cares if we're a little lonely sometimes? Maybe we're lucky to be lonely."

The cat opened both eyes widely. She seemed to be studying me carefully, as if she'd never seen me before in her life. It was not a pleasant sensation.

Now, as the chilly shades of evening fell across the city like a sad little man in an old hotel lowering the venetian blinds, I lowered myself into McGovern's old hand-me-down, overstuffed chair, and poured a strong bolt of Jameson Irish Whiskey into the old bull's horn. I threw a silent salute to the smiling puppet head and threw the contents of the bull's horn down my neck. The cat looked on in mild disgust.

"Friendship's basically overrated," I said. "The Village Irregulars are usually more trouble than they're worth. And women, they're fools, God bless 'em. Anyway, it's down to just the two of us now. We'll get by in this city and this world. They say it's going to snow tonight."

The cat's eyes seemed to melt like old Jewish candles. With that native sensitivity that all cats possess -- and all people think they possess -- the cat once again surprised me with the inexplicable: she crawled over to me and curled up in my lap.

"And now," I said, "if you could help me figure out how to work this goddamn childhood lighter."

Copyright © 2001 by Kinky Friedman

Continues...

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Excerpted from Steppin' on a Rainbow by Kinky Friedman Copyright © 2002 by Kinky Friedman. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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The eponymous PI Kinky Friedman (aka the Kinkster) is up to his usual amusing antics in his 14th outing (after 2000's The Mile High Club). From beginning to end, the narrative sizzles with crackling dialogue and bawdy wit. New Yorker Kinky is trying to lead his quiet life as a lazy private detective while mooning over his friend Stephanie, with whom he would like to have more than a platonic relationship, when a problem comes over the blower (that's telephone to most of us) from the Kinkster's old friend, Willis Hoover, now a columnist for the Honolulu Advertiser. Their mutual eccentric friend (all Kinky's friends are eccentric), Mike McGovern, has disappeared from the beach in Hawaii, and Hoover needs the Kinkster's help finding the missing man. Kinky persuades Stephanie to join him for a trip to the 50th state, where they meet up with Hoover and pursue McGovern's trail. They soon get into very deep waters, particularly after beautiful local reporter Carline also disappears. The crew chase around several islands, with a surprising denouement that reaches back into Hawaiian history and legend. As usual, a winning style and lively characterization more than compensate for the serviceable plot. One word of warning: for those whose taste doesn't run to foul language, this book might not be their cup of tea. 10-city author tour. Agent, Esther Newberg. (Sept. 5) FYI: Texas Monthly magazine recently hired Friedman (the author, not the character) to write a regular column; he has received a fan letter from President Bush. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.