Night on Fire

Kevin Corvelli---a hotshot New York defense attorney who packed up his bags and hung his shingle in Hawaii to dodge the spotlight---is deep in his mai tais at a resort when an argument erupts down at the other end of the bar. It#x19;s a pair of newlyweds, married that very day on the beach. And since Corvelli doesn#x19;t do divorces, he all but dismisses the argument. That#x19;s at least until the fire breaks out later that night, and he barely escapes his hotel room. Most weren#x19;t so lucky, including the new husband. His wife, Erin, becomes not only the police#x19;s prime suspect for arson and murder but also Corvelli#x19;s newest client, and she has a lot working against her, like motive and opportunity, not to mention a history of starting fires. The heat gets turned all the way up in Douglas Corleone#x19;s scorching legal thriller Night on Fire, his second following the MWA#x19;s/MB First Crime Novel Competition winner, One Man#x19;s Paradise.

DOUGLAS CORLEONE is a former New York City defense attorney and winner of the Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Competition. He now lives in the Hawaiian Islands with his wife and son. This is his second novel.

CHAPTER 1

I’m about to get laid.
It’s about time, too, because I’ve been chatting up this cougar since happy hour. It’s now a shade past eleven and the dozen or so mai tais I threw back tonight are threatening to render my downstairs tenant utterly useless.
We’re drinking at Kanaloa’s, a small outdoor beach bar and grill at the Kupulupulu Beach Resort in Ko Olina, about a half-hour drive from Honolulu. This is where I live now; not at the hotel per se, but in a villa just a stone’s throw away. Here’s why.
“I’m so drunk,” the cougar says as she sets down her eighth Tropical Itch.
Ko Olina is a 640-acre oceanfront property in the town of Kapolei on the leeward side of Oahu. The property once served as a playground for Hawaiian royalty, but now services a different sort—primarily upscale vacationers from the U.S. mainland and Japan who would gladly pay a few thousand dollars extra to avoid the hordes of revelers down in Waikiki. The cougar I’m presently pursuing is one of those few, though right now I remember precious little else about her.
“Mmmm,” she purrs, tugging at the red silk tie I wore to court today. She’s trying like hell to be sexy, I know, but at the moment it feels as though she’s tightening a red silk noose around my throat.
Koa the barkeep winks at me as he watches the show—a performance he catches a good four times a week. He’s smiling, too, because Koa was standing right there behind the bar when I met the cougar this afternoon. He heard her go on and on about how she was such a lightweight, such a cheap date. How I’d probably have her in bed by eight if I played my cards right. That would’ve worked just fine for me because I’ve got to be on the road at the scream of dawn, in order to make it back to Honolulu in time for a nine A.M. calendar call before Judge Matsui.
Down the other end of the bar a young lady in a stunning red dress lights up, and Koa excuses himself. This inevitably occurs once or twice a night, someone visiting the islands unable to comprehend why they can’t smoke at a bar, even if it’s outside. They can’t seem to understand why people like myself don’t want to choke on their secondhand smoke while casually sipping a mai tai under the clean evening sky. Fortunately, most smokers don’t give Koa or the other bartenders a hard time.
This one does.
With a bewildered look on her face she stares up at the stars as though maybe they can explain.
“Please,” Koa says to her. “It doesn’t bother me personally, but it’s the law. Both the bar and I can get fined.”
“Whatever,” she says. “If you get fined, I’ll pay it. Just let me finish this one fucking smoke.”
The man she’s with appears embarrassed, his face tinged red in the bleak light of the outdoor bar. When he rests a hand on his girl’s shoulder she brushes it away like he’s a mosquito.
“… the fuck off me,” she says.
She lifts her tropical drink off the bar and, carrying the glass in one hand, the lit cigarette in the other, she heads this way, making for the opening in the small iron gate.
As she passes us, I get a good look at her face and immediately reconsider my support of no-smoking policies.
Koa follows her behind the bar. “I’m sorry, miss,” he calls after her, “but you can’t take your drink beyond the gate.”
She turns on her heels with a look that almost makes me duck, the drink in her hand now looking more like a lethal weapon than a refreshing rum-based beverage. “I can’t smoke inside the gate, I can’t drink outside the gate. How in the hell am I supposed to enjoy myself?”
Koa doesn’t have an answer to this, one of life’s greater mysteries.
She tosses the cigarette on the ground and as it rolls past my foot, I stamp it out with my shoe, hoping there isn’t enough alcohol on my sole to catch fire.
She storms past us again, drink still in hand, and settles back down at her original spot at the end of the bar.
By now, everyone at Kanaloa’s is watching.
Koa returns to me and the cougar and apologizes. But by the time he takes another drink order, the looker is again yelling something at her date. Something about him being a fucking liar.
“Can you believe those two just got hitched this afternoon?” Koa says to me.
“No kidding,” I say, a small part of me dying inside because she’s taken.
Koa motions to the shimmering stretch of sand abutting the man-made lagoon across from the bar. “Right there on the beach, they said their vows,” he says, mixing a piña colada. “Had about seven or eight guests.”
“Going to be one hell of a honeymoon,” I say, my eyes still glued to the couple. She’s hotter than the Hawaiian sun, the guy not so much. But isn’t that the way it always is.
After a good long gulp of her final Tropical Itch, the cougar finally caves. “Wanna come upstairs and see my room?” she says, loud enough for half the bar to hear.
Before I can answer Koa has already set down my check.
I glance around. A number of patrons have turned their heads in our direction. The rest remain focused on the show at the other end of the bar, the looker still going off on her husband, using a selection of words that would have made George Carlin cringe.
I slide my blue Bank of Hawaii debit card across the bar, trying not to look any of the half dozen waitresses in the eye as the cougar slips her hands into my suit jacket and proceeds to frisk me.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asks.
“Of course, baby,” I say.
And she is. Even earlier—before my fourth mai tai—I thought so. Now, of course, it’s dark, I’m dizzy with drink, and it’s all I can do to see the signature line on the debit card receipt Koa’s just handed me.
For some reason my eyes keep darting toward the other end of the bar, toward the looker and the drink she’s holding, the only light surrounding her that of the full moon and flaming tiki torches, the trays of glowing blue martinis still being schlepped around by the staff.
As the band plays “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for the ninth or tenth time tonight, I dip into my pocket for Koa’s tip. All I have is a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill, but he’s earned it. In fact, if memory serves, Koa made the introductions, same as he does every night, boasting to the cougar about how I’m a big-time attorney, my name always in the papers, my mug constantly on TV. Hell, he’s even TiVo’d some of my better clips in case I ever need help making the sale.
At the other end of the bar, the looker and her husband continue quarreling, battling the band for vocal supremacy.
Koa smiles and winks at me. “You handle divorces, Kevin?”
I fish a business card out of my pocket. “Give her my number,” I tell him, setting my card atop his tip. “I don’t usually go to family court, but for her I’d make an exception.”
A lot of exceptions.
“Liar,” the looker yells again, and smacks her husband across his face.
I wince and turn back to the cougar. “Wanna get out of here?”
She nods, an intoxicating smile playing on her lips. I cast my eyes on the cougar as I drain the remainder of my mai tai, turning the glass bottoms up until the ice hits my teeth. Dark hair and big brown eyes, a body that could still stop traffic. I can’t yet remember her name but that’s not important, so long as I keep calling her “baby” and recall a few personal facts. Now that I’m staring into her eyes, some of those facts are starting to come back to me.
The cougar hails from some small city in Arizona, I think. Maybe Arkansas or Alabama. Possibly Alaska, though I doubt it. She’s either a freelance journalist here on assignment or an editor here on holiday. Something to do with books or magazines, something in print. She has a dead father or stepfather, a sick mom somewhere in the Midwest. Or maybe the Middle East. A younger brother—that I remember—a good-for-nothing drunk and gambler she hasn’t spoken to in years. He sounded interesting, like someone I could shoot the shit with over a beer.
And, oh yeah, she’s thirty-nine.
They’re all thirty-nine while they’re here.

Copyright © 2011 by Douglas Corleone

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CHAPTER 1

I’m about to get laid.
It’s about time, too, because I’ve been chatting up this cougar since happy hour. It’s now a shade past eleven and the dozen or so mai tais I threw back tonight are threatening to render my downstairs tenant utterly useless.
We’re drinking at Kanaloa’s, a small outdoor beach bar and grill at the Kupulupulu Beach Resort in Ko Olina, about a half-hour drive from Honolulu. This is where I live now; not at the hotel per se, but in a villa just a stone’s throw away. Here’s why.
“I’m so drunk,” the cougar says as she sets down her eighth Tropical Itch.
Ko Olina is a 640-acre oceanfront property in the town of Kapolei on the leeward side of Oahu. The property once served as a playground for Hawaiian royalty, but now services a different sort—primarily upscale vacationers from the U.S. mainland and Japan who would gladly pay a few thousand dollars extra to avoid the hordes of revelers down in Waikiki. The cougar I’m presently pursuing is one of those few, though right now I remember precious little else about her.
“Mmmm,” she purrs, tugging at the red silk tie I wore to court today. She’s trying like hell to be sexy, I know, but at the moment it feels as though she’s tightening a red silk noose around my throat.
Koa the barkeep winks at me as he watches the show—a performance he catches a good four times a week. He’s smiling, too, because Koa was standing right there behind the bar when I met the cougar this afternoon. He heard her go on and on about how she was such a lightweight, such a cheap date. How I’d probably have her in bed by eight if I played my cards right. That would’ve worked just fine for me because I’ve got to be on the road at the scream of dawn, in order to make it back to Honolulu in time for a nine A.M. calendar call before Judge Matsui.
Down the other end of the bar a young lady in a stunning red dress lights up, and Koa excuses himself. This inevitably occurs once or twice a night, someone visiting the islands unable to comprehend why they can’t smoke at a bar, even if it’s outside. They can’t seem to understand why people like myself don’t want to choke on their secondhand smoke while casually sipping a mai tai under the clean evening sky. Fortunately, most smokers don’t give Koa or the other bartenders a hard time.
This one does.
With a bewildered look on her face she stares up at the stars as though maybe they can explain.
“Please,” Koa says to her. “It doesn’t bother me personally, but it’s the law. Both the bar and I can get fined.”
“Whatever,” she says. “If you get fined, I’ll pay it. Just let me finish this one fucking smoke.”
The man she’s with appears embarrassed, his face tinged red in the bleak light of the outdoor bar. When he rests a hand on his girl’s shoulder she brushes it away like he’s a mosquito.
“… the fuck off me,” she says.
She lifts her tropical drink off the bar and, carrying the glass in one hand, the lit cigarette in the other, she heads this way, making for the opening in the small iron gate.
As she passes us, I get a good look at her face and immediately reconsider my support of no-smoking policies.
Koa follows her behind the bar. “I’m sorry, miss,” he calls after her, “but you can’t take your drink beyond the gate.”
She turns on her heels with a look that almost makes me duck, the drink in her hand now looking more like a lethal weapon than a refreshing rum-based beverage. “I can’t smoke inside the gate, I can’t drink outside the gate. How in the hell am I supposed to enjoy myself?”
Koa doesn’t have an answer to this, one of life’s greater mysteries.
She tosses the cigarette on the ground and as it rolls past my foot, I stamp it out with my shoe, hoping there isn’t enough alcohol on my sole to catch fire.
She storms past us again, drink still in hand, and settles back down at her original spot at the end of the bar.
By now, everyone at Kanaloa’s is watching.
Koa returns to me and the cougar and apologizes. But by the time he takes another drink order, the looker is again yelling something at her date. Something about him being a fucking liar.
“Can you believe those two just got hitched this afternoon?” Koa says to me.
“No kidding,” I say, a small part of me dying inside because she’s taken.
Koa motions to the shimmering stretch of sand abutting the man-made lagoon across from the bar. “Right there on the beach, they said their vows,” he says, mixing a piña colada. “Had about seven or eight guests.”
“Going to be one hell of a honeymoon,” I say, my eyes still glued to the couple. She’s hotter than the Hawaiian sun, the guy not so much. But isn’t that the way it always is.
After a good long gulp of her final Tropical Itch, the cougar finally caves. “Wanna come upstairs and see my room?” she says, loud enough for half the bar to hear.
Before I can answer Koa has already set down my check.
I glance around. A number of patrons have turned their heads in our direction. The rest remain focused on the show at the other end of the bar, the looker still going off on her husband, using a selection of words that would have made George Carlin cringe.
I slide my blue Bank of Hawaii debit card across the bar, trying not to look any of the half dozen waitresses in the eye as the cougar slips her hands into my suit jacket and proceeds to frisk me.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asks.
“Of course, baby,” I say.
And she is. Even earlier—before my fourth mai tai—I thought so. Now, of course, it’s dark, I’m dizzy with drink, and it’s all I can do to see the signature line on the debit card receipt Koa’s just handed me.
For some reason my eyes keep darting toward the other end of the bar, toward the looker and the drink she’s holding, the only light surrounding her that of the full moon and flaming tiki torches, the trays of glowing blue martinis still being schlepped around by the staff.
As the band plays “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for the ninth or tenth time tonight, I dip into my pocket for Koa’s tip. All I have is a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill, but he’s earned it. In fact, if memory serves, Koa made the introductions, same as he does every night, boasting to the cougar about how I’m a big-time attorney, my name always in the papers, my mug constantly on TV. Hell, he’s even TiVo’d some of my better clips in case I ever need help making the sale.
At the other end of the bar, the looker and her husband continue quarreling, battling the band for vocal supremacy.
Koa smiles and winks at me. “You handle divorces, Kevin?”
I fish a business card out of my pocket. “Give her my number,” I tell him, setting my card atop his tip. “I don’t usually go to family court, but for her I’d make an exception.”
A lot of exceptions.
“Liar,” the looker yells again, and smacks her husband across his face.
I wince and turn back to the cougar. “Wanna get out of here?”
She nods, an intoxicating smile playing on her lips. I cast my eyes on the cougar as I drain the remainder of my mai tai, turning the glass bottoms up until the ice hits my teeth. Dark hair and big brown eyes, a body that could still stop traffic. I can’t yet remember her name but that’s not important, so long as I keep calling her “baby” and recall a few personal facts. Now that I’m staring into her eyes, some of those facts are starting to come back to me.
The cougar hails from some small city in Arizona, I think. Maybe Arkansas or Alabama. Possibly Alaska, though I doubt it. She’s either a freelance journalist here on assignment or an editor here on holiday. Something to do with books or magazines, something in print. She has a dead father or stepfather, a sick mom somewhere in the Midwest. Or maybe the Middle East. A younger brother—that I remember—a good-for-nothing drunk and gambler she hasn’t spoken to in years. He sounded interesting, like someone I could shoot the shit with over a beer.
And, oh yeah, she’s thirty-nine.
They’re all thirty-nine while they’re here.

Copyright © 2011 by Douglas Corleone