Praise for the Katy Green Mysteries

by Hal Glatzer

“Hal Glatzer’s Too Dead to Swing is a strong debut.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The evocation of time and place is note-perfect, the musical background richly detailed, the narration and character drawing bright and varied, the surprise solution generously clued.”

—Jon L. Breen, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

“Authentic period atmosphere, current modes of social conduct, and believable plot recommend [A Fugue in Hell’s Kitchen].…”

—Library Journal

“Plenty of red herrings, musiker talk, vignettes of a grubby (and sometimes violent) Depression-era New York.”

—Historical Novels Review

“...an interesting series, one with a lot of respect for those days of swing, with more than a little foreshadowing of today’s times.”

—Mystery News

“Glatzer’s atmospherics effectively evoke the swing era…a lively jitterbug down memory lane.”

—Kirkus Reviews

Besides printed books and e-books, Too Dead to Swing and A Fugue in Hell’s Kitchen are also available as audio-plays. Too Dead to Swing is performed by a full cast of Broadway actors, with a sound track performed by Nashville musicians. A Fugue in Hell’s Kitchen is a one-woman show performed by Barbara Rosenblat. More information is at www.halglatzer.com.

To download these audio-plays: www.audible.com.

This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, companies, institutions, organizations, or incidents is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2006 by Hal Glatzer
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-9702147-9-9

Published by Words & Pictures
2E South Building
The Piano Factory
454 West 46th Street
New York, NY 10036
www.halglatzer.com

Book design by Studio E Books, Santa Barbara
www.studio-e-books.com

The Library of Congress has issued the following
information for the first edition of this book:
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Glatzer, Hal.
The last full measure : a Katy Green mystery / by Hal Glatzer.
p. cm.
ISBN [first print edition] 1-880284-84-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Women musicians—Fiction. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Pacific Ocean—Fiction. 3. Dance orchestras—Fiction. 4. Pacific Ocean—Fiction. 5. Ocean travel—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.L38L37 2006
813’.6—dc22
2005021237

I am forever grateful for my friendship with the late O.A. (“Ozzie”) Bushnell. I was a malihini, a “newcomer” to Hawai‘i, when I first read the wonderful historical novels of this kama’āina, a “native son of the land.” They, in print—and he, in person—opened my eyes and ears to Hawai‘i’s past.

Contents

Cast of Characters

Foreword

Friday, November 21, 1941

Wednesday, November 26

Thursday, November 27

Friday, November 28

Saturday, November 29

Sunday, November 30

Monday, December 1

Tuesday, December 2

Wednesday, December 3

Thursday, December 4

Friday, December 5

Saturday, December 6

Sunday, December 7

Afterword

About the Author

Cast of Characters

— The Swingin’ Sarongs —

Katy Green

saxophone, violin

A woman whose gigs tend to lead her into danger, so she’s lucky to know first-aid—or is she?

Ivy Powell

bandleader, bass

A short gal with an even shorter temper

Lillian Vernakis

trumpet

A dotty damsel, likely to do anything for love

Roselani Akau (ne‘e Apapane)

vocals, piano, guitar

“The Heavenly Rose of Hawai‘i,” with a very down-to-earth plan

— Aboard SS Lurline —

— First Class —

Phillip DeMorro

“The Baronet of Broadway,” whose hot show just closed

John (“Quart”) Brewer, IV (Stanford University, ’27)

A big man in the sugar business, with a big axe to grind

Nancy (“Nan”) Brewer (Mills College, ’35)

His wife, who might just be ready for a solo career

Bill Apapane

Roselani’s brother, a surf-riding champ, who needs to go ashore

— Cabin Class —

Shunichi (“Danny Boy”) Ohara (Stanford, ’29)

An electrical engineer with a felonious past

Minoru (“Mouse”) Ichiro (U.C. Berkeley, ’29)

A mild-mannered chemist who’s quick with his fists

Sgt. Tadashi (“Tad”) Mirikami, u.s.a. (Stanford, ’29)

Still “Jingo” to his school chums, and well-schooled about bombs

Tatsuo (“Rubbish”) Mirikami (U.C. Berkeley, ’29)

His cousin, a junkman who needs new customers for scrap metal

—Crew—

Stan O’Malley, Master at Arms

He’s too much like too many cops Katy has met before

Hobart (“Swifty”) Boyd, M.D. (U.C. Berkeley, ’27)

Does the doctor have the right prescription for Katy?

Angelica Lanahan, R.N.

The nurse is apparently all business

Les Grogan (U.C. Berkeley, ’28)

The chief radioman is hearing voices

Gloria Wiggins

The beautician has an ear for first-class gossip

Frank Todd

The crew-chief of the cargo hold needs a big boost

— In Hawai‘i —

Clyde Chang Akau

Roselani’s ex-husband, a fisherman—mostly

Jeremy Waiau

A police officer from Hilo who’s caught in a hot spot

Onomea and vicinity, on the Big Island of Hawaii

Foreword

Hannah Dobryn wrote her Katy Green mysteries after World War II, but set them in the preceding decade: A Fugue in Hell’s Kitchen, for example, in 1939, and Too Dead to Swing in 1940. But the war particularly influenced Katy’s “wartime” adventures, of which The Last Full Measure, set in 1941, is published now for the first time. (So Hawaiian words are rendered here with modern Hawaiian punctuation.)

From newspaper clippings in the file folder that accompanied her draft manuscript, and from several passages in the text, I estimate that she wrote The Last Full Measure during 1950 and ’51, when yet another war was being waged in Asia.

Like every American adult of that time, Hannah would always “remember” Pearl Harbor. But she did more with her memories than most people did with theirs. In The Last Full Measure, she placed her American heroine—her alter ego—into the very moment when America’s war began.

“Remember Pearl Harbor”?

I can practically smell it—taste it, even. The bitter ooze of petroleum. The sweet fragrance of sandalwood. The sour tang of gun smoke. And the salty undertow of a white-capped sea.

Friday, November 21, 1941

“Long Distance calling Miss Katy Green.”

“I’m Katy Green.”

“Go ahead, please.”

“Katy! It’s Ivy Powell—”

“—and Lillian Vernakis. Are you pregnant, Katy?”

“What?”

“Back off, Lillian, you’re right in my ear! You still there, Katy? How the hell you doin’?”

Ivy was a bass player, a nervy little bird who could swear like a sailor, and scrap like one, too. Lillian, who played trumpet, was the excitable type, and a bit dotty from too many reefers.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Where are you calling from?”

“Frisco. We’ve been here all along.”

Which meant: about eighteen months. San Francisco was the last stop on the tour I’d played with them in May of 1940, in an all-girl swing band called the Ultra Belles.

“Listen, Katy,” Ivy went on, “we have just picked up the greatest gig in the world, and we want you in our band. We need a sax player. But you double on violin, so we wouldn’t need another soloist, which means more dough for you.”

“But you can’t take the gig if you’re pregnant,” Lillian called into the phone. “Are you pregnant?”

“No! What’s the gig? The last time I was in a band with you two, I almost got killed.”

Ivy chuckled. “The worst that could happen in this gig is you’re gonna have to eat poi.”

“What?”

“One more question, Quiz Kid.” That was Lillian. “Do you get seasick?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“We’re sailing for Hawai‘i next week!”

“We are gonna be the dance band,” said Ivy, “on the Lurline.…Did you hear me?”

“ ‘The’ Lurline?”

“The,” Lillian mocked, “flagship of the Matson Navigation Company Steamship Line Incorporated Limited C. O. The.”

“Do they pay union scale?”

“Well, it ain’t top scale,” Ivy admitted, “but it’s close. If we don’t need an extra soloist, you’ll make a hundred and thirty-seven fifty a week, plus room and board on the ship.”

“Plus time off for baaad behavior.”

“Lillian! There ain’t enough room in this phone booth for the four of us.”

“Huh?”

“You, me, and those big bazooms o’ yours. Back off, will ya?”

“Okay, Ivy, but tip the phone my way, so I can hear.”

“You still there, Katy?”

“I’m here.”

“What Lillian means is: San Francisco to Honolulu takes five days. We get two nights off in Hawai‘i while they turn the ship around. It’s a free vacation! We sail back to California, and get two nights to goof off in Frisco, or pick up an occasional gig. We’re booked for the next two round-trips, so we’ll be workin’ through Christmas. And if they like us, they’ll give us New Year’s and a six-month contract. We could be workin’ till next June.”

“I don’t know, Ivy. I’m just starting my busiest time of the year here in New York. Thanksgiving’s next week. I’ve got bookings almost every night through Christmas. Tonight, I’m a strolling violinist for an anniversary party—I get big tips for that.”

“So, you’ll fiddle for tips at parties in staterooms!”

Lillian chuckled. “Or fiddle around in somebody’s stateroom!”

“Say yes, will ya, Katy?”

“I’m tempted.”

“Come on—it’s a cinch. You know how to swing all the standards—Broadway show tunes, Tin Pan Alley songs. The only new material you’d have to learn are hula-hulas. And the Matson office here in Frisco has a whole library of arrangements we can take with us.”

“Ivy, the way you’re hustling me, you sound like the bandleader.”

“Yeah? Well, I guess I am. This just happened today. We’re still down here at the union hall. The Matson people showed up lookin’ for female musicians. But none o’ the other girls here in Local Six have the guts to—”

“Wait a second! How did it happen that the Matson Line and the American Federation of Musicians gave a plum gig like this to women?”

“They didn’t say so, but it sounded to me like they wanted a novelty act, for the holidays. I walked up and said I got one.”

“You do?”

“I do now. We’re friends with a Hawaiian singer here. She’s a good piano player, and she can make a pancake-guitar go wicky-wacky-woo. I figured if I put a swing trio behind her, I’d have all the dance music covered, and a floor show, too.”

“Besides,” Lillian shouted,” they have to, now. Hire women, I mean. Too many guys in the union’ve got their draft cards, or reserve notices.”

“I thought of you right away, Katy. I want you to come along.”

“All the way from New York?”

“Look, if you don’t think I can pull a band together and lead it, I’ll just get somebody else. There’s another sax player right here in the union hall—I can see her from the phone booth—”

“That’s not what I meant, Ivy! They have newspapers in San Francisco, don’t they? You hear the president on the radio, don’t you? Germany could declare war on us any time now. And who knows what Japan is up to, with—”

“We’ll be safer if we sail away,” Lillian insisted. “This man on the radio today, he said the Japs are gonna invade California in a fleet of little submarines that can drive right up on the beach. They’ve got wheels on their bottoms. The subs, I mean, not the—”

“Stick a mute in, Lillian. Sorry, Katy. You know how she can hang on a riff! But listen to me: if war’s gonna break out, it’ll happen when it happens. You don’ know when. I don’ know when. Nobody knows when. Besides, Roosevelt doesn’t scare easy. I don’t scare easy. And I happen to know that you don’t scare easy.”

“I’m just…concerned.”

“Okay. That’s on one hand. On the other hand: yes, for the first time in human history, there are some really great gigs openin’ up for us women. D’ya want to spend December freezin’ on Forty-second Street, or bakin’ on the beach at Waikīkī? I gotta know right now. The ship sails on the twenty-eighth, and we’re takin’ it.”

“That’s next Friday! I’d have to be on the train tomorrow.”

“So, be on it.”

“There’s a…a little problem.”

“Lemme guess: you need help with the fare.”

“Well, it’s not as though I’m a pauper, but—”

“I just got some dough I can wire to you, but it has to be an advance against your pay. Is that all right? And I can only spring for a coach ticket. If you want a sleeper, you’ll have to—”

“No. It’s fine. Thanks.” She’d gotten an advance, for fronting the band. I was impressed. “I can pay the difference.”

“So you’re coming?”

“Yes.”

“Congratulations, Miss Green, you are now in the Swingin’ Sarongs.”

“Is that your band’s name?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s not saying it right!” Lillian insisted. “She says ‘swingin’—like when you mean ‘swinging.’ But I think it ought to be ‘swing—in—sarongs.’ Like when you’d say, ‘We play swing, wearing sarongs.’ What do you think, Katy?”

“I have to wear a sarong?”

Hitting the road in a hurry is second nature to me. For the past twelve years, I’ve taken practically every gig that’s come along, even if I had to travel to make it. I can play longhair violin, in the classical manner that I studied as a kid (and that I’ve got a conservatory diploma for). But most of the gigs I get nowadays are for saxophone—alto sax—in small combos, swing and sweet. And I can double on swing fiddle, too, which is kind of a rarity in the music business these days, and gets me an occasional bonus.

I’ll even play corn if I have to; it doesn’t matter, as long as I get my pay, because I don’t make much money. In all eleven months of 1941, so far, I’d picked up eighty or ninety dollars in a good week, but only half that when times were rough. Traveling to gigs eats up a lot of my pay; and I need almost two good weeks’ earnings to cover a month’s rent, food, and music supplies. For a hundred and thirty-seven fifty a week, I’d have played December in Siberia.

True to her word, Ivy wired me enough for coach fare. So I felt okay about canceling my bookings and drawing down my passbook savings by twenty-eight dollars for an upper berth in Pullman cars all the way to the Coast.

I thought about taking enough out of the bank for two months’ rent in advance. But my landlady, Mrs. Schmidt, charged only ten dollars a month to stow things in her basement trunk-room. So I put whatever I wasn’t taking into my two trunks: winter clothes, books, music books, and knickknacks—even my fancy toaster. I’d be able to afford a nicer room there when I came back to New York in January: a quiet room at the back, that didn’t face the elevated train. And if the gig ran through June, I could afford to move.

But suppose there was a war…no! I couldn’t back out of the gig now. Besides, I do read the news. Japan’s got its hands full in China. And I remember my college history lessons, too: if there’s any country that rubs Japan the wrong way, it’s Russia—not America!

I caught myself saying that out loud, which made me chuckle: when you live alone, you can talk to yourself. I set down the clothes I was packing and took a couple of deep breaths, picked my sax up out of its stand, and blew a few wild notes that owed something to Benny Carter: a hot reed-man I’d gone to hear twice at the Savoy Ballroom. It relaxed me enough to accept my decision: I’d told Ivy I would go, and I would keep my word.

I poured a bottle of beer into a glass and sipped it while I packed, happy to find that I still fit into my summer-weight things. Both my sundresses were frayed around the hems, and my blue woolen swimsuit needed to have its buttons reinforced; but there’d be plenty of time on the train to fix them. So I wrapped them around my sewing kit and set it in the overnight case that I’d use on board.

Into my big suitcase, which would ride in the baggage car, went a comfortable pair of Mary Janes for knocking around in, black pumps with Cuban heels to wear on stage, and—I actually owned something that looked “tropical”—white lace-up sandals that I’d bought in August on the Jersey shore. Three skirts in quiet colors and subtle patterns would go well with my plain white shirtwaists. I took only my best brassieres, panties, slips, suspender-belts, and silk stockings. If I was sailing off to war, at least I’d be wearing durable clothes.

It might get cold on deck, so I added a pair of man-tailored wool trousers and a cardigan sweater, plus the woolen shawl from South America that Mother had given me a few Christmases ago. And in case—well, hoping—I’d need something glamorous aboard ship or on shore, I tipped down from the shelf my one and only expensive evening gown: a sleek, bias-cut number in pale green silk that I’d taken in trade once for an all-day gig at Bergdorf Goodman. I kept it in its cardboard box, folded in a neat square with tissue paper between the layers.

I trimmed the contents of my makeup bag down to a manageable number of compacts, rouges, and lipsticks, and put the kit into the overnight case, along with my flannel nightgown, an old pair of mules (for padding to the bathroom), three changes of underwear, and an extra shirtwaist.

Finally, I went to the medicine cabinet and made myself a tiny first-aid kit, stuffing a mesh bag with a handful of adhesive bandages, a couple of gauze squares, and small bottles of aspirin, calomel, ipecac, and iodine. Then I packed my toilet kit with tooth powder and a toothbrush, soap, shampoo, cold cream, a hairbrush and comb, a packet of sanitary tampons…and my pessary from Margaret Sanger’s clinic, in case I were to—you know—meet somebody.

Wednesday, November 26

You have to change in Chicago for one of the crack streamliners to the Coast: either the Southern Pacific’s City of San Francisco or the Western Pacific’s California Zephyr. I picked the City of San Francisco. Riding the Zephyr last year, in that band with Lillian and Ivy, almost left me too dead to swing.

On Wednesday the 26th, I got off the train in Oakland, rode an SP streetcar over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, and changed for one of the city’s Municipal car lines up Market Street. By six o’clock I’d checked into the only place in town that I’d ever stayed before: the YWCA on Page Street. I’d told Ivy where I’d be, of course, so she’d left a note at the desk, saying I should meet her around midnight at a club in Chinatown called the Bamboo Hut, where my name would be on the guest-list.

The only truly unpleasant thing about a cross-country trip, even in a Pullman berth, is that for four days straight, there’s no way to bathe. So the first thing I did at the Y was draw a hot bath, and soak for half an hour.

By five o’clock, the sun was gone, and by ten, the night was chilly enough for me to need my shawl. Chinatown was almost four miles away, uphill and down. But there’s only so much walking you can do on a train. Despite the exercise I’d gotten that day, carrying my suitcases and instruments, I still felt stiff. At about ten-thirty, I decided to walk.

San Francisco and New York both have Chinatowns, but the guidebooks say this one’s the biggest outside of the Orient. Plus, there’s a Japantown and a Koreatown, and for all I knew there could be a Hawai‘itown, too.

I thought about this as I picked my way through streets and alleys named for trees, like Oak and Hickory, that led me down to the wide Van Ness Avenue, where the City Hall—bigger than a lot of state-houses—was lit up with floodlights. From there, I zig-zagged through a run-down neighborhood—every city that has one calls it their “Tenderloin”—with cheap bars, and flagrant dealers in dope and flesh along the sidewalks.

As I was walking up California Street, a cable car with riders standing outside on the running-boards passed me going downhill. I heard the bell of an uphill car behind me; so, when it came abreast, I stepped up, swung aboard, and hooked my elbow around a white enameled pole. I couldn’t suppress a grin as I leaned forward, into the climb, and a little to the outside, too, the better to see fancy Nob Hill.

The higher we went, the taller the hotels and apartment houses grew, until, at the very top, every street led down to water: eastward the Bay, northward the Golden Gate. Just as we perched at the top, a chilly wind lofted a small, wet cloud of fog up and around us, and I had a mental picture of the town, perched on its narrow cape, whipped by the breeze, drenched by the sea. And for a split-second, in my mind’s eye, I was plunging off the tip-end of the continent, down into dark water.…

Chinatown is a crowded bunch of blocks on the downtown side of Nob Hill. A lady at the Y warned me it’s a dangerous place for a woman to walk by herself. But I’ve been going to New York’s Chinatown for years, and this one didn’t seem dangerous, either. There must have been gambling parlors and opium dens and whorehouses somewhere. But the Fu Manchu novels, and the “yellow peril” stories in the Hearst papers, are all bunk. I had no fear of being dragged off a Chinatown street and drugged into white-slavery!

Besides, Ivy was right: I don’t scare easily. I know first-aid, and I’ve had to use it. I also know a little ju-jitsu. That’s what the Japanese call the “gentle art” of self-defense. My brother and I learned it from a book, when we were kids, and it has certainly come in handy. A single woman in the music business has to fend off a lot of wolves.

The people on the street here, though, looked like ordinary city folks who just happened to be Chinese. By day there’d be thick crowds, strange vegetables in the greengrocers’ stalls, live turtles at the fishmongers’, and screeching chickens at the butchers’. But even this late at night, there were cars on every street, and tourists on every corner snapping their Kodaks and dropping paper film-wrappers into the gutters. So a lot of souvenir stores were still open, their outdoor stalls crammed with everything from expensive antiques, ivory statuary, and lacquered trays, down to sandalwood boxes for a dollar, and chopsticks for a dime.

There were neon lights and painted signboards everywhere, for “Chinese” nightclubs, including Harold Koe’s Twin Dragon (chinatown’s number-one cocktail hide-a-way), the Jade Palace (chinatown’s most distinctive cocktail lounge) and the Club Shanghai (chinatown’s best dining, dancing and floor show rendezvous). Most of the hotels offered some kind of exotic “Room” upstairs—I passed signs along my way for Zebra, Rose, Persian, Rainbow, and Papagayo. And there were supper-clubs with faraway themes, too, like Hurricane, Mocambo, Lido, Casino, Bal Tabarin, and Zombie Village.

I found the Bamboo Hut under an enormous neon palm tree that rose above black-lacquered entry doors, and a banner outside, almost as large, that proclaimed it was san francisco’s most unique tropical cocktail lounge.

A hefty doorman in a flower-filled, short-sleeved shirt gave me a big smile as he waved me in. I mentioned my name to the slender woman inside, and she showed me to a small table beside the dance floor, where a young man was hoofing and tapping, solo, in a very expert way, fully living up to his billing on the table-card as tommy toy, the chinese fred astaire.

A demure waitress brought me the drink menu. There was no cover charge, only a two-dollar minimum; but the drinks were all priced at eighty-five cents—a tip for the house, not the waitress. Figuring I might as well get into the tropical mood, though, I ordered something called a “Honolulu Punchbowl Punch.” It came topped with a wedge of pineapple—rind and all—and a tiny paper umbrella; but other than a hint of rum, it tasted like the juice from a can of pitted cherries.

“What kinda drink is that?” said a familiar voice, close to my ear.

I smiled, turned around, and stood up—but not all the way up. Ivy is two inches shy of five feet, so I had to stay bent over to give her a peck on the cheek. She hugged me tightly. Carrying around a bass fiddle—even a three-quarter-size bass—kept her arms and torso muscular, but her figure was still trim, and well proportioned for her size. Since I’d seen her last, though, she’d grown her hair out, styled it in a pageboy, and dyed it a reddish brown (most likely to cover gray—she’d have turned forty by now). She was never a glamour-puss, but her Roman nose had puffed out a bit, probably from booze.

One thing hadn’t changed. Being so short, she always kept her head tipped back, chin out, to look up—and look tough. But I knew she was tough, and quick-tempered. I had no doubt she still carried a straight razor.

She gripped both my hands in hers, then plunked herself down in the other chair.

I asked, “Where’s Lillian?”

“She’s got a sleep-over date! You’ll see her tomorrow. Tonight, you’re meeting Roselani Akau. And she’ll want you to say her name right: ‘Rose-a-la-nee Ah-cow’.”

I practiced it a couple of times. “She’s your Hawaiian canary?”

“Lillian and I met her when we worked the World’s Fair on Treasure Island, after—you know—what happened to the Ultra Belles…and you went back east. Did you get work at the World’s Fair in New York?” I nodded. “Well, we stayed here in Frisco, rounded up two other gals in Local Six, covered a few dozen standards, and called ourselves the Sirens of Swing. But you know what playing any fair is like. You’re outdoors, where the loudspeakers are terrible, half the audience is walking by, and even the ones who’re standing still are looking up at the sights. The Sirens weren’t phoning it in, but we weren’t playing any great arrangements, either. Anyhow, Roselani had a steady gig at the fair, in what they called the Hawaiian Village, and did her hula-hula in one of those Pageant-of-the-Pacific shows, twice a day. Y’ask me, it was vaudeville in grass skirts; but the crowds ate it up. Anyhow, Roselani and Lillian and me would get together and jam after hours, and—oh! Hey. Here we go.”

She pointed to the stage as a spotlight hit a baby-grand piano. A man’s voice through a loudspeaker said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bamboo Hut is proud to present the Heavenly Rose of Hawai‘i…Miss…Roselani…Akau!”

A big woman—I was surprised at how big—in a clinging, floral-print gown, stepped out from behind the curtain, smiled, and took a half bow to the applause. She wasn’t fat: her waist was smaller—though not much smaller—than her hips and bust. But she was tall, and beefy, and must have weighed close to two hundred pounds. As for her age, she might have been twenty or forty; I just couldn’t tell. Her complexion was a toffee color. Her hair was black and thick, and she pushed it aside as she sat down, revealing a small flower—pink, with a yellow center—behind one ear.

“Mahalo—thank you—ladies and gentlemen,” she said. Her lips were full, her speaking voice lustrous and low. “I’d like to sing for you tonight about the place I love best in the world—the Islands of Hawai‘i, where every gesture has a meaning, and every song tells a story. Here are some of my favorite…stories.”

Her first song was in Hawaiian, but she declaimed an English translation after each verse, while the band played instrumental breaks. The lyrics said each of the Islands had its own special flower, and flower lei—a necklace of blooms.

She was a soprano, especially terrific on the blue notes. Her range was modest, but it was bracketed at the low end by plenty of chest-voice power, and at the top by a truly compelling falsetto.

Ivy noticed my smile, and leaned in close. “Great pipes, huh?”

I nodded. “Certainly worth building a band around her.”

The next number was a novelty tune, all in English, and a little risqué, about a princess and her papaya fruit. She introduced it by saying she’d sing it in the style of somebody called Hilo Hattie. I didn’t know who that was, but most of the audience apparently did. They applauded whenever she lofted her voice into falsetto—which was never shrill, even when she was playing it for laughs. And she brought down the house when she got up from the piano and started dancing, with wildly exaggerated hand gestures, shakes, and shimmies that fed the crowd’s encouraging roar.

For her next number, she pulled the piano bench downstage, and took up her guitar. Ivy had called it a “pancake” guitar, which was figuratively true. Instead of being hollow, the body was just a round piece of wood, about a foot across and a couple of inches thick. And it was electrified, with a microphone under the strings, and a cord leading to a loudspeaker in a small box. I’d seen people play such an instrument before: it was a “Hawaiian” or “steel” guitar, that’s held flat across the lap. The left hand slides a shiny metal pipe, about three inches long, up and down the strings, while the right hand strums and plucks them with metal fingertip picks.

What Roselani had said about each song telling a story came through in her choice of material. One was a poignant love song in Hawaiian that she (again) translated during the instrumental breaks, and whose tag line stuck in my mind: “Love, snatched away by the wind.” Then there was a fast patter-song that could have inspired a Zane Grey yarn, about three Hawaiian cowboys who won a rodeo competition in Wyoming, back in 1912. (I never knew there were cowboys in Hawai‘i.)

“I’d like to close now,” she said after a few more songs, “with one that tells a story that is rather personal. Because, a week from today, I can truly declare…‘Honolulu, I’m Coming Back Again.’ ”

That turned out to be a sweet ballad in English, the kind of number our band would be closing with, too.

By that time, I was on my second Honolulu Punchbowl Punch; and Ivy had tossed back four shots of rye whiskey, washing each of them down with half a glass of beer—a combination that was listed on the menu as “The Boilermaker.”

“This drink has got such a kick,” she told me, “you could wake up with a guy in the morning, and not only can’t you remember his name, you can’t remember yours!” Never a shrinking violet, she also clapped loudly for each song, and—for the dance number—pushed shrill whistles out through the gap between her front teeth.

Roselani took several bows, and went offstage. The house band laid down a solid swing beat on a tune that had just been published, and was being heavily promoted to bandleaders, called “The Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.” A dozen jitterbugs—many of them Negro soldiers in uniform—took their girls and hit the dance floor. Roselani emerged from backstage after a few minutes to work the room, stopping at various tables to shake hands, chat, or give somebody a kiss.

I asked Ivy, “Which way did you decide the band’s name should go? Is it Swingin’ or Swing in Sarongs?”

“I’d never drown out Lillian when she’s playin’ a good riff, and this one’s golden. I’m using ’em both. The signs’ll be painted with Swingin’ Sarongs for the headline, and ‘We Swing in Sarongs’ under our picture—which they’ll shoot the first day aboard. We’ve got some short routines worked out already, too, for playing while I’m introducing us, or when we’re winding up our sets, or signing off for the night. Roselani plays one of her noodling themes, and then—uh, that reminds me: when we get to Hawai‘i, Roselani—oh! Here she is. Hi!”

She had made her way over to our table. Pulling up a chair, she stuck out her hand as she sat. “You must be Katy. I’m glad you’re coming with us.”

“Thanks. Me, too.”

“I hear you can really hold your own!”

“Hold my own what? Liquor?” I chuckled. “Sure. I’m only on my second Punch.”

“They water down the umbrella drinks.” She waved the waitress over, said, “Bring a Sidecar for my friend, please,” and then touched her arm. “I thought I saw my brother come in. I hope I was wrong.”

“I didn’t see him, Miss Akau.”

“Ask backstage, would you?”

“Sure.”

Roselani swung back around to me, “I don’t care if you drink, as long as I can count on you.”

She had no reason to call my sobriety into question! But I let it pass. I was intrigued by her speaking voice: she must have gone to college, or if not, to some girls’ academy for erudition and elocution. Lower in pitch than her singing voice, it nonetheless emerged in almost musical cadences. I liked both voices; so I withheld judgment of her, and hoped she’d do the same for me.

“It’ll be fun working with you,” I said. “I know some nice violin lines I can slide in under those ballads. And I can squeeze a ‘dirty sax’ into your, uh…was that a hula-hula dance you did?”

“There’s only one ‘hula’ in ‘hula.’ ”

“It’s not ‘hula-hula’?”

“Just ‘hula.’ ”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“But it was a comic hula that I did. It plays better in clubs than slow and sentimental hulas. We’ll talk about that in rehearsals.”

“And we’ll have two whole days in Honolulu,” I said, “to work up some serious arrangements for the trip back.”

She glared at Ivy. “Didn’t you tell her?” Then back at me: “You’re not tired, are you?”

“Were we supposed to rehearse now? I’m sorry. I didn’t get that message. My instruments are back at th—”

“No,” said Ivy.

“Something’s come up, since Ivy phoned you last week.”

“I was just going to tell her, when—”

“What’s up?” I demanded.

Roselani looked left and right, then straight into my face. “You better be as strong as Ivy says you are.”

“Huh?”

“Sure she is,” said Ivy. “I’ve seen her fight! She knows that ‘jujube’ stuff.”

It took me a moment to say, “D’you mean ju-jitsu?”

“Right! Don’t worry, Roselani. Katy’s real strong.”

“It doesn’t make you ‘strong,’ exactly. It gives you—” I searched for the right word “—leverage. But what’s that got to do with the band?”

“Think you could ‘leverage’ somebody my size, in a fight?”

Roselani had said it with a smile, so I stayed on that note. “Could we rehearse first, like the wrestlers do?”

She chuckled, and I relaxed a little.

Ivy said, “What I was gonna tell you is: when we get to Honolulu, Roselani’s gonna be sort of our tour-guide.”

“What do you know about Hawai‘i?”

“Schooldays’ history. It’s an American territory, since the Spanish-American War, right?”

“There’s a lot more to it.”

“You better tell her later,” Ivy said, then turned to me. “Y’know how she said every song’s got a story? Well, with Roselani, every story’s got a story: a long, lo-o-ong story.”

I shrugged. “We’ll have a lot of time to kill on the ship.”

“O-kay.” Ivy put an arm around each of us. (It didn’t go far around Roselani.) “I’ll collect Lillian at eleven, and we’ll all meet around noontime.”

The waitress appeared, and set down my Sidecar cocktail (which certainly was a lot stronger than the Punch, and tasted better besides). Then she leaned close to Roselani’s ear and said, “Your brother was here. He went backstage during your set, but he left before you finished.”

“How did he get past the doorman?”

“I don’t know, Miss Akau.”

Roselani frowned, and said, “Thanks.”

I was yawning through closed teeth. “Where, at noon?”

“At the Matson office, on Market Street,” Ivy said. “We’ll check out their band arrangements, grab some lunch, get to know one another, and go explore the ship. Then we’ll get our instruments and rehearse.”

“Aye aye, Skipper!” I gave her a pretend salute. But I was more exhausted (and higher from the drinks) than I wanted to be. I excused myself, shook their hands, and left.

I expected the doorman to hail me a cab, but he wasn’t at his post, and there was a hubbub outside just beyond the club’s door, where a tiny alley joined the street. I peered between the shoulders and heads of the crowd that had gathered. The doorman sat groaning on the pavement, leaning up against the building, wiping blood from his nose that dripped onto his flowery shirt.

Maybe Chinatown wasn’t so safe, after all.

About the Author

Hal Glatzer worked for eleven years as a newspaper and television reporter in Hawai‘i. He is a singer and composer in the swing and jazz tradition, and produces award-winning audio-play adaptations of his Katy Green mystery series. He also writes tongue-twistingly alliterative “minuscule mysteries” in the radio–private eye style. Glatzer and his wife live in Hilo, now, where they are involved in local musical and theatrical productions. Please visit www.halglatzer.com for more information about all of Glatzer’s mysteries and music. Photo: Glenn Carlson.

Also by Hal Glatzer—

Dead In His Tracks: A Romance of the Rails (e-book)

Kamehameha County

The Trapdoor

Massively Parallel Murder

The Katy Green Mysteries

Too Dead to Swing

A Fugue in Hell’s Kitchen

The Last Full Measure