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Danny climbed into the driver’s seat of the Camaro and slammed the door with unnecessary force.
“You should be happy. You are driving,” Steve chided as he slid into the passenger seat.
“I’d be happier if we weren’t all the way out here at,” he glanced toward the clock on the dashboard, “at 4:30 in the afternoon.”
“Why, you got some place else to be?” Steve joked. “You will get overtime when we’re not back by five.”
“You think I care about the overtime?” Danny replied as he pulled out of the gravel driveway. He hadn’t been thinking about overtime. He was wondering whether he needed to do laundry. He was running out of socks and underwear but the pile of unmatched socks seemed to be growing. He still hadn’t quite solved the eternal mystery of how no matter the number of socks he started with at the beginning of any laundry cycle, it was not the number he ended with. He pondered the fate of those socks and whether they missed their other halves once they were separated.
“Yeah, I think you care about overtime,” Steve nodded. “Isn’t that why you are in my office at the end of every month making sure I get those vouchers – in triplicate no less – to the finance office before the deadline? Time and a half is good money. Plus, I know that’s a pretty big nut you got on the new place and every little bit helps.”
“You know I waited to get that until I finally sold my place in Jersey. Not having two mortgages helps,” Danny explained. “Besides, I do all your paperwork for you. All you have to do is sign the vouchers I prepare for you but if I am not there making sure you follow procedure, none of us, including you would get paid.”
“I do my own paperwork,” Steve insisted.
“Pffffftt,” Danny expelled air, dismissing that claim as ludicrous. “When was the last time you filled out a requisition? Don’t bother to answer that. You never have. I fill them out. I hand them to you. You don’t even bother to read them and then I get them filed.”
“See it’s a great system!” Steve enthused but wouldn’t give up his quest to get to the root of Danny’s current issue. “So if it’s not money, what is your problem? You’re driving and you’re gonna be getting overtime. You should be happy.”
“I’m driving because you’re still on light duty. You shouldn’t even be out here with me,” Danny began.
Steve dismissed his partner’s concerns. “Over protective doctors. They think everybody is made of glass. I’m fine. And this is light duty. I came with you to look for a witness . . . not a suspect . . . not a dangerous person . . . an innocent witness. This is light duty. It’s not like anything happened.”
“Yeah all the way out here in Nowheresville. A place with more surfers than anything else. Do you know how far away back up is?” Danny griped.
Laughing, Steve assured him, “How many times have I told you? You are the backup.”
Forcing a tight smile, Danny turned toward Steve, “Funny. You are a funny man. Not. And someday it’s gonna get us both killed.”
“But not today!”
“There’s always tomorrow.”
Steve let that comment hang in the air, then changed the subject. “So, what are you getting Amber for Christmas?”
“What am I getting Amber for Christmas?” Danny repeated.
“Yes, that’s what I said. What are you getting Amber for Christmas?”
“Why do you care what I’m getting Amber for Christmas, assuming I am, in fact, getting her anything for Christmas which is something I refuse to confirm or deny,” Danny replied.
“Something you ‘refuse to confirm or deny’? This isn’t a courtroom and you’re not under oath,” Steve refuted. “I was just asking a simple question.”
“Nothing with you is simple,” Danny remained suspicious. “Why do you care anyway, what I may or may not be getting Amber for Christmas?”
“I didn’t say I cared,” answered Steve. “I just asked a question.”
“And I want to know why you asked that question,” Danny insisted.
Steve tried for guileless, “I’m makin’ conversation.”
Danny wasn’t buying it. “You . . . you don’t just ‘make conversation’. Everything you do is calculated. There’s always a reason,” Danny maintained.
“Calculated?” Steve balked. “I was simply asking my buddy, my pal, my Partner . . . I was inquiring about what he was getting his girlfriend for Christmas as a way of passing the time while we’re sitting in traffic until we got back to the Palace.”
“Well, we wouldn’t have so much time to pass, if you, My Partner, hadn’t insisted we come all the way out here to Pupukea in the afternoon and you waited until tomorrow, like a sane person, to go look for this witness so we could have avoided all this traffic that we’re now stuck in on this godforsaken island. I mean really; where do all these people come from? It’s an island for Pete’s sake! They should limit the number of cars like they do on Catalina,” Danny ranted.
“They don’t allow many personal cars on Catalina but there are only about 4,000 full time residents. Everybody has a golf cart and half the island is covered by free ranging buffalo,” Steve pointed out. “Oahu is home to almost one million people.”
“Exactly,” Danny was pleased that Steve understood.
Steve didn’t understand. “Exactly? You want to cover Hawaii with buffalo? I don’t think they’ll like the heat.”
“Buffalo?” Danny asked wondering why Steve was talking about zoo animals. “I don’t care about buffalo. I want to get rid of the cars. Reducing the number of cars, reduces the amount of traffic. Then it wouldn’t take almost two hours to drive 30 miles because you just had to go interview a potential witness – who we didn’t even find – this afternoon even though that person lives as far as humanly possible from our office but remains on the same island.”
“If there were no cars, wouldn’t that mean you’d have to give up the Camaro?” Steve teased.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Law enforcement would still get cars.” Danny beamed at the idea, thinking about all of the open roads he’d get to drive.
“You can’t tell me they didn’t have traffic back in your precious New Jersey,” Steve taunted.
“Of course we had traffic. But we also had big roads and choices: the Turnpike, the Parkway, Routes 1& 9,” Danny defended his beloved home.
“What exit?” Steve tossed out the age old joke
“Very funny.” Under his breath Danny muttered, “148.”
Gesturing out the window, Steve tried again to reason with his stubborn partner trying in vain to get him to embrace the superiority of Hawaii. “But here we have palm trees, and mountains and the ocean.”
“New Jersey has oceans and they are volcanoes, Steven, not peaceful mountains. And one day they are going to explode and spew hot, molten, deadly lava all over you, me and everybody else on this God Forsaken Rock. I can’t believe it’s humid at Christmas. ”
“It’s Paradise, Danno, not a God Forsaken Rock. By the way, is that step up or down from Pineapple Infested Hellhole? And it’s still better than the Arm Pit of the World.”
Danny hated that description of his birthplace. “It’s the Garden State.”
“All I ever saw was concrete, asphalt and oil refineries with a view of New York City thrown in if you were lucky.”
“When were you ever in Jersey? You been holdin’ out on me?” Danny demanded.
“I was at the Meadowlands my Second Class year at the Academy when we played Notre Dame. I rode up 95 and the New Jersey Turnpike from Annapolis on a bus with my classmates. The Arm Pit of the World is a more apt description then the Garden State.”
“You just didn’t know what you were looking at,” Danny insisted.
Again the conversation lulled before Steve brought it around to the topic Danny had been avoiding. “You still haven’t told me what you’re getting Amber for Christmas.”
“This again? What could you possibly want to know that for?” Danny probed.
“No reason,” Steve said sheepishly as he turned away from Danny to look out the passenger window of the Camaro, not that the view changed much while they were creeping along the two lane road at under 20 m.p.h. in bumper to bumper traffic due to the large numbers of tourists and small number of roads.
Observing Steve endeavoring to avoid him, the wheels in Danny’s detective brain started grinding. It took a few seconds but he finally realized Steve’s motive. “You’re trying to figure out what to get that lawyer, aren’t you? Smooth Dog my foot.”
“What lawyer?” Steve tried to play innocent.
“That prosecutor,” Danny elaborated. “Tall, long and blonde. Very hot . . . for a lawyer.”
“Why would you think I’m contemplating getting Ellie something?” Steve continued his innocent act.
Danny knew he had him. “Because you called her Ellie for one. And two, I think you’re blushing.”
Since he was blushing, Steve was hellbent on not admitting anything. “I don’t blush.”
“Right,” Danny agreed with sarcasm dripping all over that word. “Because all that pink I see on your neck and ears, that’s just sunburn you miraculously got in this car just now through the tinted windows no less, as the sun was setting waaaay over there.”
When Steve didn’t reply, Danny continued. “Hey, don’t get me wrong. It’s good to see you moving on. You know, after . . .” He couldn’t finish that sentence but they both knew the unspoken words were ‘after Catherine decided to stay in Afghanistan to find herself while flushing her relationship with Steve down the toilet.’
“I’m . . . I’m . . . “ Steve sputtered trying to come up with a defense. He wasn’t sure he was moving on. So far all he’d done was gotten a cup of coffee with the pretty blonde, solved her Dad’s decade old murder and gone fishing with her. Well, they did have the fish dinner he’d grilled afterwards but Steve wasn’t sure if it was a date or not. They hadn’t kissed. They certainly hadn’t done anything else. He hadn’t been sure if he was supposed to make a move or not. Other than Catherine, most of Steve’s adult encounters had been more like one-night stands initiated by some woman who picked him up in bar. Those women made their carnal desires clear from the outset. Because he was never really in one place long enough and his job had been too dangerous for him to risk a real relationship, he didn’t really know what he was to Ellie other than a cop and John McGarrett’s son. He hadn’t figured out if she was just using him to keep some memory of his dad alive.
“Hey,” Danny offered calmly. “Look it doesn’t have to be a thing or at least not a big thing but, you know, . . . just that you are no longer pining.”
“I was never pining,” Steve insisted. He had missed Catherine dearly. She had been a constant in his life for a long time even if it was more of a drive by when they happened to be in the same part of the world. After she resigned from the Navy and practically moved in with him, Steve had gotten used to having her around but he thought he’d done a good job hiding the fact that he was missing her from the team.
“Sure. Just like you were never blushing,” Danny ribbed him. “She is a very beautiful woman. Chin said your dad liked her. She seemed nice enough when I met her, even if she did think you were charming. She appears to understand police procedure since she had the good sense to get mad at you when you went ahead without a warrant. You could do worse.”
“Exigent circumstances,” Steve proclaimed.
Nodding his head, Danny approved. “Look at you with the fancy legal jargon. D’you actually read the Fourth Amendment? Take a night class in criminal procedure? Watch a re-run of Law and Order?”
“Now you’re being funny. I did graduate from college, where I studied the Constitution as well as how to read various treaties and Status of Forces agreements so I could understand the rules of engagement. I also worked as a liaison to the CIA, but don’t tell anybody. That’s classified.” Steve shared, like Danny didn’t already know.
Rolling his eyes, Danny reminded Steve, “The CIA doesn’t operate here. The Constitution does not apply to non-U.S. citizens in whatever backwater, seventh level of hell where you and the rest of the GI Joes were keeping Democracy safe for the rest of us.”
“Navy Seals,” Steve corrected him for the umpteenth time.
“Seals, schmeals, Rambo.” Danny loved riding McGarrett about his service. It was the fastest way to get under the other man’s skin but now it was an old, comfortable joke between friends. As much as Danny respected and admired Steve’s military service, at this point, their friendship almost required him to take an obligatory jab at Steve’s heroics.
“So back to the issue. To use your words, assuming, hypothetically, that I was going to get her something, what should I get her?”
“Nothing,” Danny answered.
“Nothing?” Steve repeated. “I can’t get her nothing, assuming I was going to get her anything in the first place.”
“Of course you were going to get her something in the first place. That’s why you brought it up,” Danny surmised.
“Why o-cynical one would you tell me to get her nothing?” Steve pressed.
“Because if you get her something, that says something. It’s a commitment. It makes it real. It says you are a Thing,” Danny elaborated. “It will give her ideas. Ideas you can’t take back.”
Steve wasn’t buying it. This was like when Danny was ranting about that couple a few years ago who got married even though the woman wasn’t really who she said she was when they met and it almost got them both killed. Since his divorce, Danny was pretty sour on love. He’d also confessed when they were under that building that he always sees the down side of everything and he’s always waiting for something bad to happen. “Can’t it just say Merry Christmas? You know, the Spirit of the Season. Good will toward men?”
“Well first, she’s a woman,” joked Danny. “And second how do you even know she celebrates Christmas? You could offend her.”
Steve conceded the politically correct point. “Fine. Mele Kalikimaka, then.”
“Freaking Pidgeon,” Danny grumbled. He still wasn’t a fan of the Hawaiian dialect, although every now and then he’d slip and say mahalo. Speaking up, Danny asked, “So does this mean you are dating the lovely Ms. Clayton?”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Danny was almost aghast. “Really? You do understand that Smooth Dog was ironic, right?”
Steve pursed his lips in disagreement but did not speak.
“Don’t make aneurysm face at me. How can you not know if you are dating her?”
“Well, I . . . we . . .never . . . you know . . “ Steve sputtered.
Raising an eyebrow, Danny was somewhat taken aback by that revelation. From where he sat, Steve McGarrett’s mere presence was a panty dropper and even a jockey dropper on some occasions. “You never?” he teased, emphasizing that last word. “No wonder Catherine left.”
“Not never, ever,” Steve defended his manhood. “Just not with her. . . hell we haven’t even kissed.”
“And you call me slow?”
Steve snapped, “I saw icebergs that moved faster than you with Gabby.”
Now it was Danny’s turn to get defensive, “But not with Amber.”
“Danny,” Steve reminded him, “You were practically apoplectic when she met Grace.”
“I was not apoplectic but even if I was, she met my daughter, my precious, innocent baby daughter, Steven, while wearing nothing but my dress shirt!”
“Any whose fault was that?” Steve egged him on.
For once Danny didn’t take the bait. “So if you haven’t even kissed her and you don’t know if you are dating her, why, pray tell, do you want to get her a Christmas present?”
“I thought you said I couldn’t call it a Christmas present, in case that would offend her,” Steve threw Danny’s own words back at him.
“Holiday gift, then,” Danny responded. “Why are you getting her a holiday gift, if you don’t even know if you’re dating her?”
“I guess to see if she’ll go out with me?” Steve answered uncertainly with a question.
“There are easier and cheaper ways to get someone to go out with you,” Danny suggested.
“Like what?”
Danny couldn’t believe how dense Steve was being. “Like, you just ask.”
“How?”
“Just ask. Pick someplace you’d want to go. Pick a time. Organize that into a question and ask,” Danny advised.
“Just like that?” Steve wanted to know.
“Just like that,” Danny promised. “Why don’t you practice on me?”
“Practice on you?”
“Yeah,” Danny proposed. “Ask me out. Pick some place and ask.”
Steve thought about it for a moment and then asked, “Would you like to go to L’Aperitif with me?”
Danny was impressed. L’Aperitif was one of the most romantic restaurants and bars in Honolulu. “At L’Mer in the Halekulani?” Danny had always wanted to go there but on a cop’s salary that was definitely a special occasion destination. Maybe Smooth Dog wasn’t so ironic. Danny was beginning to think Mr. Cargo Pants and dinner at Kamakono’s actually had some game after all.
“Yup, the very same.”
“Did you bring your wallet?” Danny couldn’t resist.
Not realizing that he was being set up, Steve responded, “Yes. Of course I brought my wallet.”
Danny smiled broadly. “Well in that case, I’d love to, Steve. It was so nice of you to ask and offer to treat. I’ll drive us there now.”
Appreciating that he’d been had, Steve agreed and returned the smile. “Whatever you want, Danno.” When they arrived at the upscale bar, he planned to get Danny back by ordering him a pineapple martini.
Happy Holidays!