Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

“ Where've you set up?”

Tony described the location of the command post.

“ Yeah, I know 'bout where that is.”

“ We've been under way since before daybreak. Come join us. Should be fun.” Tony's tone and emphasis on the word fun dripped with sarcasm.

“ Dr. Coran been alerted, Tony?”

He hesitated. “I can call her after we hang up.”

“ Do that. Keep her fully apprised; you got that, Tony? Tony?”

“ If you say so, Chief.”

“ I say so. Don't forget, we asked her in on this case, pal, and without her we'd still be blowing smoke.”

“ All right, all right. She's just…”

“ Just what, Tony? Out with it.”

Tony hesitated before saying, “Distracting.”

“ Distracting? Why, Tony, I didn't notice you noticed.”

He grunted and said, “I noticed you two together are distracting for one another. Chief.”

“ Good! I'm glad your eyesight's not fully gone, buddy. Now mind your own goddamned business, okay? Just do your job, okay?”

Parry grimaced into the phone, angry with himself for losing it, half understanding Tony's concern. But the big Italiano angered him, too. Tony could be so damned stubborn, he thought. “Just concentrate for the time being on the manhunt, okay, Gag?”

“ Every man and dog knows what he's looking for,” Gagliano continued, wanting to add, Do you? but thinking better of it.

“ So, what's the problem, Tony?”

“ No problem… not really, sir.”

The use of “sir” was a sure sign there was a problem. “Damnit, Tony, I got no time, and I'm in no mood for twenty fucking questions.”

“ Hey, I just thought you'd like to know about the word on Bethel at Hotel, and on River Street.”

Parry knew each comer gathering place with its tavem row, a hot bed of street information representing the entire rainbow from truth to gossip to pure fabrication, a gauntlet for the detective to run. What Joe Citizen thought and what he knew often broke a case wide open. River Street ran through the slum areas just northwest of downtown Honolulu.

“ I'm hearing the same story all over, Chief, down in Chinatown, too, and I get the same word from the wharf rats.”

“ Really?” Parry was instantly curious. The wharf rats were Hawaiians and half-Hawaiians who worked as stevedores and mechanics and hands along the wharves. They routinely hung about Aala Park when relaxing with a beer and a smoke. Their talk was never guarded or encumbered by fears that anyone might care enough about what they said to pay any attention. It was a far cry from the mentality of the Oahu Country Club set.

“ What's the word around, Tony?” he asked, wondering if it might jibe with the information he had himself picked up on Kukui Street where local sailors and “homeboys” hung out, frequently settling differences of opinion loudly and violently. But the word he'd been hearing on the street had been directly countered by Joe Kaniola the evening before.

“ Spill it, Tony. What're you hearing?”

“ That Lopaka got a boat out.”

“ Really? Out of where?”

“ Other side of the island, Mokapu Point, Kaneohe Bay.”

It was one of the old ports, used by innumerable small fishing vessels, by many native fishermen who skirted the law in Hawaii with both abandon and finesse. “You think there's any truth to it?”

“ If there is… a search of the mountainside's a really stupid idea. And you know the kanakas. They'd go to the mainland and back if they thought they could make a haole-especially one in a position of authority-look stupid, Boss.”

“ So people've told you he got a boat out of Kaneohe Bay and so-”

“ Possibly Heeia Kea Boat Harbor, Boss.”

“ What kind of a boat, Tony? Did you get a fix on it?”

“ Fishing vessel, in ill repair.”

“ Wow, that really narrows it down.” Now it was Parry who was sarcastic. “What about its call numbers, its goddamn name, the captain?”

“ Sony, Boss… couldn't get anything specific on it, except that it sailed for Molokai.”

“ Molokai, huh?” Parry's thoughts came in a plethora of recall and questions. Molokai had been home to Lopaka Kowona in his childhood. It would follow that he'd race for some safe place, somewhere he felt comfortable. On the other hand, he'd been banished from that place by his chieftain father. And people like Kaniola were sending messages that were going counter to one another…

Tony kept talking. “Even the wharf rats were guarded about it, but I loosened some tongues with a few greenbacks and, well…”

“ And well what?” Parry threw his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up.

“ Sounds possible that whoever boarded Lopaka was maybe a family member or members.”

This gave Parry pause, recalling how deftly Kaniola and Lopaka's aunt and cousin had played him. Wouldn't touch Lopaka with a ten-foot pole, huh? But why would Kaniola aid and abet his son's killer? How could he? For the cause of native rights maybe, all that self-determination crap? An order handed down by the PKO? Possibly, for some more fanatical members had already proven that they could be dangerous when they had George Oniiwah abducted, and Kaniola did have his grandchildren to think of, not to mention his wife.

“ Destination Molokai confirmed by more than one?” Parry now asked.

“ One or two said Maui… but the consensus was the closer island, yeah.”

“ Really?”

'That's what everybody's saying.”

“ Everybody?”

“ Everyone that's talking, that is.”

“ You haul anyone in on this, do any shakedowns? Make any arrest for aiding and abetting?”

“ No, nothing 'long those lines, but I'd be more'n happy to start on that course, if you-”

“ What do you think, Tony? I mean about the reliability of the information?”

“ I think it bears looking into, Chief.”

“ Why?”

“ I dunno… same reason I believed George Oniiwah was innocent. 'Sides, these are kanakas we're talking about.” Parry let out a breath of exasperation. “What is that supposed to mean, Tony?”

“ Kanakas have a lot of great qualities, strong hearts, pleasant manners, generous natures, even good diets, I hear, and I grant you that once a friend always loyal as hell, but a crafty ability at conspiracy? That's for us pie-zanoz, heh? Just isn't something I'd expect from the Hawaiians, Chief, not even the PKO.”

Parry considered the wisdom being hoisted on him by Gagliano, an Italian-American FBI agent passing judgment on the entire Hawaiian race, saying they were incapable of shuffling off one of their own and keeping it a secret. And even if it were marginally true, what did this say about Parry's own foolishness, his being snookered by Kaniola's “golly gee, friendly Mickey Rooney” imitation of the night before? Sure Parry was fatigued, overworked and overtired at the time, but he should have seen through the masquerade. Joe knew that he'd be coming to have it out with him, so he'd prepared a welcoming. Reaching for the gun had been a nice touch, as was the innocent-eyed and protective secretary.

“ For money,” said Parry, “I don't know a lot of people of any stripe, Tony, who wouldn't turn on their own. What about that reward? Did the info get to the press?”

“ A $50,000 reward was posted for information leading to the capture and conviction of Lopaka Kowona.

'This morning.”

“ Somebody'll tum in the bastard.” Parry breathed heavily into the phone, silent a moment, giving his next move some thought.

“ I know you got word to the contrary, Jim, I mean that he's somewhere in the Koolaus, but I've got my doubts now.”

He thought again of Kaniola's having so completely faked him out. “Yeah, I got word to the contrary, Tony.”