Kathy Reichs - Spider Bones

“William Powell.”

“He a cop?” Fitch either missed or ignored Lô’s second Walk of Fame joke.

“Yeah, Fitch. He’s a cop.”

“A nark?” The left knee was pumping gangbusters.

“Aloha,” Ryan said.

“Aloha,” Lô and I answered.

Ryan tensed on seeing my face. He made no comment.

Scowling, Fitch shrank farther left.

Ryan slid into the booth.

Eyes down, Fitch jerked the tray sideways and continued shoving fries into his mouth.

Lô tested the ballpoint with sharp, quick strokes.

“So what have you got?” he asked.

Fitch swallowed, sucked his soda, snatched up and bunched a paper napkin. His eyes crawled to Ryan, to me, to Lô.

“This is fucked-up, man.”

Lô didn’t answer.

“Word gets out—”

“It won’t.”

Fitch jabbed his chest. “It’s my ass—”

“If this is too much for you, I’ve got things to do.”

“I know how cops work.” Fitch’s tone had gone high and whiny. “Use people and leave ’em on the street like gum.”

The balled napkin hit the tray and bounced toward Lô.

“Calm the fuck down, Fitch.”

The CI slumped back and crossed his arms. “Shit.”

A woman nosed a stroller to the table beside our booth. She looked about sixty. I couldn’t see the baby, wondered if it was hers. Weird, but I did.

Fitch’s eyes jumped to the woman. Again circled the restaurant.

“I don’t want to be celebrating a birthday here.” Lô made no effort to mask his impatience. “You got something for me or not?”

“Cash?” Fitch asked.

Lô nodded.

Leaning forward, the CI placed both forearms on the tabletop and began worrying the sides of the tray with his thumbs.

“OK. About six months back your guy shows up—”

“Francis Kealoha?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Shows up from where?”

“California. San Fran, I think. Maybe LA. That part I’m not sure.”

“This better be solid.”

“Yeah, yeah. Kealoha shows up with this dude called Logo.”

“You know Logo’s real name?”

Fitch shook his head.

Lô made a note in his spiral. Then, “You’re sure this was Francis Kealoha?”

“Yeah, yeah. We grew up together at KPT. It was him.”

“Go on.”

Fitch’s thumbs flipped up, dropped. “That’s it. Frankie and Logo show up together. A few months later both drop off the radar.”

“Give me some dates.”

“I look like their travel agent?”

Lô’s glare could have reversed global warming.

“OK. I’m thinking I stopped seeing them maybe three, four weeks ago.”

Lô turned to me. The time frame worked, given the condition of the remains from Halona Cove. I nodded.

“Where was Kealoha living?”

“I heard up at Waipahu.”

Lô made a note on his pad. Then, “Go on.”

“That’s it.”

“Then your bony ass pays for that burger.”

Seconds passed. A full minute.

Fitch’s thumbs made soft, scratchy sounds against the edge of the tray.

“What I got’s worth more than a nifty.”

“Don’t you read the papers? It’s a bad year for bonuses.”

Fitch cocked his chin at me, then Ryan.

“I got risk here.”

Lô considered a moment. Then, “If it’s good, we’ll see.”

Beside us, the baby began to cry.

Fitch’s eyes again danced his surroundings.

“Word is Kealoha was doing business where he shouldn’t have.”

“Dealing what?”

“Coke, weed. The usual.”

“Who’d he cut in on?”

“L’il Bud.”

Lô’s nod indicated familiarity with the name. “Go on.”

Fitch inhaled. Exhaled. Pulled his nose. Leaned even closer to Lô.

“Street says L’il Bud ordered a hit.”

“Street naming a doer?”

“Pinky Atoa. Ted Pukui.”

Lô scribbled the names. Again, his demeanor suggested knowledge of the players.

“How’d it go down?”

“I heard they got shot up at Makapu’u Point.”

I pictured the craggy outcrop. The shark-ravaged flesh recovered from Halona Cove.

I remembered Perry’s tale of the suicidal poet from Perth.

Cold fingers tickled my spine.

“You got questions, Doc?”

I realized Lô was addressing me. For the first time, I spoke to his CI.

“How old was Logo?”

Fitch regarded me blankly.

“Roughly. Twenty? Forty? Sixty?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Maybe a little older than Kealoha.”

“Describe him.”

“Dark hair, dark eyes. Body by beluga.”

“Meaning?”

“The guy was big.”

“How big?”

“Six feet, maybe three hundred pounds. Typical Hamo. That’s why they hung together. Those guys are thick.”

It took a minute for the comment to register.

“Kealoha is a Hawaiian name,” I said.

“That got changed.”

“Changed?” An idea began to materialize in my mind.

“When Kealoha’s old lady come here.”

“Came here from where?”

“Tafuna.”

I remembered Gloria’s crack about the American dream. I thought she’d been referring to Honolulu. She’d meant the United States.

“Before that it was something else,” Fitch said.

I looked from one detective to the other.

Lô’s expression suggested his brain was connecting the same dots as mine.

A subtle angling of the brows told me Ryan was not. To his credit, he asked no questions.

“May I see Perry’s autopsy photo?” I managed to keep my voice calm.

Lô pulled the five-by-seven from his pocket and laid it on the table.

I studied the image.

There were the black and red swirls within the half-sickle form. There were the filigreed strips extending outward from the sickle’s two sides, converting the whole into a tapuvae, an ankle bracelet tattoo.

And there were the three loopy things riding the bracelet’s upper edge. The elements possibly added later. The two backward C’s flanking a U.

I knew what they were.

“Paper and pen?” I felt totally jazzed.

Lô passed me his ballpoint and a page from his notebook.

Positioning the paper’s lower edge along the truncated upper border of the little loopy things, I continued the line of each C upward and to the left, then swooped each right, converting the backward C’s to S’s.

Lô watched without comment.

I closed the top of the U, converting it to an O. SOS.

Lô regarded my handiwork a moment, then reached for his phone.

I rotated the photo and drawing so Ryan could see.

“Tabarnac,” he said.

PHONE TO HIS EAR, Lô HURRIED OUTSIDE. FITCH TRACKED HIM like a puppy hoping for a treat.

We waited.

I sensed Ryan assessing my injuries.

Three middle school girls giggled and elbow-shoved their way to the bathroom, each carrying a shoulder-slung pack.

The woman beside us finished eating and rolled off with her baby.

Fitch watched in fidgety silence.

Finally, Ryan nodded to someone over my shoulder.

“He’s back.”

We rose and joined Lô in the parking lot.

“My partner’s going to contact California, see what they’ve got on Kealoha, have them run the street name Logo through their database on gangs.”

“Remember, no blowback on me.”

Lô ignored his CI.

“Later Hung and I will haul Atoa and Pukui to the bag.”

“Look, I gotta go.” Fitch was shifting his weight from foot to foot. There wasn’t much to shift.

Yanking his wallet from a back pocket, Lô counted out five twenties.

Fitch grabbed for the bills.