Spider Bones

THE CROWN VIC’S INTERIOR SMELLED OF SOY SAUCE AND GARLIC.

Lô drove like Ryan. Gun it. Brake. Gun it. Brake.

Or maybe it was the gallon of ocean sloshing in my gut.

Ten miles out, I felt queasy.

I suspected I was wearing Lô’s clothes. The parrot shirt and waistband fit reasonably well, but the pants legs stopped three inches short of my soggy sandals.

My cheek was raw and my forehead had a lump the size of a peach pit. My hair was knotted atop my head. Poorly. I’d had no comb. And only tissues to remove my smeared mascara.

Fetching.

The radio hissed and spit the usual cop stuff.

Lô had donned John Lennon shades. Now and then I peeked his way.

Apparently, my curiosity wasn’t all that subtle.

“Norwegian mother, Vietnamese father.”

My eyes snapped front and center.

“A blessing I got the old man’s height.”

I glanced back at Lô.

“Scares the crap out of people.” Deadpan.

“I’d have guessed it was the shirt.”

“Icing on the cake.”

Silence filled the car for another mile. Then, “Ryan seems like good people.”

“He’s a prince.”

“He explained how you two roll.”

I didn’t reply.

“He says you’re OK.”

Though incapable of arranging my own transport home. I bit back a pithy retort.

Truth be told, I was more annoyed with myself for contacting Ryan than I was with Ryan for taking over. I knew the man’s style. I called anyway. My bad. But what the hell? Though hiding it, I was actually pretty shaken up.

“You disappointed me,” Lô said.

“I disappointed you?”

“Ryan swore the ‘little lady’ tag would bring a boatload of feces down on my head.”

“Did he.”

“The ‘ride-along’ bit was strictly mine.”

“Icing on the cake.”

“As it were.”

“You should go into comedy, Detective Lô. Maybe get a job writing for Tina Fey.”

“Yeah, that could work.” Lô nodded slowly, as though seriously considering the suggestion. “First I’ll nail the dogball who sent your car into orbit.”

“You think it was deliberate?”

“I intend to find out.” Lô flicked a glance my way. “You want, I could take you up to Lanikai.”

“I feel much better than I look.” Not true, but I’d have eaten pigeon droppings rather than admit to weakness.

Lô shrugged. “Your call.”

“Tell me about Francis Kealoha.”

“The kid’s sister lives over by Kalihi Valley. KPT. A lovely chunk of real estate.”

Kuhio Park Terrace is the largest of Hawaii’s public housing projects. Kalihi Valley Homes, another big gorilla, isn’t far away. Small wonder that most of the state’s new immigrants start out near Kalihi Valley. I’d read that upward of eighty percent of the area’s population is Asian and Pacific Islander, that probably half is under the age of twenty.

“Gloria. A fine young lady.” Lô killed the radio with a jab of his thumb. “We’ll drop in on Sis, then have a chat with my CI. Ryan will hook up with us there.”

“Your CI will be cool with outsiders present?”

“He’ll do what I tell him.”

“What if Gloria’s not home?”

“She’s home. And by the way, you’re a potted palm when I talk to these wits.”

Thirty minutes later Lô parked near a high-rise complex that looked like a nightmare straight out of the seventies. Built in an era when the goal in public housing was to isolate and stack, KPT has all the warmth and charm of a barracks in the gulag.

Following a ten-minute wait, during which Lô stood calmly, arms crossed, and I paced, mourning the loss of my BlackBerry, we rode an overcrowded freight elevator to the fifteenth floor. A concrete balcony led past trash chutes jammed with ruptured supermarket and pharmacy bags. Insects swarmed the overflow—aluminum cans, bottles, soiled diapers, chicken bones, rotten produce, bunched tissues.

Lô stopped at unit 1522 and pounded with the heel of one hand.

No sound but the buzzing of flies.

He banged again, louder. “Honolulu PD. We know you’re in there, Gloria.”

“Go away.” The muffled voice was female and faintly accented.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“We’ll wait.”

Seconds passed, then locks rattled, and the door swung in.

Gloria Kealoha was big. Very big. She had nutmeg skin and bottle-blond hair, and wore enough maquillage for an entire village makeover.

Pocketing his shades, Lô badged her. “Detective Lô. We spoke earlier concerning your brother.”

“And I told you what I know.”

“Francis is dead, Ms. Kealoha. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Life’s a bitch.” Gloria drew deeply on a half-smoked Camel jutting from her fingers.

“Questions remain.”

“So, what? I’m going on Jeopardy!?” The smoke-cured laugh was completely joyless.

“I need the names of Francis’s friends.”

“Sorry, toots, can’t do it now.”

“This isn’t a social call, Gloria. We talk here or we talk downtown.”

“Jesus, who died and made you God?”

“My uncle.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks.”

Gloria’s eyes slid to me.

“Who’s the haole?”

“Dr. Brennan identified your brother.”

“What the fuck, girl? You stop a train with that face?”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.

“You some kinda coroner?” Gloria yanked on the bustier. A rosebud tattoo that had once winked from low-cut necklines appeared above the spandex as a stretched and wilted blossom.

“I need the names of your brother’s friends.” Lô brought the interview back on track.

“I told you. I got jack.”

“Where was Francis living?”

Gloria drew on the Camel, exhaled, waved the smoke from her face with a once-manicured hand.

“I heard he went to California a couple years back. Last I knew he was still there.”

“You were unaware that Francis had returned to Honolulu?”

“We weren’t exactly on each other’s mailing lists.”

“What can you tell us?” Lô’s voice had a “don’t screw with me” edge.

“Look.” Gloria took a drag, tossed, then crushed the cigarette butt with the ball of one flip-flop. “I got nothing. The kid was ten years younger than me. Growing up we lived in different worlds. By the time Frankie was six, I was off on my own. I really honest to God never knew him.”

“Dig deep. Give me something.”

Gloria picked a speck of tobacco from her lip, inspected, then flicked it. “OK. The story of my life. When I was fourteen and Frankie was four my ma left my pa for a guy she met working as a hotel maid. Two months after, our old man bought it in a boating accident.”

Gloria stopped. Lô waited, hoping she’d feel compelled to elaborate. She did.

“Ma married the creep. We got adopted. Eighteen months later the asshole split. Guess a ready-made family wasn’t his thing after all.”

“Who was the guy?”

“Sammy Kealoha.”

Lô studied Gloria as she spoke. I studied Lô.

“Where is he now?”

“You’re the detective, you tell me.”

“How did your brother feel about him?”

“Hated the guy’s guts.”

“Why?”

“Frankie blamed Sammy for screwing up his life.”

“How so?”

“Shit, you name it. For busting up the family, for us living in the projects, for Pa drowning, for Ma going freako, for the rash on his ass.”

Gloria crooked a hand to her face, registered surprise at the absence of the Camel.

“After Sammy left, Ma worked when she could, drank when she couldn’t. Soon as I turned sixteen I boogied for Kona to do my own thing.”

“Your thing?”

Gloria crossed her arms. “Massage therapy.”

“Uh-huh. Do you recall if your brother had any tattoos?”

“Sure. A fluffy French poodle right on his dick. He called it—”

“Tell me, Gloria. This massage therapy. You licensed for that?”

Lô slid a photo from one pocket. As he passed it to Gloria I recognized a close-up of the shark motif tattooed on the Halona Cove ankle.

Barely glancing at the image, Gloria handed it back.

“I’m going with Picasso.”

“Did Francis ever break a leg?”

“Yeah. He did.” Gloria’s surprise sounded genuine. “I forgot about that.”

Lô rotated one hand in a “give me more” gesture.

“He was in high school.”

Again, the hand.

“Not much to tell. Frankie got drunk, went boarding, wiped out. He ended up at The Queen’s. My mother whined about it in a couple of letters. She was so pissed I felt sorry for the kid and sent him a card.”

For a quick moment some internal turmoil flashed in Gloria’s eyes. Was gone.

“That’s when Ma was still writing to me.” Shoulder shrug. “Then she died.”

“I’m sorry,” Lô said.

“What the fuck. Bottom line, I got to thank the old gal.” A meaty arm swept an arc, indicating the squalid surroundings. “Thanks to Ma I’m living the American dream.”

Lô drew a card from his pocket and handed it to Gloria.

“If you think of anything, call me.”

Ignoring the card, Gloria stepped back.

“And, until we get this resolved, don’t travel without letting us know,” Lô added.

“Well, shit busters. There goes yachting in Monte Carlo.”

Gloria closed the door.

The locks reengaged.

As we drove off, I looked back.

The towers of Kuhio Park Terrace loomed bleak and hopeless against the perfect blue sky.

Like the occupants trapped in them, I thought sadly.