Spider Bones

AS WE DROVE FROM KUHIO PARK TERRACE TO A MCDONALD’S across from the Kapalama Shopping Center, Lô sketched some background on the man we were about to meet. I didn’t ask, wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to share the information.

The CI, Fitch, was a street rat that Lô had once saved from arrest. A junkie who threatened no one, Fitch moved invisibly among the bangers, base heads, pimps, pushers, hookers, and stoners inhabiting Honolulu’s underbelly. In exchange for food and money, he provided Lô with the occasional tip or insider perspective.

At four in the afternoon, the McDonald’s lot held only a handful of cars.

As we crossed the asphalt, a figure in a faded yellow tee and LL Cool J rolled-up sweats crossed our path and pushed through the door before us. The brim of a way-too-large cap hid the person’s face, but hairy calves suggested male gender.

My instincts told me we’d connected with Fitch.

Glancing left, then right, the CI disappeared into a booth at the rear of the restaurant. Like Lô, he was short and wiry. I guessed his age at midtwenties.

Lô went to the counter. I followed.

Lô ordered a Big Mac, fries, and two Cokes.

I ordered a Diet Coke. The girl looked at me oddly, but said nothing.

Lô paid. As we waited, the smell of frying fat kicked my nausea up a notch.

When our food was ready, Lô carried the tray to the rear booth. I sat down and slid to the wall. Lô dropped into the space beside me.

The CI’s eyes rolled up below their bill, checked the restaurant, me, then settled on Lô. The irises were brown-black, the whites the same dull yellow as the tee.

“Who’s the chick?”

“Myrna Loy.”

“What’s she doing here?”

“Don’t worry about it, Fitch.”

“What the fuck happened to her?”

“Ninjas.”

Lô removed two drinks, gave me one, then pushed the tray forward. Using both hands, Fitch yanked it to his chest.

“I don’t like it.” The table edge started tapping the wall. Under it, Fitch’s left knee was bouncing like a piston.

“Tough,” Lô said.

“This isn’t our deal.” Fitch’s eyes did another sweep. He ran a hand along his jawline.

“My party.” Lô pointed to the wall. “Move over. I’m expecting more guests.”

Fitch opened his mouth, reconsidered, lurched left. All the man’s movements were quick and jerky, like those of a crab caught in a net.

Lô and I sipped.

Fitch dived into his burger.

Lô pulled a small spiral from his pocket and flipped the cover. Clicked a ballpoint to readiness.

As Fitch ate, wilted shreds of lettuce dropped to the burger’s discarded wrapper. A hunk of tomato. A glob of cheese.

“It’s my health we’re risking here.” As Fitch spoke, chewed hunks of beef tumbled in his mouth.

“You’re the one eats that garbage,” Lô said.

“You know what I mean.” Grease coated the CI’s lips and chin.

“How about finishing that? Watching you’s not doing my gut no favors.”

Fitch was squeezing a third packet of ketchup onto his fries when something caught his attention behind our backs.

Lô and I turned.

Ryan was walking in our direction.

“Who the hell’s this?” Fitch hissed.

“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.