“I thought a tiki was one of them thatched huts they got in the Bahamas,” Lula said. “They serve the best drinks at them tikis.”
“Different tiki,” Connie said.
“Do you have a picture?” I asked.
“No, but I think if you’ve seen one tiki you’ve seen them all. How different can a tiki be?”
“I never seen one,” Lula said.
“I have,” I told her. “They had one at the hotel when I was in Hawaii. They sort of look like a piece of a totem pole.”
“This might be a good time to get Logan,” Connie said. “He’s probably still hanging out under the bridge.”
“You got big bags under your eyes,” Lula said to me. “You sure you didn’t have a night of hot love with Ranger?”
“Positive. I got food poisoning and threw up three times.”
“Bummer,” Lula said. “That probably put a crimp in his style.”
I hung my messenger bag on my shoulder and turned toward the door. “I’m off.” I looked at Lula. “Are you coming with me?”
“Yeah, I’m hoping to see the tiki.”
I took Hamilton to Broad and turned off Broad at Third Avenue. The Freemont Street Bridge was two blocks down Third. It was a good location for someone like Logan because it was close to a city soup kitchen, and the blocks around the soup kitchen had a lot of panhandling potential. I parked on the street, and Lula and I got out and walked across a rough patch of rogue weed and assorted trash. The bridge itself spiraled overhead, connecting Third Avenue to the freeway. A slum had developed under the bridge, with cardboard box huts and plywood shanties. Three men stood smoking in the shade.
“It’s like a little town here,” Lula said. “I bet it could be cozy in one of them cardboard boxes except for the rats. And probably they got no cable.”
“They’re also missing indoor plumbing.”
“Maybe they got a box designated for that.”
The men watched us approach. One of them looked drugged out and crazy. The other two just looked tired.
“Howdy,” Lula said. “How’s it going?”
“The usual,” one of them said. “What’s up?”
“We’re looking for Brody Logan,” Lula told him. “Is he here?”
No one said anything, but one of the men nodded toward a small bedraggled tent. I gave him a couple dollars and went to the tent. I squatted down and pulled the flap away. “Brody?”
“What?”
He was wearing a faded orange T-shirt and jeans, and sitting cross-legged in front of the tiki. Two red patches instantly colored his checks, and his eyes went round in what I took for panic. I introduced myself and showed him my ID.
“Oh man,” he said. “Give me a break. I’m real close.”
“Close to what?” I asked.
“To getting this guy home. He’s like a tiki, you know? He’s supposed to be living in this cool shrine, having the good life, takin’ in the volcano vibes. Problem is some idiot snatched him and smuggled him out of Hawaii in a bag of dirty laundry. Seemed like a good idea. Like the tiki would be a conversation piece and get the dude chicks. And like the tiki would enhance the dude’s tent. But turns out the tiki isn’t turned on by Jersey. So now he’s bummed and havin’ like a hissy fit and bringing this idiot dude bad juju.”
“Are you the idiot dude who smuggled him out?” I asked.
“Yeah. Wow, you’re smart. How’d you know that?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Tiki and me have been working the bridge traffic and the Starbucks crowd, and I’ve almost got enough saved up to get us back to Hawaii. So going to jail doesn’t fit into the plan.”
“I want to know why you trashed the cop car,” Lula said.
“The stupid cop took Tiki.”
“The wooden thing.”
“Yeah. He has a name besides Tiki but I forgot it so I call him Tiki.”
“The tiki is named Tiki?”
“He doesn’t mind,” Logan said. “He’s cool with it. Anyway, Tiki was sitting in front of Starbucks waiting for me to come back with a cinnamon latte, and the cop picked him up. The cop said Tiki looked stolen, but I think he just wanted Tiki. Like the cop was the one doing the stealing. Like the cop had a tiki fetish or something. I came out and about freaked when I saw Tiki locked up in the cop car. And Tiki was freaked too.
“You heard it talking?” Lula asked.
“Yeah, of course. Well, you know, in my head. That’s how Tiki always talks to me.”
“He talkin’ to you now?” Lula wanted to know.
“Not now, but before you came he was telling me he wanted eggs for breakfast.”
“How’s he take his eggs?” Lula asked.
“Usually scrambled. And some wheat toast.”
“I bet you smoke a lot of weed,” Lula said. “Maybe do some ’shrooms.”
“No way. I’m pure. Maybe in the past, you know, but Tiki doesn’t like that stuff.”
“Good to know,” Lula said. “Back to the cop car. Why’d you bash it in?”
“Well, at first I just smashed the window to get Tiki out, but then I got into it, like it was a rush. I mean, have you ever trashed a cop car? It’s the best.”
“It got you arrested,” I said.
“Yeah. I look back at it now, and I think it was Tiki messin’ with my head, telling me to trash the car. I shouldn’t have taken him away from Pele.”
“Who’s Pele?” Lula asked.
“She’s the volcano goddess. She lives in Kilauea, and this guy here’s one of her dudes. So you see how I’m on a holy mission, right?”
“Why don’t you just FedEx the dude back to Pele,” Lula said.
“It don’t work that way. I have to put the tiki dude in the right spot. I gotta say words over him. Like how I’m sorry I put him in with my dirty laundry, and how now he and Pele can get it on.”
“You’ll have a chance to explain all that to the judge,” I said. “And if you don’t have any priors you might get away with community service.”
“Uh-oh,” Logan said. “I might have had a few substance indiscretions.”
“Guess you’re goin’ to the pokey, then,” Lula said.
His eyes darted from me to Lula and back to me, and he bolted, lunging out of the tent, knocking me over. “No!”
I scrambled to my feet and ran flat out, but I couldn’t catch him. Logan dodged traffic on Third and disappeared down the street.
Lula came clattering after me on her four-inch Via Spiga spike heels. “He’s a fast bugger,” she said, bending at the waist, trying to catch her breath. “You should have just shot him.”
“He’s unarmed.”
“Yeah, but he dissed you.”
“I’m going back for the tiki,” I said to Lula. “At least Vinnie will have his collateral.”
The three men were still standing in the same spot, still smoking, when Lula and I returned to the shantytown.
“How’d that go?” one of them asked.
“He got away,” Lula said. “He could really run.”
“He got motivation,” the man said.
I crawled into Logan’s tent and took the tiki. “Me too.”
