receiver.
“ Have you eaten?” It was Parry.
“ No, I mean, yes… I mean, I was about to order from room service.”
“ I'm downstairs… and if you'd care to have someone to dine with, well… I just thought…”
He sounded like a nervous boy. She cleared her throat. “I'm awfully tired.”
“ Maybe a little wine and some decent opaka-paka will-”
“ Opaka-paka?”
“ Best fish dish in the islands, the way they do it here.”
“ Downstairs, you say,” she considered aloud.
“ At the restaurant.”
She sighed, gave him time to worry and then said, “All right. Give me a moment to dress.”
“ C-casual,” he intoned.
“ Island casual?”
“ And I promise, no shoptalk.”
When she hung up, she wondered if she'd made the right decision, and if he'd stick to his word about no shoptalk, or if he was chomping at the bit to glean as much information as possible from her about the earlier autopsies. Still, she wasted no time in dressing in a light, rainbow-colored, muumuu-style dress she had picked up at a hotel shop in Maui. As she quickly blow-dried her hair, using a little gel to style it comfortably and nicely, allowing the gentle, auburn curls to flow freely to either side, she wondered about his intentions. She also questioned her own. Then again, why shouldn't she enjoy herself here in the world's most lovely resort city; why shouldn't she have a place to wear her new dress; why shouldn't she taste this opaka-paka delicacy? And Alan Rychman and Paul Zanek be damned-for different reasons. And by God, why shouldn't she enjoy the company of another man? She found her cane and took a moment to appraise herself in the full-length mirror before stepping out, glad she'd bought the pullover island wear with the tie about the waist as opposed to the one without. She quickly cautioned herself about Parry, reminding herself that all men were the same the world over, and that despite his good looks, she didn't intend to get romantically involved with any goddamned, workaholic bureau chief, Hawaii or not.
Dinner was delightful, served in an open-air atmosphere on the rim of the Pacific, tracings of lavender and purple aproning the horizon as the sun abandoned sky for sea. Remarkably, Parry remained a man of his word, not once broaching the subject of the double autopsy earlier or the case he was building against a phantom killer stalking Honolulu's Waikiki resort area.
After a delicious dinner of thick, fresh opaka-paka served up with wine, he took her for a walk along Waikiki's busiest strip. Life teemed here on the streets and in the hotels as it did below in the ocean, the schools of people in their weaving groups swimming in relaxed but controlled fashion, going in, out and among the doorways and concrete pillars, the shopping on Kalakaua Avenue going on all night.
Parry needn't have pointed out the dazzling one-of-a-kind shops lining the way. Here shops known worldwide competed with local oddities. To her uninitiated eye, it seemed as though the people were mad; having come halfway around the globe, most of them were fixating on an activity they could do at their local malls in Upper Sandusky or Idaho, or Tokyo. People seemed both astonished and pleased to find familiar shop names alongside the unfamiliar, the gaudy neon alongside the tasteful designs that announced such places as Endangered Species, The Wyland Art Gallery, and exotic Korean, Japanese and Hawaiian restaurants; there was also Woolworth's, Burger King, Hilo Hattie's, ABC Liquor and Pharmacy, Thom McAn Shoes. There were three- tiered shopping malls in the International Market Place in the heart of Waikiki. It was all dizzying, exciting and a good deal disheartening, she thought. Maui, too, had high-rise hotels dotting its coasts, but there was nothing to compare to this for the atmosphere that only a major world city might provide.
“ You could spend a hefty fortune here before you got halfway down the block,” he said in her ear as they walked casually along the brightly illuminated street.
Her thoughtful “Hmmmm” was a purr. She'd drunk a bit more wine than she ought to have. “I can see that,” she managed. “But it's not what I came to Hawaii for.”
“ It's certainly an allure for a good many others, though, Doctor. Big bucks, big time… Honolulu attracts millions each season.”
She looked across at him as they continued to stroll along amid the bustle, adroitly maneuvering about the human quagmire they now found themselves in when they came to a standstill in front of a small grocery that specialized in Vietnamese goods. “Some unusual delicacies in there,” he assured her.
“ You were in Viet Nam? Acquired a taste for the food?”
“ Didn't everybody?”
“ What sort of a unit did you serve with?”
“ I was just your ordinary grunt.”
“ A grunt, and you came out alive. I'm impressed.”
They continued along the avenue, the gentle trades whooshing along the man-made valley of asphalt, concrete and steel all around them, the millions of windows winking down over their progress as a street vendor offered them paper leis so he could take their “honeymoon snapshot.”
Parry waved the vendor off and she shook her head a bit self-consciously, each of them laughing, both amused and a bit uncomfortable. She instantly recuperated, however, asking, “Must have a hell of a lot of pressure on to keep this city's reputation sparkling?”
“ FBI's supposed to be above all that kind of bullshit, but yes… your little understatement is quite correct. You're quite observant, Dr. Coran, but if you remember, I did promise no talk shop, remember?”
She ignored this. “Some of the young women disappeared from this very area, didn't they?”
“ Yes, but that's not why we're here.” He may's well have taken them in daylight as here. He'd be surrounded by people and the street's as lit up as Times Square on
New Year's.”
“ People haven't been known to disappear on Times Square at New Year's?” He laughed lightly and then breathed deeply, shaking his head, the carefully combed hair now tossed by the wind. “I promise not to talk shop for your benefit, to show you around town a little, and here you are talking about precisely-”
“ A shrink would call it obsessive-compulsive, a fixation I have on my work, a fatal flaw for any relationship.”
“ Well, I admit to symptoms myself. I don't mind telling you, from what I've seen so far, I think we're lucky to have you… compulsions and all. Nothing wrong with devotion to duty, all that…”
“ Jesus, you're not going to break out in a patriotic Lee Greenwood song, are you?” she said while thinking, What the hell does he know about my compulsions?
He laughed from the gut at her joke, singing, “God bless America and the U.S.A.” He drew stares and laughter. A seriousness crept into her voice. “You haven't any idea what I'm all about, Chief Parry.”
He smiled at her thinly veiled remark, their eyes momentarily meeting before he responded. “All cops are fanatical-if they're doing their jobs. Call it what you will.”
“ Most people are obsessive about something, or someone,” she countered. “Crazy is one of the key words in most country-western songs, isn't it?”
“ Everybody's crazy about something,” he agreed, “sure. For some it's a movie star's lips-”
“- or hips-”
“- comic books, baseball trading cards, stamps-”
She kept pace. “-trashy novels, green lawns-”
“- antiques, money, cars…”
With a salutation toward the crowd, she added, “Shopping.”
“ Exactly.”
“ We haven't even touched on porcelain junkies, sports nuts, dog enthusiasts, cat lovers, collectors of the weird and the arcane.”
He began a bantering laugh.
“ From book matches to little stone dolls with large reproductive organs,” she added with her own laugh. “And some people just can't get enough of fire. You like to play with fire, Mr. Parry?”
