Hawaiian, and I told him I was one-quarter Hawaiian, part French — 'cause I thought that would turn his burners up-and part American.” She was punctuating with the hairbrush now. “I figured he'd never believe me if I told him I was Hawaiian, you know.”
“ So what happened then?”
“ Nothing.”
“ Nothing?”
“ He didn't come back. Said he had to go get his car, which he said was over by the park, and — “
“ The park?”
“ Fort DeRussy, I took him to mean. Anyway, I asked the guys on the mike what rating they'd given the guy.”
“ Rating?” asked Jessica.
“ On the nut scale. One to ten. Anyway, they just gave him a mild rating, so I waited, not particularly interested, and when he didn't come back, I figured he'd thought better of crossing this guy Paniolo.”
“ How many times did he come back to speak to you on the street?”
“ Last night? Just the once, but others, whew… and if he wasn't speaking, he was watching. Spooky guy, really, but I took him for a mental, and since they're generally harmless, well…”
“ How many times in all did this guy approach you?” asked Parry, clarifying Jessica's question.
Reno pursed her lips and thought about this for a moment. “Hmmmmm… four, maybe five different nights.”
“ Consecutive nights?”
“ No, no… scattered.”
“ You haven't been out there more'n a week,” said Tony Gagliano, getting the picture.
“ And he'd come up to me two or three times a night to just make small talk until I brushed him off, telling him I had business to attend to and how he was cramping my style. Now I hear about this guy Paniolo here, and suddenly I'm wondering all over about this guy I thought was a nerd, that maybe he could be the Cane Cutter.”
Parry was instantly at her. “I want you to sit down with Don Myers, get as good a sketch of this guy as possible to put in Kaniola's paper and the Union Jack News. And Tony, you and I are going to be backing Terri out there tonight, and if this toad shows, we're going to corner his ass. The connection with Paniolo is just too sweet.”
“ It's the bottom of the ninth and two outs,” said Jessica, “and we're due for a little luck.”
“ I don't get this,” said Haley. “I've seen this guy. He's a kanaka worm.”
'Then he's Hawaiian?” asked Jessica.
“ Would figure if he's acquainted with Ewelo,” Tony Gagliano put in.
Parry asked, “A worm in what sense?”
“ Slinks like a goddamn worm, Chief. He's hefty, eats well, I'd say, works out maybe, but he's low to the ground and he's mealy mouthed. Hell, even Terri scares him.”
'Terri scares me,” joked Gagliano, breaking the others up.
Terri threw her carefully brushed wig at Tony.
Haley continued after all had settled down. “I figured the Trade Winds Killer for a ladies' man. Chief, not a worm.”
“ He's dysfunctional where women are concerned,” corrected Jessica.
“ And he bides his time like a damned spider,” Parry stated. “Crawls in and out of the darkness to locate food, goes back in, comes back out again. He spends hours, no, days, laying it out, planning, lulling his victims into the same complacency you and Terri're in, Haley, making his intended vies think he's a harmless little shit. This guy's exhibiting the very traits of our killer, Haley, and you don't even recognize him. He's like a street lamp to you, a garbage pail, and he's damned glad you see him that way.”
The room was silent after Jim's emotion-laden lecture, thick with Parry's accusation that the hardworking agents weren't thinking clearly, weren't seeing even though they were looking.
Terri Reno swallowed hard, thinking of what might have happened had she gone to this thick-necked, thick- armed creep's place with him last night. According to information Jessica had released to them on the killer, once he had his victim where he wanted her, he struck so ferociously and quickly that she could be killed or maimed for life before anyone could break in a door.
Jessica could see the pained expression on Tern's face from across the room, and she could well imagine what was going through Terri's mind at the moment. She flashed on a time when she was defenseless against a maniac bent on taking her own life. Parry continued. “While you two are busy with a sketch artist, Haley, the rest of us want to hear those surveillance tapes. Terri, you get started with Don Myers. Haley, fetch those tapes.”
“ Will do, Boss.” Kalvin Haley needed no second telling, relieved to be going out of earshot of his chief.
“ The guy knows Hal Ewelo,” Parry said thoughtfully, “and Ewelo ironically kills an innocent kid in an attempt to leam the killer's identity!” He shook his head. “Sometimes people do prove the stereotype, and Ewelo's one stupid kanaka. We push Ewelo harder, find out who his friends are, who his goddamned relatives are, who he knows that's kinky or strange or sexless in his estimation, anything out of the norm. Promise the bastard a deal. Tony, you're on that, and don't hesitate to use this information to get some leverage with the bastard.”
“ He's called in a lawyer.”
“ Then do it with his lawyer present, but do it.”
Tony hustled off, disappearing as Haley had before him.
“ We're going to end the killing,” said a resolved Parry.
Every wheel went into motion. Parry, along with Jessica, listened intently to the taped meanderings of their latest mystery suspect, and she found Robert all that Haley had said and more. He sounded like a pitiful soul, a poor castaway wretch, just searching the city for a little kind word, a soft touch, a pleasant smile. He talked of everything and anything, almost nonstop, as if Terri were a long-lost relative, and with each contact, he became more and more familiar while maintaining a mewing, whimpering voice, conspiratorial actually, in which he maintained that he was a lot like Terri, a down-and-outer, misunderstood by his parents, his friends and relatives, not to mention his bosses, and that he had kicked about from one job to the next, always being pushed around by some bully or a boss, and always fired or let go because someone didn't like him. Politics, he called it. On subsequent tapes he let Terri know more about himself, or about his false self, one could not tell for certain. He spoke of his favorite job once as a cowboy.
This made both agents sit up after the long and tedious rendition of the previous tapes.
“ Oh, really? A cowboy.” Terri's leering laughter followed, and then: “Ever ride a cowgirl? Want to break this mare? Huh, cowwwww-booooyT'
“ You don't believe me?” he asked her.
“ Sure… sure, cowboy. I believe you.”
“ It was a big ranch on Maui. I was in charge of strays and fence-mending. I did an excellent job.”
“ Then why did you leave your pony on Maui, cowboy, for this? Bright lights, big city and pretty things like me?”
“ You are pretty.”
“ You want me? You got the money, cowboy?”
“ I… I tol' ya, I don't cheapen a lady like that. If you just come with me, I… I can take care of you, make you eternally happy. It's not about money.”
“ Honey, everything's about money.”
“ No, not everything. I tell ya, I can set you up with everything. Maybe, in time, you get to know me better, you might wanna marry me or something…”
Terri laughed uproariously and contemptuously, which effectively served to end the conversation, but still he came back for more the following night.
“ Now we've got two cowboys who know each other, both from Maui. This guy and Ewelo,” Parry said. “Let's go see how Terri and Kalvin are doing with the sketch artist.”
The sketch artist, Don Myers, with Terri Reno's help had accomplished a great deal. Myers was better than
