“L’il Bud.”
Lo’s nod indicated familiarity with the name. “Go on.”
Fitch inhaled. Exhaled. Pulled his nose. Leaned even closer to Lo.
“Street says L’il Bud ordered a hit.”
“Street naming a doer?”
“Pinky Atoa. Ted Pukui.”
Lo 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 Lo 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.
Lo’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.
Lo 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
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.
Lo 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.
Lo watched without comment.
