Running Hot (4 page)

The Red Skull Tattoo and Body Piercing Parlor and Zen Comics were also closed for the night but the rusty window air conditioners of the adult video arcade were grinding away as usual. It was the only way to know if the place was open. No light ever showed through the grimy, blacked-out windows of the arcade. The customers slipped in and out like so many wraiths, preferring the cover of darkness.

Luther prodded his zombie-like companion beneath the antique wooden surfboard that marked the entrance to the courtyard and walked him along the narrow lane to Kuhio Avenue. At this hour there was plenty of traffic and the open-air restaurants and taverns were crowded.

He debated taking Flower Shirt another block to Kalakaua, where the brilliantly lit windows of the high-end designer boutiques and the more upscale restaurants lured herds of visitors out into the balmy night. No need to go to the trouble, he decided. He could do what needed to be done right here.

Unfortunately, it would do little good to merely dump Flower Shirt on the street. The effects of the suppression energy were short-lived. Luther knew that once he released Flower Shirt from the extreme ennui, the guy would bounce right back to whatever state was normal for him.

When he came out of the fugue he would remember that his attempt to bait Ray had somehow stalled and that the bartender had gotten in his way. He would also recall that he had been escorted off the premises in an ignominious fashion by a gimp on a cane. Those memories would be more than enough incentive to bring him back to the Rainbow in search of revenge.

Fear was one of the most primitive emotions, a core survival instinct that, like all such instincts, was hardwired into the brain. That meant it was experienced across the spectrum of the senses from the normal straight into the paranormal. It was also one of the easiest emotions to trigger, if you had the knack. And once triggered, it tended to hang around for a while.

Bullies comprehended fear well because they spent so much time in-stilling it in others.

Luther took a breath and let it out slowly. He wasn’t looking forward to this part but a bartender does what a bartender’s got to do.

He went hotter, revving up his senses. Then he turned his unresisting zombie so that Flower Shirt faced the entrance to the lane that led to the Rainbow.

“You don’t ever want to go down there,” he said. “Folks in that little restaurant are all crazy. No telling what they’ll do. Like walking into a room full of nitroglycerin. You’re way too smart to go back.”

He accompanied the words with little pulses of energy aimed at the latent fear points on Flower Shirt’s paranormal spectrum, deliberately stirring and arousing as many as he could identify. There was a reason for the term “panic button.” He tweaked and fiddled until Flower Shirt was sweating and shaking and staring into the dark lane as though it were the gate to hell.

With luck, when he recovered from the experience, the memory of the lane and the Dark Rainbow would be inextricably linked to a subliminal sense of deep unease. Flower Shirt would never be able to explain it; probably wouldn’t even try. But if he happened to pass this way again, he would instinctively avoid the lane. That was how fear worked on the psychic level. Usually.

The problem with trying to establish a fear response was that there was always the possibility that it would backfire on you. Some people felt compelled to confront their fears. But in Luther’s experience that wasn’t true of the bully mentality.

He eased off the psychic pressure. Flower Shirt calmed.

“You want to go back to your hotel room,” Luther said. “Had a little too much to drink tonight. Go sleep it off.”

“Yeah, right,” Flower Shirt whispered, anxious now. “Too much booze.”

He hurried toward the intersection and crossed the street. He disappeared around the corner, heading toward Kalakaua and the safety of the bright lights of the beachfront hotels.

Luther leaned heavily on his cane, feeling the dark weight of what he had done. He hated this part. There was always a price to pay when he used his talent on someone like Flower Shirt.

The bastard may have deserved what he got but the reality was that the battle had been unequal from the get-go. He never stood a chance; never even knew what hit him.

Yeah, that part sucked.

TWO

After they closed the restaurant for the night they followed their usual custom and walked down Kuhio to the Udon Palace. Milly Okada, the proprietor, brought them huge bowls filled with steaming, aromatic broth and plump noodles. She gave Luther a knowing look when she set the soup down in front of him.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine, Milly.” Luther picked up the chopsticks. “I just need some of your udon, that’s all. Been a long night.”

“You’re depressed again,” she announced. “You should be feeling better now that your leg is almost healed.”

“For sure,” Petra agreed. “But he’s not feelin’ better. He’s feelin’ worse.”

The wound had healed but his leg was never going to be the same. The damned cane would be a part of his life from now on. He was still coming to terms with that fact but that was not why he was feeling low tonight. He did not know how to explain the real problem to anyone.

“I am feeling better,” he insisted. “Just a little tired, that’s all. Like I said, it’s been a long night.”

“I’ll get you another beer,” Milly said.

She disappeared through the fluttery panels of red-and-white cloth that screened the kitchen from the dining area.

“Milly and Petra are right, you’re depressed again.” Wayne used his chopsticks to slurp up a mouthful of noodles. “Take the J&J job. That will make you feel better.”

“Yeah,” Petra said. “That will get you out of this little funk you’ve been in for the past couple of months.”

Luther glared at them across the small table. “The job Jones offered is make-work. A two-day babysitting gig on Maui.”

“So what?” Wayne tapped the chopsticks on the rim of his bowl. “It’s work. Means you’re back in the game.”

“No,” Luther said. “It doesn’t mean that. It means that Fallon Jones is feeling sorry for me, maybe even a little guilty because of what happened on the last job. He’s decided to throw me a bone.”

Petra snorted. “Get real. Fallon Jones doesn’t do sympathy and he wouldn’t recognize a guilt trip if one bit him on the ass.”

“Okay, I’ll concede that Fallon is not given to indulging the finer feelings,” Luther said. “That leaves only one other reason why he left that message in my voice mail.”

“What?” Petra demanded.

“The job is so low-rent he doesn’t want to waste money paying for an agent to fly from the mainland.”

“Huh.” Petra shrugged. “Maybe. My advice is to take the bone.”

“Why?” Luther asked.

“Because you need to gnaw on something besides your own thoughts. Working for J&J again, even if it is just a two-day bodyguard job, will be good for you.”

“Think so?”

“Yeah,” Petra said. “And there’s another reason you should take the job.”

“What?”

“I’ve got a feelin’ about it.”

“You had a feeling about the last job,” Luther reminded her.

They all looked at the cane hooked over the back of a chair.

“This feelin’ is a little different,” Petra said.

THREE

It was after two in the morning by the time he limped up the steps to the second floor of the old, two-story Sunset Surf Apartments. Bruno the Wonder Dog yipped wildly when he went past the owner’s unit. Bruno was small and fluffy and probably weighed less than five pounds but he had the guard instincts of a Doberman. No one gained access to the grounds of the Sunset Surf without Bruno announcing the fact.

Inside 2-B, he flipped a switch, illuminating the threadbare carpet, the aging paint and the yard-sale furniture he’d bought two years ago when he moved to the islands. He’d been paying off his second divorce at the time. Money had been tight. Money was still tight.

He’d been using the J&J work to help build up his bank account. Things had just started to turn around and he’d even been contemplating a move into a more upscale apartment when he took the job Fallon had offered two months ago. Getting shot had not only hurt like hell, it had proven to be a major financial setback.

Wayne and Petra were right. He should accept the babysitting job Fallon had offered. His pride would take a hit but he could use the money. J&J paid well.

He went into the small kitchen and took down the bottle of excellent whiskey that Wayne and Petra had given him for his birthday. He poured a healthy dose, opened the sliding glass doors and went out onto the microchip-sized lanai.

He leaned on the railing and took a swallow of whiskey. The silken night closed around him like an unseen lover, soothing all his senses. The Sunset Surf was one of innumerable small apartment houses tucked away in the maze of Waikiki’s backstreets and alleys. It did not have a view of either the sunset or the surf. It also lacked air-conditioning and a pool. What it did have was a massive, heavy-limbed banyan tree in back that helped keep things cool during the hot summer months.

His neighbors consisted of the owner, a senior citizen he knew only as Bea, a couple of retirees from Alaska, an aging surfer with no discernible means of support and some guy who claimed he was writing a novel. It was not what you could call a sociable crowd.

The whiskey was doing its job. He was starting to feel if not exactly mellow, at least a tad more philosophical.

As if on cue his cell phone vibrated and buzzed. He unclipped it from his belt and opened it without bothering to look at the ID of the incoming call. There were only three people who had his number and he was pretty sure Petra and Wayne were asleep by now.

“Do you know what time it is here, Fallon?” he asked.

“Hawaii is two hours earlier than California this time of year.” Fallon sounded irritated, a normal state of affairs for him. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Fallon Jones was the head of Jones & Jones, a very low-profile psychic investigation agency. He had a few redeeming qualities, including a powerful talent for spotting patterns and links where others saw only random chance or murky coincidence. Other assorted virtues such as good manners, thoughtfulness and patience, however, eluded him.

“I was going to call you in the morning,” Luther said.

“It’s four a.m. here. That’s morning. I can’t wait any longer for you to think about whether or not you’re going to take the job. I need an answer now. I don’t have time to cater to your delicate sensibilities.”

“Translated, you don’t have anyone else available who just happens to be in the neighborhood.”

“Yeah, that, too. You’re good and you’re convenient. A real win-win combination in my book. What’s the problem? This isn’t like you.”

Why was he hesitating? Luther wondered. Fallon was right. It wasn’t like him. He’d been taking contract jobs with J&J ever since he resigned from the Seattle PD two years ago. He liked the work. Okay, except when he got shot. Fact was, when he was in this kind of mood he craved J&J assignments.

The agency was unique. It was established during the Victorian era, and it was always understood that its chief client was the Governing Council of the Arcane Society. Its highest priority was to protect the Society’s deepest secrets.

But somewhere along the way, the Council had acknowledged that most police departments simply weren’t equipped to deal with certain types of psychic sociopaths. Few members of modern law enforcement were even willing to acknowledge that some killers were endowed with talent. By and large, the Council considered that a good thing. The paranormal got enough bizarre press as it was, most of it in the harmless form of outrageous tabloid headlines and silly television talk shows. No one wanted the police to start making serious announcements to the media about psychic killers.

As far back as the Victorian era, the Council had reluctantly accepted responsibility for hunting down certain dangerous, renegade talents on the theory that it was better to handle such problems internally rather than risk allowing the freaks to continue to operate.

The Maui job might be a routine bodyguard assignment but it was something and he could use the money. And Petra had a feeling about it.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“About time you came to your senses,” Fallon grumbled. “By the way, you’ll be working with a partner this time.”

“Whoa. Hold it right there. In your voice mail you said it was a bodyguard gig.”

“More like a chaperoning gig.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“The person you’re going to be looking after is not one of my regular agents. She’s what you might call a specialist. A consultant. It’s her first time in the field. Your job is to make sure she doesn’t get into trouble. Let her do her job and then get her out of there. Simple.”

“I’m not mentor material, Fallon.”

“Don’t go into your lockdown stubborn mode on me, Malone. You’ll definitely be in charge of the operation.”

“That’s supposed to reassure me? In my experience specialists and consultants don’t take orders well.”

“Damn it, we’ve got a real shot at nailing Eubanks here. I’m not about to see it blown just because you don’t fancy working with a specialist.”

Eubanks was a suspect in the recent murder of a young woman whose family were all registered members of the Society. After the police officially ruled the death a tragic accident, the victim’s parents asked J&J to investigate the death. A psychic profiler who visited the scene of the crime prepared a profile that Fallon then handed over to one of the librarians in the Society’s Bureau of Genealogy. The librarian ran the data through the department’s latest whizbang computer program and produced three possible suspects. Eubanks’s name was at the top.

“I think you’d better find someone else,” Luther said.

“There is no one else. I need you and Grace Renquist on the scene by tomorrow. Eubanks is due in the following day. If he’s worried about being followed, he’s more likely to be watching to see who arrives after him, not who is at the hotel before he gets there.”