My Kind of Town
>> 2002 Wilder Got duct tape?
All Dr. Laurie Tang could do as she paced in front of the building was wait and worry about what was happening upstairs in her condo. With both police and ambulance sirens filling the Honolulu night after the terrorist suicide bomb attack in Waikiki, she'd probably be waiting a while before HPD could send Sherlock Gomes his backup. God forbid that he'd need an ambulance, because those guys were doing record business tonight.
Sherlock had said he'd call her once the situation was under control with the possible intruder. What was taking him so long?
>> "Where are you?!" Salvatore Innuendo called, blindly waving the pistol with one hand, trying to wipe tears away from his left eye with the other as he stumbled away from Gomes toward the kitchen.
His right eye had been ripped open by the rat-tail towel attack from around the corner. Gomes was aiming low, at the you-know-wheres, but the guy must have been crouching. "Dammit, Gomes, I said where are you?!"
From his knees, Gomes silently flicked the tightly rolled towel again. It wrapped around innuendo's wrist and Gomes jerked hard, inadvertently pulling the gun barrel toward him just as Innuendo squeezed his last trigger. Luckily, the shot went wide. Not so luckily, the bullet ricocheted off the concrete wall and grazed the back of Gomes' shoulder, drawing blood.
As the pistol fell harmlessly to the carpet, Gomes kicked Innuendo in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out, and for good measure kicked again, wishing his handcuffs weren't in the trunk of his car.
Tossing the rat-tail towel aside, he picked up Innuendo's pistol, stuck it in his shorts. Still holding his own short-barrel Glock 9mm, Gomes reached for the phone, dialed Laurie's cell. She answered after half a ring.
"Hey, you have any duct tape?"
"What?!" She was worrying about his life and he wanted some tape?!
He'd reword the question. "Duct tape. You have any?"
"Drawer beside the sink."
Where else. "Thanks."
And he punched off. "What the ..." Laurie said.
A moment later the phone rang again. "By the way, I could use a doctor."
"What's going on up there?"
"OK, here it is. I got the tape."
"Sherlock?!"
"Everything's under control. I just need a doc."
Laurie was in such a hurry, she wouldn't let the elderly Mr. Young, who lived three floors down from her and had been walking his weekly 20-year-old hooker to the door, punch the button for 12. "It's an emergency."
Mr. Young smiled. He understood. He had a bladder problem too.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com