Caught, cuffed

» Kaimuki

Pointing the Tokarev 9mm at Fon Du, the one she'd taken from him, was a formality. Writhing in pain on the ground after Bodhicita Guzman kicked him in the groin, hard and direct, he was not an imminent danger.

But she pointed it at him nevertheless. He'd been down and knocked out just hours ago and still got away. Not again.

The second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa, meanwhile, and as so often happened to living Buddhas and those who strive follow their teachings, was experiencing mixed emotions.

"I suppose that was necessary, wasn't it?" he said to his eternal consort as he pulled on the plaid Bermuda shorts Fon Du had been wrestling with when he wobbled, hopped and Bodhicita attacked.

"We were minutes from dead. Both of us."

"We would have returned."

"Jey, my love," she said, "I'm pretty new at this reincarnation stuff, at least in this lifetime. And you know what? We're here now. Let's try to keep a good thing going."

He smiled the wry smile that the living Buddhas known as Dalai Lama smiled for centuries when the Khans of Mongolia stepped in to protect and defend the non-violent Buddhists of Tibet. At least until the Chinese Communists took over in 1949, they had. But his friend Kamasami Khan, who had protected him so well until just minutes ago, and suffered a life-threatening gunshot wound in the process, was talking of taking action against Communist soldiers and officials in Tibet. The young lama had not approved. Now, he wasn't so certain. He would meditate on it further.

Bodhicita gave him instructions for dialing 911 on her cell phone. He did, handed the phone to her. This time the blasted system actually worked. Of course, it helped that the call went to the capable Gwen Roselovich at HPD dispatch and that every available officer not otherwise involved was looking for the stolen red Ram 1500.

Soon the darkened grounds of Diamond Head Memorial Park were flashing with blue lights, the headlights of squad cars illuminating odd pockets and corners, leaving others in shadow and night.

Quinn Ah Sun was one of the first to arrive on his civilian copy of the BMW bike he rode on duty. He helped get the nude and still-moaning Fon Du into the pink velour bathrobe from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

Detective Leina'ala Smash-owicz and her crime scene team got there in time to see Quinn helping the suspect, the alleged leader of the Chinese secret police in Hawaii, into a pink robe. Damn, that would make a mug shot for the ages, wouldn't it?

Only when Quinn cuffed Fon Du's hands behind his back would Bodhicita surrender the pistol to the detective. "Bebbe," she said, "I can hardly wait to hear what this is all about."