Cuttlefish cop

Su Lik, flashing back to the day that Te-Wu, the Chinese secret police, showed up at her family's apartment in Beijing and took away her father, a leader in the Falun Gung movement, felt her knees go weak. She grabbed the pay phone to steady herself.

The voice on the other end of the line, a kindly sounding woman who answered when she called 911, had just said, "Yes, ma'am, we did get a report last night about a guy who might be a Chinese agent. Are you the person who made that call? ... Well, I'm glad you called back because the person who took the call may not have gotten things quite right, I'm afraid ... And do you know where this Lu Wi might be? ... That's OK, because we think we know where he is. And we hope you'll be able to help us stop him from killing. If you'll turn around, there's a young man who can help make that happen. His name is Kona."

Afraid to turn around, she began to cry.

"Ma'am," the woman said, "it's OK. This is not China. Nobody is going to hurt you. We appreciate that you called in the first place, much less twice. What we want to do is make certain that two other people are not hurt by this Lu Wi. We need your help for that."

Su Lik heard a male clearing his throat behind her. "Ahem."

She spun on her heel, saw the young man who had been watching her before. He was dark-haired and handsome in a hapa-haole way, and smiled broadly.

"Hi, I'm Kona. Kona Weathers."

His voice was also kind. In one hand he held a bag of spicy cuttlefish, in the other a bottle of green Gatorade. What kind of cop was this?

"Um, excuse me," Kona said, caught off guard by the perfectness of her skin, the beauty of her eyes and mouth.

He set the cuttlefish and Gatorade on the wooden bench outside the little market on McCully.

"Actually, I have a badge in here." He reached for his wallet. "I'm not a real police officer," he said, flipping the wallet open, revealing a small, silver shield. "But I have been deputized."

"Ma'am, you still there?" Su Lik heard the woman's voice saying in the phone.

"Um, yes."

"Please go with Kona. You have any questions or problems, call me direct at this number, not 911." Gwen Roselovich gave her a seven-digit number.

"Where are we going?" Su Lik said as Kona led her to his Camry.

"Hawaii Kai. We're looking for Lu Wi."

"And then?"

"That's up to Detective Sherlock Gomes."