Running Hot

hamburger patties onto the grill. “Aim for three. We’re not running a homeless shelter here.”
    “Isn’t three ounces of fish a rather small serving?”
    “Not when you’re feeding tourists. They’ll never know the difference. Besides, the batter blows up a lot in the fryer. Makes the portions look bigger. Then you fill up the rest of the plate with a lot of French fries. Potatoes are cheaper than fish. And since it’s all fried, it’s all the same color. No one notices where the fish stops and the potatoes begin.”
    “I can see you’ve got this down to a fine art.”
    “Damn straight.”
    The swinging door opened again, releasing another flood of rock just as Grace was lowering the basket of batter-dipped fish into the fryer. Luther came into the room. He frowned at her.
    “Watch that fryer,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”
    “Trust me, I’m being very careful.”
    “Thought you were supposed to be washing dishes,” he said.
    Petra looked up from the burgers. “Gave her a field promotion due to the fact that we’re swamped. How’s it going out there?”
    “Busy night. Probably peak in the next hour or so. Bunch of tourists found us. You two doing okay?”
    “Do we look like we’re okay?” Petra snapped. “It’s hotter than hell in here and we’ve got orders coming out the ass.”
    “Now there’s an appetizing visual,” Luther said. “Do they talk like that on the cooking channel?”
    “Damned if I know,” Petra said. “I didn’t learn to cook by watching the cooking channel.”
    “Well, hey, I’m just the bartender,” Luther said. “I sure don’t want to slow down the process in here. I’ll leave you two to get on with the preparation of your culinary art.”
    He winked at Grace and went back through the swinging doors.
    Petra glared at the doors. “What the hell is culinary art?”
    “Cooking,” Grace said.
    “Oh, yeah, right. I knew that.”
    “Where did you learn to cook?” Grace asked, curious.
    “Wayne and I hired us a real cook when we bought the place. Watched him for a while. By the time he quit—and sooner or later they all quit—I figured I could handle the kitchen. No big trick to it. So long as you put the food in the fryer or throw it on a grill, folks will eat it. Fact of life.”
    “I can see there’s a real emphasis on healthy, organic cooking here at the Dark Rainbow. How did Luther come to join the staff ?”
    “After he moved to Waikiki, he found his way here like the rest of the regulars. Started coming in occasionally for a beer and sometimes a meal. On quiet nights we got to talking. You know how it is. Strong sensitives usually recognize each other.”
    “Yes,” Grace said, thinking back to that day on the concourse when she first saw Luther. “I know.”
    “We had some things in common. He’d been a cop and he was doing some contract work for J&J. Wayne and me, we’d done something along the same lines. None of us had any family to speak of. Guess you could say the three of us sort of understood each other.”
    “You formed your own family.”
    “Something like that, yeah.”
    “But how did Luther get involved in the business?” she asked.
    “After a while it came out that me and Wayne were having some problems here. There was a lot of drug dealing in the alley out back and some of the low-rent hookers had started hanging out in the bar. We had a few fights break out. Police started showing up a lot. Disturbed the regulars. They stopped coming around. All in all, we were going under. Luther fixed a few things.”
    “How?”
    “Let’s just say he got rid of some pesky problems. The regulars returned and we’ve been okay ever since.”
    Grace smiled. “Another practical application of Luther’s talent?”
    “Told you, that talent of his does come in handy once in a while.”

THIRTY-TWO
    Crazy Ray seemed a little more agitated than usual. Luther sent a soothing pulse of energy his way before he urged him out the door along with the handful of remaining customers.
    Ray went outside, trailing the others, but he stopped just beyond the entrance and looked back at Luther.
    “You be careful tonight,” he said.
    Ray rarely emerged from his paranoid world long enough to produce a coherent sentence. Luther nodded, letting him know that he had gotten the message and would take it seriously.
    “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be careful.”
    Ray vanished into the shadows.
    Wayne appeared behind Luther’s shoulder. “What was