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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