Angel Eyes (39 page)

"Just do it, Tor!" he thundered, his eyes alight with energy, so that Tori was helpless to do anything other than comply.

She pushed his head under the water. It took both her hands, her arms rigid, her legs fluttering back and forth in the water for added power. Her head was just above the surface of the pool. She could remember how the sunlight cut a last dazzle on the water and then, sinking below the tops of the palms, left the pool in blue twilight. The pumps had cut off, and the water was utterly still, crystal clear.

Tori looked down at her brother submerged as, terrifyingly, she had been moments before. Was this some kind of test, she wondered, a way to improve his breath control? She liked being made part of his program; loved the sense of Tori and Greg versus Mom and Dad, his strength added to hers, another layer of callus to keep out the parental intrusions.

They were alone in Diana's Garden, alone in the cool water, just the two of them taking part in a mysterious process, like an ancient rite of which Tori had no knowledge. And the not knowing somehow added to her excitement, as if she were participating in a really adult thing, Greg trusting her as if she were already grown up; and she thought, it was worth being terrorized by him for moments such as these.

Time passed. Ripples on the skin of the pool, a string of tiny bubbles leaking from the corner of Greg's mouth. She could feel him trying to rise, and she fluttered her feet harder, gaining purchase and leverage at the same time, pushing down to meet the increased pressure.

And then a bluebird swooped down from its perch in a nearby tree, skimmed the water as if wanting to see what lay below, and Tori thought, What am I doing? I am holding my brother underwater, and I don't know how long he's been unable to breathe. She felt a shiver of fright.

With a convulsive gesture she took her hands off the top of Greg's head, dove down, pulled him back to the surface. His face was white, his eyes oddly dark. He looked like a different person, as if the proximity to death had somehow changed him. Something strange and cold crept through Tori's veins.

"There," Greg said, gripping her shoulders hard to be certain that she was staring directly at him. "Do you see? I couldn't tell you, but I've shown you, haven't I? "

Tori, sitting opposite Russell Slade in futuristic Roppongi, asked herself why she had recalled that specific incident. Perhaps it was because the emotions gripping her heart were so disturbing that she had to conjure even more disturbing thoughts to try to block them out. Wasn't it that moment, seeing Greg's changed face, when Tori's feet were set upon her path, that she knew she would not be satisfied until she stared death in the face?

Tori thought she wanted to explore this horrific idea further, but the essence of Russell kept insinuating itself into her consciousness-that new side of him she had glimpsed in the corrida when he had been near death; when, later, she had been so vulnerable, such an easy target for him, and instead of making the most of his advantage, he had gathered her into his arms.

Tori in Tokyo now, recalling Tokyo then, ten years ago, when she was ever so young, ever so smart, ever so vulnerable. She had walked a different road then. She had been cocky, so sure of herself, of her abilities. The thought of defeat was merely a dream, the contemplation of her own death inconceivable.

Greg had flown in, one of the few occasions he had had the time to visit her in Japan. It was odd, their worlds were so different, and yet so alike. They both trained vigorously, both had a kind of monodirectional bent that allowed them to concentrate on the flood of information they had to learn, then translate it into action. They were masters of both the cerebral and the physical, learning what a valuable commodity the combination could be.

Though they were in touch infrequently, and saw each other even less, they still remained close. Perhaps it was their parents that made them so, an unspoken mutual need to band together against the enormous pressures at home in Diana's Garden.

In Tokyo they had gone out drinking. It was a recreation neither had the time nor the inclination to pursue on a regular basis. Their lives were so disciplined, so regularized, so military, that the chance to kick back and break loose was irresistible. It was also Tori's firm belief-a very Japanese concept-that real truths, the full heart, not the empty symbol, could only be expressed while drunk. Everything could be forgiven then; there was no loss of face, no shame at becoming sentimental or showing weakness.

They had gone from bar to bar and, as the night wore on, found themselves in darker and meaner sections of the city. They were not unaware of this; rather, they welcomed the proximity of danger. There was about the entire night a sense of machismo that Ton was unable to understand until she looked back from the perspective time gave her. At first she had believed that Greg, NASA pilot, astronaut in training, had been responsible for that febrile aggressiveness. But then she realized that much of the machismo had stemmed from her, and Greg was following her lead. That had been a switch.

She had followed Greg in everything: sports, mathematics, school, teams, the works. That had been their father's doing. Ellis Nunn had wanted to ensure that she was prepared for the hard, competitive world she would one day be thrown into. If you can compete with your brother, you 'II be ready for anyone, he had told her. Don't complain and don't try to weasel out. I'm doing you the favor my father never did for me.

But, of course, she was doomed to failure at every turn. Greg was the golden boy, superb in sports, mathematics, excelling in each school he attended. Not that she didn't do her best to excel-and succeeded most of the time. She just could not match Greg's level. He seemed to revel in the milieu Ellis Nunn threw him into; she despised it.

So, in the end, she ran away, all the way across the Pacific to Japan, as if she needed to get as much distance as she could between herself and the life she had been forced to live. But her flight was more than away from pain; it was toward a lifestyle that in its enigma drew her steadily on. Like Odysseus on his arduous quest, Tori could hardly have done anything different. She was made for Japan and it was made for her.

For one thing, the stringent asceticism at the martial arts school she joined was such a welcome relief from the opulence and endless money, her parents' insatiable appetite for acquisitions, that she nearly wept for joy the first week at the school. Alone, lying on her simple futon bed after a full day's mental and physical work, staring up through the garden at the moon and the stars, Tori had at last known a peace she had once thought could never be hers.

For another thing, there was sensei, a small, quick-gestured man, who nevertheless moved with a deliberation so profound, it actually seemed to be the opposite. His stratagems appeared to be inadvertent, haphazard, wholly unexpected.

"This is more difficult to achieve than you as a Westerner could possibly imagine," he had told her when she had reached the fourth of his six levels of training. "This is not a racist remark, merely the truth. You see, we Japanese abhor randomness. Nature in its pure, unadulterated state frightens us, which is why we have created deities such as the fox goddess to reinforce that fright."

"But sensei, look out there," Tori had said, pointing to the exquisite garden. "You are always surrounded by nature. I don't understand."

Sensei had smiled. "I urge you to look again at the garden on which I lavish so much attention. Is it nature? When we wander the lush hillsides of Yoshino, that is nature, when we climb the alps to the north, that is nature. But this garden? No. It is a product of my imagination. Everything is made, dwarfed, bonsaied, controlled by me or by one of my students. This garden is what I want it to be, nothing more, certainly not nature. Not yet.

"The perfect garden, Tori-san, is a simulacrum of nature; it merges with nature to become one with it. But there is no such thing as a perfect garden, and there never will be. The result, though we work all our lives toward it, is too frightening a prospect, because if it ever came about, we would, by definition, lose our control over it, and that can never be allowed."

Facades and a sense of control, these were the principles of Japanese gardens, microcosms of the Japanese culture itself. And these were what Tori thought of the night she went carousing the wild side of Tokyo with Greg. Because she was, at last, tired of both.

Sake was a good antidote to regimentation. Something quite strong was needed to blur the lines, the grids, the bars of the life of an acolyte. Because that was just what she and Greg were, acolytes: she had joined the samurai religion of the past, he the scientific religion of the future. The two of them met here at this moment in time, amid the neon burning of a Tokyo night, in the primitive jungle within the world's most civilized city, bound in the present they were creating.

Or so Tori had thought, until they hit a place called The Lemon Crush. It was at the wrong end of Shinjuku, a kind of akachochin, an after-hours joint, posh and potent, where the price tags were hot and the action even hotter.

They were, by this time, two liters into sake, and Tori felt as if an electric wire had been slipped into her veins. Greg's eyes crossed at intervals, and he couldn't keep the sweat from glistening in his short, blond hair.

"Wow!" he had exclaimed, when they had taken the Lucite elevator down to the main floor of The Lemon Crush. "I don't ever want to leave this place!" Greg had always been prone to theatrical overstatement, a trait he had unconsciously picked up from their mother.

They had been given a table on the upper level that circled the main floor. Blue and yellow neon rimmed everything: floor, tables, steps, railings, and on the gigantic screen of the ceiling, projected origami were continually unfolding like exotic flowers in yet another display of the Japanese trying to control nature,

Tori and Greg were on their second round of sake, soaking up the sights, the sounds of Heaven 17 singing "Fascist Groove Thang" at teeth-rattling volume, when Tori sensed Greg's attention wandering. She followed his gaze, saw him staring fixedly at a beautiful young woman, tall, lissome, exotic as the origami unfolding overhead.

"Hubba, hubba!" Greg said, and slipped out of his chair before Tori could do anything to stop him. This was Japan, but Greg had no conception of what that meant, especially in his current state.

"Damnit, Greg!"

But he couldn't hear her. As Tori watched him make his way down toward the beautiful young woman, she thought of the kind of place this was, and what that said about its habitues. Drug dealers and sex peddlers were only the tamer elements wending their way through the yellow-and-blue-lit throng. The Lemon Crush, it was whispered, was a favored hangout of the Yakuza.

Tori had never met a Yakuza, and even through her sake-induced buzz she thought that this was not the night to do so. Macho was one thing, suicide quite another. Greg would not understand this. Tori did not think they had enough time together for her to adequately explain the inner workings of the Yakuza mind to him.

Now she could see Greg talking to the woman, could see her smiling in return. Greg was so handsome; he had never had trouble getting girls; just the opposite, in fact. Tori could remember when he was in high school, there were too many girlfriends to make life simple. And at one point Greg's after-school and practice life became something of a slapstick farce, complete with slammed doors, lightning changes of clothes, and, at least on Greg's part, iron-man stamina. Tori had had an active part in this, playing-in Laura Nunn's parlance-the straight man who stooged for the star, making sure no two girls would catch him in the same room at the same time.

And, recalling this, seeing him laughing with the beautiful, exotic Japanese, Tori discovered that it wasn't only apprehension she was feeling, it was anger. She and Greg saw each other so infrequently, she thought it insensitive of him to go off and leave her like this. And from the secure distance of the future, Tori was able to see the truth: she had wanted to spend the night with her brother, matching his macho with hers, at last on her turf, showing Greg-and Ellis Nunn-that she could compete on his level.

Could she really be jealous of this creature? Tori had asked herself then. Yes, yes, as she slid through the crowd, moving toward them.

Tori was still some distance away when she saw the tall, square-shouldered young man heading on a collision course with her brother and the woman. He was a Japanese dressed in a stylish suit. His hair was shorter even than Greg's, almost a military cut. There was something in his direct gaze that disturbed her even before she was close enough to feel the power of his wa. That was when the fright took over. By that time she had had more than enough training to know a dangerous opponent when she saw one.

The young man was heading straight for Greg, his gaze fixed steadily on him. Tori watched him move through the crowd. It was like seeing a hot knife slice through butter. He did not have to fight his way through, did not have to elbow people aside. No one was disturbed, there was no ripple to mark his passage.

Then abruptly, shockingly, he reached out and the sleeve of his jacket rode up his arm, exposing a wrist covered with an irizumi demon spitting fire. And Tori's heart lurched. Oh, my God, she thought. Greg's making a move on the girlfriend of a Yakuza.

She and the Yakuza converged on Greg and the woman. Tori had just enough time to say, "Greg, let's get out of here!" before the Yakuza's hand clamped down on Greg's shoulder.

Greg spun, shoving the hand off him. Greg was in a semicrouch, the standard first position of the sort of unarmed combat taught by the United States government agencies. It would mean nothing to the Yakuza. Unless Greg pulled a gun and shot him dead, the Yakuza's skills would quickly overpower anything Greg could throw at him.

Greg grinned. "Hey, I don't want any trouble," he said suddenly, coming out of his crouch. He put up his hands. "No law I know of against talking to a beautiful woman."