Fishing for Stars (41 page)

‘For your cock, not mine! We’d let you go first while it’s still tight,’ he teased.

‘Shouldn’t we kill him, smash his head in? It will look like he did it when he fell; an accident.’

‘Nah, poor bastard’s harmless. When he wakes up he won’t remember a thing.’

‘Fuck me dead! What’s this? Another drunk?’ the first guard exclaimed, peering down the road.

In an instant, the kendo grand master leapt to his feet without using his hands in an astonishing feat of athleticism, and in the same smooth movement drove the end of the walking stick hard into the throat of the first guard, instantly collapsing his larynx. Before he’d hit the ground the stick swung in a two-handed backward arc to drive with enormous force up under the ribcage of the second guard, rupturing his aorta and killing him instantly. The first guard, his legs kicking wildly, lay clutching his throat with both hands, choking on his own blood. The kendo grand master quickly dispatched him with a single blow to the side of the head.

Fuchida-san
arrived, panting. He was carrying a
katana
still in its sheath in one hand and a short-barrel Remington shotgun in the other. ‘Good! Good work,’ he gasped. ‘I thought you were a goner. Seeing you lying on the ground with the two of them hovering above you I was sure it was all over, my honourable friend,’ he panted. ‘I was about to fire when you jumped to your feet. I’ve seen you before but never witnessed anything quite as good!’ He laughed. ‘You should audition for the opera. Your drunk act would have fooled me completely.’

Saito smiled. ‘Your shotgun would have truly ruined our surprise and at that distance probably missed,
Oyabun,
’ he said softly.

‘Without you,
Saito-san
, there would be no surprise, we could not have done this without your skill,’
Fuchida-san
countered, his voice edged with sentiment.

Saito, ignoring the compliment, pointed. ‘There is a ditch over there. Help me dump this scum.’

Together they carried the two dead men across the road to the ditch and dumped them into it, where they disappeared under the tangle of weeds.

Returning to the gate Fuchida pointed to the two submachine-guns leaning against the gatepost. ‘Do you want to go in with one of those,
Saito-san
?’

Saito drew back, pointing to the
katana
Fuchida had brought and placed against the fence. ‘It is an old and trusted friend and much my preferred companion in a fight,’ the master swordsman replied. ‘You take one to cover me; that shotgun looks too dangerous.’

‘Those things are for
wakagashira
;
boys’ toys. They see them all the time in American movies – dat-dat-dat-dat – they all think they’re Al Capone!’

They dumped the two submachine-guns into the ditch. No more than fifteen minutes had passed since they’d landed in the helicopter.

‘Let me go in alone,’ Saito pleaded. ‘It will be quieter.’

‘No way!’ Fuchida cried. ‘I’m coming with you, old friend. You’ve already made my heart stop once today. Besides, we don’t know how many of the bastards are in there.’

‘There are only four, it will not be too difficult.’

‘Four? How do you know?’

Saito pointed at the ditch. ‘They said so.’

‘Good. It’s been a while since I did something like this; I feel young again.’

Saito slung the
katana
over his back. ‘I go in first,
Oyabun.
Follow, but not too closely. I don’t want to swing the sword and end up decapitating you with the follow-through, or removing your balls if it’s a low strike.’

They proceeded towards the warehouse and entered through an open loading dock, then shortly after located a cement stairway that proved to be perfect for a near silent approach. At the top they stopped to listen, hearing nothing at first. Saito signalled to Fuchida, three steps below him, not to move. Then through a half-open door they heard voices, someone grumbling that they couldn’t wait to get out. Another voice replied, ‘Soon. The guy coming to get her should be here in half an hour.’

‘Not a moment too soon,’ the first bloke replied. ‘It’s been too fucking long. I have to get back to my job. They said it was only going to be a few hours. For all I know I’ve been fired.’

One of the guards coughed, and began describing what he was going to have for dinner once they’d left. They were obviously perfectly relaxed in the knowledge that there were two of their comrades on guard at the gate.

Saito signalled for Fuchida to follow and, drawing his sword, erupted into the room. The two men seated at the end of a table in the centre of the room with their backs to the door were seemingly killed in a moment. In a single continuous slash the blade decapitated the first and cut into the back of the neck of the second guard so deeply that his head dropped forward, held only by the tendons in his neck as his spinal cord was severed. Neither body moved at first, then both slowly slumped forward onto the table.

Saito, like a huge bird of prey, seemed to expand to fill the room. He killed the third guard seated further down with a horizontal strike from the left. The fourth guard, on the far left of the table and nearest to Anna, was beyond the immediate reach of the
katana
. He had just enough time to grab his weapon and step towards Anna, intending to use her as a shield. The explosion of Fuchida’s shotgun filled the room, blowing away half the guard’s chest and spattering Anna with blood and bone. The entire action had taken less than fifteen seconds.

‘Thanks for leaving one of them for me,’ Fuchida laughed. Then he seemed to notice Anna for the first time. She was backed into a corner, her hands covering her mouth and her entire body shaking uncontrollably on the dirty mattress. She hadn’t uttered a sound.

Fuchida strode forward, stepping over the corpse of the fourth guard, being careful not to slip on the blood-covered linoleum. ‘Can you stand,
Anna-san
?’ he barked, realising there was no time for sympathy. ‘Now, get up! Go on, up on your feet!’ he commanded.

Anna somehow managed to get to her feet, her knees shaking uncontrollably. Saito came over and between the two men they half carried her from the room and down the stairs. Once outside the
yakuza
explained, ‘We are here to free you,
Anna-san
. The honourable
Duncan-san
is waiting to welcome you! But you must walk at once! It is only a few minutes to the helicopter. This is no time to play the tearful little lady!’

Something must have penetrated Anna’s numbed, drug-starved mind, because
Fuchida-san
forever after held her in high regard for what she did next. ‘Where I come from we say “please”!’ she snapped. ‘Of course I can walk! I don’t need anyone to carry me!
And,
by the way, I’m not a tearful little lady! Now, will you kindly return and fetch my handbag and shoes!’ she commanded.

For years to come the
yakuza
boss would tell how he meekly climbed the stairs and retrieved her bag and shoes. Anna thanked him briskly, made him hold the bag while she slipped into her shoes, then strode off, click click click across the yard, towards the front gate in her scuffed Charles Jourdan six-inch heels, her Coco Chanel suit soaked and filthy, her face splattered and her hair matted with blood. ‘She still managed to look beautiful,’ he would always conclude.

Of course, it didn’t end quite so neatly. Anna would suffer for years, reliving the kidnapping in recurrent nightmares, often waking in the middle of the night crying out. I would hold her in my arms at Beautiful Bay, where she’d lie, sobbing and shaking like a leaf, until dawn.

‘She is suffering from shock, her pulse rate is too high, she has a fever. This is not normal trauma; it is acute stress reaction.’

Dr Honda, Tokyo

I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED
with the sea and boats since I was a child. At sea you learn that you must be constantly alert to any change in circumstances, otherwise the ocean can overwhelm you. Some storms are so severe that all you can do is lower the sails, batten the hatches and hope like hell you can ride them out. Your boat is a bobbing cork and you are a tiny insect, an ant, clinging to it for dear life. When the outcome is beyond anyone’s control or influence, good sailors try to find something to occupy themselves, knowing that whether they live or die is no longer up to them. At such times it is the waiting that is the worst part.

Of course Anna’s situation was different. I had been assured by
Fuchida-san
that her rescue was a formality – pay the money and fetch the girl; there wasn’t any danger. Nevertheless, to extend the marine metaphor, you can be sailing on course in a perfect breeze on a calm sea and run into a whale. Nothing is ever guaranteed where there are possible dangers and, like the sailor sitting out the storm, waiting is the worst part. So I attempted to do what I could to prepare for Anna’s return and to take my mind off potential disasters.

First I obtained a square of foil about the size of my hand, heated to melt the thin layer of wax that covered its surface; a drinking straw; a disposable cigarette lighter; and, of course, the heroin – all the necessities for ‘chasing the dragon’
.
At least I hoped I had all of them. I had never been present when Anna had prepared or smoked heroin, and she had only once, years previously, described the equipment she needed when I’d asked her why she didn’t use a needle like most addicts were reputed to do. She’d explained that injecting the dissolved heroin directly into a vein with a hypodermic syringe was the Western way of obtaining a more intense rush. Inhalation, while less efficient, is the Asian way, absorbing the drug into the bloodstream via the lungs and nasal passages. I guess it’s a natural progression from the opium pipe and has the advantage of requiring no specialised equipment. I recall her explaining that needles often lead to infection, collapsed veins and blatant evidence of heroin usage. ‘Nicholas, when you inhale, the hit is perhaps not as immediate, but there is no chance of infection, no evidence and, more importantly, if the heroin isn’t pure you have an early-warning system. You know from the first tiny intake of smoke if it is good quality.’ Heroin, I’d learned, can be pure or mixed. To make it go further, dealers often cut the heroin with various other powders: dextrose, talcum powder, quinine, even castor sugar, but it could be almost anything and it is the ‘almost anything’ that can often do more harm to the user than the junk itself.

The
wakagashira
who had delivered the heroin had assured me it was purest quality, referring to it as ‘China White’, then looking up to see if I was impressed.

Because Anna’s rescue was a covert operation in which the
yakuza
could not be seen to be openly involved,
Fuchida-san
was reluctant to return Anna and me directly to the hotel. Furthermore, Konoe Akira, the wily bastard, wanted to cover his arse, and so it was decided that Anna would be brought to
Kinzo-san
’s office for a debriefing where she would sign an affidavit in the presence of his legal representative that there had been no attempt to molest or harm her, indemnifying him from any future legal action.

I knew one thing for sure: no matter how distressed she might be, Anna would never allow herself to appear bedraggled in front of Konoe Akira’s lawyer. In her mind this would signify defeat, and Anna would wish to convey her contempt, I felt sure. So the second thing I did was to go shopping. Anna would obviously be in need of a good scrub-down as well as a change of clothes and undies.

In this last matter I had appealed to one of the secretaries at
Kinzo-san
’s office, a delightful young lady named
Muzi-san
, who was clearly the office extrovert.
Muzi-san
appeared to be the only one of the eight young women in the firm permitted to wear Western clothes and also, it seemed to me, granted permission to laugh. All the others were required to wear kimonos in deference to
Kinzo-san
’s largely establishment clientele and do a lot of serious formal bowing with lowered eyes.

Muzi-san
, always polite but never obsequious, was a thoroughly modern young lady with a quick smile, not in the least afraid to meet my eyes. Therefore it came as something of a surprise when she immediately indicated her reluctance to visit Mitsukoshi Department Store to purchase a spring dress, a pair of sandals and, of course, all the necessary underwear.

Her chin dropped to her chest and her eyes were downcast. ‘I do not have the courage,
Duncan-san
,’ she said softly.

‘Courage? What, to go shopping for someone else? It shouldn’t be too difficult,
Muzi-san
.
Anna is perhaps one size larger than you. What size are you?’ I asked.

‘Eight,’ she replied.

‘Ah, then Anna is a size ten. I also have her shoe size.’ I spread my hands. ‘But I have one problem. I can purchase a ship, a crane, a freezer or an automobile, but I have no idea how to shop for a dress and shoes.’ I paused, affecting a thoroughly helpless expression. ‘As for underwear . . .’ I left the sentence incomplete, hoping to appeal to her better nature.

She glanced up. ‘It is not the shopping,
Duncan-san
, it is the shop. I do not have the status to enter such a place as Mitsukoshi. It is the grandest shop in all of Japan, some say even the whole world. I am too young and not worthy.’

I laughed, relieved. ‘C’mon,
Muzi-san
, it’s only a shop.’

But clearly it wasn’t. ‘No, it is not for someone like me,’ she said, shaking her head vehemently. ‘They will not allow me to enter. I am not correctly dressed.’

‘Would you like to?’ I asked.

‘Like to what?’ she asked, clearly not sure what I meant.

‘Go into that shop, into Mitsukoshi.’

She looked down at her plain black jacket and the matching skirt that ended just above her knees, the white blouse and black flat-heeled shoes. Heels, while not openly forbidden, were frowned on by height-obsessed and insecure Japanese males. ‘They are cheap, my clothes. They will know immediately that I am only a humble office worker,’ she said, clearly embarrassed at having to make the admission.

I glanced down at my own gear. ‘
Hai!
Look at me! I’m not exactly dressed for showing off either.’ I was still wearing the now somewhat rumpled clobber that had been produced for me the previous day at police headquarters and my shoes were scuffed and in need of a shine. I glanced at my watch. I had arrived at
Kinzo-san
’s chambers early, having been dropped off by
Fuchida-san
who had business in the city to attend to. At that time,
Kinzo-san
had not yet received the call to tell him where Anna was being held, so at the very least I would have two hours, the time it would take to journey to the hostage location and return. ‘Come, let’s go together.’ I laughed. ‘Then they can kick us both out.’

‘No!’
Muzi-san
cried, horrified. ‘Then you will lose face!’

‘
Hai!
’ I grinned. ‘I will have gained so much face from having a pretty girl like you accompanying me that whatever face I lose will not be sufficient to remove my smile.’ I was not sure whether such blatant flirting was permitted in Japanese society, but
Muzi-san
seemed to like it.

She smiled. ‘Do all
gaijin
have such nice ways?’ she asked shyly, giving me back some of my own medicine. She appeared to be thinking. ‘I will come,’ she decided suddenly. ‘When I tell of this to my girlfriends and my honourable parents they will not believe me.’

‘I am most relieved and grateful,’ I said sincerely. ‘I truly know nothing of women’s dresses and shoes. Once in the islands I attempted to shop for
Anna-san
 – just shorts and tops – and a kind lady helped me with underwear.’ I shrugged and laughed. ‘As it turned out I made an awful hash of it. Without you I would have found myself in heaps of trouble,’ I grinned, ‘especially when it comes to the little things worn underneath!’

It was a glorious, warm late-spring day, and as the Ginza branch of the three-hundred-year-old grand emporium was nearby, we walked, which was probably quicker than taking a taxi. As we approached the entrance to Mitsukoshi I saw the doorman hesitate momentarily. ‘Take my arm and stick your nose in the air,’ I instructed out of the corner of my mouth. ‘Swing your hips; try not to laugh.’ This caused her to bring both hands to her mouth in a highly unsuccessful attempt to smother a giggle.

I guess a slightly dishevelled six-foot three-inch Caucasian in rolled-up shirtsleeves wearing an insouciant expression forced the diminutive doorman to decide that discretion was perhaps the better part of valour. He swept off his top hat and bowed deeply as we sailed through the glass and polished brass doorway to the grandest department store in Asia.

When Anna and I had last visited the grand emporium, she had asked to be taken to the
haute couture
department, but I wasn’t sure whether spring dresses were regarded as high fashion or whether Mr Charles Jourdan made sandals, high-heeled or not. I try to understand these nuances of women’s shopping, but after nearly fifty years of sitting outside changing rooms clutching Anna’s handbag, and twenty-something years of Marg’s, feeling like a right ponce, I’m still not sure how it all works, except that there’s a great deal of getting dressed and undressed and a fair bit of parading in front of me with gear that has labels attached with at least three zeros after the first number. The only certainty in all of this is that if I express the slightest preference for an outfit, shoes, jacket, skirt, dress, jeans (‘Do they make my bum look big?’), whatever, this is a definite sign to either woman that they are headed entirely in the wrong direction. My job, sitting outside changing rooms clutching a handbag, is simply to indicate what
doesn’t
work. If I like it, then that becomes the benchmark of bad taste. God cannot dwell in this garment, even if it is made from superfine Australian merino wool. The two women in my life opposed each other in everything except their certain knowledge that Nicholas or Nick Duncan’s taste in female attire ended roughly with the lap-lap on a hula dancer. I recall once hearing Marg say to a girlfriend, ‘I never buy anything to wear without Nick being present.’ There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She was simply acknowledging the fact that being consistently wrong is just as good an indicator as being consistently right. Anna, who never accepted my advice on anything involving the making or spending of money, was more direct. ‘Nicholas, it is very reassuring to know that you are always wrong; that’s why you must always come with me, so I can buy the right thing.’ It must have worked, because although they dressed somewhat differently, I always thought they looked great. Now I needed
Muzi-san
to play Anna’s role to give me half a chance of buying something Anna might like.

We had hardly entered the temple-like atrium that formed a part of the ground floor when an elegantly dressed assistant rushed towards us. ‘Smile,’ I whispered to
Muzi-san
, but it wasn’t necessary. We found ourselves being welcomed with a bow and then a pleasant formal greeting followed by the universal enquiry, ‘May I accompany you? And how may I help?’ Put like this I wasn’t quite sure how to begin.

‘
Pret a porter
, please, Miss. We’d like to see the spring range,’
Muzi-san
instructed in a completely assured voice. Then turning to me she inquired about Anna’s age. We were duly escorted to the right department where
Muzi-san
selected a teal-blue pure silk spring dress. ‘It’s a shirtmaker, for day wear, but it can be worn formally or informally,’ she said, holding it against her body. I had assumed my usual handbag position seated on a large chair hurriedly brought by two female assistants and placed close to the changing rooms. I guess Japanese husbands don’t do a lot of shopping for women’s apparel in the company of their wives.

‘I can’t tell,’ I confessed. ‘You’ll have to put it on,
Muzi-san
.’

‘It is a ten,
Duncan-san
. I am an eight.’

‘Do you personally like it?’

‘Oh, it’s gorgeous, very sophisticated.’

‘Yes, but would you wear it . . . I mean, personally?’

She pouted. ‘For me, it is a bit too sophisticated. When I am older . . . but then, I will never possess such a beautiful dress.’

I hesitated. My universally rejected opinion was always formed about a piece of apparel that was being worn. I had no way of judging a garment on the rack or held against the body as
Muzi-san
was now doing. ‘I don’t know . . . Can you get a size eight and try it on? It’s the only way I can tell,’ I didn’t add the words, ‘if I like it and therefore Anna won’t’.