Giri (3 page)

“Come, come,” urged the voice, “time’s a-wasting. Give me numbers, dates, something to tell Paulie.”

The look on Robbie’s face would have chilled the blood of a lesser man than Sparrowhawk, who had seen it before: in Saigon just before Robbie tortured and killed, and at karate tournaments before he annihilated his opponent.

The Englishman, his hand still covering the receiver mouthpiece, violently shook his head. “Unpurse your lips and listen to me. You’ve twice had a go at Decker. Leave it at that. This isn’t Vietnam, do you understand?” Chastened, Robbie hung his head.

Like Robbie, Manny Decker was an accomplished
karateka.
Twice they had met in tournament competition, with Robbie winning both times. In their last fight, which had gone into overtime, Robbie had savagely broken the knee of the New York City detective. Only skilled surgery and months of special exercise had saved Decker from being permanently crippled.

After that, Decker had never fought in another tournament, leading many, Sparrowhawk included, to assume he was afraid of Robbie. Decker continued to train and instruct and was in top shape, but he avoided all tournament competition. Unfortunately, he was still a good cop, too good. Sparrowhawk and Robbie had run up against the man in Saigon and knew how efficient he could be. Decker was assigned to a federal task force investigating Management Systems Consultants; to date, the investigation hadn’t gotten very far. But any murder that could be blamed on MSC would naturally be welcomed by the task force. And by Decker. Especially by Decker.

Damn Paul junior for even considering the idea of Robbie or anyone else at MSC for a contract killing. But what could one expect from wogs, spaghetti eaters. They suffered from a revolting desire to control and manipulate everyone in their employ. The instant Robbie or Sparrowhawk or anyone at MSC killed on Molise’s orders, the Italian would forever have them by the balls. Sparrowhawk wanted outsiders for this sort of work and if Paul junior didn’t like it, tough.

At the moment it was back to the bank for a quick conference with Pangalos on how to go about contacting Paul junior, if it was wise to do so at all. It might be better to return to New York and deliver the news in person. In either case, Sparrowhawk planned to meet again with the bank manager and other Caymanian cabinet members to discuss installing a new security system at the Georgetown airport, a deal worth one million dollars to Management Systems Consultants. That was another reason why Sparrowhawk had personally accompanied the money to the islands.

“Paulie,” began the voice in New York, but Sparrowhawk had tuned him out. He distrusted the voice at the other end and, without uttering a word, he hung up.

D
ETECTIVE SERGEANT MANNY DECKER
stepped out of a snowy New York night and into Japan.

He was in the Fûrin, a private Japanese club on East Fifty-sixth Street in Manhattan, named for the delicate hanging bell that tinkled in the wind.
Gaijin,
outsiders, were not welcome here. The Fûrin was a place where lonely Japanese men could hear their language spoken, flirt with professional Japanese and American hostesses, drink Awamori, the sweet potato brandy from Okinawa, and close deals by imprinting documents or correspondence with
hankos,
their personal seal.

To get inside, Decker had flashed a
meishi,
the business card of a Japanese he was. to meet upstairs in a private room. Not presenting a
meishi
was considered by the Japanese to be the height of bad manners.

Decker handed his hat and topcoat to a hostess in a kimono and wooden clogs. He kept the attaché case and followed a dark-suited maître d’ through a restaurant designed around a rock garden, with a miniature waterfall and dwarf trees. Food smells—sliced raw fish over vinegared rice balls, delicate sparrows charcoaled over steel plates, cold buckwheat noodles—triggered memories. Of Saigon. Of Michi. If the pleasure of their love had lasted only a moment, its pain had lasted much longer. Michi Chihara was dead.

The detective was stared at, first by men in one corner, who played go in shirt sleeves and cooled themselves with hand-painted fans. And by men at the bar, who sat reading newspapers flown in daily from Tokyo or watched video cassettes of sumo matches from Tokyo’s Kokugikan Arena. Decker, not upset at being eyeballed, considered staying to watch one sumo match. They never lasted over sixty seconds; a 350-pound sumo wrestler wasn’t built for endurance, but, oddly enough, the huge men had agility, balance, speed. They were Japan’s most popular athletes.

Decker, however, decided to keep walking. Good manners said be on time, especially since he’d been the one to ask for the meeting with Ushiro Kanai.

Manny Decker was five foot ten, broken-nose handsome, with dark brown curly hair and matching mustache. He was thirty, slim and hard muscled and his eyes were sea green. He had been a cop since his marine discharge six years ago, winning his detective’s gold shield in less than two years. The broken nose was a reminder of an early karate tournament when an opponent, wearing a class ring, had failed to pull a punch to the face.

Decker was also a field associate, a shoo-fly, part of the Internal Affairs Division of the Police Department. Field associates were recruited out of the Police Academy and their identities kept secret. Their job was to spot police misconduct and report it. For this they won the hatred of just about every cop on the force. It was life on the edge. Decker enjoyed it.

Which is not to say he wasn’t careful. Associates had a single contact at headquarters, a lieutenant or captain. Associates and contacts used code names and met in out-of-the-way places. Decker improved on that. He and his contact never met face to face; they stayed in touch by phone, and Decker initiated all calls.

On the second floor of the Fûrin, the man leading Decker stopped in front of an
o-zashiki,
a private dining room with tatami, rush-covered mats changed frequently to retain the sweet smell of straw. The entrance to the room was covered by a shoji screen, a sliding door of translucent cream-colored paper. From inside a voice answered
hai,
yes, and then the detective was alone.

“Please come in, Sergeant Decker.”

Decker removed his shoes, placed them on the floor beside Kanai’s, then slid the door open.

Ushiro Kanai, dressed in the dark suit favored by all Japanese businessmen, sat on his heels in front of a small, lacquered square table holding a cup of warm rice wine. As head of the New York office of Murakami Electronics, a Tokyo-based multinational corporation with branches m thirty-one countries, the boyish-looking Kanai, still in his forties, was being groomed as company president. He was intelligent and enigmatic, the product of a highly competitive society.

He motioned for Decker to sit on the other side of the table. The bad knee prevented him from sitting on his heels, so Decker sat as he did in the dojo, on his buttocks, feet in front but close to his body. Kanai gave Decker a smile that was hard and cold. The smile didn’t mean shit. Kanai thought damn little of New York to begin with, and less since the stabbing of his son-in-law three days ago.

Decker handed the attaché case to the Japanese and watched the smile disappear. For once Kanai, whose life had been one of stern self-control, was caught off guard. His mouth dropped open. But he recovered quickly. He recognized the case; he’d given it to his son-in-law as a gift. Kanai thumbed it open, lifted the lid and carefully examined every sheaf of paper inside. This time, when he looked at Decker, there was no smile.

Gratitude.

Kanai closed the case, placed both hands palms down on the top and shut his eyes. From me to you, thought Decker. I’ve just handed you back your future and I expect to be paid.

“Dōmo arigato gozai mashite, Decker-san,”
Kanai said, with a bow. Thank you very much.

“Dō itashi-mashite, Kanai-san.”
You’re welcome.

“Dōmo osewasama desu.”
I am much obliged to you.

Decker sensed Kanai’s meaning. But since his Japanese was at best rudimentary, fragments picked up from fifteen years of karate and the bittersweet affair with Michi, he decided to make sure. He waited until Kanai opened his eyes and then stared at him.

“Giri.”
Kanai breathed the word. Though Decker had just returned a stolen report that could have damaged Murakami Electronics and pulled Kanai down from his high position, the Japanese executive disliked being obligated to a
gaijin,
a foreigner. But he was, and pride demanded that he meet that obligation. Pleased with himself, Decker did the polite thing. He followed Japanese custom and poured rice wine into Kanai’s cup. With Kanai’s admission of
giri,
all that remained for him was to tell the Japanese how he wished to be paid. He wished to be paid here and now. Tonight.

Three days ago, in a cheap hotel on the West Side, a Japanese male had been found badly knifed. He had been robbed of cash, personal jewelry and an attaché case containing valuable company papers. The man was Ushiro Kanai’s son-in-law, an accountant for Murakami Electronics, and he had been carrying papers detailing a proposed takeover of a California electronics firm, one with American defense contracts. The proposal was one that Kanai wanted kept secret until he had dealt with the sticky problem of Pentagon objections to foreign nationals buying defense-connected businesses.

Single Japanese men in New York had problems finding women. Not only were there few single Japanese women, but the language barrier prevented the men from socializing with American women. Some of them turned to prostitutes, a dangerous alternative. The Japanese were sometimes robbed, beaten, murdered.

Kanai’s only daughter had hated America. She found it violent and dirty. Nor did she enjoy being left alone by a husband who worked long hours to please a father-in-law he feared. When her illnesses, real and imaginary, pushed her to the brink of a nervous breakdown, Kanai ordered her back to Japan. Within weeks of her leaving, her husband’s loneliness became unbearable.

“As I told you over the phone,” Decker said to Kanai, “we made the arrests this afternoon. Three people: the prostitute who solicited Mr. Tada, along with her pimp and his friend, who had been waiting in the hotel room. The watch, the one you told me and my partner about the other day, was seen around town. Gold band, rubies for hands. The pimp had been flashing it in discos and after-hours clubs. Has the name Yoko on the back.”

“My daughter’s name. And the watch, where is it now?”

“It’s with the property clerk. You’ll find a receipt for it inside the attaché case. We’ll need the watch for evidence against Mr. Tada’s attackers. It’ll be returned as soon as possible. How is your son-in-law?”

“Still quite serious. He remains on the critical list. My daughter flew in from Osaka last night. She is quite upset.” Kanai tapped the attaché case. “Please, why is this not being kept, as you say, for evidence?”

It was Decker’s turn to be caught off guard. He stopped, a cup of sake in front of his mouth, and he wondered what the hell had made him think he could run a game on this man. Kanai was clever. If he hadn’t yet figured out that the detective was trying to use him, he was about to. He supposed he could always tell him the truth, for the truth was mighty and would prevail. Decker wished he believed that.

The detective put down his sake, sucked in air and gazed at his stockinged feet. “The case is here, Kanai-san, because it is important to you and because I wish to trade it for something that is important to me. Something you have.” He looked up. “Information.”

Kanai used the fingertips of both hands to make slow circles on top of the case. “You have read what is in here.”

“Yes. It means nothing to me, nothing to the police. That’s entirely your business, you and the American government. What I wish to ask you has nothing to do with Murakami Electronics.”

“And what you wish to ask has value to you, so much value that you have been allowed to choose what you will hold for evidence and what you will return to its rightful owner.”

Beautiful. Right for the jugular. Decker nodded, half in admiration, half in embarrassment at having been found out so quickly.

And Kanai waited. One learned not to rush. Patience, said the Chinese, and the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.

Decker massaged his bad knee and wondered how much of the truth to tell Kanai.

Since October, the detective had divided his time between precinct duty and an assignment with a federal task force investigating Management Systems Consultants, the private intelligence and security company. Decker was assigned to the case because two men he had known in Saigon, while serving there as a marine embassy guard, were now task force targets: Trevor Sparrowhawk, the Englishman who had founded MSC and was its head; and Dorian Raymond, a New York detective suspected of passing police files to Sparrowhawk. Raymond was also a suspect in three contract murders ordered by the Molise crime family.

Funded by Washington, the task force consisted of two dozen men, FBI, DEA, IRS, New York City detectives and investigators for federal prosecutors, all under Charles LeClair, himself a federal prosecutor. LeClair, son of a black air force general and a German actress, was an ambitious man who lived for his conviction rate, one of the highest in the federal court system. Outwardly genial, he was a master of the political aspects of his job and a spellbinding performer in and out of the courtroom. Decker had distrusted him on sight.

Decker had one other qualification that interested LeClair: he was sleeping with Dorian Raymond’s estranged wife.

At their first meeting LeClair had said to Decker, “I’ll touch on this lightly. I am aware of your relationship with Mrs. Raymond. And, as I’m sure you know, she does see her estranged husband from time to time. So this brings us to pillow talk.”

LeClair managed to look embarrassed, as though reluctant to do this to Decker. He was almost convincing.

“Bear in mind that we have a purpose in being on this task force, and so long as we maintain that view, we maintain our usefulness in law enforcement. You have your career, I have mine. We can help each other or we cannot help each other.”