Non-Stop Till Tokyo (26 page)

“Okay,” Chanko said. “We got a few questions for you.”

“I don’t have to tell you nothing but my name—”

“—rank and serial number. Don’t be a jerk. Michael Wallace Hearn, right?”

“If you’re from Higuchi, you’re making a mistake,” said Hearn throatily. “I told him—he said I could have more time.”

Taka had seated himself on the dirty floor, opposite Hearn, cross-legged. He had a black knitted cap pulled down over his giveaway hair, and only the white ends poked out around his neck. Now he leaned forward and smiled unnervingly at the American.

“Hearn-san kill old man,” he said softly.

Hearn blenched. His whole face gave it away in a hot second, the attempt at impassivity blown, but he tried to brazen it out. “What? You want me to kill someone? I don’t kill old men.”

“Nice try, jerkoff,” Chanko said. “The love hotel had CCTV.”

“You on camera. Next time say
cheezu
!”

“Who the hell are you? What are you talking about?” he added, almost perfunctorily. “Did Higuchi send you?”

“For Hearn-san, Higuchi-san is problem,” said Taka. “But Mitsuyoshi-san…big problem.”

“I don’t—” Hearn began, and then his voice failed him as Taka took out a knife from under his coat. I felt my stomach lurch.

It looked like the sashimi knife that he’d used in the karaoke box. The blade was ten inches long and razor-sharp, and he shot Hearn an untrustworthy grin and casually started to pare his nails. Sashimi knives are to manicures what guillotines are to haircuts, and I found I had my fist stuffed in my mouth in case he sliced something off. Hearn’s eyes were bugging too, and I looked again at the cut on his face.

“Old man dead.” Taka was apparently concentrating on his fingernails. “Hearn-san girlfriend dead too, maybe?”

Hearn made a strangled noise and tried to break free, then a more literally strangled noise as Chanko tightened his grip. Taka didn’t look up.

“Stupid,” he said. “Kill yakuza, steal yakuza money—better run away. By the way, where is case?”

“What case?” Hearn choked.

“Mmm. I think Hearn-san very stupid.” Taka lifted the knife so its point trembled very close to Hearn’s eye. He had the shakes, and I saw Hearn wince as the quivering point nicked skin before Taka leant back again. “Where—is—case?”

“Tell him,” Chanko said.

“Help me,” Hearn demanded. “Let me go!”

“I’m not on your side, pal.”

“You’re supposed to be American, aren’t you? Doesn’t that mean anything to you people?”

“Don’t give me that shit.” Chanko’s voice was implacable. “I know what you did.”

Hearn’s face contorted. “Island nigger.”

“The
fuck
you just say to me?”

Taka slapped a hand on the floor, making me jump. “My friend very patient,” he said in the teeth of the evidence. “Me, not so patient. Where is case? You take from old man. I want. Now.”

Hearn’s face closed in thought. Then he said, “Where’s my girlfriend?”

“Yakuza.” Taka gave an uninterested shrug. “Maybe dead.”

“I need to get her back,” Hearn said. “You help me. And I’ll give you the briefcase, okay?”

Taka and Chanko exchanged glances. Chanko shrugged. Taka tipped his head, considering the offer. Then he hit Hearn across the face with a slap that echoed round the room.

“
Baka
,” he snarled.

“That means no deal,” said Chanko. “Christ. You want to look after your girlfriend, where’d you go on Saturday night?”

“Go love hotel,
ne
? Wait in room. Kill old man.” Taka mimed a hard blow. Hearn jerked back. “Hearn-san go with case. Kelly-san go. Kelly-san home, wait, wait, wait for Hearn-san. But Hearn-san don’t come. Yakuza come.”

Hearn’s face had crumpled. He tried to say something, his mouth working, shaking his head in denial, but no words emerged.

“You killed an old man,” said Chanko. “You set up another girl to take the fall for you. The yakuza couldn’t get her, so they took her roommate. Raped her. Beat her. Put her in a coma.”

The room rang with silence.

“Dead guy. Half-dead girl. And if your girlfriend’s not dead right now, I figure she’s wishing she was. So tell us, Mike. Where’d you go?”

Hearn was trying to keep his face rigid, but we could all see the tremor now.

“Higuchi-san,” said Taka. “Gambling,
ne
? Hearn-san lose money, Higuchi-san cut Hearn-san face, isn’t it? So Hearn-san go Higuchi-san, pay…” He cocked his head to one side. “And play?”

“Oh, you got to be kidding me,” said Chanko.

“It wasn’t my fault, okay?” Hearn shouted. “I just lost track of time! Jesus, it was one lousy game. I just wanted— I had to look natural, and the luck was running my way. Christ, it was an accident! I didn’t mean to—to—”

“To leave your girlfriend to the yakuza? To kill the old man? To fuck over a bunch of girls you’d never met and not even get anything out of it?”

“I just stopped for a hand!” Hearn almost screamed the words, as if saying it loud enough would make it all there was to say.

“You sorry son of a bitch.” Chanko’s nostrils were flaring dangerously. “What was in the case?”

“Fifty thousand dollars. That was what the old Jap promised Kelly. He tried to buy her.”

“So you went to pay off Higuchi? Why the hell’d you bother?”

“He had my passport,” Hearn said, defensive now. “I owed him, I had to pay him off to get it back. I needed it. Hell, how was I going to take Kelly home without it?”

“But you didn’t take her home,” Chanko pointed out. “He didn’t give it back?”

Hearn mumbled something, looking at the floor.

“Again.”

“I lost the money, okay?” Hearn yelled, tendons standing out on his neck. “I paid him off, and I played with what I had left, and I lost it all and a shitload more! Is that what you want? And he kept my passport, and he said I could have a month to come up with more, and I went and—the apartment—she didn’t answer her phone—hasn’t answered it this whole week, she’s not there, and the fucking slopes took her, and…and…”

His mouth was distorted with anguish. Under other circumstances, I could almost have felt sorry for him.

“You useless redneck clown,” Chanko said with slow, savage contempt. “Lemme get this straight. You left a yakuza boss bleeding to death in a love hotel. You sent your girlfriend back to her apartment instead of straight to the airport. And instead of paying up and getting out, with your girlfriend waiting where the yakuza knew to find her, you had to play cards. What, you figured you hadn’t screwed your life up enough already?” He let go his grip on Hearn’s neck and arms, shoved him forward before he could react, and swung a hand, smacking the back of the guy’s head so his face hit the dirty lino, grabbing his scalp. “You stupid—sorry—worthless—
fuck
.” He slammed Hearn’s head on the floor, hard, with each word.

“It’s not my fault! I’ve got a problem.”

Chanko jerked Hearn’s head up again, then exhaled hard through his nose and let go. “You’re telling me. Jesus. I could beat your brains out and you wouldn’t notice, would you?”

“It’s a disease,” said Hearn urgently. His nose looked dented, making his voice clogged and nasal. “Gambling’s a disease. I can’t help being addicted. It’s not my fault.”

“Not your fault? Not your
fault
? You ruined my friend’s life, you nearly got me killed, and it’s not your
fault
?” I hadn’t meant to say anything, just stand quietly, out of the way, unnoticed. But suddenly the rage was carbonating my blood, shaking my whole body, and I was in front of him with my fingers curving into claws, and yelling into his face. “Just tell me. What did I ever do to you to deserve this?
What?
”

“Shut up and get back,” Chanko snapped.

“Who the hell are you?” Hearn sounded honestly confused.

I wanted to hit him. “I’m Kerry, you moron,” I shouted over Chanko’s angry command. “The girl you and your bitch girlfriend set up, remember? You sold me to the yakuza so you could get away, and then didn’t even bother to try!”

“Hang on,” he said, brow furrowed. “You ain’t blonde.”

“I want to kill him,” said Taka in Japanese. “I really want to. Can we?”

“Just goddamn get rid of her,” Chanko told him.

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” I demanded, staring incredulously at Hearn, shaking off Taka’s hand as he tried to pull me back. “How about
I’m sorry I got an innocent girl raped and beaten
? How about
I’m sorry I set you up to be murdered by yakuza
? How about saying you’re sorry you were ever born, because I am!”

“You know what?” Hearn said. “Screw your friend. Those bastards took my Kelly. I could give a shit about you.”

“Fuck you too. I hope she’s dead. I hope they did everything they did to Noriko—”

Then Hearn was yelling and thrashing, and I was screaming back at him, landing an open-handed blow to his face before Taka dragged me away, not gently. Chanko jerked Hearn back and slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Shut up. You too, Kerry. Shut the hell up or get out. Get rid of her if she says anything,” he told Taka. “Mike, you start shouting again, I’m gonna stop you for good. Okay?” He released his grip. Hearn sucked in a strident breath.

“Kelly—” he began.

“Nobody cares if she lives or dies.” Chanko’s tone made it a self-evident truth. “Now, you want us to give you to the yakuza, tell them it was you did the old man? You want to think what they’ll do to you then?”

The grey of Hearn’s skin told us all he’d already thought about it.

“I’m gonna ask you a question just once,” Chanko went on. “You don’t give me the answer, I’m handing you over to the yakuza. Understand? Because I don’t like you, and I’d goddamn love to see you get what’s coming, so don’t push your luck, because you got none at all. Where’s the case?”

Hearn opened his mouth and then just gave up, sagging in Chanko’s grip, deflated and suddenly older. “Higuchi has it.”

“Bullshit.” Chanko started dragging him to his feet.

“He does. It ain’t here, look all you like. Higuchi’s guys took it. They took fucking everything, okay? My wallet—they left me one card and a thousand-yen note. The case, my signet ring, my
watch
, goddammit. They cleaned me out.”

Chanko glanced at Taka, who nodded slightly. I agreed. Hearn’s whole frame had slumped, and there was nothing about him that suggested the intelligence to lie. And I’d already noticed the white ring-line on his tanned finger. Professional habit.

Taka exhaled heavily. “Jerk,” he said in Japanese. “Okay, I’m asking the million-dollar question.” He switched back to English. “So. What in case?”

“Money. I said already.”

“Yeah, money, and…?”

Hearn looked blank. “Office shit. I don’t know.”

“I really hate him,” Taka said in Japanese. “Fine. We’ll just have to get the bloody thing and look ourselves. Ask him how much he owes, big guy, I don’t know the English. We may have to pay it off.”

“You’d better not be looking at me,” I said. “I’m not paying his gambling debts.”

Chanko turned back to Hearn. “How much are you in for with Higuchi-san?”

Hearn’s bruised head drooped. “Round ’bout forty K.”

Forty thousand yen. Around four hundred dollars. That was what he’d stayed for? That pathetic sum, for Noriko’s life, and Kelly’s, and mine?

“Forty thousand yen?” I said incredulously. “That’s all?”

There was a nasty silence.

“Forty thousand
dollars
?”

“In one night?” Chanko shook his head. “Lucky they left you your kidneys.”

Hearn wasn’t making eye contact with anyone. “I got a disease,” he mumbled defiantly.

“What, stupidity?”

“It’s probably contagious,” Taka snarled. “Let’s get out of here before it spreads.”

Chanko nodded. “Okay, we’re gone, Mike. You can get your ass out of town, or stick around and let the yakuza get you for all I care, but if you cross our paths again, I swear I’m throwing you out the nearest window. Oh, one thing.”

His arm moved in an abrupt jab. Hearn jerked forward with a scream.

“Shoulda said sorry.”

Chapter Eleven

“What a goddamn assclown.”

“Number one loser. One hundred per cent.”

We were walking to the nearest station, having left Hearn unconscious behind us. I wouldn’t have stopped anyone who’d wanted to damage him further.

The others were talking. I was trailing behind.

I couldn’t get Kelly’s smiling face in the photo out of my mind. Hearn must have been draining her for years, long enough to turn her pretty smile avaricious, her happy eyes hard. Guilt throbbed in my stomach. I wished I hadn’t said those words earlier, but they were clinging to me like cigarette smoke in my hair.

“With any luck the yaks’ll kill him if he turns up,” Taka was saying, thinking aloud. “But they might let him talk first. They might make him. Then again, he doesn’t speak Japanese, and would he know how to find the family? Still, if he does, or they find him— Shit. We should go back. We can’t just leave him running around.”