Tengu (25 page)

“You’re going
to kill him, doctor; and if you kill him, then more than a few hundred of
thousands of dollars are going to be lost with him. Money for which / am
supposed to be responsible.”

Doctor Gempaku
took Gerard’s arm and guided him back toward the antechamber. “You have nothing
to fear, Mr. Crowley. The responsibility for getting the Tengu into the country
may have been yours; the responsibility for the building of this center may
have been yours; and the day-to-day administration of this plan may be yours.
But, don’t you see? Everything we are doing here is planned, with great
precision; every step I take, whether it is scientific or whether it is
spiritual, is taken according to a very careful premeditated scheme.”

He unlocked the
door, and they emerged into the corridor again. “Do you want to see the Tengu
we are preparing for Admiral Thorson?”

Gerard asked,
“Is he...
 
hungup like the other one?”

“He is
undergoing a similar ordeal.”

“In that case, no.”

Doctor Gempaku
said, “They told me you weren’t squeamish. They told me you were a man of the
world.” Gerard said, “It depends which world you’re talking about.”

They left the
barn and walked back across the yard to the house. Gerard lit up his cigar and
took two or three deep puffs. Doctor Gempaku glanced at him from time to time
and smiled.

“I don’t know
what you think is so damned amusing,” Gerard snapped as they took off their
shoes on the veranda.

“You are like
all Occidentals. You are so concerned by the sight of other people undergoing
mutilation or pain. It disturbs you, but it also fascinates you. To us, pain is
as much a part of existence as happiness. The moment of ex-186 quisite,
controlled agony can bring on as much heaven as the moment of sexual climax.”

Gerard said,
“You think I don’t know about De
Sade, that
stuff?
I’ve spanked a girl or two, had my back scratched. But what you’ve got back
there, doctor–that’s something else.”

“Something else?”

The guards
watched them through the thin slits in their silk masks as they went upstairs
to Doctor Gempaku’s study. Gerard glanced back at them quickly, but by then
they had turned to the window again, in their silent watch for unwelcome
intruders.

Doctor
Gempaku’s study was simple and silent, tatami mats on the floor, a low table
spread with papers, two scrolls hung on the wall, a framed photograph of
tancho-zuru, the Japanese red-crested crane. No family pictures, no mementoes
of the Tokyo Olympics, nothing to show that Doctor Gempaku had friends or
family or even a past.

Gerard picked
up the picture of the cranes. “You’re a bird watcher?” he asked.

Doctor Gempaku
sat down on a cushion. “I keep that picture there to remind me of the proverb:
The crane lives for a thousand years.’ “

“What does that
mean?”

“Many things.
It could be a reminder that there are forces
in the universe which live forever, and yet which can be conjured up in
ordinary mortals.”

“You’re talking
about the Tengu?”

Doctor Gempaku
said, “It does not pay to be too inquisitive about what we are doing here, Mr.

Crowley,
or how we do it.”

“Doctor
Gempaku,” said Gerard, taking his cigar out of his mouth. “I was shocked back
there, I’ll admit. Who wouldn’t have been? But believe me, I’m not inquisitive.
I’m just here to do what I’ve been paid to do. You just go ahead and do
whatever you want, don’t mind me.” Now Gerard was laying on his down-South
good-ole-boy accent really thickly. “You can hang fellas up, doctor. You can
prick ‘em and pat ‘em and mark ‘em with T. You do whatever you want. You just
go right ahead.

Why,” he said,
and now his smile was cold, and he looked at Doctor Gempaku with an expression
which anybody from Batista’s Havana would immediately have recognized as his
Tve-got-you-sized-up’ look, “why, you can even raise the devil if the mind
takes you. You won’t catch me sticking my nose in.”

Doctor Gempaku
slowly closed the small book which was lying on the table in front of him. He
took off his spectacles. Gerard watched him and puffed at his cigar, watched
and puffed, while the sun suddenly filled the room with dazzling morning light.

J
erry Sennett was falling asleep in front of the television when
the telephone rang. He had been dreaming about Japan, and as he crossed the
room to the telephone he was still crossing the Rikugien gardens in Tokyo,
under a sky that threatened rain.

“Mr. Sennett?
Sergeant Skrolnik, Homicide.” The harsh voice brought Jerry back to Orchid
Place, and Dan Rather, and a sort of reality.

“Hallo,
sergeant.”

“Are you okay?”
asked Skrolnik. “You sound like you’ve got yourself a cold.”

“I was
sleeping. Well, nearly.”

‘‘I’m sorry.
But we’ve got ourselves a suspect in custody, and I’d appreciate your coming
down to headquarters to take a look at him. You know–see if you recognize him
or not.” Tengu “Sergeant, I was out when Ms. Cantor was murdered. I didn’t see
anybody.”

“Sure, I know
that,” said Skrolnik. “But there’s a chance that seeing this guy could jog your
memory. You know, maybe you glimpsed him in the locality one day, something
like that.”

“Can I bring
Mr. Holt along with me?”

“Mr. Holt?”
asked Skrolnik sharply. “You mean Mack Holt, the victim’s last known romantic
association?”

Jerry was
drinking from a stale glass of whiskey with a sticky rim. He coughed, and
almost choked.
“If you want to put it so poetically, yes.
That’s him.”

“You’re an
acquaintance of his?”

“Only since the murder.”

“Well...
 
okay then, bring him down. Why not? We can
kill two birds with one stone.”

Jerry went to
the kitchen, stuffed a couple of cheese crackers into his mouth, and then,
puffing crumbs, switched off all the lights and locked the back door. He pulled
on an old plaid jacket, switched off the television, and then went out to his
car. He was fumbling for his keys when he became aware of something on the
windshield, something white, flapping in the evening breeze.

He approached
the car slowly,
then
picked the sheet of paper out
from the windshield wiper. It was thin paper, the kind that Japanese
calligraphers used for scrollwork. On it were written, with a brush, the
English words “The hawks will return to their roost.’’

Jerry held the
paper up to the streetlight. There was the Japanese character gwa watermarked
into it, but that was the only identifying mark. He stood silent and alone on
the driveway for almost five minutes, holding the paper in his hand, thinking,
searching his memory and imagination for what this could mean, and where it
could have come from.

It convinced
him of one thing: Sherry Cantor’s death had really been a mistake, after all.

Whoever had
smashed his way into her house that morning had been looking for
him.

There was
nothing about that thought that consoled him. It meant simply that Sherry had
died for no reason at all, and that whoever had killed her was still on the
loose. Whoever Sergeant Skrolnik was holding down at headquarters, it was
unquestionably the wrong man.

The message
itself was more subtle. “The hawks will return to their roost.” It reminded him
of something he had read years and years ago, when he was in Japan. It had an
important meaning–he was sure of that. And somebody had taken a considerable
risk to tuck it under his windshield wiper. It was a warning of some
kind, that
was obvious. But against what, and by whom, he
was completely at a loss to imagine.

He drove slowly
and thoughtfully to Mack Holt’s house on Franklin Avenue. Mack was standing in
the doorway outside, talking to a shaven-skulled Krishna disciple in saffron
robes. When he saw Jerry drawing into the curb, he raised his cigarette hand in
salute, and Jerry could see him saying something to the young man in the robes,
something which made the young man nod as if he were impressed.

“How are you
doing?” asked Jerry as he slammed the car door behind him and walked up the
cracked concrete path. It was a warm, dusky evening, and moths were weaving
around the naked bulb over the porch.

Mack said,
“Okay, how are you?”

“You busy?”
asked Jerry.

“Kind of.
Depends.
Olive’s
upstairs,
and we’re expecting some people over later.
They’ve got a pirate videotape of the new Star Wars picture, and two gallons of
Christian Brothers Pinot Chardonnay.”

Jerry glanced
up toward the lighted window of Mack’s apartment. “I wouldn’t keep you long,”
he said. “It’s just that the police have found a suspect, and they’d like us to
go to headquarters and take a look at him.”

“They’ve found
somebody?” asked Mack, as if he had expected that the criminal would
disappear
int the Xth Dimension, like Dr. Strange.

“They’re not
sure if it’s the right guy,” said Jerry. “But Tengu I guess we owe it to Sherry
to take a look. Sergeant What’s-his-name, Skrolnik, said we might recognize him
just from some casual encounter in the street.”

“Do you think I
could bring Olive?” asked Mack.

Jerry gave him
a lopsided shrug.

Mack
disappeared upstairs for a minute or two, while Jerry remained on the stoop,
smiling vaguely from time to time at the shaven-haired Krishna convert and
whistling “The Way We Were.” Across the street, a fat strawberry-blonde woman
was trying unsuccessfully to persuade her pet poodle to do what he had been
dragged out of the house to do.

At last Mack
reappeared, closely followed by Olive. They both looked slightly high. Olive
was wearing a shocking-pink satin jogging vest that did little to conceal her
improbably large breasts, and the tightest of white satin shorts. Mack said to
Jerry, “This is Mrs. Robin T. Nesmith, Jr. Her husband’s in Honolulu, with the
Navy.’’

“Delighted,”
said Jerry, and shook Olive’s hand. “I was a Navy man once, myself.”

“Don’t knock
them,” grinned Olive.

“I hope I’m not
spoiling your evening,” said Jerry.

“Not at all,”
Olive told him, climbing into the Dodge beside him and wriggling her hips
enthusiastically to make room for Mack. “I’ve had enough of videotapes and
cheap wine to last me till Doomsday. It’s a change to do something
unpredictable.”

It was dark by
the time they reached the police headquarters. A jaded sergeant sat at the desk
in the lobby and regarded them with eyes that had long ago faded into
disinterest at the sight of oddballs, hookers, pimps, and general fruitcakes,
the flotsam of Hollywood Boulevard and all parts east. He told them to wait,
and they sat side by side on a patched vinyl bench, tapping their feet and
staring at a poster which reminded them that 10,728 people died in the United
States last year as the victims of handguns. Officers came and went, tired and
sweaty from hours of duty, one or two of them whistling and fooling around,
most of them silent. Mack said to Olive, “This is unpredictable?”

At last, his
shoes squeaking on the plastic-tiled floor, Sergeant Skrolnik appeared, with
Detective Pullet and Arthur following close behind him. “I’m sorry I kept you
good people waiting,” said Skrolnik, directing his attention with some humility
to Olive’s breasts. “Sherry Cantor’s case is just one of three similar
homicides. I have on my books right now, and I’m afraid that my time is kind of
limited.”

“You said
you’ve caught somebody,” said Jerry. “I didn’t hear any announcement on the
news.”

Skrolnik thrust
his hands into his sagging pockets. “That’s because I haven’t yet announced it
to the media. I’ve detained somebody, yes, and I’ve charged him with the
first-degree homicide of Ms. Sherry Cantor, and the reason I’ve done that is
because I’m not at all sure who else apart from this guy could have physically
torn a twenty-one-year-old girl to pieces. But I have to tell you that there
are doubts in my mind, serious doubts, and that’s why I’m looking for all the
corroborative evidence I can find. The guy plainly has the capability to
inflict serious injuries on people with his bare hands. He had some personal
involvement with the victim. But two or three important details still don’t
seen
to add up.”

“Does that
really bother you, as long as you’ve made a bust?” asked Mack.

Skrolnik gave
him a look of tired disgust. “I want more than an arrest, Mr. Holt. I want to
catch the guy who ripped a pretty and innocent young woman into so much raw
meat.”

Without saying
anything else, he squeaked off again along the corridor, and Pullet and Arthur
followed. Arthur was busy blowing his nose, but Pullet indicated with a cursory
nod of his head that Jerry and Mack and Olive should come along, too.

They were
ushered into a small interview room that smelled of stale cigars and Brut 33.
On the far wall was a Tengu two-way mirror; behind it, disconsolate and edgy,
sat Maurice Needs, a/k/a El Krusho, on a cell chair that seemed to be three
sizes too small for him. Every now and then he punched his fist into the open
palm of his hand, impatiently blew out his cheeks, and looked toward the cell
door.

“I don’t
believe it,” said Mack. “That’s Mauricel”

“That’s right,”
nodded Skrolnik.
“Maurice Charles Needs, from Fridley,
Minnesota; also known as El Krusho.’’

“ElKrushol”
asked Jerry in disbelief.

“My reaction
entirely,” said Skrolnik. “But in spite of that somewhat fanciful name, he was
a close acquaintance and possible lover of Ms. Sherry Cantor. According to two
different witnesses, he was involved in a menage a trots with Sherry Cantor and
with you, Mr. Holt.
Three in a bed, so I’m told.”