The Nicholas Linnear Novels (32 page)

“I’m only a mirror,” Gelda murmured.

“No, that’s not true, not with me you’re not. I know you love it as much as I do. You can fool all the men but with women it’s different. I can tell. You want me as much as I want you.”

Gelda’s nails delicately parted Dare’s nether lips, probing slowly inward, carefully keeping away from the clit. “You’re the only woman I’ve wanted this way,” she said.

Dare’s hips were pumping, setting off the waves which lapped at the sides of the tub. They were their own universe. The moon’s transit, setting off a series of tidal waves.

Gelda worked her other hand around underneath Dare’s buttocks, stroking the cleft.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Dare twisted her upper torso, began to suck on Gelda’s nipples. “Ahhh!” The breasts popped out, coated with saliva. “When I’m filming, I lie in bed at night and think of you. I masturbate while I think of your big breasts, your long legs, your wide cunt. Oh, my God!” She clutched at Gelda’s shoulder as she felt the first friction against her clit. “Oh, now, now, now!”

Gelda reached her hand over the side of the tub, brought the Remington into full view. Dare’s eyes were round and luminous, clouded with lust. “Let me,” she whispered throatily and Gelda let her lick the opening of the barrel. “Oh, more!” But Gelda had pulled it away and, holding Dare down as she began to struggle slowly, so slowly, she inserted the end between the lips of her vagina. “Ahhh!” Dare arched her hips upward and the barrel slid into her, all the way, until the hard protrusion of the hammer mashed against her clit. Gelda needed only to waggle the Remington back and forth twice before she felt the oncoming spasms of delight in Dare. She waited, holding on, licking at her hard nipples as she soared up the orgasmic curve. Dare’s body was superbly responsive and she could accurately gauge when she would hit the peak.

Dare convulsed upward, breaking at last Gelda’s hold on her, and as she did so Gelda pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Six times. And with each shot, Dare cried out as the air-propelled jets of hot water inundated her.

The bathroom was awash in water. Dare shuddered as if with the ague. She wrapped her arms around Gelda, her lips between her breasts, whispered, “Leave it in, leave it in.” Her eyelids fluttered. “Oh, my God.” Her breasts heaved as if she had just run a marathon.

“Do it again,” she said. “Do it again.”

Vincent met Lieutenant Croaker promptly at six-fifteen under Michita’s wooden awning. Because of its location, the restaurant was already crowded with people eating a hasty pre-theater dinner.

The place was L-shaped, dark with wooden walls separating the tables. There was a sushi bar to their left as they walked in which curved around to the shorter leg of the L. It was perhaps three-quarters full. Vincent saw a lone American.

They were led into the rear of the restaurant. Here there were no Western tables but rather a series of private tatami rooms. These traditional areas were covered by the reed mats and contained no chairs, only one low table around which diners sat cross-legged. The tatami rooms were screened by a series of
shōji.

Vincent ordered sake for both of them as they slid off their shoes and climbed into the room. A waiter left buff-colored menus on the gleaming wooden table, went to get their drinks.

Croaker put a manila folder on the table, took out two eight-by-ten sheets and placed them side by side in front of Vincent. “Ever see this man before?”

They were police artist sketches of a man in his thirties, oriental, wide nose, flat cheeks, anonymous eyes. His hair was long.

Vincent studied the drawings carefully before he shook his head. “No, but to tell you the truth, I’d be surprised if I had.”

“Why?”

“This is the man who came to Terry’s
dōjō
the day he and Eileen were murdered, right?”

“How’d you know that?”

The sake came and they were silent while the waiter filled the tiny cups. When he had gone, Croaker looked inquiringly at Vincent.

“I had dinner with Terry that night,” Vincent said slowly. “I did most of the talking.” His voice had turned rueful. “Now I’m sorry I did because Terry obviously had something on his mind. He spoke briefly about a Japanese who had come in to practice that day. Karate, aikido and—kendo.” He sipped at his sake and one hand waved. “I’m only putting this together now as I talk to you. You see, Bennoku, the
dōjō’s
regular kenjutsu
sensei
, has been on vacation for about ten days. If that man came to Terry for kenjutsu there was only one way he could possibly be accommodated. By Terry himself.”

Croaker shrugged. “What’s so odd about that? Linnear told me that Tanaka was an expert at kenjutsu, a—
sensei
, did you call it?”

Vincent nodded. “Yeah, but what Nick obviously
didn’t
tell you is that Terry had put his
katana
away. He had what I can only describe as a spiritual change of heart. He no longer found pleasure in kenjutsu; he no longer practiced it.”

“When did this happen?”

“I’m not really certain. Perhaps as long as six months ago.

“Then why didn’t Linnear tell me?”

Vincent poured more sake for them both. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure Nick knows. He’s—well, he’s also had a kind of spiritual change of heart, only he’s still going through his and I don’t know what it entails. We’re still very close, he and I, and he was close with Terry, too, but he’d withdrawn somewhat. I’m sure Terry had the opportunity to tell him but I rather think he chose not to.” He shrugged. “Anyway, if this is the man”—he tapped the drawing—“he’d be disguised. I might know him or Nicholas might but we’d never be able to tell you from one of those.”

Croaker nodded. “Okay.” He began to put them away.

Vincent put a hand out. “Why don’t you wait until Nick comes? It couldn’t hurt for him to see it.”

“Linnear called me late this afternoon. He went back to West Bay Bridge. His girl had an accident.” He finished putting the drawings away. “Nobody saw this bastard going in or out. Not at the
dōjō
or Terry’s apartment.”

“I’m not surprised. This man’s a professional. A highly dangerous professional. I’m afraid you don’t know what you’re up against here.”

“That’s just what Linnear told me,” Croaker growled. “I don’t like hearing it.”

“It’s the truth, Lieutenant. You’d better face facts. This guy can put away just about anyone he chooses.”

“Even Raphael Tomkin?”

Vincent nodded. “Even him.”

“It’s been tried a dozen times,” Croaker pointed out. “By professionals.”

Vincent sighed. “This professional is different. We are not talking about a hit man from Detroit or wherever they manufacture them.”

“Jersey City,” Croaker said with a thin smile.

“Yeah, well, this is a ninja, Lieutenant. Next to a professional hit man he’s Houdini, Superman and Spider-Man all wrapped up into one.” Vincent tapped the table with the tip of his forefinger. “The man’s a sorcerer.”

Croaker stared into the other’s eyes, trying to find some hint of irony. He found none. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“At the risk of sounding melodramatic, deadly serious.”

The waiter returned and they ordered dinner along with more sake. “Take your time,” Vincent told the waiter, who nodded and went out.

“Linnear took me to a kenjutsu
dōjō
today,” Croaker said.

“Which one?”

“I don’t know the name of it. I met the
sensei.
Man named Fukashigi.”

There was an odd look in Vincent’s eyes. “You’re quite a privileged person. Very few Westerners are allowed entrance. And for Nicholas to take you…” He whistled silently.

“Yeah,” Croaker joked. “And that was after I’d insulted him. He certainly doesn’t hold any grudges.”

Now Vincent’s eyes were sad and he said, “It was not for him to be angry but for you to know that you have now lost face.”

“Lost face? What do you mean?”

“Simply this. Relationships are based on respect—mutual respect. With that comes trust. And obligation. I will not ask you what you did—no, don’t tell me, I have no wish to know—but I will say that if you have offended him then his respect for you has lessened.”

“What the hell do I care what he thinks of me?”

“Ah, well, perhaps you don’t.” Vincent smiled. “If that’s the case, no more may be said of the matter.” He deliberately took a sip of his sake, refilled the cup.

Croaker cleared his throat and, after a time, said, “Finish your last thought.”

“I was merely going to say that it is not up to Nick to forgive you—that he has already done, otherwise he would not have taken you to see Fukashigi. It is up to you to seek to restore the former balance.”

“How would I do that?” Croaker said suspiciously.

“Ah, if I knew the answer to that one, I’d be quite the wise man.” Vincent shook his head. “And tonight, Lieutenant, I’m not feeling wise at all.”

There was a man at the sushi bar with invisible putty on his face. It built up his flat cheekbones, flattened his wide nose, deepened the sockets of his eyes. Even his mother would not recognize him and she had been a most intelligent woman.

He was halfway through a plate of sashimi when Vincent and Lieutenant Croaker entered the restaurant and were shown to a tatami room. He did not turn his head but caught them in the periphery of his vision.

Several moments later, he pushed his plate delicately away from him and walked the length of the room to the rest room. The place was dark and crowded, buzzing with conversation. He had to pass the tatami rooms to get there. The rest room was empty. He washed his hands, peering at himself in the mirror. The door opened and two men walked in. The man went out, past the thin
shōji
walls. He paid for his meal and left.

Outside in the heat of the summer night, he hailed a cruising taxi. He had to make four switches before he found one suitable for his purposes.

At precisely 8:18
P.M.
officer Pete Travine pulled the patrol car over so that the right side wheels scraped the curb. It was his second pass down Twenty-eighth Street and he was certain now that what he saw in the alleyway between a brownstone and a tailor shop had not been there when he had made his first pass twenty minutes ago. He had been thinking of the old days, when all cops rode in tandem. Now, because of the city’s serious ongoing fiscal crisis, they were still experimenting in certain areas with solo patrols, despite concerted PBA opposition.

The radio squawked intermittently, but there was nothing in his vicinity. He put the blue-and-white in park and got out a flashlight, played it over the darkened alley. The beam of light hovered over a line of garbage cans painted silver. It was quiet here: no pedestrians, only the soft susurrus of the light traffic along Lexington.

He opened the curbside door, slid out. With one hand he unsnapped the top of his stiff leather holster, the guard he wore while driving.

He went cautiously across the sidewalk, his flash flicking the darkness. There was an open grille gate leading to four or five steep concrete steps to the alley proper. The right wall—the brownstone’s—was blank for all of its three stories. The left wall had windows beginning on the second story of the building. There were apartments over the tailor shop. Odd lighting, subtly kaleidoscopic, leaked from these. Television sets were on.

Travine went down the steps. He thought briefly of calling in but rejected it. He wanted to have something concrete for them.

Past the line of garbage cans was deep shadow but something protruded partway out into the semi-light casting strange shadows upward along the brick wall. It was these that Travine had seen and questioned.

He stood over the shape now. He took his hand from his gun butt, crouched and reached out to touch it. An old burlap sack covered the shape partway but this close Travine could see the face, one cheek to the wall. Two fingers at the side of the neck confirmed that the man was dead.

Travine got up and, without disturbing anything, went up the stairs to the street. He looked both ways. A couple passed, arm in arm, walking downtown along Lex. There was no other movement. He called in, then phoned the M.E.’s office. “I don’t want this to wait until tomorrow,” he told the associate on call. “I want something tonight.”

Then he went back to the body to I.D. it but there was nothing. No wallet, no money, no cards, nothing. Yet the man was obviously no derelict. He touched the body again. Not yet cold. He stood up. In the distance the night was split by the sound of sirens, growing louder.

Through fingerprints, they were able to establish the identity of the man. That took a little over three hours and at that time they began to wonder what had happened to his taxi.

Vincent came out of Michita looked for a cab.

He was not a little drunk and not in the least bit ashamed of himself. He felt as light as a balloon despite the sultry steaming night. All the cares and worries which had clung to him, weighing him down for months had sloughed away, dead skin shed.

He walked a little unsteadily, realizing it, curious about it, even happy with it. He’d needed this loosening up.

He breathed in the heavy night air, leaden with exhaust fumes, the odors of fried cooking from the corner coffee shop. He felt as if he were on the Ginza in Tokyo, with its bustle, its crowds, its bright neon jungle advertising nightclubs and Western products.

He watched people streaming by him, feeling a bit giddy. He fought down the impulse to giggle and then thought, why not? He giggled out loud. No one appeared to notice.

He began to walk west. Traffic from Sixth Avenue sounded like surf breaking against a far-off shore. He thought of Uraga where the ships of Admiral Perry had docked in 1853, ending two hundred and fifty years of Japanese isolationism. The mysterious surf rolling in toward the Floating Kingdom. Better if we had not given in to that Pacific overture. Far better. The ageless barrier holding Japan in magical thrall had been breached. It was a mythic tale, as all of Japanese history tended to be, throwing larger-than-life shadows on the screen of memory.

Down the block, almost at the corner of Sixth, a cab started up, pulling slowly out from the curb, coming toward him. Just before it pulled abreast, its hack light went on. It caught his eye, a spinning jewel in the night. He was still in Japan.