The Nicholas Linnear Novels (34 page)

He cut to his right, stumbling off the curb, but again he was balked by the man. No good. A cab was definitely out.

He coughed as he ran now, trying to retch. He felt as if he could not get enough oxygen into his system. His arms felt weak and he had to force his legs to work. He heard a harsh shout from behind him and the sound of running feet. He pushed his way frantically through the crowd, his mind whirling, trying to alight on some—The mist. What a fool he’d been! It was being absorbed through the pores of his skin—the burning should have told him. Inhaling was only peripheral.

Have to find… He was aware of how terribly exposed he was here on these mean streets where no help would be forthcoming. A restaurant was no good: too well lighted. He needed someplace dark.

It was right in front of him. He put on a last burst of speed, feeling his heart pounding painfully as if it were being overworked.

He skidded to a stop in front of a movie theater. In front was a billboard dominated by a cutout of a blonde with large breasts. Beneath it, a blown-up newspaper review of the film. “An erection!” proclaimed a banner. “Highest rated!” Vincent shoved a man away from the ticket booth, threw a bill at the man inside the booth. He pushed through the turnstile, ignoring the shouts. “Hey mister! Wait! Your change!”

Into the darkness, smelling from mildew, stale sweat and dried sperm. Hazy images moved on the screen and there was the sound of heavy breathing, magnified by the speakers, amplified throughout the theater. There was a liquid sound and a moaning.

Vincent blinked several times, adjusting to the low light. He looked for the men’s room, found that it was two flights up, past the balcony. He didn’t think he could make it.

He moved cautiously along the rear aisle, past two people standing, watching the screen. He came upon a bank of machines. Popcorn. Candy. Soda.

He dug in his pants pocket, fumbled out two quarters. He rolled them into the slot, stabbed a button at random. He waited impatiently while the waxed-paper cup clattered down, followed by the soda and the syrup. He stuck his hand in, caught the shaved ice as it came down the vertical chute. He rubbed the ice over his face. He blinked and blinked, feeling the cold water running into his eyes, over his face. Perhaps he had got to it in time. The ice was like a soothing balm, diminishing the pain. There
was
a chance. The cab had been air-conditioned, the windows closed, but he had gotten out very quickly. He tried to judge the overall time, gave it up as hopeless.

He turned his head to look at the doorway. Someone came in, someone went out. They were shadows to him. Was his pursuer here already? There was no way of knowing and here, in the rear, he was a perfect target.

He turned into the theater proper, went quickly down the aisle. His vision had seemed to clear and he could see men sitting as still as statues, staring at the screen filled with writhing bodies.

He slipped into a row midway down, moving to his right all the way over until he was wedged against one wall. In the darkest part of the theater he sat down. The floor was sticky; the place smelled of accelerated age. His head swiveled around. People were coming and going. Flickering light played over their faces. He turned back.

His hands had begun to shake but this might be because of the increased adrenalin. His mouth was dry and his breathing raspy. Otherwise, he felt better than he had before. Obviously the dose had been less than lethal. He tried to relax, breathing deeply, but his side hurt intermittently, perhaps from the frantic running. Meanwhile, his mind was going over the alternatives. There didn’t seem to be many. Having come in here, he was now quite effectively trapped. The ninja, too, was here somewhere. If he made a move to leave, he would be dead before he got halfway to the door.

He would have to fight. It was the only alternative. He was not a
sensei
or a
haragei
adept as Nicholas was—or Terry had been. He turned his mind away from Terry: that way led to despair; if Terry had been defeated…

But Terry had been surprised and then there had been Ei to think of. Vincent was forewarned. He needed time and he was getting it; he was feeling better every moment. Think! he screamed at himself. You’ve got to get out of this somehow.

There were people in back of him, to his left. Shadows moving in the aisle, up and down, bobbing; rustling as people sat down or got up. Someone slid into his row, one seat away from him, and he stiffened, his eyes sliding that way so that he could see… a youngish businessman, clean-cut, Brooks Brothers suit, thin leather attaché case on his knees. A model businessman.

Vincent removed his attention, went back to thinking. Something touched his arm and he jumped, turned his head. It was the businessman, clean-shaven, reddened cheeks, lived just over the river along the Jersey Palisades perhaps with the wife and two kids, the dog and the two cars. The man was tapping him gently on the arm. He leaned forward, his eyes searching Vincent’s. He whispered something but Vincent could not hear him over the amplified moaning. He leaned over, across the vacant seat between them. “Want to move over here next to me?” the man said hopefully.

Vincent stared at him dumbfounded for a full minute until he shook his head violently from side to side, withdrew.

He wiped at his forehead and his fingers came away wet. But he knew what he had to do now and all he could do was wait.

There was a movement along the aisle; a shadow had stopped at the end of his row. Vincent turned his head slightly but all he saw was a black blotch. The businessman who had propositioned him was moving slightly in his seat, his hands invisible under the shield of his attaché case; it was too warm to carry a raincoat.

Someone was coming into Vincent’s row now and he held his breath, his heart pumping furiously. Was it the ninja? The figure moved slowly, approaching Vincent. He looked up. The man was just on the other side of the engrossed businessman. He saw a glint of reflected light from the screen dance off the man’s eyes. It was the ninja. He bent, said something to the businessman, who moved his legs, not taking his eyes off the screen.

He was coming. Vincent prepared himself for what he had to do. It would take speed and strength and—Now the man was at the seat next to Vincent’s. He did not sit down.

Now was the time. Now!

Vincent moved. Nothing happened. His eyes bulged in disbelief. He was paralyzed!

He struggled to lift his hands but his arms were immobile, as if they had been encased in lead while his attention had been elsewhere. He tried to stand up but there was no feeling in his legs. No feet, no ankles, nothing. Then he knew with a swift unalterable certainty that the spray had never been meant to kill him but merely render him motionless.

The shadow loomed over him, blotting out all light. He heard animal cries, lustful sobs; he felt the movement over him with exaggerated slowness, watching calmly and detachedly as the ninja leaned over him and gently put one forearm against his left clavicle. He felt the pressure and his eyes blinked. Perhaps the tip of one finger twitched where it lay on the wooden arm of the seat. There was no fear in him, no sorrow, only an image of Japan, of a rocky seashore outside of Uraga with its ramshackle houses, the pure white sails of the fishing boats as they set sail against the red and yellow sunrise. He saw the lone pine standing on the bluff, limned by the light, a dark sentinel standing watch over its homeland.

The other forearm broke against the left side of his face, pressing at his ear. The force was enormous. The first arm held the rest of his body immobile. Homeland expanding outward, outward into—
snap!

“T
HIS IS THE PERFECT
place to watch the sun set,” Cheong said. She turned to Tai, handed her the lacquer tray. Tai, bowing, took it and silently left them alone in the kitchen.

“You see, I had your father take the
shōji
out and put the glass in.” She gave a little laugh. “It scandalized Itami, of course. She would never do a thing like that in
her
house.” She sighed, perfectly serious now. “Sometimes your aunt can be extremely trying, I am most ashamed to admit.”

“Itami is not blood, Mother.”

She put a slender hand over his and smiled. “Sometimes, Nicholas, the spirit is more binding than the blood. You may find such a thing out for yourself as you grow older.” She took her hand away. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tai has made your favorite.” She showed him.

“My favorite is
dim sum
,” he said. “Tai does not make them as well as you do, though you tell her what to do.”

Cheong laughed and, leaning over, kissed his cheek. “All right,” she said lightly. “This weekend I’ll make you
dim sum
.”

“How many kinds?”

“Enough,” she said. “Enough.”

She stared out the window. The sky near the horizon was as lemony as custard but, high aloft, the blue was as deep as midnight. “You do not get to see this sight often enough, do you?”

“Bujutsu takes a great deal of time, Mother.”

“I know.” She hesitated fractionally. “Your school work isn’t suffering.” It did not seem to be a question.

“There’s no problem.”

“You know, my father”—she called So-Peng her father just as if he had sired her—“used to say, it makes a great deal of difference where you have been. Your ancestors live on in your blood.”

“I don’t know,” Nicholas said. “I have a number of American friends who do all they can to break away from such things. You know, their parents and—”

“Then you tell me, my son, if their ancestors have not set the course of their lives?”

He looked at her, thinking that she must, after all, be quite correct.

“Everything your grandfather was, am I,” Cheong said. “This he bequeathed me long before I left Singapore with your father. In Asia, this is quite special, quite”—she sought for the proper word—“unique. Now I am able to do the same thing for you.”

“But I know so little about him.”

“In time you will learn. You are young yet.”

“But you were far younger than I am when you began to—”

“Those were different times. Dangerous times. I am very grateful that you could be spared such misery. No one should have to suffer so.” Her beautiful face broke into a smile. “But let us speak of more pleasant matters.”

I want to know, he told her in his mind. I very much want to know what happened. But, of course, this was something he could not say to her. Never. If she chose to tell him one day… But she would not. He doubted whether even his father knew. Only Cheong and So-Peng. And he was long dead now.

“Your aunt asked about you today,” she said, breaking into his train of thought. “She always does when you are not around.”

“It was kind of her to think of me.”

“Yes.” Cheong smiled and touched him. “You should tell her that. It will make her most happy.”

“I cannot think—that is to say—”

“Nicholas, Itami thinks of us—all of us—as part of her family. She is very fond of you.”

“Sometimes—it’s very difficult to know with her.”

“Yes, well, people are complex. They need getting to know. Seeping in. Patience. This is, perhaps, difficult for you. Your father makes it so. He is patient and impatient.” She shook her head, as if bewildered. “Very inconstant, yes. This is still strange to me.” She stroked the nape of his neck. “You are so much like him in that way. He does not make friends easily as most foreigners seem to do. But then, he is no foreigner. Asia is his home, as it is mine. We are both children of the East, forging our own pasts.”

“It sounds so difficult, so complex.”

She smiled. “We could live no other way.”

Increasingly now, Satsugai and Itami came to dinner. His aunt had always been somewhat of a fixture around the house—Cheong saw to that. However, now her husband began to accompany her more frequently.

Listening to Satsugai talk, Nicholas began to understand how Japan had been led blindly into the disastrous war by this man and others like him in the powerful
zaibatsu.
Not that Satsugai ever spoke of events before the war or even of the war itself. As far as he was concerned, the war might as well never have occurred. Ostrichlike, he seemed utterly blind to the still quite visible scars strewn throughout the cities and the countryside.

“The communists have always been a problem in Japan, Colonel,” Nicholas recalled his saying one chill autumn evening. The sky was darkening from russet to plum and there was a bitter edge to the wind as it moaned through the pines and the neighboring cryptomeria, a harbinger of the coming winter. A fine rain fell obliquely, streaming against the large study windows, rolling like silent tears. One wretched wren puttered nervously in a tightening circle beneath the inadequate awning of a carefully pruned hedge just outside the window where the rain had caught like pearls on the oval overlapping leaves, a liquid spider web spun in glistening precision across the expanse of the foliage. The wren kept its head cocked, eyeing the sky, impatient to be off.

“The Party is not so large, even now,” the Colonel had replied. He tamped down the tobacco in his pipe and carefully lit up. Sweet blue smoke filled the room.

“My dear Colonel,” Satsugai said, “one cannot use mere
numbers
to define danger, especially here in Japan.” He spoke as if Nicholas’ father were some tourist to the country. “One must take into account the
virulence
of the enemy. These are more than dedicated people we are discussing. They are fanatics to the cause of world communism. One mustn’t make the mistake of underestimating them. That is the way they achieve their first foothold.”

The Colonel said nothing, being busy achieving the proper draw on his pipe. It was an umber, rough-hewn brier with a curved stem and a high bowl. It had been with him all through the war and, as such, had become quite dear to him. It was a private symbol to him and, though he had well over twenty-five pipes in his collection, this was the one he invariably smoked now.

One gets some peculiar notions in war, the Colonel thought. Perfectly understandable really because, in the end, when the days are dark with death and the overcast nights filled with a jungle terror, when commanders are mowed down by machine-gun fire and mates are blown to bits by mines a pace away from you or slit from throat to navel by a silent invader, those peculiar notions are all that stand between you and utter madness.