The Nicholas Linnear Novels (45 page)

“Yet, in the end, Hideyoshi is the loser,” Croaker pointed out. “His line died with him.” Nicholas said nothing. There was a kind of stillness over the cemetery. People looked like statues, caught within a moment as if part of an old photograph. The hazy spires of Manhattan, sitting astride the horizon in the west, seemed out of place, dropped there by mistake by some drunken stagehand. Croaker’s voice had lowered in volume when next he spoke. “Why would this man take Hideyoshi’s name—we can be certain it’s not his own—when that man failed?”

Nicholas smiled thinly, turned to look at Croaker’s face. Odd, he thought. Depending on the intensity of the light and which way it struck, one could see his face as either rugged or battered. But perhaps they were the same, after all. “That’s a totally Western way of viewing history,” he said softly. “In Japan there is what we call the nobility of failure. Many of our greatest heroes failed in their ultimate objectives. But their
vision
was heroic, as were their subsequent actions. In the West, you revere only the victorious. That’s a pity, don’t you think?”

Croaker squinted against the glare of the sun. “You mean this Hideyoshi was a hero.”

Nicholas nodded. “Yes.”

“What about the other names on the list? How would they fit in here?”

“Frankly, I don’t know, but Terry wasn’t just doodling.” He handed the paper back to Croaker.

“Well, I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” Nicholas said.

There was a kind of stillness in the air that had nothing to do with sadness and death and defeat. Nicholas thought, wonderingly, that it had been some time indeed since he had felt as close to another man as he did now to Lew Croaker.

“You know,” he said, “when I came to this country years ago, I deliberately put aside a certain part of my life. That is not an easy thing to do—for anyone—but especially for someone brought up in Japan. There was a debt I felt I owed to my father—to the West, really—where it resided inside myself.” Croaker’s eyes seemed silvery with the sunlight as he regarded Nicholas silently. He had come to understand the immense importance of this gesture.

“But, abruptly, I stopped. Just like that. It was as if I had suddenly awakened from a long dream-filled sleep. What had I been doing all these years here? What had I accomplished? I would not have myself, as my father had at his death, feel as if I had squandered the time allotted to me. It was enough that I had been encompassed by
his
sorrow,
his
bitterness. I could not countenance the same thing happening to me.”

They were silent for a time, listening perhaps to the unsteady wind reaching the elms. The sun was very hot.

“And now?” Croaker said with a hint of hesitation; he was still in unfamiliar territory. “Has anything changed?”

Nicholas laughed, not unkindly but with a sword-sharp edge. “My whole world has turned upside down. It’s as if the intervening years since I came here never occurred.”

“I’m trying to imagine something like that happening to me.

Nicholas looked at him for a moment in pleasure.

As if by mutual consent, they began to walk slowly down the path toward Croaker’s waiting car. Both seemed somehow reluctant to be on their way as if dreading the freneticism of the city. Just before they reached the car, Croaker said, “What’s your opinion of Justine’s old man?”

Nicholas looked at him. “That’s an odd way to put it.”

Croaker shrugged. “A figure of speech.”

But Nicholas suspected his friend of having inserted a subtle warning. “I started out by hating his guts,” he said slowly as if formulating his thoughts as he spoke. “But that’s hardly surprising, given Justine’s point of view and the way he and I first met. He’s deliberate and heavy-handed and used to getting everything he wants. I don’t like any of that.”

“I hear a ‘but’ hanging around there someplace.”

Nicholas stopped and faced Croaker. “Look, it would be very easy—and expedient for us all—to write him off as a rich villain out of some dime-store novel but it’s not as simple as all that.”

“He’s a murderer, Nick.”

“He’s vulnerable—”

“Oh, Jesus—”

“He loves his girls, no matter what they think of him. He’d do anything to protect them. And he’s not as sure of himself as he ought to be. There’s something—”

“It’s the grand act he’s putting on for you. He needs your help and he knows you’re no dummy.”

“I really think you’re wrong. He’s not as two-dimensional as you make him out to be.”

“All right. Your ninja goes out and kills people,” Croaker said. “But there must be someone somewhere who he comes home to and loves. He is still what he is.”

“You’re ignoring the complexities—”

“He’s a fucking shark, man. You’d better face up to it.”

“You’re looking at it from only one point of view.”

Croaker shook his head. “No, Nick. I just know him longer, that’s all.”

On the way into the city, Croaker told Nicholas all he knew about the circumstances of Vincent’s death. It wasn’t much.

He dropped Nicholas at Tomkin’s building on Park and continued downtown. At the office the M.E.’s report on Vincent was waiting for him. He slung his sopping jacket over the back of the gray and dull green chair, took a MintyPick out of his breast pocket, flipped it into his mouth and opened the folder.

What he saw brought the sweat out on his forehead and along the line of his upper lip. He ran a hand through his thick hair and swore under his breath. Then he reached for the phone. There was the minimum of delay.

“Nate?” he said when he got the M.E. on the line. “Croaker. Thanks for the report on Vincent Ito. Someone must have broken his back to get it here so soon.”

“I did it myself.” Graumann’s voice sounded tired. “We’re all still a bit stunned here and—”

“Hey, Nate, I’m working on it.”

“What’s up? And don’t give me any
schmeer
.”

“Not much,” Croaker admitted. “Only that it seems related to the deaths of Terry Tanaka and Eileen Okura. They were friends of Vincent’s.”

“Yeah, I remember the files. Vincent did the autopsies himself. But how? There’s certainly no similarity in M.O.”

Croaker rubbed at his eyes. “Right now, all I can say is that M.O. doesn’t seem very relevant.”

“I see. I phoned Doc Deerforth out on the Island. I wanted it to come from me.”

“How’d he take it?”

“Not well. Look, Lew, we’d—
I’d
appreciate anything you can do—you know—” His voice trailed off.

“I know you two were close. Believe me, the minute I have something, I’ll be in touch.” He looked up. Vegas was in the open doorway, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He put one finger in the air, put his hand over the speaker, said, “Hold on, I’ll be off in a minute.”

“… the funeral arrangements,” Graumann was saying.

“Do that,” Croaker said, “I want to be there.” He looked down at the report. “About this chemical substance you found—are you certain—”

“Like I said, I did the autopsy myself. There’s no doubt about the finding.”

“Good. That narrows things down considerably.”

“There’s absolutely no way the substance could have been introduced accidentally. It happened shortly before his death.”

“So I see,” Croaker said, reading the typescript. “A modified nerve toxin; slowed down his muscular responses enough so that—”

“I’d say he was pretty near helpless by the time—by the time it happened.”

“It wasn’t injected.”

“No. It would have no effect that way. This is an organic compound we’re talking about, not a laboratory synthetic. It had to have been sprayed and from close range. He might have known his murderer.”

“Or just not suspected. Anyone—even someone coming quickly out of a crowd—could have sprayed him. Listen, I’ll get back to you.”

“Yeah. I just hope it won’t be long.”

Croaker cradled the receiver thoughtfully. Still no word from his contact. What was taking so fucking long? “Come on in,” he said to Vegas. He shifted the MintyPick from one side of his mouth to another. “Where you been all duded up?” Vegas was wearing a plum-colored suit with wide lapels and modified flare trousers. Underneath, he wore a pink shirt with a high collar.

“Been out pickin’ up the shit,” Vegas said, the wide smile still stitched to his mouth. “Yeah, real bad shit this time, my man. Took us three months settin’ it up.”

Croaker grunted. “Business as usual.” His mind was on the M.E.’s report.

“No way, man. No way a-tall.” Vegas lounged his huge frame against the open doorway, disdaining the chair inside the office. “This time I got me a fox among all this shit I just hauled in.”

Croaker clucked his tongue. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to mix business with pleasure.”

Vegas shook his head and his grin seemed to expand. “Uh uh, not with
this
fox. This fox is special.”

“Yeah? They’re all the fucking same, man, those cunts you come across.”

Vegas was waiting for this. He poked his forefinger toward Croaker and said, delightedly, “Not this one. This one’s
your
fox, man. I just been her guardian angel till I got her here.”

Croaker looked up, puzzled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Vegas laughed good-naturedly. “What I gots downstairs in the wagon is one piece of high-priced property, man. C’mon, follow me.” Croaker swung his jacket off the chair back, followed Vegas down the hall.

“This better be worth it,” he said shortly. “I ain’t got time for any of your jive.”

“Oh, no jive, man. No jive.” Vegas laughed again, stabbed the elevator button. “What I got on ice down in the alley is goin’ make your day. Trust me.” He gave a hearty laugh and slapped Croaker on the back as the elevator doors opened and they rode down. They shared the car with a uniform bringing a scruffy-looking Puerto Rican collar down for prints and pics and nothing more was said until they went out through the side entrance.

They came abreast of the police van in the cool dimness of the concrete alley. In this tightly enclosed space, Vegas’ body size was magnified; he was as big as Paul Bunyan amid the White Mountains.

He put an enormous hand on Croaker’s shoulder and Croaker was automatically reminded of one of the cases on which they had been teamed. The Atherton thing. Christ, he thought, but that was a bitch! Thought sure we were gonna float away on a sea of blood and never see this goddamned world again. Jesus! He could see it as clearly as if it had just happened: he down with his shoulder shattered by a .45 slug and Vegas rising from the shadows of the burned-out car like an avenging angel. Croaker had fired on his assailant, spinning him around, his second and third shots a useless reflex aimed at the stars. But there was the mountain of a black man with the tire chain and the snub-nosed pistol the bastard had modified so that it could blast a hole in a brick wall at ten feet; and Vegas took him on with just his bare hands and I never saw anyone go down so hard or so fast from one blow as that motherfucking hood. There were three other corpses that night; Jesus, what a fucking mess! Croaker felt the pressure of the other’s grip.

“Don’t you worry none,” the big man said softly. “We look out for each other, don’t we? I don’t give a rat’s ass for anyone around here, you know that? They’re all a bunch of goddamned hypocrites. I got my job to do, I do it. The rest of them, well, they all got an ax to grind, one way or another. There’s always an angle to play out here, ain’t that right. War’s a perfect place for angles, you know that. The smart make out in wars. They ain’t got no conscience, they ain’t got no emotion. All they gots to worry about is keeping their tails on straight; after that, they got all the time in the world to look for the gravy rollin’ in under the dirt and the scum and the—” Vegas stopped abruptly, aware that his grip had tightened painfully on his friend’s flesh. He shook his head like a wounded animal. “Sorry, Soldier, it’s been a heavy day.” He smiled ruefully. “Real heavy duty.”

“It’s okay, Spook.” They each had given the other nicknames long ago when they had first met; it gave them both a comforting feeling of privacy amid the openness of their days and nights on the force. At times, Croaker thought that this was the falsest feeling in the world, on those days when he felt completely invaded by his job. “We’re two fucking heroes who think that shovelin’ shit is heroic.” He laughed. “But cheer up. What the hell, it could be worse. We could be the ones
makin’
the shit.”

Vegas threw back his head and laughed, the rich sound rolling off the high walls. “Now, look, here’s the dope,” he said. “We been working, like I said, on this Scarsdale bust for three months, no less. We get a tip to move. We move. Lots of stuff there—enough pills to keep the goddamned Chinese Army awake for a year, a whole lotta horse, carload o’ coke an’ about a half a ton of reefer madness. Okay, not so bad. That’s going on in the back of the place. In the front they got a party going on and everyone gets busted, you know? That’s when I saw her. Thought I’d bring her in myself, just in, case. I think she’s clean but”—he shrugged—“you know how that is sometimes. Anyway, she’s yours if you want her—I can straighten them out upstairs.”

“How can I know if I want her,” Croaker said, “if I don’t know who she is?”

Vegas transferred his hand from Croaker’s shoulder to the lever of the back door to the van. “Sittin’ in the dark right in here, man, is Raphael’s eldest daughter, Gelda Tomkin Odile.”

Croaker felt a jolt race through him just as if he had been doused with ice water.

Vegas leaned on the lever, grinning; the reinforced-steel door swung outward and Croaker stepped in. The door slammed shut behind him.

He stood for a moment in the dimness unmoving, letting his eyes adjust to the low light seeping in through the windshield, washed to a pale gray by the mesh screen dividing the blessed from the damned.

She sat on one side of the plain metal benches riveted along either side of the van. Her head was tilted back, resting against the wall. This put her profile into prominence so that he could see the arch of her long forehead, the straight patrician nose, the flair of the highly sensual lips, the long cool sweep of her curving throat. He knew without having to see them now the dark sparks of her eyes, the rather heavy torso with its thrusting breasts and ample hips. Knew, too, the long sweep of the perfect legs from thigh to calf to slim exquisite ankle palely limned as they stretched out before her; those magnificent legs which, quite inexplicably, made of her heaviness an overwhelming asset.