Part 36 (1/2)
”You mean they were on a joint DEA-SNIT mission together?”
”No, man. Nothin' like that.”
Simbal tried to discern from the Cuban's expression what he did mean. Whatever it was, wasn't good, that much was clear. ”Don't tell me they were in business together?”
”No business,” the Cuban said, downing the rest of his rum and c.o.ke. ”Pleasure.”
”Oh, Jesus.” Simbal thought for a minute. ”You're not telling me that all of thiss.h.i.+thappened over a lovers' spat.”
The Cuban fiddled with his empty bottle. He seemed to want another. ”I believe it began that way, yes. See, they couldn't live together, be seen in public together, none of that s.h.i.+t, man. It was very bad for them. Once that kind of thing gets into your file, Madonna, there'snothing more you can do in our line of work. The field's out and forget about handling any cla.s.sified s.h.i.+t. They send you off to the Leper Colony. That's what Eddie used to call it. Learn to be a clerk, pus.h.i.+ng papers, real important stuff like promotions, raises, requisitions, s.h.i.+t like that.”
”You said n.o.body knew about them,” Simbal said. ”You know.”
”Sure I know. Eddie and I worked together more than a couple of times. You know that much from his file. But like I said before, that file, at least in Eddie's case, ain't worth p.i.s.s.”
”To know Eddie Bennett is to love him,” Simbal said. ”That it?”
The Cuban screwed up his face. ”You think you're pretty cute, uh? Work for the Quarry, you got power up the yin-yang, look down your nose at us country folk now, that it?”
”It was my only way in, Martine,” Simbal said. ”This was a closed shop, I was quick enough to spot that. I didn't have time to finesse my way to see you. Don't get your nose out of joint, it's nothing personal.”
”That's where you're wrong, hombre. This whole boatload of fish is personal from the bottom to the top.”
*Then you'd best tell me about it.”
The Cuban nodded. ”For Eddie, there was n.o.body else on the beach besides Peter Curran. They were in school together.”
”Yeah, I know. Yale. Same frat, same club.”
”h.e.l.lfire Club,” the Cuban said. ”Some heavy s.h.i.+t going down there. Same drunken night Eddie told me about Curran, he told me about the initiation into the h.e.l.lfire Club. He and Curran pledged together.” The Cuban shrugged. ”I guess men can fall in love, too.” He signaled the waitress for another round. ”Can fall outta love just the same.”
”Is that what happened to them?”
”It was like any marriage that falls apart,” the Cuban said. ”That's the funny part. One of them changed, the other didn't.”
”That must've been Curran,” Simbal said. ”Curran'd been floating around with a female operative at the DEA.”
”Yeah, that seemed to p.i.s.s Eddie off all right,” the Cuban admitted, ”but the cut came because of Eddie. He was sent out into deep water.” That was SNIT-speak for long-duration undercover work.
”Let me guess,” Simbal said. ”Diqui?”
”Right.” The Cuban took his drink off the girl's tray. He seemed inordinately thirsty and Simbal remembered that feeling of fear he exuded. ”He's been out a long time. A very long time.”
Simbal picked up the undercurrent. ”Meaning?”
The Cuban made a face. ”See, that's the reason I'm here. That's the reason I got so bent when you showed up on my doorstep. Eddie's not coming back. He's gone over to the other side.”
And in the shocked silence, Simbal thought, Dear G.o.d, what we're dealing with is a voodoo spook.
Sun Tzu said that the most effective manner for a general to deploy his troops was to ensure that they had no identifiable shape to the enemy. In that way, no defense against them was possible even from the most brilliant military tactician.
That was written in 500 B.C. but such was the incisiveness of Sun Tzu's strategy it was as true today.
This is what flitted through Jake's mind as he and Mikio turned the corner of the scriptures hall. They had begun their run along the temple's vast veranda. The two sungla.s.sed Yakuza had guns; there was no point in heading toward them or even in holding their ground. Jake and Mikio were unarmed; any form of weapon was strictly forbidden within the temple's grounds. Besides, Mikio had ”died” the day before in Tokyo. There was no reason to expect any form of pursuit here.
But they had their superbly trained bodies and Sun Tzu had counseled to find the proper battleground. So Jake and Mikio took off along the edge of the veranda. They hurried down a flight of stone steps, brus.h.i.+ng past a long line of women supplicants.
Pa.s.sing the open doorway to the scriptures hall they could hear the rhythmic pok, pok, pok of the hollow wooden fish being struck to keep the tempo of the priests' chanting.
They skidded to a halt. ”Oh, Buddha,” Jake said softly. Sun Tzu's strategy became uppermost in his mind as he saw four more Yakuza making their way toward them. Then he knew. The first two with the guns had been stalking horses. Cursed himself mightily. He should have suspected something of the sort when he saw the pair draw their guns. In a place like this where much of the structure had been designated a National Treasure by the government of j.a.pan, there would be no question of gunplay. Other, more silentand discreet methods would have to be used.
”Into the garden,” Mikio hissed and, bent almost double, they scuttled into the large forested area between the scriptures hall and the bell paG.o.da. They stepped off the wooden walkway onto a large flat river rock. Stepping stones led a way through pebbles, haircap moss, moss bamboo. On their right they pa.s.sed a gigantic rock rounded by centuries of rus.h.i.+ng water. It was the Benevolence stone, one of five such enormous rocks that studded the garden. Each one represented one of the five Confucian Virtues.
Aspidistra and ostrich fern floated in the breeze of their pa.s.sage. Jake already felt a shortness of breath, a pounding behind his eyes.
It was very still. They could hear the whisper of water somewhere close at hand, hidden by the bands of meticulously barbered greenery, even now and again the chanting, the pok, pok, pok invoking the rhythm from the scriptures hall.
They both became aware of the men at the same time. Mikio touched the edge of Jake's sleeve and the two of them moved off. Deeper into the garden, moving along a narrow, serpentine path of moss-encrusted stepping stones artfully arranged to suggest to the stroller a rus.h.i.+ng stream.
They crouched down beneath a cryptomeria whispering ancient secrets of the timeless place. To their left twined the red-gold leaves of a dwarf cut-leaf maple. Directly ahead reared the Justice stone, its enormous body a series of roughly concentric plateaus built one upon the other like the rings of a rent redwood. Confronting it, one was thus inexorably reminded of the pa.s.sing eons, slabs of time that dwarfed any human's lifetime.
This was the stunning effect of the stonesaid to have taken the garden's designer ten years to findto place the viewer in perspective, to remind him or her of the timelessness of this place, the immutability transmitted to and from the Confucian Virtue of Justice, itself an extension of nature.
”I do not understand this,” Mikio said in a whisper. ”To the Kisan clan I am dead. Yet they have picked up my trail so quickly.”
”A traitor?”
Mikio shrugged his heavily muscled shoulders. ”Anything is possible, my friend. But I prefer to look for another explanation.”
A whistling brought Jake's head around just in time to see the beginnings of shohatsu. He kicked out reflexively, deflecting the weighted end of the Yakuza's chain. The manrikigusariwhich meant literally ”chain with the strength of ten thousand”rattled as the sungla.s.sed man brought it back toward him.
Jake extended his hand in a feint. This brought the expected response, the uchiotos.h.i.+, a striking drop attack which missed as he drew back his wrist at the last instant.
Grabbed hold of the chain and twisted. They both lost their footing and crashed into a carefully manicured bed of spidery ferns.
The man was not big but he was unusually powerful. As he sprang back to the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, Jake saw that he seemed to have all his energy concentrated in his upper arms and torso, which was unusual in a j.a.panese, who prized big hara so highlythe centralization of intrinsic energies in the lower belly. That was why sumo wrestlers were so heavy.
Used a tenkan, bringing both their bodies around to his left, making it the low turn because the Yakuza's hands were reaching for his wrist to free the manrikigusari and Jake thought, This is what happens when your mind relies on weapons: they become more important than your own body.
By grabbing for Jake's wrist the Yakuza had sacrificed position in order to regain full control of his chain. This allowed Jake to flow his own body with the Yakuza's momentum, bringing both his arms up and out while Jake's free hand pulled downward at his neck.
In a moment, the Yakuza had arched backward, cras.h.i.+ng onto the mossy stones. Flicked the manrikigusari and it curled around Jake's extended left ankle. The Yakuza pulled hard and Jake lost his balance.
The breath went out of him as he hit on his side. Turned in time to see Mikio apply a liver kite with vicious accuracy. The Yakuza's lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of agony. He let go the chain, clutching at himself as Mikio repeated the blow. Jake smashed the heel of his hand flush on into the Yakuza's face and his sungla.s.ses burst apart. He went limp.
Jake took a deep breath and Mikio extended a hand, grunted heavily. The whites of his eyes showed all around and his mouth opened silently. He collapsed onto one knee and Jake leapt to catch him, pulled out the shuriken, the honed steel throwing spike.
Blood gushed and Mikio put a palm over the wound. Jake heard a whirring and, simultaneously, felt Mikio crash into him. A second shuriken embedded itself with a thwok in the trunk of the cryptomeria.
Jake crawled on his elbows and knees through a low copse of boxwood, pulled up behind a swaying ma.s.s of azalea. He glanced back, saw Mikio ripping his s.h.i.+rt with his teeth, applying a tourniquet to his arm, grunting with the effort. In a moment the white cotton was dark and wet with blood.