Collector of Secrets (29 page)
W
hy did he force me to choose?
Tomoko’s fingers involuntarily ceased folding as sadness flooded down, but there were no more tears, at least for the time being. She couldn’t stand to question her actions yet again—the choice would still be the same.
Enough time had been spent watching the house. It seemed safe enough to make a move. Standing, she shook her legs and rubbed her lower back. Grabbing her purse, she stepped out from behind the hedge and crossed the sunlit laneway.
Her father’s Lexus was in its usual spot. He would have taken the train to work early in the morning. She removed the house key from her pocket and stepped into the alcove covering the car’s hood. The lock clicked open easily. Warm air escaped through the open door and pressed against her face, carrying the wonderfully familiar smells of home. Stepping inside, she scanned the central hallway. The house was quiet, but nothing seemed out of place. Habit forced her to remove her shoes.
Movement at the hallway’s end made her look up as her mother’s familiar figure appeared in the living room. She was dressed in a white blouse under a red sweater vest, her petite hands folded in her apron’s front pocket. Tomoko rushed forward, choked with elation. Her socked feet were half sliding on the hardwood floor.
Then a shadow flickered on the living room’s wall and the glint of a silver blade appeared ahead of the
Yakuza
’s
massive form. Her mother looked utterly helpless cowering next to him.
Tomoko screamed and shook as the scowling man motioned with his head for her to continue down the hall. The thug thrust one paw-like hand over her mother’s face, covering her mouth, and the butcher’s knife in his other hand rested precariously at her throat. Her eyes blazed with horror.
“Tomoko held arms up in surrender. “Don’t hurt her! Please don’t hurt her! I’ll do whatever you want.” She crept forward, steadying herself against the wall. She wasn’t sure her legs would obey the commands. Stepping into the room, she saw more clearly the scar running down the big man’s face. “Momma, are you all right?”
“Silence!” The
Yakuza
’s deep voice boomed.
Glancing left, she dropped her purse as she gasped. Her father was in the dining room, dressed in pajamas, bound upright in a high-backed chair. His head was drooping unconscious over his chest.
Tattooed arms grasped her from behind and she stiffened, craning her neck to the side, struggling. The second man’s face was barely visible in her peripheral vision, but she recognized him. He’d run past her in the Shibuya plaza. Tomoko braced for pain as he pressed her forward and down.
Lying against the sofa cushions, she felt her hands
being bound, but he seemed oddly gentle, weaving a cloth around her wrists before binding them with rope. The incongruity made no sense as she fought back tears, trying frantically to draw a response from her mother. “Are you okay?”
“Hiro, shut her up.” The muscular man yelled, while pushing her mother into a nearby chair. The older woman struggled and cried when he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wrenching the cloth tightly across her mouth. A bloody trickle formed at one corner of her lips.
“Stop it,” Tomoko shouted, “you’re hurting her!”
“Not so hard. Jun!” The smaller man said with an air of authority. “Loosen the gag.”
Jun sneered and then relented, adding a paltry dose of slack to the material.
Tomoko felt herself rolled onto her back as the shorter
Yakuza
spoke. “Where is your boyfriend? What has he done with the leather satchel?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jun retrieved the kitchen knife and lurched aggressively across the room, kicking the coffee table from his path. Waving the blade over her face, he made slashing motions in the air. “Don’t lie! Tell us where he is.”
Tomoko was desperate. “We broke up last night.” She knew she needed to give them something more in order to sound plausible. “He’s a stupid
Gaijin
. I hate him. It’s finished.”
“Jun, get her purse. It’s over there on the floor.”
The psychotic man stomped away while Hiro whispered at her. “You need to cooperate. Please. I don’t want to hurt—”
The handbag struck the side of Hiro’s head and fell to the floor as Jun chuckled fiercely. “You check it if you want to. I’ll check her pants.” Pushing Hiro aside, he knelt on the sofa and straddled her body. His massive frame hovered close as he sniffed at her hair, while his tongue flicked reptilian-like back and forth across his lower lip. She could see the many fine cuts covering his face, and she recalled the sharp bushes dragging him from the SUV’s side.
“Do you like what you did to me?” He jammed his fingers into Tomoko’s jean pockets. She tried to kick him, but he caught her knees with a single hand. The attempt made him almost giddy and he laughed harder, clearly enjoying the struggle.
“Get off her!” Hiro commanded, to no avail.
Jun’s thick fingers drew the folded scrap of yellow paper from her pocket.
They were going to get what they wanted, and she was powerless to stop them.
“I wonder who lives at this Nara address?” He pressed himself back to a kneeling position.
Tomoko couldn’t watch. She turned her face to the side, instead focusing on her mother, trying to catch her attention, to project reassurance that everything would be okay.
Jun reached down and twisted Tomoko’s jaw, forcing her gaze upward. “And now maybe we should have some fun with you, for all the trouble you’ve caused.”
Hiro’s right hand, wrapped in a bloody bandage, thumped deliberately against his left palm. “You touch her and I’ll kill you.”
Jun smirked insolence. “I won’t touch your new girlfriend, but we’re bringing her along for the ride. She may prove useful as bait.” He snorted bull-like. “And as for killing me . . . go ahead and try it sometime. I dare you.” He rose and stomped from the room.
S
tanding in the hallway, Jun lit a cigarette and dialed the private number. The plan had been carried out and the enemy located. He inhaled deeply. Guts, the cartoon warrior, would be proud. The call went directly to voicemail. “Father, it’s done. I need a fast car. I know where the American has gone.”
THE RHYTHMIC hum of the Shinkansen Bullet Train ebbed to an offbeat rumble as the high-speed locomotive broke its westerly run near Osaka.
I can’t believe she left me.
He’d slept at first, drifting in and out of consciousness; perhaps it was his body’s way of protecting itself from the rejection that stabbed knifelike when he was fully awake. The first-class cabin was packed, forcing Max to shift his feet to allow the young boy across from him to retake the seat beside his sister. They were playing a game using a stopwatch and Latin letters pulled from a cloth bag. It seemed the goal was to spell as many words as possible within sixty seconds. Their mother periodically shushed them when their squeals and giggles grew too loud.
Max adjusted his sunglasses and watched the streaming landscape, thinking back to his arrival at the train station. The fact that the train’s coach seats had been sold out was unusual for a weekday morning. First-class tickets were more than double the price of the low-cost ones, but the next cheap fares wouldn’t leave until that afternoon. There was no time to wait. He’d cursed under his breath while withdrawing the precious money from an ATM.
The reason for the crowded state of affairs became clear while he stood waiting on the train platform. Overhead, row after row of Golden Week banners hung from Tokyo Station’s iron girders. Glittering letters announced the year’s longest holiday period. In a work-obsessed country, it was monumental to have a stretch of four vacation days.
The yearly celebration kicked off on April twenty-ninth, Greenery Day. At least that had been the case historically. But after numerous legislative attempts, the government had finally pushed through a recent amendment. Jeff, a fellow teacher and friend, had pointed out a back-page article in the English newspaper. April twenty-ninth was former Emperor Shōwa’s birthday, but the tongue-in-cheek commentary noted that beginning in 2007, the first holiday of the week would now officially be called Shōwa Day. It struck the cynical columnist as ominous that Japan would want to honor a period covering two world wars, especially conflicts they helped start. The people are forgetting the past.
He stared out the train’s window. The rice fields racing by gradually gave way to houses, factories, apartments, and finally unrelenting urban sprawl. His fragmented brain barely registered the gradual decline in speed. A crushed piece of paper—printed at the train station’s Internet café—was clutched in his hand, and he read it over again:
From: [email protected]
What the HELL is going on?
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 11:54:36
Where are you? Police raided the house yesterday. It was dreadful. Itzhak was badly hurt, but he won’t go to a doctor. What am I supposed to do? I’m not a bloody nurse! They took us all in for questioning. Everything they asked was about you. What happened at your office? After six fucking hours they let us out, but the two Kiwis are gone—expired visas. Some guy from the U.S. Embassy showed up today, wanting to speak with you. A real weirdo with bright green eyes. He gave me a card—Lloyd Elgin (090-8849-1212)—but I think his story’s bollocks. I got a really bad vibe from him. We need to talk, Max. Call me!
Z
It just didn’t make sense that the U.S. Embassy would send someone to the Tokyo Poor House.
I never made it to the embassy when I tried. How could they possibly know I need help?
Max checked his pocket watch—9:25 a.m.—Tomoko would be home by now.
God knows what she’s found.
The harder he tried to squeeze the hurt from his mind, the more it refused to budge. Not only had she abandoned him, but how could she not see that by going to her parents’ she was taking the danger with her?
Finding this caretaker may be the only way out. I just hope he can help me, or else
. . .
Across the aisle, the boisterous action from the kids’ word game caught his attention. They noticed Max’s gaze and grew louder as a result. To distract himself, he played with anagrams on the paper in his hand. The letters in Zoe’s name rearranged to make “zap time on” or “at omen zip.” Lloyd Elgin became “no idyll leg” or “old yelling.” Max rearranged the letters once more and gasped when he saw the result. Self-consciously he glanced around, confirming that no one else had noticed his astonished reaction.
Sweat formed on his skin as he stared at the final combination of letters. It had to be a mistake. Flipping the page over, he quickly sorted the letters again, but with lines to account for each one. It was crazy and wrong, yet staring at the result he knew with growing certainty that it was no coincidence.
A sinister energy wrapped its arms around the compartment and squeezed tight. As bad as the situation already was, it had just grown far worse. Someone else was hunting for him, someone who obviously knew where to look.
But who is Lloyd Elgin? And where could the guy possibly have come from?
It was impossible to know, but one thing was certain, given the evil history of Golden Lily—the decades of plundering and raping Southeast Asia, the elaborate plans for hiding the emperor’s stolen treasure—it seemed doubtful this new hunter would be the least bit friendly.