Dirty Harry 08 - Hatchet Men (20 page)

“This insane act will display your sacrifice and nobility. This is what you are willing to give up to become Nihonmachi ruler. You will be looked upon with great respect and honor.”

Inagaki’s chest swelled with pride as he slipped the two samurai swords into his sash. His eyes sparkled with the dreams of conquest and total power.

At that second, a Kozure Ronin came stumbling into the room, his mouth working.

“You fool!” Denise Inagaki cried. “How dare you enter your master’s chambers?” She swung the Nambu toward the trespasser. Harry saw his opening and made his move. He brought both fists across the woman’s face. She sailed across the room, slamming into the stumbling Japanese. They both went down, the angle of their fall revealing a long, deep slit across the Kozure’s throat. The soldier had been garroted.

Harry jumped for the pile of yellow flesh, plucking the Nambu from Denise’s still hands. He spun to point it at Tetsuya, who had jumped onto the bed and held Suni up in front of him, his short sword blade at her throat. It was a Mexican standoff, Japanese style.

“What have you done?” Inagaki demanded, his shoulders shaking. “What is going on?”

Harry held the gun straight and solidly in front of him, both cuffed hands wrapped around the butt. If it had been his .44, he wouldn’t have thought twice about blowing the man’s brains out. But he wasn’t sure where the 9mm round would go.

“You ever wonder how I got to the Oriental Institute in the first place?” he said instead of shooting. “I’ll tell you. The Seppuku Swords called me there themselves. They sent a little package over to my hotel inviting me there. It was a trap, fine.
But how the hell did they know I was in town and on the trail?

“You didn’t tell them. You had too much to lose if I didn’t get your sister back. The Seppuku Sword kidnappers didn’t know who I was when they attacked the apartment house, so who the hell told them all about me and where I’d be staying and what I was doing?”

“The Chinese,” Inagaki said, in the shock of realization.

“The Chinese,” Harry affirmed. “They had the most to lose if you gained power. They had to look forward to years of bloody war as you tried to spread your influence everywhere. They wanted me in the middle so I could lead them to
you.”
Inagaki’s face grew deathly white. His hand gripped the hilt of the blade near Suni’s throat more tightly.

“I made a call from the hospital,” Harry continued. “I called my man in Chinatown and accused him of setting me up. He was happy to admit it. Then he suggested that since I helped them out, they would help me out. You hear those noises outside?” Harry paused so Inagaki could listen to the distant fighting. “That’s the sound of the first Chinese-Japanese battle. And the last.”

Inagaki grew absolutely livid, his whole body quaking. “You may have destroyed the Kozure Ronin!” he shouted, “but you will not save Suni! I will slit her throat right before your eyes!”

Harry’s finger was already depressing the Nambu’s trigger when he saw Suni’s eyes and mouth snap open. She quickly grabbed her brother’s sword hand and sunk her teeth into it. Tetsuya screamed, dropped the blade and reared up. For a second, Harry had the man dead to rights, caught smack dab in the line of a 9mm gun barrel across a bedroom.

But at the last possible moment, he pulled the gun up, unfired.

Inagaki stared at him with bulging eyes for a split second before taking advantage of the reprieve. He leaped off the bed and dived through the window. Harry turned when he heard a scraping noise behind him. He looked back to see Denise Inagaki crawling out of the room. Harry let her go, too. He stood in place for a moment, looking calmly at the alive, awake Suni. His expression was divided between affection and exhaustion.

“No one could sleep through a date with you,” she said, then started to cry. Harry walked over to the bed, sat down, and held her until her tears were spent.

She had awakened shortly after Tetsuya transferred her from the crashed ambulance to his car. Confused, groggy, and terrified, she thought it best to play possum until action was absolutely mandatory. She explained that she knew about her brother, but had renounced her whole family before moving to San Francisco.

“You didn’t have to let him get away to spare my feelings,” she said bravely.

Harry smiled, his eyes veiled and distant. He gently kissed her, then led her out of the house. The yard was a macabre scene of almost a dozen Chinese lawn jockies. All trace of anything vaguely Japanese had disappeared. The Inagaki house was far enough away from its neighbors so no one heard the quiet, but deadly Tiger Claw attack.

Harry asked Suni to wait in the car. She moved silently among the Chinese to sit in the vehicle Harry had directed her to. Then the cop turned back into the house, followed by the Chinese. Back in the bedroom, Mr. and Mrs. Tetsuya Inagaki were bound spread-eagled, side by side, on their massive bed. They were both tightly gagged, their eyes bulging pleadingly over the silencing material.

The Chinese circled the bed without a word, their raincoats unbuttoned, their hands down, except for one man who was talking into the bedside phone. “Inspector Callahan?” he suddenly said to Harry. The inspector looked from the writhing bodies of the Japanese couple to the Chinese holding the phone receiver out. “He wants to talk to you.”

Harry took the phone. “Hello?” On the other end was the unmistakable voice of Huang Cheh.

“I am told that you had a perfect opportunity to take revenge on Inagaki yourself, yet you let him escape. Why?”

“Because I knew he wouldn’t get far,” Harry tiredly answered, the weight of the executioner on his shoulders. He glanced over at Tetsuya, who was looking at him in amazement. “And I knew you would put him to a death more befitting his life.” He took a second to speak directly to the Inagakis. “Yours will be honorable deaths,” he told them. “Warriors’ deaths. You will go to a land much better than this.”

When he returned his attention to the phone, he heard laughter on the other end. “What’s so funny?” he asked as each Chinese took a razor-sharp hatchet out from under his coat and held it over a different part of the Japaneses’ bound body. Four were over the Inagakis’ hands. Four more over their feet. Four more at their elbows. Four more at their knees.

“For the first time in all the years we’ve known each other,” the crime boss chuckled, “I know why they call you ‘Dirty Harry.’ ”

Inspector Callahan hung up and left the house just before the Chinese chopped off the first of many Inagaki limbs.

D
ANE
H
ARTMAN
was a Warner Books imprint pseudonym used by two American novelists, Ric Meyers and Leslie Alan Horvitz. "Hartman" was credited as the author of the Dirty Harry action series based on the “Dirty” Harry Callahan character of the popular 1970’s and 1980’s films starring Clint Eastwood.

Following the release of the third Dirty Harry movie, The Enforcer, in 1976, Clint Eastwood made it clear that he did not intend to make any more Dirty Harry movies. In 1981, Warner Books (the publishing arm of Warner Bros., which made the films) began publishing a number of men's adventure series under its now-defunct "Men of Action" line. One such series features the further adventures of Inspector Harry Callahan. The series was brought to an end when Eastwood decided to direct, produce, and star in a fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact, which was released in December 1983.