The Nicholas Linnear Novels (227 page)

“And yet?”

Ishii shrugged. “I do my best, but I cannot overcome it. No matter how long I stay away—I once abstained for a year—I must go back.” He shrugged again. “Karma.”

“Yes, unfortunate karma,” Ikusa said. He turned a corner, Ishii following as obediently as a dog on a leash. “But, tell me, why come to me? Surely Nangi-san can obtain a loan for you. I assume he has done so in the past.”

“Once or twice,” Ishii admitted. Now Ikusa could discern a trace of despair in his voice. “Frankly, I was afraid to approach him this time. The recent turn of events has him off balance, angry. But finally I brought myself to ask. Nangi turned me down. He said I had a lesson to learn. I understand his anxiety over other matters, but I feel this was not right. I have been a loyal member of the Sato family for years. It is my life. Now he has turned his back on me when I need his help the most. It is unfair.”

“Ah, well, the most accommodating of employers…” Ikusa left this thought deliberately open-ended. “And the banks, Ishii-san? Can they not be of service?”

“I need the money by the end of the week, Ikusa-san. No bank will fill a loan that quickly.”

They passed beneath the shade of plum tree. “What size loan would satisfy the debt?”

When Ishii told him, Ikusa spent some time pretending to consider. “Well, I think you’ve acted correctly coming to me, Ishii-san. I’m sure we can work out an exchange of services.”

“Oh, Ikusa-san, I would be most grateful, most grateful,” Ishii babbled with embarrassing emotion.

Ikusa looked at him out of the corner of his eye as if the little man had dropped his pants and defecated in the azaleas.

They walked for some time in silence. Ikusa watched the joggers on their circuit, their lungs soaking up the carbon monoxide. What possible health benefit could be derived from that? he wondered.

“By the way,” Ikusa said, breaking the contemplative silence, “what exactly is Nangi-san thinking? He’s lost the heart of Nakano, and he can’t sell the worthless shell he’s bought so dearly. What is he going to do?”

“Well, it's not just him now,” Ishii said. He seemed to be a different person, relieved of the burden of his gambling debt. It was, of course, a matter of face that he should be able to pay on time and in good faith. “He and Linnear-san have gotten together to plot strategy.”

“Nicholas Linnear is back?” Ikusa was momentarily so nonplussed by the news that he blurted it out. “That is to say, I had heard reports that he disappeared.”

Ishii shrugged. “I don’t know about that. But if they were true at all, he’s back.”

Damnit, how is it I didn’t know about this? Ikusa asked himself. And where the hell is Senjin? He was supposed to be taking care of Linnear. If Linnear has returned, he should have informed me. That could be trouble.

“Do you have any idea what Nangi and Linnear are planning?”

“Not specifically,” Ishii said. “I do know that a number of MITI officials went to see them yesterday.” This could be more bad news, Ikusa knew. Nangi was a former vice-minister of the powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Though MITI and Nami professed to be essentially on the same course, Ikusa knew that this was not always the case. He did not actually know how strong Nangi’s ties remained with his erstwhile ministry, but Ikusa was not in the habit of underestimating his enemies. Nangi had been in his day a fierce practitioner of
kanryodo,
the art of the bureaucrat. What strings he could still pull were as of now a matter of conjecture.

“Ishii-san,” Ikusa said. “If you meet me here at this time tomorrow, I will have your money.”

The little man bowed.
“Domo arigato,
Ikusa-sama. I will, of course, sign a note agreeing to any rate of interest you see fit.”

“Oh, that will not be necessary,” Ikusa said, taking the opening. “This is a matter of trust between equals.” He used an inflective, the Japanese equivalent of a wave of the hand. “And as for interest, there will be none.” He looked into Ishii’s wide-eyed face. “But if I might ask for an alternate form of payment?”

“Anything, Ikusa-san. I am most grateful for your understanding and generosity.”

“It is very little,” Ikusa said, making the ritual response to a compliment. “This is what you might do for me: when you meet me tomorrow, I would appreciate knowing what strategy Nangi-san has decided on.”

At approximately the same time that this meeting was taking place, but in an eastern section of Tokyo, Tomi and Nangi were making their way along the water-slick pavement dockside at Tsukiji, the sprawl of single-story buildings on the bank of the Sumida River, which winds through the city.

Tsukiji was Tokyo’s vast wholesale fish market, where more than twelve million dollars worth of fish were sold every day. Today, however, there was something other than fish at Tsukiji.

Using her credentials, Tomi pushed their way through the police barriers, around the Medical Examiner’s ambulance. Lights blazed, creating pools across the slick docks. Workers in black slickers and high boots, carrying curved fish hooks and water hoses to spray the lines of fish lying on their sides, gleaming in the hazy morning sunlight, stood around staring, talking among themselves as their open-mouthed catch piled up on the dock.

Nangi walked slowly. He leaned heavily on his cane, and his face was lined and drawn tight by concern. The sky was suffused with the milky light that presages sunrise, the illumination of preconsciousness that gives everything a surreal quality, blurring edges, making definition indistinct.

Tomi stopped at the edge of the indigo river. Boats bobbed at their slips as their cargo was off-loaded to be inventoried, sprayed, priced for the morning’s sale.

Nothing, however, was going on. The men on the boats were staring at a mounded plastic sheet spread over a six-foot length of the dock.

“They pulled him out of the Sumida not more than forty minutes ago,” Tomi said to Nangi. “That’s when I was called.” She pointed. “He rose up to the surface, bumped against the side of this boat here. The captain looked over the side, called the police.”

With that she gestured, and the plastic tarp was thrown back.

“Dear God,” Nangi breathed.

“Is it him?” Tomi turned to him. “Can you make a positive identification?”

“Yes.” Nangi had difficulty swallowing. “That’s the Pack Rat.”

Tomi nodded, as if to herself. She pointed. “I don’t know what happened, but you can see where he was weighted down with something, maybe iron bars. That’s how they do it.”

“Who?”

“Yakuza.”

Nangi was bent over the Pack Rat’s bloated corpse. “This wasn’t a Yakuza hit.”

“You seem sure about that.”

“I am,” Nangi said. “The Pack Rat had too many friends among the Yakuza.”

“Where there are friends, there are bound to be enemies,” Tomi pointed out. “That’s the law of the jungle.”

“No doubt,” Nangi said. “But look here—and here—these wounds. A blunt and heavy weapon was used.” He looked closer. “It seems to me these are the wounds inflicted by a
tetsubo
.”

“Isn’t that a feudal weapon? If I recall my history, it was used for opening up armor plate and breaking war horses’ legs,” Tomi said, coming closer. “I’ve never seen one at work.”

“Well, I have,” Nangi said. “A long time ago. A real
tetsubo
match isn’t pretty. It’s a matter of great skill combined with brute strength to successfully wield a solid iron bar mounted with iron studs.” Nangi put his cheek against the dragon head of his cane. “Poor boy,” he said softly. “It takes a nasty mind to want to use one of these things. You have to want to inflict fatal damage.
Tetsubo
matches are invariably to the death.”

“You mean they still exist?”

“You’re looking at evidence that they do,” Nangi said, straightening up. He had said his goodbye to the Pack Rat. They walked away from the forensic team, so they would not be overheard. “What was found on the body?”

“Not a thing,” Tomi said. “He was either carrying nothing or he was stripped before being dumped in the river. My guess is the latter.”

“I agree,” Nangi said. “Though the Pack Rat was very careful. He would not have been carrying anything but false identity papers, some money. Nothing incriminating that would let anyone know what he was doing.”

“He popped up like a cipher, but the description you gave us was what caused the investigating officers to call me,” Tomi said. “I’m sorry, Nangi-san.”

Nangi nodded. “It’s sad. And terribly bad luck for me. The Pack Rat was my eyes and ears inside Kusunda Ikusa’s strategies. He gave me only a broad outline of what he had discovered at our last meeting. I’m sure he had so much more.” But perhaps it doesn’t matter, Nangi thought. He had solved the riddle of Ikusa’s raid: to gain control of Sato International and its Sphynx T-PRAM division.

And yet, this was only an assumption. Nangi longed for outside confirmation. If only the dead could talk, he thought bleakly. What secrets would you tell me, Pack Rat, if you could?

Nangi said, “The one thing of interest he did mention was that somehow Killan Oroshi, the daughter of Nakano’s chairman, was involved with Ikusa. That struck both of us as odd. She might be the only lead we have left now.”

“Detective Yazawa!”

They both turned to see one of the investigating officers gesturing frantically to Tomi. They went back to where the corpse was being loaded onto a folding stretcher, preparatory to being taken away in the ambulance.

“Look at what we found,” the officer said. “The man’s left shoe must have been ripped off when he came to the surface. Look at the space between his big toe and the others.”

Tomi and Nangi bent to look. The Pack Rat, as was his habit, was not wearing socks. His foot was so bloated, one could hardly recognize it for what it was. Taped to the inside of his big toe, lying against the white flesh, was a tiny metal key.

Tomi took out a pocket knife, slit the tape. Carefully she peeled the key off the dead man’s flesh, dropped it into Nangi’s palm.

“Now,” she said, “maybe we have another lead.”

“There’s no time like the present,” Detective Albemarle said. “How about we locate Senator Howe right now?”

Shisei nodded. “Anything you say.”

“This is Sergeant Johnson,” Albemarle said, as a big black cop joined them on their way outside.

“I remember him from the interrogation room,” Shisei said.

“You’re quite some woman,” Albemarle said as they went down the steps of the precinct house to an unmarked car. It was hot and sticky, with little breeze coming in off the Chesapeake: a typical summer night in the nation’s capital. “Still, you sure you’re up to this?”

“You want me there, I’m going. It’s as simple as that.”

Albemarle grunted. “Nothing’s ever simple.” He pulled out onto the street. “Howe’s got some rep when it comes to his people crossing him.”

“I’m not crossing him,” Shisei said. “I’m turning him in.”

That got a smile out of Albemarle. “I’ll say this for you, you’ve got guts. Ain’t she got guts, Bobo?”

“Damned if she don’t,” Sergeant Johnson said from his position in the backseat. Shisei got the impression that he was staring intently at the back of her neck.

Albemarle went on, “I assume you know that Howe has enough juice to pull your career out from under you for what you’re doing. Does anything scare you?”

Shisei looked at him in the night.

He drove very fast but not recklessly: Within minutes he pulled up outside Howe’s residence on Seventeenth Street in the northwest district.

“Place should be a museum, not a goddamn private house,” Albemarle muttered as they got out of the car. Looking up, they could see lights on in the third floor. Albemarle pointed. “You know your way around here, I imagine?”

Shisei said, “I’m familiar with the offices on the ground floor. The senator’s private apartment is on the third floor. I’ve never been up there.”

Albemarle grunted as they went up the stone steps. He rang the bell. They waited. When no one answered, he rang again, this time leaning on the bell. Nothing. He turned the doorknob and the door opened inward.

Immediately Albemarle and Johnson drew their guns. “For a paranoid like Howe, this is decidedly not kosher.”

“I’d better call for a backup,” Johnson said.

“Nix,” Albemarle ordered. “This is ours. I’m not in a sharing mood tonight.” He gestured to Shisei. “You stay here.”

“I want to go with you,” she said.

“It’s against regs,” Albemarle told her, already inside. Sergeant Johnson glowered at her, then followed his boss into the house.

In a moment Shisei followed them.

The downstairs offices were dark. She could see that the two cops had found the curving staircase, went slowly upward. She was a shadow behind them. The second floor was also dark, but now they could see more clearly, as light from the third floor seeped down the spiral stairwell.

“Keep your head down,” Shisei, close behind them, heard Albemarle whisper to Johnson before they began to ascend.

Light flooded the third-floor landing, emanating from the open doorway to a room that was obviously Douglas Howe’s study. Floor to ceiling bookcases surrounded a pair of facing leather sofas, a matching high-backed chair. A massive antique fruitwood desk and leather swivel chair were set in one corner. A brace of English hunting paintings hung on the deep green walls. Lamps glowed here and there.

An antique Isfahan rug lay behind one of the sofas, but it was now worthless, stained beyond repair with blood and brains.

Senator Douglas Howe half sat at an unnatural angle on one of the leather sofas. His legs were incongruously crossed at the ankles, as if he were in repose, which, in a sense, was the case.

His arms were flung wide as if in shocked reaction. A .357 Magnum lay just beyond the reach of his right hand. There was nothing left of the back of his head. Some of it clung to the spines of books in the cases three feet away.

“Jesus,” was all Albemarle said. Then he said to Shisei, “Don’t move, and don’t under any circumstances touch or move anything.”

He went over to the desk, used his handkerchief to pick up the phone. He dialed, using his pen to hit the push buttons. “Bobby? It’s Phil,” he said into the phone. “Ambulance, full forensics, M.E.’s office and backup.” Then he gave the address. “Yeah,” he said. “Senator Howe himself. He won’t be running for reelection, so for Christ’s sake let’s keep this quiet for as long as we can before the press starts treading all over us, okay? Who can you get to cover this? Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. And I want you here five minutes ago.”