The Nicholas Linnear Novels (24 page)

As he hesitated, the front door swung silently open and a brawny man in a dark blue business suit with short-cropped brown hair moved forward and guided him into the limo. Both doors swung to with a comfortable
thunk
that bespoke monied engineering and the limo accelerated into the traffic flow.

There was a spaciousness inside not usually attributable to automobiles and a silence that was truly remarkable. Outside, the city glided by as if pulled on velvet runners. They might have been stationary, a backdrop being rolled by them, save for the slight discomfitures of acceleration and deceleration.

The interior was done all in dove-gray velvet and it was, quite obviously, a custom job; nothing was as one might see it on the showroom floor. It was cool and dim, like the interior of an expensive bar. Even the vibration from the massive V-8 engine was kept to a minimum.

There were three men in the car: a driver, the man in the dark blue business suit who sat on the passenger’s side in front and the figure in back, on the opposite side of the plush bench seat. This last regarded him now. He was tall and somewhat stocky. He wore a conservative yet impeccable lightweight linen suit. Beneath this, Nicholas could see that there was no fat on him; his bulk was muscle and bone. He had a large head with a somewhat thrusting jaw which, overall, gave him a rather aggressive appearance. This was enhanced by his slanting forehead and short gunmetal-gray hair. His lean cheeks were pockmarked and his deep-set blue eyes, like marble chips, were guarded by black bushy brows. Altogether, Nicholas decided, it was a face that had borne the brunt of many a tough decision and won them all. Nicholas would have cast him as a general and no lower than a five-star.

“Would you care for a drink?” The man beside him had spoken in his commanding voice but it was blue-business-suit who moved, turning his body partway around on the front seat so that his left arm lay along the velvet top like an implied threat. Nicholas found himself wondering what had happened to delay Lieutenant Croaker.

“Bacardi and bitter lemon, if you have it.” Immediately the blue business suit opened a small door in the center of the front seat. Nicholas heard the soft clink of ice against glass. He remained calm, though he still had no idea who these people were. He wanted to keep the man talking. The longer he did that, the sooner he would know who he was.

“You don’t look much like your photographs,” the man said almost disgustedly.

As blue-suit stretched to pour the rum, Nicholas caught a glimpse of the butt of a revolver snug within a chamois holster under the man’s right armpit. He turned his gaze away, to the city outside. It seemed a thousand miles away. “That’s perfectly understandable,” he said. “I’ve never taken a good picture; not to my knowledge, anyway.”

“Your drink,” the man in the dark blue suit said.

Nicholas reached forward through the open partition and, as he did so, he saw from certain minute changes in the other precisely what was coming. Curious, he allowed it to happen. As soon as his hand was through the partition, the man lifted the drink away and grabbed at Nicholas’ wrist with his other hand. It was a very swift motion yet, from Nicholas’ point of view, slow and clumsy. He could have counteracted it in any number of different ways. Instead, he watched passively as the other gripped his wrist, exerting pressure to turn the hand over. The man peered closely at the edge of Nicholas’ hand, which was as hard and callused as horn. The man lifted his gaze, nodded to the man beside Nicholas, then handed Nicholas his drink.

Nicholas sipped at the Bacardi and bitter lemon, found it quite good. Swallowing, he said, “Are you satisfied?”

“As to your identity,” said the man beside him, “yes.”

“You know more about me than I do about you,” Nicholas observed.

The man shrugged. “That is as it should be.”

“By your standards perhaps.” No one wore sunglasses or any kind of glasses, for that matter; no one smoked.

“Those are the only standards that count, Mr. Linnear.”

“Mind if I light up?” His right hand moved toward his trousers pocket and, at the same time, blue-suit’s left arm stiffened, moving. He shook his head from side to side.

“You don’t want to do that, Mr. Linnear,” said the man beside him. “You gave up smoking more than six months ago.” He grunted. “Just as well. Those black-tobaccoed cigarettes are certain killers.”

Nicholas was impressed by the depth of their information on him. Whoever this man was, he was not an amateur.

“Did you know, Mr. Linnear, that an accumulation of high-nicotine smoke can destroy the taste buds?” He nodded as if this statement needed physical confirmation. “It’s quite true. A group at the University of North Carolina completed the study.” He smiled. “Ironic, isn’t it? The campus is virtually surrounded by tobacco fields.”

“I’ve never heard of that study,” Nicholas said.

“Well, of course you haven’t. The results are quite secret at the moment. They’re being timed for release during the annual tobacco growers’ convention in Dallas next October.”

“You seem to know a great deal about this study.”

“I should,” the man said, laughing. “It was funded with my money.” He turned his head away, letting that sink in for several moments.

“How much do you really know about me?” Nicholas prompted. He was almost certain now; the face remained vaguely familiar, at least parts of it.

The man swung around, impaling him on an icy stare. “Enough to want to talk to you face to face.”

It was the piece he needed. “I didn’t recognize you at first,” Nicholas said. “I’d never seen you without the beard.”

The man smiled, rubbed at his clean-shaven chin. “It does make quite a difference, I’ll admit.” Then his face lost all its warmth and it seemed as if the flesh were carved out of granite; the difference was appalling. “What do you want with my daughter, Mr. Linnear?” His voice was like the crack of a whip. Nicholas wondered what it would be like growing up under that fierce domination; he did not envy Justine.

“What does any man want with a woman?” he said. “Only that, Mr. Tomkin. Nothing more.”

Out of the corner of his eye he felt the movement of blue-suit even before it came into his line of vision. He relaxed; now was not the time. The big beefy hands were at his shirt front. Some of the drink slopped over the side of the glass, ran down his trousers leg. Nicholas supposed that this man would have little trouble in picking up his side of a grand piano. While the man held him from in front, Tomkin leaned over. “That’s not very smart,” he said. His tone had changed again, as quickly and completely as a chameleon switches color. It was now steel covered thinly by velvet. “In any event, Justine is no ordinary woman; she’s my daughter.”

“Is this how you handled Chris in San Francisco?” Nicholas said.

Tomkin was quite still for a moment; it was a breathless time. Then, without turning his head from Nicholas, he made a small gesture and blue-suit let go his grip. Without a backward glance the man pulled himself into the front of the limo and closed the partition. He turned to look through the windshield.

“So that’s how it is,” Tomkin said when they were alone. “Interesting.” He eyed Nicholas. “My daughter must like you.” Then his tone turned acid. “Either that or you’re a hell of a good lay. She hasn’t been with any man for more than two hours since I brought her back. That’s a long time for a girl of her age.” Then, as an afterthought, he said, “She’s got problems.”

“Everyone’s got problems, Mr. Tomkin,” Nicholas said drily. “Even you.” As soon as he had said it, he regretted opening his mouth. His anger had caused that; not a good sign.

Tomkin sat back, sinking into the cushions. He squinted at Nicholas. “You’re an odd one. I do a hell of a lot of business with the Japs; even go over there three, four times a year. Never met anyone there like you.”

“I imagine that’s a compliment.”

Tomkin shrugged. “Take it any way you like.” He leaned forward, depressed a hidden stud, and a small desk swiveled out on his side, complete with a miniature gooseneck lamp. Behind the desk was an accordion compartment built into the seat. Tomkin dipped a hand into this, extracted a sheet of paper. It was folded once across its width. He handed it to Nicholas. “Here,” he said, “what do you make of this?”

It was a sheet of Japanese rice paper, very fine. Nicholas unfolded it carefully. On it was a symbol, brushed on the center with black ink. There were nine small diamonds surrounding a large circle like satellites about a sun. Inside the center circle was the Japanese ideogram for
komuso
, the beggar-ascetic.

“Well?” Tomkin demanded. “Do you know what it is?”

“Tell me how you got this.” Nicholas lifted his gaze from the crest, saw that those cold blue eyes were clouded with a kind of held-in anxiety.

“It came in the pouch.” And when he saw Nicholas looking at him uncomprehendingly, he added, somewhat irritably, “The pouch from Japan. Each of our foreign offices has a daily pouch for important messages, when phones are inconvenient or insufficient for relaying data. At first I thought it was some kind of a joke but now…” He shrugged. “Tell me what it is.”

“It’s a crest,” Nicholas said simply. He handed the sheet back to Tomkin, but he would not take it so Nicholas slid it onto the desk. “A crest for a ninja
ryu
—a school.” He took a deep breath, weighing his next words carefully, but before he could open his mouth Tomkin was hammering at the smoked-glass partition. Blue-suit turned his head and a part of the glass opened. “Frank, I want to go to the tower.”

“But, Mr. Tomkin—”

“Now, Frank.”

Frank nodded, closed the partition. Nicholas could see him talking to the driver. The limo turned at the next corner, heading east. When they came to Park Avenue South, they made a left, headed north.

Next to Nicholas, Tomkin eyed the folded rice paper as if something inside it had come to startling life.

Detective Lieutenant Croaker was not happy as he left Captain Finnigan’s office early that morning. In point of fact he was on the verge of boiling over. He strode down the fluorescent-lighted corridor, crowded with officers and clerks, in long athletic strides.

“Hey, Lew, wait till I—” But Croaker had already brushed past the sergeant without noticing him and the man shrugged, turned away. Croaker could be like that sometimes and it was best then to stay out of his way.

Reaching his frosted-glass-fronted office, Croaker swung in and pounded his fists against the laminated Formica desk top. Many was the time he had tried to burn holes in the thing with the end of his cigarette. To no avail. That was modern science for you.

He crashed down into the dark green swivel chair. He stared fixedly at the frosted-glass partition but what he was really seeing was Finnigan’s fat mick face, those soft dewy blue eyes staring up at him blankly.

“I want to make this very plain to you, Croaker,” the captain had said. “The Didion case is a closed book.” He raised his pudgy hands in front of his face, warding off Croaker’s expected protests. “I know, I know, I put you on it myself. But that was when I thought we could see some quick results. Everyone from the mayor on down was howling for a quick arrest. Then the media jumped all over it; you know what they can do.” His hands came down, lying flat on his desk top. Croaker thought they looked like hams ripe for roasting. “You know as well as I do the kind of people who live at the Actium House. People like Cardin and Calvin Klein don’t like that kind of thing happening where they live. There was an awful lot of pressure.”

Croaker closed his eyes for a moment, counting slowly, one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, just as he had done when playing football on the streets of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen when he was a kid. It was either that or belt Finnigan in his fat red nose. His eyes snapped open, they saw the captain leaning back in his high-backed chair, his hands, fingers interlaced, sitting atop his ample stomach. Croaker wondered how many whiskeys the old man had already downed. Inadvertently, he glanced at the spot where the lower right-hand drawer was, where the bottle always lay within easy reach. His gaze swung back to Finnigan’s red-veined face. His eyes seemed even more faded in the soft early morning light filtering through the closed shades. Outside, the towers of lower Manhattan rose like blocky giants.

“I know all about that pressure, Captain.” His tone revealed none of his hidden emotion. “I’ve lived with that ever since I joined the force ten years ago. What I don’t understand is this sudden switch, this about-face.”

“You weren’t getting anywhere,” Finnigan said equably. “I pulled the plug, that’s all.”

“Bull! That’s a load of—”

“Don’t start this with me, Lieutenant.” Finnigan’s eyes blazed and a thin line of spittle glistened on his protruding lower lip. “I’m in no mood for any of your grandstanding.” He sat up, leaning forward, and now his small eyes seemed mean and bitter and altogether merciless. “You may enjoy a great reputation with the press. I allow that because it’s good for the department as a whole; the public responds well to one name, one face. But don’t you ever think that that gives you any special privileges in here or out there.” His enormous thumb hooked back over his shoulder, indicating the streets of the city. “I’m onto your little game and it gets no points with me. You love that attention, the media play. You eat it up like a glutton. But that’s okay; that I can handle. What I won’t tolerate is you treating me as if I’m some kind of idiot, some kind of moral defective.” He saw the look on the other’s face, jumped on it. “Yeah, that’s right: moral defective. You been on the force more than long enough to know the reason why some investigation or other gets snuffed. Someone high up ‘requested’ it. Okay? So now I’ve spelled it out for you.” His face was red now and the wattles beside his mouth were quivering. “Believe me, I have thought of getting rid of you so very often, transferring you to some other district. But you’re too valuable to me. You’re good for at least a couple of mayor’s citations for me each year. I don’t mind telling you I like that; it’s good for my record.” He stood up now, his thick arms straight columns ending in bunched fists pressed so hard against the desk top that they had gone white. “But I’ll be goddamned if I’ll ever let you pull a stunt like you did with the Lyman thing. That was officially chocked and you went after it anyway. You made me look like a fool to these people here and I’m just lucky that the commissioner didn’t hear about it.” He lifted a finger as big around as a sausage, shaking it in Croaker’s direction. “You’ll take this Tanaka-Okura double murder and I don’t want to ever hear that you threw a case back at the precinct boys the way you did last night.” He coughed thickly, wiped at his lips with a gray handkerchief. “What’s the matter? You got something against slants? No. So take it and be happy. Be happy that you’ve got a case to run with.”