Eric van Lustbader - China Maroc 02, page 29
Young men with short gaffs went among the tuna, lifting them this way and that across the wet concrete by hooking them in the gills. Other men walked slowly among the deepening rows of fish, spraying them with water.
All the while a pearlescent mist rose about their feet, the spray from their hoses bouncing off scales and concrete to form miniature rainbows in the air.
At five minutes to five, the men began stacking the most enormous mounds of pink and white sashimi, sparkling, dewy fresh, ready— along with the great fish—for auction.
The market was filling up with people: buyers, sleepy sightseers,
revved-up revelers who were making this their last stop among many during the long night.
“Maroc-san.”
Jake turned, saw a diminutive Japanese come around from behind a stack of squid.
“Kachikachi-san!”
They bowed to each other, performing the greeting ritual of the Yakuza.
“When I saw you last you were tied up.”
“By your own hand, Maroc-san.”
“A thousand apologies. The circumstances …”
Kachikachi nodded. “Komoto-san explained everything afterward,”
“It is about Komoto-san that I have come,” Jake said. “Is he here?”
“Let us have breakfast,” Kachikachi said. He led the way across the concrete running with sea water and fish blood to a small restaurant that was no more than a counter beneath a striped awning.
Over sashimi and Kirin beer, Kachikachi said, “Komoto-san sends you his greetings.”
Jake said nothing.
“He apologizes for the manner in which you have been led around. As you said, circumstances …”
“The war.”
“You come at the worst time imaginable,” Kachikachi said, crunching into a thick slice of abalone cunningly shaped to resemble a butterfly.
“I know.”
“There is talk of an escalation of the war.”
Buddha, Jake thought. It is already a bloodbath.
“Times are most difficult, Maroc-san. I spent fifteen minutes here making sure that you had not been followed before I made contact.”
“Followed by whom?”
“These days,” Kachikachi said, dipping squid into soy sauce, “there are many enemies.”
Jake thought of his own situation. “I feared that Komoto-san was already dead,” he said. “I have been calling for days.”
“Security, Maroc-san.” Kachikachi ordered more sashimi for them both. “And Komoto-san has no wish to involve you in this extreme danger.”
“It’s too late for that,” Jake said. “I’m already here.”
Kachikachi’s face darkened. “I am afraid that it would be best if you left.”
“Left?”
Kachikachi handed him a slim packet. “Immediately.”
Jake opened it, found a one-way ticket to Hong Kong. “What is this?”
Kachikachi’s eyes were sad. “It is my oyabun’s wish.”
Jake put the packet on the counter between them. “This did not come from Komoto-san.”
“I regret to say that there is no choice, Maroc-san.” Kachikachi’s eyes were downcast. “One should not have to speak to a friend in such a manner, but I, too, have been given no choice.” He reached into his pocket, threw some bills on the counter. “Please be on that flight.” He stood.
“I want to see Komoto-san.”
“Goodbye, Maroc-san.”
“I will see him, Kachikachi-san. I must.”
But Kachikachi had already disappeared into the mist. Pocketing the ticket, Jake left the restaurant and went carefully through the market. It was just past five thirty and the first auction had begun. The crowds had increased and he had plenty of cover.
He spotted Kachikachi and worked his way through the throng, careful to change vectors frequently since Kachikachi was already sensitive to security.
At the land end of Tsukiji, the small man paused, looking around. They were in the east end of Tokyo. Kachikachi turned right, hurrying up the street. Jake followed, crossing and recrossing the street several times, using shop windows and, where he could, mirrors to keep the small man in sight. At the same time, he kept an eye out for ticks who might have picked either him or Kachikachi up at the market. He saw no one.
Kachikachi went into Asashicho. He was heading directly for Jisaku, a well-known restaurant where one could still see geisha performing with lunch or dinner, though the woman was more likely to be sixty than twenty. Nowadays all the young ones were selling their bodies along the Ginza. This tradition, at least, was dying out.
The place looked like a temple structure with its long sloping tiled roofs and ancient appearance. Kachikachi passed into shadow under the eaves.
Jake paused on the street and took a hard look around. There were a number of cars parked along the curb. One of them he recognized as Mikio’s company Mercedes. It was impossible to tell if anyone was inside because of the tinted glass. But in the cool morning air Jake could see the soft swirl of exhaust emanating from the car’s tailpipe. The engine was on, the Mercedes ready to roll.
Keeping one eye on Jisaku, into which Kachikachi had disappeared, Jake went out into the street and hailed a cab. At this time of the day, with people streaming in from nearby Tsujiki, it was not difficult to find one. The automatic door opened and Jake ducked his head inside. He spoke to the driver in rapid idiomatic Japanese, unfurling several bills of high-yen denomination as he did so.
The man nodded, pocketing the bills, and Jake stood up. He was about to return to the restaurant when he saw the front door open. Kachikachi came out along with a large Yakuza. They stood in the mist, watching the street. Jake turned away, leaning on the open door of the taxi.
Reflected in the window of the car he could see another man emerge from the shadowed doorway of the restaurant. Now the three were on the move. They were definitely on their way to the Mercedes.
Jake climbed into the taxi and the door sighed shut. There was a miniature TV that the last passenger had left on. Jake switched it off and watched the three hurry down the walk. Jake studied the third man. It was difficult to get even a partial view of his face because of the intervening bulk of the big Yakuza, but Jake recognized the wide shoulders and narrow waist, the close stubble of his shorn hair.
Mikio!
So he had been here after all.
Something about his walk—had he been hurt? Jake was about to climb out of the taxi when he heard an engine cough to life across the street. He turned his head, saw smoke coming from the tailpipe of a blue Nissan.
“The Mercedes,” Jake told the driver, and the man nodded.
Mikio and his crew were already in the car and now the Mercedes was pulling away from the curb.
“Wait,” Jake told the driver, “for the blue Nissan to pass.” He saw the quick flick of the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
Then they were all in motion, wending their way through Tokyo’s thickening traffic: Mikio, Jake, and the unknown enemy who had somehow known about this meeting.
In Jake’s mind, Kachikachi’s words echoing, There is talk of an escalation of the war.
When Tony Simbal drove his Saab up the long snaking drive leading to Greystoke he did so at slow speed. He had the windows and the sunroof open. Golden light poured into the velour interior with unaccustomed warmth. Though a breeze whispered through the tall sycamore and pine it contained not a trace of winter’s biting chill.
All around him it seemed birds twittered and sprang from twig to branch as if delighted to be home again. Fleecy clouds hung in the sky, given a glow by the sunlight striking them, and every so often he sported a rabbit or a pheasant scurrying away from his passage along the verge of the graveled driveway. Once he was certain he caught a quick glimpse of the rear end of a deer, bolting from his line of sight.
Simbal inhaled deeply, abruptly aware that, perhaps strictly out of defense, he had been breathing shallowly all winter long. In a sense, he thought, one barely lived in winter at all. Bundled and packed in layer upon layer of overclothes, one plodded through bleak days short on light and warmth and even color while one’s nose slowly turned red and one’s extremities became numb.
Simbal was thinking of Burma, of the Shan States, and the mysterious murders of Peter Curran and Alan Thune when he pulled up to the great nineteenth-century mansion owned by the Quarry and occupied by its Director. The gabled, turreted house sat within fifty acres or so that encompassed rolling emerald hills and a spacious valley in Great Falls, Virginia.
The place still bore the stamp of Antony Beridien, the Quarry’s former Director, so lately assassinated in the end phase of a plot, or so it had been rumored, devised by General Daniella Vorkuta and her mole inside the Quarry, Chimera, a.k.a. Henry Wunderman.
Beridien had been an inveterate collector of antiques, and the rooms and hallways of Greystoke were still filled with a rainbow of period pieces ranging from Federal to Chippendale to Louis XV to God only knew what.
As he cut the Saab’s engine and the deep throb of the turbo died, Simbal saw Donovan hunched over his ‘63 Corvette. The car was Donovan’s rather manic hobby. Every week it seemed that he was working to improve this or that aspect of the engine.
Donovan picked his head out of the automobile’s maw and smiled, waved a hand holding a wrench. It was Sunday and Donovan was dressed casually in a pair of old, faded chinos, a similarly hued Ralph Lauren Polo shirt and worn Topsiders without socks. A green metal toolbox was at his side, along with a tray filled with a pitcher of lemonade, an ice bucket into which had been poked several bottles of Lite beer, and a variety of glasses.
“Help yourself, Tony,” Donovan said, ducking his head back beneath the raised hood of the ‘Vette.
Simbal went across the gravel and popped the cap off a beer. He took a swig, watching the Director’s work without much interest. He knew almost all there was to know about automotive engines of all sorts. So much time in the jungle made that a necessity. But it was hardly a love. He had other things to occupy his thoughts.
He looked around. Someone was working in the rose garden, carefully pruning on bended knee. Soon the bushes would be in bloom and that side of the mansion would be suffused with a scent as delicious as ardor.
“So,” Donovan said, his head and shoulders out of sight, “what have you been up to?”
Simbal put the empty bottle aside and leaned against the warm fender of the car. “You remember a woman named Monica Starr.”
“Mmm, sounds familiar. Girlfriend or business?”
“Both, actually.” Simbal crossed his arms over his chest. “We had an affair while I was at the DEA. I ran into her the other evening.”
“Oh, really? Where?”
“A party.”
“That wouldn’t’ve been Max Threnody’s bash?”
“As a matter of fact it was,” Simbal said. “Why?”
“No particular reason. I just like to know which hole my operatives are poking their noses into.”
“You don’t like Max, do you, Rodger?”
“Like him? Hmm, I never considered that alternative. Let’s just say that I don’t approve of the DEA, period. It’s too much of a bureaucratic boondoggle for my taste, tied to Congress’s apron strings. I don’t think having to suck up to those idiots on Capitol Hill ever did anyone any good. Especially people in our profession. We need to be left alone by politicians. Autonomy is the only effective means of doing business. That way, instead of having to cut through red tape, one avoids it entirely.”
There was a clanking from inside the Corvette and Donovan grunted. “Don’t really understand how you managed to stay there so long. Compared to us, it’s a very bourgeois operation.”
“Maybe so, but their computer is the key we’ve been looking for against the diqui.”
Donovan at last reemerged from his place of refuge. “Is that so?” He wiped his greasy hands on a rag and poured himself some lemonade. “Tell all.”
Simbal told Donovan about his talk with Monica, about her unease regarding Peter Curran. When it came to Curran’s death, Simbal did not leave out anything but, strangely—or so it seemed to him—he made it seem as if the DEA computer and not Max Threnody had divulged the classified information.
“How’d you get access to the computer?” Donovan asked shrewdly. “The girl?”
Simbal nodded.
“Chasing after skirts,” Donovan said ruminatively. “We did an awful lot of that together in college.”
Simbal smiled. “We were terrors.”
“No responsibilities then.”
“No power, either.”
Donovan looked at him. His clear blue eyes and handsome features made it appear as if he had just stepped out of a Calvin Klein ad. “But we did have power, Tony. A very real kind of power over women. They all wanted to be with us, remember?”
“Yeah.” Simbal shrugged. “But to tell you the truth, now I’m not sure how much of that was real and how much we made up.”
“What do you mean?” Donovan asked sharply. “We had them all … anyone we wanted, we bedded.”
“Except Leslie.”
Donovan put down his glass and pointed. “Get behind the wheel and start her up when I give you the signal.” He did some tinkering and then said, “Okay.”
Simbal turned the ignition and the thing began to purr like a great cat.
“Superb!” Donovan made one last-minute adjustment and closed the hood. “Let’s take a spin.”
Simbal got out and Donovan took his place behind the wheel. As soon as Simbal was in the passenger’s seat, Donovan took off, sending a great spray of gravel upward in a graceful arc as he slewed them around.
“Do they know about this?” Simbal said, hanging on for dear life as the Corvette thrummed along.
“Who?”
“The government firm that pays our insurance,” Simbal said over the mounting noise. He stole a glance at the dashboard, saw that they were closing in on 110 mph.
Donovan laughed and Simbal shouted, “How fast does this mother go?”
“We’re going to find out right now,” Donovan said, pushing the accelerator to the floorboards. He whipped around a curve with such force that Simbal felt his neck crack uncomfortably. The road straightened out; the needle trembled at the 150 mph mark.
“How’s that?” Donovan shouted, grinning.
Simbal, who was more at home in a jury-rigged World War II Jeep or on a donkey’s back, heading down an Asian mountainside, said nothing; he was concentrating on keeping his stomach in place.
After what seemed an eternity, Donovan slowed to a more reasonable pace. Sunlight spun off the hood, refracting colors. The hills on either side of them were already lush, as if they were eager for summer to begin. They seemed haloed with the first misty buddings of springtime, ethereal, almost divine.
“Why did you bring up Leslie?” Donovan said after a time.
Simbal shrugged. “I don’t know, really. Except that it seemed appropriate. We were waxing nostalgic weren’t we? I don’t know about you but I can’t think about college without Leslie coming to mind. Unobtainable Leslie.”
Donovan slowed even more; now they were merely cruising like any other sightseers out for an afternoon’s spin. “She was probably gay.”
“Gay? Jesus!” Simbal laughed. “What in God’s name makes you say that?”
“She wasn’t interested in us, right? She was the only one, buddy.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t interested in us,” Simbal said a bit more soberly. “I said that she was unobtainable.”
“Same thing,” Donovan observed, “when you come down to it.”
Simbal gave the Director a quick look. “I guess I’d forgotten what an ego you have when it comes to women. Face it, Rodger, they didn’t all fall for the lousy lines we were handing out in those days. Anyway, all we wanted then was to fuck. Two studs out to rut. Our intellectual pursuits we reserved for the classroom, if memory serves.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s why Leslie wasn’t interested.”
“Christ, but I’ve never forgotten her,” Donovan said all of a sudden. It came out with such intensity that Simbal felt compelled to remain silent. “She seems like a dream now, almost.”
Donovan had slowed, pulling over to the shoulder. Now he stopped the car and turned off the ignition. The sudden cessation of noise was quite shocking.
“I remember her long blond hair streaming out behind her as she walked across the campus. It was as thick as honey. And her gray eyes could see right through you, it often seemed to me.” Donovan put his head back against the leather seat. “Jesus, I wanted her.”
“Sure you wanted her. Because you knew you couldn’t have her,” Simbal said. “Because without her pussy in your belt you weren’t batting one thousand.”
“No, you’re wrong,” Donovan said thoughtfully. “I wanted her because of her, I wanted Leslie.” His eyes stared unseeing up at the underside of the roof. Outside, the calling of the birds continued to wash the entire valley in soft, arhythmic melody.
“I never told you this, Tony,” Donovan said. “I never told anyone this, but one night just after we’d graduated, I went to Leslie’s house. You remember her folks lived quite near the campus.
“I didn’t call or anything. I don’t think I had the nerve. I remember the look of the place, so warm and inviting in the dusk. I could imagine her with her folks and her younger sister sitting down to dinner and I felt this, I don’t know what—a compulsion?—to join them.
“I remember climbing those stucco stairs, going past the huge yucca, all blue and a green so deep at that time of the evening it was near to black. It brushed my cheek.
“I rang the doorbell. I did it the instant I reached the top step. I knew I had to or I wouldn’t do it at all.
“I suspected that her father or her mother would come to the door and I had rehearsed a kind of speech for either eventuality. I wasn’t prepared for what happened.
“Leslie opened the door. Leslie herself, with that warm light burnishing her honey hair, outlining her body. It was a magical moment … something straight out of every fantasy I’d conjured up about her.
