“Is she going
to cost extra?” asked Gerard, taking a blind stab at a businesslike question.
“Thirty bucks a
day, that’s all. And that includes all the paraplegic facilities we’re putting
in, the ramps, and the special toilet.”
‘‘ Paraplegic
facilities?’’
There was an
awkward pause. Then O’Toole said, “You did ask for paraplegic facilities,
didn’t you? Don’t tell me I’ve gotten hold of this goddamned special toilet for
nothing.”
“Oh, sure,”
said Gerard. “I was distracted. Somebody just came in. Sure, the paraplegic
facilities are great. Well done.
Terrific.”
“I got all the
Japanese food, too,” said O’Toole, a little uncertainly. “I’m up to my ears in
bean curd and haru-same noodles. You’re going to want that? My secretary spent
the whole afternoon shopping for it.”
“Yes, we’ll
want all that,” said Gerard. “Now tell me, what time did I say we’d want to
sail?”
There was
another pause, longer. “This is Mr. Esmeralda, isn’t it?” O’Toole asked again.
“You think I’d
be asking you all these questions if I wasn’t?” Gerard demanded.
“You’re not Mr.
Esmeralda,” insisted O’Toole, and banged the phone down.
Gerard sat for
a moment in silence. Then he came downstairs to find Jerry Sennett waiting for
him inside the house.
“What was it?”
asked Jerry.
“A call from
Marina
del
Key, of all places. The guy thought I was
Esmeralda. Apparently, Esmeralda’s renting a yacht called the Paloma from the
Tahiti Way pier–when and why, he didn’t say. But he did confirm that the yacht
was stocked with Japanese food, and he also said that it was specially fitted
out for a paraplegic.”
‘‘ A
paraplegic ?’’ Jerry frowned.
“Don’t ask me,”
said Gerard. “I never knew there were any paraplegics involved in this.”
“But Esmeralda
obviously does,” said Jerry. “And when Nancy Shiranuka sent Kcmo to find out
who it was that Esmeralda was seeing–you remember, after he’d met you at Inca’s
restaurant–Kemo was killed by one of these Onis.”
“I don’t see
what you’re trying to say,” said Gerard.
“Somebody
powerful is running this Tengu business, that’s what I’m trying to say.
Somebody who has kept his or her identity secret the whole time,
using Esmeralda as a go-between.
Esmeralda’s not
the top guy, is he? I mean, he’s made it clear to you that he’s only passing on
instructions, rather than initiating them. Kemo was killed because he tried to
find out who the top banana was, and it’s my guess that the top banana is this
paraplegic.”
“Well, well,”
said Gerard sarcastically. “Sherlock Holmes.”
‘‘Nothing of
the kind,’’ Jerry retorted. “We have an organization here that consists mainly
of Oni adepts, and that means young, physically fit men, the fastest and the
most deadly exponents of any Japanese martial art ever devised. Those guys can
make kung-fu adepts look like idiots, as you well know. They have to go through
six years of shadow-training before they’re even allowed to fight each other.
So what is a paraplegic doing among people like this? He obviously can’t
compete with them on a physical level, so he can’t be one of the regular gang.
The only way in which he can possibly compete is on a mental level, and that
means to me that he’s probably the boss.’’
“Jerry,” said
Gerard, unexpectedly putting his arm around his shoulders, “you are a genius.
The only problem is, what is this dictatorial paraplegic up to, and why, and
where the hell is he?”
Jerry said, “He
must be here in Los Angeles, otherwise Kemo wouldn’t have been killed so
quickly when he tried to locate him. Second point: if he’s going to do anything
soon, like assassinate the President or the Governor, then he’s going to have
to do it pretty damned quick, because he knows that we’re on to him, and the
police are, too. Why do you think Esmeralda was renting a yacht for him? To
make his getaway, I suspect, when his assassination or robbery or whatever it
is starts going down.”
“A getaway, by yacht!”
“It makes
sense. The first place that the cops cordon off is the airport, followed by the
highways, followed, as a distinct afterthought, by the seaways. You’re probably
fifty times more likely to get away with a crime if you escape by water than by
any other means.”
“You’ve carried
out a survey?” asked Gerard sharply. “Maybe I should rob a couple of million
from Wells Fargo and flush myself down the toilet. I’11’be floating off to
Hawaii in the company of ten tons of soggy toilet tissue before the police even
know that I’m gone.”
Jerry let out a
short, testy breath. “You don’t buy this, do you?”
“I don’t see
why I should,” said Gerard. “There could be a thousand reasons why Esmeralda
wanted equipment for paraplegics on a cruise to Panama. Maybe his sister has
polio. Who knows? You can’t read anything into it until you know the truth.”
“By that time,”
said Jerry, “it all may be far too late”
Gerard said,
“This is ridiculous. Let’s start heading back to the cars.”
“Just a minute,
listen,” insisted Jerry. “We’ve got ourselves a paraplegic, right? And the odds
seem to be that he’s Japanese. For some reason, he’s involved in a series of
unusually violent killings, cither against Americans in particular, or
Americans in general. Who does he hit? First me, unsuccessfully, killing Sherry
instead; then an innocent policeman who’s only trying to do his duty by busting
a couple of Nipponese lunatics for running a red light.
Then,
en masse, the security and intensive-care staff of Rancho Encino Hospital and
Admiral Thorson.
What’s he trying to do? He’s one of the most eclectic
killers I’ve ever come across.”
“We were
supposed to be trying to keep you quiet,” said Gerard. “Esmeralda said that if
you’d heard about Tengus on the media, you’d have immediately warned the
authorities.”
“Yes, but why should I have heard about Tengus in the media?”
“I don’t know.
They were supposed to have been killer bodyguards for very wealthy people.
Don’t tell me
that isn’t a story. ‘Richard Burton buys Liz Taylor a million-dollar Japanese
martial-arts expert, just to keep would-be admirers out of her hair.’
“If it was all
going to be that innocuous,” said Jerry, “why bother to keep us quiet at all?
Or maybe there’s something heavier going down?”
“Search me,”
said Gerard uncomfortably.
Jerry held his
arm. “Wait a moment,” he said. “If this Japanese is a paraplegic, and he’s been
trying to take his revenge on American people, then he must have been doing it
for a reason.
Maybe it’s our
fault, maybe it’s my fault, that he was born a paraplegic.”
From the
veranda Mack called impatiently, “Come on, you guys, it’s a long haul back to
the cars.”
“Just a minute,
Mack,” Jerry called back. Then to Gerard, “Listen, there have been nearly ten
deaths in the past few days, but all of them have been connected with your
attempts to kill just two people: me and Admiral Thorson.”
“That’s right,”
agreed Gerard suspiciously.
“Admiral
Thorson and I have one thing in common: we are the only two surviving members,
as far as I know, of a Naval Intelligence team that gave President Truman the
go-ahead to bomb Hiroshima.”
Gerard stared
at Jerry. Then he said slowly, “You’ve been talking about revenge, right?
A Japanese paraplegic taking revenge, because of Hiroshima?
Could that be it? Maybe he was crippled by the A-bomb. Maybe he was radiated
with gamma rays when he was still in the womb and born deformed. “That happened
to thousands of babies–thousands.’’
Jerry beckoned
to Mack. “Mack,” he said, “Gerard and I are beginning to think that this whole
Tengu business has something to do with what I did at Hiroshima.”
Mack glanced at
Jerry suspiciously. He knew that Jerry had been to a psychiatrist, and the last
thing he wanted to do was set off in hot pursuit of another man’s neurosis. But
Gerard gave him a quick, quiet nod of the head, which meant to Mack that Jerry
was probably still quite sane.
“Olive’s
husband works for the naval records department, doesn’t he?” asked Jerry.
“Sure. He’s a
whiz on Pacific war history. He can tell you the whole of the battle of Midway,
in detail, like it’s some kind of drama. The Kaga sunk at 7:25 P.M.
,
the Akagi was scuttled at five o’clock the next morning.
He’s amazing. He’s also amazing to trust me with Olive.”
Jerry said, “Is
there any way that Olive can get in touch with him?”
“Sure, he’s on
the phone. The area code for Honolulu is 808. She calls him once or twice a
week.
At the Navy’s
expense, I hasten to tell you, not mine.”
“Right,” said
Jerry, “call her now, from the phone upstairs, and ask her if she wouldn’t mind
contacting him as soon as she can, and asking him to check if there were any
clubs or organizations formed after the war to help Japanese people injured or
deformed by the atomic bomb. Can you do that?”
“You think this
guy is going to belong to the Happy Disabled Club of Tokyo?” asked Gerard.
“No,” said
Jerry. “But anyone who has been severely handicapped has to come into contact
at some time or another with official organizations, even if he’s only seeking
advice or equipment.
It’s likely,
anyway, even if it isn’t a dead certainty.”
Gerard said to
Mack, “You want to give it a try?”
“Okay,”
breathed Mack. “But I think you’re wasting your time.”
Gerard dry-washed his face with his hands.
“Just do it,” he
said. “Then we can all go back to the city and get ourselves a drink.”
I
t was a bad break, the worst of an operation that had been nothing
but a whole series of bad breaks. He should never have listened to that voice
on the Kii-Suido ferry; he should never have been tempted by Kappa’s money or
Kappa’s beguiling voice. But everything that he was doing now had a terrible
flawed inevitability about it; as if the foundation stone of an ancient Mayan
ruin had cracked, and the balance of tons and tons of decorative stone could do
nothing but crack and crack and eventually collapse.
He had driven
Doctor Gempaku and the dead Tengu to Laurel Canyon, and left them there.
Doctor Gempaku
had been unsympathetic and ungrateful for being rescued. He blamed Mr.
Esmeralda for all the inadequacies of the security arrangements, and was
furious that six Oni adepts had been shot dead so easily. He didn’t yet know
that the Tengu building had blown up, and that half a dozen prospective Tengus
had been blown into lumps of meat and bone. None of them was yet fully
possessed by Tengu, and so their remains would never rise, not even for the
Hour of Fire.
When he left
Doctor Gempaku and the Tengu at Laurel Canyon, Mr. Esmeralda was told that
Kappa himself was sleeping, in preparation for tomorrow’s big day, and was not
to be disturbed. If ever Mr. Esmeralda had felt like storming into Kappa’s
inner sanctum, shaking the little toad awake, and twisting his head off his
neck, it was then; but he knew that the Onis who guarded Kappa were faster than
the human eye, and that he wouldn’t even have laid hands on Kappa before he was
dead.
As a Catholic,
the kind of death that the Onis gave out to their victims appealed to Mr.
Esmeralda very little.
He did at least want to go to his
grave intact. He mumbled, “Everything is completely under control,” and drove
off before they could argue with him.
He was alone
now. He had left Eva Crowley and her twin daughters locked in the bedroom of
his house on Camden Drive–all of them naked in case they felt like trying to
escape–and an Oat guard at their door. Kappa didn’t realize that one of his own
men was helping to protect Mr. Esmeralda’s own insurance policy, his ultimate
protection against the wrath of the Tengu.
Mr. Esmeralda
whistled “La Cumparsita” as he drove. Then, at the intersection of Laurel
Canyon Boulevard and Sunset, at a red light, his foot accidentally slipped from
the brake pedal and he noisily rearended a large Mercury station wagon. The
driver of the station wagon climbed out, a ginger-haired woman in upswept
eyeglasses.
Mr. Esmeralda
let down his window. “Madam,” he said, “I take full responsibility. I
apologize. I am a clumsy idiot.”
“You could have
killed me, you know that?” the woman demanded. “As it is, you’ve whiplashed my
neck. Do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost in doctor’s bills to
straighten my neck out? Can you imagine?” Just then, a young motorcycle cop
came over. “Is anything the matter here?”
“It was
all my
fault,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “Usually, my chauffeur
drives this car. I slipped on the pedal.
My foot.
I
will pay for any damage to this lady’s automobile.”
“This is your
car, sir?” asked the cop.
“Mine, in a
sense,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “It belongs to my company.”
“May I see your
driver’s license, sir?
And your registration?”
Mr. Esmeralda
opened his black alligator wallet and produced his license. The young cop
said,’
‘Will you wait
here a moment, please?”
“I’m in a
hurry,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “I have an appointment.’’
“I won’t keep
you longer than I have to, sir.”
Mr. Esmeralda
sat sweating in his seat as the cop walked back to his motorcycle, and began to
read his license-plate and driver’s-license numbers over his radio. The woman
whose car he had hit remained beside him, saying, “It’s going to cost a.
fortune to straighten my neck out. I know it is.
A fortune.”
The cop came
back, his eyes invisible beneath the peak of his helmet. Esmeralda tried to
smile, but the cop unbuttoned his holster and said, “I want you to get out of
the car, sir, please, keeping your hands in sight.”