Ninja, p.53
Ninja, page 53
“This must be real important to you.”
“Spill.”
“The issue,” he said, “was cold when we first talked about it.”
“And now—”
“Now it’s as hot as Lucifer’s hind tit. Lotsa nosing around on the street. Someone else’s looking for this dame, too. As a hot item, she’s on the top of everyone’s list. All of a sudden, like, y’know?”
“But you’ve got it all. Name, number and address?”
“Lieutenant, when I tell you I got something, it’s not on its way in from the Coast. The information’s in house.”
“So give it.”
“After,” Matty said, “we’ve agreed on the new price.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Triple.”
“Triple! Are you out of your—”
“Lieutenant,” Matty said reasonably, “we’re talking about my life here. If anyone got wind—”
“Anyone like who? Who’s been asking around about this broad?”
“Don’t know directly.”
Croaker sighed. “Maybe you could find out, Matty, there’s a good boy.”
“Maybe I could at that. What about the price? Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Okay, here’s the diamond load.” The name Croaker got was Alix Logan. He also got a phone number and an address in Key West, Florida.
“About the other thing,” Croaker said. “You better get it to me real soon ’cause I’m likely to head south at any time, get me?”
“That urgent, huh?”
“I can’t remember the last time I had a vacation.”
“Will do. You know, Lieutenant, you’re really okay. No hard feelings, huh? Business is business, you know?”
“Yeah. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I have a feeling I’m gonna need it.”
“Tell me something.” There was an edge to his voice now as if he had just woken up. “How big is this thing?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Huh! I’m involved, ain’t I? Sure. Right up to my armpits. I just wanta know whether I’m standing in a pile of dogshit or—”
“I really can’t say yet. The jury’s still out. But it just could be.”
“Maybe I oughtta fade, then.”
“Strictly up to you. Might not be such a bad idea.”
“‘Predate it, Lieutenant.”
“I don’t want my wells drying up. Like a Texan that way.”
Matty the Mouth laughed, a dry rasp like a metal file going over an unstripped log. “Uh yeah! What I am today I owe to you.”
“Just keep it up, Matty. Just keep it up.”
Back in the car, he headed toward the office. Finnigan, the fat mick, would not be at all happy to see him this morning.
Well, to hell with him. Croaker braked savagely, jammed the heel of his hand against the horn rim, stood on the gas. When he returned from Key West with Alix Logan in tow, he only hoped the bastard would have a stroke.
If he could get her to talk. Fear was a most effective weapon wielded by a knowing hand. Unless he was severely mistaken, his little outburst in Tomkin’s face had had its desired effect. A dead issue had become abruptly hot. Now there would be a direct link between Alix Logan and Raphael Tomkin. For a moment he debated bringing Vegas in on this. It would, after all, be helpful to have someone here to round up whoever it was who was nosing around while he was down in Key West. But he dismissed it almost at once. It wasn’t fair to drop such a heavy bag of shit in Vegas’ lap. No, he’d just have to look after both ends himself. Timing. He’d need timing.
And a good deal of luck.
“I saw Justine off yesterday,” Nicholas said. “I asked her to go back out to West Bay Bridge until this is all over.”
Croaker slammed the door to his car, came around to the front where Nicholas was standing. “Good idea. I asked Gelda to stay with a friend of hers or something. I just wanted her out of the apartment for a while.”
Above them the tower on Park Avenue rose, half-skeletal, half-fleshed, so that it looked like an artist’s cross section.
“He up there?” Croaker asked, indicating the building.
“He should be. I cleared all of this with him first.” They began to walk across the wooden planks over the unfinished sidewalk. “He’s got guts, you’ve got to give him that.”
“Huh. I don’t have to give him nothing. If he’s agreed to it, five’ll getcha ten he’s got some angle figured.”
“Sure. Like getting Saigō off his back. Do you think he wants to be hounded?”
Croaker gave him a sideways grin at that. “Naw. I don’t think anyone wants that. Not even him.” They got into the elevator.
“Where are the men?”
“Coming in”—he consulted his watch—“just about fifty minutes from now. All TPF—Tactical Patrol Force to you civilians. We’ve got the works this time: tear gas, submachine guns, even a pair of super-snipers with infrared ’scopes. Hit a dime at a thousand yards in the dark. And, of course, all the men will be wearing bullet-proof vests—they’ve all been cleared for hand-to-hand, by the way.” The door opened on the top floor and they stepped out. “Tomkin had just better behave himself.”
“Listen, you leave Tomkin to me, okay? Just stay away. He only baits you because he’s scared of you.”
“Yeah?” Croaker grinned again. “Now that’s the kind of thing I like to hear.”
Just before they got to the doors of Tomkin’s office Nicholas stopped him. “Remember,” he said, “I don’t want any of your men on this floor. Not for any reason, is that clear? If Saigō gets by them, they are to stay put. I don’t want any of them getting in my way. This floor has got to be clear.”
“No sweat. Not that I like it too much but this is his building and you’re calling the shots. Seeing as how I didn’t do too well two nights ago. I think I can swallow this. Only”—he lifted a forefinger in warning—“don’t expect me to stay down there with them. If he gets away, I’ll be up here with you.”
Nicholas nodded. “As long as you come up via the route we mapped out together. Don’t take any unexpected detours.”
“I wish I knew what you had cooked up for this guy.”
“Believe me, it’s much better than no one else knows. It’s going to come down to him and me, anyway.”
“But all you have is that.”
Nicholas hefted his scabbarded katana. “That,” he said, “is all I am going to need.” He pushed open the door and they went into the great corner office.
Tomkin, seated as usual behind his enormous desk, looked up, frowning. “Can you believe it?” he growled. “A goddamned garbage strike. And in the middle of the summer. Christ, those union bastards know how to get blood out of a stone. This place is gonna stink to high heaven before it’s even finished.”
The old man stood on the west side of Park Avenue. Although there was little traffic this late at night, he nonetheless waited for the traffic light on the corner to change in his favor. When at length it did, he started slowly across the wide avenue. He seemed a frail figure from a distance, stooped under the weight of the duffel bag he carried slung over his rounded back. He had splay feet and his bamboo cane aided his slow passage. Because Park Avenue is divided by a rather wide concrete median, he could not make it across on one light.
Standing still on the strip, he looked quizzically about him as a grandfather might, caught dozing in his favorite chair during the day. His head was slow moving and it was some time before his gaze took in the half-finished building on the east side of the avenue. By that time, anyone who might be watching him, even casually, would not have thought it strange that he contemplated the structure for the remaining time until the light returned to green and he made his limping way across the street.
Instead of turning right, he went straight on, due east, toward Lexington Avenue. Once there, he turned south to the end of the block. He had now made a half-circuit along the perimeter of the tower.
There was an old-style phone booth on the corner. One of those with green metal and glass walls all the way down to the pavement. Beside it were black and tan polythene bags of garbage awaiting pickup. He put this makeshift screen between him and the tower as if he were about to head further east.
Now he was in dense shadow and he stood perfectly still, having first altered his image: the duffel bag was at his feet and he stood straight, his shoulders squared. The bamboo cane lay in the gutter, out of sight of even the sparse traffic along Lexington. He was invisible to anyone within the building’s periphery.
He waited twenty minutes.
Without bending, he unzipped the duffel bag and worked with deft, economical movements. When he emerged from his cover, he appeared to be a spare, dapper businessman in a conservative suit and a porkpie hat. As American as apple pie. He remembered to make his strides long and purposeful, knowing that even the most formidable of disguises could be betrayed by the peculiar manner in which an individual walked, the gait as singular as fingerprints.
There had been no movement along the east face but he had seen two blue-and-whites parked along the verge of the north face. They were dark, obviously meant to look empty. He did not think that they were.
Now as he completed his circuit of the tower, his estimation of the New York Police Force rose a couple of notches. In all, he counted half a dozen men either within or around the building. And once he had caught a tiny flash from somewhere above that could only come from the barrel of a rifle.
Not that he particularly cared one way or another how many men they had assigned to protect Tomkin. But one had, of course, to be prepared. However, he detested estimates: on anything. Estimates, he had been taught—and it was most assuredly so—were dangerous. How many men had gone to their deaths by taking an estimated count for real?
He went south on Park, taking it slow and circuitous, arriving back at the phone booth on Lexington a half hour later. Now was not the time to get careless.
The duffel bag was where he had stowed it, between piles of plastic-wrapped garbage. He checked his watch. Thirty seconds. He unzipped the duffel bag for the last time. He took off his light-colored suit, flipped the hat into the gutter. Then he stooped and threw the contents of the bag over his shoulder in a version of a fireman’s lift.
The small but powerful incendiary device he had dropped under a car at the end of the north face of the building in his guise as the old man erupted with a white and green flash into the night. Even a full block away, he could feel the slight concussion as the force of the explosion shot the hot air away from the epicenter. There was a pattering of metal and powdered glass as bright as diamonds in the streetlights. Flame licked skyward.
Crouching, he ran directly toward the building’s facade and, within its dense shadows, he went along its south face, through the first-class cover of the dormant machinery—the double shifts had ceased two days ago, after they had discovered he had infiltrated the place as a construction worker. Within four seconds he had disappeared entirely.
Now he went from thick stanchion to thick stanchion, feeling under his fingers the rough texture of the rust-retardant undercoat. Concrete dust still hung in the air and, as he dropped down from the height, free of his heavy burden, he saw the sharp shadows cast by the huge machines gave the place the rather disconsolate air of a deserted carnival. There had been a carnival once, at Shimonoseki. The thought of it, and the sea slowly closing over, caused him to reach into a side pocket. He put a rough-textured square into his mouth and swallowed.
He squatted, perched like a bird of prey, waiting for the drug to hit. He had been forced to leave the Kuji-kiri when he had become careless enough to drop the stuff during practice. Not stupid, he reminded himself. He could not help it; he had been driven to it. By the rocking boat and the howling wind and the heavy splash as the sea closed over—
Hit! In bright light. Form and line became stark, almost two-dimensional, like the backdrop on a theater stage. It seemed to him that he could see in all directions at once. He became at once more intensely aware of the driving dust in the air. This, too, this little thing could be turned into an advantage. Because of the pollutant, his adversaries’ eyes would be forced to blink more rapidly to avoid irritation. That minuscule amount of time would be the difference between life and death for some of them.
He raised his gaze. He hoped that he would not have to use the thing on the ledge, but if he did…
He saw the first one. He was dressed differently than the ones in Pell Street. Too, he carried himself more confidently.
Saigō spent several minutes studying the policeman. He wanted to know several things before he made a move. Did he have a specific territory assigned to him? And, if so, did it intersect with someone else’s?
When he was satisfied, he lifted the double curve from the side and screwed the two pieces together. It became a bow of high-tension plastic with a light aluminum center and sight.
Interesting, he thought. The explosion had not caused as much havoc as he had thought it might. It had, however, given him enough time to infiltrate the tower’s perimeter. But not much more. Now he could hear the piercing wail of the fire engine as it approached. The policemen here, having at once determined that no person was inside the car or had been hurt while passing by, had left the mop-up to the fire department.
From this vantage point he could see the slight clandestine movement of the sniper. He waited until the policeman on his level was at the extreme edge of his patrol. Fitting a steel-tipped arrow to the bow, he drew back and aimed. These were not normal hunting arrows. Their points were made by the careful layering of steel in precisely the same manner katana were forged. In ancient times, they were known as armor-piercing arrows. They could get through anything short of a two-inch steel block.
He let the arrow fly. There was a quiet humming as of an inquisitive bee and a soft thunk. The glint of the rifle’s barrel was no longer visible, but the unruffled feathers protruded darkly from the sniper’s neck.
The policeman on his level had turned around and was coming back. He stopped directly in front of Saigō and lifted his head. Something dark and wet dripped down onto his shoulder. He shifted his submachine gun to his left arm, preparatory to phoning in via walkie-talkie.
Saigō leaped at him, an animated shadow. His left arm was lifted high in an arc; it made a hissing sound as it descended. His hand was encased in a thin steel network, running from wrist out past the fingertips in what amounted to a set of claws, curved and razor-sharp. Articulated steel tendons across the back of the hand, along each finger.
The policeman had time but to open his mouth before the claws ripped viciously through his throat, embedding themselves in his chest, piercing cloth, bullet-proof vest, skin, flesh and internal organs.
There was a great gout of black blood and the body convulsed as if charged with electricity. Strips of flesh as if flayed flew through the air and the stench of death was abruptly as strong as jasmine in some far-off and peaceful clime.
He left the corpse, laughing silently at the ineffectual addition of the vest, and retrieved his bow from the dense shadows.
First the vast atrium, he thought. He was in no hurry. Upstairs, they could well wait for him. He visualized Tomkin’s broad face slick with sweat in the tense period of not knowing what was happening below.
He moved with no more sound than the passing of the warm night wind through the pillars of the tower. In the next sector he came upon another of the plainclothesmen. He moved up behind him and, slipping the black nylon cord with its center knot around his neck, he pulled tight, whipping his wrists powerfully so that the knot bit cruelly into the man’s Adam’s apple. The back arched as the man fought for breath.
Saigō was momentarily taken by surprise. The man whirled and went for him instead of the encircling cord. He was monstrously strong and Saigō felt his balance going in these close quarters. He felt the arms, as thick as beams, around his waist squeezing as he squeezed. He stamped with his shoe onto the man’s instep and he let go. Saigō hurtled to one side, the momentum too strong to compensate for.
The policeman was on him at once, gasping, his bulk nevertheless stultifying. He used kite and sword strikes which were only partially successful but his enormous weight made proper leverage impossible for Saigō.
He fought for the reverse, giving up all but token defense, taking massive punishment, struggling, sweat running down the sides of his neck, staining his black suit.
He cursed himself for the sin of overconfidence and, struggling to free his right hand, he let go a spring blade. It pierced the other’s shoulder just center of the collarbone. The man grunted and, disconcertingly, applied even more force. Saigō heard a sharp crack in his right ear, knew his bow was now useless.
The policeman put all of his weight into his knees, which were on Saigō’s chest, in an attempt to force all air out. This was a mistake. But how could he know that Saigō could last for at least seven minutes without any air at all?
Saigō now concentrated on the man’s upper torso. He lacked the space to effectively use the claws. He stiffened the fingers on his right hand, using them as one would the point of a knife. He rammed them into the man’s side just under the rib cage. This time, the protective vest did its work and the killing blow, though painful, was deflected.
In desperation, Saigō used the tettsui against the sternum. It cracked and all breath went out of the massive body above him.
Saigō got the reverse at last and now, sitting astride the policeman, rewrapped the cord about his throat, heaving with his arms and shoulders.
He heard it, escalating up the register until the decibels were so high they passed beyond human hearing. He moved at the same time. Felt the white-hot blast along his right temple and, half stunned, began to roll along the atrium floor. Scrambled for the shadows as the deadly sound followed him, whining away in ricochet.
Another sniper! He crouched in the shadow of a thick pillar, hearing the night erupt into sound and motion all around him. Blood seeped from the wound and he automatically put a hand up. Just a crease. Still, he had become careless. We cannot advocate the use of drugs—any drugs whatsoever—he heard his sensei say. Drugs tend to narrow consciousness, intensifying the narrow-beam awareness while, at the same time, giving the impression of just the opposite. A false reality set is therefore presented. Narrow-beam consciousness becomes a tendency in any form of combat, especially during the latter stages. Even veterans must guard against it. You must effect the Rat’s Head, Ox’s Neck when this occurs. If preoccupied by minute points, step back and review the combat from a distant stance.
