Where was my boy? How could he vanish? Would someone grab him? Had my imperative to solve Garboski’s case driven the local mob to kidnapping? Was someone else involved in this scheme to destroy my friend? My legs started vibrating with energy, aching to bust loose and run through the nearly empty streets to find Quentin.
Nansi turned her tear-streamed face in my direction. “How could you?” her lips said without sound.
My heart cracked. I felt the snap. A broken piece cut lines along the interior of my ribcage and landed with a stabbing pain in my abdomen. I uncurled myself from the huddle and took three long strides putting me nose length from the cops. “You, Sergeant,” I barked in low tones at GI Fife. “Can you get on the horn and make this a fucking priority, please?”
“Well… well…,” he stuttered.
“I’ve got to get out there.” I pointed at the glass wall. “Someone has to get out there and find my boy.”
Officer Fife rattled his shoulders into a military square. “Sir, I understand your frustration—”
“I’m out, Barney. I’m not waiting a minute longer.” Turning my body toward the door and ignoring Nansi’s frightened maw, I walked. My hand gripped the steel handle of the entry door when I saw him.
Quentin sat inside an approaching Government Issue police cruiser, chattering and gesturing with excitement. His driver stopped the car, smiling with rapt attention at my son’s animated motions.
“Nansi!” I shouted over my shoulder as I pushed outside.
My first yank at the cruiser’s door failed. “Quent!”
Officer Sledge stretched a muscled arm over Quentin’s shoulders and popped the lock.
I pulled the door wide and fell on my knees, wrapping my arms around Quentin’s body. Relief flooded out of me in sobs.
“Daddy, daddy,” Quentin exclaimed. “This is the coolest! He’s got sirens and a walking radio and—”
“My God, Quentin!” Nansi crowded in to lay hands on our boy. “You scared us to death!”
“Mommy,” Quentin protested in a rolling whine at her full face kisses.
Penelope giggled from her trapped position between the three of us. “Quen you were loss,” she said.
“Found ‘im roaming round back,” Sledge said. “Says a bloke offered to show him how to play the Pachinko. Led him out back and poof. Couldn’t find hide nor hair of ‘im.”
I pulled back to listen.
“He had cartoons, Daddy!”
“Cartoons?”
Quentin’s eyes grew large. “On his arms and neck and behind his ears.”
“Sounds like Yakuza,” Sledge said to refine the obvious point.
Nansi flared her nostrils. “You bas—We’ll talk Connor Pierce.” She shoved Penelope at me and unbuckled Quentin to pull him out.
“Mommy,” he wailed with a sing-song roll.
I looked at Sledge. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Not a problem,” he said in that cool British accent. “Check yourself, though, Pierce. Seems your enemies play by different rules.” His smile had turned smug.
I searched for meaning below the surface of his words, but gave up. “Thanks for returning our son,” I clarified, before standing and losing view of his face. The door shut on whatever he was selling. My hackles stood tall. “That guy—,” I started. But convincing Nansi he was dangerous right after he handed over her firstborn child sounded empty to my inner ear.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I DIDN’T NEED Nansi telling me what a screw up I was or how I’d put her and the kids in danger. Her silent buildup before the shitstorm sent that message loud and clear.
The typhoon had subsided, but my shirt was soggy by the time I hit the car seat. I must have meditated on that moody blue and gray sky for fifteen minutes before starting the Toyota.
The gate guard didn’t give me any crap as I was leaving. The storm was a memory, and it was only twenty-thirty hours, military time.
I waved as I went by.
He might have smiled.
I headed north on Highway 59 going nowhere. What clue would help me solve this mystery? Garboski in jail. Yakuza on my tail. If this be in Montana, ain’t nobody makin’ bail. Composing a song about crime reminded me of herding cattle at roundup on Uncle Granger’s ranch. Hee-haw dusty and diddly doo dah day.
The car decided we’d pull off for a view of the west coast seascape. My tires crunched gravel as it stopped.
I got out and let the puny raindrops top off the sogginess in my clothing. I didn’t care. G would love the hell out of getting wet with a few drippings of Okinawan winter.
The sky grew enigmatic as I speculated on that cryptic lapel pin.
It belonged to a cop, or it was a cop’s gift to a dirty dancer. My guilty mind wanted it to belong to Logan Pasfield. An easy redemption. My paranoid mind figured the odd looking Asian Brit, Sledge, was planning my demise for a twisted reason I didn’t understand. The one confounding variable—Yakuza. Cops plus Okinawan hoodlums equalled nonsense. Why did the Yakuza believe I was worth beating the crap out of? I was an amateur. A gaijin. I knew nothing of Yakuza gangsters. They probably wrote it in Kanji on some guy’s back. Whatever. I would never see it.
The gloomy dark that made its way westward looked like a scene out of a Stephen King novel. I’d need ten thousand words to describe it to Nansi. If we ever spoke again. But it felt that empty inside my abdomen when I considered losing my children. Or worse, seeing them every other weekend while I worked as a mechanic in some seedy little garage off a dirt road within sight of her parents’ West Virginia castle.
The crunching sound of wheels rolled up behind me. It meant nothing. Let them entertain themselves watching pain drip off of me. Hell, let them take pictures. I couldn’t find an ounce of give a shit anywhere.
A stick jabbed my sore rib. I doubled over. “What the f—”
The giant mongrel that did most of that damage grabbed by the shirt collar.
My feet stuttered across the parking area as he led me toward that long black Toyota Crown. I admired the emblem on the trunk and tried to compose a witty insight. Something life changing.
The lid made the sound of a kernel popping at Christmas and lifted by magic. Big guy grabbed my thigh and tossed me in.
My ribs hit a brick. The groan earned my cheekbone a welt from an artistically decorated fist. At least I think it was artistic. The ones I’d seen in the full light of day were.
The trunk slammed.
My heart rate accelerated a beat for every passing second. My breaths came fast and shallow. I couldn’t fill my lungs.
Hasty shouting combined with muffled footsteps and slamming doors let me know the goons were as frightened as I was. Except they could breathe clean air.
I tried to slow it down by taking deep and long inhales of the dank trunk. Bolts of unforgiving pain shot up my side.
We began moving. My car started. It’s annoying whine betrayed it. Someone from the front of the car I was riding in shouted. Apparently my beater’s complaints annoyed them too.
And then we were rolling. And I was bouncing.
“How about a seatbelt?” I hollered. Realizing the ridiculous fix I’d gotten into jostled my funny bone. I laughed. My wife was gonna love this one.
I bumped and banged and rattled. For a long stretch, I rested and reflected on the quality of the suspension in the Crown.
In a mobile coffin.
The words jumped into my mind like naked spiders. I shook them off with violence, jamming that brick into my side again. The pain conjured an image of Quentin James bouncing on the couch. Penelope Jane jumping in with giggles beside him. Splashing each other on the beach. Dipping their faces at the discovery of salt in the water. Quentin taking a limping gallop back to our warm towel, screeching over his first contact with a jellyfish. Both babies curled onto their mother’s lap at the end of a long day as she read Snow White. They loved the Dwarfs. Dwarves. Little helper dudes. I cried until my ribs hurt.
Toda
y, I would die.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE THOUGHT PROVIDED a clarity I didn’t expect.
Sledge. Somehow he’d put the Yakuza onto me—tagged me as the murderer. The local mob meant to take the price for destruction of their property out of my hide. Natsuko’s voice rang with the brightness of a chuck wagon triangle. “You don’t be mister Sherlock. Keziah boyfriend… he a cop.”
I tossed the idea around in my head. It couldn’t be Logan Pasfield. Maybe it should be with a woman like Sharon yanking his chain. No. He was a putz, but a loyal one. Sledge had the goods for this job. That Limey accent and half-assed Japanese smile fooled us all. And me with nothing to prove it. Even if I could speak Japanese. Even if one of my captors spoke English. I’d never convince the Yakuza that Sledge was their man. Wherever they were taking me, my knowledge went with them. Smart plan.
I almost threw up thinking of that British bastard comforting my kids. And my wife.
The car stopped. Doors slammed.
“I’m sorry, God, for all my sins,” I muttered. “Let this go quickly.” An odd strength came on me with submission to a higher power. “And let these bastards pay the price.”
The trunk latch snapped.
I rolled onto my back and kicked the lid. Hard.
It bounced with a cursing sound in Nihongo.
I kicked again with less impact. These goons learned quick.
Four meaty hands grabbed my legs and shoulders. They lifted me into the refreshingly shadowy night like a sack of potatoes and I hit the ground with a wallop.
My feet swung wide and hard, trying to catch an ankle. My shin connected with the steel leg of an oil derrick.
A large sized body landed beside me with a whomp.
I whooped.
A boot toe connected a home run hit with my tricep.
I howled.
The meat hooks latched on again. One clamped my shoulder.
I writhed like a cat in a bathtub. My teeth sank into the knuckles of shoulder-grabber’s hand.
He screamed.
Half my body fell to the ground. Pain meant nothing. The points of contact were abstract conditions necessary to the fray. I pumped my legs like Aquaman. I clawed at clothing and flesh and skin. Boots and shoes glanced off my back, arms and legs.
Nihongo curses streamed out of them. “Uzai! Kichigai! Kusottare!”
Kicking and thrashing discouraged hands-on combat.
A couple more strongmen grappled my ankles. The four of them spread me like a starfish and carried me toward the sounds of ocean beating against stone.
I pulled and jerked against them.
They tugged me wider.
My shoulder joints separated. I strained my neck to see our destination.
Every headlight pointed to the left or right. Details were impossible in the moonless black.
Their goon-feet shuffled through a grassy meadow. One guy stumbled and cursed, nearly ripping my arm free.
Wind picked at our clothing. Odor d' ocean filled the air.
My lift crew slowed. Their steps became measured and methodical. One would go high. Another would go low. Two would go high, and two would go low. Someone shouted from the audience. The crew stopped.
The spaces below me felt jagged, like the mouth of a large dragon in need of dental work.
A car engine from the spectator galley revved its engine. Light splashed over my predicament. Large jutting rocks stretched like a blanket beneath us. A swift breeze launched over the lip of the incline in front of my entourage.
I tasted sea water salt and unprepared fish. Familiarity rushed over me. Hedo Point. Flashes of postcards and plans made with Nanse to journey up here. Part of a romantic getaway. How fitting I would plunge to my death on the very spot. Death by East China Sea. Sounds like a Yakuza joke. My chest convulsed out a laugh of hysteria.
The team hastened their mission. This did not improve their technique. The guy on my right stepped high and right while the guy on my left moved low and left.
The tearing at my shoulder joints wasn’t audible, but I could scream an etude to it.
An iron fist punched the side of my head, catching the high curve of my ear.
My body tumbled into a rocky crevice. The pain I’d been ignoring emanated from every part of my body. It collected in my abdomen like a water balloon. Nausea settled in my lower gut, trapped beneath the collective abuses.
Meathook number one scooped me to my knees on the jagged rocks.
Any effort to share my discomfort would only lead to puking my last rites.
Some guy with a lunatic tone to his voice shouted a ritualistic blurb from the crowd. Evidently, he didn’t know I couldn’t speak over ten words of Nihongo.
Staring into the blackness of empty ocean, the sounds of waves crashing against jagged rocks set off a technicolor vision of my tortured death in the icy East China Sea.
My life was ending on a bad note.
* * *
With the sudden reversal found only in low budget movies and desperate dates, floodlights splashed over our tussle. My abductors scattered like roaches. Chaotic shouts in Japanese were swallowed by the abyss. One of the team stumbled and the merciless shrine claimed a victory. His scream shot past me, dropping like a rock over the cliff. Three remaining henchmen snatched him from the crags and carried him off.
Then I beheld the fount of my deliverance. My heart relaxed its chatter and warmed with the fire of a Christmas hearth. Or at least with the anticipation of an early day in the Christmas dozen. Close enough for celebration.
Out beyond the reach of the police car’s twirling red, white and blue I caught glimpses of the Beast China Sea. A gentle breeze swept relief into my spirit. I glanced skyward to thank the God I wasn’t sure of, but was beginning to rely on. Today would not be my last round. I sat up straight.
Gratitude to my savior was pushing my mouth open when the voice I heard called my neck hairs to attention.
“Staff Sergeant Pierce,” the limey accent declared. “You seem done up by the Yakuza.”
I bent a knee to pull my foot under me. The craggy rocks meant to be the altar of my demise weren’t having it. “Wow! Sergeant Sledge! Nice of you to show up at this jamboree.”
“I’m born to serve.”
My hackles warned me he was serving something other than figgy pudding. I gained my footing and stood halfway erect.
“Don’t break your neck on my part, mate.”
“No problem. It was a bit uncomfortable.”
“Figured I’d help with that.” His presence grew more flagrant. The cockney thickness of his drawl betrayed his intent. “Your behavior has led to this my friend, Mr. Pierce.”
“How could that be? I consider myself a model citizen and a good soldier.”
Sledge rested his hand on my shoulder. The strength of his over-muscled arm set me back to my knees. Jagged dragon teeth took spiteful bites of flesh. Pain jacked my jaw wide. I gasped. The pointy steel site of his military sidearm pressed into my neck just below the cheekbone.
I decided there was no reason to keep thinking on it. If I was going to die, I was going to do it trying to live. That is a significant disadvantage to the strongman. Never expecting the weaker, less experienced fighter to try a counterattack. I reached up and grabbed his pistol hand, twisting as hard as I could.
He moved with the swiftness of a cat, but too late. His head pitched forward until it pulled his shoulders overboard.
Our contest had taken us to the edge. I hadn’t realized how close. I clawed for a grip as he tumbled over.
The surf crashed on top of my last glimpse of him.
There were more lights. With lots of commotion.
The fight had emptied me. Nanci’s arms squeezed my broken torso and forced a howl into my throat. But I held it in there. This was a pain I deserved. Even welcomed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SEX AFTER A near death experience is the best. Sex with your wife after almost dying has the added ad
vantage of a guiltless postcoital sleep.
Nansi took hold of me immediately after the kids were down. She held my face and searched my irises, dipping her gaze to examine my lips and raising it to inspect my hairline. Her grip was firm velvet. Her fingers tuned for discovery.
The process melted me. Every inch of my body had arrived home with its own kind of pain. It dissolved with her touch, sliding down my torso and over my toes. My body became soft and supple. Easily managed. With one exception.
Nansi pulled me in. First with her stimulating investigation. Then with hands forged in a midwestern work ethic. She knew what she wanted. She knew what was hers. By God and by man. And she worked it.
The velvety firmness intensified as I was drawn closer. My own rising demand pressed into hers, journeyed with her desire and flew into her abandon before submitting to her greater purpose. The summits and canyons of our pilgrimage delivered our expanding realities toward individual abandon. Our rhythm grew more in tune as we approached the death of our flesh and birth of our spiritual oneness. We rode the ride into a glorious crossroads of man and woman, colliding in perfect harmony before bouncing into divine ecstasy with the connected separation of a child’s paddle ball. We disappeared into unity for a flash, collapsing in a cuddled grip of safety.
Nansi cried softly as I drifted toward dreams without heartache and betrayal. I mumbled assurances. She accepted them by clutching my returning body aches.
I embraced the pain, kissing her forehead.
Tomorrow waited expectantly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
GARBOSKI WAS WAXING poetic about my good fortune. “I mean, really, C-man. Jealous wife follows husband to catch him cheating. Finds Yakuza throwing him in the trunk of a car? Give me a break, dude. That’s rodeo lucky. You should be squatted in front of a Pachinko machine instead of staring at the ocean, bro.”
Murder On The East China Sea Page 7