By the Sword

by F. Paul Wilson

  “You know who else you should talk to? Tom O’Day.”

  The name sounded familiar.

  “The knife guy?”

  “Yes, and a fence he’ll be should the opportunity arise. Runs an East Side specialty shop called Bladeville. Sells anything and everything that cuts—from scimitars to steak knives.”

  “Good thought. I’ll check with him tomorrow. Never met him, so could you give him a call to loosen him up?”

  “Sure, but don’t expect much looseness. A shmoozer he’s not.”

  “Might be if I say I’m looking to buy it. If he knows of it, he can dip his beak as middleman.”

  “Good luck.” Abe rubbed his belly and shifted in his seat. “Uh-oh. Fortz coming.”

  Jack spun and beat it toward the door.

  “Bye.”

  10

  “And you have no clue where she was calling from?”

  Menck shook his head. “Tried to squeeze her—gentle, I swear—but suddenly she hung up.”

  Hank Thompson ground his teeth as he and Menck stood to the side of the phone bank he’d set up in the Lodge’s basement. Ten phones manned by a rotating cadre of volunteers, collecting one false lead after another.

  “And you didn’t do anything to scare her off?”

  “You’ve asked me that three times now and the answer’s still no. Fuck no. Matter of fact, she already sounded scared when she got on the line.”

  “Scared how?”

  Menck shrugged. “Dunno. Can’t be sure but she sounded surprised. Like she’d just seen the flyer for the first time.”

  How could that be? They were all over the five boroughs.

  Unless she’d been out of town for a couple of weeks.

  “You’re sure she asked for ‘Jerry’?”

  “Absolutely. Who’s Jerry?”

  Hank almost shouted, My brother, you asshole, but realized Menck had no way of knowing that. Only a handful of people knew he had a brother—half brother, actually—and they weren’t talking.

  The world knew that Jeremy Bolton was dead, but didn’t know Hank’s connection. It had been a big story last month when his body was found and identified by DNA. Dawn had known him as Jerry Bethlehem—still presumed alive—but the rest of the world knew him as Jeremy Bolton, the famous Atlanta Abortionist Killer from almost twenty years ago. Only the same handful of people who knew the brother relationship knew that Jeremy had been living as Jerry.

  Hank was pretty sure he knew who was behind his death.

  Mr. Everyman: mid-thirties, average height, average build, average-length brown hair, average nose, nothing-special brown eyes, dressed in nondescript clothing. He’d dogged Hank’s trail, pretending to be a reporter, even mugged him in broad daylight.

  Jeremy had described a guy just like him worming into the edges of his life.

  An agent of what his father had called the Enemy. That had sounded a little bit crazy to Hank, a little bit paranoid. But then Daddy had disappeared.

  Now Hank believed: They were out to ruin Daddy’s Plan to change the world. Dawn’s baby was the key to the Plan, and the Enemy was out to kill it. Kill it. Hank had to find Dawn first.

  That had been Dawn on the phone. Had to be.

  Is his name Jerry?

  She was the only one who’d connect those flyers with Jerry.

  Which meant she didn’t know he was dead. Maybe he could use that…

  And maybe not.

  “Oh, here’s Darryl,” Menck said, pointing to a lean, scruffy Kicker waiting by the stairs. “He wants to talk to you. Says it might be important.”

  “Yeah?” Hank knew Darryl. One of his flyer posters. “Send him over.”

  Darryl approached and squinted at him. He always squinted, even at night.

  “Hey, man. A little weirdness happened today. Might be somethin, might be nothin.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I was hangin this flyer by Blume’s when this Arab chick comes over and starts asking me about it.”

  “Arab?”

  “Well, she was wearing that veil thing they wear.”

  Hank nodded. He didn’t know much about rag heads, but knew the veil meant Muslim, not necessarily Arab.

  “What was her problem?”

  “Well, for one thing, she was all shook up. I mean, her hands were shaking, man. Asking all sorts of questions about who was looking for her and what we intended to do with her if we found her.”

  Hank felt his insides begin to tighten.

  “What she look like?”

  Darryl shrugged. “Well, with the veil thing with that big scarf wrapped all around her head and shoulders, who could tell?”

  “You must have seen her eyes. What color were they?”

  Darryl shook his head. “Wearin shades, man. The only thing I could see was her forehead and her hands.”

  “What color—dark or light?”

  “See, that’s the thing that got me curious. Arabs got dark skin, right? Hers was real pale.”

  Hank felt his saliva evaporating. “Did you see any of her hair?”

  “Like I said, she was covered up pretty good, but I was suspicious, so I went to take a peek under her veil and some guy dressed like a chauffeur pushed me away. Told me not to touch her. Even called me ‘sir.’”

  “Chauffeur?” Oh, hell, could it be the Enemy? “What’d he look like? Brown hair and eyes, average height?”

  Darryl shook his head. “Nah. Tall and skinny, but a no-nonsense type. I wasn’t gonna raise no ruckus with him.”

  “Chauffeur means a car. Did you—?”

  “Scope the plates?” Darryl grinned and pulled a folded flyer from his pocket. “Sure did. Big black Mercedes. Number’s right there.”

  Hank let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Here was their first break.

  “What time was this?”

  Darryl shrugged. “Around four, maybe?”

  He turned to Menck. “When did that call come in?”

  Menck checked a sheet in his hand. “Four-oh-seven.”

  Dawn. She thought Jerry was still alive so she’d worn a Muslim veil to hide from him. After leaving Darryl, she’d called here.

  Yeah, it was her.

  But a chauffeur?

  He clapped Darryl on the shoulder. “Good work, my man.”

  Darryl grinned and squinted, then headed for the door.

  Hank turned to Menck, who was in charge of the Be-on-the-Lookout sheet that every Kicker was supposed to carry in his or her back pocket. Only one thing on the sheet now: a picture of Dawn.

  “We need an updated BOLO list. Add that everyone should be on the lookout for a pale-skinned girl in a Muslim veil. They see her, don’t get near, just tail her.”

  Menck nodded. “Got it.”

  Hank pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “And find a way to add this.”

  He handed him a crude drawing of the dream blade—the best he could manage from memory, but it gave the general idea. He’d written “sword blade” below it.

  Menck looked at him. “What the—?”

  “Just do it. And put down that if anyone sees it, bring it to me. And if you can’t bring it, tell me about it. I want it.”

  A long shot—very long—but who knew? One of his Kickers might be passing a junk store or antique shop and see it in the window. Worth a try.

  As Menck moved off, Hank felt his elation fade. Dawn’s shock at seeing the flyer meant one thing: She’d been out of town the past few weeks.

  He looked around at the phone bank and wondered if maybe all this was a huge waste of time. If she’d just got back into town, where from? Had the Enemy gotten her an abortion? Had she been spending the time recovering?

  Hank wanted to scream. If she killed the kid, she killed the Plan. And for that, he’d kill her. It wouldn’t bring the baby back, but it would be the right thing to do. And he’d enjoy it. Oh, how he’d enjoy it.

  11

  Hideo Takita sat in first class and stared a
t his laptop screen. The face staring back looked very much like his.

  Yoshio, his twin, had flown this same route less than two years ago. Sent by the board to investigate the mysteries surrounding someone named Ronald Clayton, a man who had died in the crash of JAL Flight 27 on his way to meet personally with Sasaki-san and the entire Kaze board.

  Nobody met with the entire Kaze board.

  But rumor had it that Clayton had developed a world-changing technology so revolutionary that the country—or company—controlling it could call the tune to which every other nation around the globe would have to dance.

  Yoshio’s failure caused Hideo loss of face within the company. Had he succeeded he might have raised Japan to first among nations and Kaze to first among economic powers.

  Hideo switched to another face, one of a number of photos Yoshio had sent back during his investigation. This one had Arabic features. Hideo knew his name: Kemel Muhallal. He also knew he was dead.

  He clicked the arrow to proceed with his grim slide show. The next face was Caucasian: Sam Baker, an American mercenary. Also dead, his corpse found along with Muhallal’s and three other bodies in the rear of a panel truck abandoned in the Catskill mountains. Two of those other bodies were mercenaries hired by Baker.

  The fifth had been Yoshio, the victim of a bullet into the back of his head.

  Another click and up popped a blurred photo of the mystery man. Yoshio hadn’t known his name, but had labeled him “ronin.” The ronin was missing. Perhaps he was dead too. And perhaps he was alive, the one responsible for executing Yoshio.

  Execution…the manner of his death showed that he had allowed himself to be captured alive. And that meant he might have talked. Hideo knew that no form of torture could make Yoshio give up Kaze secrets, but still…bushido lived on in Kaze Group.

  Hideo stared at what he could see of the face. The photo had been shot at an angle and the focus was poor. A very forgettable face. Not the face of a killer. But what then did a killer look like? Yoshio had killed in the service of Kaze. And Yoshio and Hideo, while not identical twins, had often been mistaken for each other.

  Which means I wear the face of a killer.

  Hideo shook his head. He could never kill anyone. Yes, he worked in the espionage wing of Kaze Group’s corporate intelligence, where he spied on companies, traced money trails, hacked systems and intranets. But the only things he killed were worms and viruses and trojans.

  Killing a human? Unthinkable. He hesitated killing a fly unless it became especially bothersome.

  Sasaki-san obviously knew of his lack of aggression, why else would he have assigned three hoodlums as Hideo’s traveling companions? Why then had he chosen Hideo of all people to chase down this ruined katana? Was it because of his computer skills? Or his language skills? He’d begun learning English as a child. He could say “Lulu loves lollipops” as well as any American.

  Futile questions.

  He again accessed the flash drive and stared at the scan: a cardboard shipping tube packed with foam popcorn and a bubble-wrapped katana, stark white against the surrounding grayness, measuring ninety centimeters from the tip of its blade to the butt of its naked tang. But a ruined katana, its blade filigreed with perhaps one hundred small holes of varying sizes and configurations.

  He had heard that Sasaki-san collected katana. But why would the chairman, who could afford the finest blade ever made by Masamune—could probably resurrect Masamune-san himself and force him to make a new, custom blade—want this unsigned piece of junk?

  And the inscription:

  Gaijin…what was the significance of that?

  Questions, questions. Maybe he’d learn the answers. But more importantly, he prayed a Takita would not let down the chairman again.

  He returned to the photo of the ronin.

  I will be looking for you, he thought.

  He glanced at the yakuza dozing beside him, and then at the two others seated ahead of him. If he found the ronin and established that he had killed Yoshio, he personally would do nothing. But he foresaw no problem in convincing his travel companions to take decisive action. They’d no doubt enjoy it.

  TUESDAY

  1

  Bladeville lived up to its name.

  Jack stood on a Madison Avenue sidewalk and stared at the display on the far side of the front window. Claymores, cutlasses, krisses, kukri, katanas, cleavers, and carvers; sabers, scimitars, and survival knives; paring, chopping, and filetting knives; daggers and dirks, Bowies and broadswords, rapiers and axes and on and on.

  And swinging back and forth over them all, a model of the blade from Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum.

  The steel security shutter had been rolled up, lights were on inside, and Jack caught glimpses of someone moving about, but the front door remained locked. The sign in the lower right corner of the window said it opened daily at ten. Almost that now.

  Jack wanted to be the first customer of the day.

  Finally, the snap of a latch and the squeak of an opening door.

  “Coming in?”

  Jack had been expecting someone who looked like Abe. This guy couldn’t have been more opposite. Very tall, lean, sixties maybe, with gray in his brown hair and a bent lamp—his blue eyes didn’t line up. He wore a dark blue Izod and khakis. Jack stepped forward, extending his hand.

  “Tom O’Day?”

  O’Day had long arms and a firm grip. “Who wants to know?”

  “Name’s Jack. Abe Grossman said you might be able to give me a little help with something I’m looking for.”

  His smile broadened. “Oh, yeah. He called. How is he? Trim as ever?”

  “Trimmer.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  O’Day’s right eye kept looking over Jack’s shoulder; he had to stop himself from turning to see what was so interesting.

  “A katana.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place.” He motioned Jack through the doorway. “I got a million of ’em.”

  At the threshold Jack did a quick scan of the walls and ceiling and spotted a security camera in the far, upper right corner. He’d worn a Yankees cap today—just for variety—and so he adjusted the beak lower over his face. A bell chimed as they stepped through.

  The rest of Bladeville was like the front window, only more so. A knife-filled glass display case ran the length of the store; every kind of edged weapon imaginable festooned the wall behind it.

  Bladeville. No kidding.

  He motioned Jack to follow and led him through a door at the rear marked NO ADMITTANCE. He flipped a switch and the lights came on, illuminating row upon row of Japanese swords—long, short, medium—all racked on the wall in scabbards.

  Jack glanced up and around. No security cam in here. A quick look over his shoulder showed no second cam in the retail area.

  “My collection—Masamune, Murasama, Chogi, Kanemitsu, whoever. You name a classic swordsmith, I’ve probably got one.”

  “This is a special katana, Mister O’Day.”

  “Call me Tom.”

  “Okay, Tom. This katana was stolen recently and I’m trying to get it back for the owner.”

  O’Day’s eyes narrowed. “You a cop?”

  “Would Abe send a cop? I’m private. Just wondering if anyone’s tried to sell you a damaged katana recently.”

  O’Day flipped off the light and they returned to the store section. He stepped behind the counter and began Windexing the glass top. Jack positioned himself with his back to the cam.

  “Can’t imagine anyone buying damaged when you can get them in pristine shape. Unless it’s a signed Masamune or Murasama.”

  “Not signed by anyone, I’m afraid. And it’s sort of moth eaten.”

  His hand paused—just a second—in mid-wipe, then continued polishing.

  Jack wondered if O’Day had seen it or been offered it. If so, a good bet he might know who had it. But he said nothing. Better to approach from an angle.

  “You
mean rusted out in spots?”

  “The owner says it’s not rust, just defects.”

  Now the polishing stopped as O’Day looked at him. “You wouldn’t happen to have a picture of this katana.”

  “Sure do.” Jack pulled the photos out of the breast pocket of his shirt and slid them across the counter. “Not great quality, but they give you an idea.”

  O’Day looked, froze, then snatched them up. His hands shook. Without taking his eyes off the photos he reached behind him, found a four-legged stool, and dropped onto it.

  He let out a barely audible, “Oh, shit!”

  “What’s wrong? You’ve seen it?”

  “The Gaijin,” he said to himself. “The fucking Gaijin.”

  Interesting…

  “Yeah. That’s what I’m told those doodles mean, but what’s the big deal?”

  He glanced up at Jack. “The fucking Gaijin Masamune, my man. This is the fucking Gaijin Masamune!”

  “Is ‘fucking’ really part of its name?”

  “This sword is legendary. And it all makes sense now. It all makes sense…”

  “Well, that makes one of us. Has anyone approached you about—?”

  “The story goes that early in the fourteenth century a wandering gaijin warrior commissioned Masamune to refashion his heavy dirk into a kodachi—a kind of short sword. He said the metal in the dirk had fallen from the sky in a blaze of light and he wanted it transformed into something more graceful. He left, saying he would be back. When Masamune began to work with the metal, he found it the strongest steel he’d ever encountered. He made a kodachi with an edge like no other.”

  Jack didn’t care about where it had been in the past; he wanted to know where it was now.

  “Yeah, but—”

  O’Day went on like he hadn’t heard Jack. Maybe he hadn’t. Jack had a feeling the only way he could shut him up was blunt-force trauma.

  “Masamune waited years for the gaijin to return but he never did. Thinking him dead, Masamune melted down the kodachi and added more steel—his finest steel—but the two metals never fully mixed. The katana that resulted had a mottled finish. Though its blade was beautifully resilient, and took an edge like no katana he had ever seen, its finish embarrassed him.”