The corrupt officer shrugged.
“So if anything happens to Naoko and Shiori as a result of your refusal to cooperate,” Kobayashi added, “we most definitely will cite you as an accessory to the crime.”
Hideo stared toward the building exit for several seconds, then lowered his chin. He wasn’t kowtowing, but no longer was he bristling like the alpha male. With Tatsuyama, Kobayashi, and the superintendent watching intently, he pulled the cell phone from his pocket and pressed a speed-dial number.
As it rang, Kobayashi said, “Show it to me.”
Hideo delayed. Kobayashi gripped his wrist and looked at the phone’s display. It read “SoftBank Mobile.” Kobayashi showed the display to the superintendent and Tatsuyama.
“Big mistake,” the superintendent said, glowering at Hideo. “Maybe you’d like me to dial for you.”
Tatsuyama got the feeling this was going to be a fight all the way to the finish.
Kobayashi found Ota’s number on the phone, dialed it, and handed the cellular back to Hideo with a look that said, “Get it right.”
“I have the yokozuna,” Hideo said. “We’ll be there shortly.”
Kobayashi retrieved the phone and hit the END button. “Now where’s the meeting spot, and where are the girls being held?”
Hideo pressed his lips together. “Same place for both—the Hanshin Heavy Industries warehouse…in Ichihara.”
The superintendent nosed up to Hideo once again. “Ota will be expecting you alone with Tatsuyama. Take him there. No deviations. Nothing to tip off Ota. You’ve already used the only do-over you’re going to get.”
He turned to Tatsuyama. “Are you good to go with Officer Hideo?”
Tatsuyama studied Hideo. “I can throw him farther than I trust him. But yes, I’m good to go. Just let me grab a yukata from the locker room.”
“We’ll be right behind you the whole way,” the inspector said. “You won’t see us till later, but we will be right behind you.”
46
Tatsuyama glanced at the darkening sky in Ichihara, on the other side of Tokyo Bay. Not only was the sun heading down, but clouds were also rolling in.
Hideo waited behind the steering wheel for Ota’s lackey to unlock and open the chain link gate.
From the back seat, Tatsuyama surveyed the two Hanshin Heavy Industries warehouse buildings. His gaze followed the stairs that ran up the outside of the smaller, nearer of the two. At the top was what he assumed to be an office. Someone stood backlit in the window, perhaps Ota himself.
He glanced over his shoulder to see where the employee at the gate had gone and spotted him walking toward the main warehouse.
Hideo opened the rear car door. “Up the stairs, yokozuna. And take my advice. Be respectful.”
“You follow me up,” Tatsuyama said. “This has to look right to Ota.”
He got out and headed up the stairs. Hideo followed him as instructed. Tatsuyama could feel the police imposter’s glare on his back.
Halfway up Tatsuyama lingered to scan the area for the promised police backup. No sign of them yet. Before continuing he took a quick read of Hideo’s face. Hmm. Be ready just the same.
At the top he didn’t knock or wait, but instead let himself in. The office was plain: fluorescent lighting, low-cost carpet, a metal desk, a few cheap-cushioned office chairs.
It had indeed been Ota in the window. Tatsuyama approached him. Hideo stopped a few steps inside the door and lit up a cigarette.
“Komban wa, Tatsuyama,” Ota said. “I caught your performance on TV. Nice dohyo-iri. Perhaps the most interesting I’ve ever seen. And all this time, we thought you were so tradition bound.” He chuckled.
Tatsuyama hid his thoughts behind an emotionless face. He had only one mission in mind—Shiori’s and Naoko’s freedom. “Ota-san,” he acknowledged with a bow.
“I had no idea you would become so violent once Yamada drew close to ending your backward-looking career.”
Peering into Ota’s bloodshot eyes, he said, “What I did with the katana had nothing to do with my career.”
“Then—by all means—tell me, yokozuna, what got your mawashi in such a twist?”
“Yamada refused to safely release Shiori and Naoko,” he said. “That made me angry.” He paused. “Officer Hideo here implied you might not be interested in letting the girls go. Or did I misunderstand him?”
“These are things we need to discuss,” Ota answered. “Come on in and have a seat.”
Tatsuyama glanced at Hideo. The crooked policeman was staring at the floor, rubbing his chin.
Tatsuyama eased a few subtle steps closer to the door. He sized up his opponents. Ota appeared to have initiated a head-on attack. Slow. Even ritual. Something else was going on with Hideo, however. That expression on his face right before entering. He knew Hideo wasn’t going to warn Ota.
“Hideo,” Ota said, “help Tatsuyama find a seat, please.”
What was Hideo’s new plan? Cut and run before the police got there? Or snatch Naoko and Shiori as security and then run?
From the corner of his eye, Tatsuyama picked up Hideo’s sudden movement. It wasn’t toward him. He was dashing for the door.
Tatsuyama darted to block the exit. Spotting a push dagger in the policeman’s poised fist, he set himself, muscles tensed, ready to launch. “You’re not leaving, Hideo!” he said, glowering.
Hideo set his jaw. He lunged but got nothing except air.
“Get out of my way,” he said.
“You invited me to this party. You’re not leaving before it’s over.”
Hideo lunged again and followed with a kick. Tatsuyama avoided the fist, but the foot cracked into his ribs—a nasty shot he felt even in the deep gash on his other side.
“We haven’t had our conversation yet,” Tatsuyama managed to say.
He watched Ota slip behind the desk.
No phone, Ota!
Hideo faked one way and spun the other to go for the door again.
Tatsuyama collared him by his police vest and put his whole body into slinging him violently back into the center of the room. As Hideo’s head and shoulder plowed into the desk, Tatsuyama charged Ota.
Ota wasn’t fumbling for a phone. He was clawing at the desk drawer.
Tatsuyama slammed Ota into the wall behind the desk. He pummeled him three times with the heels of his hands—hard enough to take him out of the fight.
Hideo thrust a hand into his vest and withdrew a second knuckle knife. One in each fist, he advanced, glaring, the polished steel blades flashing under the fluorescent lighting.
Sharp pain gripped Tatsuyama’s side. He yielded floor, but refused Hideo the exit. Reaching inside his yukata beneath the side layers of his mawashi, he unsheathed the tate-gyoji’s tanto.
Hideo sprung, throwing punches. A blade skimmed Tatsuyama’s shoulder.
He batted the policeman’s arm aside and struck hard with the nine-inch tanto blade, catching him midarm and midthigh in one powerful slash.
Hideo backed off, his right arm hanging crimson and useless at his side. But his left fist knife still traced kanji in the air. He clearly aimed to attack again.
When Hideo charged, Tatsuyama dropped the tanto. Using all the skill and discipline that had won him the title of yokozuna, he caught the incoming knife arm with both hands and twisted. With power that ripped both muscle and tendons, he forced Hideo to drop the blade, took two steps, and sent him crashing through the window. He fell in a spray of glass shards to the hood of the police car parked below.
“Enough, Tatsuyama!”
He spun to find Ota leaning over the desk, pointing a handgun right at his chest.
“Maji…” he breathed.
47
An outburst of laughter drew Shiori’s attention to the two goons Ota had left to guard her and Naoko. Fumio caught her glancing. He snuffed out a cigarette, nudged his buddy, and swaggered across the open space between himself and Shiori.
This can’t be goo
d, she thought, her body tensing.
Snickering as he approached her, he said, “Hey, Baby-chan, you’ve been eyeing me since you arrived here. You like me, don’t you?”
Shiori felt the blood rush into her cheeks. She couldn’t tell whether she was angrier at herself for even looking his way or at Fumio for making something out of nothing.
“Isao here bet me I wouldn’t take a little taste for myself before somebody else comes along and eats you up.” He licked his lips.
The other goon grinned, revealing a mouth full of crooked teeth.
Shiori’s breathing grew shallow. How could she defend herself zip tied to a chair? Through clenched teeth she said, “You heard your boss. I’m important to his purposes. Get away from me.”
Fumio began to circle her chair slowly.
Stay in front of me, she thought. I trust you even less when I can’t see you.
She heard a soft metallic click behind her.
Naoko’s eyes widened.
Fumio grabbed Shiori’s hand and cut one of the zip ties.
She didn’t want to be released from the chair if being released meant having Fumio do something to her. He was already cutting into the second zip tie. “Just leave me alone,” she said.
He grabbed her wrist hard enough to pop the last bit of plastic zip tie. It was the same arm that had been gouged by the arrow. The pain in her wrist and shoulder made her eyes water. To keep from crying out, she bit her tongue.
“Leave her alone!” Naoko yelled.
“You…I won’t touch,” Fumio said, “as a courtesy to a yakuza family. But this one…” he said, pulling Shiori to her feet. “I make no promises.”
The other goon laughed.
Fumio held Shiori’s wrist high. He brought his face to within inches of hers. His breath smelled foul. He pressed himself against her.
“Iie!” she shouted. She wriggled to break Fumio’s contact with her.
It felt as though he was tearing her injured shoulder like so much paper.
Though her eyes welled up, she refused to admit he was hurting her. Instead she said, “Ota-san is going to kill you for this.” But her voice lacked the intensity she was striving for.
“Arigatou, Baby-chan,” he said. “Thanks for being so concerned about my boss getting angry at me. But what would my boss say if I let you get away and cause trouble?”
She tried again to pull free.
A snide grin twisted his mouth. “See? You tried to get way. Now how can I trust you after what you tried?”
Fumio turned to his partner. “Watch this one a minute while I take care of Yamada’s daughter.”
He shoved Shiori into his associate’s waiting grasp. The second goon was not so rough on her shoulder, but he produced a handgun and pressed its barrel to her temple.
Had Ota lied about Tatsuyama? Where were they? Shiori had counted on the guards obeying Ota’s orders. Now she feared they wouldn’t.
Fumio cut Naoko’s zip ties.
“Let’s take a walk,” he said.
The guards strong-armed Shiori and Naoko toward a dark back corner of the warehouse.
Shiori’s thoughts raced. Could she run? She couldn’t outrun a bullet. Should she struggle at all?
Their footsteps resounded in the emptiness.
It was difficult to see what was in the back corner, but Fumio led them like a colony of bats directly to an open door. Shiori heard the click of a light switch.
The room’s harsh fluorescent glare revealed Fumio holding Naoko in the doorway. Her face looked pale. She cringed visibly.
“Take that one into the next room,” he ordered.
The second guard still held his pistol tightly to Shiori’s head. She would go where he led. Her stomach was in knots.
Shiori and the other goon hadn’t gone two more steps when a door flew open on the far side of the warehouse.
They paused, his grip still tight on her injured arm.
A silhouette in the far doorway called out, “Fumio, Isao, trouble up front! You’d better come now!”
Fumio pushed Naoko into the lighted side room and slammed the door.
Shiori heard a metallic clack and what sounded like a combination padlock spinning.
Isao, the second guard, rushed her through the darkness. The gun barrel lifted from her temple. He shoved her hard. She stumbled and fell forward onto the dusty concrete floor. A door slammed behind her. It too was hasped and locked.
Fumio’s and Isao’s hurried footsteps echoed, then faded.
48
“Sit down, Tatsuyama,” Ota said, motioning with the handgun to one of the cheap chairs beneath the broken window.
Tatsuyama hoped the police had already surrounded the place. He wanted no more of this game. “Ota-san, it’s over,” he said as he caught his breath. “The police know where we are. You’ll be in their hands in minutes.”
“Then I’d better explain quickly,” Ota said.
“Explain what? There’s nothing to explain. Let Shiori and Naoko go.”
Ota laid down the pistol and sat on the corner of the desk. “Yamada almost achieved his goal,” the wrinkled man said. “He will go to prison believing his own great intellect, skill, and power brought him to the brink of success. He’ll decide an unforeseeable quirk of fate is all that stood between him and the realization of his goal.”
Tatsuyama didn’t care what Yamada thought. All that mattered to him about Yamada was that he failed.
Ota continued. “Yamada’s talents alone didn’t bring him so close to success. And fate didn’t cheat Yamada. Certain gatekeepers recognized Yamada’s talents years ago. These gatekeepers opened doors of opportunity for him. Yamada made the mistake of closing the door on one of the gatekeepers. Even if you had not stumbled upon an incriminating loose end, Yamada would have fallen. Do you understand?”
“I’m not interested in yakuza politics,” Tatsuyama said. “Why don’t you explain all this to Yamada? Or better yet, to the police? Let’s talk instead about Shiori, Naoko, and me walking out of here safely within the next five minutes.”
Ota chuckled. “In due time.”
Across the parking lot a metal door slammed. The sound of breaking glass followed.
Tatsuyama tensed. “Hideo said you planned to pass the girls along to someone else. I want to see them now…to know they’re safe. Don’t stall on me, Ota-san.”
Glancing at the pistol on the desk, Ota said, “You will hear me out, yokozuna.”
Tatsuyama contemplated the odds of getting the gun from Ota without getting shot. He wasn’t in the best shape—cut in three places.
Another sound like a breaking windowpane rose from the direction of the main warehouse.
“Yamada has fallen, but the gatekeepers remain,” Ota said, glancing at the windows above where Tatsuyama sat. “They want the same thing Yamada did, with one exception. They shun the recognition Yamada craved. Anonymity serves them better. They’ll keep working—quietly and patiently—on the transformation of sumo. They will succeed, and you’ll never know who they are. You’ll only know the next ego-driven entrepreneur they use as a front man along the way.”
Tatsuyama rose to his feet. “Everyone’s entitled to dream.”
Ota placed his hand on the gun. “You simply need to remember your good coach and those two beautiful young women—before resuming your campaign to preserve sumo in its traditional form. Do you understand now?”
Recalling a simple head-fake from sumo, Tatsuyama started an emphatic nod. On the downswing, however, he threw himself into a roll toward the base of the desk Ota was sitting on.
The handgun went off. A bullet zinged over Tatsuyama’s back, striking the base of the wall.
From the roll Tatsuyama pushed up the front edge of the desk, sending Ota toppling backward. Giving Ota no time to get back to his feet, he pushed the desk across the carpet. The desk bulldozed the old man toward the wall.
Ota yelped in pain. He squeezed off a shot through the desk.
The gunshot rung in Tatsuyama’s ears. He had no idea where the second bullet went. With Ota now pressed against the wall, Tatsuyama rose to his feet, lifting and rolling the desk onto his enemy as he went.
Ota grunted.
Through clenched teeth, Tatsuyama said, “Let go of the gun, Ota.”
He rolled the desk off his adversary, ready to pounce if Ota flinched. Tatsuyama spotted the handgun and snatched it up.
Grabbing Ota by the shoulder, he lifted him like a squid from that morning’s market. “Let’s go escort the women to safety, Ota-san.”
Tatsuyama had never fired a gun. Everything he knew about guns—which wasn’t much—came from TV dramas. He had no idea how many rounds remained in the magazine.
Shots now rang out from the yard below. Multiple bursts sounded in reply.
No, no, no! This is the last thing we need. He visualized a bullet tearing into Shiori and cringed.
There was a door at the warehouse end of the office.
“Let’s end this now, Ota-san. Does this door open to the yard outside or directly into the warehouse?”
“There’s a catwalk to the warehouse.”
Gunshots fired in stereo, from both the warehouse and the gate.
“When I open this door, you’re going to tell your people to quit shooting.”
“Why should I?”
“Because no one benefits from the death of Shiori or Naoko.”
Ota stared at him, then nodded.
Tatsuyama threw open the door. It struck the metal railing with a clang like a temple bell.
He was about to step onto the catwalk with Ota in front of him when three bullets smashed into the door and its frame.
Ota became heavy. One of the three bullets had made its way off the steel and through the boss’s shoulder.
Tatsuyama recoiled. “Zannen!” he said, shaking his head. [This is bad luck!] He laid Ota on the floor. The man’s eyes had rolled back, and blood was pooling on the cheap carpet.
Three more rounds planged into the steel.
He checked Ota’s pulse. Still there.
Ota shook his head slightly. His eyes centered again, gazing up at Tatsuyama’s face.
Sumotori: A 21st Century Samurai Thriller Page 22