by Howard Fast
“Then who,” Masuto asked, “was the skeleton under the pool?”
“Ah, yes—the source of all our unhappiness. You see, when I was very young, I did a bit of embezzlement, but awkwardly, on a London bank. I was caught and it was hushed up because of my family, and I went into the army. Then, when I did the job at the Midtown Manhattan Bank, this Scotland Yard chap who was in on the first screw-up, drew some conclusions, got himself a a leave of absence, and turned up in Los Angeles—not to arrest me, mind you, but to threaten me into a split. Ishido happened to be with me that night. I had spotted some acreage in the San Fernando Valley and I needed a Japanese partner for the deal. The C.I.D. man was foolish enough to turn his back on me, and then there was the problem of what to do with the body. This one did have fingerprints, and I had to make sure that he vanished for good. Ishido was operating a backhoe on a job, and he suggested putting the body under the swimming pool. Well, once it turned up—there it was, with two people in L.A. who could put Ishido on that job and point a finger at both of us.”
“Two people?” Masuto asked.
“The old lady and Lundman. Lundman’s wife happened to be there. So it was with the Mexican girl.”
“Who never saw you,” Masuto said bitterly. “You damned, murderous bastard—Naga Orashi, the contractor, was the man who hired Ishido to drive the backhoe, and he’s alive!”
Saunders looked coldly at Ishido, who shrugged and said, “He is my kinsman. I told you he was dead.”
“You lied to me.”
“I have various loyalties,” Ishido said. “Don’t try to understand them.”
“It makes a debt you have to settle,” Saunders said thinly. “You upset the apple cart.”
“I changed the game slightly.” Ishido shrugged.
“You know where it puts me.”
“You do what you must do, Eric.”
“Another kinsman?”
“Not exactly. As I said, you will do what you must do.”
Listening to all this with increasing disgust, Masuto interrupted harshly. “Do you know, gentlemen, I am going to arrest both of you. I know I don’t have one scrap of evidence and that not one charge will stick, but I can parade this before the media in a way that will convince the public. They will try you, even if no jury can.”
“So you came here,” Saunders said, “to satisfy your curiosity and to make a public spectacle of us. I would have to be childish not to have anticipated that. Look behind you, Masuto.”
Masuto turned. At the table behind him, two men were sitting. They both had long, hard, sallow faces, and when he glanced at them, they nodded coldly.
“A word from me, just a movement of my hand, and you will be dead, Masuto. Don’t try to arrest us. I have other plans.”
“Really? What other plans?”
Masuto glanced at Ishido. He had become passive. He sat with his hands folded—as if he had placed a hood over himself and between him and the two men.
“I am a devotee of karate, of the Okinawan style.”
“No, you are despoiler of a way. You desecrate and debase a noble thing. Karate is not to kill.”
“No? Then what is its purpose?”
“To defend, to bring some enlightenment to those who practice it with love and reverence. But you, Saunders, you have made it your own obscenity. You have taken something you don’t understand, something beyond the understanding of men like yourself, and turned it into an obscenity, an act of murder.”
“And when the old Samurai killed, Masuto, was that also an act of murder?”
Now Ishido came alive, turning to watch Masuto, who said, “If the Samurai was Samurai and he saw that the swordsman who faced him was weaker or afraid, then he did not use his sword. Do not think of yourself as Samurai, Saunders.”
“I would like to,” Saunders said, unperturbed. “Twelve years ago, I gave this club a karate room. I have made arrangements for its use tonight—by the two of us. I have explained to the athletic steward that we are both experts and that we intend to explore some movements. Robes and trousers have been placed there, and once we enter that room, we will not be disturbed. I am twenty years older than you, Masuto, perhaps a bit more—so I give you that sporting advantage. I may as well tell you bluntly that once we are alone in that room, I intend to kill you.”
“And on my part, I am to kill you?”
“If you can.”
“Whether or not I can is beside the point,” Masuto said. “I am not an executioner, Saunders, I am a policeman. I do not kill people—not even people like yourself, who have surrendered all claim to being a part of the human race. Nor will I use karate to kill. That would be a betrayal of something very deep in myself.”
“What is your alternative, Masuto? You’re not even carrying a weapon tonight. Those two men have silencers on their pistols. They could kill you and be out of this room before your body fell to the floor. So it would appear to me that you must accept my challenge.”
Masuto looked at Ishido and then at Saunders. Then he stood up. “Very well. Let’s begin and get it over with.”
Ishido remained at the table. He avoided Masuto’s eyes. The two thin-lipped men in the dark suits also remained at their table, and moving in front of Saunders, Masuto left the dining room, passed through the lounge, and then was directed down a passageway, past a notice that said, LOCKER ROOM. It occurred to Masuto now that there were opportunities to bolt, to make a run for it. Possibly the exit points were covered by Saunders’s men, possibly not; yet Masuto rejected the notion. To run now was inconceivable, and once he ran, where would the running stop? He had no intention of attempting to kill Saunders, but neither had he any intention of becoming Saunders’s victim. No doubt Saunders was good, but then neither was Masuto an amateur. He was at a point where he had no plans, no scheme—and at such moments he resigned himself to the motion. Let come what would; underneath his Western exterior there was a very ancient fatalism.
They entered the karate room. It was forty feet by forty feet, and without windows. There were two large mats on the polished wooden floor, some hooks for kimonos and trousers, and a row of chairs at one end of the room. It was air-conditioned and intensely lit from above. Only a wall telephone connected it with the rest of the club.
In silence Saunders began to change. I am a middle-aged policeman, confined with a madman who believes he will kill me, Masuto said to himself, and still I do not know whether I shall kill him.
“It’s not too late,” he told Saunders. “You know you can’t be convicted. Games like this are for witless children and madmen.”
“And sportsmen.” Saunders had dropped his clothes. His body was squarely built, muscular, not an ounce of fat anywhere. He slipped on the trousers and kimono, treading lightly, flexing and unflexing his fingers. “Change clothes, Masuto!”
“Sportsmen,” Masuto said with contempt. “Sportsmen who kill old women and young girls.”
“What the game brings. Change clothes!”
“I think not,” Masuto said. “I am not a witless child. Does your white kimono give you a license to kill? You are stark, raving mad, Saunders. Do you think that the trappings of a karate match will allow you to kill me and go free? You are a pompous, bloated fool. You are sick and full of decay.”
With a roar of rage, Saunders launched himself at Masuto, his arm coming around in an outside inward swordhand strike. Masuto pivoted and let the strike pass over him. His own back-fist counterstrike missed. He sprang away, his feet, still in shoes, slipping on the floor, and Saunders was upon him with a driving upward elbow strike, which, if it had connected with the full force of Saunders’s body behind it, might well have snapped Masuto’s neck. It missed by a fraction of an inch, and Masuto, off balance, tried to find purchase for a shod kick to Saunders’s groin. It was bad karate, but he was fighting for his life. Saunders was too quick for him, amazingly quick for a man his age, and a hard, high kick from Saunders connected with Masuto’s shoulder, caught him off balanc
e, and flung him to the mat.
For a fraction of a second Masuto was as close to death as he had ever been. He had sprawled on his back without purchase or any continuity of motion that could be turned to his defense and in that fraction of a second when he was defenseless, Saunders could have driven a kick to his throat that would have crushed his larynx and burst the blood vessels in his neck. All this Masuto knew, for in such moments the mind works with incredible speed. Then the fraction of a second passed, the lethal moment was over, and Masuto was able to whip himself off his back and into a crouch. Saunders had not moved. He stood rocklike, his motion only half begun, and then he clutched at his chest, went down on his knees, and rolled over on his back.
Masuto got to his feet and approached the recumbent figure carefully. He was ready for anything from this man, any trick, any device; but the wide open, fixed blue eyes were a valid definition. He felt for Saunders’s pulse and could not find it. No question about it, the man was dead.
Breathing deeply, his whole body still trembling, Masuto went to a chair and sat down. He sat very quietly for a minute or two, composing his thoughts—bringing himself together, as he would have put it. Then he went to the telephone. As he suspected, it was an automatic switchboard. He dialed nine, and when the dial tone came on, he called Sy Beckman’s number. Sophie answered. “If you want him, the bum is sleeping off a drunk, and as far as I’m concerned, I’ve had it.”
“I want him,” Masuto said.
“You can damn well have him.”
“How do you feel?” he asked Beckman.
“I’m all right.”
“Sy, I’m at the West Los Angeles Country Club. They have a karate room here. I need you as quick as you can make it. Now outside this karate room you may find two gentlemen in dark suits and bulging jackets. You’ll know them because they’re that kind. They’re Saunders’s hoods, and very likely one of them killed Rosita. So you can take off the kid gloves, if you feel so inclined. Be quick.”
Masuto sat down again. His hands were still trembling. He waited until his hands steadied, and then he called Wainwright at his home and told him what had taken place.
“Damn you, Masao, you killed him.”
“No, sir, I did not, and he came very close to killing me.”
“What about Ishido?”
“He won’t run. Right now I want you over here with the ambulance from All Saints Hospital. I want to get his body out of here and have Sam Baxter do an autopsy before anyone knows he’s dead.”
“You mean no one knows he’s dead?”
“I know it. I presume he knows it.”
“Damn it, Masao, you know what I mean. You can’t sit on a corpse like that. He’s not just anybody. He’s Eric Saunders.”
“I’m not sitting on it, captain. We—myself and what was Saunders—are in the karate room at the club. I imagine Saunders’s two baboons are outside the door, and they’re both armed and nasty, and I see no reason to open the door and invite their reaction—since I am not armed. And Eric Saunders, I remind you, was a murderous pig.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place? I’ll have a squad car over there in a few minutes—”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Sy Beckman’s on his way. Please, captain, let him take care of it.”
“You said there were two of them.”
“Let Sy take care of it, please.”
“No, sir. I am sick and tired of you two running around like this was your own private vendetta.”
“Well, as you wish—”
“Masuto, why do you pull these things on me? I’ve given you clowns more leeway than any sane chief would give a couple of cops, and now suppose the D.A. comes up with a vendetta killing—suppose he says you went overboard and took the law into your own hands? You know what I mean. How do I answer that?”
“I didn’t touch Saunders. He died of a heart attack.”
“Then why do you need an autopsy? The bastard is dead. It’s over.”
“I think he was murdered.”
“Oh, no, not again.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Masuto assured him. Now sounds were coming from outside the heavy door to the karate room, and Masuto said, “I must hang up now. Please hurry.”
He went to the door and opened it. Beckman filled the doorway, a man in a dark suit hanging limply from each of his huge hands. He flung them into the karate room, where they lay on the floor, bleeding and moaning. Then, panting, he said, “What do you want me to do with these two loathsome bastards?”
“Cuff them and read them their rights, Sy. Concealed weapons, resisting arrest, and with a little luck, maybe murder one.”
“And who’s that?” Beckman asked, pointing to Saunders.
“Eric Saunders, alias Stanley Cutler. Very dead—very dead indeed, Sy. My God, what is today?”
“Thursday, all day.”
“And it was only last Saturday that we found the skeleton.”
“That’s right. Is it over, Masao?”
“Almost.”
“What’s left?”
“A few loose pieces. Odds and ends.”
“How come the cops aren’t here?” Beckman asked suddenly. “I don’t mean us. I mean the real cops, the guys in the blue uniforms?”
“Any moment now. I gave you a head start. I thought you’d want to deal with these two.”
“I dealt with them,” Beckman said.
Chapter 15
SAMURAI
It was almost midnight, and the pathology room in the basement of All Saints Hospital was deserted except for Masuto, Dr. Sam Baxter, and Dr. Alvin Levine, the resident pathologist whom Masuto had dragged out of bed and pressed into service. Naked and white and sliced open, Saunders’s corpse lay on the table. Baxter, washing his hands, said to Levine, “You don’t have to close. Just put him on ice. He’ll hold.”
“You’ll be back tomorrow to close him?”
“Why? He’s dead, isn’t he? Any damn fool can sew him up. Even a witless ghoul like Masuto here can sew him up. Well?” he demanded of Masuto. “Are you satisfied?”
“With what?”
“With what I told you. Cardiac arrest.”
“So you told me. What caused it?”
Levine, bending over a microscope, straightened up, took a test tube from over a flame, and shook it slightly. “I think I have it,” he told Masuto. “You noted the high thyroid level?” he said to Baxter.
“So what?”
“It’s triiodothyronine.”
“He might have been taking it on prescription.”
“Why?” Levine wondered. “He’s not the type. Anyway, he took enough to kill him.”
“How would it work?” Masuto asked him.
“The amount he had in him might result in a brief illusion of energy, then a very rapid heartbeat—so rapid that the heart muscle forces itself into cardiac arrest.”
Baxter nodded. “That’s possible.”
Masuto went out into the street, and for a few minutes he stood in front of the hospital, breathing the cool, sweet night air. Then, with a deep sigh, he climbed into his car and drove to Bel-Air, to the home of his kinsman, Ishido. The electric gate that guarded Ishido’s driveway opened up for Masuto, and the servant who opened the door of the house for him said, in Japanese, “Come in. My master is expecting you.”
“It is very late—”
“No, he is expecting you.”
In the living room Ishido was pouring tea that had already been prepared. He wore a white gown and black slippers and sat cross-legged by the table.
“Join me, please,” he said to Masuto.
Masuto sat by the table and accepted a cup of tea.
“No doubt you come from the hospital, where an autopsy was done on that sick and worthless flesh.”
“You condemn a friend.”
“We were never friends,” Ishido said. “Circumstances drew us together.”
“You sav
ed my life,” Masuto said. “It incurs an obligation.”
“Which you cannot repay.”
“Not in this life. Perhaps in another.”
“Ah, so—and you, the cold and enlightened policeman, you believe the old way, that we live and live again?”
“Who knows? I believe many things.”
“You are a strange policeman, Masao. Yes, I gave the thyronine to Saunders in his food, in his tea, so it is quite true that I have murdered him. But I also saved your life. Or did I? Could you have defeated him?”
“I don’t know.”
“And now you have come to arrest me?”
“If I had not come,” Masuto said, “others would come.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? I take no pleasure from this. I know of the Samurai only what I have read and what the old folks tell me and what I see in silly films.”
“You are telling me, nephew, that I have dishonored my lineage?”
“Worse. You have dishonored yourself. And why did you lie to me about Eric Saunders and Burma?”
“That was not a lie. The man he killed was my friend.”
“And so you committed murder for the benefit of Eric Saunders. Come on, uncle, that is too much. This is a moment for the truth.”
“And what do you know of the truth? You are an American, Masao. I am something else, beyond your understanding. I could have killed Saunders thirty years ago. The punishment would hardly have befitted his crime. To me, death is not what it is to you. It is easy to die. So I did what I had to do, and it gave me a weapon to hold over Saunders. The whole story is in my vault at the bank. He knew that, so he could not kill me with impunity—and I waited. I let him build his empire, and I waited for the moment to bring him and his empire down in ruins.”