I grab the kid. “Listen to me, Martin. You answer it. I’m not here.”
“What?”
The phone rings.
“Listen and listen good. I’m not here. If it’s a man named Taylor, I never came back. You don’t know where I am. You can ask him where Hawk is. Tell him you’re gonna kill Hawk—”
The phone rings.
“—if you want. Find out where he is. If you can. Get it?”
He nods and picks up the phone. I go in the other room and get the extension. By the time I get it, I hear Taylor saying, “I know he’s there. You tell him my people watched him come back.”
“Fuck you. I want Hawk. You tell me where he’s at.”
“Put Broz on.”
“I told you, asshole, he’s not here.”
“You tell him to get on now or Maggie Lazlo goes to Bo Perkins and Chaz Otis and they have a party from which she’ll never recover.”
Of course, I want to get on and tell him I’ll kill him if he does that. But there’s no point. He knows that. The point is he can’t play his cards until I sit down at the table. Since he has a winning hand, the only hand, I don’t want to sit. Sure, he’s going to offer a trade, the memo for Maggie. And we’ll all walk away and go home happy.
It makes Martin pause. He doesn’t need to know who Bo and Chaz are to understand. He’s got a crush on her and he’s tempted to respond to the threat. But he’s smart in spite of himself and just says, “I would if I could, but I can’t. Man’s not here.”
“Who the fuck drove up, then?”
“Some other guys.”
“What other guys?”
“I don’t know. One of ’em’s named Dennis. Don’t know the other two.”
“Where is Broz?”
“Who are you?”
“Tell Broz he’s got one hour to call me.”
“Where?”
Taylor gives Martin a number. Martin writes it down. “What if I don’t see or hear from him?”
“One hour or she’s dead meat. Like that bitch in Hué. Dao Thi Thai. Except we’ll play with her first.”
“You best think about that, man,” Martin says. “What if I don’t talk to him in an hour. And then you kill her. Then what you got to play with, dude? Then you got Joe Broz coming to kill you as well as me coming to kill Hawk. You some kind of stupid man.”
“Shut up, boy. Don’t you call me stupid, boy. As for you coming after Hawk, boy, go ahead and try. You just do what I tell you.”
“I don’t do what the fuck people tell me. Where the fuck you living, man, you think people do what the fuck you tell them? You tell Hawk, Martin Joseph Weston comin’, comin’ for him. And he’s gonna die.”
“Goddamn you, kid, put Broz on.”
“You stupid or deaf? He ain’t here.”
Taylor slams down the phone.
I check the phone number. I recognize it. He’s at John Lincoln Beagle’s house.
“I need you to do what I say, Martin. If you do it my way, you’ll get him. If you rush, if you go at him too soon, he’ll get you.”
“I’m gonna take care of business. I don’t need you to—”
“You got a gun? Money? Backup? A plan? What are you gonna do with your father? You call the police, then you have to tell them who was here, where you were, and all of that. Then if you go after Hawk, they know it’s you. You need us, we need you. I need you to save Maggie. I need you to go up against Hawk, when the time comes.”
“Alright,” he says.
We have five 9-mm handguns, a rifle, and a shotgun. “Dressier, I want you to go buy another rifle. Something suitable for sniping. Scope to go with it. High-power, night scope if you can get it local. Get another shotgun. Pump action, something we can cut down. If you can get a spray gun, Mac-10, Uzi, anything like that, get it. Get four sets of body armor. Dennis, you’ve been to Beagle’s, you’re in charge of that. I want you to scout it. Take Tae Woo and Martin. See if you can figure out how many men Taylor’s got, their positions, how they’re armed. See if you can figure out where they’re keeping Maggie. Martin, don’t do anything yet. Except gather information. You treat this like you’re in the Marines and Dennis is your NCO. Taylor only wants one thing, for us to go in. It’s an ambush.”
The phone rings.
I point to Martin. He goes to the phone. I go to the extension and put it where we can see each other. On my signal we pick up the phone together. He says, “Hello.”
“Put him on, boy,” Taylor says.
“I told you, he isn’t here,” Martin says.
“Too bad,” Taylor says. “Since he’s not here, he’ll miss hearing this.” There is a pause. Then—Maggie screams.
I gesture to Martin to hang up. He looks at me. I gesture again. Hang up. He does and I do simultaneously. He looks at me like I’m something different than he is. He says, “You’re an ice cube. There’s something dead in you.”
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’ve just been here before. Steve would understand. I say, “We have to keep your father for twenty-four, forty-eight hours. Can you handle that Martin?”
“He’s dead,” Martin says, being strong. “It won’t make that much difference to him.”
“No.”
The phone rings again. I just want to let it ring. Or cut it off. But that will tell Taylor that I’m here and that I can’t take it. Then he can say that he’s cutting off her finger or her breast or taking out her eye and I better come quick. Whatever it takes to make me think that I have to try. Then we both die.
I gesture to Martin again. He shakes his head no.
So I say, “I thought you had balls?”
We pick up the phones simultaneously. Martin says, “Hello.” This time it’s a woman’s voice. She whispers, “Is Joe there? Joe Broz?”
Martin says, “No.”
She says, “Oh, God,” like she’s going to hang up.
“Wait,” I say into the phone. “Bambi Ann?”
“Joe?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t go, Joe. They’re going to kill you. And kill her. I don’t know what you’ve done and I don’t care.”
“Where are you?”
“At a pay phone away from the office.”
“OK. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Don’t let them hurt her, Joe.”
“I’m trying, Bambi Ann.”
“You know what she did for me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“She had John Travolta call me. Me, personally. To advise me about Scientology.”
“How do you know they’re going to kill her?”
“I listen. I always have. I control the intercom. It makes me seem very efficient. Like Radar O’Reilly in M*A*S*H.”
“Oh.”
“Really. It does. I show up with things before they ask. They think I’m wonderful.”
“And you are.”
“But not how they think.”
“Better.”
“You really think so?”
“Sure. You’re beating them at their own game.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Tell me what you know,” I say to bring her back.
“I’ve never gone against the company.”
“I know. You’re a loyal person.”
“I am.”
“And it’s good.”
“I’m doing this for her. For Maggie.”
“I understand.”
“Taylor’s going to kill . . . kill both of you. I think. He and that Mr. Hartman person, they argued over it. It’s the memo. You shouldn’t have taken the memo, joe.”
“She wanted me to. Maggie. I did it for Maggie.”
“Oh.”
“Go on.”
“That’s all I know.”
“Where did they argue over it?”
“On the phone. With Mr. Sheehan.”
“Conference call?”
“Yes.”
“Scrambled?”
“I operate the scra
mbler.”
“Where was Hartman?”
“He was in his office, I think.”
“He going to stay there? Or does he want to be in at the kill?”
“In on it. He insists.”
“OK. Will you help me some more?”
“If I can.”
“To save Maggie’s life.”
“Yes.”
“If I need you, I’ll call you at the office and say this is your uncle . . . you have a real uncle?”
“Arnold.”
“Uncle Arnold. You’ll be too busy to talk and you’ll call me back. OK?”
“OK.”
“Can I call you at home?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks.”
“There is something else,” Bambi Ann says. “Mr. Bunker called about . . . about it.”
“What did he want?”
“He said to be sure to get a copy of the memo.”
“To who?”
“To Mr. Sheehan to tell Mr. Taylor. Oh, yes, Mr. Hartman, that’s why he wants to be there. To be sure he gets the memo.”
“Do they know—-Taylor, Sheehan, Bunker—do they know what’s in the memo?”
“It doesn’t sound like it.”
“Thank you, Bambi Ann, thank you.”
“Good luck. Save her,” she says.
Chapter
FIFTY-SEVEN
I WAIT OUTSIDE the dojo for Sergeant Kim to leave. It is evident now that I am not as clever as I think I am. Taylor has me under surveillance and picked up on my recruitment of Hawk. And if Hawk is working for Taylor the whole time, Taylor knows all about ROK.
Kim d rives a Lincoln Town Car. I follow him. He lives twenty minutes away in a section that has become almost completely Oriental in the last ten years. He pulls into his driveway, gets out, walks to the curb, and waits for me. He invites me into his home. I’ve never been there before. I know that his wife is dead. A young woman, perhaps twenty, greets us at the door, in properly obsequious Confucian fashion. She and Kim speak in Korean. He does not introduce me. We go sit in the living room and she brings a bottle of reasonably good Scotch. Again, he says nothing about her, whether she is a daughter, a relative, a maid, a woman that he brought over mail-order from Korea. I tell him what has happened. She brings us cheeseburgers. They’re excellent, thick and juicy, topped with sharp cheddar, sliced dill pickle on the side. “I hate kimchee,” Kim says. “You like kimchee? I got some. You can have.”
“This is fine,” I say.
“Gourmet cheeseburgers,” he says. “You want recipe?”
“No, that’s alright.”
“Hartman, he still have Sakuro Juzo with him?”
“Usually.”
“Ahh . . . You want beer? Soda?”
“Same as you.”
“Hartman the emperor. Juzo the dragon. Taylor the enemy general. Magdalena is the treasure. The memo is the MacGuffin. That’s what Hitchhock call it. You like thrillers? Hitchhock my favorite. Like a game.”
“Sure,” I say. Except that I love her.
“Sure,” he says. “A game.”
Chapter
FIFTY-EIGHT
AT NOON THE next day a Vietnamese delivery boy brings flowers to Bambi Ann Sligo. In the flowers there is a note for Frank Sheehan.
Dear Frank,
Maggie for the memo.
Her house. 2:00 A.M.
Just Taylor and her.
Bambi Ann takes a late lunch, with permission, to see her Uncle Arnold. She doesn’t like her Uncle Arnold, but she hopes to inherit something from him when he dies. I ask why she hates him. She says it’s none of my business. She tells me there were several calls back and forth. Hartman is flying back to L.A. from Napa immediately. As I had hoped he would. They won’t bring Maggie until later that night because they don’t want to move her twice and have to find another place to keep her.
“They’re very upset at you. That they don’t know how to reach you.”
“How is she?”
“I think she’s OK.”
“Good,” is all I can say.
“She’s a wonderful woman.”
“I need one more thing from you. Did we do RepCo’s security? And Hartman’s at home?”
“I think so.”
“Can you get me a copy?”
Dennis, Kim Tae Woo, and Martin meet me at Maggie’s house at eleven-thirty that night I bring every piece of equipment I have. They begin making preparations like they’re getting ready for a siege, checking blind spots and vantage points and sight lines. I ask Mrs. Mulligan to prepare a pot of coffee and sandwiches. As soon as I am certain that she’s called U. Sec. and told them how many of us there are and how we’re armed, I send her away and disconnect the telephones. I wonder which side of her double game she’s really on.
As soon as she’s gone, Kim Tae Woo and I leave.
I figure that I have to leave two behind. Taylor will send someone to watch the house. I would. Anyone would. There has to be some activity. I leave Martin because he’s the least well trained. The other has to be white to at least suggest that it’s me to someone catching glimpses through a window.
The paper said overcast. It was right—the cloud cover is good, the night is dark, and we move quickly and easily down the beach. We have a mile to cover. When we come out on the Pacific Coast Highway, there’s a car on the side of the road. The driver is changing a tire. He’s a friend of Sergeant Kim’s and he’s been expecting us. He finishes quickly. We leave.
The names, addresses, and phone numbers of the regular security personnel are all in the material that Bambi Ann got me. She’s made it a lot easier. If not for her we would have had to try a car intercept or something else that required us to act out in the street. As it is, Paul Dressier got to the guy who works the midnight-to-eight shift before he came to work. When we get to RepCo, Paul is sitting at the guard desk, watching the video monitors, controlling the front door. He lets us in.
“Hartman still here?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anyone else here?”
“Kim’s already here.”
I look around. Kim, dressed in black, materializes from the shadows.
“One other agent,” Paul says. “I think he’s on with Japan. His phone has been lit up all night. And Hartman has his bodyguards with him.”
“How many?”
“Juzo and two more. I think. There’s no way I can be sure.”
“Stay here,” I say. That’s three of us against four of them. But we have surprise on our side.
We move silently down the hall to the elevator. There are several possibilities. We can go up and possibly signal that we’re on our way; we can try the stairs, though it’s possible they’ll be coming down the elevator at the same time; or we can wait and spring our ambush right here. I signal the other two to stop. I want to listen and I want to see what I can sense. I can’t see Sergeant Kim, he’s done his fade-into-the-darkness number again. It’s almost magical. Kim Tae Woo stands on the opposite side of the elevator doors from me, holding his 9-mm, perfectly still, perfectly quiet. I can’t tell if he’s breathing or not.
The elevator makes a noise. It’s operating. Upstairs. I grin at Tae Woo. Things have just gotten a lot simpler. We stand on either side of the elevator and wait for David Hartman and however many Ninjas he has with him to walk into our guns. The progress of the elevator is very clear from the sound. It gets closer. It grinds to a halt. The doors start to open. I feel a gun in my back. A hand reaches around and takes my gun from me. Another one of the Ninja, black outfit and all, is behind Tae Woo. “Drop gun,” he says.
The elevator door opens. “Well done,” David Hartman says. Sakuro Juzo stands beside him. He’s got a sword. “Taylor’s an idiot. But Sakuro said you would come here. The mind of a strategist. He says you read Sun Tzu. But that you only understand it like a Westerner. I hope you brought the memo with you.”
“No,” I say. “I didn’t.”
He sighs.
He and Sakuro walk out of the elevator. He’s close enough for me to breathe on him. There’s a gun in my back. They walk out of the narrow hallway where we’re standing and into the main hall. The ceilings disappear into darkness they’re so high up. There is a fire, as always, in the fireplace. There is a bucket of champagne on ice.
“That is a five-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne,” Hartman says. “I bet Sakuro that you wouldn’t show. Not that I disbelieved him, but it would be disrespectful, I think, to have given it to him as a reward. Or a tip. The man is a genius.”
Both Sakuro and Hartman look extremely pleased with themselves.
“I want the memo. Or I promise you that . . . well, I have you and Maggie. One of you, Sakuro tells me, will break, to save the other further pain and degradation.”
Suddenly, a voice from the darkness calls out. In a language I don’t understand but recognize as Oriental. It’s Sergeant Kim. I don’t know what he’s saying. But I can hear that it is full of mockery and derision. Considering the self-mastery that is required to rise to the top of any of the martial arts, it must be very strong to get a visible reaction from Sakuro Juzo.
Sakuro speaks back.
Then Kim.
Then Sakuro. Then Sakuro says something to his two Ninjas and suddenly we are all facing the fireplace. Sakuro turns to Hartman. “I am going to have a private battle. I will win. It will not affect this.”
“Sure,” Hartman says.
“Clear,” Sakuro says to Tae Woo and me. Since he has defeated us, we are less than him and we should obey. We do as he says and pull the chairs and tables back away from the fireplace. When there is a space, we step back. Sergeant Kim comes out from wherever he’s been.
To judge from appearances, this is a match that Kim is going to lose. He looks like what he is, an old soldier who’s been more interested in money than fighting for the last twenty years and who drinks more than he should. Then I realize it’s worse than that. Much worse. Unless Kim has a magic trick up his sleeve, he’s crazy. He’s going to fight Sakuro with his hands and feet. Sakuro is going to use a sword. This is a samurai weapon of which he is one of the living masters. Forget about the mysticism and ki and all of that. Just think about pro sports. Think about getting in the ring with even a serious middleweight contender. Think about getting on the football field against the Detroit Lions. Or maybe on the tennis court with one of the top five men. Things are going to happen with a speed and a power that are beyond you. With tricks and in combinations that you can’t imagine.
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