Gerard shouted, “Who the f–!” but then he saw the white No mask, the brutally scarred, half-naked body, the wealth of snake and dragon tattooes, and a sensation of utter cold dread soaked through him like ice water soaked up by blotting paper. He knew what it was all about.
He knew why the Tengu was here. Esmeralda had sent it around to silence him, and to punish him for his failure in arranging the death of Jerry Sennett and Admiral Thorson. The deal was up, the game was over. He had been right from the very start. Esmeralda had particularly selected him and Nancy Shiranuka and all the rest of the team be-Tengu cause they were dispensable, murderable, easily disposed of at the end of the day’s work.
Panting heavily behind his mask, the Tengu circled the office and stalked toward him. Gerard backed off, reaching for the wall behind him, his cold eyes darting from side to side, calculating, checking distances, looking for any way to get out. Francesca was climbing slowly to her feet, dazed, her skirt torn open to the waist.
Gerard moved round behind his desk, keeping his eyes on the Tengu all the time. He coaxed open the top right-hand drawer, and there was his .357 Python revolver. He curled his finger into the drawer and hooked the gun out by the trigger guard.
Francesca screamed, “Gerard!” as the Tengu made a sudden and inexorable rush toward him.
Gerard cocked his revolver, held it high with both hands, and fired. The bullet went right through the Tengu’s chest in a splatter of blood, and the impact of it made the Tengu stagger.
But it raised its masked face, with a question mark of its own blood splashed onto one cheek, and kept coming toward him, more slowly, more cautiously, but just as threateningly.
Gerard raised his revolver once again and carefully squeezed off a shot at close range, into the Tengu’s face. The bullet was fired so near that the varnish on the Tengu’s No mask was burned black on one cheek by flaring gunpowder. From the neat hole in the papier-mach6, the slug must have drilled straight into his left cheekbone. But still the Tengu kept coming, grunting with pain and effort, and it was clear to Gerard that nothing would stop it. Hadn’t Mr. Esmeralda told him, with a warm smile, that the Tengu were unstoppable?
Tense, sweating, Gerard reached for the arm of his high-backed leather swivel chair and drew it cautiously between himself and the Tengu. The Tengu raised his hands, ready to seize Gerard and tear him to pieces. Francesca said, in a high, almost hysterical voice, “Gerard, what shall I do? Gerard, tell me what to do Gerard didn’t listen to her. Instead, he pulled back his chair as far as he could against his legs and gripped it as tightly as possible, until white spots showed on his knuckles. He licked his lips, his mouth dry, judging his moment, judging his distance.
“Francesca,” warned Gerard, “move away from the window. Get over toward the door.”
Francesca, panicking, said, “What?”
“Just do what I tell you, get away from the window.”
But then it was too late. The Tengu rushed forward, and Gerard couldn’t think about anything but shoving his chair toward it as fast and as powerfully as he could, catching the Tengu right in the knees, sweeping it into the rolling castored chair with the sheer momentum of his desperate forward run; half wheeling, half forcing the Tengu clear across the room and driving him straight into the floor-to-ceiling window at a careering, uncontrolled pace, right into the net curtains, until there was an awesome creaking of glass, and then an explosive shatter. The Tengu hurtled straight out into the afternoon sky, followed by the black leather chair, and both dropped floors, 332 feet, the Tengu spread-eagled, surrounded by glittering tumbling glass, and taking slightly less than four seconds to hit the ground. They heard the bang of flesh against concrete, even from so far up, and the clatter of the chair.
Francesca held Gerard very tight, clinging, almost clawing. Her face was so tense that it was ugly. Time passed, thirty seconds, a minute.
“Gerard,” she said.
Gerard covered his mouth with his hand. Then he said, “Listen. I know what you think you’ve got to do. I know you’re supposed to arrest me, and all of that. But just give me twelve hours.
Can you do that? You’ve given me plenty of rope until now. Give me twelve hours more.”
Francesca said, in a jumbled voice, “I don’t love you, you know. I don’t love you enough to want to stay with you.”
“Francesca, I just want the time.”
She released her grip. The sound of police and ambulance sirens was already echoing across the plaza below them. The wind billowed the nets and sent letters headed CROWLEY TOBACCO
IMPORTS snowstorming across the room. “All right,” she said. “But call me tomorrow morning, when you’ve done whatever it is you have to do. Don’t fail me, Gerard, because if you do, I’ll have to send them out looking for you, and you know they’ll find you. They may even kill you.”
Gerard said nothing, but went to his desk and took out a handful of cigars, which he pushed into his inside pocket. He gave Francesca one last look, and then he walked out the torn-open door, and through the reception area. In the corridor, he met two breathless policemen.
“Hey, did you see which office that guy fell out of?” one of the cops asked him.
Gerard pointed two doors down, along the corridor, herman & gublenik, attorneys at law. “I think it was that one,” he said. “Those two are always fighting, Herman and Gublenik. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of them pushed the other out of the window. Either Gublenik or Herman, who knows?”
“Okay, friend,” said the cop, and went hurrying on.
Gerard walked along to the elevator, stepped in, and pressed the button for the lobby. When the doors closed, his eyes closed, too. Only his cold self-control prevented him from trembling like a newborn foal.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The ambulance had been quick, but Mr. Esmeralda, who had been parked in his limousine by the curb on the Avenue of the Stars, had been quicker. With one of Kappa’s nameless Japanese to help him, he had shouldered his way through the crowds which had surrounded the Tengu’s fallen body and dragged the Tengu off to his car. A man had protested, “I’m a doctor. You can’t take that man off like that. The police are going to want to see him.”
Mr. Esmeralda had smiled at the doctor, all teeth and Latin charm. “You must understand that I am this man’s personal physician,” he had lied. “If he had fallen from a window, it is necessary that I examine him before the police. Ethics, you know.”
The doctor had started to protest again; but with a kick to the kidneys that was so fast that it was practically invisible, the Oni paralyzed the doctor where he stood, so that the doctor could do nothing but grasp in agony at his back and gasp for breath.
Sweating, Mr. Esmeralda had humped the Tengu’s body into the back of his limousine, slammed the door, and driven off in a howling U-turn toward Santa Monica Boulevard. Just as he had reached the traffic signals, a Doheny Medical Services ambulance had come howling around the corner, its red lights flashing. Mr. Esmeralda had put his foot down and barged his way into the east-west traffic, provoking a chorus of very non-California hornblowing. Then he had roared off westward, as fast as he could, toward Eva Crowley’s apartment.
Now Mr. Esmeralda glanced in his rearview mirror at the dead Tengu, propped up in the back seat, where Mr. Esmeralda himself used to sit, before Kappa had detained Kuan-yin as a hostage. Mr. Esmeralda had imagined when he was younger than when people fell from tall buildings, they were smashed into pieces; it was only when he had seen Life magazine’s celebrated picture of a 23-year-old girl who had thrown herself 86 floors from the observation deck of the Empire State Building, to lie peacefully and apparently undamaged on the dented roof of a limousine, that he had realized how peculiarly calm a death it was. You fall, you stop falling. That was all.
It had been essential, however, for him to rescue the Tengu’s body before the police and ambulance arrived. This was the last Tengu who was anything near to readiness, and, as it was, Doctor Gempaku w
as going to have to perform the Hour of Fire again to revive him.
Considering they were supposed to attack the nuclear-power station at Three Arch Bay at eight o’clock tomorrow night, that didn’t leave Doctor Gempaku very much time. Mr. Esmeralda silently cursed Kappa and his penchant for hiring the weak and corrupt and dispensable. But then he thought: Kappa hired me for the same virtues, or lack of them. Perhaps there is some method in his madness, after all. It was doubtful whether anyone who wasn’t weak and corrupt and constantly live in fear of his life would ever contemplate helping Kappa to destabilize a nuclear-power station and extinguish half of California. To perform such actions needed a particular kind of personality deficiency; and while Gerard Crowley and Nancy Shiranuka and Commander Ouvarov might all be dangerously inefficient and unreliable, at least when the moment came to set off the final explosion, they would none of them have serious moral qualms. Nor did Mr. Esmeralda have any qualms about killing them.
He was unsure what had happened to Gerard Crowley. Perhaps the Tengu had killed Crowley before he fell from the twenty-seventh floor, perhaps he hadn’t. In any event, there was no time to find out. It had been difficult enough taking the Tengu into the building and up in the elevator, draped in a long Mexican blanket to conceal his No mask and his scarred body, an insane pantomime. Now all Mr. Esmeralda wanted to do was get the Tengu back to Pacoima Ranch. There was only one stop he had to make, now that things were heating up so much, and that was to Eva Crowley’s, to collect his living insurance policy. He pulled into the front driveway of the Crowleys’ apartment building and said to the Oni, “Keep your head down. I won’t be longer than five minutes.”
Eva was still wrapped in a towel, fresh out of the shower, when Mr. Esmeralda rang the doorbell. Kelly and Kathryn were home, too, playing backgammon.
“Carlos,” said Eva, surprised. “I didn’t think I was going to see you until tomorrow.”
“Well,” said Mr. Esmeralda with an elasticated little smile, “you see me now. How soon can you get dressed?”
“Carlos, I’m sorry I can’t go out–I have to meet some friends of mine for a bridal shower this afternoon, and the girls are coming with me.”
Mr. Esmeralda glanced down at his gold wristwatch. “You have three minutes to put something on. Anything, a dress, a pair of slacks.”
“Carlos, I’ve told you. I’m going out. Now, it’s very good to see you. I’m delighted you came.
Girls, Carlos is here, if you want to say hello. But really, Carlos...”
Mr. Esmeralda raised both his hands to silence her. “Please, Eva, listen to me. You have no choice. You have to come with me, right away; and the girls too.”
Eva blinked in astonishment. She said, “How many times do I have to...”
Mr. Esmeralda reached to the waistband of his white tropical pants and brought out a small
.32-caliber automatic. It was like a gesture out of a 1940’s gangster movie.
“Put that away,” Eva told him, shocked. “Carlos, how can you–?”
Mr. Esmeralda said, “Eva, my dear lady, you have two minutes to put on some clothes. If you are not dressed and ready to come with me by then, I will shoot you and kill you. Now, move.”
Behind Eva, Kelly and Kathryn had now stood up, and were staring at Mr. Esmeralda and his gun with undis-Tengu guised alarm. Mr. Esmeralda said, “If you do what I tell you, there is no personal danger. But, please, for your own sakes, be quick.”
Kelly reached for the telephone, but Mr. Esmeralda swung his pistol around so that it was pointing directly at her. She froze.
“This is going to be my first and only warning,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “I have killed people before, for being far less troublesome, and if you cause me any problems, I will not hesitate to kill you. Believe me. I also have to tell you that I am not going to explain why I am taking you with me, or for how long. So do not trouble to ask me; I will not answer you. All that I require from you is silence and obedience and calmness. Those three things are all that will protect you in some trying times.”
Eva said, “I suppose it’s no good appealing to your better nature.”
“You are right,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “I do not have a better nature.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They reached the perimeter fence of Pacoima Ranch shortly before four o’clock in the afternoon. It was warm and breezy in the hills, one of those golden California afternoons when the sun turns the grass to sparkling fire, and the mountains lie wrinkled and dry and orange as terra cotta under a dense blue sky. They had left the Little Tujunga Road, and driven out over rough country to the southeast side of the ranch, down a narrow and stony arrayo secco, and then up through a sloping grove of white firs. At last they halted beside a split-rail fence, and Gerard stopped his Buick and climbed out. His first move was to light a fresh cigar.
“Well,” he said, as Jerry and Mack and El Krusho got out of the white Grand Prix, and walked up the slope to join him, “this is the boundary. From here, it’s going to be all on foot.”
“How far are the ranch buildings from here?” asked Jerry.
“A mile, no more,” said Gerard. “But they don’t have any defenses at all on this side. It’s steep, and it’s difficult going, and in any case they’re not looking for anybody to hit them. They may be nervous about the police, but the police have a way of storming right up to the front door. They certainly won’t be expecting anybody to come creeping in from the side.”
“If you say so,” said Mack, who had taken a sharp dislike to Gerard Crowley from the moment he had first met him. Mack was not at all enthralled by men who smoked large cigars and dressed like loan sharks.
Gerard ignored him and turned to Maurice. “Do you think you can carry that M-60?” he asked.
“It doesn’t weigh more than twenty-five pounds. Mr. Holt, if you don’t mind carrying the belt box.”
Maurice, his muscles bulging under his tight white T-shirt, lifted the long-barreled M-60E1 machine gun out of the trunk of the Grand Prix and hoisted it over one shoulder, complete with its bipod. Mack reluctantly took the box of 7.62-mm. ammunition, while Jerry carried the Canadian SMG, a very light submachine gun rather like the old British Sterling, and three magazines of 9-mm. Parabellum bullets. Gerard stuffed the two Browning high-power automatics into the pockets of his suit.
They climbed over the split-rail fence and began to scale the hillside at an angle of 45 degrees.
The mountain air, as they walked, became gradually cooler. Gerard at last drew up close to Jerry and said, “They tried to finish me off this afternoon. They sent a Tengu around to my office.”
“What does that mean?” asked Jerry, wiping the sweat from his face with his hand. “You’ve outgrown your usefulness to them?”
“I guess. I didn’t stop to find out.”
“You got away from the Tengu?”
“I shoved him out a twenty-seven-story window.”
Jerry raised his eyebrows, but said, “That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve seen the last of him.”
Gerard looked at Jerry without any expression on his face. “A couple of weeks ago, I would have said you were pulling my leg. Now I know you’re telling me the truth. Those damned Tengus are indestructible.”
“Not totally indestructible,” said Jerry. “That was why we dropped an A-bomb on them in the war.”
Gerard took his cigar out of his mouth, and spat. “That’s all we need, then? An A-bomb? You should have told me. I would have stocked up.”
It was nearly five o’clock by the time they crested the ridge which overlooked Pacoima Ranch from the southeast. They sat among the scrub, sharing the water bottle Jerry had brought along, the same one he had used in the mountains of Japan, while Gerard briefly outlined the ranch buildings to them and pointed out the dilapidated barn where the Tengus were concealed.
“In my judgment,” Gerard said, “someone has to go in there and lock all those reinforced doors, so that the Tengus can’t be released.
That will give us half “a chance of storming the place successfully, at least. Now, Doctor Gempaku’s quarters are over there, in the main farmhouse; while your son, Jerry, is being held at the back of that outbuilding. My feeling is that you should take the SMG and go straight in there on your own, with the sole purpose of getting your son out. Leave the rest to us.”
“How many Japanese guards are there?” asked Made.
“It varies. Never fewer than five, often as many as seven. Then there’s a cook and a housemaid. It would make life more pleasant if we didn’t wipe them out as well, but for God’s sake don’t risk anything on their behalf. He who cooks for the devil should use a damn long J ladle.”
They discussed the attack for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then Maurice and Mack carried the M-60 down toward the southern side of the ranch, keeping as close as they could to the scrubline, and positioned themselves behind an outcropping of rock about a hundred yards away from the main ranch buildings, well within the range of their machine gun, which could fire effectively for over three-quarters of a mile. Once they had settled, they waved back up the hill to Jerry and Gerard to show they were ready.
“I’ll go down and see if I can lock the Tengus in,” said Gerard. “You skirt around the back and see what you can do to get your son out of there. The signal for the attack to start will be three quick pistol shots, one after the other. Then we just go in there, giving them everything we’ve got.” Jerry said, “You didn’t have to do this, did you?”
“What do you mean?” asked Gerard.
“You didn’t have to help me rescue my son.”
Gerard took out one of his automatics and checked the clip. “I’m doing this for myself,” he said.
“If I don’t waste these people now, they’re going to be after me for the rest of my life. I don’t know who they are, or what they’re into, but they’re the kind of people who never let go.”
Tengu Page 33