The Spy Across the Table

by Barry Lancet

  Noda walked on, heedless. He passed by the sentries without a glance and they relaxed.

  “Hey,” I said, “wait up.”

  Noda waved a hand above his head in dismissal without looking back.

  I picked myself up and staggered after him.

  The van stopped in front of the guards.

  “Keep moving,” the lead sentry said, stepping forward.

  The driver jerked a thumb at the Boy’s Room across the way. “Just be a second, gentlemen. Got a bundle of towels to deliver to that bar and I’ll be gone.”

  The yakuza curled his upper lip. “You ain’t stopping here. Take it to the end of the—”

  Behind him, Noda pivoted and charged. The man closest to me noticed the sudden movement and shouted a warning. I launched off my back foot. Catching my advance out of the corner of his eye, the yaki soldier turned toward me as I plowed a fist into his stomach. Noda wrapped the second man in a bear hug, pinning his arms.

  As my prey doubled up, I brought clasped hands down on his neck and he collapsed to the pavement. A favorite go-to move.

  The side panel of the supply van slid aside. Two men leapt out, lifted my conquest from the ground, and flung him into the van. He sailed across the empty compartment and slammed into the far panel, collapsing with a groan. A third man waiting inside jumped on his back, pinning his arms, while a fourth wound a spool of duct tape around the man’s ankles three times, slapped a strip across his mouth, then secured the target’s arms behind his back with three more rotations of tape.

  Twenty seconds had elapsed.

  I turned toward Noda. His captive struggled to break loose. I was two feet away, staring into eyes bulging with fury.

  “Be good and we’ll avoid the rough stuff,” I said.

  His cheeks puckered. I slammed my fist into his nose before he could spit at me.

  “That was a short-term, nonnegotiable offer,” I said. “Throw him in.”

  The second guard followed the first and seconds later he too was secured.

  “Wrapped, packed, and stacked,” the driver said. “You still wanna do the guys out front?”

  That had been the original plan.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Be two less coming down on us if things heat up inside.”

  So we circled around the front, waited for a lull in the foot traffic, and gave an encore performance. With the two guards sharing a bottle of Nikka whisky, we corralled them without much resistance.

  “Now that the hard work’s done,” the driver said, “are you good or do you need us inside as well?”

  Noda snorted, and I said, “We’re good. Just keep those four under wraps.”

  “Not a problem,” the driver said, and drove off.

  I headed toward the stairs.

  Noda grabbed my shoulder.

  I flung a glance at the chief detective. “What?”

  “Careful on this one.”

  I cocked my head at him. Being careful went with the territory.

  “You know something else besides what Jo told us?” I said.

  The chief detective’s look turned feral. “Rats get bold in the dark. Scurry away from the light. This one runs toward the light.”

  “Agreed. It’s unusual.”

  Noda shook his head. “No. Abnormal. The most dangerous of all.”

  CHAPTER 43

  DRAGON Skin was a cavern of darkness.

  The door opened inward into a serpentine room that slithered forward with the ropey grace of a dragon’s tail. Then the tail split in two, with secluded alcoves and booths that faded into ever-deepening shadows. Black walls, black tables, and curving tufted black leather booths sucked every ray of available light into a vacuum.

  Dim recessed ceiling lights silhouetted clusters of gay men gathered in the booths and standing on the floor and up against a long bar farther on into the club. Designer cocktails were plentiful. Heterosexual couples, though in the minority, mingled. Dragon Skin put out a distinctly Ni-chome feel, and yet it looked to be an equal opportunity party place. Habu could slip in without ruffling feathers.

  Hoisting trays of drinks, black-tuxedoed waiters in matching skintight short pants slipped in and around groups. Thin pink laser beams pulsed through the blackness at indiscriminate angles, slashing across bodies and faces, then just as suddenly disappearing.

  A lithe Japanese maître d’ in a green tuxedo and short pants glided up to us. Silver threads in his getup shimmered in the dim light, giving his approach a magical lizardlike quality.

  Dragon skin.

  His smile was wide and welcoming. Maybe too welcoming. Under the tux, he wore a green bow tie with a crisp white shirt and a green cummerbund. On the left wing of the tie was a winking eye. The pants squeezed the tops of his thighs.

  “Hi, boys! I’m Donnie. Welcome to Dragon Skin.”

  Naturally he winked. Perfect Ni-chome. Camp and corn rolled into one. Jo was right: this was the absolute last place the police would hunt for Habu. If they even knew to hunt for him.

  “Thanks,” I said. “We’re looking for a friend.”

  Donnie raised a tapered finger to his chin and looked doe-eyed at Noda. “I could be that friend.”

  Noda growled and the maître d’ rose up on his toes. “Oooh, feisty. I like it.” His eyes slid up and down Noda’s body. Subtlety was not the order of the day at Dragon Skin.

  The chief detective’s growl grew louder, and I stepped between them. “Don’t lead the poor boy on, Noda. It’ll only encourage him.”

  Donnie slapped my shoulder. “You’re so fresh.” His fingertips glided down my arm to my biceps. “Oooh. Aren’t you the burly one. But your friend is more my type. I like a little trouble with my spice.”

  “Hear that, Noda? You’re set if you ever decide to dump me.”

  Donnie said, “I would offer to guide you, but I’m sure you two brutes can find your way just fine.”

  “That we can,” I said.

  “Then let me give you the little Dragon speech. You can order drinks from the booths or go to the bar. Tonight is Dance-Free Friday, which we have once a month because it gets so hot and crowded at times and not everyone likes up close and clammy. Tonight you can mix and chat and flirt till you drop, but it’s no-dance casual. So let down your hair, boys, and go grab ’em. And you, stud muffin”—he pointed a finger at Noda and rotated it slowly—“come find me if you want anything special. Anything at all.”

  A white card appeared as if by magic in Donnie’s hand. The glib maître d’ stepped around me and tucked it in Noda’s shirt pocket.

  “You live dangerously,” I said.

  Donnie’s face lit up. “One must, sweetie. One must.”

  Then he scooted off into the darkness, silver threads twinkling in his wake.

  I turned to Noda. “Well, stud muffin, do you have time to look for Habu or should I leave you and Donnie to—”

  “Don’t.”

  Donnie’s flirtation had put the chief detective in a sour mood.

  I shrugged. “You see Habu anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “More soldiers?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone who might be a contender?”

  “No.”

  “Same here on all counts.”

  We moved farther into the gloom to where the room forked. We could make out no faces beyond the five-yard range, except when a pink laser spiked the darkness.

  “Split up?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Stand out less.”

  “Not going to happen. We blend in like German shepherds in a kennel of whippets.”

  Noda muttered under his breath in reluctant admiration. “Smart move, this place.”

  Reports placed weekend attendance of the club at two to three hundred, with a loyal base of die-hard regulars. Clearly, new blood was welcomed but immediately noted. Donnie had recited the club rules without even inquiring if it was our first time. He knew. Which was bad news if Habu had lookouts clocking fresh faces.

 
Noda rumbled down the left fork and I veered to the right, drawing lingering looks of appraisal from clusters of regulars. I imagined my bulldog partner attracted an equal measure of unwanted attention.

  The club was fragrant with flowery scents and colognes. Lively chatter, club music, but nothing outwardly untoward.

  I was two-thirds through my section when I sensed an approach from behind. Before I could turn, the point of a knife sliced through my shirt and nicked my spine. Blood trickled from the cut.

  “Start walking,” a voice leavened with menace and saké snarled in my ear, “or next time the knife goes deeper.”

  I began to raise my hands but he slapped the left one away with a rough, thick-fingered paw. “Keep ’em down. Don’t want any glamour boys eyeing us.”

  I wondered from what crevice he’d emerged. No one who looked anything like his voice sounded had been lingering in the shadows I’d passed.

  I let my hands drop and my knife-wielding captor said, “What are you doing here?”

  Rumor mill says Habu’s turned his basement into a viper pit. Enemies get tossed in, so don’t let him grab you.

  “What do you mean?”

  He flicked his blade again and a second nick opened up next to the first. “You ain’t gay. Why you here?”

  “There’s hundreds of people here. Why you bothering with me?”

  “ ’Cause you ain’t one of them but you been to the funeral today.”

  “You’re mistaken,” I said.

  “I don’t make mistakes. But you just made the biggest of your life.”

  CHAPTER 44

  MY captor led me deeper into the dark nightclub, past knots of mostly gay men drinking cocktails or wine or the occasional pint. Regardless of dress or costume, all of the men were well groomed. All of the cocktails were ornate in color or plumage or both.

  I kept an eye peeled for Habu or any of his men. I spotted the gang leader from five yards out, his image solidifying in the gloom as we drew closer. He sat at a booth in the farthest corner, happily sandwiched between two professional bits of arm candy in clinging summer knit dresses with swooping necklines. A pink beam flashing over the table revealed that the women wore vivid spring colors ripe for the picking: a cool strawberry pink and a papaya yellow. He had one arm slung over Papaya’s shoulder and the other snaked around Pink’s waist, his hand fondling Pink’s left breast with evident appreciation. A magnum of champagne rested in a red-lacquer ice bucket at a cocky tilt. A bottle of premium Yamazaki single malt whisky stood upright a few inches away.

  “You’re gonna be a nice present for the boss,” the yakuza soldier at my back said.

  Habu was decked out in upscale gangster gaudy: a black dress shirt and a lemon-yellow tie. Against the black leather of the high-backed booth, his head bobbed like a balloon on a yellow string.

  “He like surprises?”

  “From the skirts, yeah. You, no. He’ll likely wanna slice you up some to impress the girls.”

  He’s deadly when he wants to be, Jiro Jo had told us. Carries a double-edged fixed blade.

  “Lucky me.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t see it coming.”

  Habu’s radar zeroed in on us the instant we drew near. Mean eyes and a big diamond-shaped head swiveled in my direction. Along the right side of his face, the shiny surface of the scar Jo mentioned picked up what little light there was.

  “What you bring me, Sai?” the gang leader said.

  “A gift.”

  “Name?”

  Sai pressed the tip of his blade harder against my spine, then with his free hand withdrew my wallet from my back pocket. I heard him flipping through my cards.

  “California driver’s license says ‘Jim Brodie.’ Three credit cards got the same name.”

  “Name don’t mean nothing to me.” A husky whisky rasp hung on to the edge of his words.

  “He was at the Tanaka funeral.”

  Habu’s lascivious grin fell victim to a tight-lipped frown. Giving Pink’s breast a last affectionate squeeze, he whispered in her ear and she scooted, giggling, from the booth. In an instant Habu clambered out after her and straightened to his full girth: five-seven and approaching two hundred pounds. He was blocky and broad and quick on his feet. His head, narrow at the front, flared out the sides, then tapered off severely again behind the ears.

  “Don’t know what you’re doing here, gaijin, but you just found trouble like you ain’t never seen.”

  The lingering whisky vapors followed the lascivious smile into oblivion. Sai’s revelation had sobered his boss.

  “Don’t want trouble, just a talk,” I said.

  “Get down on your knees like my women and Habu will accommodate you.”

  The women twittered.

  “Not going to happen,” I said.

  The knife at my spine urged me forward. I planted my feet. I felt a sharp prick, then a third trickle of blood. I didn’t budge.

  Habu flicked his wrist, and from a hidden spring-loaded holster up his sleeve a glittering shaft of steel shot into his palm. His personal admiration society admitted gasps of delight. The entertainment portion of the evening was about to begin.

  The rest of Jiro Jo’s warning came to mind: Prides himself on one cut. Across the throat. But he’ll slice open your belly just as happily. He’s quick and hits his mark. Best not to irritate him.

  “You want his ID?” Sai said.

  “Yeah.”

  The henchman lobbed my wallet to Habu, who caught it with his free hand. He cradled it in his palm, stood it on edge, and thumbed through the contents.

  “San Francisco address. That where you live?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ever take a boat under the Golden Gate?”

  “Many times.”

  “Got to get me there one day. Bad news is you ain’t gonna make it back.”

  He snapped the wallet shut and tossed it at the bartender. “Hold that for me, Masu-kun. The gaijin won’t be needing it.”

  “I’ll keep it right here, boss.”

  The weapon at my back faded away. Habu rolled his blade around his thick knuckles a couple of times. Pink and Papaya applauded in a flutter of dainty air claps. The yakuza boss’s chest inflated.

  I took the opportunity to edge back half a foot. The movement refocused Habu’s attention on me. His eyes flickered over my abdomen, throat, and eyes. All potential targets, I realized with a chill. Then he gave the left side of my head special attention. I inched back another six inches.

  The yaki leader sneered. “You afraid of Habu, gaijin?”

  “The knife deserves respect.”

  “Habu deserves respect.”

  “Naturally,” I said. “Look, all I want is a quiet chat.”

  I angled my head to catch a glimpse of my escort. Sai had cinnamon-colored skin and a large flat face dominated by a broad, flat nose. He leaned back against the bar, elbows resting on the slick black countertop, a smirk on his lips, a flask of warm saké nearby. His hands were empty.

  Behind Sai, the bartender cranked up the music.

  Auditory camouflage.

  Confrontation was not a new scenario at Dragon Skin.

  Noda and I had walked into a trap.

  “Habu don’t answer to strangers. And barging in without an invite is gonna cost you a souvenir for the ladies.”

  I let him babble while I looked for an exit strategy from a nearly impossible situation. In close quarters, I had the knife-wielding gang boss in front and his henchman behind. Sensible people had exited to other parts of the club. Maybe fifteen customers remained. None of them were yakuza. None of them would intercede on my behalf.

  “. . . either a finger or an ear . . .”

  I’d stumbled into Habu’s private house of horrors, peopled with his women, his soldiers, bought-and-paid-for bar staff, and what I now understood to be a core group of admirers-slash-gawkers. The devotees stared in rabid fascination, their eyes dancing, their expressions expectant.

&n
bsp; “. . . got a finger last week, so maybe an ear this time . . .”

  I scanned the crowd of groupies. Not a sympathetic face among them. And no Noda. Had the Sasa-gumi gang taken him down? I didn’t know, but waiting for him would only get me flayed.

  So I didn’t.

  CHAPTER 45

  THE next time the cocky thug cast a boastful glance at the ladies, I swept inward, hoping to catch him off his game.

  But Jiro Jo’s assessment had been spot-on: the guy was faster than fast. Even partially inebriated. The knife rose like steel lightning.

  Habu lashed out, his free hand hovering at his hip for balance. I dove to my right, away from his strike, but the gang leader had come alarmingly close.

  And yet he didn’t chase me. Instead, he tethered himself to his table, where his female admirers would have a clear view as he took me apart. Penned in, I couldn’t range far. He could wait me out. Meanwhile, in anticipation, the groupies crowded closer together. The whites of their eyes glistened.

  “Running scared, gaijin?”

  I flashed a look at Sai, but the henchman hadn’t budged. He too was content to watch the action unfold. I wondered how many had gone down before me—either here or at one of the other clubs.

  In a showman’s flourish, Habu slashed the air between us. “You ain’t leaving here unless I get an ear. Or your life. Maybe both.”

  “Why’d you take the woman?”

  Habu grinned. “I like women. I take ’em any way I can.”

  “The Tanaka girl.”

  His look grew shifty. “How you know about that?”

  He didn’t like his private business spread around in public.

  “Like your man said, I was at the funeral.”

  “We wore masks.”

  “Maybe I’m psychic.”

  “Maybe you’re dead.”

  I nodded at his wrist. “Gang tattoo.”

  “Gonna take out both your eyes too.”

  On the last syllable, he pounced. Excited whispers from the gallery fluttered under the pulsing beat of the music. Habu’s thick bulk hopped forward with surprising agility. A rangy muskiness rolled off him.

  I backpedaled in haste. He followed this time. His body was a surging mass of muscle. I looped around, feinting a move toward a hall that offered a convenient escape route. When he shifted to cut me off, I changed direction, swinging back toward Papaya and Pink. Habu could not have been more pleased.