“What about Chris and Eddie?” he asked aloud.
“I didn’t see Eddie, but Chris ducked out the minute these guys showed up. I think he slipped into the bar. But these guys aren’t interested in them. It’s you they want to see.”
Stanley remembered the yakuza who had ambushed him and Tom before. Only, Tom wasn’t with him now, and if these were the same guys, one of them was probably holding a grudge over some broken fingers. People could be very touchy.
Stanley came to a halt. “I should say something to Chris at least.”
“No time. I’ll fill him in once you’re out of here.”
Stanley’s instinct was to resist. Tom had told him to stay put. But Tom hadn’t been expecting the yakuza to show up here looking for him either—and he truly did not want to tangle with them again, not on his own.
“Plus, I promised Tom I’d kind of keep an eye out,” Patterson said. “He’ll be seriously pissed if I let anything happen to you.”
Stanley glanced in the direction of the pool in time to see a dark-suited man step into the doorway. For the moment he was blinded by the bright sunlight outside and the darkness here, but it would be no more than seconds before he spotted Stanley.
“Okay,” Stanley said, hurrying across the room, head down, eager now to be outside. The club was empty but for a bartender polishing glasses and one couple dancing romantically to a slow number. Stanley went through a beaded curtain and was in the hallway that ran past the restrooms to an exit door at the rear.
“This way,” Randy said, taking Stanley’s arm and shoving the door open.
“Only,” Stanley said, stopping again, “how did you know those guys were looking for me? I mean, they could have just been hanging around.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Randy said. He put a hand at Stanley’s back and shoved him through the door. Stanley stumbled into the alley and saw a dark Mercedes sitting just outside, motor running, doors open. He’d seen that car before….
“Oh, crap,” he said. When he attempted to step back, however, he found one of the yakuza right behind him, blocking any escape. The other two came at him from each side, grabbing his arms and propelling him toward the open door of the Mercedes. He was shoved roughly into the back seat, one of the gangsters on either side of him, the third behind the wheel. The doors slammed shut.
When he looked past the man next to him, out the window, Stanley saw Randy standing in the open doorway, looking after them, his face perfectly blank. The truth was inescapable. Randy had set him up.
Once they got on the 111 and he saw road signs for Palm Desert, he knew where they were going. And, really, it was perfectly clear, wasn’t it?
Who would have Japanese gangsters doing his bidding, if not a wealthy Japanese businessman and onetime movie star? B-movies, he reminded himself.
But what did Mr. Nakamura want with him? Surely he doesn’t think I’m going to commit seppuku to satisfy his samurai honor?
He looked out the window of the car at the passing desert. The yellow sage was in bloom. A mesquite seemed to claw angrily at the sky. A swirl of dust rose up about it like a swarm of hornets and settled back to the ground again.
Another thought popped into his mind—their police department bodyguard’s disappearance had been awfully convenient. Someone, apparently, had pulled some strings.
He had a pretty good idea who too.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
BACK AT the pool, Chris glanced at his watch. Stanley had been gone a long time, it seemed to him. The waiter had brought yet another round of drinks—and their bodyguard still hadn’t returned. Things were not looking good, in his opinion.
“I’m going to go look for Stanley,” Chris announced.
“Maybe I’d better come with you,” Eddie said.
“Might be a good idea. Tom said we should stick together. I should have gone with Stanley to the room.” Mentally he was kicking himself for not going with him, but it had seemed safe enough when Stanley suggested it—straight there, straight back.
It was evident when they got to Chris’s room that Stanley wasn’t there. “And here’s his sunscreen that he came to get,” Chris said. “It doesn’t look like he even got this far.”
“Would he have gone to the bar?” Eddie asked.
They stopped there, but no Stanley. Randy Patterson was nursing a drink. Chris asked him if he had seen Stanley, but Patterson grunted a negative and drained his glass. It did not appear to be his first drink.
Now what? Chris wondered. He took his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Tom’s number. The phone was out of service. Well, it would be, wouldn’t it, if Tom were doing one of his breaking and entering routines.
“I guess we go back to the patio and wait for Detective Hammond’s man to return. Then he can call his boss and get some advice.”
“Do you think…?”
“I think something is definitely rotten in Denmark.”
“STANLEY,” NAKAMURA greeted him. “So good of you to pay me a visit.”
“Like I had any choice,” Stanley snapped. “What’s this all about, anyway, Nakamura-san?” The last syllable toxic with sarcasm.
“Oh, I think you know. You and Tom had begun to look a bit too closely in my direction. Searching this house was a mistake. It told me how you were thinking.”
“So, speaking of mistakes, sending your gangsters to rough us up told us how you were thinking.”
“Yes. That perhaps was not wise. I did not appreciate what a warrior your partner is.”
“Plus you killed Yoki. That sweet young man.”
“Indeed I did not. Yoki chose the path of honor. It is the samurai way. He knew what was expected of him. Speaking of your Tom, where is he? He seems to have vanished. My men reported that he was not at the Inn with you.”
“Believe me, you’ll see him soon enough. As soon as he’s heard you had your goons snatch me, you won’t have to worry about finding him. He’ll find you.”
“Exactly what I wish for. Come with me, Stanley.”
Stanley looked over his shoulder, but the trio of dark-suited gangsters was still there, preventing any hope of escape. And there was no chance of getting to his cell phone. But who would he call anyway? By now, Tom was in Los Angeles, at least two hours away. Okay, given the way Tom sometimes drove, an hour and a half. Still too far to do him any good. He had no choice but to go where Nakamura led him—which was exactly where he had expected, to the locked room at one end of the house. The S and M chamber.
“I believe you saw my playpen the last time you were here,” Nakamura said, unlocking the door and ushering Stanley inside.
Stanley paused inside the door, looking around. “This is where you and Jeff used to play, isn’t it?” he said aloud.
“Exactly. Interesting little specimen, young Jeff,” Nakamura said. “Sit down, Stanley.” He pointed to a plain wooden chair in the middle of the room.
“You’re indecent, you know that, don’t you? Not to say immoral.”
“That is only your definition. To the Japanese, decency is public, morals a private matter.”
“If you think I’m going to kill myself—”
“Kill yourself?” Nakamura laughed. “Oh, no, Stanley, seppuku was not what I had in mind.”
“But you are going to kill me, aren’t you?”
Nakamura paused then and looked long and hard at him. “I had thought….” He hesitated. “Tell me, Stanley, suppose I did not. Suppose I spared you. Would you be grateful? Would you be willing to become my kōhai?”
Stanley didn’t know the word, but he thought he got the gist of it well enough. He was astonished. This man who could have the pick of the beauties lounging about the pool at the Inn was propositioning him?
Nakamura interpreted his silence as meaning he was considering it. “I could set you up in your own little bettaku, a love residence. I am a wealthy man, wealthy and generous. And a man of exquisite tastes, as you know.” He paused and said in a lower voice, p
robably, Stanley thought, intended to be persuasive, “Some say I am an excellent lover.”
“I have a lover.”
“But if he were gone…?”
“He won’t be. You’re dreaming. Tom is as tough as they come.”
“Still, I am thinking, Stanley… perhaps a lover is not what is best for you. The sort of young man you are. Perhaps you would be happier with a daddy. I do not mind playing that role in a young man’s life. I rather enjoy it, to be honest.”
Stanley flashed back on his own father, his real “daddy.” What a twisted relationship that had been. There had been a time when it had been loving—or he’d thought it had been, at least. His mother had been distant, vague, and then she had died in an automobile accident—but he and his father had been close. When he had been a boy.
It was the gayness that changed everything, his homosexuality. If he had been willing to keep that hidden, to stay in the closet, their love might have survived. Once he came out to his father, though…. But was that really love, what they had known, if in order to have it, he had to pretend to be someone other than who he was? He had thought not, had initiated the conversation that was the death knell for their relationship. They had lived together for a time after that, but there was no longer any affection between them.
In time, his father had been confined to a nursing home. Stanley visited him as often as he could, but his father rarely spoke to him, rarely even looked at him, and when he did, it was with loathing.
“No,” he said aloud, giving his head a shake, “I don’t want a father figure.”
Nakamura actually looked disappointed. “Ah, so,” he said, “my offer does not interest you, then?”
“Not in the least.”
“That is unfortunate. It could have been your salvation.”
“My salvation?” Stanley snorted his disdain. “You’re pathetic, you know.”
“You may think so, but thus far the gods have smiled upon me.”
“Natura deficit, fortuna mutatur. Deus omnia cernit.”
“I’m afraid my Latin is crude….”
“Nature fails us, fortunes change, God beholds everything from above.”
“Ah.” Nakamura nodded, considering. “Then he sees what I am about to do. If he did not want it done, he could strike me with lightning, could he not?”
He took some electrical wires from a shelf near where he stood.
“What are those for? Are you planning on torturing me?”
“No. I’m going to make you into a human bomb.”
“A bomb?” A shudder went through Stanley’s body.
“Yes. Oh, I am not going to blow you up here—I would not want to take out this house. That would mean destroying a very special collection. And even if I am to lose it personally, I could not do that to my treasures. But yes, I am going to blow you up. In due time.”
“Tom was right. He said you were a snake. Why don’t you rattle your tail for me?”
Nakamura laughed. “You have a great sense of humor, Stanley. I shall miss that. But it is funny you should mention snakes.”
“Oh, that was you, too, wasn’t it? The snake in our room?”
“My friends put it there, yes. I thought it might discourage you from seeking further.” Nakamura approached him with the wires. “I am going to attach these to you. Take off your shirt, if you please.”
Stanley leaned away from him. “You aren’t putting that stuff on me. I am not going to be your bomb.”
“There is an alternative. If you look at that desk over there, you will see a syringe lying atop it. If you would prefer the syringe….”
Stanley looked at the syringe. He had a good idea what was in it. “Okay,” he said, tugging his shirt over his head, “start strapping.”
“A thousand pardons, Stanley.” Nakamura began to tape the electrical wire to Stanley’s bare chest.
“Yeah, sure, I get it, this hurts you more than it does me.”
“You say that in jest, but it is probably true. When the bomb goes, you most likely will not feel a thing, but I will be sadly aware of what has been lost.”
“Yes. Your ass when Tom gets hold of you.”
“You think he will kill me?”
“I’m sure of it.”
Nakamura shrugged. “Perhaps. And perhaps that is as it should be. I think it may be that mankind needs the periodic shedding of blood. Like those ancients who worshipped at the cult of Mithras. I am sure you know about them. Maybe we, too, need from time to time to descend into the grave.”
Stanley watched the electrical wire being wrapped around his chest. “What was it Arendt said, about the banality of evil? I guess the next thing will be sticks of dynamite? This is so Dick Tracy, you know.”
“I am afraid I do not know this Mr. Tracy.”
“He’s like Tom, with a square jaw.”
“Ah, I see,” Nakamura said, in a voice that indicated he did not. “But no, not dynamite. We are a bit more sophisticated than that. There will only be these two small packages.” He taped them to Stanley’s chest using duct tape. “Separated, like this, they are harmless. When combined, the results are swift and explosive. The electrical wires are just the means of combining them. So it can be done at a distance, you understand.”
“So you won’t get hurt, of course.”
Nakamura stepped back to look at his handiwork. “You misunderstand, Stanley,” he said, satisfied. “I am a samurai. I have failed. My role in the deaths of those young men will soon be made public. It is not my plan to survive, only to die with dignity. But you will die first. You and Danzel-san.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
TOM HATED being separated from Stanley. He’d always heard about distance making the heart grow fonder. In his case, it made his balls start aching. It was funny, they could sleep together every night in the same bed, and most of those nights he was content with just holding Stanley close and waiting for the inevitable signal from Stanley that he was ready for something more.
When he was away from Stanley, however, his dick got testy. He couldn’t stop thinking about sex, and the mere thought of a crack, even the crack of dawn, had him pole-vaulting.
He had called his old friend Inspector Bryce before he left Palm Springs, to see what Bryce could find out about Randy Patterson. He was coming into downtown Los Angeles now, and he called again to see what Bryce might have learned.
“LAPD found a Randy Patterson who was a bit player in movies,” Bryce told him. “Beyond that, there’s not much. No arrests, not even a traffic ticket. Meaning, he’s very clean, or someone with a lot of pull has cleaned up any record.”
The information struck a jarring note. “What kind of movies?”
“Ah….” Bryce paused to read something. “Samurai flicks, it looks like. Rising Sun Studios, if that means anything.”
“I’m not sure.”
Tom thanked him for his help and disconnected. And puzzled over what he had learned.
Now, what was that about? Randy Patterson had lied to him about the movies, had said he’d never gone that route. But why? Most Hollywood types, they got a minute on-screen, they told you about it endlessly, like they were in line for an Oscar.
Why had Patterson wanted to hide his movie “career”?
THE BUILDING in Los Angeles where Nakamura lived was about what Tom would have expected—sleek and modern, fifteen floors, not far from the city’s rejuvenated Japantown. He coasted slowly past the entrance and saw a uniformed security guard in the well-lit lobby.
He drove on for a few blocks, changing streets, looking for a commercial block. He found one over two streets, and a block after he’d found it, saw a flower shop. He parked illegally and went inside, making a bell over the door jingle.
The shop appeared at first to be empty, but the bell’s summons brought a pretty young Japanese woman through a beaded curtain at the rear. She smiled brightly and said, “Good evening, sir, may I be of assistance?”
He glanced at a coole
r with a glass door, shelves of blossoms inside. He didn’t know much about flowers, but roses he could recognize. “Yes,” he said. “I’d like some roses. A dozen of them.”
Her smile widened. He guessed roses were pricey.
“Do you have any particular color in mind?” she asked.
The only roses visible in the cooler were deep red. “Red ones, I think,” he said.
“Very good, sir. Did you want them arranged?” When he looked blank, she said, “In a vase. With, perhaps, some baby’s breath and….”
“No, just wrap them for me.”
She smiled and bobbed her head and took the container out of the cooler. She laid a sheet of green tissue on the counter and carefully counted out a dozen roses, which she placed on the tissue, and wrapped the paper neatly around them in a cone, stapling it discreetly on the back side before she put the bucket of roses back in the cooler.
“Would you like to write a card for them?” she asked, indicating a revolving rack of miniature cards next to the cash register.
“No,” he said, and then changed his mind and spun the rack slowly, looking at the available choices: happy birthday, happy anniversary, congratulations…. He found a blank one and pulled that out. She handed him a pen from the desk.
“Would you write it for me,” he said, and added in explanation, “no one can read my scribbling.”
She bobbed her head and picked up a pen from the counter. “Very good, sir.” She had clearly been trained in the principle of the customer is always right.
“With love,” he said, “from Tippi.”
When she looked a little uncertain, he spelled it for her. She wrote it in a small, neat script, slipped the card into an envelope, and offered it to him. He nodded to the flowers, and she tucked it among the blossoms.
He drove back to the apartment building and parked in the delivery zone out front. Inside, he paused in the lobby to look at the tenant list on the wall next to the elevators. Saw Nakamura’s name listed on the fourteenth floor. Only one neighbor.
A Deadly Kind of Love Page 18