“Help you?” the guard asked.
“Flowers for Mrs. Animoto.” Tom looked surprised, as if he hadn’t seen the security man there until now. He held the roses up for the guard’s inspection.
The man stood up from his desk and reached out a hand. “I’ll take them,” he said.
“Deliver them personally, that’s my instructions.”
The security guard gave him a long suspicious look. Tom maintained a façade of innocence.
“I’ll call her and tell her you’re on the way up,” the guard said, relenting.
“Spoil the surprise.”
“Some people don’t like surprises,” the guard said flatly. He dialed and spoke briefly into the telephone.
SHE WAS waiting at her door, looking both pleased and puzzled, when Tom stepped off the slow-moving elevator. He saw her and walked toward her, holding out the flowers for her to see.
“Roses? For me?” she said.
“From Tippi,” he said, handing her the bouquet.
“Tippi? But I don’t know anyone named Tippi.”
Tom shrugged. “I don’t take the orders, ma’am. I just deliver.”
“But I….” She looked addled.
He glanced up and down the empty corridor and lowered his voice to a confidential tone. “You want my advice, ma’am? They’re very pretty flowers, expensive too. Someone paid for them. And I was paid to deliver them to you. If I were you, I’d take them inside, put them in some water, and enjoy them. Let Tippi figure out what went wrong.”
She looked down at the roses and then smiled at him. “Yes, they are pretty, aren’t they? Well, I suppose….”
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Tom said, before she had time to think it through any further. He backed away, half turned as if he were on his way to the elevator. She smiled again, timorously, shook her head, still bewildered, and stepped back into her apartment. The door closed softly after her.
Leaving Tom alone in the hall. He figured he had maybe fifteen minutes before a suspicious security guard got to wondering what was keeping him and came looking. Not much time, but maybe enough to see something.
He went to Nakamura’s door, slipped his lock picks from his pocket.
Chapter Thirty
THE APARTMENT inside was dark. He shined his penlight around a living room furnished in sleek modern—glass, chrome, lots of black leather. He was about to leave the room when he saw a row of framed photographs atop the dresser. He crossed the room and shined the light on them—and found the cowboy from Palm Springs, Randy Patterson, smiling up at him.
He flashed the light on the other photos. There was one of Nakamura and the dead wife, one of the wife alone. Patterson was in all the others, nine or ten of them. Alone, or with Nakamura in two more. In one, they stood side by side, and in the other, Nakamura had his arm around the younger man’s shoulders.
Another of Nakamura’s boyfriends, which neither of them had thought to mention? Or… he picked up the one of the two of them together, the one where Nakamura had his arm about Patterson’s shoulders. Patterson was looking at the camera, unsmiling. Looked downright sullen, in fact, but Nakamura was beaming down at him with an expression on his face that could only be pride.
Seeing them together like this, close, Tom saw what he hadn’t noticed before—the family resemblance. It was slight. The boy must have taken after his mother—not the late Japanese wife, obviously, but the clerk in the studio mailroom that Patterson had talked about. Who dated some second-stringers. Like, maybe a second-rate actor in samurai movies. The mail clerk who got pregnant and raised the boy alone, but with financial help from the father.
But he’d seen it before, all the hints; he just hadn’t put it together. He’d attributed the cowboy’s dusky skin to the desert sun, but there had been a tint to it already. And the oddly tilted eyes, not exactly Japanese eyes, but maybe he’d had some surgery to hide his parentage—that wouldn’t be surprising for a bastard with a Japanese father.
And on that score, staring at the picture, there was no doubt in Tom’s mind. The cowboy Randy Patterson was Nakamura’s son. The pride with which Nakamura was beaming down at him was fatherly pride.
He had to think that out: there was something somebody had said that was nagging at the back of his mind. Time was running short, though. He put the picture back on the dresser and left the room, moving quickly now.
The door next to the bedroom opened into some kind of den or study. When he flashed the light around, it bounced back from a pane of glass. He stepped into the room, flashed the light at the glass again, and something moved. Gray-green bodies slid around one another, raising their heads toward the light, tongues flicking, tails rattling.
Green Mojaves. Three, four, five—it was hard to count, the way they were twisted up together. Enough of them, for sure. Probably enough venom to wipe out half of Palm Springs.
Tom stared and thought of Nakamura, back in Palm Springs. And his son, Randy Patterson, in Palm Springs. And Stanley, alone. In Palm Springs. Stanley, who was a magnet for trouble.
He let himself quickly out of the apartment, ignored the clunky elevator, and took the stairs down, two and three at a time.
“What kept you?” the guard asked when Tom burst into the lobby.
“Had to tie my shoestring,” Tom said and ran past him without pause, out of the building.
THE MIDAFTERNOON traffic out of the city was barely crawling. He dodged in and out as best he could, but he was almost to San Bernardino before he began to make any time. When he did, he flipped open his cell phone and called Hammond.
“I’m on my way in. It’s Nakamura. He’s our killer.”
“Yeah, we know that now. Only trouble is, he’s a couple of jumps ahead of you, sorry to say,” Hammond said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he’s got your boyfriend.”
Something tightened in Tom’s chest. “Stanley?”
“Unless you got another one I haven’t met. Says if you want him, you’ll have to go one on one. I don’t think he’s talking boxing gloves. Oh, he says you’ve got two hours. One of them is about gone.”
There was a silence on the phone, so long a silence that Hammond finally said, “Danzel? You still there?”
“Call the patrol boys,” Tom said in a voice of cold steel. “I’m just passing San Berdoo on the interstate. Tell them I’m coming in pedal to the metal. Big red Ram, they can’t miss me. Tell ’em to clear me a path or stay out of the fucking way.”
“What if some cowboy tries to catch you?”
“He’d better be in an F-16. The Ram’s supercharged.”
“Danzel, don’t—”
“Call them,” Tom said, and ended the connection.
Chapter Thirty-One
HE CAUGHT the first patrol car just before Highland Springs, about thirty miles out. The cruiser was parked by the road when Tom roared by. The patrolman came after him, pulled into the left lane to try to get past him, but couldn’t top Tom’s speed, and Tom wasn’t interested in slowing down. The highway patrolman settled for trailing after him, lights flashing and siren wailing. Ahead of them a pair of cruisers was already clearing a path down the highway, running flat-out.
There was another car waiting for them at the exit from the interstate. He heard Tom and his trailing cruiser coming and was already rolling when the Ram careened onto the Gene Autry, tail end swinging wide, tires smoking as they fought for a grip on the pavement. Behind him the patrol car fishtailed, almost lost it, the driver getting it back under control just at the end.
Even with the escort, it was impossible to maintain flat-out speed on the city’s streets. They dropped to ninety and went in a convoy, one front, one behind, cars pulling over, faces staring.
Hammond heard them coming and was waiting outside the police station when Tom skidded to a sideways stop, one cruiser before him, one after. The lot was filled with black-and-whites. A horde of policemen, uniformed and plain clothes—must have been just a
bout the entire force—watched wide-eyed as Tom leaped down from the truck. He recognized Sandy from the lobby, and Hammond’s fellow detective. Anticipating the shootout at the OK Corral, probably. Tom ignored them, went straight to Hammond.
“Where is he?” Tom demanded. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”
“Maybe,” Hammond said. “He’s up there.”
“Up where?” Tom followed the direction of his glance.
“San Jacinto. Up at the top. Emptied the place out, sent everybody down. Says it’s just him and your buddy there now. And you, when you get there. And you’d better come alone. No guns either.”
“Where do I catch the bus,” Tom said.
“It’s a gondola. We’ll take you to it. But I don’t advise going up there.”
“I’m going up. That fucker thinks his rattlesnakes are mean, wait till I bite him on the ass.”
“Thing is, he’s got a bunch of explosives strapped to your buddy. That’s how he managed to get the place cleared out in a hurry.”
THE GONDOLA to the top of the mountain departed from the Valley Station. Hammond drove him there, a parade of police cars following in a caravan. A large crowd had already formed—locals, sightseers, tourists who had been rousted from the park above, more cops—it looked like a thousand people, milling about, talking excitedly among themselves. They grew silent, staring, as Tom alighted from the police car. A park ranger was waiting for them and came out to meet them.
“That son of a bitch took over my station,” he said. “He had a bomb strapped to his hostage, said he’d blow the whole place to bits if we didn’t evacuate. Man, this is so fucked. Nobody takes over my station.”
“The hostage, how was he?” Tom asked.
“Scared. Looked pretty cool, though. He told the perp, ‘You’re gonna wish you hadn’t messed with Tom Danzel.’ Got some balls on him, I’d say. The perp duct-taped his mouth to shut him up.”
“He got that right, at least. That’s about the only way to shut Stanley up,” Tom said dryly. He stripped off his holster and the Sig.
“Better keep the jacket,” Hammond said. “It’s cold up top.” It was already cooler here at 2,643 feet than in the city. “Plus, I’ve got an ankle holster, we’ll fix you up with a backup—”
“I won’t need a gun,” Tom said.
Chris and Eddie were already there in the front ranks of the crowd. Chris ducked a cop trying to hold him back, but Hammond waved for the cop to let him through. Eddie came in his wake.
“Tom, you can’t go up there,” Chris said.
“He’s got Stanley. I’m getting him back.”
“He’s a samurai.”
“An old samurai. Not even a real one, a movie actor samurai, and washed-up besides. And I’m Tom Danzel.”
“You can’t fight a samurai, even an old one, with what you’ve learned watching a handful of videos. If you go up there, he’s going to kill you. Then he’s going to kill Stanley anyway.”
“He’s right,” Eddie said. “Even the worst samurai will win against an untrained fighter. He’ll slice you in half before you even know what hit you.”
“Better listen to your friends,” Hammond said. “This guy is just going to kill both of you. Look, maybe we can get some guys up there with a heli—”
“Like he wouldn’t hear that coming, he wouldn’t know what you were going to do? He’d kill Stanley in a heartbeat the first chopper he hears.”
“Okay, there’s trails beyond the station. We can take some guys up to Idyllwild, that’s higher up. They could hike down, take him by surprise.”
“If we had a couple more hours. I don’t think we do. I think he wants me up there, and he’s going to be seriously pissed if I don’t show up, and soon. And when he gets pissed, Stanley’s going to pay the price.”
“Well, shit….” Hammond looked flummoxed.
“Look, I appreciate your concern, but here’s what I do. I kick ass. I’m going to kick his. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking swords or boxing gloves or water pistols, the bottom line is still the same. He’s got Stanley and Stanley is mine. I get him back. And I kick ass. End of game.”
It was still afternoon, but it suddenly seemed to Hammond as if it were evening. Everything was washed in red the way it sometimes was with the great desert sunsets—but he blinked and realized it was only the blood red in Danzel’s eyes. This guy was seriously steaming.
All at once, Hammond smiled. He wished he could be up there on the mountain with them when Danzel got there. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but of one thing he was dead certain—it was going to be bad. Very bad.
Tom started up the steep path to the Valley Station. After a moment everybody fell in behind him, like he was leading a parade. The elevated station sat on a platform that rose on concrete ballast. It had been constructed so that the flash floods that sometimes roared down the canyon wouldn’t budge it, nor the fifty mile an hour winds.
A gondola waited for him at the station. “You’d better let the car operator take you up,” the ranger said.
“He wants me alone. Show me how to operate this thing.”
The operator gave him a quick course and happily exited the car when Tom told him to. In a couple of minutes, the car had begun its ascent, Tom standing in it alone, staring straight ahead.
There weren’t many things in life that scared Tom Danzel. Heights was one of them, though he kept that fact to himself. Stanley had suggested, on their drive in, that they take the ride up to the top for the fun of it, and Tom had nixed the idea. Ten-plus minutes dangling helplessly in the air was about as far from fun as anything he could think of.
Worse, to his way of thinking, was that the damned car didn’t just go straight up, it rotated 360 degrees as it climbed. Great if you wanted to enjoy the unrestricted views of the canyon and the valley below. He didn’t. He kept his eyes glued firmly on the mountain ahead. The only sound was a faint whistle of wind and the hum of the motor that turned the car.
It arrived at the first of the towers, bumped, accelerated over the tower, and dropped slightly with a free-fall-like sensation. Tom exerted all his willpower to keep the car on the cables.
The walls of the canyon outside were close enough he could have identified the plants struggling to grow there, if he’d had a mind to. Another tower was coming up. He leaned into it, bracing himself for the sensation of free fall when they had passed it. The gondola accelerated. Tom made himself breathe. Slowly. Deeply.
It felt like an eternity later when the car climbed into Mountain Station. It unlocked from the main cable and glided back and forth between rubber bumpers on either side. Snow glistened beyond the windows. The thermometer outside registered 35 degrees.
The car stopped. Tom stepped off it onto the landing gangway. It was cold, a shocking contrast to the desert heat below. His breath made little clouds.
Nakamura was waiting for him. Tom had seen him before he arrived, standing at the platform, watching the gondola approach. For the last few yards, he and Tom had stared stonily at each other. Behind him, Stanley was tied to a chair from one of the restaurants.
“Maybe you want to kiss him goodbye,” Nakamura said when Tom stepped out. “You will not set the bomb off by doing so.”
“You’ve got a detonator.”
“This thing? Oh, that was just so that I could clear everybody out. I do not need it. The explosives are on a timer now. You have thirty minutes before they blow.” He looked at his watch and corrected himself. “Thirty-one minutes. But you will not be around to hear the explosion.”
“There won’t be one,” Tom said. “So, how do you want to do this?”
Nakamura lifted an eyebrow. “Why, with swords, of course. I thought you were into all things samurai. There is a sword right there on the ground in front of you.”
Tom picked it up and glanced down at it. It was the katana Nakamura had shown him that day at his house. Seventeenth century, Edo—that a ronin might have carried. “Nice swo
rd,” he said, a little surprised. He’d have expected the man to give him something second-rate, just to fuck with him.
Nakamura read his mind. “A samurai does not cheat,” he said.
“You’re no samurai. You’ve been exposed. You’ve shamed yourself. Killing those boys out of nothing more honorable than sexual heat. A true samurai would commit seppuku.”
“What makes you think I do not intend to? But a samurai kills his enemy first. You have about twenty-eight minutes left now before the bomb attached to your little boyfriend goes off. You will not be here to see it, though. And when I have dealt with you, then seppuku.”
“So you say.”
“You think I am evil because I killed those boys. Jeff was an accident. Of the worst kind. If I have ever come close to loving anyone, it was him. But the sex that we had, it was a sickness in him. He was the one who wanted it that way. I would have been content just to hold him in my arms, he was so beautiful. The perfect little gaijin. One time he asked me for five thousand dollars. I do not even remember what he told me it was for. I brought it to him in one hundred dollar bills and tossed them on the floor in front of him. He sat on the floor making little piles of bills, delighted. I do not think he even was aware that I was there. He was never more adorable to me.”
“It didn’t stop you from killing him.”
“That truly was an accident. He had to be choked when he ejaculated. That was the only way he could reach orgasm. What happened was probably always inevitable.”
He thought about that, shook his head sadly. “After that, the rest was inevitable too. Barry knew Jeff had gone to spend the night with me. He knew what we did. When Jeff did not come home, he got suspicious. There was a video of Jeff and me. You could not see my face, but Barry did not need to. He knew who it was. So he tried to blackmail me. I had no choice. He was the enemy. The samurai does not hesitate to deal with enemies.”
“And the security guard?”
A Deadly Kind of Love Page 19