by Barry Lancet
Above the sorrow, dance.
In the lingering merriment
infinity’s echo.
It was Sengai’s unabashed lack of pretense that captured the hearts of the people, and unwittingly earned him a place in history.
The auction started. Bids were open but circumspect. Kato and I watched from the side, halfway back, which gave us a good view of the action and the participants. I was the only non-Japanese in the crowd. Kendricks was nowhere in sight.
Kato put in two offers early on but was immediately outbid. After the second bid, he said, “Looks like this is going to fly.”
“It should. The piece is superb.”
“Think Kendricks will show?”
“Don’t know.”
“You’re a dealer. What would you do?”
“Assuming I’d steal art and traffic it halfway around the world?”
“Assuming.”
“I’d check out the action to see how much my investment was reeling in. But I’d wait until the second half.”
Kato nodded and watched some more. We’d identified the organizing dealer. He looked slippery.
I said, “If Kendricks doesn’t show, can you get his Japanese partner to give him up?”
“Normally, yes. That guy, maybe not.”
The price climbed slowly. The pace was leisurely. The auctioneer stopped often to comment on some aspect of the work—the brushwork, the theme, how it compared to other Sengai paintings of some renown.
Fifteen minutes in, he broke for a preannounced intermission. The twenty-minute interval would allow bidders to seek refreshments, take a restroom break, and consult privately with their advisers. Several collectors stepped from the room with their consulting dealer to regroup.
There was still no sign of Kendricks.
Both the dealer and auctioneer circulated among the guests, chatting them up and tactfully rejuvenating interest where it had flagged. The auctioneer engaged Kato, encouraging him to bid again. The inspector-turned-monk assured him he was seriously considering it.
The auction resumed. Several new bidders joined the fray.
“How high do you imagine it will go?” Kato said.
“We’re no more than halfway there. The auctioneer is massaging his audience better than most, and many bidders have come back inspired.”
Kato nodded and put in another bid to keep his cover intact. His offer was soon smothered.
“Easy come, easy go,” he said.
When an older collector in a dark tie entered the contest by bumping up the asking price by three ranks, the room came alive.
“Here we go,” I said.
A palpable buzz electrified the gathering. Two other competitors jumped into the battle, stepping up the price in equal measure. Several tentative bidders seemed to deflate. A couple of others looked around quizzically. Hesitating. The price continued to scale up. Competing bids slammed into each other. The hum of excitement escalated. More of the opposition dropped out, and it came down to three men with big money and big egos. Inside two minutes the price doubled.
After each new bid, the auctioneer shot focused looks at each man in turn. His face was expressive but sectional. A raised eyebrow, a challenging smile, a query with widening eyes. One at a time. Judiciously placed.
All eyes bounced between the bidders and the auctioneer. The suspense had redoubled, and so did the price—again.
That’s when Kendricks slipped in the back door.
* * *
Absorbed by the proceedings, Kato and I had let our surveillance lapse. The bidding war was as dramatic as a horse race with three steeds running neck-and-neck.
I cast the occasional look around, but I’d grown lax as the quest for the Sengai heated up. The interplay was exhilarating. Not wanting to miss even a second of the action, I tore my eyes away with great reluctance. I scanned the scene resentfully and too hastily. I caught Kendricks leaning against the back wall, and he caught me looking. And recognized me.
In a flash, he slipped out the door and was gone. Kato had seen the exchange, and murmured into a hidden microphone.
In five quick paces we covered the ground to the rear of the conference room. No more pretense. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hosting dealer frown. But it didn’t matter. We knew who he was and where he lived. It was his British counterpart we needed to wrap up the deal.
As I reached the door, I heard Rie call from the corridor, “Mr. Kendricks, you’re under arrest.”
Kato and I bulldozed through the double doors at the same time. More than fifteen yards ahead of us, Kendricks barreled down the carpeted expanse toward Rie, who held her badge up high in her left hand.
Kendricks didn’t slow. She was five-five and one hundred and ten pounds. Kendricks was beefy and broad, topping out at six feet and two hundred and ten. He towered over her by seven inches and a full hundred pounds. His limber pace indicated substantial athletic ability.
We were too far away to help, Kendricks too swift. The dealer was ten yards and closing. He didn’t slow. If he couldn’t dash around Rie, he would roll right over her. He shoved an arm out, ramrod straight, palm out. Beefy and broad. A rugby move. That would be his sport. Rie’s badge fell to the ground. She relented and gave way. Without slowing, Kendricks swerved to dash around her, his shoulders relaxing as he saw a clear path.
Then Rie grabbed his arm and shirt, turned her hip into his, and the oversize sleazebag flew into the air, flipping over on his back and crashing to the floor with an impressive thud. Even from our distant position, we felt the floor underfoot vibrate. A classic judo throw, perfectly executed.
Kendricks lay in a disabled heap, groaning.
Rie turned to me. “Happy?”
DAY 10
JOY KILLER
CHAPTER 60
COFFEE mug in hand, I was strolling from my glassed-in office over to Noda’s when the elevator doors slid open and six Chinese men poured into the room.
Six armed men.
“Mr. Brodie-san,” Lester Wu said with a stony glint in his eye.
The man to Wu’s right held a pair of Chinese fighting sticks by his thigh. The man to his left had unleashed a six-inch blade and it glittered in the yellow glow of the office neon.
Our Chinatown guide-cum-frustrated-organ-harvester was back with what looked like a far more unsavory arm of the family association. I scanned the faces. They were not friendly. The shooters from the cemetery were among them.
I frowned. “Lester, what can I do for you?”
Around me, work continued to hum along. The transition to alert mode went unnoticed by our visitors. Small nonthreatening actions threaded their way into the flow of office activity. To my right, a woman staffer went to the copy machine with a sheaf of documents. At the back of the room, a male employee headed toward the restroom in the rear. All around me, randomly, one by one, staff members opened a desk drawer or reached for a bag or slid a box from a shelf, set it on their lap, and opened it.
Then they waited.
Inside thirty seconds, every Brodie Security employee was armed and ready. With batons, knives, pepper spray, fighting sticks, and maybe even an unregistered gun or two I didn’t want to know about. All out of sight but within easy reach.
Lester said, “What you think, Mr. Brodie-san?”
The new recruits looked as cold-blooded as the cemetery triggermen. Family association or not, none of the men were doctors or dentists or merchants. No white-collar workers of any kind. Their faces had too many hard edges. Maybe some were construction workers or longshoremen by day, but clearly their extracurricular activities bordered on red collar rather than blue.
I said, “You know, Lester, in this day and age a phone works wonders.”
“No funny funny,” he said.
The elevator headed down again. Noda emerged from his office with a scowl and took up a position alongside me. His hands were jammed in his jacket pockets. There was bulk there. There would be weapons.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Stay close.”
“Not going out for soba just yet.”
The man with the knife said something in Chinese to Lester and Lester said to me, “We want look around.”
“No,” I said.
“You call us, remember?”
And then it dawned on me. They weren’t here to extract revenge or payment.
I’d rung them after I’d picked up the envelope at Miura’s.
They were the advance guard.
* * *
“Okay,” I said. “Only you. Your men stay back by the elevator. And they pocket their weapons.”
Lester squinted at me, the damaged eyelid flickering. “I send my top man. We step back. Weapons stay.”
Good for him. A matter of face. And he wasn’t going to be pushed around.
I gave my unspoken assent, another matter of face, and Lester said a couple of words to the man at his right, who nodded, pocketed his weapon, then stepped past the reception counter. He made a tour of the office, opened the doors to the conference room, the washrooms, the storage areas. He glanced at the open desk drawers and the weapons everyone had close at hand. He looped back and gave his report.
Lester turned to me with a frown. “Man who went in back not there.”
A quick glance confirmed that Noda thought the same thing I did: impressive. Lester’s right-hand man had caught the move.
“Safety precaution,” I said.
Unless we called him off, the man who’d headed into the restroom had gone out a trapdoor and would be bringing reinforcements from a smaller security firm we sometimes farmed out work to. The woman at the copy machine had her finger near a silent alarm running straight to the Shibuya Police Department.
Lester’s searcher mumbled something in Chinese and Lester said, “How long before others come?”
“Two minutes,” I said.
Lester raised his cell phone. “I’m calling an all-clear. He’s coming up.” He hit a preset button, said one word into the speaker end of the phone, and disconnected.
I gave the go-ahead nod to the seated woman in charge of office security and she picked up her phone to abort the backup maneuver. But the in-house staff stayed in alert mode.
The panel above the elevator showed movement. The light stopped at our floor and Wu emerged as the doors slid open. A cigarette dangled from his lips. Four more men flanked him. If things went south, there would be a serious rumble.
Last out were Rie and Danny Chang.
Rie stepped to the front. Danny followed. Eyes flicking over the scene, she was alarmed at the drawn weapons Lester’s men brandished and the tense faces of the Brodie Security employees.
I said, “You could have warned me.”
“And you, me,” she said evenly, a veiled reference to her involuntary dive.
“Actually, I couldn’t,” I said. “There wasn’t time.”
“Same here,” she said.
“Explain.”
This last was also a signal for everyone in the office to hold his or her position until I gave my own all-clear.
Rie said, “You called them. Lester insisted.”
Her fragmented answer did nothing to defuse the situation.
Several Brodie Security staff stiffened noticeably.
Clearly, the standoff had rattled Rie. She wasn’t thinking straight. As good as her instincts had been at the hotel, her mental acrobatics in a “live” situation still lacked breadth. Her explanation didn’t allow us to step down the emergency level of the standoff. Lester’s people bristled with a tense energy, ready for a brawl. Maybe even eager for one.
“Wu,” I said. “It’s good to see you again. Why don’t you come in the back, where we can talk?”
“I am sorry to come like surprise storm. My people insist on these ways.”
Danny chimed in for the first time. “With Uncle Wu we take only the risk we might offend.”
I smiled coolly, showing my displeasure. Their approach was clumsy. Someone could have gotten hurt. But it would do no good to mention the lapse now.
“I understand, but next time try calling ahead,” I said to Danny while looking at Lester. To Wu, I gestured toward the conference room. “Why don’t you bring in your men? Mari, could you show Mr. Wu the way?”
The old doctor smiled. He said something gently but firmly in Chinese and the weapons disappeared. Mari filed past, followed by Wu, Lester, Danny, and the rest of the crew.
As Rie passed, I said in a voice only she could hear, “We even now?”
Her look was resolute. “Not hardly.”
CHAPTER 61
FIRST things first,” I began, once we were all settled in the conference room. “Thank you for coming.”
As a sign of trust, Wu occupied the seat at the far end of the table, deepest into the room. To his right were Lester and his top man. To his left, Danny. Rie took a seat in the middle, a neutral position. I sat at the end nearest the entrance, with Noda to my right, Hamada’s replacement to my left. Wu’s following filled the remaining seats, the overflow standing along the far wall behind the old doctor.
Wu smiled. “I visit you this time as courtesy. My wish is big inconvenience for my people. They think only of danger but I hope good luck for ghost-spirits.”
I considered the promise I’d made to help Wu, then of Zhou’s extravagant offer if only I would finger the ancient provocateur.
“I talked to a spy as you suggested. He’s looking for you.”
“Many look. No one find.”
“I’m glad you’re well protected. The spy confirmed that the people I want aren’t Triads or his people, although they have used the method in Japan before. What I don’t understand is why you are both so sure.”
“A spy who has knowing.” Wu stubbed out the cigarette. “Ten years ago home invasions by Triads in this country shamed whole Chinese community. Japanese police very angry. They close our shops. They chain our warehouses. They take business papers so we can do no work. Even worse, Japanese customers stop coming because they are scared.”
“I remember the headlines.”
Wu nodded. “Very bad time. We understand police message. We complain loudly to Triads. ‘Chinese people pay you tribute money for protection, but your action make us loss.’ Yakuza also push them. So pact made. Those kind of killings stop in Japan. This is how I know Triads not do new ones.”
All of which echoed TNT’s comments when the yaki visited me in the hospital.
I locked eyes with Wu. “The spy claimed it was not the work of any of his people, but you implied it was.”
The Wu family patriarch shook his head. “I say you find Chinese spy because Chinese spy often do copying of Chinese Triads. Chinese spy in Japan know we have pact so know they cannot use method here. But someone copying spy maybe not know this. Or if there is rebel spy, or even dumb spy, it might still happen. Only higher Chinese spy can check these things.”
I nodded. “Well, he’d checked.”
“Okay, so we done about Triads. What is second question?”
On the table in front of me lay the envelope I’d brought from Miura’s house. I withdrew a stack of five-by-seven photographs borrowed from the old soldier’s private photo albums. They were crude black-and-whites. In them, Miura and his troops appeared in various groupings. No photo had less than thirty men. Some captured groups of nearly a hundred. One showed them in full dress uniforms, which were neat but ragged. The men looked weary yet proud. In another they wore standard uniforms and drank what I assumed was saké out of tin cups. A couple of prints were official “kinen” photos—for posterity.
I held up one shot and pointed at my client. “That’s Lieutenant Miura,” I told Wu. “Do you recognize anyone else?”
I passed the pile down the line. When Wu received them from Lester, he squinted at each one in turn. He went through the pile twice. His examination took nearly five minutes.
Five tense minutes.
When Wu
glanced up his face was pale. “This man is one of them.”
“Them who?”
“Black Wind. He is Young One. Man who shot me in river.”
“Really?” I said, astounded.
Wu passed the picture back to me. I looked at the figure he’d indicated. The face appeared in the back row of a kinen shot, half hidden behind the soldier in front of him. Clearly, the man had attempted to avoid the camera. As it was an official photograph, he would have been required to stand before the lens.
I stared at the five rows of men, whose faces were impossibly small. I angled the picture until I found the best slant to catch the light.
Rolling goose bumps peppered my skin from scalp to sole.
It was Inoki.
The last man standing.
CHAPTER 62
YOU’RE sure?” I asked.
Wu nodded. “He made many ghost-spirits. He almost kill me.”
Good point. You don’t forget a man who tried to kill you. When I’d dropped in unannounced on Miura with the news about the Last Emperor’s treasure, I’d zeroed in on my client’s reaction, turning to Inoki only as an afterthought. The old fox had had plenty of time to compose himself.
“Give me a second.” I dug my cell phone from my pocket and hit speed dial. When the operative who’d handed me the photos answered, I said, “Can you talk?”
“Hold on.” I heard him excuse himself, then a moment later he said, “Okay. What’s up?”
“Don’t argue, don’t ask questions, just do what I say. How many of you are on duty now?”
“Three. One man from the last shift stayed to help with the wife.”
“Perfect. The three of you grab Inoki and stick him in the den. That’s got the window with bars over it.”
“Whatever it is, you’re too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s gone.”
Damn. “Any idea of where he went?”
“No. Two men in their forties picked him up about an hour after your visit. He assured me he’d be more careful than Doi.”
Cursing under my breath, I hung up.