The Orsinni Contracts

by Bill Cariad

  Maria had selected her mindset from the second her feet had touched the marble floor; so the budding author bent on research withdrew a notebook and pencil from her shoulder bag. She had spotted many things since entering the lobby, and one of them was that a section of a wall was sporting a framed photograph of the hotel, together with a printed fact sheet. So she immediately learned that the fifty-two stories hotel had been built in 1907, and had been proclaimed to be the best hotel in the world at that time. She jotted down some other facts for appearances sake, and was surprised to read that the exotic looking stone columns were made from limestone, and that the backlit mural on the ceiling was in fact inlaid into onyx, and that this hotel had been designed by the same man who had designed the Waldorf Astoria. But she wasn’t surprised by everything she had seen, including the fact on the sheet that stated the number of rooms in the Plaza ran into the hundreds.

  Within ten minutes of her entering the lobby and producing her notebook and pencil, she was approached by a uniformed member of staff and asked if she needed any assistance. She politely explained her purpose, and was told that she could enjoy lunch in any one of several dining rooms should she choose to sample one later. She mimed looking through the brochure he left with her, and saw him report to the man she had earlier labelled as ‘security’. The sun-tanned man receiving the report was wearing ‘I’m on holiday’ clothes, but he had been watching her since she had arrived.

  Using her cover story, Maria chatted to one of the receptionists. Telling the woman that of course she could very well find herself described in the romantic novel but not actually named. She counted five reception staff that she could see, but already knew that this was never going to be the spot from which she could strike and escape without endangering others or being gunned down herself. She rode one of the elevators to check the layout of a few floors, and used the stairs to time her descent between one floor and another. The stairways offered no cover for someone fleeing from pursuit. The corridors dissecting the floors were long, and between each room door stood wooden Ottomans she figured would be used by the chambermaids to hold laundry. She eventually gravitated towards one of the recommended dining rooms, and a handsome waiter wearing white gloves escorted her to a table for one which he said had wonderful views of Central Park. Which, thought Maria, might just as well have been a table for one with a view of the planet Mars. Because that, she realized, was how far away she was from solving her problem.

  The white-gloved waiter who sounded Spanish, brought her club sandwich and coffee and left her to eat and drink, and think. The sandwich tasted better than her thoughts. She knew that the CIA would book ahead whatever rooms they would be using, but had no way of finding out what names they would use or when they would be checking in. She knew that Calendar must have had a reason for wanting to come here, but even if it was to meet someone, she knew he could do that in the safety of his protected and unidentified room.

  Maria finished her coffee as Tanaka’s voice sounded in her head. ‘Plan your way out, and the way in will show itself.’ Planning her way out, she thought, needed to start from where she would be when she wanted out, and she didn’t know where that would be. Even if she spotted the bald Negro bodyguard inside this hotel, she didn’t think she could make her move here. Not without tripping over witnesses. Thoughts of having to deal with Calendar on the day of his arrival, without even knowing what time he was getting here, without any idea whatsoever as to how she could deal with him, and that she must do the deed without being seen by anyone who could identify her, and that she must somehow get clear of the scene to find an unsuspecting taxi driver awaiting her, were still plaguing her mind when she paid her bill, left a tip for the waiter, and went to meet trusty Tony the taxi driver.

  “Did you get what you need?” asked Tony as he nosed his taxi into traffic.

  “Not all of it,” she replied, “but enough to give me something to think about.”

  Maria stared out through the window as she spoke, not really seeing anything, wondering just how much more thinking she could actually do, knowing she couldn’t keep going back to the Plaza hoping for inspiration, knowing she should have thought of a solution by now and feeling quite depressed because she hadn’t done so. Tony’s voice cut into her thoughts.

  “Maria, I hope you don’t mind,” he began, “but I gotta’ ask. Are you carrying a lot of money in that bag of yours?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “We’re heading for the Lower East Side,” he began again, “and the part of Little Italy where I’m dropping you is right on the edge of Chinatown. I just thought you should know that walking around in that part of town with a bagful of dough is asking for trouble. And you, Italian lady, are gonna’ stick out like a sore thumb on the kind of streets I’m talking about. And I hope you answered any recent call of nature in a Plaza restroom, because you do not want to answer a call like that in any of the public conveniences where you’re going.”

  “You make it all sound very attractive,” she said, knowing he could see her smile in his mirror.

  “Joke all you want,” he retorted, “but I’m telling you how it is. A public toilet is a drug dealer’s private office where you’re gonna’ be. Even if you stop in the street to reach inside that fancy bag of yours for a tissue to blow your nose, you could find yourself holding the strap to that bag in one hand and nothing but air in the other hand. Am I getting through to you? You’re visiting a very rough neighbourhood.”

  Maria smiled to herself as she glanced outside to see that they were driving down the signed Fifth Avenue again. Being lectured on the facts of city street life was amusing, and she was actually glad of the unexpected diversion. She certainly needed something to cheer her up, she told herself. The traffic was heavier, as Tony had predicted, she reminded herself. She also reminded herself that he had pledged to look after her.

  “I’m going to see a man,” she patiently explained, “who has a martial arts dojo on the corner where you’re taking me to. If I can spot it from the car, you can drop me as close as you can get to it, and I won’t have to wander your dangerous streets.”

  Maria waited for a response which didn’t come, and she was about to say something else when he finally found his voice again.

  “This man you’re gonna’ see,” began Tony, “would that be a guy named Kimoto?”

  “You know him?” responded Maria, unable to hide her surprise.

  “Maria, I live in Little Italy, I don’t know the man, but I know where his gymnasium is, and the dojo is right below it on the ground floor.”

  “You have used the gymnasium?”

  “Where do you think I got this nose?”

  Maria let him see another smile with her reply. “I think you were a boxer.”

  “I said you had sharp eyes,” he reminded her. “Not that they would need to be sharp,” he added, “to see what I did in a past life, but I still work out at the gymnasium from time to time.”

  “How long,” asked Maria, “have you lived in this so-called Little Italy?”

  “Long enough to know,” replied Tony, “that you should pay attention to what I’ve been trying to tell you about the place.”

  Maria thought for a moment before responding to him. “Valentina,” she began, “and your daughter, Theresa. Do they feel safe there?”

  “Oh yeah,” he replied firmly, “We’re a tight community where we are, and we all look out for one another. And my girls,” he added as he flicked a glance over his shoulder to where she sat, “know the street rules and they don’t mess with them.”

  Maria didn’t respond to his closing words, choosing instead to withdraw into her thoughts once more as she gazed out the window. The traffic flow had altered, she saw now, and they were moving faster between the still mandatory stops at traffic lights. She closed her eyes for a time, trying to clear her mind for her forthcoming meetin
g with Kimoto. Which made her think about Tanaka, and of the tonal change to Kimoto’s voice when he had asked her if she was accompanied by his martial arts counterpart. Her thoughts drifted for a while, and when she opened her eyes she saw that the architecture of the buildings they were passing had changed. Alongside the skyscrapers now there were evident signs of different kinds of retail outlets, together with her first sighting of tables and chairs outside on the pavements in front of what she recognized as Italian-style tavernas.

  “We’re in the Lower East Side now,” said Tony.

  Ten minutes later, having passed many scenes which had made Maria think about the streets of Sicily, the taxi was turning to enter a street which Maria saw was crowded with pavement stalls, and Tony was slowing to avoid the people who were spilling on to the street because of the congestion elsewhere. She could see now what Tony had been concerned about. The taxi was taken into yet another street, and Maria saw wooden barriers protecting some kind of construction project, and then they were past them and Tony brought the taxi to a halt outside a building with an overhead sign proclaiming it to be a gymnasium.

  “This is it,” said Tony, “How long do you think you might be?”

  Maria checked her watch as she considered Tony’s question, and saw that she was fifteen minutes early for the appointment, and thought about Kimoto’s curtness on the phone and his seeming reluctance to see her. “I don’t think I’m going to very long at all,” she replied, smiling as she added, “But I will leave my bag with you for safekeeping.”

  “You’re gonna’ trust me not to drive away with your bagful of dough?” he asked with a smile.

  Maria didn’t say that she knew where his sister was, and that she would find him if he drove away with her ‘bagful of dough.’ She simply returned his smile as she replied.

  “Why should I not trust trusty Tony?”

  “Why not indeed,” he said, chuckling merrily, “Why not indeed.”

  Maria opened her bag and extracted the gift she had brought for Kimoto. She slipped the small flat box into her jacket pocket, and left the bag on the seat and exited the taxi to stand on the crowded pavement. Pedestrians brushed past her, close enough to smell their body odours, some smiling their apology as they did so, some not bothering to be polite, and the seemingly ubiquitous sound of emergency sirens was coming from somewhere close to where she stood. The unthinkable thought that she should just forget about this meeting and get back in the taxi, came and went so quickly she could hardly believe it had entered her mind. ‘Get a grip of yourself, Orsinni’, she told herself. She checked her watch again, took a deep breath, and at one fifty in the afternoon she crossed the threshold of the building housing Tanzen Kimoto’s dojo.

  Maria’s first two steps took her over the stone threshold which accessed a small covered porch leading to a solid looking wooden door. Affixed to the door at eye-level was an obviously hand-printed sign which commanded her to Push To Open and Close Behind You! She obeyed, to find herself now standing under a mesh-covered ceiling light in a small vestibule. Ahead of her were the stairs leading up to the gymnasium, the fact of which was confirmed by an arrow-shaped sign on a wall beside the bottom stair. A door to her right was signed Toilets, and the one on her left flank was signed Dojo Students Only. Mentally preparing herself to offer the customary bow of respect upon entry, she grasped the door handle and opened the door inwards to the dojo.

  Beginning to move forward, Maria’s right hand was still on the handle of the door which was now at an angle of forty-five degrees from its starting point when she saw the figure of a Japanese man a few feet away to her front. He was facing her, and she instinctively knew she was looking at Tanzen Kimoto. Continuing her forward movement, she opened the door wider and now saw the other man, to her right, who was standing beside Kimoto and was in profile to her. He was taller and younger than Kimoto, and he was holding a small cardboard box under one arm. His hair was gathered behind his head in the ponytail style, and the head was still turning towards her when she delivered the Hapkido killing strike to Carmine Forza’s neck and the power of the blow drove her knuckled fist through flesh and bone.

  Tanzen Kimoto watched Carmine Forza die and the black and red blur of movement became once again the still figure of the female he realized could only be that of Maria Orsinni. Despite his years of training, he was stunned by what he had witnessed and shocked by thoughts of the potential consequences. He knew that Forza’s eyelids had blinked twice when the eyes had seen her before them. He also knew that Forza had died before those eyelids had opened a third time to allow sight of his fate at the hands of someone so fast that even he, Tanzen Kimoto, was astonished. The cardboard box which Forza had been carrying had spilled its contents and the packets of heroin lay scattered around the body of the man he himself had planned to kill, but had been forced to let live under the shadow of a death more feared.

  Maria stood over the body of Carmine Forza and willed control over trembling muscles and the thoughts tumbling around in her mind. She had killed again, her third killing in eight months, but knew that had she not moved first she would now be dead. But the killing had been witnessed!

  “Why?”

  Maria’s senses were still highly attuned to everything within this dojo now, so she heard the anguish contained by the single word from the voice which had been reluctant to have her come here. The Sicilian blood in her veins was cooling now, and she crouched down beside Forza and transferred the mess on her hand to his jacket sleeve. Eight months had passed since their first encounter, when he would have killed her without blinking an eye. She allowed herself to savour the thought that today he had blinked twice, but had faced a quite different opponent. She rose to her feet and turned to face her questioner, and bowed towards him as she spoke.

  “I am in your debt. I have defiled your dojo. I ask for your pardon.”

  “Why have you killed this man?” began Kimoto, his voice sounding the puzzlement but doing so quietly as he walked forward to stand over the body which lay between them, “within seconds of having seen him, and without having spoken a single word to him?”

  Maria looked at the quizzical eyes in the face lined with wrinkles and saw a Japanese man in his sixties. He was roughly the same height as Tanaka, she thought, but appeared to be all skin and bone on a much slender looking body. But Maria wasn’t about to be deceived by appearances, she knew that this man had the respect of Tanaka and Wan Lai Tang. She took a deep breath and carefully explained the history connecting her to the late Carmine Forza. He listened without interrupting, or without losing eye contact with her, and when she had finished she saw his body language signal pain and heard again the anguish in his voice.

  “The fates have not been kind to us, Orsinni,” he began softly, and his eyes glistened with moisture, and the tremor was there in his voice as he continued, “I fear you may just have sentenced my daughter to death.”

  Maria stared at Kimoto when he stopped talking; completely thrown by the statement he had made, but his face was telling her that she had not misheard him in any way. She was still attempting to come to terms with what had happened here, still pumped up with adrenalin, so her response was spat out. “I think you’d better explain what you mean by that.”

  Maria watched Kimoto bow his head to look down at the floor, but not before she had seen in his face all the signs of accumulated stress which had suddenly peaked to produce its tell-tale by-products of mental and physical inertia. He looked like a man who had been stripped of the power of thought, and the will to move. She frowned with her own thought that, for a man who ranked alongside those such as Tanaka and Wan Lai Tang, whatever had reduced Kimoto to his current state had to be something pretty potent. Her frown deepened with the additional thought that she still didn’t know why a man like Forza should have been here with Kimoto in the first place, but she knew what small packets of street-heroin looked like and thos
e were what now lay around the inert body of Signore Forza, ex-paedophile and former minder to Luigi Rinaldi.

  Maria didn’t wait for his reply. “But before you do so, you should tell me if anyone else is in this dojo apart from us. Or is likely to be before we can do something with this,” she ended, indicating the body at their feet.

  “We are quite alone,” replied Kimoto, raising his head as he spoke, clearly surprised to be addressed in such a fashion, “But you are right to remind me that we should conceal Forza before doing anything else.”

  Maria’s eyes followed his pointing finger and saw the baskets marked ‘training kit’ standing against a far wall. Nodding understanding, she moved to where directed with the relieved thought that Kimoto was obviously prepared to help her dispose of Forza. Her relief was coupled with more than just curiosity. His reason for helping her, she realized, must have something to do with the daughter he was introducing to this unexpected scenario. A scenario, she told herself bitterly, which was already complicated enough given everything else currently occupying her mind.

  Reaching the wall, she selected the largest basket. Quickly transferring its contents to a smaller neighbour before dragging the chosen one back to where Kimoto still stood as if carved from stone.