The Orsinni Contracts

by Bill Cariad

“It will be a tight fit,” she said, “but should suffice.” ‘It is more space than he deserves’ was said sotto-voce but Maria heard the venomous tone in Kimoto’s voice.

  “Will you help me?” she asked.

  “Am I not already doing so?” he curtly replied, moving to comply as he spoke.

  Together they manhandled the heavy corpse into the basket, and Maria noted the ease with which Kimoto played his physical part. He was functioning again, she realized, as had been displayed by his acerbic response to her request for help and his use of strength which was hidden within a body which looked like a strong wind would blow it down. Then, in unspoken accord, as if each was aware of the remaining abomination upon a dojo floor, they gathered up the heroin packets and threw them into the basket over the body of Carmine Forza. Still offering no explanation for the presence of drugs in his dojo, Kimoto placed his hand beside her own on the rope-handle of the makeshift coffin and they dragged the basket to a spot against a wall which was quietly declared by him to be ‘satisfactory for the time being’.

  Maria straightened from the completed task as sounds above her head told her the gymnasium was in use. The sounds didn’t seem to be bothering Kimoto, so she ignored them. If anyone came in here now, she ruefully told herself, all they would see was two people standing physically close together and giving no sign of how far apart they were mentally. She had no idea what Kimoto’s daughter had to do with what had happened here, but no doubt she was going to find out, and he had no idea about her Calendar problem. She glanced about at her immediate surroundings: She was standing in a large floor-space and the obligatory dojo mats took up most of it. Two corners of the room each had a closed door which obviously accessed private areas, and one of the doors was obligingly marked Office.

  “What about your students coming in here?” she asked, “Are any of them due soon?”

  “Training has been suspended,” said Kimoto, “for an indefinite period,” he enigmatically ended.

  Maria decided to let that news go without comment, her first thought one of renewed relief that she would have uninterrupted time to hopefully sort out whatever she had stumbled in to here. Her second thought, surprising her, was that despite his just having demonstrated his apparent readiness to cover up what she had done, she wasn’t even sure if she liked Kimoto.

  “Is there somewhere,” she asked, “where I can wash my hands?”

  “Follow me,” he replied, and promptly set off in the direction of the Office-labelled door.

  Maria followed him in silence; too busy thinking to speak. She calculated that twenty-five minutes had elapsed since she had left Tony’s taxi and walked in to this nightmare, and she was wondering when she should return to him. What she would be saying to trusty Tony, she didn’t yet know. There was a lot she didn’t know, realized Maria, including what could be done with Forza’s body.

  Kimoto opened the office door and continued on inside, and Maria followed suit to join him in his inner sanctum. She saw nothing to surprise. She was looking at two wooden chairs in front of a desk which was supporting a telephone and a reading lamp. A comfortable looking leather chair behind the desk was obviously used by Kimoto whenever he worked in here, or received visitors. Up against a wall, to one side of the desk, stood a multi-drawered metal filing cabinet, a bookcase displaying the spines of familiar martial arts books, and a water-cooler. Two of the room’s four walls were completely covered with informational material; a boldly captioned ‘Street Map of New York City’, and various charts depicting the vital organs and pressure points of the human body. But immediately facing her, all on its own, framed and mounted on the wall behind the leather chair, was the large colour photograph of a smiling Kimoto with two women in the unmistakable pose of a wife and a daughter.

  “In there,” said Kimoto, pointing to a door on her left, “you will find what you need.”

  Maria again obeyed the pointing finger and opened the door to a toilet cubicle. She went inside, located the light switch, and closed the door behind her. She washed her hands over the handbasin and was drying them when her bladder pulsed its requirement. She attended to that function, and re-washed her hands while thinking again about what Kimoto had said to her about the attractive girl in the photograph on his wall. Her tasks completed, she emerged from the toilet cubicle to see Kimoto seated in the leather chair. He then surprised her by standing up to bow his head slightly as he pointed to one of the wooden chairs.

  “Please sit with me for a moment, Maria Orsinni,” he said, but he remained on his feet as he waited for her compliance.

  Maria repositioned the wooden chair to give herself a clear line of sight through the open office doorway to the dojo’s main entrance. She was re-reading body language as she faced Kimoto across the desk, and suddenly had the impression that she was looking at a proud man who had been smothering that pride but was now breathing new life into it. She also recognized the signs of a person struggling to deal with shock. Signs which a man with Kimoto’s training should have been able to conceal. That she could see those signs, told her that the shock must have been profound.

  “Maria Orsinni,” began Kimoto, firmly, “is not in my debt. She has not defiled my dojo, and has no need of my pardon. Given what you have told me,” he continued, “it is clear to me that Forza would have attacked, and, had you not been faster than him, his killing you would have simply added to his infamy. Forza had already defiled this dojo before you stepped inside it.”

  Maria was still formulating a response in her head when he spoke again.

  “Tanaka spoke highly of you,” he began, “on many occasions. But he could not have taught one so young how to penetrate at such speed, the Chi barrier of an experienced opponent like Forza.” He stopped, and his eyes were questioning.

  “Tanaka introduced me to the Hapkido discipline,” responded Maria, “And for the past few months,” she added, “I have been a student of Wan Lai Tang in Rome.”

  Maria saw Kimoto’s eyes flicker at the mention of Wan Lai Tang’s name, but his vocal response was calmly delivered.

  “You have travelled far,” he acknowledged. “It is rare for one so young to seemingly have advanced to such a high skills level.”

  “I’m a fast learner,” she replied, suddenly impatient to move this conversation on. “What’s going to happen now? I don’t need to know why Forza was here, that’s your business, and I am sincerely glad that you have shown your willingness to hide what I’ve done here, but what about the body? And just why, exactly, do you fear for your daughter because of what I did to a scumbag like Forza?”

  Maria saw the look of reproach which accompanied the words directed at her from across the desk.

  “It would seem that you have also learned one of this city’s distasteful idioms.”

  “If you’re referring to the word scumbag,” retorted Maria, “Tanaka taught me that one, and it perfectly describes what Forza was.”

  “He didn’t learn it from me,” responded Kimoto, his tone laced with disapproval.

  Maria instantly realized the implication behind what Kimoto had just said, and stared at the wrinkle-faced old man as she gave the words more thought. Her perception of the figure behind the desk had been altered in a heartbeat; she was looking at the man who may have honed Tanaka’s skills.

  “I apologize,” said Maria, “for having used a word which may have offended.”

  “Your apology is welcome,” he replied, “but you may leave here now, Maria Orsinni. You need not concern yourself with the body of Forza. I will deal with that myself.”

  Maria heard the resolve behind the quietly spoken words, and saw the eyes in the wrinkled face steadily holding her own. She glanced up at the wall-mounted tableau of family contentment; a smiling husband and proud father, flanked by the women who each had an arm around him and were leaning in against him.

  “I
don’t think,” began Maria, carefully selecting the words she must use, “the man I see in that photograph would have failed to recognize Carmine Forza for the kind of animal that he was. And, having sensed the evil within that creature, I don’t think that proud looking husband and father would have willingly allowed Forza to walk even once upon the floor of this dojo.”

  Maria saw the almost imperceptible lifting of Kimoto’s shoulders as the man reacted to her choice of words, but his mouth was firmly closed.

  “Yet you have said,” continued Maria, “that Forza had already defiled this dojo before I appeared on the scene. Before I stepped inside this dojo to discover him looking quite at home here, and carrying a boxful of heroin packets bound for the street.”

  Maria saw the eyes glitter in the wrinkled face, but Kimoto still didn’t speak.

  “So, based upon a father’s statement,” said Maria firmly, “that I may have sentenced his daughter to death by putting Forza down, I would guess that Tanzen Kimoto had been forced to allow his dojo to be used by Forza, and others.”

  Maria saw the shoulders drop again, and knew she was on the right track. “There has to be others involved,” she resumed, “you could probably have dealt with Forza yourself without breaking sweat. So others are holding your daughter under the threat of death.”

  “I should not,” responded Kimoto quietly, “have implied that your actions would impact upon the fate of my daughter. You must forget what I said, and leave here now.”

  Maria rose to her feet and stood before the desk as she replied.

  “Tanaka would rightly be ashamed of me,” she began, “if I could just forget what you said and walk out of here. Earlier today, you asked me if he was here in New York. If he was standing where I am standing now, would you be telling him to leave?”

  Maria watched as he pretended to think about that, and her impatience re-surfaced.

  “I’ve left a taxi driver waiting for me. I’m going outside to tell him to come back for me in thirty minutes. When I come back in here, I’m expecting you to tell me what this is all about.” She turned away from him without waiting for a response.

  Maria retraced her steps and emerged back on to the still busy street to find Tony patiently still in place. He was reading a newspaper, and she tapped on his window to signal her presence. She saw him release the safety locks and she opened the passenger door to reach in and retrieve her shoulder bag. He was twisting in his seat to watch as she spoke.

  “Sorry I’ve been so long. Unexpected development. But I need to spend more time here. Can you come back in, say, thirty minutes?”

  “Shall we synchronise watches?” he asked, grinning as he added, “like they do in the movies?”

  Maria found herself responding to his humour with a grin of her own, and suddenly realized that right now she felt better than she had done since leaving the Plaza Hotel. “Okay,” she agreed, glancing at her watch, “we’ll meet here again at three fifteen.”

  “Three fifteen it will be,” acknowledged Tony, “I’ll go grab myself a coffee.”

  Maria closed the passenger door and shouldered her bag as Tony drove off. She got as far as the covered porch, and then the stout wooden door opened and a quartet of heavily muscled men emerged wearing tee shirts and shorts and carrying sports bags. The gymnasium noise-producers, realized Maria as she stepped aside to let them pass.

  “You lost, lady?” asked the toughest looking of the four.

  “No,” she replied, “I’m not lost. But thank you for asking.”

  “You gotta’ be lost,” said another one, “comin’ here dressed like that.”

  “Shut your dumb mouth, Lorenzo,” growled the tough looking one, “Sorry, lady, he’s from Brooklyn and they don’t get taught manners out there in the backwoods.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” said Maria, smiling.

  “If you’re looking for Kimoto’s wife,” said the tough looking apologist, “she’s upstairs.”

  “Thank you,” said Maria, and watched as the foursome went on their way.

  Back inside the dojo, she found Kimoto still seated in his leather chair behind the office desk. Above her head everything was quiet, and she assumed the gymnasium was now empty. She wondered what Kimoto’s wife was doing up there. She stood in the open doorway and suddenly conjured an image of Canizzaro sitting behind his desk, and was acutely aware of how different that image was to the one before her now. In place of an elegantly tailored man bristling with energy, sat the tired looking figure of Kimoto clad in casual western clothes which seemed to droop around his thin frame. Again in contrast to her Uncle’s dual means of communication with the outside world, only one telephone rested on Kimoto’s desk but he was staring at it as if he had never seen it before. She sat down in the wooden chair which provided the sight line she wanted to retain, and he suddenly picked up the conversational ball as if she had never left the room.

  “Tanaka will never learn about this affair from me,” he began quietly, “So you can leave without worrying about what he might think of you.”

  “I will allow,” she responded, matching his quiet tone, “your insult because I believe you are reacting to the thought of what might happen to your daughter. But I will not be insulted twice,” she added in the same quiet tone, and saw his eyes widen in the wrinkled face.

  “Tanaka,” she continued calmly, “didn’t put Forza down, and Tanaka wasn’t the one to be told a sentence of death hangs over your daughter because of that act. But it isn’t just Forza’s body out there in a basket which is producing the atmosphere of a morgue in this dojo, so why don’t you just start telling me what is?”

  Maria watched as he visibly controlled himself, and she reminded herself that in different circumstances his body language probably wouldn’t be so easy to read.

  “Tanaka told me you were a persistent student,” he said quietly.

  “Did he also tell you I was his friend?”

  Maria saw him nod his head without hesitation, and his face become even more wrinkled as he suddenly, surprisingly, smiled with his answer.

  “He said you were the daughter he would have wished to call his own.”

  Maria swallowed the lump in her throat, and forced firmness into her voice. “So until you can learn to trust me, Tanzen Kimoto, you must trust Tanaka’s judgement and start talking.”

  Kimoto watched the young Italian woman that Tanaka had said was the most extraordinary student he had ever taught, and the daughter he would have wished to have. Listening to her now, he could hear the strength in the voice which was tempting him to confide in her. He regretted voicing his immediate thoughts when she had slain Forza, and since then had been trying to make it easy for her to leave. But she seemed determined to stay. She had surprised him with her rapidly arrived at and perceptive assessment of the reason behind Forza’s allowed presence in the dojo. But Tanaka had said she had a quick brain.

  Tanaka had also said that his Italian student was a born warrior, and that she was destined to go on and use her skills in some form of professional capacity which would be of benefit to organizations involved in tackling crime. Having been told of the woman’s upbringing within a Mafia family, he could recall thinking then that Tanaka had been allowing his emotions to run ahead of his judgement. He wasn’t thinking that now. He was thinking about the awesome speed, and the power and precision Maria Orsinni had used to destroy the formidable Forza. He took a deep breath with the thought that Tanaka’s student had obviously progressed far beyond the level of expectation for one so young. And Wan Lai Tang selected only the best, and made them better. It was indeed tempting, he thought now, to talk to such a warrior.

  It was as if she had suddenly entered the correct combination to access a locked safe. Kimoto began talking, slowly at first, but then becoming faster as if all the emotions he had been suppressing were being
released along with the words. Maria remained perfectly still as she listened to his story of Forza’s rejected partnership overture, and the abduction of Kimoto’s daughter by a Chinese Triad, and the terms attached to that abduction by Wan Cheng-Jian, the leader of the Hip-Sing Tong.

  “Forza said that he had killed someone important to Wan Cheng-Jian,” said Kimoto, “and that he was being forced to stay here and ensure I obeyed orders. But over the past weeks I saw him enjoying his role for the Hip Sing Tong.”

  Maria realized that Kimoto was referring to the young Chinaman with the gun who had been killed by Forza in the room at the Via Del Morro, but she didn’t mention this.

  “Apart from keeping an eye on you, what was Forza’s role here?” she asked.

  “He stripped out the drugs,” replied Kimoto, “from the dojo mats which have been arriving here every week for the past two months. He did all this behind the unmarked door I saw you looking at before we came in here. He then boxed them up and delivered them to wherever he was told to go. Sometimes he would take enough to fill a van. At other times, as he had intended to do today, he just walked out of here with a single box under his arm.”

  “I would like to see behind this unmarked door,” she told him.

  Moments later, Maria was inside what she thought might just be the most valuable store-room in New York. Stacked against a wall and climbing to the ceiling, were cardboard boxes similar to the one Forza had been carrying. Checking the contents of a couple of them she selected at random, revealed the packets of heroin which confirmed to her that she was standing amidst drugs with a street value running into millions of American dollars.

  “Forza didn’t know I had a spare key,” said Kimoto as he locked the room and they returned to his office.

  When he was again seated in his leather chair, Maria motioned for him to continue. She remained silent when told that the terms which had been adhered to by Kimoto, had then been broken by Wan Cheng-Jian; who had extended his time-table and was continuing to use the dojo as a clearing centre for his drug trafficking. A development which had forced Kimoto to suspend his training classes and had deepened his despair.