The Orsinni Contracts

by Bill Cariad

  “The thought of a police raid while I was teaching my students,” he said, “has been on my mind ever since these illegal activities have increased. Last month, Forza said that if I sold the dojo to him, he could persuade Wan Cheng-Jian to release my daughter.”

  “But you refused to sell,” said Maria.

  “Last month,” replied Kimoto, “I had the strength to refuse. Last month I had hope.”

  Maria’s eyes widened when Kimoto said that he had discovered the building where his daughter was being held, but had deemed it impossible to breach on his own without increasing the risk to her safety.

  “Hanako is thirty years old,” said Kimoto, “and runs the gymnasium for me. She has an excellent command of the English language, and is an avid reader. But from the first day that they have allowed her to read to me the daily headlines, she has stumbled over familiar words and has cleverly added letters here and there without arousing the attention of her captors. She knew that I would understand her intention, and within the first few weeks I knew which street she was on. And then, last month, her code revealed the final letters identifying the name of the building.”

  Maria’s thoughts raced as she received this information, but two of those thoughts kept pushing themselves to the front. One was telling her that Kimoto had not needed to add that even a successful rescue would likely be answered by Hip Sing Tong retaliation; which would prove to be lethal. The other thought was that someone, somewhere, was even now waiting to receive the heroin packets which Forza had been about to deliver before she had delivered the Hapkido killing strike to his neck. How long would it be, she wondered, before that someone complained to Wan Cheng-Jian about the non-arrival of supplies?

  This time Maria was glad of the silence which followed Kimoto’s narrative. She had of course recognized the Wan Cheng-Jian name, and now silently reflected upon the fates which seemed destined to bring them together again. She glanced at her wristwatch, and saw that ten minutes remained before Tony’s taxi would return, and that almost three hours would pass before Kimoto and his wife received the daily telephone call which had been ruling their lives for the past two months. She looked at the figure behind the desk and no longer saw what she had seen before. She saw now a highly stressed parent, and a martial arts master who had been tortured for two months by the knowledge that his skills had been neutered by the threat to the daughter who had been taken from him by Wan Cheng-Jian.

  The door to the dojo was opening, and a fully alert Maria rose to her feet as she cleared her mind in readiness to deal with whatever was coming. Then the dainty looking figure of a Japanese woman in western clothes walked into the dojo and began approaching the office, and Maria prepared herself to meet Kimoto’s wife.

  Kimoto had also seen her, and glided past Maria to meet his wife while she was still halfway to the office. Maria watched as he spoke, but couldn’t hear what was said. Man and wife then walked together towards where she stood, and Maria could tell by her face that the woman had been briefed about her family situation being made known to a stranger.

  Maria bowed deeply to the wife of Tanzen Kimoto before addressing her.

  “Namae wa Orsinni Maria desu,[2]” she began, “Italy kara kimashita,[3] and my Japanese is very poor. Gomen nasai[4],” she continued, “that we should meet under such circumstances.”

  “Arigato,[5]” responded the woman, smiling as she added, “namae wa Kimoto Kiri, and your Japanese probably hasn’t had as much practice as mine, but I thank you for using it.”

  “Tanaka told me,” said Tanzen Kimoto, “that you were always surprising him.”

  Maria could see that Kimoto had been taken aback by her feeble attempt to address his wife in her own language, but she could also see that he had appreciated the effort.

  “My husband,” said Kiri Kimoto, “has probably not offered you tea.”

  Maria reckoned that Kimoto’s wife was also in her sixties, and that in normal circumstances would probably have looked much younger than that. But today she looked older than her husband. The evidence of sleepless nights, and anxiously spent days, was all there in the now haggard looking face. She wore a simple black skirt and white blouse over her trim figure, and her greying hair was cut short. Her hands were tiny and delicate looking, and had been moving restlessly about her clothing since her appearance on the scene, and her eyes revealed that she had been crying. Maria looked into the reddened eyes of Kiri Kimoto with the thought that here the woman stood, almost rigid with tension apart from the hands which wouldn’t rest, politely acknowledging the use of her native language, and graciously observing her Japanese social code by expressing concern about a stranger not having been offered tea. In that instant, Maria’s Sicilian blood roared in her veins and she silently vowed to herself that she would return this woman’s daughter to her.

  “I was probably talking so much,” said Maria, “he didn’t get the chance.”

  “Our apartment is above the gymnasium,” explained Kiri Kimoto. “I will go now and prepare tea for us while you and my husband finish your conversation.” She fired off some rapidly spoken Japanese to her husband before turning away and beginning the walk to the dojo’s door.

  Maria glanced at her watch as Kiri Kimoto made her way to the door. Tony would be outside waiting for her now, and it looked like she was going to have to leave him there for a while. She had recognized the tone of admonishment in the words which had been fired off at Kimoto by his wife, so she wasn’t really surprised by his message when he finally delivered it to her now.

  “My wife,” said Kimoto quietly, “has told me that I should not allow you to place your life in danger by attempting to help us.”

  Having been prepared to hear something along those lines, but also having reached her irrevocable decision, Maria responded without hesitation.

  “The Moral Law,” she said, emphasising the title, “causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler. So that they will follow, regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.”

  She watched the wrinkled face of Kimoto regarding her with amazement as he spoke.

  “You paraphrase,” began Kimoto, the surprise obvious in his voice, “the words of Sun Tzu from his treatise on the art of war.”

  “How much has Tanaka told you,” she asked, ignoring his surprise and speaking quickly, “about my personal background?”

  “I know of your family history,” he replied, and his tone was non-judgemental.

  “All warfare,” said Maria, pleased that she didn’t have to waste time explaining her pedigree, “is based on deception. When able to attack, we must seem unable. When using our forces, we must seem inactive. When we are near, we must make the enemy think that we are far away.”

  “Sun Tzu again,” acknowledged Kimoto, watching her closely now.

  “Hold out baits to entice the enemy,” continued Maria, “feign disorder, and crush him.”

  “Sun Tzu,” said Kimoto, “was referring to one army pitted against another army. We are just two people standing before the many soldiers of the Hip Sing Tong.”

  “So we change the numbers,” replied Maria.

  “How do we do that?” he asked, waving a hand around the empty dojo.

  “I need to return to my hotel,” she replied, by-passing his question, “for some equipment. If anyone from the Hip Sing Tong telephones to ask where Forza is, or comes here looking for him while I’m gone, you must tell them that he left with a box under his arm to see someone he described to you as a brand new contact offering him a much better deal.”

  “Deception,” acknowledged Kimoto, smiling faintly.

  “Apologize to your wife for me,” said Maria, “tell her I will be honoured to have tea with her when I return, and tell her you will be returning Hanako to her very soon.”

  Maria smiled into the widened eyes in the wrinkled face
and left Kimoto standing as if carved from stone again, and went to meet her taxi driver.

  2 My name is...

  3 I come from...

  4 I am sorry...

  5 Thank you.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine:

  ‘Big Apple’ Diversion

  Back on the sidewalk, Maria repeated her window tap signal to Tony which enabled her to climb into the back of the unlocked taxi. Her immediately voiced opening words caused him to break off his pre-drive check on the traffic flow.

  “Tony, you spoke earlier about Chinatown. How well do you know it?”

  “Well enough to get around, I guess,” he replied, applying the hand-brake and turning his head to make eye contact as he added, “Why do you ask?”

  “Have you heard of the Hip Sing Tong?” she asked, and saw the surprise in his eyes.

  “Sure,” he said, “you can’t live around this part of town without knowing about the Tongs. The street talk is that there are two main Tongs running Chinatown. The Hip Sing are supposed to be the top dogs.”

  “Supposed to be?”

  “It’s street talk Maria, what can I say?” His face registered distaste as he added, “But a buddy of mine is a cop, and he says that the Hip Sing are worse than the usual low-life because they deal in child trafficking. The competition apparently just does all the other stuff, you know, stuff like extortion and prostitution, and drugs.”

  “What do the underdogs call themselves?”

  “The Burning Hand,” he replied, shifting uneasily in his seat as he continued, “Look, Maria, you don’t wanna’ be putting people like that in your book.”

  “I don’t suppose you know who heads up this Burning Hand Tong?”

  “No idea,” he replied, frowning as he added, “But if it’s really important to you, I know a guy who could probably tell you.”

  “Where can that person be found?”

  “He runs a bar not far from here.”

  “Can you take me there?”

  “Yours to command,” he said, rolling his eyes as he turned back to his traffic-flow check.

  Maria had barely started thinking about her next move when she saw the street sign saying Delancey Street, and minutes later Tony brought his taxi to a halt. They both got out, and Tony pointed to a neon sign which told her that she was about to enter ‘John John’s Bar’. At three-thirty in the afternoon, she stood beside Tony and briefly reflected on the fact that you never knew where the fickle finger of fate would take you. Standing in a New York strip-bar on a hot August afternoon, was not how she had imagined spending any of her time. Two bored looking women, at differing stages of undress, were cavorting on a pocket-handkerchief-sized stage, and she was surprised at how young some of the audience appeared to be.

  Tony was leaning over the bar and whispering something to a thin man with a goatee beard who was wiping a beer glass as he listened. The man continued wiping the glass as he moved to where she stood, and she ignored his wandering eyes as he spoke to her.

  “The guy’s called Yo Cheng-Hok. And if you’re putting him in your book, lady, make sure you spell it right because I hear he’s touchy about how people handle his name.”

  “Does he come in your bar?” she asked, listening now for the hoped-for positive part of what she knew would be a negative answer.

  “Nah,” said ‘goatee beard’, “he hangs out in his own club on Pell Street. But a good looker like you should steer clear of a joint like the Firepit.”

  Maria didn’t respond to that, and instead signalled Tony with a look that told him she was ready to leave. The sound of half-hearted applause from the audience was also signalling the end of the stripping as they left ‘John John’s Bar’. Back inside the taxi, Tony sat for a moment without moving and Maria prepared herself for the expected warning.

  “Are you now gonna’ ask me to take you to Pell Street?” was aggressively voiced.

  “Well, you warned me not to walk the streets,” she replied, letting him see the grin.

  “They don’t just cut bag-straps there, they cut throats. You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “There you go again,” said Maria, smiling, “making it all sound so attractive.”

  “This must be one helluva’ story you’re writing,” he grumbled, but he was nosing his taxi into traffic as he added, “You want me to come inside this Firepit with you?”

  “No,” she replied, “I want you to stay with the getaway car while I rob the place.”

  Maria tuned out Tony’s chuckling at her flip remark, which had successfully diverted his thoughts away from where they had been. The word diversion was very much on her mind right now. She herself was being diverted away from where her focus should be; her Calendar problem remained unsolved, and she was on her way now to hopefully meet someone who could help her succeed in diverting someone else’s attention.

  Within a short space of time the scenes outside the taxi’s window had dramatically changed. Wherever she looked conveyed the impression that she was travelling through a different country. What she was seeing now, thought Maria, was China in miniature. Shop-fronts boasted their sign-painted identity in Chinese lettering, and crowds of people in Chinese dress were bustling around a seeming multitude of market stalls. On display was everything from clothing and flowers, exotic looking fruit and vegetables, and caged birds. On already crowded pavements, evidently undistracted by all around them, old Chinese men were seated at board games and clearly enjoying themselves. Even inside the car, the noise from outside was almost deafening. Maria suddenly caught sight of the overhead Pell Street sign as her driver began concentrating on negotiating a safe route through the throng of pedestrians unwilling to vacate their place in the middle of the street. Tony finally brought the taxi to a halt, and she could see the sweat on his brow as he spoke.

  “This is as close as I can get. The Firepit is that place with the four guys standing outside it. They look friendly enough, but don’t let that fool you. I don’t think they will even let you in.”

  “Thanks for getting me here, Tony. Will you be able to wait here?”

  “I’ll be here until you get back in,” he replied, “and you’d better leave the bag.”

  Maria didn’t tell him she was going to do that anyway. She just smiled at him, and got out of the taxi and stepped into the wall of noise that was New York’s Chinatown. She stood still for a moment, visibly conveying the impression of someone marvelling at the vibrancy of her surroundings, and showing no sign of having seen the crowd-watching faces of old women at the many windows above the shops and other trading establishments. She knew that these commercial outlets would be providing more than just a living for their Chinese entrepreneurs; they would also be serving as upstairs accommodation for their families, and a window on the world for those watching grandmothers. The few tourists she could see, in western apparel like herself, visually clashed with the noisy oriental crowd in national dress. Everything she was seeing was confirming what she had suspected when Kimoto had told her his daughter was being held in this area. It would be impossible for her to penetrate this environment without being seen before she could achieve her objective.

  In her nostrils now was the heavy scent of spices mingling with cooking aromas, and in her ears was the sound of babbling voices and music. The music, an instrumental piece, was being played on instruments she didn’t recognize by their sound, and was blaring from public speakers she couldn’t see. But she could see the target building, and began her approach on full mental alert. From the four casually dressed young Chinamen obviously guarding the entrance to The Firepit, Maria had labelled the one with a scarred face as their leader. Two paces from the door, it was ‘Scarface’ who held up his hand to block her progress.

  “So sorry,” he said, smiling pleasantly, “this place not for ladie
s. You must go someplace else.”

  “I have an important message for Yo Cheng Hok,” said Maria quietly, but she had been heard. The mention of the Tong leader’s name had an instant effect: ‘Scarface’ lost his smile, and his eyes narrowed with his response.

  “You give me the message,” he said politely, “and I will pass it on if I see this person.”

  “He wouldn’t want me to do that,” said Maria, matching his stare.

  “Why not?” was asked automatically, but surprise at how this conversation was developing was written all over the scarred face.

  “You are obviously important to him,” said Maria, “and have been trusted to lead these men who guard the entrance to this club. It would sadden him to order your death.”

  A hissing sound came from the lips of ‘Scarface’ as he physically recoiled from this pronouncement. Then he leant forward and Maria could smell his sour breath as he spoke.

  “Why would he order such a thing?” was asked because curiosity had overpowered fear.

  “Because you had made me share with you, a message which is for his ears only,” she replied.

  Maria watched as ‘Scarface’ gave this some thought, and saw the decision in his eyes before he opened his mouth to speak. “I must search you,” he said.

  “And I must permit you to do so,” she replied calmly. With no shoulder bag to slow things up, the body search didn’t take long. But it was thorough, and found the gift box in her jacket pocket. He opened it, saw nothing to alarm him, closed it, and returned it to her pocket. He said something in Chinese to one of the other three, the next in his small chain of command, deduced Maria, and then he addressed her again.

  “I will take you to him. Your message better be important enough to disturb him.”

  She was taken through the street door and led inside to where she immediately experienced a sense of déjà-vu. She was in an area not dissimilar to Kimoto’s outer vestibule. Ahead of her was a staircase obviously leading to upper floors, and she was flanked by two doors. Another door in front of her was guarded by a smartly suited counterpart to ‘Scarface’, and was presumably the entrance to the club itself. But ‘Scarface’ was ignoring that door, and instead was indicating that she should wait outside one of the seemingly unguarded doors while he disappeared inside to whatever lay behind it. She waited as directed, and made no further eye contact with the suited guardian whom she had labelled as ‘dangerous’ and now stood to her right. Moments later the door in front of her opened to reveal an anxious looking ‘Scarface’. Ushering her inside, his look told Maria that he was destined for the chop[6] if her message disappointed, and she allowed herself a grin at her unintended pun as she squeezed passed him.