by Bill Cariad
Maria stopped grinning when hands on each of her shoulders stopped her forward movement. She was flanked by two men, and her peripheral vision noted their approximate height and weight, and their stance, for future reference. She remained relaxed; they wouldn’t have let her come this far without hearing what she had to say. Directly in front of her, six men were seated at a green-baized table playing some kind of card game. They all had their jackets off, and three of them wore shoulder holsters. She couldn’t identify the guns from where she stood, but assumed they would be automatics.
But she had instantly identified Yo Cheng Hok. He was one of those who appeared to be unarmed, and he was the only one smiling and making eye contact with her. His skull was quite hairless; gleaming under the light of a lamp on the table, and his face bore the unmistakable stamp of a man in complete command of his self-made environment.
“Who has sent you here with a message?” he asked, and his voice told her he was amused.
“No one,” replied Maria, and the hands tightened on her shoulders.
“No one?” repeated the smiling man.
“Nobody sends me anywhere,” she told him, returning his smile.
“Then let me rephrase the question,” said the man who was still smiling and still sounding amused, “Who has given you the message which you told my associate was important and was for my ears only?”
“No one,” repeated Maria, and her movements were so fast she had completed them before any of the seated men began to react. Her knees had been bent to drop her shoulders and fractionally shift the grip on them, at the same time as her arms had been swept back to deliver the paralyzing palm-heel strikes to the faces of the men on her flanks. Having briefly suspended their interest in the proceedings, she stepped forward one pace and, without losing eye contact, bowed to the man who had stopped smiling. Her bow of respect caused him to quickly raise his hand and still the men who had finally unholstered their weapons.
“I come of my own volition,” said Maria. “Not to harm you in any way, but to tell you how you may profit today from the Hip Sing Tong and cause Wan Cheng-Jian to lose so much face that he may be unable to remain in Chinatown.”
The silence was broken only by the sound of laboured breathing behind her, and Maria slowly straightened her body with the knowledge that she wouldn’t survive this encounter if her words had not been enough to buy her more time to add to them.
“What is your name?” asked Yo Cheng Hok.
“Maria Orsinni.”
“Where do you come from?”
“Sicily.”
A brief silence fell over the room again, and Maria sensed the men behind her beginning to move. She turned her head slowly, beginning to choreograph moves in her mind, but Yo Cheng Hok’s voice sounded again and she turned back to face him.
“They will not move against you. They appear to have survived intact,” he added, and the smile had returned as he spoke.
“I struck to incapacitate, not to permanently damage,” she told him.
“You are a representative of your Sicilian Mafia?” queried Yo Cheng Hok.
“No,” replied Maria, “I represent Japanese parents who have had their daughter taken from them by Wan Cheng-Jian.”
“Hanako Kimoto,” said the Tong leader, smiling as he revealed his knowledge. “We have been puzzled by this. We have been unable to see how they can profit from holding the daughter of a martial arts master. We have concluded he must have offended them in some way, and is being punished. But having now heard the opening words of your message, I realize that you have come to tell me a different story.”
“I have,” acknowledged Maria.
Maria saw the expectant look on his face. She had been assessing him as he spoke. He was, she reckoned, in his early forties and his diction had told her he was an educated man. But she had seen the cold eyes in the smiling face, and knew that his education would have come from more than just textbooks. The shape of his body under the white silk shirt, and his skin tone, and the hands of someone who practiced Karate, all indicated that he was a fit man. She saw on his face now the realization that she wasn’t going to add to what she had just said.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked, and impatience had replaced amusement in his tone.
Maria feigned respectful surprise. “Forgive me, Yo Cheng Hok,” she began, carefully pronouncing his name correctly, “but since my story is for your ears only, I was just waiting until we were alone together.” She stopped, watching him weigh up the odds, knowing what he was thinking: If he sent his soldiers outside and she tried anything, she wouldn’t leave this room alive. If he refused to be left alone with her; he would lose face. She gave no sign of being aware of his thoughts, and her face was expressionless when he ordered his soldiers to leave the room. The door was closing behind her when he spoke.
“So how may I profit from the Hip Sing Tong?” he asked without preamble.
“By dispossessing them of a substantial amount of heroin,” she briskly replied, “and replacing your competitor Wan Cheng-Jian as the absolute ruler of Chinatown.”
Maria saw the smile reappear on his face, and he waved a hand to indicate that she should sit down at the table. She chose a chair which would buy her some time if his soldiers came through the door again.
“How substantial?” he quietly asked.
“I estimate the street value to be several million dollars,” she told him, and saw the cold eyes widen with surprise.
“Why should this be for my ears alone? Do you expect me to keep this information to myself?”
“No,” replied Maria, “it’s because I want to make a deal with you, and I did not want you to lose face by being seen and heard dealing with a woman.”
Maria saw him nod thoughtfully as he received this declaration, and then the expected question was put to her with another smile and a raised eyebrow.
“What kind of deal?”
Maria spoke for several uninterrupted minutes, before answering a number of pertinent questions, and then they both sat looking at one another in silence for a short spell until he ran a hand over his shaven skull and spoke again without any hint of a smile.
“Your plan would seem destined to leave me with a great deal, and you with nothing. Why so? Why do you propose such an action which gains you nothing in return?”
Maria had anticipated this question also, and had seen no alternative to the truth. She briefly related selected parts of the history connecting her to Wan Cheng-Jian.
“I do not allow my people,” said Yo Cheng Hok, “to engage in such activity.”
“I know this,” she replied, “and it is why I have brought this deal to you, and nobody else.”
“And you do not represent your Sicilian Mafia?” he asked, and the doubt could be heard.
“I act alone,” replied Maria, but could see the doubt had moved to his eyes.
Maria saw the hand subconsciously move over the hair that no longer covered his skull as he responded to that.
“Yet you bear the same name,” said Yo Cheng Hok, smiling as he again revealed his knowledge, “as the former consigliere to the Bartalucci family.”
Maria concealed her surprise as she looked at the Tong leader. She instantly realized that she had underestimated these people. Her father had made it his business to find out all he could about who else was out there in his underworld, no matter where they might be, so why should the leader of a Chinese Tong be expected to do anything less.
“Giovanni Orsinni is my father,” she acknowledged, “but neither he or the Bartalucci family have anything to do with my being here. Since you are obviously aware of them, can you imagine the Bartalucci family making you a gift of several million dollars?”
The Tong leader surprised her again by laughing out loud, and she wondered what his armed guard
s might be thinking on the other side of the door. She waited until his laughter had subsided and then she decided to surprise him by standing up before she spoke.
“Does Maria Orsinni have a deal with Yo Cheng Hok?”
The Tong leader was clearly not prepared to be outdone in the surprise stakes, thought Maria. She watched as he rose to his feet and revealed himself to be taller than she had estimated. He bowed his head, then lifted it to show the smile as he gave his answer.
“Yo Cheng Hok has a deal with Maria Orsinni.”
At 5pm, wearing black stretch slacks over the steel-toe-capped leather boots and a lightweight zippered top to conceal her breasts in their knife-holding bra, Maria again stood under the crystal chandelier and telephoned Tanzen Kimoto from her Waldorf Astoria suite.
“Kimoto.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Has anyone been in contact?”
“They telephoned. I said what you told me to say. They left a number with the instruction that Forza is to contact them no later than eight this evening.”
“Is Forza’s complete basket still with you?”
“Yes.”
“We will need it,” she told him, “I’ll explain why later. Is the gymnasium being used tonight?”
“No.”
“Good. We need the building to ourselves tonight. I’m leaving the hotel shortly,” she ended, this time disconnecting the line before he could.
Ten minutes later Maria’s second call was answered by the familiar voice.
“Sabbatini speaking.”
“I’m glad I caught you still awake,” she said.
“Do you mean an old man like me should be asleep in bed by eleven?”
“Are you alone?” she asked.
“You are in New York,” he replied, “ and I am here, so of course I am alone.”
“Do you have influential friends in the New York police force?”
A brief pause prefaced his reply. “Yes, why do you ask?”
“Sergio, I urgently need the name and number of a policeman you would trust to be free of corruption. He should be a man with the rank which enables him to move quickly upon information received concerning a heroin storage location linked to a Chinese Triad.”
Another brief silence followed, and then she smiled as Sergio finally responded.
“Are you in danger?”
“No,” she replied instantly, “Sergio, do you know such a man?”
“Yes. I am looking up his number as we speak, have your pen ready. Here it is, you ready?”
“Go ahead,” she told him, and quickly scribbled down the number she gave him beside the name of Mike Doil. She read the name back to Sergio, and he amended the spelling to Doyle.
“Sergio, can you phone this Doyle right now and tell him to expect my call in about one hour’s time from now? Will he be where you can reach him now?”
“Yes, he will be where I can reach him, and yes I can do that.”
“I’m going to give you a number now, Sergio,” she told him, “which you must only call if you have failed to make contact with this Doyle, or if he himself tells you that he will be unable to move as required much later this evening. Capiche?”
“Understood.”
“If you have to call that number inside the next forty minutes, I won’t be there,” she told him, “but a man named Kimoto will answer the phone. Just give him your name and hang up.”
“This surely cannot be connected to you know who,” said Sergio.
“No, it’s not,” she acknowledged, “but I don’t have time to explain. I must go now, Sergio.”
“Arrividerci, Maria.”
“Arrividerci, Sergio,” said Maria, severing their connection.
At 5-30pm, Maria climbed into the back of Tony’s taxi. “Little Italy please, the corner....”
“...of Grand and Centre,” finished Tony. “You know what? You’re beginning to sound like you’ve lived in the ‘Big Apple’ all your life.”
Maria smiled, but didn’t speak. To emphasise the fact that she craved silence, she didn’t make eye contact with her driver and stared out the window to discourage further conversation. She needed all the quiet time she could get before reaching Kimoto’s dojo, because she still had a lot of thinking to do.
At five minutes past six that evening, Maria watched Tony drive away from Kimoto’s building. She had been lucky with her choice of driver, she told herself, and if everything went according to plan she would be seeing him again in a few hours. For the third time today, she crossed the stone threshold accessing the small covered porch leading to the solid looking wooden door. On the other side of that door, she spent several minutes in the vestibule quietly choreographing the moves she would be making and visualising their effectiveness. Finally satisfied, she opened the door to Kimoto’s dojo and walked inside.
As she walked towards the opened doorway to his office, Maria could see Kimoto sitting in his leather chair and staring at the telephone on his desk. She reached the doorway and bowed to him, then stood there mentally crossing fingers as she asked her questions.
“Hanako called?” She watched as Kimoto nodded without making eye contact.
“Has anyone else called since I last spoke to you?” She saw him shake his head.
“Did Hanako sound okay?” she asked, relieved to discover that Sergio hadn’t called.
“She sounded,” replied Kimoto, finally making eye contact and voicing his frustration, “as if she was bewildered to still find herself using a Hip Sing telephone to communicate with the father who should have come for her weeks ago.”
“She won’t be bewildered for very much longer,” Maria told him, “and you won’t have to go and get her, she will come to you.”
Kimoto inhaled deeply; willing self-control. Whilst he hadn’t lied to her; no one else had phoned, he hadn’t mentioned his outgoing call to Wan Lai Tang: Who had astonished with his words of praise for Maria Orsinni. He stared at the figure in the doorway, her words resonating in his mind. She was dressed differently, he noted, and her aura was strong, and her voice could have been tempered with the steel used to forge the blade of a Japanese Katana. But her words...? “Please explain,” he began, forcing the control now, “how that could happen.” And then he heard the rapidly outlined plan which astonished him.
Having returned from assuring his wife that their daughter was still alive, Kimoto had already started working in the store-room when Maria used the telephone in his office to make contact with the number given to her by Sergio.
“DEA’s office,” announced a deep male voice with an Irish brogue.
Maria realized that Sergio had found her a member of the Drug Enforcement Agency, and silently blessed his foresight. Her father had often cursed the ruthless efficiency of the DEA.
“I would like to speak to Captain Doyle, please.”
“This is Doyle speaking,” said the deep voice, “and your accent in my ear, following that of our mutual friend’s melodic tones, would make you...?”
“Maria Orsinni,” she confirmed, smiling her appreciation of his caution.
“So let’s cut to the chase,” said Doyle, “What have you got for me?”
“Wan Cheng-Jian’s Chinatown head on a plate for murder,” she calmly replied, “along with enough heroin to justify your department’s involvement in a little subterfuge.” The line went quiet when she finished, but not for long.
“Sergio said you would probably surprise me,” began Doyle, “and he wasn’t wrong. Well, you’ve got my attention, Maria Orsinni, what else do you want?”
Maria spoke for several minutes, and was interrupted only by Doyle’s occasional requests for her to pause while he wrote something down. When she declared herself finished, the line went quie
t again for a spell.
“It sounded complicated,” opened Doyle, “but I’m looking at my notes here and thinking that my end of it could work. Pinning Wan Cheng-Jian to the drugs and the Forza thing would be sweet, because while we’ve been talking here I’ve been looking at Forza on our database. In addition to what you’ve told me about his connection to Rinaldi, he was drummed out of the CIA for excessive use of torture. So he won’t be missed and mourned. Hok’s men are considered to be more efficient than Jian’s, so that part of it looks good on paper. It’s your bit in the middle that worries me. Jian doesn’t travel alone, and a bloodbath would be impossible to contain.”
“There won’t be a bloodbath,” she assured him, “Broken bones, certainly, but no bloodbath. So, can I rely on you, Capitano Doyle?”
“Sabbatini earned my respect a long time ago,” he replied, “and he said I could trust you. So yes, Maria Orsinni, you can rely on me. Call me back when you’ve fixed the timing.”
Maria joined Kimoto in the store-room, and together they finished transferring six of the heroin-filled boxes to his office. Stacked up behind the door, they would only be visible to anyone who actually progressed beyond the open doorway. They then dragged Forza’s basket into the store-room. Rigor mortis had already stiffened the body but Kimoto hid his sympathy well as he used Karate strikes to make it more pliable; which enabled them to muscle the body into its new position. Forza’s head and shoulders, and one of his arms, now drooped over the edge of the basket. They then laid a visible trail of scattered heroin packets, and their results ran from the store-room and through its open doorway into the dojo.