Nagai ignored the question, but Mashiro asked him in Japanese if he could answer the punk. Nagai shrugged and nodded. But why bother? He’s an idiot American, he wouldn’t understand.
“Once upon time,” Mashiro began in his faulty English, “I was executive—not big boss, not small boss, middle boss. But my life make me sick. Nothing in my soul when I was executive. In company everybody worry about making better junk. I know one man he kill self because company no want his idea for clock in car. This no good. This is not Mashiro. Man must serve his spirit, not company. I am samurai. This my spirit. I must serve one lord, one lord who cares about more than clock in car. Mashiro can no be ronin.”
“What’s that?” Francione asked.
Nagai paused, considering whether it was worth the effort to explain it to the punk. “A ronin is a wandering warrior, a samurai who has lost his lord.”
Mashiro nodded vehemently. “Nagai-san is my lord. He tell me do this, I obey. He know best.”
Nagai suddenly remembered the first time he ever saw Mashiro. It was a rainy morning, three, four years ago. He was coming out of his house and he nearly tripped over this strange man kneeling on his doorstep with his head bowed down on the concrete. With great reverence and formality, the stranger introduced himself as a descendent of the samurai Yamashita who served the great warlord Nagai of Kinki in the early days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. He thought the man was out of his mind. Mashiro kept calling him “lord,” though, insisting that this old warlord Nagai was his ancestor, and that he’d come to carry on the tradition of their forefathers. Nagai laughed at him and pointed out that Nagai was a common name, but Mashiro said he was certain of the lineage, though he never said how he knew that. Mashiro explained that he’d gone to great lengths to seek him out so that he could offer his services. Nagai just stared at him, and suddenly it occurred to him that this stranger might be part of his shifting fate. This had happened less than a week after he tried to kill Hamabuchi, the period when he was preparing to face death for his blunder. He was all alone. No one in the Fugukai would talk to him, and his wife had fled to her mother’s house with the children in fear. Normally he would have told the stranger he was crazy and kicked him off his property, but he needed a friend then. Someone to keep him company while he waited for Hamabuchi’s punishment. He invited Mashiro inside and made him tea. That’s how it started.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Francione said, pulling him out of his memories. “Mishmosh had a straight job and he gave it up to join the yaks?”
“There’s much more to it than that. You wouldn’t understand.” Just go away.
“It has to do with honor, Bobby,” D’Urso said softly, looking at Nagai.
“Honor, yes,” Mashiro piped up. “More honor to be yakuza today. No honor in business. Nagai-san stand for something greater than junk. Nagai-san is daimio, warlord from long ago. System today is bad. Big factories make lots of junk. Old way is better. We succeed, we mock system. This is good.”
Francione turned to D’Urso. “I’m not following any of this.”
“What he means, Bobby, is that it’s better to be a good yakuza than to be an ass-licker for some company. Mashiro knows bullshit when he sees it. All these big companies are all bullshit. They’re just into waste and senseless consumerism. Mashiro holds higher values than that. Isn’t that how it goes, Nagai?”
Nagai just stared at D’Urso. Amazing. In his own way D’Urso did understand. Amazing.
Mashiro was nodding again, smiling at D’Urso. “Yes, yes. Better to be samurai for Nagai than insect for Toyota, yes.”
Francione shrugged. “If you say so. Hey, tell me something, Mishmosh. How will your finger there affect your karate chop?”
Mashiro looked puzzled, and Nagai translated. The samurai looked at Francione and grinned cryptically. Nagai laughed at the confused look on the punk’s face. Let him wonder.
“Where is my cousin?”
Nagai stopped laughing. Heads turned toward the voice coming from the doorway, the insistent question in Japanese hanging in the air.
It was one of D’Urso’s slaves, a kid in an oversized, stained, white lab coat, one of those ridiculous paper caps on his head. He stood there in the doorway, glaring at them, then abruptly he bowed to all four of them and spoke to Nagai and Mashiro in Japanese. “My name is Takayuki. My cousin left to find his girlfriend days ago. He has not returned. The rumor is that you killed them. I want to know if this is so.” He stood firm, waiting for an answer.
“What the hell does he want?” D’Urso’s face was a scowl.
“I want to know what has become of my cousin, Mr. D’Urso.” The kid spoke perfect English. “He’s been gone since last Saturday. This isn’t right, how you treat us. This is not what we expected when we signed up for this program back home.”
Takayuki . . . yes. Nagai knew who this kid was. The lovesick puppy who used to help Reiko with her English lessons after school. He remembered her saying that he spoke English just like an American. Nagai often thought he ought to be grateful to the little shit for training such an effective spy. Reiko . . . If D’Urso ever found out about her . . .
Nagai caught Mashiro’s eye then and nodded abruptly. The eager samurai nodded back and turned toward the kid. Mashiro’s broad back blocked his view of the slave’s face. “Make sure all the others see,” Nagai ordered. “Scare some sense into them.”
Mashiro moved quickly, swinging his wide hips in long, round strides. He stood toe-to-toe with Takayuki, motionless, waiting. The boy glowered at him, then started to make his demand again in Japanese, but he was cut off sharply when Mashiro smashed him in the forehead with his own head. Mashiro pushed him out of the doorway and quickly followed after him. Nagai smiled. He knew Mashiro was going to do that.
From the hallway, Nagai could hear the kid trying to protest, but all his pleas were cut short. Then he heard a violent banging, the kid being thrown down the short flight of steps that led to this back wing. There was a moment of silence then. Nagai imagined the whole plant freezing at the sudden arrival of Mashiro with the kid. Whenever he appeared, they froze. He put dread in their hearts like a long, bitter winter. The sounds traveled up to that back room, scuffling feet on the tile floor and young Takayuki’s body slamming against the metal vats as Mashiro’s blows did their work. Then silence again followed by a weak, mounting wail of pain. Nagai looked at D’Urso and smiled. “He’ll be a good boy now.”
D’Urso smiled. “I’m sure he will be. Listen, I got some business to attend to over at my Honda dealership right now, but promise me you’ll consider what I said.”
Nagai nodded. “I’ll let you know.”
Francione looked confused again as he followed his brother-in-law out of the room. When he was alone, Nagai stared up at the gray light coming through the dirty window, trying not to be tempted by the possibilities. But in America anything was possible.
Mashiro reappeared then, his wide silhouette covering the doorway. He was holding onto his blood-smeared hand. The blackened stump was oozing. “The knife and the fire, please.”
Nagai nodded and reached into his pocket. Yes . . . anything was possible.
SIX
GIBBONS SUCKED ON a butterscotch Life Saver and studied Tozzi sitting in the chair next to him. Tozzi’s knee was bouncing as he scanned the top of Ivers’s desk, trying to read the papers laid out there upside-down. He looked jumpy. He usually did these days.
Special Agent in Charge Brant Ivers sat behind his oversized mahogany desk, half-glasses perched on his pointy nose as he read the report in his hand. It might’ve been his imagination, but Gibbons could’ve sworn Ivers was beginning to let the gray show in his temples. The touch of gray combined with the plain navy suit and the white button-down shirt gave him an almost fatherly appearance. Sort of a Teddy Kennedy/Ozzie Nelson crossbreed. As a matter of fact, Ivers’s demeanor had become quite fatherly since Tozzi had come back. Gibbons glanced at the photo of Ivers’s three sons on the desk
. Kids do make you old, Brant. Gibbons grinned meanly.
Ivers peered over his glasses, glanced at Gibbons, then let his skeptical gaze settle on Tozzi. It was another one of his practiced gestures that was supposed to mean something. Shit. If you don’t trust Tozzi, why the hell did you agree to let him take part in this investigation in the first place, asshole? Come on, get on with it.
Ivers let out a long, resigned sigh and shook his head. Gibbons waited for him to say something, but he just kept shaking his head. “So what’s the story, Brant?”
Ivers frowned at him, then stared at Tozzi again. “Not very promising, Bert.”
Gibbons flipped the Life Saver over on his tongue a few times. He hated his first name, Cuthbert, and any variation on it, but he rarely told anyone more than once that he preferred to be called by his last name. If you really knew him, you knew not to call him by his first name. That’s how he knew who his real friends were.
“So what did the labs come up with on the two bodies?” Tozzi asked. Gibbons had told him to just shut up and listen, but Tozzi was too antsy to listen. He never listened. Go ahead and act like a pistol, goombah. That’s just what Ivers is waiting for. An excuse to stick you back in the File Room. What a genius.
Ivers glanced back at Gibbons. He seemed unwilling to address Tozzi directly. Afraid he might bite maybe. “Well, as I assume you know, the two victims found in the Volkswagen were a male and a female. Bone analysis determined that they were in their late teens, early twenties. From their facial features, they think these two were either Korean or Japanese, but that’s really just a guess. We’ve found no missing-persons reports on file that fits their description. The computer came up empty on their fingerprints, so we may assume that they were foreign nationals. We’ll try to get Japanese and Korean authorities to run a check on the prints for us, but from past experience, Washington tells me cooperation on international investigations isn’t very high on their agendas in the East.”
“Were the cuts the cause of death?” Tozzi asked.
Ivers shook his head and shuffled through the reports carefully until he found what he was looking for. He didn’t seem to want to look at Tozzi either. Probably reminded him that the two of them had made him eat crow not too long ago, forcing him to take Tozzi back. Who knows? Maybe Ivers was still embarrassed with himself.
“Shattered vertebrae in the necks of both victims indicate bludgeoning with a heavy object of some sort. The torso wounds were postmortem.”
Tozzi pulled on his bottom lip and stared out the window. Gibbons knew the look. He was already putting together one of his famous theories. Gibbons swore to God he’d kick him in the teeth if he brought up devil cults again.
“Did the lab come up with anything special on the wounds?” The Life Saver rattled against his molars.
“They say the wounds were made by a long, single-edged, razor-sharp blade. Very likely a curved blade of some kind. Our people confirm the ME’s opinion that both wounds were inflicted by a single stroke.” Ivers drew in a sharp breath. Gibbons knew this was all for effect. With Ivers, most of it was. “One of the lab techs added a note of her own. She thinks the weapon could possibly have been a . . . katana, if that’s how you pronounce it. A Japanese samurai sword. Apparently there are dozens of martial-arts retailers around the country who sell them mail-order. Washington is putting together a list for us.”
Gibbons shifted the Life Saver to the other side of his mouth. “Does the modus match anyone we have on file?” Besides Jack the Ripper.
Ivers shook his head. “The computer came up with plenty of postmortem mutilations. But specifically, nothing like this.”
Tozzi chewed his bottom lip and looked over at Gibbons. “Maybe it’s some kind of ritual thing?”
Nice going, Tozzi. Go ahead, show the man that you’re back out in yoyo-land.
Ivers finally looked Tozzi in the eye. He took off his glasses and held them in both hands. “We’re considering that, Mike. Research is looking into it.” He put the glasses back on.
Oh, Jesus.
“What about the blows that broke their necks?” Tozzi asked. “Any idea what that weapon was?”
“Skin wasn’t broken on either of their necks. It could’ve been any of several things: a sap, a rubber truncheon, a rounded metal object of some sort, maybe something wrapped in cloth.”
Gibbons was getting impatient. “They find anything else? How about in the car?”
“The car was pretty clean, I believe,” Ivers said, checking the report to make sure. “But they did find some interesting things in the clothes. Synthetic fibers were found on the corduroy pants the man was wearing, fibers that match the carpeting used in certain Japanese cars currently in production.”
“These fibers weren’t from the Bug?” Gibbons asked.
“No. The Volkswagen had no carpeting. Volkswagen didn’t offer it in those old models.” Ivers flipped a page. “There were also substantial traces of chicken blood on his pants.”
“A Satanic cult,” Tozzi said right away. “They sacrifice chickens.”
Gibbons glared at his partner and bit down hard on the Life Saver.
“In the female’s pants pocket,” Ivers continued, reading from the report, “they found a small set of shears. These.” Ivers showed them an eight-by-ten black and white of an odd-looking set of shears, short, pointy blades with large rabbit-ear handles. “Research says that these particular kind of shears are commonly used to prune bonsai trees. This pair were made in Japan.”
Tozzi’s knee was bouncing all over the place. He was raring to go. Gibbons crunched down on the last slivers of his Life Saver.
Ivers took off his glasses and threw them down on top of the report. “And that’s basically what we’ve got.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Tozzi said. “We’ll need a list of all the cars that have that kind of synthetic carpeting. The shears don’t seem to fit. One of us will have to do some checking around, go someplace where they sell bonsai trees to see what we can pick up. Maybe those kind of shears are used for something else. The cult angle will have to be checked out, too. If there’s nothing on file, I’ll poke around that occult bookstore on Nineteenth Street, see if anything clicks. In the meantime—”
“Hold on, Tozzi.” Ivers didn’t look pleased. “There are a few issues we have to air before we go any further here.”
Gibbons smirked. Told you to shut your yap, goombah.
“I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of you out in the field on your own, Tozzi. Since this isn’t a high-priority case, I think it best that you and Gibbons work together very closely on this. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Hey, wait a minute, Ivers. I didn’t come out of retirement to baby-sit this guy.”
“I don’t want you to baby-sit anyone, Bert. I just think Tozzi should ease his way back into the routine.”
Tozzi looked him in the eye. “Why?”
Ivers eyeballed him right back. “Because the Bureau does not applaud individual efforts, Tozzi, and that seems to be your proclivity. Just because we hushed up your renegade episode, doesn’t mean it’s been forgotten. If you intend to continue as a special agent, you have to get back to doing things the FBI way.”
“I’m back in the fold. I told you.” Tozzi was forcing a smile, trying very hard not to tell the SAC to go fuck himself.
“Let me just refresh your memory on some of the basics. All FBI operations must meet three requirements before confronting criminal suspects: superior manpower, superior weapons, and the element of surprise. We work as a team here, Tozzi. Remember that.”
Tozzi rolled his tongue around in his cheek before he responded. “Right.”
“I’ve ordered Jimmy down in Technical Services not to issue you any equipment without my signed okay. No spur of the moment buggings or any of that. I want to know what you’re doing before you do it.”
“I’ll keep you very informed.”
“And another thing, Tozzi. L
eave your personal arsenal at home. In case you forgot, the special-agent issue weapon is a .357 Magnum revolver. If you intend to remain a special agent, that’s the gun you’ll carry. Understood?”
“Yes.” Tozzi was seething.
Gibbons rubbed the sides of his mouth and watched this little drama unfold. Ivers was merciless, going for the guns like that. Tozzi was very particular about his choice of weapon, and he’d never been comfortable with any single handgun. He always said he was waiting for someone to make the perfect gun—that’s why he switched off so often. He didn’t like the .357 Magnum. Too clunky, he said. He was right about that. Gibbons suddenly became aware of Excalibur, his trusty .38, in the shoulder holster under his armpit.
Ivers turned to Gibbons now. “Do you have anything to add, Bert?”
“Nope.” Gibbons stood up to leave. I don’t want any part of this blanket party, Ivers.
“All right then. You can pick up copies of these reports from my assistant. And remember. I want to be kept apprised of everything. Daily.”
Gibbons nodded as Tozzi got out of his seat and marched across the expensive wine-red Bokhara rug.
“Yes sir,” Tozzi said. “You will be kept informed.”
“Be sure I am.”
Gibbons went out the door first.
“Fuck,” Tozzi grumbled under his breath as he gripped the doorknob.
Gibbons caught the ugly look on Tozzi’s face as the door swung back. He caught the heavy door before it slammed and closed it with a gentle click.
Gibbons tipped the last few drops of beer in the bottle into his glass. Tozzi was sitting sideways on the other side of the booth, looking out at the bar. He was twirling his bottle of Rolling Rock absently on the tabletop. There was this real knockout with long, straight blond hair and incredible legs standing at the bar, sharing a pitcher of frozen blue margaritas with her doggy girlfriends. Gibbons knew Tozzi was checking her out, the horny bastard. So was he.
“You gonna listen to him?” Gibbons said, staring at the blonde’s legs. “About the Magnum, I mean.”
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