Assignment - Manchurian Doll

by Edward S. Aarons

  He looked around for the young Japanese girl who had followed him from the hotel. She was not in sight. The crowd pressed him forward behind the jingling bells of the soba cart.

  The temple was a low affair with a wooden pavilion circling it. Deep gongs sounded from the red-curtained entrance. The stream of tourists divided, most going to the front, where there were picnic grounds on the beach beyond. Durell turned left, following the jingling bicycle cart. There were three doors in the back wall of the temple. All were closed, recessed in deep shadow under the feathery eaves. A small porch ran the length of this end. Several people had gathered under the shade of nearby pines to rest.

  The soba man paused at the door and twisted his head around to grin at Durell.

  “My son-in-law waits inside. There is no danger. He will help you. And you must help him.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Durell went up on the porch and walked directly to the third door, a panel painted bright blue; he pushed it open and went in.

  There was only darkness.

  He flattened immediately against the wall to his right, feeling the pressure of the wooden panels against his shoulders. After the dazzling glare of the hot sun, there was nothing he could see, but he could sense he was in a small room that smelled of cedar and incense and a man’s fearful sweat.

  “Hunh-hunh,” a voice said. “I wouldn’t want to tackle you even like this, Cajun. Forget the gun. We’re alone.”

  He smelled of shochu, the cheap wine sold in the workers’ districts, and not even the thick incense of the temple could stifle it. Durell’s eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom and he saw he was in an utterly bare, little room with another door opposite the one he had entered. Waldo Fingal sat on the polished wooden floor against the far door, his white suit dirty and rumpled.

  “Put away the bottle, Waldo,” Durell told him.

  “Sure. It’s empty. I haven’t the price of another, either.” “How drunk are you?”

  “Drunk enough to be here, but not enough to chase the glooms. It’s good to see you, Sam. You haven’t changed.” “I’ve changed,” Durell said.

  “So have I, hunh. Not so pretty, I guess. Have you got any of the taxpayer’s money to spend on incidentals, Sam?” “Some. Are you an incidental?”

  “What I’ve got to sell is the god’s truth.”

  “Then sell it,” Durell said.

  “Listen, Sam, I’ve had a hard time. I never blamed you when they kicked me out as a security risk. You could’ve slapped me in a Federal pen, the way I got the willies and funked out. But I never really let you down. I just shook at every shadow, that was all. That’s how it was. I never blamed you for the way I threw it all away.”

  “Stand up, Waldo, and let’s have a look at you.”

  “I’m not so pretty. I’m a beaten old man.”

  “Is that really your father-in-law outside, selling soup? He says you married his daughter.”

  “She died of T.B. in six months. Or maybe it was a broken heart. The Japanese can do that, you know.”

  Waldo Fingal was an emaciated skeleton of a man. His wispy hair was like a halo around his partially bald head. His nose was sharp and gray, like something fashioned out of actor’s putty. He wore his white suit carelessly. Only his eyes were alive, filled with eternal terror, still intellectually brilliant, dourly amused at himself. When he moved closer to Durell, the smell of sour wine on his breath was oppressive.

  “Did you read any of the Colette book?” Fingal asked. “I did a fine translation there. When it was finished, I had enough to live on for six months. It was my last job of that sort. That’s why I went to work for Omaru, when he contacted me.”

  “Omaru?”

  “Omaru runs the Kaiwa Trading Corporation. He runs people and propaganda and espionage cash back and forth along the East Asia coasts. Uses his fishing boats for that. You’re going to work with him, Sam. It was his pipeline that got you the message about Colonel Alexi Kaminov.” “You know a lot, Waldo. It could be dangerous.”

  “All of life seems dangerous to me. That’s my trouble. If you don’t know Omaru, he’ll contact you. You’ll have to use his apparatus. I work for him, as I said. A mean bastard—Irish-Japanese. A combination, hunh? He married the widow of a Japanese baron who went into industry and made a pile in Manchuria in the Thirties. Isome, that’s her name. She’s a witch, all right, a tiny, beautiful bag of dirty tricks. They say she’s the true brains of the KGB Apparat here, but nobody knows. Omaru is just a businessman playing both sides of the fence.”

  “What kind of work do you do for him, Waldo?”

  “I run errands. And I work his code books for communication. That’s how I know all about Kaminov.”

  “I see.”

  Fingal said: “How much can you spare for me, Cajun?”

  “It depends.”

  Fingal giggled. “How much is your life worth, hunh?”

  “It depends on who wants it,” Durell said.

  “Well, you know the KGB people have you on their list.” “I’ve known that for some time.”

  “And Omaru is a businessman.”

  “How much will they offer Omaru?”

  “Twenty thousand, American.”

  “Are you sure, Waldo?”

  “It’s a pretty good price in the current market. You ought to be flattered, Cajun. They’re a bit tight-fisted about American currency. The exchange problem, you know.”

  Durell said, “Is there any truth in the message that Kaminov wants to come over to our side?”

  “Hunh. Yes. It’s true. He wants to. I decoded his message in Omaru’s pipeline myself.”

  “Where is Kaminov now?”

  “In Manchuria.”

  “That’s a big place. Where?”

  “The coast, somewhere. I don’t know.”

  “Tell me, Waldo.”

  “I would, and for free, Sam. Honest. You were good to me, and I’d tell you for free. But I don’t know.”

  “Does Omaru know?”

  “No.”

  “Then who does?”

  “The girl. Kaminov’s girlfriend. The bitch who runs the KGB apparatus in their embassy here. Nadja Osmanovna.”

  “How would she know?”

  “Colonel Kaminov fixed it, for insurance, because he wants to get out only if the girl comes with him, you see? He wants her real bad, I suppose. He’s a fool. But he’s hinging it all on whether she comes over to you, along with him, you see?” Waldo made a gulping noise. His thin frame wavered in the gloomy little temple room. Durell heard the reverberating boom of a gong in another part of the ancient wooden structure. The air shook.

  Waldo said: “I was going to charge you plenty for all this, Sam, and here I’m giving it away free.”

  “You’ll get paid. So we need Osmanovna’s cooperation just to find out where Kaminov is holed up in Manchuria. It’s presumably near the coast. But from what I hear, the girl is dedicated to her work. Any ideas on where or how to persuade her?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right. What else?”

  “Their death list, Sam. They want to pick you off when you go over there. On their territory, you see? Much better for their propaganda machine, right? Right?”

  “I see.”

  “Omaru’s in it. The fat bastard always plays a double game. You use him, he collects from you, then he uses you and collects blood-money when you cross over and he hands you to the other side. Kaminov gets shot. The girl, too, if she plays along with you. As for you—I hate to think of it.”

  “I see,” Durell said again.

  “Don’t you believe me, Sam?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Listen, Sam, Omaru would skin me alive—I mean that literally, he plays games that way—if he knew I contacted you like this.” “Are you sure?”

  “Of what?”

  “Are you sure Omaru himself didn’t set this up?”

  Waldo snorted angrily. “You’re too damned devious, Sam. You�
�re too suspicious.”

  “That’s how to stay alive in this business.”

  Waldo grew angrier. “Well, hell, I just came here to do you a favor. My neck isn’t worth much, but I like to keep it without slits, you know. You were good to me once, Sam, and I didn’t want Omaru to fatten his bank accounts with your carcass, that’s all. You want to forget it, all right. You don’t owe me anything at all.”

  “And you haven’t told me everything,” Durell said. “Hunh?”

  “I’ll pay you, Waldo.”

  “A hundred?”

  “Much more, if it’s worth it.”

  Fingal’s eyes glinted white in the gloom. The air was thicker now with the smell of incense. Some sort of ceremony had begun in the other part of the temple. They could hear the shuffling of feet, the beating of more gongs.

  Durell said: “Don’t invent anything now, Waldo. You could still die in a Leavenworth cell, you know.”

  “Well, it’s just that Kaminov is at a place. . .”

  “Where?”

  “I just don’t know where! The girl knows, that Nadja Osmanovna. That cold, bitchy doll is the key. And they’re all scared of her. A beautiful murder machine, that’s what she is. But she set up a private code with Kaminov, a long time ago, I guess. He was her instructor in Moscow, when she was at the KGB training school. Something private, just between them.”

  “What is it?” Durell insisted.

  “Pere Jacques," Waldo said.

  “What?”

  “That’s all of it. That’s the word. It’s the key that tells you where Kaminov is waiting for you to come and get him. Omaru would like to know what it is, too. When you get the girl and ask her, and if she tells you where it is or what it means, you go there in one of Omaru’s boats. Up to then, it’s a clean operation. But once you contact Kaminov, it gets good and dirty. Omaru turns you over to them, they scratch you off their Blue List, they nab Kaminov and shoot him as a traitor, and count their blood-money. Hunh-hunh.” Waldo was laughing. “So that’s the word. Pere Jacques. Mean anything at all to you, Sam?”

  “No,” Durell said.

  “Well, Osmanovna will know.”

  “Is it a place, or a person?”

  “It’s nothing. It might be everything . . . I’ve got to go now, Sam.”

  “Wait, Waldo.”

  “No. All of a sudden, I’m scared. I talked too much. You owe me a hundred, right? Omaru will kill me, though, if he finds the money on me. You could mail it to me. I’ll call your hotel, give you my address. It’s a bookstore, a front where Omaru stores printed propaganda matter taken over by his boats. I do translations. They’ve got a printing press there, too. The bookstore used to belong to my wife.”

  “Waldo—”

  “Please let me go now, Sam. Good luck.” Waldo went to the outer door. His thin frame was no more than a passing shadow. Then all at once he grinned and stuck out a shaking, emaciated hand to Durell. Durell took it. It was like holding a handful of wet twigs. Waldo said: “Give me a minute to mix with the crowd, hunh? And one last word of advice, Sam. You want some advice from me?”

  “I’m listening,” Durell said.

  “Then forget about Colonel Kaminov. Go after Omaru. He’s the one. Kill him. Smash him. Then go home. That’s all.”

  He was gone.

  There was a quick glare of light as he opened the door, then the gloom returned. Durell waited one minute, wanting a cigarette, wondering how much of Fingal’s information he could believe. He decided to talk it over with Eliot Barnes and Tagashi at their meeting today.

  He heard Waldo Fingal’s scream as he stepped outside into the harsh sunlight.

  From the rear pavilion where he stood he could look across the miniature gardens and ponds and small, jewel-like bridges to where the crowd was gathering, like steel filings attracted to a magnet, sweeping along the paths toward Waldo.

  The man had moved fast—but not fast enough.

  Durell jumped from the pavilion and walked with the crowd. He did not see the old soba seller or the Japanese teenage girl who had followed him from his hotel.

  He was much taller than most of the Japanese, and he could look down to where the three black-uniformed Japanese police had cleared a space around Fingal. He saw Fingal’s face, teeth bared to the white, bright sky. There was a bone-handled knife up to the hilt between his skinny ribs.

  But not much blood. There didn’t have to be. The knife had been shoved straight home to Waldo Fingal’s heart.

  CHAPTER THREE

  He knew the girl was somewhere near. She had not followed him for nothing. He did not know who she was or what she wanted, but he determined to find out. Perhaps she had seen Waldo killed, or had done it herself. One reason for Fingal’s death was obvious—he had been killed by Omaru for talking to him. He would settle that later. He would make up for Fingal’s death, because it was a small death for himself, and Fingal’s life, however mean and hopeless, lessened his own chances for survival when it was lost.

  He stopped thinking about it and concentrated on the girl. She had been a clumsy shadow. Perhaps she would be an equally clumsy quarry. Durell slid into the role of hunter with a grim, single-minded ease.

  She had used public transportation to follow him, and unless she was part of the affair that tied into Waldo Fingal, and had been picked up by a car as part of that business, she had to use the bus back to Tokyo. He walked with a long stride back across the park, and was gratified to pick her up quickly.

  She made the mistake of turning her head, as if looking for him, and he saw she was pale with fright. Her eyes locked with his—a mistake no professional would make—and then she stepped aboard the crowded bus. The bus door slammed shut and she was away from him, the dust churning up under the vehicle’s wheels, heading back to the city.

  He could wait for a second bus, but there were a hundred or more stops on the way, and she could get off and vanish before his own bus came in sight. He couldn’t afford that. The single wide-eyed glance she had thrown him had shown him she was acting in panic, running from Waldo’s death, cancelling her own commitment to follow him.

  Near the bus stop was a coastal road to a cluster of fishing piers and teahouses. Some cars were parked there. The second one was a taxi. The driver wasn’t around. Durell saw the keys in the ignition and slid inside. The car was a Datsun, and he was familiar enough with it.

  The fact that he was a Westerner, if he were caught pinching the taxi, would raise hell with the local police. But he had to risk that. A man going into the teahouse gave him a hard, curious stare, but kept going. The driver didn’t come out. In fact, there was no alarm at all.

  Just luck, he thought grimly.

  It could turn out to be the sort of luck Waldo Fingal had.

  He caught up to the bus before it made its first stop. The girl didn’t get off. She didn’t get off at any of the other stops along the route through Tokyo’s industrial suburbs, either. It was hotter here, and the highway was typically Japanese—poorly maintained and overcrowded. He was aware of fatigue from the long flight over the Pacific that had ended only this morning. Fortunately, he had breakfasted on the jet, and he had long ago learned to snatch sleep and rest under any conditions. He could keep going for seventy-two hours, if necessary.

  It was noon when the bus he was following swung past Hibaya Park. The girl got off there. Durell immediately swung the cab to the curb and left it, keys inside, and walked after the girl. She did not look back. She walked quickly, her head high, her small hips swinging insolently in her tight blue jeans, her thick black hair bobbing as she weaved in and out along the crowded sidewalks.

  As in every city, wealth lived cheek-by-jowl with poverty in Tokyo, but here there were even greater contrasts. Along the whirling neon signs of the Ginza, which never seemed to be turned off, there were women in kimonos or Western frocks, Indian saris, or assortments of rags. There were old women in coveralls, straw sandals and gumboots, and children in stiffly starched dre
sses and shirts. Traffic swarmed in rivers of bicycles, crammed trolleys and cars, but the current always made way for Tokyo’s religious personalities—Shinto kannushi priests, Buddhists, Catholic nuns. There were proud Indian Sikhs in pink turbans, black students’ tunics, American military uniforms, Hindu saddhus and swarms of short, aggressive Japanese businessmen in dark, Madison-Avenue-style suits.

  The girl picked up a bicycle out of a rack near the Mitsukoshi department store and then pedaled slowly toward the Babylonian architecture of the Diet Building. Durell followed easily on foot—the traffic was jammed, and her progress was slower than his. Once he had to pause, and he bought a copy of the Tokyo newspaper Mainichi and pretended to read it.

  He wondered if she worked for the police or the man named Omaru. She wore her silk shirt hanging out over the blue jeans, and he guessed she was not more than twenty. Her glossy black hair was clipped in straight bangs across her forehead and made her look like a souvenir Nipponese doll. He followed her through the cascading balloons that carried advertising ideograms proclaiming the virtues of beer, toothpaste or butter. The afternoon sun was hotter than before.

  She turned into a side-street off the Nishi, finally, and Durell found himself in a narrow, cobbled alley that echoed with clattering sandals and the cries of peddlers hawking bean paste, tea, fish and Coca-Cola. He noted many pachinko parlors—the pinball craze that gripped modem Japan. He waved off two painted, simpering pam-pam girls and waited for a procession of yellow-robed priests to pass, holding red umbrellas, and followed by turbulent youngsters dressed and masked as devils and dragons. The girl parked her bicycle against the curb and then stared into a gaudy pachinko parlor a few feet away.

  Durell had almost forgotten the tremendous crush of people in Tokyo. There were nightclubs, bars, restaurants displaying their specialty of raw slabs of fish rolled into rice balls. You could please every exotic taste and fashion here, he thought.

  He did not close in on the girl until she walked on and then paused outside the dim, speckled window of an old-fashioned Chinese chemist’s. The place looked somewhat sinister with its display jars of mummified snakes, vipers and tortoises, and big bottles of poisonous-looking liquids.