Too many distractions and too much speed. Yes, he could cover more streets in less time, but he might miss something. And the car felt like more comfort than he deserved. If Lucas was being held bound and gagged by the madman who had killed Sandy, then he owed it to her to make his best effort. Back in high school before Desmond had sealed the deal, Sandy had wounded Chuck with the f-word: friend. He’d never wanted to be her friend, but if ever there was a day when she needed him to be one…today was that day.
“Don’t kid yourself, Chuck,” he said aloud. Redemption might be the main dish on the menu here, but if he was going to be honest with himself, there was also a side of glory. If he found the killer before the FBI did, if he single-handedly rescued Lucas, then it wouldn’t matter what missteps he’d made before, he’d come out of this a hero.
Mulling over the potential effects of success—in the department, in the papers, hell fuck the local papers, COP SAVES BOY FROM KATANA KILLER was one for the cable news tickers, interview at eleven—he looked up from the pavement…and providence smiled on him. There, in front of a little pale yellow cape cod, tucked between two rows of neatly trimmed shrubs, was one of those raked white gravel gardens with a squat, black Asian lantern stained green with oxidation from the rain.
Chapter 22
Shaun Bell set the paper crane in the center of the kitchen table like a folded linen napkin, then abruptly knocked it over when an assertive triple knock thundered from the front door. There was a doorbell, but whoever was on the step had decided that a chime wouldn’t convey the urgency of their needs. He looked at the clock in the den. Sensei would be home in less than an hour, would find the crane in less than an hour, and would come for Lucas soon after. There was no time for diversion.
He crept to the door as quietly as he could, sliding his feet on the wood floor in the way that he had been trained to do for stealth and stability. He crouched low when he reached the bay window, and peered out through the slit in the white curtain without touching it.
The street was easy to see from this vantage point. There were no cars parked in front of the house. No police cruisers, no vans marked or unmarked. The body at the door was a man in a polo shirt and khakis, heavyset with big arms. It was impossible to see his face. Bell considered moving to the window in the master bedroom to get a wider view, but moving would burn time he didn’t have.
He had already given Desmond a head start by setting the first bird to fly in the back pocket of a teen on a bike. For a twenty dollar bill the kid had promised to deliver the crane to Desmond’s beach house mailbox, and had ridden like the wind, at least for as long as Bell could see him. Carmichael was a free man now. He might be at home or he might not. He might decipher the message quickly, or not. That was as it should be. Bell felt he owed the boy a chance, but only a chance. He wanted to see if Desmond Carmichael would do what his own father had never done: act with the urgency of love, be in the right place at the right time. The man lived in a fog of selfish fantasy. Bell had hoped that the steel breeze blowing through his life would wake him. So far it hadn’t, but people could change.
Sensei was a more reliable force. He would arrive with the gravity of a guillotine blade. Sensei carried no cell phone because the police could track the GPS chips, so his every move had been planned in advance, from here to Ohio and back. Flying back to Massachusetts wasn’t an option after yesterday’s massacre, and the drive was fourteen hours without roadblocks. Very soon he would be back. He would expect to find Lucas Carmichael, the last name on the scroll, waiting in the basement for him.
Things would be a little different, however. Instead of the boy, he would find a message—mysterious to the police but quite clear to him—telling him where to find his prey. If the cops were onto their scent, the change of scene for the execution would make sense. If this was a cop at the door, then it could be an auspicious turn of events, a broom across the tracks of the betrayal Bell was flirting with.
The man on the front stoop shielded his eyes with his hand and tried to peer into the house through the curtains. It was Fournier, the detective from whose house Bell had seized Lucas. How could the cop have found him so fast? He had been practically invisible during the abduction, had spent less than a minute on the property, and had used stolen plates on the car. Fournier must have found the house by other means. Was the cop alone? Did others know where he was? Bell felt the urge to run out the back door and disappear, race back to the corn maze and kill the boy before the cruisers and SWAT vans swarmed the place, before Sensei even found the note. But he knew that flight would guarantee pursuit. Better to confront the threat here, to sever this loose thread and pray to Fudo Myoto that it wasn’t tied to a larger net.
The face withdrew from the window and the knock came again, followed by the door chime. Shaun Bell looked down at his clothes. His black jeans were dusty from the Palace of Pain, but there was no theatrical blood from the exhibits on his knees or shoes.
He inhaled, opened the door, and presented a puzzled expression with raised brow.
Fournier held up a leather wallet, flipped it open and displayed a badge. “Detective Charles Fournier,” he said, looking first at Bell’s hands and hip pockets, then past him at the room beyond. “I’m looking for Mr. Hashimoto. Is he here?”
“He’s out of town visiting relatives. Should be home tomorrow. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m house sitting and looking after his cat. I’m actually on my way out.”
“I didn’t ask what you’re doing. I asked who you are. Name.”
“Shaun Bell.”
“You mind if I come in for a minute, Shaun? I’d like to ask you a few questions about Mr. Hashimoto. He may be in trouble, and it’s important that I reach him.”
“Okay,” Bell said, taking a step backward, and attenuating his posture and body language in countless small ways to create the illusion of a scrawny, graceless teen with no training whatsoever in martial arts. He almost tripped over a footstool as he made way for Fournier, who seemed satisfied with his own intimidating presence as he stepped into the room and gestured for Bell to sit on the couch while he picked up a wooden rocking chair, spun it around to face both the couch and the door, and sat down with his back to a wall.
“Just a sec,” Bell said. “Let me just close the cellar door, so the cat doesn’t get out. I was scooping the box when I heard you knocking.”
“I thought you said you were leaving.”
“Almost. I’ll be right back.”
“He keeps his cat locked in the basement?”
“Only when he’s away. She acts out, scratches the furniture. Let me just make sure she didn’t follow me up, shut that door,” Bell said, already walking toward the back of the house without waiting for permission. As he passed through the dining room, he brushed his hand across the table and swept the origami crane up. He could hear Fournier following, the big man’s heavy footsteps creaking on the wood floor, then squeaking on the linoleum, but by then Bell had reached the cellar stairs and descended the first few steps into darkness.
Fournier stood in the doorframe, a silhouette, drawing his weapon. “Hey! Get back here!” he yelled. “Back the fuck up the stairs with your hands on your head.”
Bell stood in the shadows just below the last stair that the light from the kitchen windows could reach. Silent and motionless except for his left hand, now taking a katana from the stairwell wall where it hung beside a calligraphy scroll—a sword that could pass for decor if the house was ever searched or could serve the purpose at hand.
Fournier took cover around the corner of the doorframe, pointed his sidearm low in both hands, and shouted, “Now! I want to hear you stomping up these stairs right now, or I will start shooting into the dark.”
The light switch was inside the stairwell, close enough to the top that Bell knew Fournier could see it. Was the detective brave enough to reach for it? Bell hoped so, because the other cop move to mak
e right now was to call in help. It was the smarter move and the one that he might not be fast enough to prevent against a man with a gun on higher ground.
Bell centered himself with three cleansing breaths. He slid the scabbard through his belt and unlocked the sword with his thumb. If Fournier shot into the darkness…was the man really that impulsive?
Bell resisted the urge to scurry down the stairs or to flatten his body against the wall. Impulsive moves driven by fear, they would commit him to a path based on actions his opponent had not yet taken. Far better to remain alert yet empty, ready to allow his body to move spontaneously in the living moment.
He heard Sensei’s voice: You must accept your death, embrace it, get it out of your way, and then make every cut with such conviction that it is your final move, your only move. The true warrior ends the conflict before he has even drawn the sword because he has killed his fear. Everything that follows is merely writing a poem you have already composed in your mind. The verse arises in the moment, and the blade, like a brush, merely paints the strokes in your opponent’s blood. Every cut is the killing cut.
Fournier was looking around for something he could flip the light switch with—a broom handle or any kind of pole that would keep his hand out of range of that terminus of shadow beyond which razored steel might lie in wait. For a man with a firearm, he looked nervous. Was he crazy enough, reckless enough, scared enough to discharge his weapon at someone who might be a mere cat-sitter?
The question was answered with barking fire. Three shots, deafening in the narrow stairwell. Before the first was fired, Bell saw the trajectory of the cop’s arms rising and committing to a direction as if in slow motion, saw the wrists twisting inward as the hands tightened their grip on the gun’s handle, and saw the predictable pattern emerging, left, center, right, the shots sweeping across the shadowy void. Somehow Bell had intuited the mind of his enemy, and without thinking, rolled his body into the first shot, moving toward the flash of orange light, toward the cloud of plaster dust felt like mist from a waterfall on his cheek. He ducked under the first shot, and was clear of the second and third when they followed fast in its wake.
Fournier stepped into the stairwell and fumbled for the light switch. Bell rose on his haunches and squeezed the silk braid of the sword hilt gently, his wrist limber, ready to draw and cut Fournier’s hand clean off before the light could come on. But before Fourier could find the switch plate there was an explosion of splintering wood followed by the thunderclap of the front door rebounding off of the wall in the foyer. Fournier swung around and pointed his gun at the den.
“Jesus!” He said, and then knowing he had lost the advantage unless his shots had wounded or killed (and there had been no cry, although Bell now thought maybe he should have faked a yelp of pain to lure Fournier forward), he threw his bulk around the outside of the doorframe again, pointing his gun at the floor.
Bell doubted that the new body on the scene really was Jesus. Had to be another cop alerted by the shots. Sensei certainly wouldn’t enter his own house by kicking the door in. If Sensei had come home to the sound of shots fired, Fournier would already be in pieces on the kitchen floor.
“Suspect fled to the basement,” Fournier said.
“Just one?” A low, calm voice that did little to put Bell at ease.
“Yeah.”
“Armed?”
“I don’t know. Have you been following me?”
“Thought you might pull a dumb stunt like this. You don’t know if he’s armed, but you shot at him?”
“He fled questioning.”
“Did he threaten you?”
Fournier shook his head.
“You’re gonna take me down with you,” the other cop said in wonder. “The only cause I have for busting in here is your shots. You trying to kill a man for his brand of cigarettes or did you find something?”
“We can discuss it later, Pasco. Are you gonna help me catch this shifty fucker or not?”
Pasco said, “I circled the house and there’s no basement door, just small windows. Is he thin enough?”
“Might be.”
Pasco reached for his belt, but what he drew wasn’t a gun or a radio. It was a flashlight.
Bell danced down the stairs, light-footed and silent, careful not to knock the scabbard against the wall. At the bottom he slipped out of range of the searching beam but lingered near enough to hear their voices.
“You see that statue in the front room?” Fournier asked. Pasco must have indicated “no” because Fournier said, “Some kind of Buddhist demon with a flaming sword and a chain. This be the place, Mac. This is our guy.”
“Call in backup.” Pasco said, then in a loud, clear voice, “Sir, we just want to talk with you. I’m going to turn on the light, and I want you to come forward with your hands up.”
When the light came on, Bell was already in the far corner of the basement. He pivoted on his heel to face the wall, and then lowered himself into seiza position on one of the tatami mats, kneeling with his buttocks on his heels. He heard only one set of footsteps, first on the stairs behind him, and then on the concrete floor. The other cop would be hanging back until the first one got a read on the room.
“Put your hands on your head,” Fournier said, sounding more confident now that he had a partner and a clear shot on a well-lit target. If, that was, he decided to shoot a kneeling man in the back. “Forget the windows, I’ve got him covered!” Fournier shouted at the stairs, and Bell could tell from the way the voice bounced around the room that Fournier had turned his head about 45 degrees to the right to call for Pasco. “Hands on your head, motherfucker!” Fournier yelled, now facing forward again.
Bell remained as still as a statue but for the deep focusing breaths. His shoulders did not move with those cycles, only his stomach, his center of gravity where he gathered the Qi. His hands rested on the insides of his thighs, and he gave not the slightest sign that he had heard the command. Not a word, not a move, not a tick of the head. But he listened so very closely to the texture of Fournier’s footsteps as they moved across the concrete and the grass mats. The room became an acoustic chessboard as he stared at the blank wall tracking Fournier’s unseen progress across the grid of mats. If he did nothing he would soon feel the cold muzzle of the gun between his shoulder blades. He imagined how hard it must be for a man as impulsive as Fournier to resist shooting someone who had a sword strapped on after all those victims of the blade. But Bell was presenting an indefensible opportunity for a kill shot. Forensics would show that he had been shot from behind while kneeling. It was impossible to make a threatening gesture in such a position. And yet, Shaun Bell knew that in his Zen silence, immovable as a rock, he was broadcasting an air of menace as thick as a curtain of incense.
There was only one more thing he needed to hear, and there it was, the sound of Pasco jogging down the stairs and coming up behind Fournier. These lighter footsteps veered off to the left behind him. Pasco sounded a little winded when he said, “I know your motive, but what you don’t know is you’ve been killing the wrong people. I have proof.” Bell let these syllables wash over him like birdsong, or the barking of a dog. The sounds arose, vibrated the air molecules in the room, and vanished into emptiness. There was nothing in them that could lure him off balance, no wind in them that could stir the deep waters of his mindfulness.
There were katas for every configuration of opponents, forms that began from sitting, from kneeling, from standing, with opponents front and back, or at angles, but all of the traditional forms were designed for use against opponents who were themselves swordsmen, who would need to come in close to strike. Now Bell was drawing two gunmen in close, and he expected that within less than a minute he would be dead. There was a temptation to surrender to this knowledge. If he died here now, he would not have to kill the boy.
But expecting death and reconciling himself to death did not mean that he was willing to give them his death. They would pay dearly for it because he
was a Spirit Warrior, and a samurai.
Bell felt the latest inhalation reach the root of his central channel, then, rising on the winged heels of its release, he spun around—a motion he had practiced thousands of times in the days since he’d been a gangly teen in California: the opening of the kata Ushiro. In one fluid motion the orientation of his body changed, pivoting on the anchor point of his right knee, his left coming up at a right angle to the floor as he stomped his foot forward, his blade flashing through a high horizontal arc that sliced Fournier’s eyeball open like a grape, then bisected the bridge of his nose where a ribbon of blood streamed out in its wake. Accelerating again once freed from the minor resistance of cartilage, the blade swung out to the uttermost limit of Bell’s reach where it nicked Pasco’s wrist as he recoiled in a reflexive shielding gesture. It was a fatal mistake for the second cop, who should have stepped back and fired, but he’d been thrown off by the sudden need to dodge steel where less than a second ago there had been only a kneeling man facing a wall.
Fournier dropped his gun and staggered backward, half blind and howling, pressing his hands against the gushing laceration on his face. Bell came up into a standing pose, swinging the sword around in a whirling motion that in the kata would have been a blood throw, but now became a kind of rechambering, bringing the blade overhead for a downward killing stroke.
Pasco regained his balance and dropped into a stable shooting stance. Bell spun on the ball of his anchored left foot and launched a side kick into Pasco’s gut, causing him to buckle forward. The gun went off, punching a hole clean through Bell’s still airborne calf, the bullet ricocheting off of the concrete floor with a spark.
Steel Breeze Page 22