The Art of Arrow Cutting

by Stephen Dedman

  “Well?”

  “I think they’re poisoned.”

  “You mean envenomed,” said Goldin with a faint sniff. He lifted the knife gingerly and stared at the edge. “Could be poison, could just be oil or something. Is it urgent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me guess. If I identify it in time, someone doesn’t die and your client gets off with assault instead of murder and he’s out doing this again in six months.”

  “It’s not for a client.”

  “Uh-huh. What’re the symptoms?”

  “He’s your coma patient. They were found outside his apartment. In his parking spot, in fact.”

  “Oh?” Goldin raised his skinny eyebrows. “Do the cops know about these?”

  “Not yet … but if you don’t want them, I’ll give them to—”

  “No, I’ll look at them,” replied Goldin blandly. “I was wondering about poison; the blood tests were negative for obvious gram-negative and gram-positive shit and all the usual drugs, and the stomach pump came up with nothing except his dinner. I thought it might be fugu, but it’s not …”

  “Fugu?”

  “Blowfish poison; you get it from blowfish sushi. Idiots eat it to show they’re macho, we had a case of it last month. I’d even thought of curare, but curare’s fast; he would’ve died two or three times while they were doing the paperwork.”

  “What could it be?”

  “Almost anything. Ask me again at the autopsy.” Kelly waited, knowing that Goldin couldn’t resist an opportunity to show off. “I don’t have enough of the history. I haven’t even seen him—”

  “He drove from his apartment to the blood bank, apparently okay and feeling no pain. He passed out quietly on the table. At first they thought he’d fainted and didn’t realize anything was wrong until they looked at his eyes.”

  “Uh-huh. What sort of time frame are we talking about here?”

  “He blacked out at seven thirty-nine. He’d been at the blood bank for less than twenty minutes.”

  “And it’s now … twelve past ten, so he’s been paralyzed for nearly two and a half hours, unless he’s died since you came down here.” Goldin shook his head. “There weren’t any needle tracks on him except from the blood bank, much less stab wounds, just a small scratch on the back of his hand … seems more like a snake bite or a spider, something like that.”

  “Aren’t there—”

  “Antivenins? Yeah, sure, but they’re all specific and the wrong one can kill him. You better hope he’s tough— and lucky.”

  No, I’m not a relative. His relatives are dead.” Mage decided not to mention Manson. “His ex-girlfriend’s teaching English in Beijing. I’m a friend of his—I was staying in his apartment.”

  The desk nurse looked uncertainly at the monitor. “He’s still in a coma. We can ask him when he regains consciousness …”

  “What if he doesn’t regain consciousness?”

  “I …”

  “Oh, Jesus.” The nurse flushed. Wrong approach, he realized suddenly; try charm, it’s what I’m … what I used to be good at before this started. Kelly can intimidate her, if necessary; she’s had practice. Softly, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I’m under a lot of pressure. Look, can I talk to his doctor? Please?” He gave her his best little-boy-lost smile.

  Most nurses, in his experience, saw themselves as ministering angels—why else would they work hours like this for such lousy pay? —and the hospital was, after all, called the Good Samaritan. He watched her face carefully and noticed a slight uncertainty there. He would have been crestfallen to realize that the nurse, thoroughly tired of deflecting passes from patients and visitors alike, was wondering how best to get rid of him.

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Can’t you page him?” Mage asked instantly. “I can wait.” They tried to outstare each other; he won. The nurse reached for the intercom and paged Dr. Barre.

  “Thank you,” whispered Mage as he backed away from the desk. The nurse smiled tightly and hung up. Mage took a seat, closed his eyes and waited.

  “Any luck?”

  He opened an eye and noticed Kelly sitting beside him. “Are you kidding? A ninja couldn’t get into his room.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  Mage did a double take and then laughed. “They’ve paged his doctor. Maybe you should try persuading him. Ah … are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she replied automatically. “Why?”

  “You look … I don’t know. Shaky.”

  Kelly shivered slightly. “Hospitals scare me. I can cope with monsters if I have to—I will have to now, won’t I?”

  Mage shrugged.

  “Can guns hurt them?”

  “It worked on the rukoro-kubi.”

  “I meant bullets.”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Charlie. What did the toxicologist say?”

  “Nothing very useful. How’s your arm?”

  “It feels—” He noticed a tall, silver-haired man in a white coat walking toward them and shut up.

  “Mr. Magistrale?”

  Mage decided against correcting his pronunciation. “Yes. Dr. Barre?”

  “That’s right. I understand you’re Mr. Takumo’s roommate?”

  “Not really. I’m just passing through town. I’m his friend.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “About a week. We met in Canada.”

  “Know anything about his medical history?”

  “Not really. He said he was taking codeine until a few months ago for a back injury … and that he didn’t take any other drugs.” Barre grunted. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “It’s what we call a cryptogenic coma.”

  Kelly smiled thinly. “If I remember my Latin, ‘cryptogenic’ just means that you don’t know what causes it. Am I right?”

  “Actually, I believe the root words are Greek,” replied Barre urbanely. “And the term also means that we’ve been able to eliminate the most common causes of coma. Apart from that, you’re essentially correct. Are you a lawyer?”

  “I’m with the P.D.’s office, yes, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  Barre’s toothy smile suggested that he was glad to hear it. He turned to Mage. “The nurse says you want to see Mr. Takumo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Mage looked to Kelly for help, but none was forthcoming. “You know he hasn’t any next of kin?” Barre nodded. “If he were my brother—hell, my cousin—you’d let me see him, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have cousins I’ve never met,” said Mage, “and you’d let me see them? Charlie’s my friend, and it’s not as though there’s a queue waiting to get in.”

  Barre raised an eyebrow at that and considered. Then he nodded slowly and glanced at his digital watch. “I really should check up on Mr. Takumo. You can come in with me. Two minutes, and don’t touch anything—and the camera stays outside. All right?”

  Charlie looked very small, bound in a web of tapes and tubes and wires. Mage stared at the EEG and EKG readouts, not understanding them, knowing only that a flat line would mean that his friend was dead. He unwrapped the talisman from around his arm and gripped it tightly. If you can cure leukemia, he thought grimly, you can help him.

  Nothing happened.

  “His heart—should it be that slow?”

  Barre glanced at him, then shook his head slightly.

  Mage grit his teeth. The tubes and wires made it impossible to hang the key around Charlie’s neck, and his hands draped limply on the sheets, like dead flowers. Mage concentrated on the key. Charlie said that a god made you, he thought. Okay. Make him well … and he can have you back.

  Nothing happened.

  Mage stepped away from the bed. I didn’t ask for this, but okay. You want something from me? Cure him, and I’ll do it.

  Charlie didn’t stir. Mage glanced at the chart hanging beside the bed, did a double take, and stare
d. The red line on the graph had broken up into a series of Japanese-looking ideograms.

  “Mr. Magistrate?”

  Mage stared at the ideograms, concentrating, trying to remember. They didn’t translate well into letters or shapes, and he had to absorb them as a pattern, a gestalt. Barre glanced at him, then at the chart, apparently seeing nothing unusual.

  “I think you’d better leave,” he said gently.

  Mage nodded. He backed out of the room, still staring at the ideograms that only he could see, and immediately turned to Kelly. “Quick! Pen?”

  “What?”

  “I need a pen and paper, before I forget.”

  “Forget what?” she asked, already rummaging savagely through her handbag. A moment later she handed him a small notebook and a gold Parker pen. He transcribed the ideograms hastily.

  “Do you know Japanese?”

  She shook her head.

  “Me neither. I just hope these are right. I’ll have to ask Charlie when he wakes up.”

  If he wakes up, Kelly thought, and decided to change the subject. “Do you realize that the doctor thinks you’re gay?”

  Mage, leaning against the wall, shrugged lethargically. So much for levity, she thought. She was trying to think of something reassuring to say, when there was a sudden, urgent yell from inside Charlie’s room.

  21

  Departures

  “Boss?”

  Tamenaga woke instantly but opened his eyes slowly, feigning torpor. The voice was one of Sakura’s, but he had never entirely trusted the bakemono, much as he relied on them. He waited for a moment, concentrating, until he was ready to transform his tattoos into chain mail and mankiri-gusari, then murmured, “Yes?”

  “Yukitaka hasn’t come back.”

  That opened Tamenaga’s eyes. “What’s the time?”

  “Seven. The sun’s been up for a few minutes.”

  “You’ve tried his car phone?”

  “Of course. No answer.” Sakura’s voice was harsh and slightly brittle, and so was the face she was wearing: a stylized, symmetrical, porcelain mask of the classical Japanese ideal of beauty, very different from the tanned features of Kayama Mika.

  Tamenaga sat up and rubbed his chin. “Get Hegarty; tell him I’ll see him in my office in five minutes. He’s to have all the tapes and transcripts from last night ready for me.”

  Yukitaka, he thought as Sakura hurried out. Not Yukitakasan, not Hideo. She’s angry with him. Now isn’t that interesting?

  Man, of course I yelled,” said Charlie, a shade petulantly, “waking up like this. Like I thought an octopus had fallen in love with me. Last thing I remember was lying down on the table to give blood, and wham! here I am. What the freakin’ hell happened?”

  Mage pulled the photograph out of his pocket and handed it to him. Charlie looked at it dubiously.

  “She was a bakemono,” said Mage. “I bet the real Mika is still in China.”

  “A mujina.” Charlie shook his head. “First a rukoro-kubi, then—”

  “The rukoro-kubi’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “Kelly killed it.”

  “We killed it,” Kelly countered.

  “Congratulations, both of you,” said Charlie dryly. “How?”

  They told him the story as quickly as they could; he, in turn, told them how “Mike” had left so soon. “Like she probably expected me to sit there and mope for a few hours—or maybe exercise, get the poison through my system a little faster—and didn’t think you’d be here to help me. Man, we must’ve used up a lifetime’s supply of luck in the past few days—What’s that?”

  “Can you read it?”

  “I presume it’s supposed to be katakana. ‘Three focus—focuses?’”

  “Foci.”

  “Foci. Thanks. ‘Three foci exist. Tamenaga has two.’ What’s this from, a fortune cookie?”

  “It was written on your chart after I used the key—”

  “The—” Charlie shot a glance at Kelly.

  “Would you rather I left?” she asked.

  “Hell, no,” Mage replied mildly. “I think we’d better stick together. I’ve told Kelly everything. False modesty aside, she saved my life—and without her, I could never have saved yours.”

  Kelly studiously looked away from them, apparently becoming fascinated by the ceiling—though she listened carefully as Mage explained his silent plea to the maker of the key.

  “Okay. When can I get out of here?”

  “They want you to stay another twenty-four hours, for observation.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I can check myself out, can’t I?” he called to Kelly.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Neat. I’m out of here.”

  “What if you have a relapse?” asked Kelly softly.

  “What if the mujina sneaks in here dressed as a nurse and puts a little drop of botulin or something on my thermometer? She could, and no sweat; she had me believing she was Mike.” He shook his head. “I should have noticed her nails.”

  “Nails?”

  “Mike plays the guitar, so she always keeps her nails shorter than mine; a lot of people assume she’s a lesbian. The mujina had nails like daggers—probably venomed. Old kunoichi trick.”

  “Kunoichi?” asked Kelly.

  “Female ninja. Can you get me my pants?”

  “I still believe you’re safer here.”

  “Yeah? I don’t think we’re safe anywhere. Dig?” He turned to Mage for support, and the photographer nodded slowly.

  “So where are you going to go?” Kelly asked.

  “We’re going to split. Hide.”

  “Until this all blows over?”

  “It’s never going to blow over. We’re going to go somewhere where he can learn to use that key” —Takumo smiled— “and then we’re coming back.”

  Kelly stared and shook her head. “I hope you’re not going to ride your bike in your condition. At least let me give you a lift.”

  As though in contrast to the huge and hideous sumo wrestler stationed at the door, the girl who ushered Hegarty into Tamenaga’s office was the most beautiful the ex-soldier had ever seen. If she were six inches taller, he thought, with a less severe haircut, she would have been perfect. She slid the door shut behind them and sat on his right, at the very edge of his peripheral vision, so distracting that it was almost torture.

  Tamenaga, clad only in a white silk robe, seemed to be meditating. The girl reached for a remote control on the desk, and Hegarty caught himself watching her hand—it was delicate and pale, the nails impractically long and painted an innocent-looking shade of pink.

  He heard a very poor-quality recording playing on Tamenaga’s expensive sound system: a female voice, with a lot of background noise. “This is the Emergency Ward at Good Samaritan. We have a Mr. Charles Takumo here, suffering from cryptogenic paralysis. If you can help—”

  The hand stroked the remote and the voice stopped. Tamenaga opened his eyes and regarded the ex-soldier coolly. Hegarty met his gaze for a few seconds and asked, “Yes?”

  “You’ve heard it before?”

  “Yes, of course. Packer played it to me last night.”

  “And you didn’t report it to me?”

  Hegarty blinked. “You knew all that …”

  Tamenaga nodded. The tape warbled briefly, then another voice said, “Good Samaritan.”

  A third voice—another woman, younger, and black if Hegarty was any judge. “Do you have a patient there named Charles Takumo, please?”

  “One moment, please. Are you a relative?”

  “No, just a friend. Just a second, please …”

  Tamenaga nodded again and the tape stopped.

  “He was still in a coma,” said Hegarty, slightly puzzled. “Lamm’s broken into the hospital computer—”

  “Did it occur to you to wonder who was calling the hospital from Takumo’s phone?”

  “I didn’t know; Packer didn’t even report it. He must have stop
ped listening—”

  “You sent my yojimbo, Yukitaka-san, to the attorney’s house, neh?”

  “Yes.”

  The kuromaku nodded again. “And well done, too. Have you heard from him since?”

  Hegarty blinked. “… No,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

  The sleeves of Tamenaga’s robe had fallen below his wrists, showing the chains tattooed on his forearms. Hegarty had long known that his employer had links with the yakuza, but had never believed that he was yakuza. For one thing, all of his fingers were intact: yakuza kobun who erred would ceremonially cut off a finger joint to atone in a ritual known as yubitsume, so if Tamenaga had ever been yakuza, he’d never made a mistake… .

  Hegarty tried not to stare at Tamenaga’s hands, or at the girl’s, or his own. He suspected that he’d screwed up royally … or more probably that Packer had, but Packer had been under his command and therefore his responsibility. He glanced at the kuromaku, but Tamenaga’s face was, as always, unreadable.

  “Neither have we,” replied Tamenaga smoothly. “Nor does he answer his telephone. Did you send him on any other mission?”

  Hegarty shook his head, glancing at the girl to see if her face gave any hints … but the girl’s face had disappeared. In its place was a void, a dull dark gray, as deep and empty as the muzzle of a gun. Hegarty stared, fascinated, terrified, lost in déjà vu.

  Hegarty had spent four years in Vietnam as a Green Beret, discharged via Section Eight after shooting two of his own men in self-defense. He had survived wars, invasions, coups d’etat, “police actions,” the aftereffects of Agent Orange, three plane crashes, and innumerable bar brawls. He regarded death as a business partner, and they had been close enough to shake hands on several occasions. He gazed at the mujina, and then, without blinking, smashed the side of his hand into her throat.

  He sensed movement behind him, but before he could react, the chain tattooed around Tamenaga’s right wrist had become a mankiri-gusari whistling through the air. It hit Hegarty at the top of his spine, stunning him. His chair rocked, toppled, and he fell at Sakura’s feet.