Body Guard (18 page)

Bunch glanced at the woman sitting with her legs stretched out on the sofa. She stared at the pink dots of her toenails.

“When we couldn’t find anyone, you figured you didn’t need our services anymore,” he said.

“Yes.”

“But now something’s happened.”

“Two days ago, Mitsuko telephoned home. She wanted to talk to her family, see how everything is at home. You understand.”

“Filial piety, Mr. Bunchcroft.” Her tone belied her smile. “Very important to us Asians.”

“Her mother was extremely upset. Somehow they’d found out about us—about where Mitsi was and who she was with. She said Mitsuko’s father had gone to Tokyo to talk to some people he knew. Someone who would be able to … to take care of the situation.”

“How?”

Mitsuko shook her head. “My mother didn’t say.” She stubbed out the cigarette and stared up at one of the prints on the wall. “She didn’t have to. Yojimbo.”

“Say, what?”

“Yojimbo. Professional warriors who rent their services.”

“You mean a samurai?”

“Sort of. The samurai owed allegiance to a lord. The yojimbo was a free-lance warrior who sold his services. Usually as a bodyguard.” A wry smile. “Like you.”

“So your daddy hired a warrior to protect you?”

“That’s how they think of themselves.” She shrugged. “They’re just hired killers, really. Gangsters. The yojimbo tradition gives them some … respectability.” She deepened the ironic tone. “Like geisha—call girls who pretend to follow an old and honored tradition. Customs die hard in Japan. Especially when they can save face.”

“Why in hell didn’t you tell me this before?”

It was Humphries’ turn to shake his head. “I didn’t want to embarrass Mitsi. And it didn’t seem necessary—your security checks didn’t turn up anyone.”

“Now someone is really after you.”

“Yes.”

The woman nervously lit another cigarette and nodded.

Humphries cleared his throat. “What makes it most frightening is the—ah—dedication of a hired Japanese killer, Mr. Bunchcroft. As Mitsuko says, there’s a sense of honor in the calling.”

“Bushido,” said Bunch.

Mitsuko’s eyebrows lifted. “You know about them?”

Bunch had seen a few movies on the late-late shows. “If the killer takes the job, he has to finish or lose face with his employer and the other yojimbo, that right? And if he loses face, he’s supposed to commit suicide.” That’s what the creaky plots were made of. Here and there maybe somebody believed in that crap. The few hired killers Bunch had run across—Japanese or otherwise—were no different: if they could make the hit without being caught, they would. If not, they passed. “Has the guy been hired yet?”

“Probably.” The woman stubbed out the long cigarette. “My father likes to think he’s a man who doesn’t act idly.”

“Is he?”

“In this, I think yes.”

Humphries swallowed. “We probably won’t know for certain until someone actually tries to kill us.”

“Have you told anyone besides me about it? The police?”

“Well, just you. I mean, I went to that policeman a while back when Mitsi first moved out here. I told him of … possible threats. But he didn’t take me seriously. He said Japan was out of his jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, I guess he would. Exactly what do you want me to do, Mr. Humphries?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious? I want protection—I want you to keep me and Mitsi alive!”

“You have to figure if somebody’s coming all the way from Japan to kill you, it’s going to take more than just protection to stop him.”

Mitsuko looked up from studying her toes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Bunch spelled it out, “if somebody really wants to kill you, nobody—not me, not the police, nobody—can give you enough protection. It’ll take what the politicos call a preemptive strike.”

Humphries fiddled with his class ring. “You mean you’d have to—ah—do something to the assassin?”

“That’s what I mean. And maybe to the next assassin. And the one after that—if Mitsuko’s old man has that kind of money.”

“I don’t know if he would send more than one.”

Humphries sank onto the couch again, his head in his hands. “I don’t know what else to do! The man could be on his way right now. The killer could already be here in Denver and looking for me and Mitsuko. What are we supposed to do, just wait for him?”

“Mitsuko could go back.”

“I don’t want her to.” Humphries looked at her. “I mean, not if she really doesn’t want to.”

“We’ve talked about that, Roland. I don’t want to.”

“See?”

“Then maybe you should get married right now. Then Papa-san would be killing a member of his own family. Something the old ancestors might get pissed off about.”

Humphries shifted on the couch. “Well, we’ve talked that over, Mr. Bunchcroft. But I can’t get married right now—family reasons … political in nature … .”

“Roland doesn’t want to marry me, Mr. Bunchcroft.”

“That’s not entirely true, Mitsi! I’ve told you how my own family—”

The woman smiled widely. “It’s not an option, you see.”

“Then split up. Send Mitsuko back to New York.”

Humphries’ expression shifted from discomfort to stubbornness. “I don’t want that, either. Mitsi and I are trying to work out our lives together, and—well—we love each other …”

“I don’t think that would do us any good now, Mr. Bunchcroft. The family name has already been insulted.”

“So your choice is hara-kiri or sushi, that’s it?”

Pallid and suddenly sweating, Humphries mumbled something and walked swiftly out of the room.

Mitsuko looked at him with some surprise. “He’s going to be sick, isn’t he?”

Bunch leaned toward her. “Honey, just what the hell is your game?”

She stared at him a long moment, black eyes calculating and bright in the mask of her face. “My game?” Standing slowly, she stretched her locked hands high above her head and tilted her face to the ceiling. The white clothes outlined a lithe and softly muscular body, and her black hair swept down to tickle the swell of taut buttocks. “My game, Mr. Bunchcroft, is to stay alive. It is my father’s wish to kill me. He has the power and the will to do it.”

“And you don’t have the money to run away from Humphries?”

Another long stare. “You are perceptive. I have a little money, but—as you guess—I’ve had to rely on my father. Now”—a shrug— “I have to rely on Roland.”

“What about your mother? Can’t she send you money?”

“No. All the wealth is in my father’s name. Women in Japan are owned by men, Mr. Bunchcroft.” Sharper bitterness pulled her mouth into a scowl. “Our lives are their property.”

“Have you tried to talk to your father?”

She said it once more. “He wants me dead.” Then, “Please stand up.”

He did. “Why?”

She measured herself against his jacket. “I barely reach as high as your chest, don’t I? I’ve never been with a man that big. Are you so big everywhere?”

He sat again. “Look, Mitsuko, I’m not a congressman. My services are limited to the security business. Not monkey business.”

“But you’ve thought of monkey business. I’ve seen you.” A laugh briefly replaced the worry in those black eyes. “My God— talk about rabbit-woman and elephant-man!”

“Try a sumo wrestler.”

“They’re too fat!”

“Well, quit vamping me. It’s not going to do you any good.”

She strode over to the window and yanked open the drapes. “He could be out there right now. Out there in the dark staring through the window right now, couldn’t he? Just waiting.” A deep, shaky breath. “Maybe that would be best: just get it over with.”

“For God’s sake, close the curtain, Mitsi!” Humphries, still pale but no longer sweaty, half ran across the room and tugged the drapes shut. “Don’t do that—it’s dangerous!”

Bunch eyed the tense man and the woman who tried to hide her own fear with a tinkling laugh. What he should do was walk away from this loony bin. Let Humphries find out for himself what kind of tiger’s tail he’d gotten hold of. But the trouble with that was, Humphries’ realization could come slightly after the fact—maybe one thousandth of a second after the bullet hit him. Even Francis Macomber did better than that. So he wouldn’t walk away. What the hell—people were always telling him he was just a big old softy. Some people were. He thought he remembered somebody telling him that one time. And Devlin would be pissed to lose a client like Humphries. Most important, Bunch was curious, and this gig beat the boredom of sitting in that Subaru watching Jean Truman’s silent house. “Mr. Humphries, here’s what we do.”

The flight to San Diego touched down a little after six, Pacific time. Devlin worked his way through the crowded, small airport located almost in the center of the city. Despite being cramped, it was one of Devlin’s favorite airports because of its downtown location. But it would only be a matter of time before real estate interests—hungry to develop the prime land—would convince voters to build a new facility on some miles-distant mesa. The car rental was waiting at the end of a shuttle bus that lurched beneath tall palm trees, and Eckles had answered the telephone, assuring Kirk he would be waiting too. The colonel hadn’t been difficult to find. He expected settlement of his claim and had been in touch with the insurance company regularly since the burglary. When Devlin showed up at the sprawl of multi-leveled stucco and bougainvillea that made up the Wind ‘n’ Sea Residential Plaza, Eckles was all smiles and anticipation.

Soon dashed. “I need to ask you a few more questions about your claim, Colonel Eckles.”

“More questions? Jesus, you people didn’t ask so many questions when you wanted my money for premiums.” His trimmed gray hair and clipped mustache echoed the note of command in his voice.

“I’m sure that’s true, Colonel.” Kirk settled onto a rattan couch that faced the small balcony. It had a fine view of San Diego Bay and Point Loma beyond. The man’s wife rattled around in the tiny kitchen, clinking ice cubes into glasses. “It’s about the household effects you stored at your sister’s in Arvada. The sterling silver, the clothes, the stereo components. Are they the same items you’ve filed a claim on, Colonel?”

The blood drained from the man’s tanned face, making his pale blue eyes look twice as large. Then it rushed back in a purple flood. “I—ah—I forgot all about taking that stuff over there!”

“Here’s some iced tea. Would you like lemon with it, Mr. Kirk?” Sharon Eckles, nervous as a tuning fork, smiled brightly over the tray of glasses. They were large and squat and had cheery Hawaiian motifs painted on them. The tray was a familiar white and blue and said Clark Air Force Base, PI—Officers Club. “Dear? Lemon?”

“Out! Get out!” Crouched in his chair, Eckles whipped his face to the woman in the doorway. “Leave us alone!”

“Ralph, what—”

“Get out, God damn you!”

The kitchen door swung shut behind her. In the ringing silence, Kirk heard the blat of traffic from a freeway nearby. “You forgot you took it over there?”

“Yes—completely—just forgot. With the move and all. And then the burglary … I just assumed …” He took a deep breath and forced stiff lips up into something like a happy face. “I’m relieved it’s been found!”

Kirk nodded and pretended to write something on his clipboard, letting the tension work for him. “Have you had any luck selling your house?”

“No.” The purple had ebbed from Eckles’s face to leave two bright marks above his cheeks and a film of sweat on his forehead. “Not yet.”

“And you’re still delinquent in your payments?”

“I don’t see that as any of your business, Mr. Kirk. And I’d like to know just what gives you the right to pry into my affairs! A man’s entitled to some privacy—”

He tapped the clipboard. “It’s your claim, Colonel Eckles. When you file a claim, you authorize investigation into everything pertaining to that claim.”

Eckles’s lips pressed into a thin line.

Kirk turned back to the clipboard. “The stereo components listed as stolen you say have a value of three thousand dollars. But the ones I found at your sister’s house retail routinely for under a thousand.”

“I—ah—might have made a mistake. I can’t remember the cost of every item I own.”

“The value of the silver is listed as quite a bit higher than its actual value too.”

“Damn it—”

“It raises questions about the value of other items in your loss report, Colonel. Would you care to make any adjustments to the claim?”

Eckles scraped at the corners of his mouth with thumb and forefinger and tried to read Kirk’s eyes. “Well, certainly, if the statement’s not true. I don’t want to make a false claim. Even accidentally. You understand, I was guessing at the value of those things.” A small laugh came out like a catch of breath. “People always think what they own is worth a lot more than it really is, I suppose.” Another laugh-like sound. “Anybody who sells a used car goes through that, don’t they? Or a house?”

Kirk nodded and doodled some more interlocked boxes on the clipboard. The faint sounds from the kitchen had started again, and from the tenseness behind the door he heard the dry squeak of a cork pulled out of a bottle. Kirk looked up suddenly, nailing the man with a hard stare. “Want to tell me what’s in the self-storage unit? The one you rented on Wadsworth Boulevard?”

The shade of gray in Eckles’s face didn’t change this time. But he sagged slowly against the seat cushions as if something were slowly draining from him.

“You can tell me voluntarily or I can get a warrant.”

The man’s hands hid his face, and his fingers dug into his scalp and jaw. A wet, muffled sound came from behind them and Kirk saw the colonel’s shoulders jerk.

“It’s the rest of the stolen goods, isn’t it?”

The head nodded.

“I didn’t hear you,” said Kirk.

“Yes! My God, yes. All of it.”

“There was no burglary?”

A long silence as Eckles mastered his breathing and scrubbed at his wrinkled eyes with a knuckle. Then he whispered something.

Kirk leaned forward. “What?”

“I want to withdraw my claim.”

Kirk turned off the tape recorder in his vest pocket. “That will be up to the company, Colonel.”