The Nicholas Linnear Novels (26 page)

It would be all to easy, Nicholas knew, to dismiss Tomkin as villainous and have nothing more to do with him. But people’s façade were all too often just that. He had touched a nerve and had glimpsed for an instant something else in the man, a spark that humbled him, made him human. Moreover, Tomkin was intelligent enough to realize that he had given away this advantage to Nicholas and now Nicholas was intrigued enough to try to find out why. He did not have long to wait.

“I want you to work for me,” Tomkin said easily. “I want you to find out what’s going on. I know all about the Yakuza; I’ve even had a brush with Shōtō. You’ve heard of him, no doubt?” Nicholas nodded and he went on. “Tough cookie, that one. But I managed. I managed.” He put his finger and thumb up, pinched his lower lip thoughtfully. “Don’t know anything about ninja, though, and what I don’t know about myself I give over to experts.” He stabbed a forefinger. “You’re an expert on these bastards, isn’t that right?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, I want to hire you, then. Find out what this is all about.” He produced the folded sheet of rice paper with the ninja crest painted on it, waved it. “Take the goddamned thing. I don’t want it.”

Nicholas did not move. “When did you get it?” he said.

“Like I said, came in the Japan pouch, let me see, oh, about a week ago.”

A week, Nicholas thought. It could not be a coincidence. Barry’s body had been found about that time. Then he had been right. Tomkin was the target. “I think you’ve been marked for assassination,” he said.

Tomkin did not even blink. “All right. It’s happened before.”

“Not with a ninja.”

“No,” Tomkin admitted. “But I told you I’ve had a spot of Yakuza trouble. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“This is different.”

“How so? He’ll never get to me.”

“There are a thousand ways he could do it but don’t waste your time trying to figure out how. You’ll never do it.”

“Is this a sales pitch?” Tomkin’s eyes had gone hard. “A little something you just dreamed up to give yourself a raise before you’ve even started work?”

“I never said I’d take the job.”

Tomkin shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ve got Frank and Whistle there. I’m not worried.”

Nicholas did not even look at them. “Tomkin, if indeed a ninja has been contracted to assassinate you, he’ll go right through those two as if they were stalks of wheat.”

“Like I said, that’s some sweet sales pitch you’ve got.”

“It’s no pitch at all. You’ve made me late for an important appointment. I’m not inter—”

He missed the signal but they were on him, one on each side. Frank’s hands hung loosely at his sides, the fingers slightly curled. Whistle’s gun was already out. It was a snub-nosed .38, not so good at long range but brutal within fifteen yards. They were way inside that now.

Nicholas was in the classic first position of
yoroi kumiuchi,
originally grappling in armor but today used quite effectively when one was dressed in encumbering Western street clothes.

Whistle’s revolver was at the horizontal, his forefinger beginning to squeeze inward on the trigger. Nicholas stepped forward, jammed his right foot into the man’s left instep while at the same time slamming the muzzle of the gun away with the edge of his left hand. There was an explosion and the bullet whined off the inner wall, leaving a gray scar against the blue.

Whistle dropped the useless gun, bringing his right hand upward toward Nicholas’ abdomen. He watched it, wide-eyed, as it was halted in mid-flight as if it had come up against a concrete barrier. He winced in pain as it was twisted hard around, felt a hot tearing and then a whiplike snap. At the same instant, Nicholas’ left hand smashed into his collarbone and he went down, unconscious.

Frank moved in. He made no move toward the gun under his armpit. His fingers were as straight as boards as he whipped forward.

Nicholas stood motionless, watching the unfolding of the assault. There was plenty of time. He is left-handed, Nicholas thought, and he’s expecting karate.

At the point of Frank’s attack, Nicholas moved almost languidly, separating the deadly hands. To Tomkin, watching interestedly from the sidelines, it appeared as if he had not moved at all, merely pushed his elbows into Frank’s rib cage almost gently. Frank collapsed onto the concrete floor.

“I knew you were good,” Tomkin said excitedly. “I knew it! The reports said so, but you often can’t trust them. Take other people’s work for granted and you find yourself in a hole. Happens all the goddamned time.” He stared down at his two incapacitated bodyguards. “Fucking great, that’s all.” He looked up, extended a hand. “Glad to have you aboard, Nick.”

Nicholas stared at Tomkin’s face as he moved away down the corridor toward the elevator. “I told you, I’m not interested in working for you.” He pressed the button and it glowed. The elevator began its ascent. “You have no respect for people.” Tomkin came toward him, stepping over the fallen bodies.

“It’s not like that.”

“Sure it is. I don’t like being manipulated. Any more than I imagine Justine does. I don’t owe you a thing, Tomkin. You have no claim over me.”

Behind him the elevator doors opened. He stepped inside.

“Wait a minute, Nick.” Tomkin reached out a hand.

“Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”

The doors began to close as Nicholas pressed the ground button but Tomkin lunged forward, holding back the doors with his hands. His face was as hard as granite and there was a peculiar feral light in his eyes. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he spat. “It’s not only my life that’s at stake but my daughters’, too. You wouldn’t want this sonovabitch to get his hands on Justine, would you? Think about that,” he said savagely and let the doors sigh shut.

On the way down, Nicholas recalled the night he and Justine were together, when that thing came through the kitchen window. Red blood and black fur. The Kuji-kiri ninja calling card, meant to create terror, one of the ninja’s most useful weapons. The Kuji-kiri, most feared of all the ninja
ryu.
Whose crest was the
komuso
ideogram, circled, surrounded by nine diamonds.

Justine! his mind cried out. He looked up, watching in impatience as the floor numbers flickered by. He wanted to get to a phone immediately.

Outside on the street he saw a dark-haired man with wide shoulders and a pushed-in face. It had character, like a cowboy’s. He stood beside a plain white Ford sedan. Even without the removable flashing red light on top, he knew it for a police car. But he had recognized the face. Detective Lieutenant Lew Croaker. He walked out of the shadow of the building’s makeshift entrance and, tossing his hard hat to one of the workmen, went down the wooden plank to the curb.

He had used the phone in Abe Russo’s portable headquarters. He had thought about calling Ray Florum, the police lieutenant out at West Bay Bridge, but he knew Justine would never stand for it. Accordingly, he got Doc Deerforth’s number from Information and spoke to him for several minutes. He had agreed to look in on Justine every so often.

“Linnear,” Croaker said as he came up to him in the sunshine, “what the hell were you doing with Raphael Tomkin?” He worked a wooden toothpick between his teeth with two long slender fingers.

“Hello to you, too, Lieutenant.” Nicholas nodded.

“Cut the wise dialogue and get in,” he said, ducking his head as he sat behind the wheel. “We’ve got business to attend to.”

Nicholas opened the door on the passenger’s side, got in. As soon as his foot was off the asphalt, the car roared off. He pulled at the door, slamming it shut.

“Didn’t your buddy Ito give you specific instructions?” Croaker said. He began to weave through the uptown traffic, heading for the left side of Park Avenue and the street divider.

“Tomkin picked me up while I was waiting for you.”

Croaker snorted. “Didn’t your mother tell you never to get into a car filled with strangers? Jesus! What’d that fucker want with you?”

“I don’t have to answer that.”

Croaker swung his head around, unmindful of the tenacious traffic. He glared at Nicholas. “Listen, buddy, don’t give me a hard time. I’m telling you that if it has to do with Raphael Tomkin it fucking
is
my business, get me? Now give!” He braked savagely, in line to make a left onto the downtown side of the avenue.

“What makes you so interested in Tomkin?” Nicholas was tired of being questioned without having any of the answers.

“Now, look, Linnear,” Croaker said, carefully enunciating each word. It was obvious he was holding himself in with an effort. “I’m doing my best to be civil, to treat you with respect. I’ve got no beef with you. Yet. But today’s just not my day; I’m on a short fuse. That means, you being here beside me, it’s not your day either. Now be nice and tell me what I want to know. I promise, it won’t hurt.” He leaned on the horn, turned down Park.

“I’m seeing his daughter,” Nicholas said. “He wanted to check me out.”

Croaker hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand, bounced up and down. “Goddamn!” he exclaimed. “Goddamn! Ho!” He shook his head. “What do you know!” Then he swore as he was forced to swerve around a slowly cruising cab. He gunned the Ford and they leaped forward into the semicircle of the overpass at Forty-sixth Street. When they emerged, below Forty-second, he said, “Jesus, I thought I’d pass up the fucking traffic on Second by going down Park but will you look at this.” He gestured at the sea of cars gleaming in the sun ahead of them. They were baking in the interior and the air stank of exhaust and overheated oil. “To hell with this!” He reached out his left hand, started the siren. On top the red light began to flash. “Christ,”” he said as the cars began reluctantly to part, “summer in New York!”

They turned east on Thirtieth Street and Croaker cut the siren. “Which one is it?”

“Which what?”

“Daughter, Linnear. Which daughter? Gelda, the one who likes Chivas, or is it the crazy younger one—what’s her name?”

“Justine.”

“Yeah. I can never remember it.” He shrugged. “Too pretty for a Tomkin.” He turned his head, spat the toothpick out the open window. “Spoke to her once, couple of months ago. She’s kinda hard to forget.”

“Yes,” Nicholas said. “She’s beautiful all right.” He wished he was with her now instead of being in this melting heat on his way to the morgue. Goddamn Tomkin! he thought savagely. Then he smiled inwardly. You could say this for the bastard, he sure knew his people. Which led him to another point. “You certainly know the family well.”

They had pulled up halfway down the block between Third and Second avenues as traffic piled up at the red light. A refrigerated meat provisions truck was in the process of pulling out into the traffic, its nose canted into the flow.

Croaker turned to look at him, one elbow on the sill of the open window. He had gray eyes and thick hair cut rather long, combed straight back. He looked as if he had been through the wars; like a character out of
From Here to Eternity.
“You sure are nosy for a civilian.” The line of cars started up, rolling slowly forward after the truck had nosed its way in; it was no faster than a funeral procession. His voice changed gears, softening remarkably. “Guess the old bastard didn’t take it too well, you seeing his baby.”

“You could put it that way.” They had stopped again; the heat was oppressive. “How’d you find me anyway?”

Croaker shrugged. “I got to Penn Station in time to see you gettin’ into the limo. Frank’s a wiseacre.”

“Yeah. I know.” Nicholas grinned. “He and Whistle tried their best to evict me from the premises.”

Croaker eyed him. “Don’t look like it bothered you none.”

“I wanted to leave anyway.”

Croaker threw his head back and laughed. “Linnear,” he said, “you just made my day.”

They soon came to the source of the slow-up. The gutter gurgled and the street swished with running water. Farther down the block four or five shirtless kids, their pants rolled up to their knees, danced about an open fire hydrant. Croaker rolled up his window and they splashed through as if they were in a car wash.

“Do you miss it?” Nicholas asked.

“What? Miss what?” Croaker took them through the intersection on the amber, accelerated.

“Smoking.” He had noticed the ends of the other’s fingers on his right hand were yellowed.

“Goddamn right I miss it,” Croaker growled. “Why’n hell d’you think I chew these goddamned MintyPicks? Huh! You think I’ve got time to eat with all the shit coming down in this city? I ain’t been in a proper bed in three days.” He hung a left onto First Avenue and, with a squeal of brakes that must have left several inches of rubber on the city’s asphalt, he pulled up in front of the turquoise-glazed brick façade of the Chief Medical Examiner’s office. He double-parked and they went up the steps.

Croaker led them over to a desk, flipped open a brown plastic case to display his badge and I.D. to the receptionist. The man nodded when Croaker said, “Dr. Ito,” and dialed a three-digit number on the telephone on the small desk.

He looked up as he cradled the phone. “Dr. Ito will be right up, Lieutenant. He’s in the morgue.”

Croaker looked around, watched the policeman on duty for several minutes. He did not know the man.

Vincent came out. He was wearing a green lab smock that tied in back. “Hello, Nick,” he said gravely. He shook Croaker’s hand. He led them back the way he had come, past the identifying room with its hydraulic lift to the morgue and down a set of stairs to the basement.

There was no smell at all down here; Nicholas had always imagined it would stink from disinfectant and formaldehyde. It was silent save for the monotone drone coming from behind a set of swinging doors; an autopsy was in progress. Vincent went to the bank of stainless-steel doors, drew two out. Then he described in detail what he had found.

“It was no ordinary intruder who found them,” he concluded. “You see how the sternum and rib cage are fractured?”

“Christ,” Croaker said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. He looks like he’s been battered with a baseball bat.”

Vincent shook his head. “Nothing so crude, Lieutenant. It was a human body.”