Time of Attack (24 page)

 

D
r. Todd Elton filled a syringe and set the glass ampule on the shelf. A commotion of voices drew him out to the hallway just as Brody Teeples pushed open the door and barged through the clinic like a snowplow. A look of barely contained anger boiled under a heavy, furrowed brow. Huge hands, calloused and used to working outside in the weather, clenched into white-knuckled fists.

Elton considered running, but there was nowhere to go. Three pregnant women took up all the exam rooms, and a guy with a compound fracture in his wrist was sacked out on the table in the X-ray lab. With all the rooms full, patients lined the hallway—a guy who’d been in a fight with a table saw held a piece of his thumb in a wadded paper towel, a man with the perfect imprint of a horse hoof over his collarbone, and a seventeen-year-old high school girl who’d stepped on a rusty nail while going out to bottle-feed her calf. A half dozen more Elton hadn’t spoken with yet sat, stood, and slumped up and down the narrow hall.

“I want to see my wife!” Teeples bellowed, ignoring all the other patients. “Where is she?”

Elton put up a hand, forcing himself not to backpedal. He swam, jogged, skipped rope, and even did a little CrossFit to stay in shape—all good, honest exercises that didn’t involve bashing his fists into other people’s faces. In a time like this, clean blood work and an excellent body mass index was bound to work against him.

Teeples outweighed him by at least eighty pounds and, judging from his nose, got in a knockdown drag-out fight at the bars nearby at least once a week just for the fun of it.

“I don’t even know if she’s still alive!” Teeples said, coming to a stop two feet away. “You are gonna take me to her right damn now!” He jabbed the doctor in the chest with a thick index finger at each word.

Elton took a reflexive step back, rubbing his chest. It occurred to him that he’d never really been hit in the face before. Judging by how painful the chest pokes were, he’d be lucky if a full-blown punch with a fist didn’t knock him out cold.

Brandy stepped out of one of the exam rooms and moved to help. Elton motioned her to stay back.

“Your wife’s over in the hospital, Brody.” He raised both hands, hoping it looked conciliatory. “I’m not going to lie to you. She’s very sick. It’s too dangerous for you to see her right now. Anyway, the CDC is in charge of who comes and goes. Not me.”

“I’m going to see for myself.” Teeples strode forward, raising his fist and brandishing it like a hammer to make a point. “I don’t give a shit what you or the CDC—”

Elton realized he was still holding the syringe. Without thinking, he jabbed it into the man’s bicep, giving him the full injection.

Teeples lashed out, but it was fearful instead of vindictive and more of a glancing blow. Still, it caught Elton on the chin and sent him staggering back against the wall. He had to catch himself to keep from falling on the guy holding the severed thumb.

“What the hell was in that?” Teeples bellowed.

“Okay.” Elton held up his hands again to ward off any further attack. He worked his jaw back and forth. It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. “Just stay calm. We can fix this.”

Teeples’s face darkened. “What are you talking about? What did you give me?”

“You’ll be fine,” Elton said. “As long as we get you treated right away.”

“What do you mean treated?” Teeples rubbed his arm. He’d knocked the syringe to the floor and now stared at the bent thing where it lay empty on the carpet. “Treated for what?”

Elton turned to Brandy, gambling that Teeples spent his time fighting in bars rather than watching reruns of
House
and
Chicago Hope
. “I need you to get me ten milligrams of midazolam right away.”

Brandy was a good PA and a smart lady, but the stress of the situation had her a little slow on the uptake. “But Doc—”

Elton cut her off. “Just do it before this man goes into anaphylactic shock.”

Teeples nodded his big head. “Just do it,” he parroted.

“I’m sorry, Brody,” Elton said. “You startled me, so I defended myself with what I had in my hand.”

“If you made me sick I’m gonna kick your ass!”

“Let’s get you treated first,” Elton said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Then we can talk about ass kicking.”

“Here you go, Doctor,” Brandy said. She handed him the syringe. “This should do the trick.”

Ten minutes later, they had Brody Teeples strapped to a wheelchair in the waiting room with an oxygen mask over his face. His head lolled, but he was a big man and it would take a lot of any drug to put him under completely.

Sheriff Monte Young had come to take him into custody for criminal trespass once his breathing had stabilized.

“What’d you use to knock him out?” The sheriff asked.

“Versed.” Elton sighed. “We use it during colonoscopies . . .”

“Fittin’ ”—Young chuckled—“considering the patient.”

“I feel all weird,” Teeples said, blinking as if he couldn’t quite get anything to focus. “I think that doc gave me some bad stuff.”

“Hmmm.” The sheriff chuckled. “You know when your last tetanus shot was?”

Teeples shook his big head. “Nope,” he said.

“About fifteen minutes ago . . .”

 

B
y one in the morning Quinn and Ayako had put an exhausted Miyu on the first train they could find going back to her parents north of Tokyo. Quinn was soaked with rain and limping badly by the time they returned to the apartment. A sickening ache crawled up his spine from his left kidney.

“I insist you take the bed,” Ayako said, using the screen of her cell phone to illuminate the door so she could find the lock with the key.

A familiar but almost imperceptible flutter hit Quinn low in the gut. Without taking time to process, he grabbed Emiko’s shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. Index finger to his lips, he forgot about the pain and stepped to the side of the door. He took Ayako’s hand and pointed the light from her phone at the threshold below. Flecks of mud and grime from the street formed the partial outline of a footprint on the scuffed metal. The yakuza boss had not wasted any time sending someone for his drugs once Watanabe had passed on the message. Ayako had thought no one knew where she lived, but there were too many eyes in a country as crowded as Japan. Information was easy to find, particularly for an organized crime boss with Tanaka’s reach.

Quinn eased the pistol out of his waistband, pulling Ayako away from the door as he spoke.

“No, I’ll take the couch,” he said, keeping up appearances. “I couldn’t sleep if I knew I’d kicked you out of your own bed.” He leaned in close to whisper something in Ayako’s ear. She nodded in the dim light, understanding. Behind her, over the rail of the balcony, a heavy rain fell through the blackness like silver bullets under the bright glow of a streetlamp.

Rather than walk straight into an ambush, Quinn pushed the door open and counted to three. He’d returned the pistol to his waistband so he’d have both hands free. Ayako stood beside him. On three, he gave her a pat on the small of her back.

“Something is wrong,” she said at the signal, loud enough anyone inside would be able to hear. Quinn nodded and she ran as fast as she could, passing in front of the open door with a scrambling shuffle of feet on wet concrete. Quinn stood fast, just outside in the darkness.

He didn’t have long to wait before three men poured out of the door like bees from a bothered hive, hot on Ayako’s trail. The first in line was an older, broad-shouldered man in a red leather blazer. Quinn had seen him earlier at the boxing match, sitting up beside the bookie. The other two were young heavies, probably from the same gym, in need of a little street cred with the local yakuza boss.

“Hey!” Quinn yelled, getting the men’s attention. Lightning flashed, illuminating his face for a split second before he ducked into the open apartment.

All three pulled up short, piling into each other like a Japanese version of Keystone Cops before turning back.

Once inside the door, Quinn grabbed Ayako’s bowling pin off the shelf—a tool of opportunity—and sidestepped like a matador. He gave the lead boxer a snoot full of the wooden pin as he barged in, dislocating his jaw and pulling him past to make room for his friends. Quinn caught the next man under the chin with the heavy pin, snapping his head up, then bringing the pin back down to drive him to the floor. It was a devastating blow, and the guy would be lucky if it didn’t kill him. Quinn didn’t have time to care. It was better than what the men had planned for him.

Finally, the older man with the red jacket charged through the door with his pistol out and ready to shoot. Quinn knocked the weapon to the side with a swipe of the bowling pin, but the man kept coming, shouldering his way inside Quinn’s swing before he could hit him again.

The man bellowed a bone-chilling cry. A wicked left hook came out of nowhere, sending a fountain of stars exploding behind Quinn’s eyes. His elbow ached from the police dog attack, and the earlier pounding to his kidneys slowed him down. He stumbled, crashing into the coatrack before he caught himself.

The guy in the red jacket hit him when he spun, this time with two straight jabs to the chin. Quinn let his head snap back, blocking the second jab and countering with a right uppercut to the guy’s jaw. It was a glancing blow and Quinn’s fist slid by with little effect. Not worried about any Marquess of Queensberry rules, Quinn brought his forearm across his opponent’s face on the backswing, snapping his head sideways and stunning the man long enough for Quinn to send an elbow strike into the bridge of the bad guy’s nose, pushing him toward the bed.

Rather than fight, the man pedaled backward, reaching behind him for what Quinn supposed was a second gun. Quinn rolled, grabbing the large pillow from Ayako’s love seat. He shoved it against the other man’s chest as he drew his own pistol, pressing it in tight and pulling the trigger twice in rapid succession. The shots were muffled by the thick foam of the pillow.

Ayako’s voice was breathless behind him.

“Oh my . . .” she said softly. “Tanaka-san will soon run out of men.”

Quinn let the dead man slump to the ground.

“We can’t stay here. He’s sure to send more thugs once these don’t report back.”

Ayako knelt beside her bed and began to stuff clothes into a small duffel. Satisfied she had what she needed, she stood and grabbed a soft-sided guitar case that leaned against the wall.

“A guitar?” Quinn looked at the case.

“You’ll see.” She slung the case over her shoulder.

Quinn nodded, gritting his teeth. The rush of the fight subsiding, he had to lean against the wall to steady himself amid waves of nausea and pain.

“Come.” Ayako touched his shoulder, helping him toward the door. “You need to stop fighting for a few hours. I know a place. It will be drafty, but it is safe.”

A
n old and bent man with a shaved head and the dark robes of a Buddhist monk stood in the shadows under a black umbrella, framed by a heavy timber gate. It was the only apparent opening in a white stone wall that ran in either direction to disappear in the sheets of rain. Weak yellow light from a rusty oil lantern pooled at the old man’s feet. A game of Angry Birds on a smartphone illuminated his face as Ayako rode up with Quinn on the little yellow motorbike.

“Kobo-san,” Ayako called out. “Thank you for meeting us.”

The old man shook his head. He slipped the cell phone inside his robes as Ayako brought the little bike to a crunching stop on the gravel.

“I do not know about enlightenment.” Kobo chuckled. “But I feel certain I could achieve a sense of no-thought if I played that silly game long enough.” He bowed to Ayako and pulled the gate open, waving them inside.

The sharp odor of burning incense hung on the moist air, hitting Quinn’s nose and rousing his tired senses. Tall Japanese cedars stood close together like ranks of towering soldiers in the night. The thin sliver of orange light from the old monk’s lantern did little to push back the inky darkness. A steady rain dripped from the high branches in pattering staccato along the wood and stucco wall surrounding the grounds.

Bone-tired and stooped in pain, Quinn trudged behind Ayako as she pushed the little bike through the gate. They followed the crunch of the old man’s footfalls in the gravel, down the silver ribbon of gravel toward a small wooden house nestled among the shadowed trees.

“There are quilts and futons inside,” Kobo said, shining his lamp toward the dark cottage. Rain poured off the tile roof in a steady stream, hissing to the gravel below. “You may take your rest here.”

Ayako began to explain their situation, but Kobo put up his hand.

“Please,” he said. “Rest. Reasons do not matter to me, nor should they matter to you. Each of us is in need of a safe haven from time to time.”

The monk left the lantern with them and crunched away in the darkness under his umbrella, his path lit only by the Angry Birds launching across his phone.

 

 

The cottage, originally meant for itinerant monks, was set well off the main path behind the small Buddhist temple and surrounded by drooping cedars. Towering obelisks of black granite, situated on either side, looked like tall black holes cut out of the night. There was no electricity, and the lamp cast only a hazy orange shadow on the heavy ceiling beams and rough-hewn floor. The place was seldom used, and dust puffed up at every movement. Even Quinn, who was frightened by little in the world, found it impossible not to think of spiders.

Ayako dragged the futon mats from a closet at the far side of the fifteen-by-fifteen room.

“Quinn-san, please,” she said, unfolding the futons and situating two hard buckwheat pillows side by side. “You do not look well. I think you should get off your feet.”

In truth, Quinn felt as though he might pass out at any moment. The constant optempo since Kim’s shooting, coupled with a steady stream of adrenaline, the dog bite, and one savage beating after another, had stacked up to drive him to his knees.

A soft rapping at the door caused him to draw the H&K pistol. Kobo said something Quinn couldn’t hear, and Ayako opened the door to retrieve two small sandwich bags of crushed ice.

She closed the door and turned the flimsy lock.

“He saw you are hurt,” she said, “and thought some ice might help with the pain.”

Quinn stripped off his leather jacket and set the pistol on top of it next to the pillow.

“Ice is probably a good idea.”

He sank to the mattress with a long, low groan. The futon was clammy, laden with dust, and filled with lumpy cotton stuffing. Each mattress was roughly six feet long and three feet wide. Barely a few inches thick, they were meant for a springy tatami-mat floor instead of the hard wood of the temple house. Quinn was too exhausted to care.

Ayako knelt beside him. “Please,” she said softly, “roll over on your stomach.”

The old lamp’s tiny orange flame did little to light the room, and Quinn blinked up at her in the darkness.

“What?”

“You are skilled at killing,” she whispered. “I am skilled at taking care of the pains of a man. Besides, do you not know the saying ‘cold as the heart of a whore’?”

“Your back is badly bruised.” She held up the plastic bags, smiling softly. “Kobo has brought us two bags of ice and I offer my cold heart to help heal you.”

The intense cold of the ice over his kidney pushed back the worst of the pain almost as soon as Ayako put the bag on Quinn’s back. She moved it expertly every few minutes, never allowing any one place to get uncomfortably cold, yet still allowing for the ice to do its job.

“You spoke of a girl who works for Oda,” she said, the flat of her hand gently on the bare skin over his kidney, warming it slightly between applications of ice.

“She is supposed to have a tattoo,” Quinn said. “A foo dog . . . a komainu, like Oda.”

Quinn didn’t know how much Ayako knew, so he didn’t mention anything about Ran being Emiko Miyagi’s daughter.

“I see,” Ayako said, her hand trembling at the talk of Oda. Quinn thought of probing a little deeper but decided he didn’t have the energy at the moment for such a discussion.

She leaned back, kicking her legs out to one side so her knees were only inches from Quinn’s face where he lay against the buckwheat pillow.

She held her ankle with one hand as she spoke. “I believe we each have a moment that we live for. Something very important toward which our entire life is aimed.”

Quinn nodded, fighting sleep.

“I am convinced that this is but a detour in your life, Quinn-san.” She bit her lip as if she did not want to continue, but felt she must. “My meeting you, to help you in what you and I are doing . . . I believe this may be my one moment . . .”

Quinn reached out to touch the back of her hand that held her ankle. It seemed cruel to leave her sitting there alone in the dark. A tear fell from above and landed on his wrist.

“We have a saying here in Japan,” she whispered. “All married women are not wives.”

Quinn nodded but said nothing.

“If I had not decided to become a prostitute . . . do you think I would have made a good wife?”

“Of course,” Quinn said, blinking back sleep.

She rubbed away the tear on his hand. “I do as well,” she said.

Exhaustion crept in like a drug as the ice and Ayako’s touch chased away more pain. Quinn jerked, catching himself as he fell asleep.

He was vaguely aware of the warmth of Ayako’s body as she crawled in beside him and pulled the musty quilt over them both. His last memory before he drifted off was the smell of cigarettes and the candy scent of her strawberry shampoo. She said something to him, her voice soft and whiskeyed, but he was asleep before it registered as tender.

Quinn woke six hours later to the sound of the sliding door rattling in the wooden track. Hand on the H&K, he sat up, blinking, working to clear his head. A sickening ache low in his back brought the memories of the night before flooding back to him. Still, the ice and sleep had helped and he was feeling somewhat better.

The door clacked open and Ayako appeared, carrying a pink cloth grocery bag in one hand and her striped helmet in the other. She dropped her keys on the rough timber table and ducked her head toward Quinn in a polite bow.

“You are awake,” she said. “I have had no calls yet from that devil Watanabe.”

“Tanaka is zero for nine.” Quinn yawned, trying to work the kinks out of his spine. “He can’t let us continue to kill his men without addressing the problem.

Besides, he’ll want his
tao tou
back.” Quinn returned the pistol to the Transit jacket and fell back onto the futon to stare up at a cobweb on the ceiling beams. “He’ll call.”

“In any case,” Ayako said, “you need to eat. The kitchen here is rudimentary at best. But please forgive my clumsiness. Before you arrived, it was many years since I prepared anything more than a mixed drink for a man.” She held up a small wooden box containing four pink skeins of tiny fish eggs. Each skein was about six inches long and the diameter of a small squash. “Emiko said you like Japanese food.”

“I do.” Quinn nodded, his mouth suddenly watering at the thought of a meal.

“I got
mentaiko
,” she said. “Spiced cod roe. We are known for it here in Fukuoka.”

“Sounds delicious.” Quinn couldn’t help smiling as he watched Ayako putter around the simple wooden counter that served as a kitchen in the small cottage. Her hair still hung in damp locks from her shopping trip in the morning rain. She’d slipped off her wet sweatpants and jacket to reveal a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt and loose violet gym shorts that matched the slippers she’d brought in the duffel from her apartment.

The softness of the colors reminded Quinn of an Easter egg. He wondered if she realized that though she worked each day to make herself alluring with costumes and makeup, it was now, fresh from the rain and dressed in plain T-shirt and shorts, that her natural beauty shone through.

Perhaps, Quinn thought, she knew exactly what she was doing and had expertly dialed in on what Quinn found attractive.

“There is a tub in the room behind that screen there.” She pointed to the back wall of the cottage, beside the closet where the mattresses had been stored. “I lit the heater earlier, so the water should be hot. Please, go ahead and have a bath. Breakfast will be ready by the time you are finished.”

 

 

The comforting smell of miso soup filled the cottage as Quinn removed the planks that covered the wooden tub and lowered himself into the water. It was small, thankfully with only room for one, but deep enough to soak all the way to his shoulders. Like most Japanese he’d met, Ayako apparently liked her baths somewhere just south of a rolling boil. Quinn knew he really needed more ice but hurt too bad to care. He kept his movement to a minimum and was soon used to the heat. His ribs were certainly cracked from the boot treatment he’d received from the Fairfax County officer. The beer mug at Sato’s had given him a knot the size of a golf ball behind his ear, and his left kidney felt swollen to twice its normal size.

Breathing in the heady aroma of miso and the hint of Ayako, who must have already bathed, Quinn leaned his head back and marveled that he’d lived through yet another day. He was stiff, bruised, and pissing blood, but he was alive. He took a quick look at the H&K pistol within easy reach on the folded towel, then closed his eyes to consider his situation.

He’d been in Japan for less than forty-eight hours and was already beginning to lose count of the casualties he’d left in his wake. Some were a blur, some stood out in vibrant detail. It had taken him five full minutes of scrubbing to get the blood from the night before out from under his fingernails. Someday, there would be a mental reckoning for the things he’d done, the way he lived. Even with good intentions and the weight of the government behind him, repeated violence came with a high price, and he was living on credit. But he’d decided long ago to do his job and let the shrinks worry over him when the time came.

For now, he had bigger things to fret about than any mental collapse on the horizon. He was a fugitive, wanted for murder and escape. They’d probably pile kidnapping on since he’d handcuffed the officers to the signpost. He was hiding out with a Japanese prostitute he hardly knew, was in possession of a pistol he’d stolen from an organized crime boss who wanted him dead, and sitting on a shipment of illicit Korean Ecstasy—not to mention a couple of other items that would be sure to get him five days in the electric chair if the Fukuoka police happened to walk in.

“Ahhh, Veronica,” he said under his breath. “If you could see me now.” He chuckled and felt the searing heat of the water from even that small movement. Of course Ronnie would be the first person to his mind. He fretted over Kim and agonized over Mattie’s safety—but thoughts of Ronnie Garcia were always in front of all else.

Thibodaux was right. It would be a woman that did him in. Thibodaux was right about a lot of things.

 

 

Ayako set out a simple spread of rice balls wrapped in seaweed and pickled radish to go with the miso soup and spicy cod roe. Had it not been for the hot bath, Quinn wouldn’t have been able to fold himself into position on the cushion at the low wooden table. As it was, he had to move the table to one side of the room so he could lean his back against the wall.

Ayako used the points of her chopsticks to tear a bite-size piece of the red, pepper-flecked
mentaiko
and popped it into her mouth. Quinn followed her example and found it delicious—like the eggs on the outside of a California roll but with more substance.