Woman with a Blue Pencil (24 page)

Regardless, there's no time left for dilly-dallying at Manzanar. (As there surely won't be any time at the basic training camp they'll soon be shipping you off to in Mississippi, or wherever you said it was.) So get to it, my talented, and perhaps soon-to-be-famous, author!

Yours Thrilled,

Maxine

THE REVISED—CHAPTER EIGHT cont'd.

Sumida poked his head down through the open trapdoor before descending the ladder. It was a good thing he did, as he saw what was happening below and could react accordingly. On a narrow wooden catwalk, suspended ten feet above the surface of the ocean by metal poles attached to the underside of the pier, a man held a gun on a woman. They stood thirty or forty yards from the base of the ladder. The silhouetted man had his back to Sumida. The woman leaned with unexpected languor against the wooden railing—as if she was not even being held at gunpoint. Such
sangfroid
! Strange, Sumida thought, as his Kyoko was more the nervous type. The two talked, though Sumida could not make out their words. Then clouds parted, or perhaps it was the clearing of the smoke from the fireworks, and now the moonlight reflected off the water. He got a better look at the woman. Her silhouette, slinky in a satin gown, brought to mind Kyoko's beautiful body, which he had cherished from the moment they'd become clumsy but passionate lovers as seniors in high school. And as his eyes further adjusted to the light he made out the features of her face.

The light still wasn't ideal.

At this distance, it was difficult to discern details.

Sumida's mind was clouded from the past twenty-four hours.

All reasons to doubt what he saw . . . but he had no doubt. It was Kyoko. Somehow, she was alive.

He hesitated no longer, but closed the trapdoor quietly behind him and stealthily started down the ladder. He knew Kyoko could see his descent. But she didn't give him up to the man with the gun. Instead, she kept talking, maybe stalling for time to allow Sumida to get into position.

He was, after all, her best hope.

Who was the man with the gun and why was he holding Kyoko at bay? It didn't matter.

At the foot of the ladder, Sumida considered his options. He could call out to the armed man, demanding that he drop his weapon, as they did in the movies. But this wasn't the movies. And Sumida was no gunslinger. He didn't relish any Western-style showdown, wherein the man would turn and they both would fire. Sumida didn't like his odds in such a confrontation. Another option was to creep forward along the wooden catwalk until he was close enough to put the gun to the back of the man's head, whereupon his demand to “drop it” could not be resisted. But he feared that even with the sound of the water below and the amusement park sounds above, he could not be silent enough to draw
that
close. Besides, his movement along the creaking catwalk would inevitably cause enough sway (even if only a little) that the man would feel Sumida's approach before he arrived.

The third option was to fire from here.

It wasn't so far. He could steady himself against the base of the ladder, using two hands on the pistol. Perhaps he hadn't thought of himself as being a man who'd shoot another man in the back. But that was more movie-think. Besides
this
man was holding a gun on Kyoko! Mustn't it have been like this before, when Czernicek had held a pistol on Kyoko at the edge of the water someplace along the LA harbor, not so far from here? That
had
happened. He'd identified the body. He was not a madman. Yet here he was. He felt his heart begin to race.

He mustn't let his adrenalin interfere with the precision of his shot.

And he mustn't wait so long that the conversation at the far end of the catwalk ended with the man's shooting Kyoko.

He put both hands on the gun, aimed, and fired.

Excerpt from chapter fourteen, con't. of
The Orchid and the Secret Agent
, a novel by William Thorne

Metropolitan Modern Mysteries, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1945

. . . But just before he pulled the trigger to eliminate the Orchid for good, Jimmy felt a hard blow to the back of his left shoulder, spinning him around and almost knocking the gun from his right hand. His first thought was of the Orchid, who, being so close, might move in on him with razor sharp precision now that he was disoriented; his second thought was that she'd have no time to reach him, as the momentum of the blow was hurtling him, helplessly, over the railing and into the ocean; his third thought was that he'd been shot; his fourth was to look in the direction from which the shot had come; his fifth was that he saw the shooter standing at the foot of the ladder, gun still raised; his sixth was that the shooter, who must be the Phantom, looked just as ordinary as Mr. Barratt had predicted; his seventh thought was to aim at the Phantom and to fire (action and thought being one now), even as Jimmy was going backward over the side of the catwalk; his eighth was that he had indeed hit his assailant in the gut (likely putting an end to the second-most-dangerous Jap on the West Coast); his ninth was subsumed by the cold splash of the water, into which he sunk like a stone; his tenth was that he had to rise to the surface and swim back to shore, despite the ache in his left shoulder, in order to survive to fight another day. All this in a matter of two or three seconds, plenty of time for a whole life to unspool, like a film ratcheting off a reel and turning a lucid story on a movie screen to meaningless white.

Jimmy Park would not settle for mere white.

He burst the surface of the salty, rolling sea and saw the Orchid on the catwalk above him approaching the gunman, who had collapsed, wounded, into an awkward sitting position at the base of the ladder. Jimmy believed he could still hit her from here, even as he bobbed in the water. He was that good a shot. But in his fall he had dropped his .45, which was likely settling on the sandy floor of the ocean right about now. So he ducked his head under the surface to avoid the evil pair's notice and started swimming for the shore, pulling himself forward with his right arm only, as by now his left arm had gone numb and useless.

THE REVISED—CHAPTER EIGHT cont'd.

Sitting on the wooden catwalk, supported by the ladder at his back, bleeding from a hole in his left side just under his rib cage, Sumida tried to return his gun to the back waistband of his trousers, but it fell from his hand. The gut shot hurt. He watched the woman approach. He noted her walk—all sensuality and aggression, like a leopard—and he realized that this was not the Kyoko he had known, loved, married, and lost, however familiar her appearance. Yes, she had the same sparkling eyes . . . but this woman bore an expression of barely restrained, malicious power, which he had never seen in his wife, who had been many things (not all of them good) but never this. So who was this? The cartoonish villainess in the government report—the Orchid?

But she asked first, as she drew near. “Who are you?”

“I was your husband,” he answered.

“What?” There was menace in her voice, despite his having just saved her life. Clearly, she did not like being confused. And, if the government report was true, then she was capable of exerting lethal force. He couldn't afford to die now. Not with this excursion a bust (involving this
other
Kyoko), while Czernicek, the killer of his
real
wife, remained alive still in the hotel room.

“I've taken no husband,” she said.

“I'm speaking of another life,” he answered, as rationally as possible. Talking was difficult, his midsection feeling aflame, but he had things to say. “You were someone else. Identical in appearance, but different . . . Don't ask me to explain, because I can't.”

“Do you work for the United States government?” she asked.

“No.”

Standing over him, she shook her head. “Maybe you're just a mad dog looking to be put out of his misery.”

Maybe he was, he thought. But not quite yet.

“In any case, I should thank you for your well-timed shot,” she said. “What is your name?”

“Satoki Samuel Sumida. My friends call me Sam.” Bleeding, he hadn't time to introduce further facts that would only compel from her more questions—especially since he had a few questions of his own. “Who did I shoot?”

“The man you shot was nothing,” she answered.

He had to strain his neck and shoulders to look up, his midsection offering no support. “No,
I
am nothing,” he said. “Just ask almost anyone.”

She knelt beside him, pushing aside his suit coat to see his bloodied shirt. “You're delirious.”

“I wish that were so.”

Now that she was just inches away from him, he caught her scent. It was
Lucien Lelong
perfume. Familiar, of course. For a moment, he looked only at the side of her face, allowing himself to imagine that this was his Kyoko. From so close, there was no distinction, mannerisms melting away. He had never thought he'd experience his wife's physical presence again. Yet here she was, now. His heart swelled, and he wished he could say how sorry he was for the ways he had failed her, his vain and distracted nature. He wished too that he could tell her he forgave her betrayal, which he believed was more about their strained marriage than about her true character. If he was going to die here beneath the pier, what better final image to take with him? With the back of his right hand he gently touched the perfect cheek, scented of
Lucien Lelong
 . . .

The woman snapped back, as if revolted by his touch.

His reverie ceased, its sudden absence hitting him almost as hard as the bullet.

Of course this was not his wife.

This was the traitorous criminal described in the government report. (Assuming the Federal agents had gotten it right, which they usually did, though in this case the violence and manner of her alleged crimes strained belief, seeming the stuff of Saturday matinee B-pictures or pulp spy novels.) Indeed, it had been the seemingly exaggerated nature of her criminality that had encouraged Sam to ignore the report itself (clearly not
his
Kyoko) when Czernicek first provided it and to put all his faith in the attached photograph instead. So he'd been taken in, as the photograph failed to convey the otherness of this woman who bore Kyoko's face—the Orchid—the otherness of her walk, her facial expressions, her way of speech. What it all amounted to was yet another question: should he shoot her now himself, thereby removing a national security threat? Subsequent questions followed. Could he even reach the gun where he'd dropped it on the catwalk? Likely not . . . but was that a good enough reason not to try? He was an American and had responsibilities. Or was the entire report of her venality mere exaggerated racial prejudice? And, in either case, what of Czernicek, the killer of his real wife?

“I have a motorboat and men coming any second and cars waiting on the shore,” she said, standing and stepping away from him. He noticed how sharp her fingernails looked. “I can instruct my men to drop you at the hospital,” she continued. “Otherwise, you will bleed to death. I can't say if any of your vital organs have been hit. So you may bleed to death anyway. Regardless, honor dictates that I make such an offer since you saved my life. Even if you are a madman.”