The Kaisho (23 page)

Okami had looked at him bleakly. “What you’re saying, then, is that we are checkmated.”

“Not at all. What I’m saying is that extreme circumstances require extreme measures.” Nicholas had suddenly felt cold, as if a wind had swept through the palazzo. “In order to help you I am going to have to become a magnet.”

“Magnet?”

“Yes. Call it a human shield. What I want to do is redirect the assassin’s attention from you to me.”

“I will do what I can,” Nicholas said now.

“Yes, I know.” Celeste nodded. “Okami-san and I discussed it at length last night after you left. But I wanted to hear it from you. To be certain.” She looked out to sea for a moment. “I need to tell you about the three men of the Kaisho’s inner council because one of them has ordered Okami-san’s death.”

“The man Okami says is behind the rise of the Godaishu as an international criminal organization.”

Celeste nodded. “The inner council consists of the
oyabun
who command Japan’s three major Yakuza families: Tetsuo Akinaga, Akira Chosa, Tomoo Kozo.” She showed him photos of each of them. “All of these men must be considered guilty until you can prove them innocent. I urge you not to trust any of them; one has betrayed Okami-san and all he has worked for.”

He stared at the photos, committing them to memory. Then he looked at her. “Okami-san is not your lover, but he is very special to you. Before, you said the pressure he was under would kill a lesser man.”

“That’s right.”

“And yet he is ninety.”

She rose abruptly. “Let’s walk. I’m cold.” She tucked her hand in her jacket pocket as they headed off down the
riva.
Pigeons rose and fell in concert, like the wing of a gigantic avian, and hawkers offering free rides to the island of Murano for an obligatory tour through the glass-blowing factories raised their voices over the heavy thrum of the boats. Pigeons, crying for food, swept low overhead, their wingbeats strong on the cool air.

“Now I will tell you what not even the men of the inner council know, a secret about the Kaisho: he possesses
koryoku.”

Koryoku.
The word burned itself across his mind. “Mikio Okami has the Illuminating Power?”

“It’s what has allowed him to survive all these years. It answers many questions, doesn’t it? Over ninety and with the strength and will of a fifty-year-old.”

Nicholas’s heartbeat throttled up, and he had to slow his breathing. But his mind was racing forward.
Koryoku,
the nexus, the doorway into Shuken. If Okami did indeed possess the Illuminating Power, he would be able to tell Nicholas whether it was possible for him to attain
koryoku.
His dream of finding the lost secret of his ancient race, the combining of Akshara and Kshira, Light and Dark, the two sundered hemispheres of Tau-tau, might at last be within reach.

If he could keep Okami safe.

“I’ve startled you at last,” Celeste said.

“I’m afraid you have.”

She turned her head, gave him a quick, sharp look. “He doesn’t want you to do it. To put yourself in the line of fire.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“But what do you mean? I agree with him.”

“Keep walking, but pick up your pace a bit.” Nicholas guided her away from the
riva,
into a side street. The hour was late enough for more stores to be open, and there was what might be described as a crush of people hurrying to work. Somehow this struck Nicholas as somewhat odd and a bit amusing; it was difficult to believe that anyone actually worked in this city of marvels. But, of course, beneath the treasures Venice was still a city, although hardly a mundane one.

“Neither Okami nor I have a choice now,” he said. “We’re both committed to this path. You must accept what happens.”

“Karma. This is your fate.”

He heard the cynical edge to her voice. “Listen, Celeste, if you don’t believe in karma, it doesn’t exist.”

“Like
giri.”
She liked the surprised look that sprang to his face. “Yes, I know about obligation, a debt that can never adequately be repaid.”

Seeing a small bakery, he pulled her in, where they stood in front of glass cases, staring at the breads and small cakes fresh from the oven.

“Are you hungry? We just ate.”

“I’d like to know if we’re alone in this part of the city.”

Celeste watched him as he glanced in the mirror along the wall behind the clerk, a middle-aged woman with rosy cheeks and a cheery word for all her regular morning customers.

“What have you seen?”

“Maybe nothing,” Nicholas said as the woman came over. He pointed at a huge, flat loaf of bread filled with black olives and fresh rosemary. He indicated the size of the slices she should sell him, but his eyes were constantly flicking upward to the mirror. “Maybe something.”

“Has it begun?” Was that fear or excitement firing her face?

He dug in his pocket for some lira, took the white paper bag and his change from the woman, and headed for the door. “I’ll leave you here. Wait five minutes then head back to the
riva.”

“No. I’m going with you.”

“You’re not involved in this.”

“Oh, but I am. Remember
giri?
I owe Okami-san. Besides, whoever is coming for him must already know about me. I’ll no doubt be safer with you.”

Nicholas had no ready counter for that argument. He did not think she was the type to hide out at her mother’s house until this blew over. He decided to say nothing, but he knew he would need to alter his plans slightly now that he would not be alone.

Back on the street, they headed away from the Grand Canal. The narrow streets were periodically filled with people, then almost deserted as these clumps of humanity dispersed at a cross-corner or a bridge.

All the while, Nicholas used the plate glass of store and restaurant windows to scan the street immediately behind them.

“What do you see?” Celeste asked.

“Right now, it’s not what I see that bothers me. It’s what I
feel.
Someone definitely has us under surveillance.”

They went over a bridge, then turned left into another street.

“So it
has
begun,” she said. “What do we do now?”

“We let whoever it is continue to follow us.”

“Why?”

“Because, the longer they have to shadow us the better our chances are of spotting them. And that’s what I really want to do.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Are you up for looking your enemy in the face?”

She gave him a small smile. “Under the circumstances I’d like nothing better.”

“Got a break.” Lillehammer made his way haltingly down the aisle of the Air Force jet holding several fax sheets in his fist. His face was alight with excitement.

“It’s about the mutilated girl,” Croaker said, setting aside his cup of coffee and capping it so it wouldn’t spill.

“Right.” Lillehammer waved the faxes. “She had a bridge. Unusual dental work, something about two adult teeth never coming in, so she had a bridge put in when her milk teeth fell out.”

“Some tooth fairy, huh?”

Lillehammer grinned, the spiderweb of pale scars waxing in his flesh. Outside the thick ovals of Perspex, dark cloudbanks shredded and reformed, whirling upward at points in grand horsetails. They had needed a bit of oxygen, getting up above the storm blanketing central Minnesota. The plane was still shuddering in the aftermath of the major turbulence, on the eastern edge of the front, but pulling away from it now.

“The work was so distinctive the computers dug out her name in no time flat: Virginia Morris.”

What computer, Croaker asked himself, had such a vast data bank and was so well coordinated it could orthodont-ID a victim in less than twelve hours? None that he had used, even the ones he’d had limited access to on occasion at the FBI. But maybe that was just because it had been a long time since he’d needed access.

Croaker was watching the storm streaming by below them while the frame of the jet vibrated slightly. “She the one with whom Dominic violated the WIΓSEC rules?”

“Looks that way. She’s from Queens, his old stomping grounds. I spoke to the federal marshals handling his case, and they had no record of her as authorized personnel.” Lillehammer shook his head. “I reamed them out, though. Dominic was always something with the women, he couldn’t keep it in his pants for long.”

“So he imported his mistress all the way to Minnesota under WITSEC’s nose. How’d he manage that?”

Lillehammer shrugged. “He commanded thousands. It could have been any of them.”

Croaker looked away from the cloud-strewn sky. “I doubt it. I know these guys. They don’t make it a habit of getting their button men involved in their personal affairs. Who knows what enemies could get wind of that kind of vulnerable spot.”

“You have an idea who helped him?”

“Just considering your theory about an inside job.”

“What about it?” Lillehammer cocked his head. “Who else but someone inside could have given the murderer Dominic’s whereabouts?”

Croaker shook his head. “I know you think someone inside the government’s rotten, but my instinct says there’s another possibility, and I want to follow it. See, Goldoni was murdered at that house. How did he get there? Was he snatched? I doubt it; he was too well watched. Besides, if it was an inside job and they knew where he was, they’d have just gone there. But what if he
deliberately
slipped his handlers to go to a rendezvous? It would be relatively easy: tell his wife he was going to the store for toilet tissue or a T-bone steak, then take a detour at the last minute.”

“It’s certainly possible.” Lillehammer seemed intrigued. “But why would he do that?”

“It might be to meet someone who he trusted absolutely.” Croaker looked at his watch. “If we divert the flight plan from Washington to Kennedy in New York, what would our ETA be?”

“Let me check with the pilot,” Lillehammer said, reaching for the intercom.

When Justine awoke in the queen-size bed at the Tokyo Hilton, the first thing she did was reach over for the man who had fallen asleep beside her. Finding only bedsheets, her heart skipped a beat, and for a moment she was suffused with a dull, leaden ache, familiar as hunger.

Then she picked her head off the pillow and heard him in the bathroom, urinating. There was a kind of comfort in that purely male sound, the hard splash against porcelain.

“Rick?”

He appeared in the doorway to the bathroom, naked and grinning. “Finally up? Good. I hope you’re hungry, I’m about to order breakfast.”

Justine sat up and stretched. She was aware of his eyes on her, greedy and lustful.

“Do you know what that does for my id?”

She laughed. “Your ‘id’ seems to be preceding you into the bedroom.” She opened her arms to him as he took a leap, landed against her. He arched over her. She looked up into his face. “What about breakfast?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m a lot less hungry than I was before you woke up.”

Later, after they had showered and dressed, they went down to the restaurant. He ordered bacon and eggs, a side of potatoes, a large orange juice, coffee, and toast. Justine could not help but laugh—he was so American. Delighted and famished, she said she would have the same.

The juice and coffee came almost immediately. He took his coffee black. While she was adding cream and sugar to hers, he said, “If you haven’t changed your mind, when can you come back to New York?”

Justine looked across the table, took his hand in hers. “I haven’t changed my mind. When do you want me?”

“Now,” he said, pressing the back of her hand against his lips. “I’ve waited too long to wait any longer.”

Justine smiled at him, caught up in his open enthusiasm. “All right. But I’ll need a day to pack.”

“Why? Is there anything here you really need—or want—to take with you?”

The food came, giving her some time to contemplate what he had said. Rick asked for strawberry jam. Justine munched her bacon, watching him spread his toast with butter and the jam. At last she said, “Thinking about it, I guess there isn’t anything here I can’t live without.” He looked up. “I know what you meant. Starting over. Completely over.” She finished the slice of bacon. “I think I’d like that very much.”

“Great!” He wiped his lips. “I’ll make the reservations right now.”

She watched him walk away, ask the maître d’ for a house phone. She could not stop studying his face. She imagined herself in New York, married to him, back at her old job. She felt a vitality rush through her, a feeling that for so long she had despaired of ever having again. She was eager to return to work, to reestablish herself, to mount an assault that would regain her her old life, her self-respect, that would give her an identity.

At that moment, a waiter brought over a cordless phone.

“Mrs. Linnear,” he said. “Call for you.”

For an instant Justine sat frozen, terrified that somehow Nicholas had found where she was staying, through Nangi, perhaps. A ball of ice sat in her stomach, preventing her from breathing.

“Mrs. Linnear?”

She nodded, gave the waiter the semblance of a smile, took the proffered phone.

“Hello?”

“Justine, it’s Nangi.”

“Good morning,” she said with some relief.

“Are you feeling better? Did your visit with Millar-san go well?”

“Yes, very well.” Justine was very conscious of how close Tanzan Nangi and Nicholas were. But Nangi was not
tanjian;
he had no special power to read her emotions, especially through the telephone. “It was so good to see an old friend from the States.”

“I can well imagine. Tokyo is the hub of Japan, but I often find myself homesick for the town where I was born. The feeling is natural.”

“Thank you, Nangi-san, for your concern.”

“Perhaps we can see each other soon.” His voice sounded melancholy. “I do not know how long Nicholas will be away.”

“Have you spoken to him?” The moment she said it she knew it was a mistake.

“Haven’t you called him? I asked Ito-san to leave his number with the concierge at the hotel.”