The Kaisho (76 page)

Croaker grabbed Nicholas around the waist and, kicking powerfully upward, brought them both through the increasingly paler layers of twilight, out of the icy night, out of the graveyard, to the surface and the last light of day.

Ah! To be

A child
—

On New Year’s
Day!

—Issa

With an ear-rattling rumble, the 747 jumbo took off, leaving behind it an ashy cloud that clung to the air like gauze to a wound. Through it, the bloated sun was stained the color of dried blood.

“I want you to know something,” Margarite said. Her amber eyes were leveled on Croaker. “If I never see you again, I’ll shrivel up and die.”

“Maybe you really are the siren Do Duc thought you were.” He smiled, trying to make light of it, but she swung her head away.

“I felt it when he died,” she whispered. “I felt him call my name.”

“Why did he do it, Margarite? Murder Dom, all the others?”

“I think it’s all he knew. To him life was death. There was nothing else. He was just trying to survive.”

“Poor bastard.”

“I wonder,” she said, raising her voice as another jumbo roared down the runway, “what he would have done if you and Nicholas had let him grab me.”

“Who knows? But my guess is even he didn’t want to know. He made the move to provoke us because there was no other way out for him. He said the hounds were out for him and he was right.”

She turned back toward him, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that she wanted to put the topic of Do Duc to rest.

“I meant what I said before.”

“I know you did,” Croaker said. “But I also know where you’re going now—back to Tony D.” He paused for a moment, as if he did not want to go on. “I would help if you gave me the procedure for contacting Nishiki.”

Margarite shook her head. “That was Dom’s only legacy, the perpetuation of all his power. I won’t jeopardize it—even for you.” She gave him a desolate smile. “Business,” she said, taking his face in her hands. She kissed him hard on the lips, and he held on long enough to taste her tears.

“Come home soon,” she said when at last she broke away. “Francie will already have begun to miss you.” She hefted her bag. “Will you walk me to the gate?”

He looked at her. “I’ve come as far as I can, Margarite. It’s farther than I ever thought I would go.”

She nodded, turned away toward the terminal. A moment later, she looked back at him over her shoulder. “When will you come home?”

“When this is over,” he said. “When I can.”

“And then?”

“It’s up to fate, isn’t it?”

She seemed uncertain for a moment, then she smiled. “For the moment, at least, I suppose it is.”

“I should never have thrown it away,” Nicholas said. “That was an act of arrogance, like a slap in my father’s face.”

Behind him, on the wall of the living room, Iss-hogai, the great
dai-katana,
was hung in its temporary leather scabbard. A new one of handmade lacquer, tooled silver, and cured manta-ray skin was being made for him in the traditional manner by a man of ninety years whom Nicholas had known for some time.

“This place wasn’t the same without it,” Croaker said. There was a silence for a time. He looked from the long sword to the pair of armatures Nicholas had made himself to display Do Duc’s two masks. It had seemed grotesque at first that Nicholas should want to keep these grisly reminders of a man who had almost killed him. But then as he had learned from Margarite, nothing was ever so cut-and-dried in life; evil as well as good wore many different faces.

At last, he said, “Have you gone to the grave?”

Nicholas knew he meant Justine’s grave. “Not yet. It will take some time before I can reconcile her death in my mind. I don’t want to go there until that’s settled, until there’s a kind of peace between us.” Nicholas put his hands together. “There’s still part of her spirit here, restless. I feel her every morning at dawn when I wake up to do my exercises. I think she needs to be free of this place, Lew.”

Croaker nodded, understanding. “Give it time, Nick,” he said, and sighed deeply. “At least Senator Bane’s no longer a force to deal with. When the Red Queen died, his power base collapsed. It wasn’t difficult for Faith Goldoni to get those who had feared him to join his enemies in denouncing him.”

“But the Godaishu still lives,” Nicholas said. “And whatever we’ve accomplished, I have a premonition we’ve so far only scratched the surface. Where is Okami? What happened to him? Nangi is convinced he’s still alive. Certainly, the threat to him still exists—and now there are some hard questions he needs to answer.”

Outside, there was snow on the ground. Tomorrow it would be New Year’s Day, a time of renewal, when all things were possible.

“What I’d like to know,” Croaker said, “is what Okami and Dominic Goldoni were up to.”

“We only have to follow this maze far enough,” Nicholas said.

“If we can get that far.”

“I’ll start with Tetsuo Akinaga, Akira Chosa, and Tomoo Kozo, the three
oyabun
in the Kaisho’s inner council. One of them is responsible for plotting his death. And then there’s Avalon Ltd. They’re suppliers of every kind of war matériel you can name. It’s relatively easy to buy Chinese and Russian weapons, but they also have access to American F-15 jet fighters.”

“Waxman—the Red Queen—would have been able to provide that access,” Croaker said.

Nicholas nodded. “True. I just hope he’s the only one who did.”

Croaker poured himself some coffee from an insulated pot. “Why do you think Dominic gave Do Duc your name as Nishiki’s identity?”

Nicholas shrugged. “Who can say? Maybe Okami led Dominic to believe I was Nishiki in the event of the kind of disaster that actually occurred. Okami knew I’d be the only one who’d be able to stop Do Duc.”

Nicholas looked out the windows at the deep snow. The silence of winter had stolen over the countryside like fog obscuring the stars.

“Right now what worries me most is Torch Three Fifteen, the code word I found embedded in the Avalon software in Paris.”

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since you mentioned it. I’d bet the farm it’s some kind of experimental weapon they’re trying to get their hands on. If that’s so, it’s better than even money it’s one of ours. I’ll check that out.”

Nicholas was silent for some time. “I agree that’s the most likely possibility. But there’s another one we dare not ignore.” He tapped his fingertips together thoughtfully. “What if three fifteen isn’t a number but a deadline? That would be two and a half months from now. Ides of March.”

Nicholas shook his head ruefully. “If only Okami were here. I have a feeling he’d be able to tell us what Torch Three Fifteen was.”

“Nangi seems to think Okami’s been trying to give us clues to follow.”

“Right. Avalon Ltd. And then there’s this international arms dealer, Timothy Delacroix, who Harley Gaunt mentioned in the material that Manny Mannheim delivered. According to Harley, Delacroix claimed that Sato was one of his suppliers. That means the late Vincent Tinh was one of his suppliers.”

The two men stared at each other, and the look they exchanged brought no words to mind, only memories.

“You put Margarite on the plane?” Nicholas said.

“Late yesterday evening.”

He looked at Croaker. “Sure you made the right choice?”

“Not in the least.” Croaker grinned at him, but it felt false and he put it away. “I can’t let her walk out of my life, Nick, but what else was I supposed to do? I’m a cop, for Christ’s sake. I’ve always worked the right side of the law.”

“Are you certain she’s on the wrong side?”

Croaker looked at his friend, astonished. “What are you talking about?”

“This is one hell of a woman, Lew.”

“She’s the fucking Mafia, buddy.”

Nicholas, his hands laced in front of him, said softly, “Mikio Okami is Kaisho of all the Yakuza. Two months ago, I would have cheerfully turned him in if I’d been given even half a chance. Now I can’t be that certain of things.” He looked from the snowy landscape outside to his friend’s bleak face. “Let me ask you a question, Lew. Is Margarite an amoral person?”

“I—” Croaker stopped, not knowing what he was going to say. In what gray landscape did the truth lie?

“We all wear masks,” Nicholas said, “to hide what is most important to us.”

There was a silence again, and the two men heard the hushed crunch of footfalls from outside. Nicholas stirred and said, “You know what you’re going to have to do.”

“Yeah. Nangi and Faith Goldoni are convinced that Okami is Nishiki. If that’s the case, Margarite is going to know how to contact him. Even the indirect route he set up with Dominic Goldoni will be better than what we have now, which is nothing.”

Croaker sloshed the coffee around in his ceramic mug. “What if they’re wrong? What if Okami isn’t Nishiki?”

“We still have to try to find Okami. Are you up to it?”

Croaker examined his biomechanical hand as if he’d never seen it before. He knew what he was being asked to do: spy on Margarite long enough so that he could follow the elaborate chain of cutouts back to the source: Nishiki. “I love her, Nick. But we both know the rules. We know who we are and what roads we’ve chosen to travel.” He looked into his friend’s dark eyes. “It isn’t simple, but it’s all either of us has.”

The front door opened, then closed softly, and Croaker rose, went toward the kitchen. “Dinner in an hour?”

“Fine,” Nicholas said, grabbing his Thinsulate jacket. “Don’t bother cleaning up. Sashiko will be in first thing in the morning.”

Celeste was waiting for him in the hallway. She silently watched him put on his boots, then slipped her fingers through his as they went out into the twilight.

Blue shadows lay everywhere. Beneath a cedar, wreathed in snow and its copper-fringed winter coat, he could see rabbit tracks, a brighter blur of fur, bounding swiftly into the underbrush.

They went through the stand of ghostly ginkgo, up the small knoll, and then down toward the lake. It was almost all frozen over, bright patches of ice like stained glass.

“In the spring,” Nicholas said, “I’ll take a dive.”

“Are you afraid he won’t be there?”

“No. But his soul needs company. It never had any during life.”

Celeste squeezed his hand in hers. “This man was a coldblooded killer. I can’t understand your attitude toward him—or my sister’s.”

“Then I can’t explain it.”

“Neither could she. It’s just as well.”

They turned back, went up the crest of the knoll. From here they could see across to the other side of the lake, to houses huddled together as if for warmth. A dog barked while men worked assiduously pruning trees into knobby precise globes. The Japanese, Celeste had learned in her short time there, did not like to leave anything to chance.

“What about
koryoku,
the Illuminating Power?” Celeste asked. “Do you still think it’s so important?”

“I’m planning to ask Okami that when I see him. But, yes, I think it’s more important than ever.” Nicholas had been thinking of the gift he had found beyond the Sixth Gate. Perhaps this was why he felt so close to Do Duc. Do Duc had given Nicholas and Margarite very precious things that had changed both their lives. The power beyond the Sixth Gate was still by and large a mystery; what it would portend, Nicholas could not yet say, except that, as Seiko had predicted, he was no longer the same.

He broke his train of thought, looked at Celeste. “You didn’t leave with your sister.”

“We’re two different kinds of Goldonis. I need to find Okami before memory and obligation can be laid to rest.” A wind off the lake caught her hair as she shook her head. “Besides, I could never live in America. I’d miss the water and the light—the weight of Venice, the significance of history. Now, in winter, all the beautiful colors are muted by cloud and rain, until that magical moment in late afternoon when a thick shaft of sunlight breaks through, turning the
piazze
to Byzantine gold.” Her eyes had a faraway look. “Soon, it will be time for the Carnival, and the masks will be born again.”

In silence, they began to walk slowly back to the house.

In time, Celeste said, “I know you’re angry with me.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You think I should have told you in the beginning that I was a Goldoni. But the truth is, Nicholas, that I doubt you would have trusted me had you known. Okami knew your personality and he warned me to keep my true identity hidden from you.”

“Mikio Okami continues to haunt me like a specter. His bête noire—the mastermind of the Godaishu—has become mine.”

They paused at the front porch to stamp the snow off their boots. Nicholas opened the front door and they took off their footwear.

“Please don’t be angry with me,” she said. “It hurts too much.”

Shadows in the night. The moonlight, sliced into pieces by the bamboo, swept across Nicholas as he lay on his futon. He should have been asleep hours ago, but his body betrayed him, vibrating in blood and heat, wanting the woman in the next bedroom.

He knew he should get up, go and lie down beside her. He knew that was what she wanted—what they both wanted, but he felt paralyzed.

Images of Justine haunted his mind. He knew—not because anyone had told him, but because he simply
felt
it like moss upon a rock too long without sunlight—that she had died because he hadn’t been there to protect her. And if they had grown apart in the last years, if in fact their love had not survived, he knew that this, too, was his doing—his and Japan’s.

He heard a small sound as the shoji—the rice-paper screen—to his bedroom was slowly drawn back in its track. He saw a shadow stepping lightly and without any sound into the room. It avoided the slivers of moonlight, keeping to the deep shadows in the corners of the room.

It stood very still for a moment, watching him. Then, like a wraith, it shed its kimono and, with a soft sigh, slid beneath the covers of the futon. He smelled Celeste’s scent, as exciting as he remembered it in Venice and Paris. Whatever happened from this time forward, he knew that he would always remember her in that first electric moment, masked in the schola cantorum of the church of San Belisario, robed in enigma and power, the currencies of Venice.