Zero. Part 15

"Shut your mouth!" Masashi snarled. "I'll tell you when to talk, just as I tell you where and when to go. Why was I unable to contact you last week?"

"I was unavailable."

"That is not in our understanding!" Masashi shouted. "You are to be available to me day and night. At all times. Where were you?"

"I was . . . unwell.""I see that you have made a recovery." Masashi glared in Zero's direction, thinking. "Well, no matter," he said in a calmer tone. "It has come to my attention that Michael Doss is on his way to Hawaii. Maui, to be exact."

"Why would that be of any concern to us?" Zero asked.

"We intercepted a letter Philip Doss sent to his son," Masashi said. "It was very touching, a kind of pa.s.sing of the torch. Our good karma. I let the letter go because what could be better than to have Philip Doss's son brought into this. You have returned the katana to us, but the Katei doc.u.ment is still missing. Though Philip Doss is dead, I'm betting his son will lead us to the doc.u.ment. It is the very heart of the Jiban, detailing its entire strategy, as well as the networks of its power throughout the j.a.panese business, bureaucratic and governmental sectors."

A barge hooted, and for a moment their coffinlike compartment was flooded with bars of probing light. Zero moved further into the shadows. When the sound of the engines had faded sufficiently, Masashi resumed. "So Michael Doss is your quarry. I don't want you involved in anything else until this matter is resolved. It will not be long now. No more than the s.p.a.ce of two weeks at the outside. My schedule is both demanding and unyielding."

Zero was silent.

"Well?" Masashi said.

"I will do as you ask."

Masashi smiled at last. "Of course you will."

Fat Boy Ichimada felt oppressively hot. It was like the jungle here. Or like j.a.pan in August. The trees stifled all air coming in off the ocean. These wild mountains of Kahakuloa, within which he had chosen to work, had their drawbacks. But these very drawbacks, Fat Boy Ichimada reminded himself, were part of the reason his solitude was rarely breached.

On breathless days such as this, it was important to remind himself of every positive aspect of his work. Like the little house he had built for himself in Hana, on the other side of the island, hidden away from everything and everyone. When the pressures of his world became overpowering, he took his helicopter and flew to Hana. His hideout. Few people knew about the house.

Wataro Taki, Ichimada's oyabun, had known about it. But Wataro was dead. Now only the two Hawaiians who Fat Boy had hired to find the Katei doc.u.ment knew of its existence, since Fat Boy had lost patience with checking up on the house himself. He certainly did not want anyone in his clan to know of its whereabouts.

It had not been Fat Boy Ichimada's idea to come to Hawaii. Others far more inexperienced than he would perhaps have seen it otherwise, thinking themselves fortunate to have a job-to be in a position to become top man in the Islands.

But Ichimada knew better. Being top man in what he considered to be the a.s.shole of the universe was no honor.

Not that Ichimada had anything against Hawaii. After all, he had been here for seven years. But in the Yakuza, anywhere but j.a.pan was nowhere. j.a.pan was where the real power resided, no matter what anyone back home a.s.sured him.

Once Fat Boy Ichimada had been a favored lieutenant in the Taki-gumi. Wataro Taki had seen his bravery and his loyalty and had rewarded him. Then Masashi began to gain in prominence. Masashi had seen to it that anyone with a modic.u.m of power within the Taki-gumi was swept aside. Except in Ichimada's case it had not been so easy. Masashi had trumped up charges against Fat Boy. They were totally false, but evidence that Masashi had obviously planted had been found in Ichimada's house.

Fat Boy Ichimada was missing the little finger from his right hand. It still resided, he suspected, in a jar of formaldehyde in the Taki mansion. Fat Boy Ichimada had taken a knife, and to atone for a sin he had not committed, a sin created by Masashi, he had sliced off the finger.

He had been sitting across the table from Wataro Taki at the time. In Tokyo, seven years ago. Bowing, he had wrapped the finger in a white cloth and pa.s.sed it across the table. Bowing, Wataro Taki had accepted the gift.Being banished from j.a.pan to Hawaii was the other part of his atonement.

Nowadays, Fat Boy Ichimada thought, the new Yakuza asked for a shot of Novocain before they put knife to their flesh. But Ichimada was from the old school. Honor and girt, the burden hardest to bear, were his watchwords. It was giri, after all, that had led him to cut off his finger. He had done what Wataro Taki, his oyabun, had asked of him. Now that Masashi was oyabun of the Taki-gumi, Ichimada no longer felt any obligation to his boss. Quite the opposite, in fact. His heart burned for revenge, and the years had not cooled that ardor.

Therefore, when Masashi Taki had signaled Ichimada that an American named Philip Doss was on Maui, that Doss was carrying something that belonged to Masashi, that Masashi wanted it back and that Ichimada was to use any and all means to get it, Fat Boy had made his own plans; he had hastened to comply.

But for his own ends, not Masashi's.

Masashi had made it clear to him that the Katei doc.u.ment was invaluable.

Ichimada had no idea what the doc.u.ment contained. But he was certain that if he should become its possessor, he could buy his way off of Hawaii, buy his way back to j.a.pan. Masashi was so determined to get the Katei doc.u.ment back that Fat Boy was convinced that Masashi would give Fat Boy his own subfamily to run, as thanks for its safe return.

That had been Fat Boy Ichimada's plan. Hence the use of the two Hawaiians.

They were supposed to bring Philip Doss and the Katei doc.u.ment to Ichimada.

Instead, Philip Doss had crashed and burned. But not before he had phoned Ichimada. "I know who you are," Philip Doss had said. "And I know where your loyalties lie. I know you will do the right thing. You and I both loved Wataro Taki, didn't we? If you are still loyal to the old ways, you will find my son.

Ask him if he remembers the shintai. I have left a key in his name-Michael Doss-with the concierge at the Hyatt in Kaanapali. With it, he will be able to open a numbered locker at the airport."

"What?" Fat Boy had said, stunned to be hearing from the very man who was his quarry. "What are you talking about?" But there was only dead air on the other end of the line.

Ever since the call, Fat Boy Ichimada had wondered what was in the airport locker. In the meantime, Masashi had phoned him to expect Ude. The news had put Fat Boy into a panic, and he had sent the two Hawaiians to pick up the key and bring him the contents of the locker. What was in there? The Katei doc.u.ment? And what was the significance of the shintai?

At the same time, he had driven out to the airport to pick up Ude. Ude, who had come, was hot on Philip Doss's trail. And with him, an icy fist clamping Fat Boy Ichimada's heart. Fat Boy was certain that Ude had not come just to retrieve the Katei doc.u.ment. Masashi had plenty of other people he could have sent to do that. Ude was Masashi's executioner. That planted the suspicion in Fat Boy's mind: Had his two Hawaiians talked? He had been a fool to trust them. But he had had no alternative. If he was to have any chance of escaping this paradisiacal prison, he had to make a grab for the Katei doc.u.ment. As soon as he was free of Ude, he would have to find the Hawaiians and punish them.

For now, though, he would have to deal with Ude. The problem, as Fat Boy Ichimada saw it, was not so much how to retain possession of the Katei doc.u.ment he had sent the two Hawaiians in search of but how to stay alive long enough to make use of it.

Ude was a member of the new breed. In Tokyo, no doubt, he would hang out at the Wave or the Axis in Roppongi, eat at Aux Six Arbres, dress in Issey Miyaki outfits. Try to make it with the gaijin blondes busy gobbling hamburgers and trench fries.

Like all of his ilk, Fat Boy thought, looking at him now, Ude wore his desires on his face. Like a Westerner.

Fat Boy Ichimada told himself that he was not scared of Ude. Why should he be?

Ude used drugs, and that made one careless. The key, Fat Boy knew, was not to make any precipitous moves. That was what Ude would try to make him do.Now Ude and Fat Boy were down in the lower lea of Fat Boy Ichimada's property; it ab.u.t.ted on acreage that had been a cattle ranch for decades. Horses, cows and flies abounded, and not much else. Ude walked down along the cliffs and then back into the cow pastures. Fat Boy huffed beside him, always a pace or two behind, hurrying to catch up. Fat Boy liked Ude to think of him as a rather stupid fat man. The less sharp Ude believed he needed to be around Fat Boy, the better.

Ude strolled through the grazing herd. Their enormous brown eyes regarded him with bovine somnolence, while their tails switched at the horseflies. Ude's gaze, however, was not on the spectacular scenery or the bucolic inhabitants.

He watched where he was walking.

He pa.s.sed over those pies, steaming and glistening like oatmeal. These were too newly excreted. Those cracked and grayed from age, half leached into the gra.s.s, he pa.s.sed up as well. What he was searching for were cowpies crusted over but still gravid with nutrients-the fertile mound of creation for the mushroom. Not any mushroom. The mushroom. The one that, when Ude ate it, would paint the sky orange and red and turn the universe inside out.

Mushrooms were the object of Ude's pilgrimage onto the lea in Fat Boy Ichimada's field: slender white stalks with b.u.t.tonlike heads, slightly brownish, growing in small clumps.

When he found what he was looking for, he knelt and, using a penknife, clipped the mushrooms. Fastidiously, he circ.u.mcised the septic bottoms. Then he popped them into his mouth and, rising, chewed reflectively.

In a moment, he felt the first changes beginning. He could discern the blood pumping through his veins and arteries. A pulsing in his lower belly, a geisha's delicate fingers plucking the strings of a samisen. Time extruded through the Third Eye.

He began to hum as he walked. "Sayonara No Ocean," a pop tune from more than a year ago that had stayed with him. The notes, as they rumbled out of him, twirled in the air like clouds of breath on a frigid morning. Spent, the vibrations dying one by one, they burst like a line of crystal goblets striking a tile floor.

The sunlight covered him, some viscous substance that stuck to him in tender globules, heating his flesh. He nodded his head, slipped off his black polo shirt.

Blue, green and black double phoenixes rose amid a bed of crimson flame. Wings spread wide, their long, powerful necks twined as they stared into each other's faces. Below the pyre that had sp.a.w.ned them, a thick serpent curled and slid through rock and foliage. Its fanged jaws opened wide, its jeweled eye omniscient, its forked tongue eternally questing.

Naked to the waist, Ude's irezumi-the traditional Yakuza tattoos-rippled and danced in concert with his musculature. Muscles invariably made him think of Masashi Taki. Masashi was a hut about fitness. Often, he and Ude would work out together, hour after hour, until even Ude's superbly toned body ached. It was at those times that Masashi frightened Ude. Ude, who was frightened of no one.

Ude would stand, exhausted, watching Masashi continue his strenuous workout, sweat streaming off his glistening hide, and Ude would find himself thinking, He is not human. He has more stamina than a dozen men.

Finally, when Masashi was finished, they would move to the dojo mats, there to take up longswords so that the oyabun could practice his kendo. It was all Ude could do to keep up with him. At every turn, it seemed, Masashi gained in strength. He was indefatigable.

In the lea, the ocean's froth streamed from the corners of Ude's mouth. Ude laughed as he saw another deluge of froth. Finally, he recognized the bubbles as words. He was talking to Fat Boy Ichimada.

"Consider," Ude realized he was saying, "that the Katei doc.u.ment is everything."

"I know only what Masashi has ordered me to do," Fat Boy Ichimada said.

"Philip Doss was here," Ude went on, ignoring him. "Philip Doss stole theKatei doc.u.ment. He fled here with someone's a.s.sistance, neh?, since he had dropped out of sight in j.a.pan. He eluded me in j.a.pan. Then here on Maui he is mysteriously killed. Not by me. Not by anyone who works for Masashi Taki. Then by whom, Ichimada? You know everything and everyone. Here." He showed Fat Boy Ichimada the photo of Michael Doss. "Have you seen him? This is Philip Doss's son, Michael. Has he been here?"

"The son is not on Maui," Fat Boy Ichimada said, thinking how much the son resembled the father.

"No? Are you sure? Maybe Doss gave his son the Katei doc.u.ment for safekeeping."

"This man hasn't been on the Islands."

Ude, his black pupils unnaturally dilated, laughed cruelly. "Perhaps it's just that you can't handle a situation like this anymore." He gave Fat Boy Ichimada a nasty smile. "Incompetence-that is why you were sent here, isn't it?"

"You're here for a day," Fat Boy Ichimada said, "and you think you know everything." But he was stung. He did not like being reminded of why he had been sent away from j.a.pan.

"Seven years," Ude said mockingly. "If I had been here for seven years, I'd have built a clan that would have made the old boys in j.a.pan blanch. I would even have thought of keeping a plum such as the Katei doc.u.ment for myself."

His grin was so broad it was a leer. "But you're too stupid ever to have thought of that, aren't you, Ichimada?"

Fat Boy Ichimada said nothing. He knew Ude was trying to bait him into making an admission of guilt. Masashi could suspect from the Hawaiians' information what he was planning. But without proof, he could do nothing. For now, face protected Ichimada. Masashi needed a reason to remove him from his position in Hawaii. That was why Ude was here: to get that reason. Masashi knew that was going to be difficult, so he sent Ude to bait Fat Boy. If Ude's insults proved sufficient for Fat Boy to strike back, then Ude could kill him with impunity.

None of Ichimada's family on the Islands would protest. Therefore, Fat Boy resolved to remain calm.

"I don't blame you for not talking about it," Ude went on. "I certainly wouldn't. You see, the difference between us is that I would have made the best of being an exile. I'd be out from under the thumb of Tokyo. This is the land of plenty. The United States. They don't know what we're about. Rich, virgin territory. Ripe for the picking. A man can make his reputation here, as well as ama.s.sing a fortune! Yah!"

Ude's face turned to stone. "You knew Philip Doss in the old days, neh?"

"We both knew Wataro Taki," Fat Boy Ichimada said, thinking, That's why Masashi sent Ude to put pressure on me. He's suspicious that Philip tried to contact me. I must be very careful.

For Ude, the world was swimming in color. It was alight with glimmerings of an astounding nature. "I want the Katei doc.u.ment," Ude said, concentrating.

"Masashi Taki ordered you to get it. If you don't hand it over to me, I must a.s.sume that you are holding out on me."

Ichimada had an answer for that. "I am loyal to the Taki-gumi. Masashi need have no fear about that. As to the whereabouts of the Katei doc.u.ment, I am working on that right now. I have been at it from the moment Philip Doss was killed. He was not carrying the doc.u.ment when he burned. I am checking all the places he stayed or visited on the island." Fat Boy felt the maddening tickle of a line of sweat as it rolled down the side of his temple. Ude peered at it with the intense interest a lapidopterist devotes to an exotic b.u.t.terfly.

"You?" Ude said, examining the droplet of sweat. "You are handling this personally?"

"Of course," Fat Boy said, trying to keep one mental step ahead, wondering now if Ude knew about the two Hawaiians at all. Had Ude's bl.u.s.ter been just a ruse after all? "I would not trust this delicate a matter to anyone else."

"You have a reputation for never getting your own pudgy fingers dirty." Ude threw his head back and laughed. "I saw your finger, by the way. It was in abottle filled with brown liquid."

"Giri," Fat Boy said, struggling to keep himself calm. "But that is a concept j.a.panese like you no longer understand, neh?"

Ude's eyes were suddenly fierce. "I have been given total autonomy to settle this matter in any way I choose." He sneered. "Unless you deliver the Katei doc.u.ment to me within forty-eight hours, Ichimada, you will die."

Fat Boy Ichimada stared at Ude as if he were mad.

"I advise you to do whatever you have to." Ude c.o.c.ked his head, making an exaggerated show of listening. "Do you hear that? It's the sound of your life running out."

Fat Boy Ichimada listened to the insane laughter and ground his teeth in impotent fury.

A Bas was alight with gold-and-green neon.

"It's like being in a fishbowl," Joji Taki said.

"The night has a thousand eyes," Shozo said, recalling a line from an old American film. "And every one of them is here."

The nightclub was decorated in a style that could only be described as minimalist chic. Down a steep flight of steps from a street awash with people, glossy gray-and-black tables and chairs were scattered about a floor that seemed to shimmer with tiny lights. Astoundingly, there seemed to be no less of a crowd here than on the floors above. The nightclub was on several levels, connected by acrylic stairs in which had been embedded neon tubes, twisting like futuristic serpents.

The walls were a series of thick sheafs, acoustically arranged, covered in a woven material that was neither gray nor brown but that borrowed from both hues. They rose in separated tiers toward a ceiling filled with a firmament of metal scaffolding lit by a series of spotlight cl.u.s.ters, all of which were in constant movement. The result was not unlike being inside a stomach in the process of digestion.

The intimation of anatomy was well founded. The girls who roamed the narrow aisles between tables flashed their semi-nakedness in the same systematic manner that sides of beef are hung in a slaughter-house.

That this kind of mechanical s.e.xuality appealed to so many males had ceased to amaze Joji years ago. It might be a truism of modern life that mechanical s.e.xuality was better than no s.e.xuality at all.

He thought briefly of Kiko, waiting with the patience of Buddha for his return. Then, having allowed himself this minute treat, he turned his full attention toward the meeting at hand.

Masashi had entered A Bas. He stood in the doorway, his head surveying the scene by increments. This was Masashi's way. When he walked into the interior of any place, he would stand just inside the doorway. He would not fully enter until he had a clear picture of the area in his mind.

He was dressed in a black pin-stripe suit, pearl-gray shirt and a white-on-white-patterned silk tie. He wore gold cufflinks and a plain gold band on his ring finger.

The man he had brought with him was unfamiliar to Joji, an older Yakuza with clever eyes.

Masashi spotted Joji and Shozo and made his way slowly toward them. His man, quite deliberately Joji was sure, remained where he was beside the door. This was by way of an admonition to Joji. A silent reprimand that Masashi wanted this meeting to be solely between princ.i.p.als.

The two men bowed to each other, performed the ritual greeting. Joji dismissed Shozo. Drinks were ordered.

On the small stage, a young male j.a.panese in sungla.s.ses was singing a current pop song to a prerecorded accompaniment blasted out of a phalanx of speakers suspended from the ceiling. Light jumped and sparked. The reflections off his smoked lenses were dazzling.

"I admire punctuality," Masashi said, "above all other virtues. A punctual man is a reliable man."

The waitress returned, delivering the drinks. From all sides j.a.panese men,suited and sungla.s.sed like the singer, ogled every exposed inch of her.

"I asked for this meeting because since you left the Taki-gumi," Masashi went on, "it occurred to me that perhaps I had been unfair to you."

Masashi took a long swallow of his Suntory scotch. Having been recognized as Yakuza, Masashi and Joji had been served stiff drinks rather than the normal watered-down bar drinks.

"I wish," Masashi said, "to minimize whatever misunderstanding there may be between us. My wish is for the Taki-gumi to maintain its position of preeminence. Whatever is required for that to take place, I am willing to do."

"I appreciate your candor," Joji said, relaxing. "I, too, would welcome an equitable solution to our differences. There is no earthly reason for there to be tension between us."

"Good," Masashi said. "There is much money to be made- for all of us." He lifted his gla.s.s.

"Oh yes," Joji said. "Bad blood is for men without honor. Men who belong to another, lesser, world than ours, neh?" He laughed, immensely relieved, as he clinked his gla.s.s against Masashi's.

"We are a rare breed, Joji-san," Masashi said expansively. "Our father was a simple orange farmer. He was casteless, an outsider whom society neither wanted nor could tolerate. Yet here we are. We own more, make more, control more, than ninety percent of the population of j.a.pan. We regularly meet with the heads of the largest business concerns, with the top vice-ministers-even, on occasion, with government officials.

"But what good is any of this? We are all of us squeezed into centimeters of s.p.a.ce. In America, the poorest member of the middle cla.s.s may buy a moderately priced house on an acre of land. An acre, Joji-san! Can you imagine such a thing? How many dwellings would we put on an acre of land here? How many families would occupy that s.p.a.ce? I tell you it no longer matters how much money one has in j.a.pan. We are all humbled by our own lack of s.p.a.ce. We live like insects, continually climbing over one another."