Zero. Part 19

This was a landscape for which Michael was unprepared. No guidebook, no travelogue, no picture postcard, ever depicted this facet of the Islands.

Without emerald palm trees, sapphire lagoons, black sand beaches. Instead, gathering slowly a quality of light-heavy, rich as cream, clear as crystal-like no other in the world.

He was reminded of Provence, in the south of France, and its unique light. It was as if the leaves of the plane trees acted like a time machine, altering the sunlight filtering through them. The remarkable result patinaed each indigenous hue so that it appeared just as it had for centuries.

Here, too, the illumination was unique, but in a wholly different way. The sunlight lent the landscape a lambent quality. Greens became so translucent foliage seemed to float in midair; yellows had a marvelous incandescence, as if exploding with energy. Mysterious blues were by turns iridescent in shadow, l.u.s.trous in sunlight.

In these two disparate terrains Michael felt he could discern the active hand of G.o.d. For surely the power to move the human spirit so was solely the province of a divine presence.

It was all he could do to keep control of the Jeep. The oncoming Jeep, careening around a snaking hairpin turn, had already slammed into him. A Shockwave tore up his spine.

Metal tore into metal even as Michael ran the off-side wheels of his Jeep up the rock-strewn slope. The concussion almost flipped his vehicle over.

He was aware of the other Jeep slewing around as a result of chewing up the headlight and fender on his side of his Jeep. Then beginning a slow swing as its wheels fought for purchase along the dangerous outer edge of the roadway.

The driver was furiously applying the brakes in the correct on-and-off pattern, but this was only good for a road that was there. Abruptly, this one had given way to open s.p.a.ce.

Michael's Jeep was already in neutral. He slammed on the emergency brake, scrambled over a door that had been jammed shut in the collision. The other vehicle was overhanging the cliff face, the drive in the rear wheels seeking to grip the road. But there was no tarmac, only sprays of muddy rock undermining its position. The Jeep teetered closer and closer to plunging the fatal distance to the rocky scree below.

Michael leaped from one vehicle to another. At the rear end of the other Jeep, he whipped his upper body forward, dragging the other driver back toward him.

Heard the grinding of the transmission, felt the Jeep slew badly as it continued its skid toward oblivion. With a heave, he threw the other driver clear of the Jeep, then sprang off it himself.

The loss of weight on its rear end sent the vehicle toppling off the cliff.

One instant it was there, howling as if in frustration. The next, the empty air was singing in its place.

Sound, echoing, seemingly a long time after.

It was only then that Michael got a good look at the other driver. Saw that she was a woman, and a beautiful one at that.

She was j.a.panese. She had that golden skin that is very rare and highly prized in Asia. Her eyes were Oriental: long and almond-shaped. Her hair had a bluish l.u.s.ter when the sun caught it. It was thick and straight. It was woven in a wide braid that swung to the small of her back.

She had a wide mouth with sensual lips that seemed perpetually curved in the suggestion of a smile, a long neck and rather square shoulders over which clothes draped just as one saw them modeled in posters fifty feet high."Are you all right?" Michael finally said, helping the woman to her feet. In the process he was able to determine that she was well muscled.

"Yes," she said, brushing herself off. Her jeans were old, Michael noticed, faded almost all the way to white. They had no designer name on the pocket. "I guess I'm not used to these roads."

"What roads?" Michael said, and they laughed, more from relief than from anything funny.

"Eliane Shinjo." She extended her hand.

"Michael Doss." He took her hand. With his other one, he plucked twigs and leaf shreds from her hair. Later he remembered thinking, she's not only the most composed woman I've ever met, but also the most unselfconscious.

"Thank you," she said. "I've never been involved in a collision before. This one could have been my last."

"Our last," Michael said.

She looked away from him for the first time since he had pulled her off the ground. There was a cooling sensation, as if her eyes radiated heat. "I guess the Jeep's totaled," she said.

"We'll be lucky if mine still works." He was reluctant to move. "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I had to get you out of that Jeep."

Her head swung around; he felt the heat return. "You didn't hurt me." Then she smiled. "At least I don't feel anything resembling pain."

"We both nearly went over with it."

"Was it that close? Really?" Her expression returned to enigmatic. He wondered whether she might be excited by the thought. The proximity to death often did that to people. Especially one's own death. Either it gave one a new perspective on the value of life, or it provided the intense thrill that only defying the inevitable could bring.

"The road was so eroded, there was no purchase left for it. You were already over the edge when I got to you."

Eliane watched him. He wished he could tell what she was thinking.

"You're very strong," she said. "I didn't feel a thing. It's as if nothing at all happened."

"Except your Jeep is scattered all over the base of the cliff."

"It's only a piece of metal," she pointed out.

There was an absurd kind of logic to what she said. Except that her statement precluded any recognition of the concept of action and reaction. It was as if consequences did not exist for her.

Michael went over to where his vehicle stood. It was at an acute angle, the right side canted upward. "Okay," he said, climbing behind the wheel, "let's see where this goes."

He took the emergency brake off and put the Jeep in gear. It rumbled and rocked and almost toppled onto its side before he maneuvered it back onto the dirt road.

"Climb in," he said.

Eliane came warily around the front, stepped up on the running board. He took off, and she swung in just in time.

"Where were you headed?" she asked. Even now she did not pull her hair out of her eyes.

"Just sightseeing. You?"

She immediately regretted having spoken as she did. "I was on my way to Kapalua to play some tennis."

"Sorry," he said. "We're going in the opposite direction." He seemed wholly concentrated on the road.

"No problem," Eliane said easily. "How far are you going?"

"Civilization," he said. He beat at the horn as they went around a hairpin turn. "We've got to get you home. That is, unless you want to hike."

She laughed. "No. I'm a bit of an athlete, but I have my limits."

"Which hotel?"

"I've got a house in lao Valley," she said. "Do you know how to get to the valley?""I make a right up here instead of going straight into Ka-hului, right?"

"Yes."

Eliane was startled by the effect he was having on her. She knew there was no rational explanation. This disturbed her. The irrational, Eliane believed, was what manipulated events. Like currents in a stream, unseen but felt, the forces of the universe worked to a purpose. Were these forces trying to tell her-warn her?-of something?

If so, what?

"Since you're not a tourist, you ought to know if the courts are good at Kapalua."

"What?"

"The tennis courts," Michael said. Solitary houses, a cemetery. They were nearing civilization.

"Oh." She had to reorient her mind. "Yes. They're very good." A gas station, a church, a phone booth. And just like that, she had the answer. "Would you mind stopping just up there? I've got to make a call."

"Sure."

"My tennis partner will wonder what happened to me," she improvised.

In the phone booth, she dialed her own number, carried on a mythical conversation over the ringing at the other end.

"He's okay," she said, climbing back into the Jeep. "Just a little worried."

"Your steady partner?" Michael asked.

"My boyfriend," she said easily.

"Doesn't he work?" Michael asked. "It's the middle of the work day."

Eliane laughed. "He doesn't have what you would call normal hours. He works for the biggest kahuna in the islands." She turned to look at him. "Do you know what that means?"

Michael shook his head.

"It's Hawaiian. Originally, it meant a kind of witch doctor. A shaman who was in touch with the ancient spirits and G.o.ds of Hawaii."

"And now?"

She shrugged. "Modern times. Like most old words, it's often misused. So much so that many of the younger Ha-waiians have forgotten its true meaning. Today kahuna means big shot. A powerful person."

"Like your boyfriend's boss."

Eliane could hear the curiosity in his voice. She looked at the mountains looming out through the mist and thunder-heads before them.

"What's this kahuna's name?"

"It wouldn't mean anything to you." She gestured. "Turn here. Yes. Now straight ahead."

They drove into the valley. Thickly foliated ridges snaked away from the winding road on either side.

"Make a right here," she said.

When he pulled up outside the house, Eliane got out. She turned to him. "Would you like a bite to eat? Or a drink, at least?"

"I don't think so."

That smile again. "But you must." She extended her arm to him. "You've saved my life. Good joss for me; maybe bad joss for you."

"Why bad?"

She laughed. "Because now you are obligated to protect me for the rest of my life." Was there a mocking undertone to her expression? "There is a j.a.panese word for it. Do you know it? Giri."

"Yes," Michael said, taking her hand, wanting now very much to come inside, to spend more time with her. Because giri was a Yakuza term. Fat Boy Ichimada is the head Yakuza here, he thought. If this woman is hooked into the Yakuza through her boyfriend, I can use that. Employing strategy again. Tsuyo would have been proud of him. "It means the burden too great to bear."

"Yes and no," Eliane said, leading him toward the house. "Some say that giri is the burden too great to bear alone."When Fat Boy Ichimada got to the front door of the shabby house in Wailuku in which the two Hawaiians resided, he felt his blood turn cold. He had called the Hawaiians on his private line in his office; he had come alone. No one within his family knew that he was employing the two Hawaiians. Which was, of course, the point.

He stood breathing in the smells, listening to the sounds of the old neighborhood. He could smell poi stewing. A brief burst of children arguing came to him from down the block, the blast of a TV set, Jack Lord's voice saying, "Book 'em, Dano. Murder One ..." A door slammed, breaking off the sound.

Fat Boy's hand hanging in midair, not more than two inches from the doork.n.o.b.

Staring down at the dusty floorboards. And the dark stain that had crept out from beneath the door.

The stain glistened as if it were newly applied lacquer. Only Fat Boy Ichimada knew that it wasn't lacquer. He glanced around, then, grunting, he squatted down, put his finger into the center of the stain. Brought the tip up, rubbed the substance. It turned from dark brown to dark red. But Fat Boy had already known that it would, in his heart.

He rose, took out a handkerchief and used it when he twisted the doork.n.o.b. No prints. The door was unlocked.

Fat Boy drew a snub-nosed revolver with his free hand, then pushed the door all the way open so that it banged hard against the wall of the Hawaiians'

apartment.

He crossed the threshold, went silently through the house. In one bedroom, he saw the girls first. He ignored them, stepping over their pale forms. He was careful not to touch or disturb anything or anyone. Or anything that used to be anyone. He marked the grotesque distortions of the corpses and thought, The man's a monster.

Fat Boy left after having found out the only two things worth knowing in there. One: The two Hawaiians were dead. Two: Whatever they had retrieved from the airport locker was not in the apartment.

Across the street in his parked car, in approximately the same spot that Ude had sat several hours before, Fat Boy went carefully over his options. There was no doubt in his mind that Ude had gotten to the Hawaiians. That meant that Ude was now in possession of whatever Philip Doss had hidden in the locker.

No matter what it was-the Katei doc.u.ment, the shintai or something else altogether-the consequences were dire for Fat Boy. Ude now knew that Fat Boy had held out on him. He might not yet know what Fat Boy had been up to, but knowing Ude, that would not matter much. Ude had said that Masashi Taki had given him full control over the situation here, and Fat Boy believed him.

There was now no doubt in Fat Boy Ichimada's mind that in order to survive, he was going to have to kill Ude. Philip Doss had entrusted Fat Boy with vital information. Fat Boy now knew what he had suspected all along: that he should have kept that information solely to himself. He was just now realizing the enormity of his error. Sending the Hawaiians to get the key and open the locker had been a grievous tactical mistake. But the presence of Ude had so unnerved Fat Boy that he had panicked.

He closed his eyes. It was as if the carnage in that grubby little house across the street was tattooed to the inside of his eyelids. He felt abruptly sick to his stomach.

He remembered all his years with Wataro Taki. He remembered when he had gone to see his oyabun to seek his forgiveness. Wataro Taki would have been within his rights to ask Fat Boy to commit seppuku. But instead, he had asked only for Fat Boy's little finger.

Wataro Taki was not like the oyabun of other Yakuza clans, who lived only to ama.s.s wealth, to bleed their countrymen dry. Wataro Taki had a vision for the future of j.a.pan. And he had made Fat Boy a part of that future.

Now the vision was gone, lying six feet beneath the earth with Wataro Taki's corporeal remains. But Fat Boy Ichi-mada's mentor still lived, if only in Fat Boy's memory. What was it that Philip Doss had said over the phone on the dayhe had been killed? I know where your loyalties lie. You and I both loved Wataro Taki, didn't we? And: I know you will do the right thing.

Now is the time, Fat Boy thought, to repay Wataro Taki for all the kindnesses he showed me.

Fat Boy would have to rectify matters. He had already received a call from his airport spotters that Michael Doss had arrived on Maui. Fat Boy knew that he would have to find Philip Doss's son and give him all the information he had concerning the shintai.

Ask my son if he remembers the shintai, Philip Doss had said.

And then Fat Boy Ichimada said, "Buddha!" out loud. Because suddenly he knew how Ude had found out about the two Hawaiians. Ude had tapped Fat Boy's phone lines. That meant he also knew that Michael Doss was on the island. And Fat Boy had had to tell the two Hawaiians that the key was under the name of Michael Doss. Which meant that Ude also knew that the contents of the locker were meant for Philip's son.