Zero. Part 33

Then she could no longer contain herself and she thrust herself fully onto him, groaning, losing her breath, her forehead lolling against his sweat-slickened chest with the sensation.

Michael, joined with her, felt her pulsing all around him. He did not have to move at all, her fluttering was so p.r.o.nounced. Her scent surrounded them like a cloud, combined with the peculiar smell of the ti leaves around their necks, and he felt suspended in time as well as in s.p.a.ce.

He felt her moving along the full length of his body, as if they were joined in every place instead of just in one. He felt himself coming, tried to hold back, to prolong the moment, but their desire, now a living thing, could no longer be held in abeyance.

He groaned, thrusting, and heard movement into the s.p.a.ce outside their shelter of darkness. There was a kind of light and a dim primitive sound, as of drums or chanting or both. He turned his head to see, but Eliane rose up, pressing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his lips, and he was filled up with her again as the end came, as drawn-out and ecstatic as the prologue had been.

Joji Taki walked into Shozo's room.

Shozo looked up from a twenty-six-inch TV screen dominated by Marlon Brando's prosthetically altered face as the G.o.dfather. The jowls, grayed with makeup, puffed out, making the actor look twenty years older. "Where would Michael Corleone be without the spirit of his father to watch over him?" Shozo said.

He watched as Don Corleone, playing with his grandson in his sun-dappled garden, put a section of orange rind in his mouth. Lumbering after the child, who screamed in mock terror and delight, he made little grunting noises.

"This is where it happens, oyabun," Shozo said. "Watch, please."

The gruntings changed in tone as Don Corleone stumbled, then pitched forward.

The child, not understanding what had occurred, continued to play the game initiated by his grandfather.

"Poor little one," Shozo said with tears in his eyes. "How can he know that his grandfather has just died?"

"Shozo," Joji said softly.

Shozo hit a b.u.t.ton on the remote control. He looked at Joji's face and said, "I'll get my katana."

"No," Joji said. "The sword won't be nearly enough."

Shozo nodded. He went to a closet door, slid it open. He put on a black nylon raincoat that reached to the floor. He turned around to face Joji. "How'sthis?" he said. His right hand emerged holding a shotgun that Shozo had sawed off himself. "Is it enough?"

Joji nodded. "It's enough."

Traffic, as usual, was fierce. It was as if the city could not exist if it was empty. The heat on the road seemed to approach furnace level.

"Where are we going?" Shozo asked.

"To Takashiba Pier."

After two blocks of frustrating stops and starts, Shozo turned off onto a side street, careened around a corner. Then he really took off.

"Why are we going to Takashiba?" Shozo asked.

"Something," Joji said, "important enough to take you away from Don Corleone."

They went through the heart of the city. Sunlight spun off the myriad slow-moving cars, sending dazzling shafts of light along the streets. They were driving north, toward Chiyoda-ku and the Imperial Palace. At Shinbashi, Shozo turned south, paralleling Tokyo Harbor. They were running by the Sho-dome Freight Terminus. The hooting of the barges from the harbor was audible over the traffic noise.

"Takashiba is where your brother Masashi has a business, neh?' Shozo said.

"That's right." Joji was looking straight ahead, at the sun dazzle on the hood of the car.

"You should be oyabun of the Taki-gumi," Shozo said. "It is your right."

Joji said nothing.

"Perhaps," Shozo said, "after today you will be."

Now they were in Hammatsucho. Shozo swung left onto a side street. They were in the warehouse district that fronted the piers along the harbor.

Joji checked his gun, screwed a silencer on the end of the muzzle. They locked the car, went along the smelly pavement. Shozo kept his hand in the deep pocket of his raincoat as they walked quickly down the street. They ducked into a warehouse door. There was no sign on it, no indication into which company s.p.a.ce the entrance led.

In the dimness, they could see that there was no entrance s.p.a.ce at all, merely a flight of nearly vertical wooden stairs. The place stank of fish and fuel oil. Joji drew his gun, and they went up the stairs. They walked on the outsides of their soles, so that their weight would not set off the ancient boards' creaking.

A blank wall greeted them at the head of the stairs. There was a hallway to the right. They headed down this cautiously. Ahead, they could make out enough illumination to discern a large open s.p.a.ce.

Joji stopped abruptly as a shadow filled the open s.p.a.ce. Shozo shrank back against the right-hand wall.

Daizo stood perfectly still. Up close, he was a ma.s.sive man. Surely that frame would have felt more comfortable in a sumo's costume than in the conservative dark pin-stripe suit that enwrapped its bulging muscles.

"What are you doing here?" Daizo said. "You are no longer Taki-gumi. You have no business here."

"I am meeting my brother here," Joji lied. As he watched, Daizo slowly unb.u.t.toned his jacket. His right hand remained at the level of his ribs.

"I don't believe that is the wisest choice," Joji said, moving the gun just enough for the light to play along its barrel.

"What is that odor?" Daizo asked of no one in particular.

Joji said nothing. But he was thinking, This should be mine. All of this.

Daizo was sniffing the air like a dog. "I believe I recognize the scent."

"Let me pa.s.s."

Daizo's eyes locked onto Joji's. "It is the smell of death."

He moved then, very fast. Coming in low, his bull's shoulders hunched, his short, powerful legs propelling him into Joji just as Joji squeezed off the first shot.

Shozo pulled his hands from beneath the raincoat. He leveled the sawed-off shotgun at Daizo. But the man was already at Joji's throat.

Joji grunted heavily as the back of his head struck the rough wood of thehallway floor. Felt an elbow slam into his solar plexus, an immediate shoulder kite, and he lost all feeling in his right hand.

He coughed, desperately fought to force air into his laboring lungs. Out of the corner of his eye saw Daizo reach for the gun he had dropped. The big man had it and, as if in slow motion, Joji saw the thick fingers of the left hand grip the stock, the forefinger insert itself awkwardly through the trigger guard. The gun swung through the air, moving inexorably toward a spot in the middle of his forehead.

Joji centered his concentration, struck Daizo on the side of the neck with the edge of his hand and, at the same time, lunged out. He twisted Daizo's wrist, heard the snap and Daizo's sharply indrawn breath almost at the same instant.

The gun dangled from the broken finger, so thick it had to be forced through the trigger guard.

Daizo kicked, began to scramble away from Joji. Joji blocked the strike as best he could. Daizo brought a tanto, a long knife, from beneath his jacket.

He made a grotesque sight, the useless gun and hand waggling at his side.

Shozo saw the movement behind the two antagonists. Raised the muzzle of the shotgun and squeezed the trigger. Two Yakuza were blown backward into the vast room. Shozo moved along the wall until he was past Joji and Daizo. He ducked as a bullet chipped at the wall just above his head. Then, moving inexorably forward, fired the second barrel. He reloaded and, in a crouch, moved crablike into the open s.p.a.ce.

Daizo had already turned and was beginning his attack, a short, vicious overhand stab. Joji took one long step toward Daizo, extending his left leg.

At the same time, he jammed the heel of his right hand underneath Daizo's jaw, lifting the head, grasped the right wrist with his left hand. All he had to do now was twist, using Daizo's own momentum against him.

But the heel of his shoe caught on an old nail. His knees locked, his hold broke down, and he collapsed.

Daizo, quick to take advantage, was on top of him, the blade of the tanto slashing in toward Joji's jugular. Even a partially deflected cut would end it.

Joji grabbed Daizo's left hand with his right.

A m.u.f.fled explosion, and Daizo's eyes opened wide.

Joji had worked Daizo's damaged finger, putting pressure on it where it was trapped against the trigger. The gun had discharged, sending a bullet into Daizo's chest.

There was a lot of blood, and Joji called for Shozo.

The other man came running. "What happened?"

"He almost killed me," Joji said. "That's what happened."

"Is he dead?" Shozo asked warily.

"As dead as the last eel you ate," Joji said. He heard a sound, stuck his head around a corner. He saw a door fly open. Another Yakuza peered cautiously out.

"What is it?" Joji could hear another voice calling to the man peering out.

"I don't know," the first man said. "I heard shots. I can't see anything. It's dark down there."

But it wasn't dark in the room the two Yakuza were in. Joji's eyes opened wide and he thought, Sweet Buddha! He remembered the men he could not identify who were with Michiko every time he saw her. He remembered her agitated state. Now he knew the meaning of all of that. For, hidden away in that windowless room at Takashiba, he saw Tori, Michiko's beloved granddaughter. A Yakuza soldier was holding a gun to her head; he was very nervous, and Joji quickly pulled his head back so that he would not be seen.

Forget about your brother Masashi, Michiko had said. I beg of you, Joji had asked her. Why won't you help me against him? And she had said, I cannot intervene. I can do nothing. And he had been too blind with his own troubles to hear the anguish in her voice.

Joji wanted to race into that room-nothing more than a bleak cell-and take Tori away from them, but he saw the second Yakuza holding the child fast, themuzzle of his gun pressed into her temple. Joji knew that he had no chance to save Tori now. That he must not let them know he had seen the child. Surprise was his only ally in this inimical world of his brother's.

"Quickly," he said. "Leave the shotgun here. Be sure to wipe it down first."

He was doing the same with his pistol. The weapons were without serial numbers; they were un-traceable.

Outside, they walked at a normal pace, got into the car. "Take off," Joji said.

Shozo did.

Lillian Doss was met at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris by a member of the Plaza Athenee staff. "Bonjour, madame," he said as she came through Immigration.

"Francois."

He smiled, taking her baggage checks. "It is good to see you again, madame."

"It's good to be back," she replied in idiomatic French.

She was wearing a summery mauve-and-lilac-print dress. Her hair was swept back from the sides of her face by rhine-stone barrettes. Around her neck was a teardrop emerald on a gold chain.

She stood serenely, regarding all the rushing, flushed faces. While she waited for her bags to arrive, she played a game with herself. She tried to categorize each face she saw. Was it American? European? If European, which country? France, England, Italy, Germany? How many Eastern Europeans could she find? Could she discern the Poles from the Yugoslavs, the Rumanians from the Russians?

This last was the really difficult part. It took a sharp eye and more than a little experience. One learned not to be influenced by the face, but rather by the clothes. She turned her attention to those closest to her. By the time Francois had gathered all her luggage, Lillian was certain she had correctly identified everyone.

"The car is just this way, madame," Francois said.

The day was sunny. Bright, puffy clouds drifted above the skyline like sleeping cherubs. The air was crisp, containing the delicious scents of newly opened buds and blossoms. In the autumn, she knew, the days would be filled with that peculiar acrid scent of burning leaves that Lillian always found heady. In either season, it was as if with every breath she took, she was inhaling a fine aged wine. It was good to know that the modern world had not leached away the sophisticated complexity that time and culture had bestowed upon France.

La Defense and Les Halles struck Lillian not so much as concessions to changing times but rather as singular extensions of the magic that Paris continually exuded, like the rarest of perfumes. To breathe Paris is to preserve one's soul, she thought. Who had written that? Victor Hugo?

Lillian craned her neck this way and that to take it all in. When they merged onto the Peripherique, she felt her first real jolt, as if before this she had not believed she was actually in France. At Porte Maillot, Francois maneuvered them off the expressway at a speed that made her giddy.

At the hotel, she took a long, steamy bath. She dried her hair and, wrapped in a terry robe, threw open the french doors. She was on the sixth floor, with one of the four rooms blessed with a balcony. By that time, room service had delivered coffee and croissants. It was still too early for the champagne the manager had put in her room; it was waiting for her in its metal cooler.

Lillian sat in the sunlight. She sipped the strong, black coffee and listened to the birds fluttering and cooing all about her. Below, in the garden courtyard, she could hear the waiters setting up for lunch. The tiny, musical sounds wafted up to her. She allowed the sunlight to heat her thighs and back.

She picked up the International Herald Tribune, leafed quickly, efficiently through it. She read with some interest a reprint of an article written by Helmut Schmidt, the former chancellor of West Germany, t.i.tled "j.a.pan Has No True Friends in the World." There were several sidebars to the reprint. One quoted a United Press Syndicate story citing a recent poll of Korean leadersand intellectuals, a majority of whom felt that j.a.pan was currently a threat to the peace of the region and the world. On the other hand, the story stated, the engines of South Korea's wildly successful new car, the Hyundai, were manufactured by the j.a.panese.

"Everyone wants j.a.panese money," a prominent academic in Singapore was quoted as saying. "The feeling is, 'G.o.d forbid that tomorrow we'll be left to the tender mercies of the j.a.panese.' The Americans come and go. When the j.a.panese come, they're here to stay."

Lillian sipped at her coffee and continued reading. A second sidebar quoted other prominent leaders in Southeast Asia, all of whom seemed terrified of j.a.pan's high-technology progress. All felt that it was only a matter of time before j.a.pan's staggering research capacities were turned to developing twenty-first-century weaponry.

As an example, many mentioned the new j.a.panese Ya-mamoto FAX jet fighter currently being designed, which would eventually put the American aircraft manufacturers Boeing and McDonnell Douglas out of business.

Lillian went through the rest of the paper, but there was nothing further of interest. Flowers blooming along the inner walls of the courtyard lent bright bursts of color to the scrolled wrought-iron work. Voices, quickening. She glanced down, saw that the tables were filling up with the first wave of diners.

She recalled a time many years ago when Jonas had taken her to one of his interminable social functions that were nothing more than another vapid layer of the political world in which he thrived. Philip was away, in Bangkok or Bangladesh, G.o.d only knew where. Lillian could not remember when she bad seen so many ribbons, medals, so much braid sewn, pinned, basted onto the front of so many men's suits.

On Jonas's arm, smiling as perfectly, as purposefully, as a flight attendant, while Jonas worked the room. She had felt trapped. The impossibly beautiful women gliding by looked as if they were store mannequins. Unaffected either by life's trials or by time's travails, they spent their days in sybaritic splendor-hair cut, colored, highlighted; nails (finger and toe) shaped, wrapped and lacquered; faces steamed, cleansed, creamed, ma.s.saged; bodies mud-packed, oiled and shiatsued. In between cosmetic and shopping commitments, they managed to meet with other committee members of the most au courant charities. Which was how they deluded themselves into believing that their existence had a modic.u.m of meaning.

How could I ever have imagined that I could fit in here? Lillian had thought.

I should have my head examined for accepting Jonas's invitation. She had felt ashamed, as if she were there under false pretenses. At any moment, she fantasized, Mme. Pierre Croix de Guerre-St. Estophe over there will discover that I don't belong here at all. In her clipped, precise English, learned no doubt on the Cote d'Azur, she will call the uniformed guards, and while everyone looks on, they will escort me out.

What? She's got no hyphenated name? What kind of a family does she come from?

A field general's daughter. An army brat? Good Lord. Really? However did she manage to sneak in here in the first place? She's obviously not our kind.

She had shuddered. Their words-those that she had created for them-left a bitter taste in her mouth. As if the champagne she had been consuming was sour.

At one point Jonas had told a joke-to the Australian amba.s.sador's young and ambitious ADC-to the effect that in America the men crave power, and the women crave the next best thing, an erect p.e.n.i.s.

The two men had laughed, making Lillian feel even more out of place. It was a joke at women's expense, and here she was, a woman herself, as anyone with half a brain could plainly see, treated as if she didn't exist. Forget that Jonas should not have thought of telling it in her presence. He had not even turned to her to say, "Present company excepted, of course." She was there merely as an extension of him, the finishing touch to his image.

Lillian remembered the coldness that had formed in her stomach. Looking aroundthe colonial blue-and-white room, with its fifteen-foot windows covered with richly patterned French fabrics. Formally attired, white-gloved waitresses- no waiters here, please!-making the rounds, attending to the needs of the beribboned, medaled, braided men.