Zero. Part 45

They went into the department store, a veritable city within a city. There were six restaurants in this one. Stick took them up to the roof level. Soon they were seated at a table overlooking the city. The blaze of light was stunning. Enormous spires rose from the Shinjuku section, reaching skyward with a kind of blind arrogance.

"I think you'd better tell me about it," Stick said after they had ordered.

I've got to tell someone, Michael thought. He looked at his friend, and for the first time since Uncle Sammy had called him to tell him that his father had been killed, he felt safe. "Here's how it started," he began. He ran through everything, leaving nothing out except his suspicions concerning Eliane. He did not want to prejudice Stick; he wanted to know what his friend thought of her first.

That's how he wound up. "What do you think of Eliane?" he asked.

The food had come by then, and Stick was already digging hi. "First you tell me what you're doing running around with Eliane Yamamoto."

Michael almost dropped his chopsticks. "What do you mean? She told me her name was Eliane Shinjo."

"She lied," Stick said. His face registered real concern now. "Mike, this woman's the daughter of n.o.buo Yamamoto, the head of Yamamoto Heavy Industries."

It was as if a shotgun had gone off inside Michael's head. Where there had been only enigmatic darkness now there was light. Michael recalled his conversation with Uncle Sammy. Michael had felt that there must be some ulterior motive for n.o.buo's odd behavior at the meeting at the Ellipse Club.

At the time, Michael had thought it odd that n.o.buo should deliberately seek to torpedo the trade talks. Why would he want to do that? Michael had asked Uncle Sammy. Jonas had told him to keep his mind on the task at hand: finding out who within the j.a.panese Yakuza had murdered Philip Doss and why.

Now, Michael thought, I run-literally!-into n.o.buo Ya-mamoto's daughter on Maui, who tells me she's Yakuza and who, in effect, becomes my partner. Why?

What does she want? What the h.e.l.l is going on?

"If she is Yamamoto's daughter," he said, still a little disbelieving, "how is it she knows the workings of the Taki-gumi Yakuza clan inside and out?"

"Now, that's a good question," Stick Haruma said. "And one that most people hereabouts wouldn't be able to answer. But I'm plugged into the bureaucratic network that makes this country run. You ever hear of Wataro Taki?"

"The G.o.dfather of the Yakuza?" Michael said. "Everybody's heara of him."

"Well, Eliane's mother, Michiko, is Wataro Taki's adopted daughter. Ever since old Wataro died, the Taki-gumi has been ripped apart by factionalism. The youngest son, Masashi, is the oyabun, but it's said that he had his eldestbrother, Hi-roshi, murdered. For sure he threw out the third brother, Joji, so that he would have a clear run at succeeding Wataro. As for their stepsister, no one knows where Michiko Ya-mamoto's allegiance lies. She was totally devoted to Wataro." He shrugged. "Now that the old man's gone, who knows?"

Michael looked at his friend and thought, Jesus Christ, Eliane's in the middle of it all. She could be working for any of the factions. "Stick," he said, "I'm in trouble. I need your help."

You've only to ask," Stick Haruma said. He pointed with his chopstick. "You going to finish that sashimil It'd be a shame to waste any."

"Take it," Michael said. "I don't have much of an appet.i.te."

"That's a mistake." Stick Haruma reached over, exchanging his empty plate with Michael's half-full one. "It has always been my opinion that strategy is best worked out on a full stomach." He dipped a piece of raw fish into a combination of soy sauce and wasabi. "Hunger never did anyone any good."

Michael laughed, his black mood dispelled. "You haven't changed, have you?" He shook his head. "Thank G.o.d for that."

"G.o.d has nothing to do with it," Stick said, around another piece offish. "G.o.d is a concept I find it deplorable that honest men are expected to accept."

Michael shook his head. "I've missed you, buddy. That's for sure."

"Okay," Stick said, finishing up, "what do you want to do?"

Michael dug into his pocket, took out the length of dark-red braided cord. He placed it on the table between them. "Do you recognize this?"

Stick picked it up, turned it over as he examined it. "Isn't this from the temple?" There was no need to explain further. The two students, having studied under the same sensei, knew which temple.

Michael nodded. "It is. My father left this for me on Maui. I was thinking about it on the plane all the way over here. Now I'm sure that it's a clue to where he hid the Katei doc.u.ment."

"At the temple?"

"Right."

Stick sat back. "Okay, suppose you're right," he said thoughtfully. "But what are you going to do about Eliane Yamamoto? You don't know where she stands in all this or what she wants. How are you going to find out?"

"That," said Michael, "is where you come in."

"What's happened? What's the matter?"

He could see her face, dead white in the wash of lights from the windows out onto the pier. He thought that he had never seen so much terror concentrated in one face.

"Tori's not here," Joji said. "They must have moved her."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because of my raid, because Daizo is dead, because Ma-sashi knows I'm coming after him. I don't know."

"Joji-chan," Michiko said, "we must find my granddaughter."

"She could be anywhere. She-"

"No. No." She was shaking him. "Don't talk like that. We have these hours of the night to find her." She took his hand. "Now, come on. And put away that gun. We can't afford the noise. Use this." Joji took the tanto, the long dagger she handed him.

She led him back down the hallway. Being blind was no impediment to her. She had long ago learned to compensate by using her other senses. In the darkness of the hallway, in fact, it was Joji who was the clumsy one, b.u.mping into her as she stopped abruptly. He felt something, reached out. "Is that a katana you're holding?" he whispered.

"Shhh," she cautioned. "Someone's coming."

Joji strained to hear the sounds of approach. He could hear the dim humming of the machinery, but nothing else. Then he smelled food and heard someone whistling.

In a moment, he saw a Yakuza soldier walking through a shaft of light thrown off by a bare bulb somewhere high above their heads. The man was carrying a tray of food. He was coining toward them from the other end of the hallway.Between where Joji and Michiko stood and the oncoming Yakuza was the staircase down to the street.

Now Joji could see the steel blade of the sword that Michiko carried make its way into the shaft of light. It turned in the Yakuza's direction. He saw it, stood stock still.

"Your name," Michiko commanded.

The Yakuza gave it to her.

"I want to know where the little girl is being held."

"The little girl?" the man said. "I don't-"

He gave a little yelp as the tip of the blade sliced through his shirt. Blood oozed from the cut in his chest.

"Take us there," Michiko hissed.

The man nodded, and they followed him as he went down the stairs and then in through the entrance behind the stairwell. There was a flight heading down.

The sounds of working machinery were stronger now, as was the deep vibration.

The man took them down the stairs, into the lower level. Into a corridor that appeared to have been abandoned for many years. Dust, cobwebs, rotting boxes and timbers dominated.

There was a door at the end of the corridor, where it dead-ended.

"In there," the man said. "But you'll never get her out alive. You'll never get out alive."

His eyes crossed as Michiko hit the back of his head with the pommel of the sword. Joji s.n.a.t.c.hed the tray out of his hands. He looked at Michiko.

"Why are you hesitating, Joji-chan?"

Joji looked from the fallen Yakuza to the closed door. "Maybe he's right. They could kill her."

"Not if you do this right," she said. "The food is our way inside. Use it."

She bent down, dragged the Yakuza into the dusty shadows of the dead end, then, taking up her sword again in the two-handed grip, she nodded.

Joji took a deep breath.

"Remember," she said. "Get them to talk."

He knocked on the door. "Food," he said to the mumbled response. "Dinner break."

The door opened, a man looked out, aiming a gun at Joji's midsection.

"Who're you?" the man said suspiciously.

Joji recognized him instantly as one of Tori's captors. He gave the man a name.

"I don't know you," the man said.

"I don't know you either," Joji said. "I just do what I'm told."

"Good little toad, aren't you?" The man laughed. He opened the door wide.

Joji stepped back, and in the same instant, Michiko rushed from the shadows.

Her katana flashed downward.

"What?"

The look of shock on the Yakuza's face barely had time to turn to disbelief as the blade sliced into him.

Joji dropped the tray of food, knelt and threw the tanto. It embedded itself to the hilt in the second man just as he leaped up from a chair.

The sounds woke Tori up. She sat up on the makeshift futon that had been laid out for her.

"Granny," she said, rubbing at her eyes. "Is this a dream?"

Michiko scrambled over the prostrate form of the Yakuza she had killed. She gathered her granddaughter into her arms. "It's not a dream, Little One. Here I am." She was weeping silent tears.

"Granny, I knew you'd come," Tori said. "Why are you crying?"

Michiko said to Joji, "Keep her head turned away from it." She meant the blood.

"Are the men sleeping?" Tori asked.

"Yes, darling. They're tired from keeping you safe for so long." Michiko nearly choked on her words. But with her granddaughter in her arms, she felt as if she had been reborn. I'm alive again, she thought. She said a heartfeltprayer to Megami Kitsune, the fox-G.o.ddess, who, she was certain, had watched over Tori and kept her safe.

Having determined that both the Yakuza were dead, Joji retrieved the tanto from its grisly resting place. He wiped it on the dead man's clothing. Then he led Michiko and Tori from the room.

"How are you, Little One?" Michiko said. The combination of joy and relief was making her light-headed, and she leaned heavily on Joji's arm.

"I missed you, Granny," Tori said. "I missed how good this smells." She buried her face in Michiko's thick hair.

The corridor was choked with dust. It was long, dark, deserted. The sounds of the machinery were very strong.

"Is Mommy here too?" Tori asked, yawning. She was already on the verge of sleep.

"She will be, my brave girl," Michiko said. "Very soon now."

Lillian spent a long time staring at nothing while the aromatic steam from the tea penetrated her sinuses. She lifted the cup to her lips and drank.

This morning, when she awoke, she had seen a brown-and-yellow b.u.t.terfly skip over the ferns. It touched here, there, never alighting for more than the s.p.a.ce of a wingbeat. Below it, crawling over the climbing vines and flowers outside her room, a caterpillar made its slow, deliberate way.

Two such different creatures, Lillian thought, pouring herself more tea. And yet, within the s.p.a.ce of a week, there would be two brown-and-yellow b.u.t.terflies darting over the ferns.

Two such different creatures, she thought, and yet both are one. Like me.

Yesterday I was the caterpillar I have been for decades, and today I am the b.u.t.terfly. I have been transformed. I have been set free of the shackles of my life. And I have my revenge, as well.

She saw him the moment he walked into the restaurant. A tall, slim, handsome man with thick, straight salt-and-pepper hair, searching gray eyes. She was wearing her Dior gown, and felt alive and free. Terribly free.

He was wearing a pearl-gray suit with deep blue pin stripes. Lillian was pleased to see that it was the one she had picked out for him, the cut flatteringly elegant. (Years ago, he wore the old-fashioned wide-lapeled style in inappropriately heavy wool.) She had seen him right away because she was looking for him in the corner facing the door. (She had often made fun of this habit of sitting in the same place no matter which restaurant they were in. Until he had explained to her why he did it, that it was part of his training. She had understood that immediately, even admired his discipline.) The maitre d' led her to his table, and he rose, smiling, kissed her on each cheek. He ordered a gimlet with a twist for her. He was drinking a Campari-and-soda, having fallen into the current Parisian habit of drinking lightly at mealtimes.

"How are you?"

He never addressed her by name or even by a nickname- unless, of course, they were in bed making love. Then he always did, as if making up for lost time.

"Was your trip eventful?"

Which was just like him. Not, Did you have a safe trip? He always needed to elicit information, she had found, even in their most personal conversations.

That, too, was part of his training, she supposed.

"It was pleasant," she said, nodding to the maitre d', who had brought her drink himself. They were regulars here.

"Then, here's to it," he said, raising his gla.s.s. He clinked it against hers, and they both drank. "I'm glad to see you."