The Art of Arrow Cutting Read online

  He bit his lip. What had Mage told him about the idiot with the Ingram? He’d imagined the gun jamming—a simple enough thought. He hadn’t had to understand the firing mechanism. Takumo had used the key in much the same way: a key opened doors. He hadn’t had to see each tumbler in the lock, hadn’t seen the key mutate… .

  What did they say about the great Zen archers? That they closed their eyes and saw the arrow hit the target. Takumo closed his eyes and tried to imagine three cherries.

  A cherry, a club, and a diamond.

  He reached up and touched the corners of his eyes, twisting slightly until he saw three cherries. He focused on that image, pushed a coin in the slot and pulled the lever.

  Nickels spat into the cup with a clatter and rolled out onto the floor around his ankles. He scooped them up, stuffed them into his pockets and sneaked into the next cubicle.

  An hour later Takumo changed twelve hundred and seventy dollars’ worth of quarters for large bills and left in search of another casino. He noticed a party of Japanese tourists on the far side of the street and decided to follow them. They were wearing new jeans, souvenir T-shirts and Oliver North haircuts, and there was no chance that he would be mistaken for one of them by any remotely observant croupier—but they were the only camouflage available. A few minutes later he was delighted by his choice.

  The Sunrise was a new name on an old building; the previous owner, Takumo guessed, had died or been bought out, maybe both. The Japanese-ish decor was unsubtle and mass-produced but possibly genuine, and the “geisha” were more probably from Vietnam or Hong Kong, but Takumo particularly liked the statue watching over the tables. Americans might have thought it a curious place to put a Buddha, but Takumo knew better; the fat, grinning monk was Hotel, God of Gamblers and Good Luck.

  Takumo grinned back. He bought fifty ten-dollar chips and walked over to the roulette table, beaming at the coolly pretty croupiers and the security cameras.

  All of the phones on Tamenaga’s desk were fitted with scramblers, of course, but his private line was a masterpiece of Japanese technology, as secure as any in the White House or the Pentagon. Anyone attempting to listen in would be exposed to subsonic frequencies that caused severe disorientation, acute headaches, temporary hearing loss, even epileptic seizures. Only Tamenaga’s most trusted employees had access to the private line; it rang, on average, less than twice a year, yet this was the second time in as many weeks. Tamenaga, who had been studying the day’s Nikkei Dow gains, let it continue ringing for a few seconds while he composed himself.

  “Yes?”

  “Boss?”

  “Certainly,” replied Tamenaga sourly. Nakatani sounded distinctly anxious, almost panicky. Maybe Haruko had been right; he wasn’t suited to the day-to-day running of the casino. On the other hand, this was the first time he’d called. “What is it?”

  “It’s Takumo, boss—the actor whose records you wanted? He’s here—and he’s winning.”

  Tamenaga’s silk shirt strained and two buttons popped as the python tattooed on his chest suddenly came to life. He felt the prick of the mukade’s legs along his left arm, the slither of snakeskin on his right.

  “Boss? What shall I do?”

  Tamenaga closed his eyes and forced himself to think. The cobra slid out of his sleeve and flicked its tongue at his black-pearl cuff link. “How much has he won?”

  “Between eight and ten thousand. He’s being careful, only playing red and black and changing occasionally. He’s raised his bet to five hundred, and he loses sometimes … but never very much. He has to be cheating somehow.” There was an element in Nakatani’s voice that was almost reproachful, a hint of “What haven’t you told me?”

  How much have I told him? Tamenaga wondered. He knows about the focus, but does he know what it can do? And the stuntman—how much did he know?

  If he was winning at roulette in Tamenaga’s casino, too damn much. It was the only trick Higuchi had ever learned—the gunrunner had been a competent organizer and a pretty good gambler, but no magician.

  Tamenaga cursed. It was like fighting a hydra: you killed a head and two grew in its place. The Sharmon woman, a brilliant mathematician, had stolen the focus from Higuchi after he’d been stupid enough to tell her about it, so it had been logical to assume that she was the leader. But Sharmon had used it to cure her cancer and then passed it to Magistrale before they found her. Now Magistrale was in jail in L.A… . and Takumo was using it. We waited too long, he thought. We assumed the focus was safely in the LAPD’s property store; we should have checked sooner. It would have been worth the risks… .

  “How long has he been there?”

  “Nearly an hour now.”

  “Whom do you have in the casino?”

  Nakatani hesitated briefly. “Inagaki and Tsuchiya.”

  Tamenaga shook his head as the cobra coiled itself around the receiver. Inagaki Kenji was one of the bouncers, an obvious heavy; Takumo would spot him immediately. And Tsuchiya Shi-mako … Did the stuntman have a weakness for women? Or for anything else the Sunrise could provide? If so, it wasn’t in his dossier.

  “Any Americans?”

  “Judd … and the gun nut.”

  “Packer?” Oh, yes, he’d sent the Canadian there to run up a debt to the syndicate. Tamenaga considered. The man was sloppy but wonderfully nondescript; Takumo hadn’t seen him before, and he wouldn’t be traced back to the casino. “Okay. Keep Takumo there as long as you can—let him win, offer him a room, dinner, women, whatever. He …” Tamenaga cursed mentally, and the cobra spread its hood and stared balefully at the handset. Takumo was a stuntman, accustomed to taking risks, but he wasn’t avaricious; he would probably stop and leave as soon as he had enough for Magistrale’s bail. Or would he become intoxicated by the wealth? Or by the joy of winning? Would he try to take as much from Tamenaga as possible? Tamenaga doubted it. “Just keep him as long as you can, whatever it costs. I’ll have Oshima fly there immediately—”

  “What if he leaves?”

  Nakatani must have been panicky, to consider interrupting his employer—unless Takumo was leaving already. “Let him go,” said Tamenaga. “Try not to kill him, but don’t let him—or the money—reach L.A. When they bring him in, I want you or Sakura to search his body—not Judd, not even Shimako. And keep me up to date. Good-bye.” He smashed down the “Call” button on the intercom with the heel of his hand and said without pausing for breath, “Call Sakura, tell her to go to the airport; call the airport and have the Learjet ready … and call Greyhound and Amtrak, ask when the buses and trains leave Vegas for L.A. If you can delay them without causing suspicion, do it.”

  Then he closed his eyes and concentrated on his mantra. His tattoos responded to anger or fear rather than to any act of will; controlling them required controlling his emotions. Tamenaga breathed slowly, deeply, trying to forget the monsters that crawled about his body, trying to deny them life.

  It was only a whirring shuriken-shaped blur, then a pale, pearly meteor, then an ivory ball clicking and rattling its way around the indistinct numbers on the wheel. Takumo closed his eyes and concentrated.

  “Twenty-one.”

  The crowd sighed. Takumo’s eyes opened, smiled, and tried to count the chips as they were pushed into his square.

  “Place your bets, please.”

  No way could he count all that between spins; he scooped the chips off the board and began a hasty stock-taking, feeling like a shuten-doji in a sushi bar. The crowd, which had been waiting to see how he would bet, nervously placed a few small chips on the table, obviously expecting the wheel to stop on a house number.

  “Four.”

  There was some muttering, mostly in Japanese, and a few in the crowd drifted away, slightly disgruntled. The croupier, doing her best to conceal a smile, raked in the chips. Takumo, who had been careful to lose occasionally, dropped two ten-dollar chips onto black and returned his attention to his counting. To his vague surprise, the ball stopped on fifteen
and paid off. He grinned quickly at the statue of Hotel and finished counting. Fifteen thousand dollars and change … well, nearly fifteen. He wondered whether it might be wise to leave for another casino—and rejected the idea. He didn’t look like a man who could afford to gamble fourteen grand; he was better dressed than Howard Hughes had been when he owned much of Vegas, true, but he was far too young and looked far too hungry.

  He only needed another five thousand (only, he thought with a mental sniff; he had owned five thousand only twice in his life) to pay Mage’s bail. And then what? he wondered. What about court costs? Or a plane ticket (to where?) and a forged passport? Or …

  “Place your bets, please.”

  He gripped the key tightly and dropped five hundred onto black. Hotel smiled.

  13

  Dante

  Mage had been in jail before on three occasions—twice for hitchhiking and once for innocently accepting a ride in a stolen car—but he had always been released the next day. As far as he knew, this didn’t constitute a criminal record, but he had told Kelly and the cops about it anyway.

  His current cellmate was a sullen young Hispanic who spoke English rarely, and replaced “c”s with “b”s whenever he did. He reminded the photographer of a Monty Python sketch; fortunately, Mage was feeling far too drained to laugh. He lay on his lumpy bunk and stared at the space just before his eyes, focusing on nothing and trying not to wonder what slings and arrows fortune had in store for him next. He’d slept on softer floors, but at least the bunk was less confining than a Greyhound seat, and he supposed he could become accustomed to it in time … and it looked horribly as though he would have the time: years, possibly a lifetime, in which he might never get out of jail.

  The cops had asked him some pointed questions about the tooth marks on his arm; he’d replied that while he wasn’t certain, Carol might have absentmindedly bitten him while making love, and he’d pointed out the scratch marks on his back and the faded bites on his shoulders. That had ended the questions on that subject, even though the cops hadn’t seemed completely convinced.

  Kelly had told him the forensic tests had suggested that Amanda had been strangled with a long blond wig and that there was no trace of skin or hair beneath her nails—from which the coroner had concluded that she’d been attacked by someone she knew.

  “She lived in Calgary, for Christ’s sake!” Mage had exploded. “I wasn’t the only person there that she knew—I was probably the person she knew least! And how was she strangled?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was he standing behind her, or in front?”

  Kelly leafed through the file. “It doesn’t say.”

  “Ask. If he was behind her—”

  “Well, that would help explain why she didn’t scratch him.”

  “Look, they can’t have it both ways. If she didn’t scratch anyone, but I have scratches on my arm—”

  “It looks more like a bite. Don’t worry—bite marks aren’t admissible as evidence.”

  “How do you bite the arm of someone behind you? And why would I be behind her? Uh … let me rephrase that. What was she wearing?” Kelly opened the file again. “Okay, forget I asked. Was she naked?”

  “No. Fully dressed.”

  “Okay. Gloves?”

  Flip, flip… . “I don’t think so, or they wouldn’t have expected to find anything under her nails. Ah, here it is … no. No gloves.”

  “Hmm. It was cold that night, too. May I look at that? Please?” He pored over the pages, then smiled grimly. “No gloves, no scarf, coat on but open. What does that suggest to you?” Kelly looked blank. “Forget that you’re an Angeleno, try to think like a Canadian. To me it suggests that she’d just come into the warm from the cold, but either she hadn’t been in for very long or she wasn’t staying long, because she didn’t completely remove her coat … or maybe she was in a car, a warm car but without much room. The front seat, and someone in back …” Suddenly Mage knew who, or what, had strangled Amanda Shannon. Hands without a face to scratch, gloved hands that could have hidden on a window ledge… .

  “Proving what?” asked Kelly.

  “What?”

  “Okay, so she was strangled in a car. What does that prove?”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “Neither did she.”

  “That isn’t the point. I said, she had friends in Calgary. Classmates, tutors … someone must have a car that she would’ve gotten into willingly. Jesus, even in darkest Brooklyn, most murders are done by friends or relatives, not by strangers.”

  “I know that,” snapped Kelly.

  “Good. So tell the cops and get me out of here!” When Kelly had hesitated, he’d sighed and asked, “What is the evidence against me? I confessed to having met her, I asked after her in Calgary—before and after she was killed.”

  “The photographs—”

  “Oh, have they been developed? I’d like to see ’em. Okay, so I photograph women. It’s my hobby; sometimes it’s my job.”

  “There’s no hard evidence,” Kelly said heavily. “That’s why they granted bail. Forensics is checking your clothes and your gear for her fingerprints, stuff like that, but they probably won’t find anything conclusive, even if you’re guilty; she didn’t bleed, so no bloodstains, and if they find her prints or hair, well, that only proves that you met her. They didn’t find anything on her that linked her to you either, except your name in her address book.

  “But that’s not why you’re the perfect suspect. Who else is there? Family? Her parents and sister died in a car crash when she was fifteen. Boyfriends? She didn’t have any. For all anyone knows, she may have been a lesbian— but if she was, she was well closeted, because we can’t find anyone who claims to’ve slept with her, not of any gender, not in Calgary or Totem Rock or anywhere else; no one in Totem Rock even knew her, except her landlady, who barely remembered her. Her roommate? No apparent motive, and again, she knew almost nothing about Amanda’s private life except that she had a friend, possibly a lover, in Las Vegas, whom we’ve been unable to identify. Her professor? He has an airtight alibi; besides, he’s nearly twice your age and has a spotless record, while you … you’re a drifter, you’re promiscuous, you come from one of the roughest parts of New York City, you’re nearly broke—it looks like someone went through her handbag before they threw it out—and your last steady job was as a photographer for a porno magazine. And with everyone thinking that the Mafia controls pornography, even your name is a liability.”

  “It’s a soft-core magazine—it’s even legal in Canada, for Christ’s sake—and I’m Italian. Gravesend Italian. The Mafia’s Sicilian.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Have you ever known an Italian who could keep an oath of silence?”

  Kelly had actually smiled, but swallowed it quickly. “Seriously, Mr. Magistrale, you’re the sort of person that jurors expect a murderer to be. One reporter in Vancouver’s already trying to cross-reference your travels with unsolved rapes, murders and missing-persons reports. Okay, it’s not justice—it’s the antithesis of justice, in fact. Trial by media, guilty until proven innocent, and yes, it stinks, but you can’t afford to ignore it, especially not if you’re broke.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We keep you out of court if at all possible. You take a polygraph test.”

  Mage thought quickly. “I thought they were inadmissible as evidence.”

  “They are, but a negative test may be enough to convince a judge to deny the deportation order. Fortunately, you won’t be facing a jury here.” Her expression showed all too clearly what she thought of California juries.

  “What’ll they ask?”

  “What? Well, they’ll talk to you for a few hours, working out some good yes-no questions—say, were you in the youth hostel on Seventh Avenue on the twenty-second, rather than where were you on the night of … Then they’ll attach the polygraph, ask you a few test questions, four or five, to gauge
your responses—is your name Michelangelo Magistrale, were you born in New York? Then they’ll ask you if you killed her, when you last saw her alive, where you were and what you were doing at the time of Amanda Sharmon’s murder.” As she’d more than half expected, Mage grimaced. “That’s the tough one, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than murder … or are you trying to protect someone?”

  “No, it isn’t that. It’s just a lot harder to believe.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Can I have some time to think about it?”

  Well, he’d had time—nearly a day now. There’d been no news from Charlie, either.

  “Magistrale?” He looked up to see a guard standing outside the cell. “Visitor,” the man grunted.

  “Who?”

  “Says he’s your uncle. Come on, I haven’t got all bloody day.”

  Mage stood, glanced at his cellmate and muttered, “Don’t go away, I’ll be right back.” He was pointedly ignored.

  “What’s he in for, anyway?” he asked the guard as they walked toward the visitors’ room.

  “Murder, same as you. Shot up another gang with a Kalashnikov, killed three.” He said it flatly and without qualification—meaning, Mage realized, that his victims wouldn’t be missed; three or four pushers fewer in L.A. was a difference that made no difference, and the shooter would be unlikely to make it into the papers, let alone the six-o’clock news.

  The murder of a beautiful and brilliant girl with terminal cancer, on the other hand, was great for ratings. He shrugged and they walked the rest of the way in silence.

  Dante Mandaglione was short and stocky, with thinning brown hair and an accent wavering somewhere between Sydney, Australia, and Boston, Massachusetts … but he spoke gutter Italian fluently, and he bawled out Mage with a speed that would have done credit to an auctioneer on amphetamines. This ritual over, he sat back and took a deep breath, and Mage asked, “How’s the family?”