The Art of Arrow Cutting Page 12

  “What?” Astonished, he stared at her; unable to see her face, he looked at her hand on his arm, and understood. “I keep losing the damn things. There’s a UV filter on it. It’ll be okay,” he said gently.

  She nodded sharply. “I’m in court tomorrow, a rape case, but can I meet you sometime, talk about the polygraph?”

  “Where?”

  “My office?” She reached into her handbag and withdrew a card. “This is my pager number. Call me when you decide. Okay?”

  They watched her walk back to her car, and Takumo handed Mage a black motorcycle helmet. “What’s in the envelope?” he asked.

  “Prints. You wanted to see those shots of Amanda, didn’t you?”

  “For sure. How’d they turn out?”

  “I’ll have to crop them …” when this is over, he thought, but closed the helmet visor on the words. Takumo nodded and threw his leg over the seat. “Where to?”

  Kelly looked over her shoulder and watched them ride away, trying to keep a cap on her anger—which was directed not at Mage, but at herself. All the evidence, circumstantial as it might be, pointed to Mage’s guilt—no, to Magistrale’s guilt, she thought. And all her feelings contradicted the evidence.

  And now another drifter turns up, having known Mage—Magistrale—for little more than a week and drops twenty thousand in cash on the police blotter for Magistrale’s bail, and where the hell did that money come from?

  “Okay, she’s gone,” said Mage as they rounded the corner. “Where the hell did the money come from?”

  Takumo grinned and swallowed it before opening his helmet. “Las Vegas.”

  “What?”

  “I used the key,” he said and laughed. He drew a deep breath, then burst out laughing again. Mage stared at him, and started laughing just as Takumo stopped. “I should’ve thought of this before,” Takumo explained as he parked the bike. “Don’t know why I didn’t. Key. Ki—kay eye—is Japanese for … there really isn’t any word for it in English. Literally, it means ‘breath,’ but it’s usually translated as ‘spirit,’ or ‘inner force.’ It’s from the Chinese ‘chi,’ as in tai chi. Used properly, it enables you to exceed your human limitations.” He chuckled. “Whoever made this talisman had a seriously twisted sense of humor.”

  “Twisted? Braided. But you haven’t explained—”

  “Later, okay? It’s a long story, and I’m not sure I believe all of it myself. But … here.” He fished in the pocket of his jacket, retrieved the key and slapped it into Mage’s hand. “I think you could use it better than I did.”

  Mage opened his mouth to ask another question, then closed it again. The hot pavement wasn’t a good locale for an argument, so he followed Takumo at a jog. Despite his shorter legs, the stuntman was a fast walker; if he hadn’t stopped to look in the window of a martial-arts supplier and burst out laughing again, Mage might have lost him.

  “What’s the joke now?”

  Takumo pointed at the “Ninja” T-shirts and appliqués. “Those. It’s like carrying a big neon sign saying ‘CIA.’ Far out.” He shook his head, still chuckling, then proceeded into the shop next door. “Jeans, sneakers—you need anything else?”

  “Some answers would be nice.”

  “What size?”

  Mage glared at him, then grabbed three pairs of Lee’s from the rack. “Look after these,” he snapped, handing the envelope of prints to Takumo, and disappeared into the changing booth. Thin and long-limbed though he was, he still found it difficult to buy jeans that fit without surgery; he had concluded years before that most jeans were designed for soprano weregiraffes. He was zipping up the first pair when there was a knock on the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Mage?”

  “Yeah?”

  Silence. He sighed and opened the door. Takumo thrust the photograph of Packer at him and murmured, “This guy … Crewcut …”

  “I told you about him.”

  “I saw him in Vegas. He tried to—Hey, can you hurry it up a little?”

  Okay,” said Takumo as soon as he’d kicked the door shut behind him. “Sorry, but I’m still a little shook-up—a lot shook-up—and I thought that doing something halfway normal might calm me down. I’d done my yoga, my exercises, some kuji-kuri, I’d meditated, but when I saw that photo, it—”

  “You saw this clown in Vegas? You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. He looks a little different, mostly because now he has a bruise on his face suspiciously like a size seven sneaker sole, but he still had Canadian coins in his pockets. His behavior hasn’t changed, either; he pulled a gun on me too.” He chained the door behind him, kicked his sneakers off and walked toward the kitchen.

  “Sit down and tell me about it,” said Mage. “I’ll make the tea.”

  Takumo smiled weakly. “That’s cool. Okay …” He told the story hesitantly and Mage listened without interrupting. Two cups of tea later, he finished with, “For all I know, he’s still there. But the key is yours, Mage. Like, I thought I’d wished both Foot-face and myself into the Phantom Zone; I don’t have the control.”

  “You don’t? Jesus, you’re the one who meditates—”

  “You’re the one with the eyes. I think that’s how this magic works—you have to see and believe. Of course, I could be wrong.”

  “Great.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  Mage stared at the photograph of Packer and shook his head. “What d’you know about photography?”

  “About as much as you know about ninjutsu. Okay, like I know which end of a camera you point, and I can usually tell which button to press, if there aren’t too many of them.”

  “If I’d given you this roll of film to develop and print—”

  “I’d have taken it to a drugstore.”

  “And if there weren’t a drugstore? If you were in a fully equipped darkroom, with no one to help you?”

  “I couldn’t do a freakin’ thing.”

  “You’d probably totally wreck the film by trying—and possibly the darkroom too.”

  “Yeah, I can dig that. I’ve seen beginners with nunchaku.”

  Mage pulled the talisman from his pocket and swung it around his finger. “Okay, you’ve used this to pick locks and to rig a roulette wheel. What else can it do?”

  “Jam a gun?”

  “What? You’ve done that?”

  “No, I didn’t think of this at the time,” said Takumo quietly. “More’s the pity—but what happened before that Ingram jammed on you?”

  Mage closed his eyes and concentrated. “I … stared at the guy—no, at the gun. I’d answered all his questions and I realized that that was it, he was going to kill me … and I was still staring at the gun, like it was more dangerous than he was, more real. I remember wondering what would happen if it jammed—I’d heard that they were easy to jam—”

  “And then it jammed. Were you holding the key?”

  “Yeah.”

  Takumo grinned. “Did you see it jam? Before it did? Did you visualize it?”

  Mage nodded dumbly. Takumo’s grin broadened. “Don’t tell me that’s not a useful trick. Like yadomejutsu, Second Dan: the art of bullet cutting.”

  Mage opened his eyes and stared at him balefully. “Wonderful. Magic that works only when someone is shooting at us and we can take time out to visualize. Just what we need.”

  “Hey, it’s a beginning!”

  “Wouldn’t we be better off knowing who was going to be shooting at us?”

  “For sure, but—”

  “Okay. What was your impression of this Canadian?”

  “Dumb,” replied Takumo without hesitation. “And he probably gets off on Rambo movies.”

  “Dumb, yeah. A magician?”

  Takumo grimaced. “Not even a sorcerer’s apprentice. Like, he couldn’t turn a car into a garage.”

  “So it isn’t his. The key, I mean.” Mage started, then slapped his forehead. “I’m an idiot! He didn’t even know about the key!”

>   “What?”

  “He goes to Totem Rock; he’s looking for Amanda, and he finds me because I’ve just come out of Amanda’s room. He calls Amanda ‘the blonde,’ so it’s obvious he doesn’t know her. I tell him I have her key and he doesn’t even ask me for it!”

  Takumo considered this theory for several seconds, then nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe he was going to kill you and take it anyway … but it still would’ve been easier if he’d asked you to hand it over. You’re probably right.”

  “Okay. I thought, back then, that he had to be working for someone else. Now I’m convinced.”

  “For sure,” said Takumo. “He’s not a boss.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “No authority. You work with directors, film crews, you know when someone’s used to being in charge, who takes shit from whom. Like this clown needed that gun; take it away and he couldn’t order a Big Mac with fries. But if he isn’t the boss, who is? And what was he doing in Vegas? Can he teleport?”

  Mage started again, kicking his empty cup over. “Oh Jesus …” They sat there silently, nervously looking around, for nearly half a minute before Takumo smiled. “Hey, it’s cool. I just remembered. He had a key to the Sunrise.”

  “Sunrise?”

  “The hotel, the casino. Where I won the money. Like, he must have seen me there …”

  “How did he know you?”

  “Maybe the rukoro-kubi told him,” said Takumo after a moment’s thought. “Or maybe the rukoro-kubi told his boss, who told Crewcut. Freakin’ hell, if this key is worth what I think, there could just be a multimillion-dollar bounty on our heads. This guy’s met you, tries to anticipate us … it doesn’t work, does it?” Mage shook his head. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”

  Mage stared at the poster for Jonin. “What about the rukoro-kubi? A boss?”

  “No way.”

  “I agree: another employee.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “At the Sunrise Hotel, maybe. Why would he—Crewcut—be staying there? The Sunrise caters to Japanese. Not the casino—they’ll take money from anyone—but the hotel. It has a deal with a tour company in Tokyo.”

  “How d’you know this?”

  “When I was working for Dante, most of the girls I met were from Vegas. They used to tell some pretty wild stories.”

  Takumo decided not to ask for details; he rightly suspected that the New Yorker was trying to be diplomatic. He was well aware of the reputation of many Japanese tourists, particularly in all-male packs, and was also aware that it was often justified. “So?”

  “So maybe Crewcut works at, or for, the Sunrise.”

  Takumo considered it. “He digs guns. Maybe he sells them to Japanese tourists. A handgun will sell for ten or twenty times its original price in Tokyo; bullets can go for twelve bucks each. So what was he doing in Canada?”

  “Looking for Amanda. Maybe she used the key to cheat the Sunrise; Jenny said she spent a lot of time in Vegas, gambling, winning a lot, maybe that was how she did it.” Mage lay back on the tatami and stared at the ceiling. “But then why was she broke when I met her?”

  Silence.

  “It’s the only lead we have,” said Takumo. “What do we do with it?”

  Mage sat up suddenly and grinned. “Can I use the phone?”

  16

  Names

  “If I asked you why you wanted to know,” Mandaglione wondered aloud, “would I be sorry?”

  “Only if we answered.”

  Mandaglione shrugged eloquently—the first and only suggestion of a family resemblance that Takumo had noticed—and reached into his briefcase, removing a manila folder full of photocopies. “You’re lucky. The local news back home has been full of the Sunrise for the past week and a half, ever since the manager blew his brains out.”

  Mage and Takumo glanced at each other, and Mage whistled softly. “Are they sure he did it himself?” asked Takumo.

  “Fairly sure. He died in his bathroom, with the door locked on the inside. There was no sign of a struggle, and the wound looked like it was self-inflicted. The only window was eight inches wide and twelve floors up, and the screen could only be removed or replaced from the outside.” He shrugged again. “On the other hand, there was no suicide note—at least no one’s found one yet—and he was shot with a World War One Nambu with no identifiable prints, even though he had another gun, a Detonics nine-millimeter, in his shoulder holster.” He turned to Takumo. “Does that make sense to you?”

  Takumo smiled bleakly. “I’m not an expert on suicide. Was he Japanese?”

  “San Francisco Japanese. His name was Tony Higuchi.” Mage started at the name “Tony,” but said nothing. “Good name for a casino manager,” Mandaglione continued. “Sounds nice and Italian—the Mafia probably love him—but his grandparents came from Osaka.”

  “Then the Nambu may have belonged to his grandfather,” said Takumo. “He may have been keeping it for this one use: an honorable weapon for a more honorable death. Suicides tend to be very fussy, even tidy, and that’s not just a Japanese trait. Suicides everywhere tend to use clean knives or razors, to remove their glasses before jumping or their clothes before stabbing themselves.” He noticed that Mage was looking slightly green. “Suicide is, above all, a form of communication.”

  “I think I’ll stick to word processors,” replied Mandaglione dryly.

  “They’re certainly easier to correct,” agreed Takumo. “Did this Higuchi own the casino?”

  “Officially, no.”

  “Unofficially?”

  “Officially, Higuchi was the casino manager. He used to be a successful gambler; in fact, he used to be a lot of things, but gambling is the only one he stuck with. I never actually met him, but I have friends who did; said he could skin them alive at almost any game you could name. Apart from having one hell of a poker face himself, he was damn good at reading people … well, men anyway. I hear he had a serious weakness for pretty blondes, spent a fortune trying to impress them. But the Sunrise was rarely ripped off. Higuchi could spot a cheat or a thief as soon as one walked in, and he handpicked the staff, never forgot a name or a face. The other thing he knew well was guns; he’d been accused of gunrunning a few times, starting back when he was a supply sergeant in the Marines, but never convicted of anything above a misdemeanor.

  “The casino’s owner, at least on paper, is a cleanskin named Shota Nakatani, no criminal record, what we’d call ‘a fit and proper person’ back home. He runs a package tour business for the Japanese—”

  “Based in L.A.?” asked Takumo.

  “Yeah.”

  “I know him. Or of him. Like, I never actually met him, but I worked for him. As a tour guide.”

  “Why’d you quit?”

  “I got a better offer. A movie.” And just in time, he admitted silently. If he’d received one more freakin’ request for consumer advice on handguns, or directions to the nudie bars and strip shows, he would have told Nakatani-sama where he could stick his freakin’ bus.

  Softly, Mandaglione persisted. “Did you notice anything illegal?”

  “A lot of the tourists were popping pills—amphetamines, I guess—but I don’t know if Nakatani was supplying them. And his souvenir shops … well, the markups were unreal, but that’s true for most tourist traps, neh?”

  “Did they sell guns?”

  “Not that I saw, but I only went in there once. Some of the staff looked more like sumotori, with manners to match, and you could’ve hidden a tank under the counter—I could barely see over the thing. I know a lot of the men bought handguns from somewhere. Why?”

  “There’s pretty good evidence that Higuchi started out shipping guns and ammunition to a Tokyo yakuza syndicate, probably the Sumiyoshi-rengo. He was actually caught twice, but the cases were thrown out of court— once on a technicality, no probable cause, the other time when a star witness failed to show. Rumor has it that he also runs—sorry, ran—small arms to some of the opium barons
in Thailand and Burma.”

  Takumo showed his teeth. “How was he paid?”

  “Handsomely, I presume. Traditionally, in gold.”

  “So why suicide?” asked Mage.

  “Ah, there’s the rub.” He turned to Takumo. “Did you ever hear of Tatsuo Tamenaga?”

  “No.”

  “When you were working for Nakatani?”

  “No. Who is he?”

  “Higuchi’s father-in-law and—again allegedly—the major shareholder in the Sunrise Hotel after Nakatani himself. By all accounts, he’s a financial wizard; he lives in this multimillion-dollar palace up in Glendale and calls himself an investor. No one ever sees him; I have photos here of Nakatani and Higuchi, even of Higuchi’s wife, but none of Tamenaga.”

  Takumo nodded. “He didn’t show at Higuchi’s funeral?”

  “No.”

  “What about the wife?”

  “By all reports, she’s holding up very well,” replied Mandaglione dryly. “It was probably an arranged marriage, and like I said, Higuchi had a yen for blondes. Millions of yen, if necessary.”

  Mage blinked. “When exactly did he die?”

  Mandaglione flicked through the pages. “Just a second … eh, here’s Nakatani. Ah. Between midnight and two on the eleventh.”

  Mage calculated. That was eight days before he met Amanda, which didn’t prove anything one way or the other, but he remembered Jenny saying something about Amanda dating a casino manager named Tony. Takumo handed him the photograph of Nakatani, who was far too slim and handsome to have been the rukoro-kubi.

  “What else do you know about Tamenaga?” Takumo asked.

  “Only what I got from the newspaper morgues. He was born in Tokyo in 1938 and orphaned in the war. Apparently he was some sort of mathematical genius even as a kid and they brought him over here to study, then sent him back home to help with the Reconstruction. After that the stories become a little vague. He returned to Japan in ’59 and started work as a currency buyer for the Sumitomi Bank. Two or three years later he was working at another bank, then at a brokerage firm—Nikko, I think. Now this is unusual behavior for a Japanese—they tend to stay with the one employer for decades, even for life; they rarely quit and are as rarely fired. Tamenaga had at least four employers, possibly more, in ten years and no one seems to know why … but in those ten years, he mysteriously amassed a fortune. Then he went into business for himself—the real-estate business. He still owns some of the most valuable properties in Tokyo, many of which he bought at bargain prices.”