Linnear 01 - The Ninja (26 page)

Outside on the street he saw a dark-haired man with wide shoulders and a pushed-in face. It had character, like a cowboy’s. He stood beside a plain white Ford sedan. Even without the removable flashing red light on top, he knew it for a police car. But he had recognized the face. Detective Lieutenant Lew Croaker. He walked out of the shadow of the building’s makeshift entrance and, tossing his hard hat to one of the workmen, went down the wooden plank to the kerb.

He had used the phone in Abe Russo’s portable headquarters. He had thought about calling Ray Florum, the police lieutenant out at West Bay Bridge, but he knew Justine would never stand for it. Accordingly, he got Doc Deerforth’s number from Information and spoke to him for several minutes. He had agreed to look in on Justine every so often.

‘Linnear,’ Croaker said as he came up to him in the sunshine, ‘what the hell were you doing with Raphael Tomkin?’ He worked a wooden toothpick between his teeth with two long slender fingers.

‘Hello to you, too, Lieutenant.’ Nicholas nodded.

‘Cut the wise dialogue and get in,’ Croaker said, ducking his head as he sat behind the wheel. ‘We’ve got business to attend to.’

Nicholas opened the door on the passenger’s side and got in. As soon as his foot was off the asphalt, the car roared off. He pulled at the door, slamming it shut.

‘Didn’t your buddy Ito give you specific instructions?’ Croaker said. He began to weave through the uptown traffic, heading for the left side of Park Avenue and the street divider.

‘Tomkin picked me up while I was waiting for you.’

Croaker snorted. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you never to get into a car filled with strangers? Jesus 1 What’d that fucker want with you?’

‘I don’t have to answer that.’

Croaker swung his head round, unmindful of the tenacious traffic. He glared at Nicholas. ‘Listen, buddy, don’t give me a hard time. I’m telling you that if it has to do with Raphael Tomkin it fucking is my business, get me? Now give I’ He braked savagely, in line to make a left onto the downtown side of the avenue.

‘What makes you so interested in Tomkin?’ Nicholas was tired of being questioned without having any of the answers.

‘Now, look, Linnear,’ Croaker said, carefully enunciating each word. It was obvious he was holding himself in with an effort. ‘I’m doing my best to be civil, to treat you with respect. I’ve got no beef with you. Yet. But today’s just not my day; I’m on a short fuse. That means, you being here beside me, it’s not your day either. Now be nice and tell me what I want to know. I promise, it won’t hurt.’ He leant on the horn, turned down Park.

‘I’m seeing his daughter,’ Nicholas said. ‘He wanted to check me out.’

Croaker hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand, bounced up and down. ‘Goddamn I’ he exclaimed. ‘Goddamn I Hoi’ He shook his head. ‘What do you know!’ Then he swore as he was forced to swerve round a slowly cruising cab. He gunned the Ford and they leapt forward into the semicircle of the overpass at Forty-sixth Street. When they emerged, below Forty-second, he said, ‘Jesus, I thought I’d pass up the fucking traffic on Second by going down Park but will you look at this.’ He gestured at the sea of cars gleaming in the sun ahead of them. They were baking in the interior and the air stank of exhaust and overheated oil. ‘To hell with this!’ He reached out his left hand, started the siren. On top the red light began to flash. ‘Christ,’ he said as the cars began reluctantly to part, ‘summer in New York!’

They turned east on Thirtieth Street and Croaker cut the siren. ‘Which one is it?”

‘Which what?’

‘Daughter, Linnear. Which daughter? Gelda, the one who like Chivas, or is it the crazy younger one - what’s her name?’

‘Jus tine.’

‘Yeah. I can never remember it.’ He shrugged. ‘Too pretty for a Tomkin.’ He turned his head, spat the toothpick out of the open window. ‘Spoke to her once, couple of months ago. She’s kinda hard to forget.’

‘Yes,’ Nicholas said. ‘She’s beautiful all right.’ He wished he was with her now instead of being in this melting heat on his way to the morgue. Goddamn Tomkin I he thought savagely. Then he smiled inwardly. You could say this for the bastard, he sure knew his people. Which led him to another point. ‘You certainly know the family well.’

They had pulled up half way down the block between Third and Second Avenues as traffic piled up at the red light. A refrigerated meat provisions truck was in the process of pulling out into the traffic, its nose canted into the flow.

Croaker turned to look at him, one elbow on the sill of the open window. He had grey eyes and thick hair cut rather long, combed straight back. He looked as if he had been through the wars; like a character out of From Here to Eternity. ‘You sure are nosy for a civilian.’ The line of cars started up, rolling slowly forward after the truck had nosed its way in; it was no faster than a funeral procession. His voice changed gears, softening remarkably. ‘Guess the old bastard didn’t take it too well, you seeing his baby.’

‘You could put it that way.’ They had stopped again; the heat was oppressive. ‘How’d you find me anyway?’

Croaker shrugged. ‘I got to Penn Station in time to see you gettin’ into the limo. Frank’s a wiseacre.”

‘Yeah. I know.’ Nicholas grinned. ‘He and Whistle tried their best to evict me from the premises.’

Croaker eyed him. ‘Don’t look like it bothered you none.”

‘I wanted to leave anyway.’

Croaker threw his head back and laughed. ‘Linnear,’ he said, ‘you just made my day.’

They soon came to the source of the slow up. The gutter gurgled and the street swished with running water. Farther down the block four or five shirtless kids, their pants rolled up to their knees, danced about an open fire hydrant. Croaker rolled up his window and they splashed through as if they were in a car wash.

‘Do you miss it?’ Nicholas asked.

‘What? Miss what?’ Croaker took them through the intersection on the amber, accelerated.

‘Smoking.’ He had noticed that the ends of the other’s fingers on his right hand were yellowed.

‘Goddamn right I miss it,’ Croaker growled. ‘Why’n hell d’you think I chew these goddamned Mint Picks? Huh You think I’ve got time to eat with all the shit coming, down in this city? I ain’t been in a proper bed in three days.’ He hung a left onto First Avenue and, with a squeal of brakes that must have left several inches of rubber on the city’s asphalt, he pulled up in front of the turquoise-glazed brick facade of the Chief Medical Examiner’s office. He double-parked and they went up the steps.

. Croaker led them over to a desk, flipped open a brown plastic case to display his badge and I.D. to the receptionist. The man nodded when Croaker said, ‘Dr Ito,’ and dialled a three-digit number on the telephone on the small desk.

He looked up as he cradled the phone. ‘Dr Ito will be right up, Lieutenant. He’s in the morgue.’

Croaker looked around, watched the policeman on duty for several minutes. He did not know the man.

Vincent came out. He was wearing a green lab smock that tied at the back. ‘Hello, Nick,’ he said gravely. He shook Croaker’s hand. He led them back the way he had come, past the identifying room with its hydraulic lift to the morgue and down a set of stairs to the basement.

There was no smell at all down here; Nicholas had always imagined it would stink of disinfectant and formaldehyde. It was silent save for the monotone drone coming from behind a set of swing-doors; an autopsy was in progress. Vincent went to the bank of stainless-steel doors, opened two. Then he described in detail what he had found.

‘It was no ordinary intruder who found them,’ he concluded. ‘You see how the sternum and rib cage are fractured?’

‘Christ,’ Croaker said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that. He looks like he’s been battered with a baseball bat.’

Vincent shook his head. ‘Nothing so crude, Lieutenant. It was a human body.’

Croaker snorted. ‘Idiotic! A human body by itself couldn’t cause such extensive damage in such a short amount of time. The man must’ve had fists like hammers.’

‘No fists,’ Vincent said.

Croaker stared at him. I’m sure this is leading somewhere, Doctor.’

‘Lieutenant,’ Nicholas said. ‘Terry was a sensei, a master of kenjutsu, karate, aikido. No man alive could get close enough to him to kill him, unless…’

‘Unless what? I want to hear this.’ Croaker crossed his legs, leaning nonchalantly against the bank of doors.

‘There is a kenjutsu technique, perfected and written about by Miyamoto Musashi, Japan’s greatest swordsman. It’s called the Body Strike, for obvious reasons. Using one’s shoulder -‘

‘This guy must have been built like a tank,’ Croaker said.

‘On the contrary,’ Nicholas said, ‘his stature could have been quite a bit smaller than Vincent’s. We are speaking not so much of pure physical strength now, Lieutenant, but of an inner strength.’

‘Look, Linnear, the only inner strength I’ve ever seen is from David Carradine in “Kung Fu” and I didn’t believe a bit of it.’

Nicholas smiled. ‘Then we must begin to educate you, Lieutenant.’

Croaker stood up, said, ‘Then you agree with Ito here. You think these two were killed by a Japanese.’

‘Well, I can think of a small number of occidentals who are kenjutsu sensei. But none of them could kill this way. This is a spiritual killing that would be far beyond them.’

Croaker stared down at Terry’s smashed chest. ‘Ain’t nothing spiritual about this, my man. This is the work of a pile driver.’

‘Was there any kind of a murder weapon found in Terry’s house?” Nicholas asked.

‘Just a sword -‘

‘Terry’s katana,’ Vincent interrupted, his gaze shooting the message, ‘lying by his side.’

‘Yeah,’ Croaker said. ‘But no blood on it; nothing like that. No other possible weapon that could’ve done that. But that don’t mean shit. The guy could’ve taken off with it.’

‘He didn’t,’ Nicholas said. ‘Lieutenant, killing has been a high art in Japan for almost two centuries. In another time, it was a way of life for the Japanese. And today, though there is the modern Japan which stands in its place, still the old ways remain. Still there is bushido, the Way of the Warrior.’

“Yeah? What the hell is it, then?’

Nicholas laughed. ‘I don’t think I could explain it in a few minutes.’

‘That’s okay, I’ve got bags of time.’ Croaker extracted a MintyPick from his breast pocket, rolled it between his teeth. ‘I ain’t eaten in much too long. What say you and I talk mis out over a meal?’

Nicholas nodded and Croaker turned to Vincent. ‘Say, Doc, I’ll sign for the bags while I’m here.’

‘Right.’ Vincent went round the corner to the small alcove where a number of polythene bundles waited for collection by the police: homicide victims’ effects and clothes. Vincent brought two bundles back to Croaker, gave him a form to sign.

Croaker looked up, giving Vincent back his pen. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

Nicholas’s call made Doc Deerforth uneasy, and while Nicholas had been brief, he’d given more than enough for Doc Deerforth to chew on.

He had appointments until twelve-thirty but directly his last patient said goodbye, he left the office and drove out to Dune Road. He had been in constant touch with Ray Florum, of course, but there had been no progress on the two murder cases and, reluctantly, he had had to let the county detectives in. Not that it would do any good, Doc Deerforth thought sourly as he drove across the steel drawbridge onto Dune Road: the county people were like the Keystone Kops, all gung-ho and no expertise.

He turned right and settled back. Gulls rose, wheeling over the water on his left, circling about the two stories of The Crosstree, Dune Road’s newest condominium. It was tan and dark brown with a maze of outside staircases on this, the landward side. Soon the condominiums gave grudging way to private houses.

The thought of the ninja haunted him all the way out to Justine’s house. Ever since he had become aware of the evidence, he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep. In dreams he would return to the steaming jungles, to the mortar fire by day, the snipers’ fire by night. But it was one specific night he dreaded most of all and even in his dreams he fought against remembering. Soon, he knew, he would have to resort to chloral hydrate to knock himself into a dreamless abyss.

He parked the car on the side of the house, took the elevated slatted-wood pathway over the dunes and scrub grass to the beach. He went up the stairs, knocked on the screen door. Behind him the water surged and, down the beach, he could hear the cries of children as they ran into the surf. A shaggy dog barked, leaping along the sand in pursuit of a wobbling Frisbee. The sand was a patchwork of oiled bodies, brightly coloured blankets and striped sun umbrellas. A cool breeze blew in off the water and, for a moment at least, there came the drone of an airplane.

Justine came to the door, opened it. She smiled. ‘Hi. What brings you out here?’

‘Nothing special,’ Doc Deerforth lied. ‘I was out this way and thought I’d say hello. Haven’t seen you since the beginning of the summer.’

Justine laughed as she stepped back to let him in, Thank God that allergy doesn’t last for long. I couldn’t endure it all summer.’ She went into the kitchen. ‘Would you like a drink?’ And when he nodded, she added, ‘Gin and tonic?’

‘Fine.’

She went about fixing it.

‘Seems quiet around here,’ he said. ‘Had any visitors?’ ‘What?’ she said over the sound of cracking ice. ‘I can’t hear you?’

He went into the kitchen. ‘Any visitors lately?’ She handed him his drink, began to make hers. ‘Only Nicholas.’ She tasted it. ‘Umm. But that’s the way I like it. I’ve never been comfortable with a lot of people, not at home at least.’ They went into the living room, sat on the sofa. ‘In business, it’s different. I don’t like to mix the two.’

Doc Deerforth nodded. ‘I know what you mean. I don’t like to either.”

She regarded him over the rim of her tall glass. She pressed the condensation against her lip, rolling the glass. ‘Tell me, Doc,’ she said. ‘You didn’t come all the way out here to exchange pleasantries, did you?’ ‘I came to see how you were.’ ‘I’m not ill,’ she pointed out.