Time of Attack (25 page)

“I cannot remember the last time I had breakfast with a nice man,” she said, waving her chopsticks in small circles as she spoke around a mouthful of food. “Or any man at all for that matter. The men I am with rarely take time with me for the simple pleasures of eating a good meal.”

“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places,” Quinn said. He was still exhausted, and probably shouldn’t have been so forward, but Ayako seemed to appreciate such direct talk.

“Maybe so.” She ate another bite of rice, chewing while she thought. “How about you?”

Quinn took a sip of miso soup, then peered at her over the raised bowl. “What do you mean?”

“Do you ever have breakfast with any nice girls, or just other killers?”

At first, Quinn thought she was joking, or maybe trying to get back at him for what he’d said. But she continued to look at him, eating her rice and blinking dark lashes in earnest curiosity.

“I guess,” he said. “Yes, of course I do.”

Ayako raised her eyebrows as if she didn’t quite believe him. “You and I are a little bit the same, I think.” She popped another bite of cod roe into her mouth. “Perhaps we do what we do because we are not much good at anything else.”

Quinn laughed. “That could be it.”

He supposed Ayako spent a lot of time on her back, pondering the mystery and vagaries of life. Positional prostitutional philosophy, Jacques would have called it.

Ayako pushed away from the small table, rising quickly as if an idea had just occurred to her. She retrieved the canvas guitar case from her side of the sleeping mats and carried it reverently to the table.

She cleared away the dishes and carefully unzipped the case.

“This was my father’s,” she said, pulling back the lid to reveal a
wakizashi
—the shorter companion sword to a traditional Japanese
katana
. “And his father’s before him.” She lifted it out, one hand on the black-lacquered sheath, the other cradling the cotton-wrapped ray skin of the handle. “According to the inscription on the handle, this sword was crafted by Mitsunokami Tameyasu over three hundred years ago.” She nodded toward the hilt. “The writing on the guard says ‘
Fujin’
—the Japanese god of the wind.”

“Please.” She offered the weapon to Quinn, humbly bowing her head when he took it in both hands. “It is somewhat plain. Not as beautifully decorated as more modern
wakizashi
. I suppose my ancestors were austere men.”

Quinn grasped the handle and unsheathed the shining blade. Eighteen inches from tip to iron handguard, it sang in his hand as living steel should. There was something about a three-centuries-old weapon that pierced the soul as surely as it cut flesh and bone.

“I wish you to have it, Quinn-san,” Ayako said, her head still bowed.

“Oh, no.” Quinn slid it back in the sheath with a solid click. He pushed it toward her with both hands. “I couldn’t.”

“I have no husband,” Ayako said. “Who else would take it? The fool Watanabe?” She sniffed. A tear fell on her thigh and she brushed it away with the heel of her hand. “Please. I would like it to go to a good man.”

Her cell phone rang, playing a snippet of the pop song by her Korean heartthrob and rescuing Quinn for the moment.

Ayako listened intently, making “emm” and “ehh” noises every few seconds to let the person on the other end know she was still on the line. She’d regained her composure by the time she hung up.

“That was Watanabe,” she said. “You were right. Tanaka has agreed to meet us. He has a warehouse on the harbor, near the commercial docks. We are to meet him there in an hour.” Ayako brushed a lock of black hair out of her eyes that were still red from crying. “Something is not quite right. Watanabe sounded too happy. They must be planning something.”

“Of course they are,” Quinn said. “But so are we.”

He moved to return the sword, but she turned away.

“It is yours now.” She raised an open hand, showing her palm and refusing any further discussion. Moving to her duffel at the head of her futon, she peeled the pink T-shirt over her head and stepped out of her shorts as if Quinn wasn’t leaning against the wall ten feet away. He didn’t have time to look away before he caught the telltale shadow of a scar. White against the honey color of her skin, it ran diagonally across her belly, canted from the right of her navel to her panty line. Quinn had plenty of scars of his own and recognized this one as old and too jagged to have been made during a surgery. Turning, he couldn’t help wondering if the story behind that scar had something to do with her visceral reaction toward the mere mention of Oda’s name.

“I am dressed,” she said softly. He heard the sound of creaking wood as she sat back on the futon to put on her socks.

She looked fresh and beautiful in a pair of faded jeans and a loose, gray turtleneck sweater.

“Less . . . whore-like?” She shrugged.

“Stop that,” he chided.

“Do you know what a woman wants, Quinn-san?”

“I’m not the man to ask.” He wished Thibodaux was there. The big Cajun had barrels of philosophy about women.

“I think most men believe we want to be ravished—swept off our feet.” She sat on the end of the bed, one sock on, the other in her hand. “And perhaps some of us do when we are young. But what we really want is to feel safe. Every day I feel excitement, fear, sadness, anger, and sometimes, believe it or not, even desire . . . but safety is something I have not felt in a very long time—until now.”

Quinn did not know what to say, so he said nothing.

Tears ran down her cheeks. She sat on the futon and hugged her knees to her chest, giving a tiny nod toward Quinn’s hands. “Please, I beg you to accept the sword. Its value is far less than the gift you have given me.”

Quinn held it up in both hands, bowing at the waist, thanking her.

“In fact”—she leaned over to tug her other sock over a tiny foot—“bring it with us. Where we are going, the ferocious god of wind may be welcome assistance.”

Q
uinn was surprised to see a metallic red Honda Blackbird parked on the gravel pad in front of the temple cottage beside Ayako’s yellow bike.

“We would never have been able to get away from Tanaka on my little bike.” She smiled. “And this is more suited to your riding style.”

Quinn stepped up to the motorcycle. It was enough to make him momentarily forget how bad he hurt. “Where did you get this so early in the morning?”

“I stopped to see a client before he left for work,” she said. “He has allowed us to borrow it for a while.”

“Now we’re talkin’,” Quinn said in English.

Ayako gave him a quizzical look.

“My brother had one of these when we were younger.” Quinn fell back into Japanese. “It brings back memories.”

“I thought you would approve,” Ayako said.

He ran a hand down the Honda’s aggressive fairing and across the smooth arc of the fuel tank. If his BMW GSA was the Hummer of motorcycles, the Honda Blackbird was the stealth fighter. He didn’t care for the two side luggage cases on this particular bike, thinking they detracted from the sinister look. But they served a purpose and made a good hiding spot for the two pink shopping bags he’d borrowed from Ayako’s kitchen cupboard when they’d cleared out after the altercation with Tanaka’s men.

Carrying the short sword in the soft-sided guitar case would keep them from getting stopped by any curious patrol officers. For a country steeped in a history of warfare and weaponry, Japanese police got twitchy if they thought someone was riding around with a sword slung over their back.

Once everything was stowed, Quinn swung a leg over the big bike and planted both feet to steady it. He wore the borrowed helmet and his leather jacket against the weather and any possible crash.

Ayako climbed on behind him and scrunched up closer than she probably had to. Her thighs ran tight alongside his, arms wrapped around him, body pressed flat to his back.

“All set?” he asked over his shoulder.

“All set.” She gave his belly a playful pat.

Quinn pushed the ignition button and brought the Blackbird’s 1100 CC engine to growling life. The throaty purr begged him to roll on the throttle.

“You know what I love about this bike?” he asked.

“I do not.” She shook her head, letting her helmet bump the back of his.

“It runs as good as it looks,” he said.

“The same could be said of you, Quinn-san.” Ayako gave him another squeeze.

Quinn groaned within himself. She might very well feel safe, but this girl was as dangerous as any yakuza gangster.

Tanaka’s dockside warehouse was a perfect location to be chopped into pieces and carried out to sea in a fishing vessel. To avoid a soupy end, Quinn made a short detour to a small Shinto shrine on a wooded hill a little over two miles away. He left one of the pink grocery bags there, tucked safely behind a flat granite monolith in a thick stand of bamboo.

The last thing he planned to do was meet Tanaka in his space, on his terms. Instead, he used a favorite technique he’d learned from an old salt when he’d first joined OSI and was assigned to the Crim unit—criminal investigations.

Thieves stuck with thieves, drug dealers hung with other drug dealers. Informants were, more often than not, steeped in the criminal culture. Good guys rarely had information on bad guys. That was the nature of the beast. Meetings with people on the other side of the law were ticklish at best and could turn deadly in the blink of an eye.

It was an inviolable rule that Quinn would pick the location of any meet with an informant. If a snitch called him for a meeting, Quinn would send him to a second location. Then, if things didn’t smell right on his arrival, Quinn might drive by and have the snitch follow him to a third—in a sort of rolling meet.

Quinn’s only chance of finding the woman who shot Kim appeared to be a heart-to-heart with Tanaka. Aborting this meeting was out of the question. It might get tricky, but he could move the location to make it more likely they would survive.

A flock of gulls fought over trash among a flotilla of boats to Quinn’s right as the red sport bike thumped along the heavy timber pier and onto the frontage road that led along the water’s edge. The smell of salted fish, diesel, and a hint of soy from some galley blew in on a stiff sea breeze. It was the smell of the Orient, and Quinn imagined that on some days it would be possible to smell Korea on that wind—or even China.

Ayako gave him a nervous squeeze when they neared a boxy metal warehouse bearing Tanaka’s name and his lotus leaf insignia. Quinn felt her squirm behind him, as if she had to go to the bathroom. Two Toyota Crown sedans, glossy black against the gray mist, sat outside the yawning bay doors of the huge building.

Ayako’s grip grew tighter. Quinn flinched, gritting his teeth as she squeezed his ribs and kidneys. Thankfully, the nausea ebbed quickly. He imagined broken blood vessels leaking inside his body in tiny spurts each time he breathed or took a step. He needed to see a doctor, but calling in sick wasn’t really an option at the moment—so he rode on.

Ten of Tanaka’s men lined the short driveway in front of the Toyota Crowns. Five on either side, they stood shoulder to shoulder, roughly three feet apart, in a modified parade rest. Their hands were clasped in front of dark business suits. Watanabe stood far back, nearest to the warehouse doors. He had apparently delivered the message just as Quinn had directed. Tanaka had put his heavy hitters out front to set the tone. Every man was fit and thickly built, like tree trunks and boulders in neckties. Pistols bulged under their coats. All wore dark glasses, despite the overcast sky.

Quinn passed the yakuza soldier nearest the road at the mouth of the driveway, then leaned the Blackbird into a quick U-turn—so he ended up facing the way he’d come. He toed the transmission into first gear on the way down, planting both feet on the rain-slick pavement. He flipped up the visor on his helmet. Ayako carried the H&K, and he could feel the gun’s comforting imprint where she held it sideways between them against his spine, tucked out of sight.

“You have Tanaka-san’s property?” the nearest man barked. He looked to be a cardboard cutout of what a yakuza gangster was supposed to be. Short hair, stern, slender with an impeccable dark suit. Raindrops spattered his sunglasses. His face hardly moved as he spoke.

“Of course not,” Quinn answered in the same, rough Japanese. “I am not foolish.”

The yakuza grunted as if he’d thought as much, then motioned toward the open twin doors of the warehouse, beyond the gauntlet of toughs.

“Tanaka-san is expecting you.”

Quinn reached over his shoulder with his right hand to grab the remaining pink shopping bag from Ayako.

“Give him this.” Quinn extended his hand.

The yakuza soldier took a half step back, then caught himself. All the men along the drive perked up at the unknown contents of the bag. Hand grenade attacks among warring families were not unheard of in this part of Japan.

“Relax,” Quinn said. “I want to talk to him, not kill him. But I don’t want him to kill us, either, so I’m not meeting him here.”

“What then?” The man gave a worried frown. It would be his fault if something happened to mess up the meeting at his post.

“Have him meet me at the shrine two miles up this road,” Quinn said. “He has five minutes to get there or I’m gone.”

“Tanaka-san does not take orders!”

“Consider it an invitation, then.” Quinn shrugged.

“Tell him he can bring two of you with him for protection if he wants.”

“Ha!” The gangster scoffed. “Protection from who?” Stifled laughter went up and down the lines of suited men.

“Me.” Quinn dumped Sato’s severed head out of the pink bag. It hit the wet asphalt, thudding like a green melon. The nearest yakuza soldier retched as the awful thing rolled across his shoe, wrinkled mouth open in a dead man’s yawn.

“He has five minutes.” Quinn snapped his visor shut and revved the throttle.

Before any of Tanaka’s men could react, he poured on the gas. One hundred and forty horses spun the Blackbird’s rear tire on the pavement, sending up a plume of white smoke. He leaned forward to keep the bike from rising into a wheelie as it shot down the road like a low-flying jet.

She was surely aware of the danger, but Ayako snuggled in tight behind him, squealing in his ear like a child on a carnival ride.