By the Sword

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Yeah?”

  “It meant so much to my father.”

  “He stole it from the museum?”

  Slater jerked upright. “How the hell did you—?” Then he relaxed. “Oh, yeah. My alter ego must have told you.”

  “Only that it belonged to the Hiroshima Peace Museum.”

  The burgers arrived then. Jack and Naka assembled them in silence, then bit in.

  Slater let out a groan. “This is amazing. Why can’t we get beef like this on the islands?”

  They worked on their burgers a little more, then Jack quaffed some Hoegaarden to wash down a big bite.

  “So how did the blade get from the museum to your dad’s place?”

  “The Peace Museum opened in fifty-five, ten years to the day after the bomb. My father was with the Occupation. When he saw the blade he knew it was Matsuo’s and figured he had more claim to it than the museum. He too had been an intelligence officer and was owed more than a few favors. He collected on some by persuading a few commandos to sneak in and snatch it for him.”

  “That’s why you can’t go to the police.”

  He shrugged. “I doubt anyone connected with the museum would remember it now, even if they heard about it, but why take the chance?” He leaned forward. “I need that katana back. Both my parents revered Matsuo’s memory. It was all they had left of him. My father made me promise to keep it in the family. So I don’t see how I have much choice.”

  Jack spread his hands. “And I don’t see how you have much hope.”

  “That bad, huh?” His expression was bleak. “You’ve got no idea at all where it could be?”

  “No, but I know where to find the guy I gave it to. He didn’t have time to hand it off before he was hit, but maybe one of his Hidden Face buddies was waiting out there and snagged it after our friend and the truck got intimate.”

  “You’ve got to make him tell you.”

  “If he’s crazy enough to be in that cult, I seriously doubt he’ll be the sharing type. And there’s something else you have to consider.”

  “Your tone says more bad news.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have anyone waiting. Maybe some passerby found it and took off with it. It could be anywhere—even in a Dumpster.”

  He looked crushed. “Then what do I do?”

  “If by some miracle I can squeeze anything useful out of this guy, I’ll let you know. But if I come up empty, as I suspect I will, all you can do is advertise—put out flyers and offer a reward. That might bring somebody out of the woodwork.”

  He banged the table again. “Ai Kae!”

  The place had gained a few patrons since their arrival and people were giving them curious and concerned looks.

  “Another Hawaiian term of endearment?”

  “What? Yeah. I can stay here only a day or two. You think you could make up the flyers and—?”

  Jack was shaking his head. “Not my kind of work. If I come up empty at the hospital, you do it. Start a voice mail account and put that number on the flyers. Get them spread around. Check the voice mail often. If anything promising comes through, call me and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Jack would be delighted if nothing came through. That sword had nearly killed him twice. Damned if he was about to give it another try.

  “Jesus, God!”

  Jack looked up and saw that Slater’s face had gone white. He was staring at the cover of the Post on the next table.

  “What?”

  “The Black Wind! What happened in Staten Island—it never hit me till now. The Kakureta Kao has brought back the Black Wind!”

  Despite Slater’s ominous tone, it didn’t sound particularly threatening to Jack—like something that might occur after a frijoles negro burrito.

  “And that’s bad?”

  “Very. I didn’t make the connection because I thought they were extinct. But now that you’ve seen someone with their tattoo, it’s all coming together. What happened on Staten Island is exactly the effect of the Black Wind as described by my father. If they’re planning to use it on the city…”

  “But nobody mentioned a wind or wind damage.”

  “It’s been called the Wind-That-Bends-Not-the-Trees.”

  “Oooookay.” Maybe the Jack Daniel’s was hitting him.

  “I’ve got to tell someone. But who?”

  “Um, try Homeland Security. But don’t mention me, okay? Meanwhile, I’m going to check out this Hidden Face guy in the hospital.”

  He grabbed Jack’s arm. “Ask him about the Black Wind. You’ve got to find out.”

  8

  The Wind-That-Bends-Not-the-Trees, Jack thought as he reentered Roosevelt Hospital. Where do people come up with this stuff?

  He was relieved to find the same clerk at the ER admitting desk. Her name tag read KAESHA and she once might have been called Rubenesque, but she’d moved beyond that. The glazed Krispy Kreme donut sitting next to her keyboard hinted at the how and why.

  “Hi, Kaesha. Remember me? I was here earlier about the Asian John Doe?”

  She gave him a hard look, then her features softened. “You’re the one who thought you might know him.”

  “Right. Have the hospital attorneys cleared me for a look at him?”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the patient died a few hours ago.”

  Crap.

  “But,” she added, “it would be a great service to him and to the hospital if you could identify him. And the police want to talk to you as well.”

  Jack stiffened inside. “The police?”

  “Well, I suppose it’s okay to tell you, since he’s dead. But he also had a gunshot wound. The police are looking for any information available.”

  Double crap.

  “Sure. I’ll help any way I can.”

  Uh-huh.

  “We appreciate it. I’ll see about arranging a viewing and let the police know you’re here.”

  “While you’re doing that,” Jack said, forcing a tremor into his voice, “I think I’ll step outside for a breath of air. We were very close. Had a lot of laughs together. He was a real cutup.”

  She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I understand.”

  As soon as Jack was out the door, he made a beeline through the banished smokers and began quick-walking up Amsterdam Avenue. He pulled off his sling and shoved it inside his shirt, then ducked into the Lincoln Center parking garage and cut through to Columbus Avenue.

  As he mingled with the crowd there he called Naka Slater and told him to print up those flyers and Martin Luther them all over town, because his only info source was dead. The body count had moved up to four.

  9

  Hank found the perfect spot on Long Island’s North Fork.

  Somewhere in the tectonic past, Long Island’s eastern third split into a pair of peninsulas. While the longer, wider southern division grew crowded and famous for its wealthy Hamptons and remote Montauk, its smaller sister to the north remained fairly rural, becoming the heart of Long Island’s wine industry.

  Halfway out the fork—shouldn’t it be called a tine? he wondered—and a little ways off Middle Road, he came upon a farm with a dozen or so brown-and-white Golden Guernsey cows munching grass in a field adjacent to the road.

  He watched them for a moment, then turned and looked at the slim, oblong, blanket-wrapped bundle on the backseat and felt his excitement grow.

  This was gonna be good.

  He found a spot on the side of the road where his Jeep would be shielded from the farmhouse by an intervening stand of trees.

  Perfect.

  Except for the wait. Though the sun was well into its slide toward the horizon, the sky was still too bright for what he planned.

  So he took a leisurely drive out to Orient Point on the far eastern tip of the fork and parked near the ferry dock. As he stared across the choppy channel to Plum Island, he thought about the strange turns his life had taken since he’d written Kick. From manual laborer to backdoor celebrity.
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br />   Life had been simpler and maybe even happier back in his slaughterhouse days. He hadn’t had to make decisions for other people, not even for himself. He’d been happy to do what he was told. Some days he’d be a “knocker,” using a compressed air gun to shoot a steel bolt into the cow’s head to knock it out. Other days he’d be assigned as a “sticker,” which he tended to prefer. Once the knocker was through with them, the unconscious cows would be hung upside down by a leg from the overhead rail, and then Hank would come along and slit their throats.

  Bloody, bloody work, and hot too because of the rubber jacket and pants. But looking back, Hank realized he’d never felt so at peace with himself, not before, not since.

  Peace…He shook his head. Would he ever know peace? Then he heard himself laugh. Did he even want peace again?

  Sure as hell not till he’d found the guy who’d stolen the Compendium of Srem—right out of his hands, the son of a bitch. The same guy who’d called himself John Tyleski and pretended to be a reporter. He could still see his nothing-special face, with its brown eyes, and his brown hair as he grilled him. Hank would have the Kickers out looking for him but how do you describe a guy who looked like everybody and nobody?

  Hank glanced in his rearview and saw the sun nudging the horizon. Time to go.

  He drove at the speed limit, trying to time his arrival at the farm with dusk. He needed some light for his plan, but didn’t want too much. The closer he got, the more he felt his excitement build, tingling down his back and around to his belly to settle lower, like a horny kid heading out to meet the easiest girl in town, knowing she’d give it up with the barest minimum of persuasion.

  As he turned off Middle Road he spotted a puddle. He stopped and rubbed mud on his license plates, then continued to the farm.

  The light was perfect when he reached it. He parked in the blind spot and removed the katana from the blanket on the backseat. He held up the blade and saw the dying light reflect dully along its pitted, riddled surface. He found it strangely beautiful, almost…mesmerizing…

  With effort, he pulled his gaze away and hopped the fence. A Guernsey stood about thirty yards away. She looked up at his casual, unhurried approach. Not afraid. Why should she be? The worst any human had done to her was milk her teats. She lowered her head to the grass and resumed grazing.

  Hank positioned himself beside her, feet spread, facing her thick neck. As he raised the katana above his head he felt a stirring in his groin.

  He needed this…really needed this. And he wanted to see what this katana could do…wanted to cut all the way through with a single swing.

  But he wanted the cow looking at him when this happened.

  “Hey!” he called in a soft voice. “Hey, you.”

  When the cow looked up he saw his reflection in her large dark eye, a man-shaped blotch silhouetted against the fading twilight.

  Now…do it now.

  To add extra force behind the blow, Hank envisioned the fake John Tyleski’s bland features against the skin of the neck. With a low cry he raised the blade even higher and swung with all he had.

  SATURDAY

  1

  “Here’s an odd story,” Abe said, staring down at a newspaper through the reading glasses perched on his nose.

  Jack glanced up and saw it was the Long Island paper, Newsday. Abe hadn’t ventured into the wilds of Long Island since he’d had a full head of hair, but that didn’t keep him from Newsday.

  “Odd how? Like congress-has-impeached-itself-for-high-crimes-and-misdemeanors odd, or two-headed-cow odd?”

  “A cow he mentions. You’re psychic maybe?”

  “Call me Criswell. Another moon-jumping incident?”

  “Not quite. Someone killed a cow on a farm out Peconic way.”

  “That’s not odd, that’s the first step toward a Big Mac. Hard to get ground beef with the cow still alive.”

  “This one wasn’t killed by its owner.”

  “Those pesky aliens again? Mutilated?”

  “Beheaded.”

  That brought Jack up short. He looked up at Abe and saw he wasn’t kidding. The thought of someone hacking away at some poor dumb animal’s neck until the head fell off made him queasy.

  “Jeez.”

  “There’s more. It seems to have been done with a single blow.”

  “To a cow? Behead a cow with a single cut? What’d he use—a chainsaw?”

  “They think it was a sword.”

  Ah…so this was why he’d brought it up. Jack had told Abe about the Gaijin Masamune, and how it had sliced through his shoulder like a hot Ginsu through butter—no, make that soft margarine.

  But could it be the Gaijin? Maybe. It had cut through the barrel of his Glock, yes, but was any sword sharp enough to do a cow like that?

  Could it have been the katana?

  “You think there’s a connection?”

  Abe gave one of his shrugs. “A sword maven I’m not. But you yourself just told me this blade was very sharp. But then it disappears and what happens: The next night—the very next night—a cow is beheaded with a very sharp, swordlike object.” His Norman Mailer eyebrows oscillated like caterpillars in heat. “Coincidence?”

  Last year Jack had been given the chilling message that there’d be no more coincidences in his life. But that cow wasn’t a part of his life, so why couldn’t this be a coincidence?

  “Do you believe that?”

  Abe shook his head. “No.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Crap.

  And then he remembered a passage from Kick where Hank Thompson mentioned his years of working in a slaughterhouse.

  Could it be?

  If so, it would be another in a long chain of noncoincidences.

  But he had no way of knowing, so he let it go.

  “If it was the same sword, the story could have been about your head being separated from its body.”

  “Tell me about it. That thing is sharp. Barely felt it cut me.”

  “Speaking of cuts, how did you explain yours to Gia?”

  Jack glanced at his shoulder. He hadn’t worn the sling today and hadn’t missed it. His deltoid throbbed, but nothing he couldn’t ignore.

  “Haven’t had to. Haven’t seen her since it happened.”

  “What are you going to tell her?”

  Jack shrugged. “The truth. No biggie.”

  “And when are you going to tell her the truth about the accident that was no accident?”

  He shook his head. “Wish I knew, Abe.”

  “The longer you wait, the harder it will be.”

  “She needs a little more distance from the acc—from what happened.”

  Abe looked dubious. “If you say so.” He tapped the newspaper. “And this sword? What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing until I hear from Slater.”

  “I see the flyers up already. You may be hearing soon.”

  Jack had referred Naka to one of his old customers, a guy with a print shop who, for an added fee, would farm out the distribution work to guys who could use the extra cash and had nothing better to do.

  “Even then, I may opt out.”

  “You’re saying you’re going to stop looking? You?” He shook his head. “Such little self-awareness. You know you’re not.”

  “Am too. Going to wait for that katana to come to me.”

  Abe frowned. “That’ll happen, you think?”

  Jack nodded resignedly. “Yeah. Got a feeling it will. A bad feeling.”

  2

  Hank waved one of the flyers and shouted, “I want these down! I want them gone!”

  Darryl and Menck looked a little cowed as he paced back and forth across a corner of the Lodge basement. Well, they should be. He was pissed. When Darryl had brought it in to show him, he’d exploded.

  He’d awakened this morning still high from last night. The air had seemed a little cleaner, the sun a little brighter.

  Doing the cow had had something to do with it. Tho
ugh he’d tried to avoid it, he couldn’t help getting splattered with her hot blood. Messy, but it had felt good.

  And then the dream. The Kicker Man was back again with the baby, cradling it in his lower right arm. But this time he was brandishing the katana in his lower left, while he held his two upper arms high in a V for victory.

  The meaning was unmistakable: With the sword and the baby in his possession, nothing could stop the Kicker Evolution.

  Well, he had the sword, and Dawn had been located. Only a matter of time before she and her baby were under his roof. Despite some rough spots along the way, everything was working out.

  Then this flyer. What a bring-down.

  Five thousand bucks for information leading to the sword. He wondered about the amount…a coincidence that it was the same reward he’d been offering for Dawn? Or a challenge?

  “You’ve already got the sword,” Menck said. “Ain’t nobody else gonna get it.”

  “How do you know that? Whoever this guy is, he’s offering a five-grand reward. We’ve got a lot of people moving in and out of this building, and although they’re not allowed on the second floor, and although they have Kicker Man tattoos, some of them would sell their mother for half that.”

  Darryl said, “But—”

  “But nothin! Somebody may have seen you pick it up. That someone may connect you with me. I can think of a million scenarios where this could go south. So I want those flyers down and Dumpstered. Got it?”

  They nodded and spoke in unison.

  “Got it.”

  3

  Jack spotted him the minute he stepped through the door. Someone was sitting at his table.

  “He say he waitin for you, meng,” Julio said in a low voice as he met him at the door. “I saw you with him the other night so I figure ’sokay. ’Sokay?”

  The guy had his back to the room, but the broad shoulders and gray hair gave him away.

  Glaeken—no, make that Mr. Veilleur.

  “’Sokay.”