by Barry Lancet
After her initial greeting she fell silent.
I said, “Any more information since we last talked?”
“No.”
“Any comments at your office about yesterday?”
“No.”
“No insults or innuendos?”
“Could we not talk about that now?”
A muscle in Noda’s right shoulder pulsed.
I nodded and we drove the rest of the way to Yokohama in silence. Which was for the best.
With the upcoming meet, I needed to get my mental house in order. I might have lost my chance with Rie, but I didn’t want to lose my life as well.
CHAPTER 34
AS soon as I stepped outside, I felt eyes crawling over me. I went around to Noda’s side of the car and leaned on the sill.
“They’re here,” I said.
“Yeah.”
Rie said, “How do you know?”
Noda shot her a look. “Feel ’em.”
“Oh.”
“Where?” I said. “I got end of the lane. Either the blue Mazda or the gray Subaru. Maybe both.”
Noda nodded. “Subaru, Mazda, and a cab or two.”
“That many?”
“Probably have a fleet en route.”
“Makes sense. Should be in good hands.” I glanced at Rie.
“They’re my friends,” she said.
Noda frowned. “Still don’t like it.”
“Can’t be helped,” I said. “Come on, Rie, let’s go meet your Danny Chang.”
“Watch yourself,” Noda said.
I nodded and we headed toward the line of taxis.
Noda made a show of waving and drove off as arranged. We slid into the first car in line and the driver asked, “Where to?”
“The Silver Dragon Restaurant in Chinatown. Through the Zenrin Mon.”
“The gate’s a bottleneck this time of the day.”
A bottleneck. Figured. Give our watchers time to get a close look at anyone following.
“An extra thousand?”
“Done.”
* * *
Yokohama is the black sheep of the Greater Tokyo area. It is something less than Japanese, and something more.
Until the 1850s, it had been an impoverished fishing village on the sandy shores of Tokyo Bay. Sixty families harvested rice and sea cucumbers, which they exported to China at a hefty premium.
Then the American gunboats arrived.
The ships’ overwhelming firepower forced the ruling samurai to open the country’s doors to trade. The West’s advanced weaponry also mooted all the shogunate’s efforts to revive kendo and samurai sword-fighting skills.
His arm twisted, the shogun turned the sleepy backwater village of Yokohama into a fenced ghetto.
But despite a studied neglect from the authorities, the outpost flourished. Trading houses from Europe, America, and China grew rich, and Japanese merchants brave enough to risk contact with the oversize barbarians also prospered. Yokohama evolved into a hybrid sea-front town where the adventurous native tasted—for the first time—ice cream, beer, meat, and bread.
The Chinese entered the picture quietly. They dropped anchor with the big Western trading houses out of Hong Kong and nearby Canton, working as servants, carpenters, longshoremen, and compradors, the trading-house foremen of legend who wore long, well-oiled queues and soon learned to read Japanese because of the related Chinese writing system.
Over time, the Chinese eased out many of the aging trading firms they had begun with, until they were in turn passed over by Japanese who had become accustomed to Western ways.
Today, Yokohama herself has been all but dismissed by nearby Tokyo, becoming, in part, a suburban bedroom town for Tokyoites priced out of choicer city center locations. Even so, Yokohama and its residents retain a large measure of their pioneering spirit and port-town pride.
The taxi driver said, “Chinatown straight ahead. That’s the gate.”
“I see it.”
“I could still take a side street. It’s bumper-to-bumper up there.”
“Through the gate, please.”
He shrugged and our cab slowed to a crawl behind a line of cars. On the sidewalks affluent Chinese from Beijing and Shanghai studied shops with a critical eye. Young women strutted by in the latest designer fashions, while day laborers from the mainland cut through the crowds in stained undershirts, with burlap sacks hoisted on their shoulders.
We rolled under the gate, a double-roofed tower on vermilion pillars. The crush of bodies grew thicker. A clatter of Mandarin and Cantonese rose up all around us like a flock of chatty birds. From Chinese restaurants and bakeries, the smells of sweet cakes and shrimp and stir-fry filled the air.
Two blocks down our driver turned right, pulled to a stop in front of a Chinese herbalist’s window with a sign touting fresh deer-horn shavings, and pointed across the street. “Silver Dragon Restaurant there.”
I forked over the fare and Rie said thank you.
As I paid I glanced discreetly around. Nothing. The feeling of eyes-on was gone.
That didn’t mean much.
We were deep inside their territory now.
CHAPTER 35
WE pushed through sparkling glass doors. Outside, the restaurant flashed a black marble facade, red pillars, and a miniature potted peach tree in a large olive-green vase. Inside, there was more black marble on the floors and walls, and olive green on the tables.
Chinese chic.
I mentioned the name Hozumi Higuchi to a young hostess in an emerald-green silk dress with a high collar and ocher embroidery. No eyebrows were raised and no raving gang members emerged from the shadows with machetes.
She consulted a reservation book, then led us up a flight of stairs to a private room with undulating dragons slithering along the upper edges of three walls and floor-to-ceiling mirrors along the fourth. An oversize lazy Susan sat in the center of a round banquet table for twelve.
“Will the others be arriving shortly?” our escort asked, in stilted but grammatically correct Japanese.
“We’re all here,” I said.
She cocked a head at the table. “Two peoples?”
I nodded. “We have big appetites.”
The hostess checked her reservation pad, shrugged, and left.
An instant after we were shut in, a door at the back of the room opened to admit an older woman bearing menus and two cups of tea on a black lacquer tray. She set a cup of tea in front of each of us, bowed, and retreated.
I spread the menu. “I’m feeling plucky today. What say we splurge on the Full Lucky Dragon Course? My treat?”
The Full Lucky Dragon Course selected by the anonymous voice on the phone sat in a lowly corner of an attenuated list of special courses. It offered your blasé egg-drop mishmash, a beef dish, and dessert. The Silver, Gold, and Platinum courses rose in position and opulence, featuring shark-fin soup for openers, followed by Peking duck and a parade of delicacies from abalone to lobster to braised sea cucumber.
Rie studied the menu. “You have a reason for your selection?”
“Yeah. I wanted to tell you in the car, but you requested silence.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “On nonbusiness matters.”
“Ah,” I said. “We’re to order the Full Lucky Dragon, sip our tea three times, then I’m to spoil my wardrobe. Now you know as much as I do.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
Doghouse.
When a waiter in a starched white shirt and olive-green vest pranced in, I ordered the lowly course as instructed and got a frown of disapproval.
Nobody in this place was clued in to our special invite. “Last time,” I said, “we tried Platinum and the duck was off.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
No funny funny. He collected the menus and departed.
We lifted our teacups and drank. I spilled a few drops on my pants
and said, “My best Levi’s will never be the same.”
Then our unseen hosts rolled out the first of their surprises.
CHAPTER 36
ONE of the floor-to-ceiling mirrored panels swung away from the wall and a Chinese man rushed into the room. He had a faint knife wound under his left ear and one eyelid hung lower than another, like a broken insect wing.
“My name Lester Chang. Same Chang like Danny Chang. You come quick, mister. You too, miss. No talk-talk.”
We followed him through the hidden door and into a dark hall lined with peeling sheets of bare plywood, then down narrow steps. The smells of stale stir-fry saturated the air.
At the foot of the stairs, a cook in a greasy apron and two inches of ash drooping from his cigarette stepped from the kitchen and handed our guide a steaming cup of tea. The cook said something in Chinese and Lester Chang listened and frowned.
Rie looked at Lester. “What did he say?”
“He say, no Brodie people follow, no other people follow.”
An electric pulse seemed to roll down Rie’s back. “Of course not.”
“We must be very sure.” Lester thrust the ceramic teacup at me. “Drink this.”
“What is it?”
“Medicine.”
“What kind of medicine?”
“Kind of medicine you no drink you die. You already drink drug.”
Rie started. “But Danny Chang said—”
“He say you be safe if all okay. All okay. Mister fellow drink, be more okay. Tea also have very expensive ginseng. No charge, heh-heh.” He winked at Rie.
Ginseng is taken as an all-around tonic to improve blood circulation, liver functions, and what is vaguely referred to as “manly stamina.” Even as the corners of my mouth rose at the thought, a pool of anger welled up in the pit of my chest. I’d noticed the separate cups of tea instead of the usual communal pot, but thought nothing of it at the time. Stupid. Only mine was tainted. These guys were devious.
I drank.
Our newfound Chinese friend said to me, “Raise your hands,” and when I did he searched me from head to toe, roughly yanking my shirt free from my pants, feeling for weapons and wires. “Okay, you no carry.”
Then he bowed deeply to Rie. “I must do same, miss. But be not worried.”
She nodded, and his fingertips glided sparingly over her swells and curves, light and respectful and unobtrusively grazing all the potential hiding places with the touch of a highly skilled technician who knew his job. His hands never lingered. Good thing, otherwise he’d have more than poison to worry about.
“Now your shoes, miss.” He examined Rie’s shoes and handed them back.
“You also, mister.”
I slipped out of my black-on-black Reeboks. Our guide reached inside and felt around, then examined the bottoms thoroughly. With a frown, he gestured for me to slip them back on. He watched me closely through narrowed eyes as I did so, sulking and grumbling to himself.
He’d found nothing and was unhappy in the extreme.
Not a good sign.
CHAPTER 37
WE slipped out the back of the restaurant into a shaded alley and headed west at a fast clip, our escort anxiously glancing ahead and behind and into each crevice between buildings.
Open doorways lined the passage. In industrial kitchens, foot-high flames danced from rows of Frisbee-size gas burners, while hatless cooks shuffled husky woks—sometimes one in each hand. Cleavers lay around like fallen leaves. On chopping boards. On counters. More hung on the walls with other utensils. All were within easy reach.
“Don’t bump walls,” our guide said, nodding at hardened rivers of congealed grease trickling from kitchen vents. “Dirty yellow dripping catch you, it never let go. Like Chinese ghost.”
The alleyway bisected a narrow road of grocers and hole-in-the-wall Chinese grills for locals. Lester Chang motioned us into the shadows. He covered the last ten yards alone and coughed into his fist.
Rie whispered in my ear. “Our feet are still on the ground, but we’ve left Japan.”
“No argument here.”
A man hawking bamboo steamers from a rickety wooden table on the far side of the street began brushing his wares with languorous sweeps of a feather duster as he cast bored looks around, in search of potential customers.
When the merchant scratched his ear, Chang said, “Okay, we go now,” and the three of us shot across the street past the first manned checkpoint, and into the next leg of the alley, turning twice into progressively narrower passageways until we came to the rear of an antiques shop.
Entering on Chang’s heels, we paused to let our eyes adjust to the gloom. The ornaments of Old Yokohama spilled from every shelf: leather valises from Austria, Russian samovars, Dutch delftware, Chinese medicine chests.
Chang grunted at the proprietress, an eighty-year-old woman bundled up in a shapeless gray dress sitting behind a classic cash register with brass fittings and a marble panel across the front.
She turned her head away as we passed. Survival instincts.
Lester led us to a side room, where he rolled aside a French bureau on casters to reveal a waist-high service door.
He pulled the panel aside and knocked twice. Inches away, a matching door in the neighboring building swung open. Stooping, we shuffled through and swept by the large stainless-steel sinks of a fishmonger’s kitchen, the smell robustly piscine. At the far side of the shop, we stepped directly out the door and into the rear of a waiting delivery van.
Wooden pallets ran across the floor of the van. Underfoot, water sprinkled with glistening fish scales rippled when we boarded. Three wooden vegetable crates upended and covered with stained dish towels made up the seating. Rie and I sat side by side along the length of the van directly behind the driver. Lester took the crate across from us.
He was still frowning.
Unseen hands slammed the doors shut and the van shot forward. All the windows were darkened. No one could see in. We couldn’t see out. The vehicle took a circuitous route, often over uneven roads. Water sluiced under the pallets. Fish scales winked in the dim cabin light.
At various points along the route, the driver flicked his lights on and off. Checkpoints. Two minutes after the fifth such exchange, we entered a murky enclosure. We parked. The driver rolled down his window. There was a mumbled exchange in Chinese.
The van doors swung open with a creak. The sound ricocheted in the darkness of an unlit warehouse. Our heels hit cement with a crack. More echoes. Overhead, a skeletal network of iron beams hovered in a cavernous gloom. Along each wall, a man stood guard, gun drawn but hanging loosely at his side.
Right. No one would get past them without a fight.
The driver tossed two uncovered crates of fish into the van, his alibi for the return trip. Without a word, Lester scurried through a darkened doorway. We trailed after him and then down a blackened stairwell to a basement. He lifted a steel plate in the floor and we descended a metal ladder into the sewers.
We found ourselves in cool cement piping eight feet in diameter. Straddling the stream of waste in the pipe’s curved belly, we scuttled forward as if we had chains around our ankles. When another ladder appeared, we climbed upward into a second warehouse. More men with guns. This time tucked in their belts. A commercial cab idled near the door. There would be hundreds of similar cabs on the streets of Yokohama at this time of the day.
Lester pointed at a hose curled on the floor. “We wash shoes, ride car.”
Rie and I hosed off our footwear then slid into the waiting taxi. Our guide stepped in after us. The automatic door swung shut, and the car rolled out into traffic.
“Cautious bunch,” I said to Rie.
Lester gave me a grumpy look. “You speak more loud. Please repeat what you say for my ears.”
I did.
He frowned. “Uncle is Chang family Ti Zang.”
“What is Ti Zang?”
“Ti Zang is Ti Zang. He knows good answers bec
ause he lost his everything.”
“Rie?”
“I don’t know. Sounds holy.”
Our escort gave us a toothy snarl. “Yes, yes. Holy Ti Zang. We do everything to protect holy family Ti Zang. Everything.”
I stared. “What kind of everything?”
He put a dirty finger in his right ear and scratched. “Many years ago we meet men like you talk of. Enter houses, kill families. Very strong fighters. First time they kill our four guards and contact like you. Second time, we ready ten men. Their men are two. They kill four. We get one.”
“And the contact?”
“Very dead. He first target. We learn disappearing is better than fighting. Their fight is strong.”
I nodded, gloomy thoughts rising.
He grinned. “But our disappearing is stronger.”
The taxi came to a stop in a blue-collar neighborhood. The homes had stucco falling off in chunks. Roofs were patched with corrugated steel.
Lester Chang pointed at a modest steel sign ringed with rust at the edges. “Danny Chang is there.”
The sign announced the entrance to Yokohama’s Chinese cemetery.
CHAPTER 38
WE trekked down a shady path and found Danny Chang leaning against the cemetery gate at the base of a hill. He wore white summer slacks and a beige linen jacket over a black T-shirt. He pulled a cigarette from a pack of Dunhill Lights.
“Hello, Rie,” he said, the cigarette balancing between his lips.
“Hello, Danny. Thank you for making time to see us.”
“It’s always an honor to be of assistance.”
On the other side of the gate, crumbling slate steps led uphill to a stony butte. Single-family bungalows and shoddy apartment complexes crowded the foot of the hill. A pair of snarling stone lions flanked the gate. Tradition had it they were Buddhist guardians of sacred grounds.
Chang’s eyes were proud but approachable. “You must be Brodie. I apologize for the ride. Our association has lost many men. Men who are loyal but not fighters.”
