by Barry Lancet
A half mile from Oistins, Inoki climbed a short set of stairs onto a patio fronting an elegant villa. I lost sight of him, but a minute later the beachside estate lit up with a warm yellow glow.
I approached with caution. I eased open the small gate at the top of the stairs without a sound, then shut it behind me, using both hands to muffle the latch mechanism. The patio had a profusion of lush potted plants and luxury lounge furniture. A beveled glass table on a marble pedestal sat in the corner with a prime view of the water. There was a four-foot-long bed of flowering plants along the left wall, and an oversize barbecue along the right.
Behind a sheer white day curtain, Inoki moved through a spacious family room that could accommodate a cocktail party for forty without effort. Stuffed leather chairs and polished wood side tables were strewn casually about, with plenty of space in the center to stand and mingle. Floor-to-ceiling draperies, gathered and secured, edged French windows that could be thrown open onto the patio where I stood.
As if that weren’t enough, natural coral-stone walls framed the room, hung with tasteful original oils by local artists. The painting selection impressed me, but the room’s centerpiece stole the show, if only for its drama. Crossed and hanging over an L-shaped leather couch were a pair of eight-foot-long antique tridents, yet another nod to the island’s British heritage.
Inoki tipped some Bajan rum into a crystal tumbler, trickled in some soda, snapped up the remote, and settled in on the couch to watch a ninety-inch screen.
Sure, that’s what I’d do. Come to paradise, then spend the night watching television. On the other hand, the guy was in his eighties.
I crept down a small walkway off the patio along the side of the house, which took me by a state-of-the-art kitchen. It gleamed. There was a cooking island with marble countertops in olive and gray. There were a pair of stainless steel refrigerators and a professional oven. Fresh flowers from the garden sat in a purple vase on the counter.
Beyond the kitchen was the first of four bedrooms, two with king-size beds, two more with twins. More full-length drapery and coral stone. Large Caribbean tiles throughout. There was egress from a central hallway through a back door at the end. I turned the doorknob. It was locked. The bedrooms were dark but I could make out suitcases in two of them, and clothes hanging in an open alcove, but nothing else of interest.
I returned along the far side of the villa. A small window looked in on the family room and I caught Inoki in profile, turned toward the screen.
He sipped his rum.
He watched what looked like a beach movie.
All was normal. Inoki had found his wonderland. On the coffee table in front of him was a bowl piled high with guava and mango and star apples. And in the far corner, tucked behind a table and visible only from this angle, was a waist-high stack of rustic wooden crates. One box was open, its lid tossed aside. Inside were a flood of palm-size Chinese gold ingots and a scattering of jade trinkets. In another, two dozen scroll paintings, rolled and tied, stood upright. The haft of a sword peeked out from behind the boxes.
Son of a bitch.
Inoki had also found his treasure.
And he was alone.
Returning to the patio, I came full circle. I pulled open the access door off to the side of the French windows.
I entered. The door swung shut behind me.
Inoki looked up. There was no surprise on the old assassin’s face. No emotion. He said nothing. He went back to watching the tube.
Something wasn’t right.
Get out of here, Brodie, the voice in my head screamed.
I turned but it was too late.
From the darkened hallway leading to the bedrooms in the rear, a figure emerged with a 9mm Smith & Wesson pointed at my chest. He held the chic “half-and-half” model, glistening silver steel on top, black polymer along the bottom of the barrel and the grip.
“Say good-bye to paradise,” the gunman said.
I edged toward the door.
“Won’t do you any good,” said the man I knew. “There’s three of my people out there.”
CHAPTER 75
SOMETHING inside me shut down.
In a crowd he might not have caught my eye. One on one, there could be no mistake. He had dyed his jet-black hair reddish brown and grown a moustache, also dyed. His cheeks were flushed with good living and maybe a shot or two of the same rum Inoki was coddling. He wore an expensive silk shirt that lay on his skin lightly. Almost caressing it.
I stood face-to-face with a new and improved Yoji Miura.
He’d pursued the perfect life he’d promised his wife and son while I stalked the darker corners of Tokyo in search of his murderer.
I couldn’t put into words the torrent of emotion flooding through me. Because for the last eleven nights, I’d gone to bed with a single goal foremost in my thoughts: nail Yoji’s killer. Now only one word escaped my lips before my verbal dexterity deserted me.
“You’re . . .”
Miura took great delight in my astonishment. “Alive and well and enjoying life? Yep.”
“Then who . . . ?”
“Was the poor fellow beaten to pulp in Kabukicho? A black-sheep cousin.”
Incoherence was unlike me. I’d survived worse, and come out better. But Yoji’s body in Kabukicho had been the flagpole on which I’d raised my outrage. I’d borne the shame and the guilt of his death even if, technically, it was not mine to bear.
My passion for justice had been boundless. That passion had caused me to butt heads with the staff of Brodie Security. That passion had dragged me down a long and grueling road—bludgeoning myself with blame as I consoled his parents; sucked up the reproaches his wife had flung in my face; suffered a severe beating at the kendo club; fought for my life on the Sumida River; agonized over Hamada’s death and the future of his wife and the twins; swallowed my pride in front of my daughter as Rie berated me for my conduct; endured a poisoning in Chinatown; faced down Wu’s gunmen in the Chinese cemetery; braved a sniper’s laser targeting; sparred with a dangerous and paranoid spy; defused a showdown in Brodie Security with Lester Wu and his overeager thugs; and barely escaped from a trap set by Inoki and the Kuang brothers in Miami.
That passion had bashed and abused me but I’d stood up against each and every blow.
And now my resolve had brought me here.
My face went through contortions that would have sent my daughter scampering from the room with a frightened whimper.
“He was a homeless wreck,” Yoji said. “He’d been disowned by the rest of the family long ago, drinking and gambling and unable to hold a job. I laid out money like bread crumbs and he waddled along obediently. After a year or so, I put him in a modest apartment where I could keep an eye on him, and supplied him with enough to eat and drink and gamble. It was the least I could do before the clueless bum repaid me in the only way he could.”
Still the words wouldn’t come but Yoji required no prodding.
“Because I was the front man in China, I needed to disappear. The rest of my team was faceless. Once we made the play for the treasure, I knew people like Inoki would come hunting for me. There’s more of them out there, but none of them made the jump to Miami, our choke point, or here. We lost them in Kabukicho. If Doi had kept his mouth shut, Inoki never would have found us.”
I recovered my voice, though it was hoarse. “So the Kabukicho killing was planned from the start?”
Yoji nodded. “When the home invasions happened, my father’s worries gave me the idea of hiring a detective agency in the hope that a professional’s confirmation would accelerate the police acceptance of the body as mine. So I slipped your card into my cousin’s wallet. It worked.”
I closed my eyes. Despite my anger, I had to hand it to him. It was a brilliant plan. Yoji had played up his father’s feebleness. He’d opposed the use of Brodie Security. He was the reluctant but accommodating son. Then came the beating, which was so brutal we had all fixated on the pulverized
body and never looked beyond it.
And seeing the cuff links broke my heart. In shock, I’d identified him without hesitation. His wife identified him. His father identified him. The dentistry charts identified him. The list was overwhelming. And in the process I unwittingly provided the independent validation Yoji sought.
“You guys did a job on your cousin. The face I get. But what about the arm and the rest of it?”
Yoji held up his right hand. “Couldn’t fake this, so the arm had to come off.”
There was a faint, irregular discoloration about the size of a nickel on his palm. A birthmark. You had to look hard to see it, but people close to him would be familiar with the blemish.
“Did your father know?”
“Neither of my parents was brought into the loop. That’s why the arm had to go.”
“How did you get the charts to match?”
“Easy. I found a hungry dentist. Then two days before Kabukicho, my liquored-up moron of a cousin stumbled down some stairs and chipped his two front teeth, so we had to knock them out.”
Which explained why they weren’t at the scene. “And the Triad thing?”
“Once we read about the home invasions, we knew someone was looking for the treasure, but we didn’t know who.” His glance strayed to Inoki’s lethargic form in the corner. “But I thought, why not link my cousin’s death to them? If the police bought it, great. If not, nothing lost. Inoki did us a great service.”
Clearly Yoji was a natural-born strategist.
“Your cousin have a name?”
Yoji’s grin vanished. “Why?”
“Seems more respectful.”
“He was a besotted simpleton who’d pickled all his brain cells long ago. By the time I found him, he was living in a cardboard box under a bridge in Kanda. I gave him twenty months of a better life before putting him out of his misery.”
“Like you did your wife?”
Yoji waved the gun. “Watch your tone, Brodie. She was a beauty. Always had been. But after Ken was born she soured. Complained constantly. Wanted more money. For her and the octopus boy that came out of her. They’re both better off now.”
“You still haven’t told me your cousin’s name.”
“He has no need for a name anymore,” Yoji snapped. “And in a few minutes, neither will you.”
“Is Ms. Saito around? I’d like to say hello.”
Yoji’s jaw dropped at the mention of his mistress. I wanted him off balance and babbling. If I could unsettle him, maybe I could get close enough to disarm him.
He took a step back. “Forget the mind games, Brodie. They won’t help you. Nice trick finding her, though. Only this time your cleverness has gotten you killed. You and Inoki.”
I glanced over at the former special-ops guy. He was still hunched in the corner. His eyes were dull. He was deflated. He’d given up. I wondered what caused the transformation. This was not the man I met in Miami.
“Not quite,” I said. “Don’t forget my people and the Kuang brothers.”
“Was that their name? Didn’t know that.”
Was.
“Where are they?”
“Now that’s a fascinating story. You’d be surprised what you can learn in this place if you spread some money around. There’s a little-known spot about a half mile offshore the locals call Shark’s Cozy. For some reason sharks congregate there. No one knows why. Currents, maybe. Or warm water. Or good feeding. You toss in a hunk of beef trailing blood and they show up by the dozens. In seconds. It’s quite spectacular. You see fins racing toward you. The water’s so clear you see their big triangular noses, too, and their pointy white teeth as they tear into the food. When you throw a person in, I’m told the screams are like nothing you’ve ever heard. The water turns red and frothy. With two bodies, I bet it looked like tomato soup. Thick and frothy. Gives a whole new meaning to Chinese takeout.”
Yoji chuckled and Inoki turned pale, shrinking into himself. That’s what had taken the fight out of the old soldier. There’d been a clear fondness between the ancient assassin and the Kuang brothers. These two boys are like family. With their execution, Inoki had lost everything—the treasure and his support. And his will. He was trapped on Barbados with nowhere to go, even if he did escape from the villa. Yoji’s people could hunt him down before he could get off the island.
A second choke point.
And then I pulled together the threads of the trap.
Welcome to Barbados, Mr. Jim. Certain arriving passengers from Miami, Florida, America, have two places.
The beach villa had been a setup. Inoki hadn’t just been strolling on the sand. Yoji’s people had lured every last one of us to Barbados. Inoki had booked his usual accommodations for three—the hotel rooms. Then, unbeknownst to him, Yoji’s team had reserved the beach house in Inoki’s name, corralled him and his two Chinese protégés, baited the trap for me, and choreographed the moonlight walk.
Yoji’s men shadowed me shadowing a complacent Inoki, the old soldier obediently following orders, holding out a last-ditch hope for the Kuang brothers.
My captor saw my mind racing furiously and filled in the remaining blanks without any prompting. “Half my team was monitoring Inoki in Miami when he made his play against you. Truth be told, I was sorry you showed up. I felt a little guilty deceiving my parents, but liked the way you and your people were working so hard for them. You were very loyal and I was touched. We did try to warn you off.”
“You mean in the locker room?”
“Yes. Most people would have backed off after a thrashing like that. But you didn’t, so we mailed your friend back in pieces.”
“Your people killed Hamada?”
“And sent some freelancers after you on the boat.”
A dousing in ice water could not have shocked me more. Hamada had died on my account. Inside my head I heard a howl.
I said, “Why didn’t you just come after me first?”
“You have a whole company behind you. The ferry attack was supposed to draw blood, not kill.”
Brodie Security had functioned as a cover and a curse. And while Noda and I struggled to decipher the events, everything else had fallen Yoji’s way. His team had trapped Inoki. The Barbados police had swooped down on my backup. Even his wife was gone, courtesy of an unseen lover. The lover had . . . damn. How could I be so dense?
Yoji was grooming her for more than a plaything. Looks like he wanted to make her number three.
There was no mystery man in Mrs. Miura’s life. The empty tumbler at her poolside table wasn’t a boyfriend’s. It belonged to Yoji or a minder on his team. The mistress was not in the market for a new sponsor. For both women, it had always been Yoji. The quiet handsome man. The charmer. The self-deprecating and apologetic manipulator who had visited Brodie Security.
Yoji couldn’t bring both of them to his new tropical paradise, so he kept his wife waiting in luxury in Miami while he arranged her accident. Her professed distaste for the Caribbean islands played perfectly into his plans. He simply substituted the Everglades for Shark’s Cozy.
“So you planned your wife’s death, too?”
“Housecleaning.”
Something inside me shuddered.
“Like I said, Brodie. I do like you.”
I froze. When a guy like Yoji starts dealing out multiple compliments, what he’s really doing is steeling himself for the next act. A self-prescribed dosage of reverse psychology to build nerve. Whether it’s a beating, a double cross, or pulling the trigger, I’d seen it far too often not to recognize the signs.
I’d made no progress on my plan to distract him. He was too sly. I needed to think of something.
Anything.
Fast.
Then the front door opened, and my situation nosedived from bad to worse.
CHAPTER 76
YOJI looked toward the door.
Much to my amazement, Kiyama strolled in. He was the last person I’d expected to see in Barbados. The wallf
lower. The quiet kendo practitioner who had listened to me converse in the dojo with his boisterous friend, Tanaka-sensei.
Kiyama had been timid and withdrawn. A man with an endless reserve of polite. He’d struck me as anything but adventurous. Certainly not the type I’d peg to travel nine thousand miles from the comfortable nest of his Tokyo home to the edge of the Caribbean Sea. Tanaka—the overexuberant sword collector who had enlisted my services to track down specimens stateside, first at the dojo, then on the phone—seemed a more likely candidate.
Kiyama carried a pair of sheathed long swords. I could distinguish the outline of a compact handgun in his trouser pocket.
“So it’s done?” Yoji asked.
Kiyama nodded.
Still the quiet one, I thought.
Yoji turned to me. “The dentist got greedy. He wanted a bigger payout. We invited him down for his money and a vacation on us. Kiyama and Tanaka took him for a swim instead. Makes you wonder how much more those sharks can eat.”
I had nothing to say to that.
Yoji chuckled. “Brodie, you’re an art dealer, so you can appreciate our haul. Look at it! Carved jade, scroll paintings, three koto by master swordsmiths, porcelains, silver plates, and bronzes. Our end comes to twenty-one million dollars American, and change. With six of us left, that’s three and half million each. Clear and tax free.”
The more Yoji spoke, the more jubilant he became. His dream was literally stacked in front of him. I looked at Kiyama. There was no joy, no triumph, no exultation. Not a single syllable of exuberance came from the wallflower. I began to wonder about him.
Yoji noticed, too. “Kiyama-san, aren’t you excited?”
Kiyama nodded.
Yoji laughed, shaking his head in mock reprimand. “Look at you. You’ve got treasure. You’ve got freedom. You’ll be the co-owner with Tanaka of the best sword in the public domain in all of Japan, and you look glum.”
