Demons

by Unknown Author

  The Java Jungle was set on the mezzanine overlooking the lobby, a pert fern bar decorated with balsa parrots and palm trees, a real parrot in a cage behind the bar. “ARRR! BITE ME, MATTE!” it greeted Sara. She arrived early, grabbed a plush sofa in the back, and flipped through the Times until Garrulitis arrived, burdened like a bag lady.

  The gossip columnist plumped down in the overstuffed chair opposite and hoisted her bulging briefcase on the table. It clanked. “Did you see that cunning little notions store on the ground floor? They have the apple coring machine I’ve been looking for.”

  “I’m so glad. What are you having?”

  “I'll buy. I have an expense account."

  “In that case, I’ll have a double mocha latte.”

  Garrulitis rose and placed the orders. She was a broadshouldered woman who alternated between lush and plump. She returned with two drinks, two forks, and a slice of raspberry cheesecake. “We’ll split it,” she said, sitting down.

  A wild thrill rocked Sara’s world. Cheesecake! She had to do it, for the sake of the job. Emitting great smacking noises and grunts of satisfaction, they ate the cheesecake.

  “Okay,” Garrulitis said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “Chalmers’ first wife was the former Miss Patricia Willoughby, society dame; father’s Brian Willoughby of Abercrombie, Lusk, and Hanig—old Wall Street firm. They married in 1990—he was thirty, she was twenty-nine. Divorced in 1992, citing irreconcilable differences. Word is, he was playing around. He traveled a lot, had a girl in every port. There was no pre-nup, she got a very generous settlement, and today is working on husband number three, Otto Kruger.”

  “Not the type to bear a grudge?”

  “No. But wait. Wife number two is more interesting. She is the former Miss Erika Madureira, a Brazilian model, whom he married on a junket to Rio in 1995. He was thirty-three, she was twenty-two. Apparently, Erika was the high-maintenance type, and something of a drama queen-altogether, a handful. She signed a pre-nup, then contested it. It was a bitter, ugly divorce. She used Albert Kammer. He used Sidney Mellon. The lawyers made out like bandits. Details of the settlement were undisclosed, but word is she got about five mil, and she still badmouths him every chance she gets.”

  Yeah, Sara thought. But she’s unlikely to sneak into his penthouse at night and lop his head off. On the other hand, perhaps Kagemusha was her agent. On the other hand, perhaps Kagemusha was just an inconsequential Internet pest, and had nothing to do with the murder. “Where’s Erika now?”

  “Twenty blocks uptown, in her condo at the Wisconsin.”

  Sara raised her eyebrows in appreciation of the toney address, also home to several rock stars and minor British royalty. Perhaps a visit to Miss Madureira was in order.

  “Guess who’s invited to Gracie Mansion,” Sara confided.

  “Dish, girl. Dish.”

  Sara pointed at herself with all her fingers. “Moi.”

  Garrulitis’ mouth formed a perfect “o.” “What's the deal?”

  Sara told her about the invite.

  “That figures. Chalmers and Hizzoner were tight. Be careful, girl. Once you get their attention they can hurt you. So. You seeing anyone?”

  A sly grin crept on to Sara’s face. Garrulitis zeroed in like an FBI sniper. “You are, aren’t you? Dish, girl. Who is he? How did you meet him?”

  “He’s a professional sword polisher. I just met him last week.”

  “A what?”

  Sara explained. Garrulitis expressed amazement that anyone made a living at such an arcane craft. Sara extracted a promise from Garrulitis not to spill the details of her social life on Page Six, while promising in return to give the gossip columnist an exclusive on some aspect of the investigation.

  Sara took the bus to Brooklyn, switched twice to get to Brooklyn Yamaha. It was five-thirty when she arrived, and they were closing the doors. The manager recognized her and let her in. The new Warrior was on the showroom floor, and she paused to run her fingers over its sleek aluminum frame. No way. Not her style. She was strictly a toes down kind of girl.

  Clancy Imada was in his office off the service bay. “Hi,” he said. “Have a seat. Is this what you’re looking for?”

  He handed her a series of color computer printouts showing the sword. “I gotta say, you’ve piqued my interest. What’s this about, the samurai killings?"

  Sara slumped in her plastic chair. “What else? Do me a favor, willya? Don’t tell anyone about this.”

  Imada put a finger to his lips. “I haven’t told a soul. No one has seen those but me. And if someone did see them, they’d probably chalk it up to my crazy kamikaze nationalism.”

  “Long live the emperor and all that?”

  Imada locked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his executive lounger. “Not my style. I'm Brooklyn-born and bred. Ah’m an Amurican, gundamnit! When we gonna go for a ride?”

  “Soon’s I bust this case, Clancy. And thanks.”

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  llAf ednesday afternoon, surprisingly, beckoned dry and bright. Sara took the bike and arrived at the Wisconsin at 1:15. She chained the bike to the portico pillar, showed her badge to the doorman, and went inside. Erika Madureira lived on the twelfth floor of the historic Restoration wedding cake, next door to a reclusive British rock star who’d made his millions in the seventies. Sara had hoped to arrive unannounced, but the doorman must have phoned Madureira, because the door was open the limit of its chain when Sara stepped off the elevator. A pair of kohl-rimmed eyes looked out suspiciously.

  Sara showed her badge. “Erika Madureira?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sara Pezzini, Eleventh Precinct. May I come in? It’s about your former husband.”

  “What about him?”

  “He was murdered. I’m in charge of the investigation.” “I know he was murdered. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Miss Madureira, will you let me in? I only want to ask you some questions. You are not under suspicion.”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  A seal-point Siamese darted out the door. “Willie!” the former model cried. Without thinking, Sara swooped down and scooped up the wayward tabby, handing it back to its owner through the narrow opening.

  Madureira took the cat cooing and shut the door. A moment later, it opened. “All right. You may come in.” Madureira was unexpectedly tall, with a puffy, rumpled face that had been lifted at least once. Her curly dark brown hair hung in her eyes, telltale gray peeking out. She wore a quilted floor-length lavender housecoat and kept one hand at her throat, to close the collar, or to prevent anything from escaping. “Come. Come into the living room. I will make coffee. You drink coffee, yes?” “Yes, please.”

  Madureira went into the small but complete kitchen adjacent to the living room while the Siamese twined between Sara’s legs. The living room looked like it had been tossed and hurriedly thrown back together. There were copies of Islands, Destinations, Vanity Fair, Cosmo, and the Crump Catalog on the rosewood coffee table.

  “I was very shocked to learn about Scott. Very shocked. We were not close, but still.”

  “You weren’t still angry with your ex-husband?”

  The ex-model barked. It was meant to be a laugh. “Life is too short to harbor grudges! I don’t deny that we got along terribly, and that it was probably a mistake for me to marry him. I should have just slept with him and let him buy me a Mercedes. But, no. I had to let him make me a ‘respectable woman.’ He changed completely once we were married. No more Mr. Nice Guy. He was very controlling, veiy jealous. At the same time, he was jetting all over the Western Hemisphere, sleeping with every stewardess in sight.”

  “Was he always that way?”

  “Probably. We live as man and wife for two years, I hardly know him. He was so private, so peculiar. And he worshiped the ancient samurai. He wished he’d been born Japanese.”

  “Have you ever heard of someone called Kagemusha?” “Who?”


  “A man signing himself Kagemusha sent Mr. Chalmers threatening e-mails involving a Japanese sword both were bidding on. It was an online auction. Mr. Chalmers bought the sword, but it was stolen when he was murdered. It’s quite possible that the thief was after the sword and had no interest in your ex, except that he got in the way.”

  “Scott was no hero, I can tell you that. He shrank at the prospect of physical confrontation. That’s one of the things that soured me on him. In Brazil, we expect our men to fight!”

  “Are you thinking of some particular incident?” Madureira fished in the pocket of her housecoat, coming up with a red and gold package of Dunhill’s. She shook one out, lit it with a gold turbo-lighter, puffed up a head of steam. “Several. But no one who would bear a grudge. The only one who would bear a grudge, in all those confrontations, was Scott. He would bear a grudge. But he would be too cowardly to act on it.”

  Sara considered Madureira too disorganized to plan so precise a crime, let alone carry it out. She gave the exmodel her card, and asked Madureira to call if she learned anything.

  Sharpe’s Hayabusa was in the motor pool when Sara arrived. Parking her bike next to his, she took the rear steps to the detective’s bullpen on the second floor. Someone had glued a glow-in-the-dark Creature from the Black Lagoon to her desk with the word balloon, “Detective Pezzini! You are invited to the Monsters’ Ball! Please RSVP Internal Affairs.”

  Gripping the Creature with both hands, she tore it loose, noting that her desktop was becoming pockmarked with glue craters. The bottom drawer was nearly filled. Time to cart the lot over to the Children’s Bum Unit.

  She turned to Chalmers’ e-mails. They were alternately tedious and fascinating. Chalmers had carried on endless chitchat with a variety of pals all over the world. He traded online. Most of it was meaningless, but a number of exchanges had to do with the sword. The most notable were to a correspondent named Tadashi, in Indonesia:

  Dear Tadashi: Eat your heart out! I just bought Stone Flower for one and a half mil. Be nice and I may show it to you when you come visit. Scott.

  Dear Scott: The black flame of envy curls my heart. But I am happy for you, my old friend. I look forward to viewing this marvel. Tadashi.

  There were numerous in that vein. She looked up. Sharpe appeared briefly in the doorframe to the stairwell as he headed down. On impulse, Sara sprang to her feet and went after him.

  “Hey, Derek!” she called, as he was halfway to the street.

  He paused, turned, his face breaking into a wide grin. “Oh, hi! How’s the hunt for the samurai killer?”

  She caught up with him, standing on a higher stair so she could look him in the eye. “I’m developing some leads. Say, I saw you kick Bratten to the curb yesterday. Man, where did you learn to fight like that?”

  “In Japan. I feel a little bad about that. I probably went too far, but that pretty boy was shooting off his mouth. I remember when he came to Toyko for an exhibition game. That mack act doesn’t go down well in Japan.” “What’s up at Hecht Gardens?”

  “Place has been real quiet, but we’re coming up on a World Trade Organization meeting, and it’s bound to get hit.”

  “Surely Hecht employs private security.”

  “Oh yeah, he’s got Judson all over the place. Those guys make less than airport screeners, spend most of their time getting high or co-oping.”

  “What do you know about this soiree he’s got planned for next week?”

  Sharpe rolled his eyes. “That’s going to be a real shanglally. He’s holding it in the lobby of the Hecht Center for the Performing Arts. They’re working ’round the clock to finish it up. It’s going right down to the wire. I got myself assigned to security that night. You going to be there?”

  Sara batted her eyelashes. “Why, yes I am. I feel better just knowing you’ll be on duty, Officer Sharpe.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  Sara crossed her arms and parked one hip against the wall. “Anything on the Romeros yet?”

  “They don’t seem to be involved in any major criminal activity. Brooklyn Gangs tell me it’s more of a social group, and gave me a list of a dozen members, half of whom are either deceased or moved on into adulthood without incident. Candido’s got no record to speak of, works as a gypsy carpenter for some Russkis, renovating old warehouses.”

  “Thanks, Derek.”

  “No problema. Let’s go for a ride one of these days.” “I’d enjoy that. We’ll talk at the party, if not before.” Sara returned to her desk, then stopped. She felt a chill, a surge of negative energy down her spine. Selzer, the Internal Affairs zombie, was staring at her from the far entrance. Seeing her looking at him, he turned and left.

  Under the rules of conduct, if she had sufficient reason to suspect a fellow officer of a felony, she was supposed to file a report with Internal Affairs. In reality, such reports were few and far between, usually filed by sore losers on their way out. No cop would finger a fellow cop, even a crooked one, to Internal Affairs. No way was she going to put her suspicions before Selzer. The man had been sent by Central Casting. He was a cold fish with Coke-bottle lenses and a buzzcut. His cheap sports jacket had pills on the lapel.

  Nope. If she wanted to know what was in Sharpe’s place, she’d have to toss it herself.

  Sharpe lived in a town house at 454 Huron Place on Staten Island. Checking the duty roster, Sara learned that

  Sharpe was moonlighting as a security guard at Hecht Gardens. Nothing wrong with that, plenty of cops did it. It spoke to his enthusiasm-the guy was willing to spend his off-hours looking for perps. Might as well get paid for it. At five, she left her desk, donned her jacket, backpack, unlocked her bike, and put on her helmet. Sharpe’s bike was already gone.

  At five o’clock on a June afternoon, Manhattan resembled a giant puzzle, like one of those sliding checkerboards filled with letters, one missing. In other words, gridlock. Traffic moved in tiny increments, inching here, honking there, gesturing and threatening everywhere. Sara took full advantage of her bike, splitting lanes, cutting comers, fighting her way south to the tip of the island and the Staten Island Ferry. She walked her bike into the hold, setting the kickstand between two vinyl-wrapped pillars. She wished Yamaha would wise up and put center stands on all their sport bikes. The silly little kickstands almost seemed designed to fail. Sara decided to stay with her bike rather than mingle. Smelling of the sea, the hold conducted a discordant symphony of squeaks and groans. Faint odor of deep-fried clams trickled down from the concessionaires.

  She needn’t have worried. The ferry was steady as bedrock and her bike hardly shifted at all, not even when the ferry slugged the pier twenty minutes later. Sara put her helmet on before zipping between the cars to the front of the line. She was first off once the ramp was lowered. She was gone by the time the first car hit the pavement.

  She’d already found the appropriate map of Staten Island, mounted it in the clear plastic pouch atop her tank bag with Sharpe’s address circled. Fifteen minutes later, she found it: A new development on its own dead-end circle, neat little two-story townhouses, each with its own attached one-car garage. Although the houses were planted cheek-by-jowl, they were designed in such a way as to give the illusion of privacy. Sara tucked her bike right into Sharpe’s alcove and locked the front wheel.

  Although no one was watching, Sara went through the motions of knocking on the door and ringing the buzzer. She placed her right hand on the knob. Immediately above it was a dead bolt. Breathing deeply to relax, she channeled her energy into her right hand, into the Witchblade. She formed a mental image of the door swinging inward.

  There was a tingling on her wrist and when she looked down, her hand was buried in a metal apparatus. It might have been a glove, but the index finger extended into the keyhole and the deadbolt. There was a click, and the door swung inward. Sara slipped inside, shut the door, and stood with her back to it trying to still the rush of blood in her ears.

  Sh
e was breathing hard. She had just committed breaking and entering. Other cops, sad to say, could commit minor felonies without blinking an eyelash. There were tons of studies comparing the psychology of cops and criminals, finding them similar. Not Sara. For as long as she could remember, she had a burning need to right wrongs. Not that a mere technical felony put her in a fainting spell. But it was against a fellow cop, someone she liked and admired, and she wasn’t used to breaking the law.

  Gradually, her beating heart stilled and she listened.

  She heard the compressor in the refrigerator, the whoosh of air through the ventilation system, the tick of an old clock in the living room. She looked down. She wore high-topped Adidas black sneakers. Safe enough. She wore a latex glove on her left hand. Except for the kitchenette, the first floor was carpeted and consisted of a high-ceiling living room looking out on a tiny, fence-enclosed back patio. There were two stone Japanese lanterns on plinths in the back yard, along with a tiny koi pond. Sara would have bet money there were fish in the pond.

  The living room was sparely but elegantly decorated with Japanese brush paintings, an Hiroshige print, and a couple of black-and-white Ansel Adams prints of the Grand Canyon. And, of course, the swords. There they were, mounted on a credenza, without so much as a plexiglass case or man-eating tiger to protect them. A wak-izashi and a tanto. Sara could tell they were valuable just by looking at them. The hilt was wrapped in ray skin, and finished in leather wrapping. The silver menuki depicted a fish.

  She stepped closer, but didn’t touch them. “Well, either these aren’t the murder weapons, or he’s incredibly stupid for hanging them in plain sight.”

  The voices of the Witchblade chuckled ominously in her head.

  The downstairs bathroom was tidy and held no surprises. Nor did the kitchen. Sara used only the gloved left hand in opening drawers and cupboards. Sharpe had a couple bottles of saki socked away, otherwise appeared to be a teetotaler.

  She crept carefully up the stairs to the second floor.

  There were two bedrooms and a bath. Sharpe used one of the bedrooms for his office.