Giri
Authors: Marc Olden
Marc Olden
A MysteriousPress.com
Open Road Integrated Media
Ebook
For my beloved Diane
Giri
Japanese, meaning obligation, loyalty, duty
Now indeed I know that when we said “remember” and we swore it so, it was in “we will forget that our thoughts most truly met.”
a tanka
by Saigo Hoshi
Y
OUTH IS JUSTICE AND
vigor. Vigor is simulated by
bu
(martial arts) and overflows into good or sometimes bad actions. Thus if
Karate-dō
is followed correctly, it will polish the character and one will uphold justice, but if used for evil purposes, it will corrupt society and be contrary to humanity.
Gichin Funakoshi,
father of modern
Karate-dō
He had stalked her for over three hours. Twice she had passed his hiding place and he could have reached out and touched her. His training, however, had emphasized
wazo o hodokoso kōki,
the psychological moment to execute a technique. Never strike too soon or too late. Wait for the opening, then seize it. If no opening appears, create one. Feint Distract. Then attack, quickly, decisively.
Give no warning. Birds of prey, when attacking, fly low without extending their wings. The attacking beast crouches low with his ears close to his head. The shrewd man, before striking, takes care to appear harmless and inoffensive.
On the other side of the wall, only feet away from him, someone leaving for the day slammed an office door, then tried the knob before walking to the elevator. Seconds later the elevator arrived, which meant that he and the woman were now alone on the floor. His breathing became more rapid and for the first time in minutes he moved. The movement was limited to his fingers; he kept his gloved hands at his sides, fingers stretched, and held for a count of five before curling back into white-knuckled fists.
Bringing the heel of one hand to his lips, he peeled back the glove, letting the amphetamines drop into his mouth. He worked saliva around them, then swallowed. When the rush came he shivered with pleasure and after that came the heat of the whirlwind and then he felt the absolute power within him.
The telegram annoyed Sheila Eisen because it forced her to make a decision she wanted to avoid. Tonight she would have to choose between two men, one with the power to give her everything she wanted, the other a man who had betrayed her and whom she loved.
From her Fifth Avenue office facing Central Park and the Plaza Hotel, she looked down on a street wet with the first snowfall of November and fingered an antique watch of French enamel and gold hanging from her neck. It was a gift from the man waiting for her in a limousine parked below; he was her lover, an Academy Award-winning film producer twenty-five years older than she and married. He was also the second largest stockholder in a major Hollywood studio and today had offered to make Sheila a staff producer, providing she moved to Los Angeles.
But on the desk behind her was a telegram from her ex-husband. Last night, for the first time since their divorce two years ago, they had slept together and the sex had been mind blowing and fulfilling, leaving Sheila too weak to deny what she had known all along, that she had never stopped loving him. This afternoon he had sent her roses, and then a telegram came asking her to marry him again. She had left her office and walked across the street into Central Park, where she had sat and cried. Some part of her wondered if she shouldn’t be angry at him; he had walked out on her and now he was back and doing
this.
Who was it who had called a decision a timely cruelty? Closer to home the producer, whose sense of survival had taken him from a Budapest slum to a Bel Air mansion with its own heliport, had told Sheila, “Never give people a choice. They inevitably make the wrong one.”
She was in her early thirties, a small, pretty woman with an unlined face encircled by drooping strands of fashionably permed red hair. Her job as the East Coast story editor for her lover’s studio called for her to stay alone in the office until 8:00
P.M.,
when a vice-president telephoned from California. He was a treacherous closet queen whom Sheila loathed, and he had gotten where he was by taking credit for other people’s work, Sheila’s included. He preferred calling at five, Los Angeles time, and expected Sheila, three time zones away, to pick up the phone herself—no secretary, no answering service.
Her watch read six minutes to eight. Turning from the window she walked to her desk, piled high with books, scripts and galleys, sat down and pulled the telephone toward her. The only thing worth filming she had found in weeks was an off-Broadway play, but if the studio was interested it would have to act fast. The producers of the play were thinking of moving it to Broadway; when that happened the price for film rights would triple.
She leaned back and tapped her teeth with the edge of her watch. That play would make one hell of a debut for her as a film producer. She smiled, wondering if that didn’t constitute a choice between her ex-husband and her lover.
A gentle tap on the reception door made her go rigid in her chair.
“Yes?”
“Police. Detective Sergeant Ricks, Manhattan Midtown.” The voice was gentle, flat with the bored courtesy of all New York cops. “Hope I didn’t frighten you.”
Eyes closed, Sheila touched her pounding heart “As a matter of fact, you did. I’m alone here and waiting for an important phone call.”
“I’ll try not to take up too much of your time, Miss—”
He paused, waiting for her to fill in the blanks.
“Mrs. Eisen. Officer, I don’t mean to be rude, but can’t this wait, whatever it is?”
“’Fraid not, Mrs. Eisen. Precinct got a call from security downstairs about a prowler in the building.”
Sheila was out of her chair. And scared.
“We think the guy sneaked in through the freight elevator entrance on the Fifty-eighth Street side of the building,” the man said. “We’re checking all floors, toilets, broom closets, fire exits, you name it. You have automatic elevators in these buildings and sometimes a nut case sneaks in after everybody’s left for the day, and rides up and down waiting for some woman who worked late to get on by herself.”
He never raised his voice. But his dispassion—some would call it professionalism—hinted at things best left unsaid.
She crossed her office on the run and jerked open the reception door to a lean, smiling man wearing a dark blue topcoat and gray hat. He held a detective’s gold shield in one gloved hand. He kept his smile in place and waited patiently until she realized she was blocking his way. Then she stepped back into the reception area and he followed her.
He closed the door behind him, placed a monogrammed attaché case on the receptionist’s desk and looked around. Then he pushed the hat back on his head and scratched his forehead with a thumbnail. Alan Ladd, Sheila thought, calm and collected.
He unbuttoned his topcoat, removed his hat to reveal frizzled blond hair and looked Sheila up and down with a thoroughness that she found disturbing. And then he became professional again, his green eyes sweeping the reception room, missing nothing. He couldn’t have been more than thirty and was clean-cut and wholesome, traits she had never found attractive in men, but he wasn’t here for that.
He pointed with his hat to the front door. “That lock’s bad news. Spring latch with a tapered bolt. Anyone can use a credit card or a piece of plastic and open it in two seconds. Lock it again and on the way out I’ll show you how easily it opens.”
“Yes, yes. Of course.” Sheila locked the door.
“Funny thing,” said Detective Ricks. “Half the break-ins don’t involve a break-in at all. They happen because of an unlocked door, an open window, key under the doormat, the sort of thing that shouldn’t happen at all.”
“What kind of lock should I have?”
“Deadbolt, no two ways about it. It’s not spring activated. The bolt stays in a locked position and you can’t pry it back so easily. You have to remember no lock is impregnable. The best you can hope for is to delay the intruder. Make him think it’s going to take a while to break in so he’ll move on to an easier target. Most burglary is an on-the-spot occurrence, a crime of opportunity. Hit and run. If there’s going to be trouble getting in, the perpetrator doesn’t want to be bothered.”
He dropped his hat on top of the attaché case and flexed his gloved fingers. The initials on the case, Sheila noticed, were R.A. Something else, too. Detective Ricks was wearing a gold stud in his right ear.
Behind her the telephone rang and she snapped her head in its direction, then looked back at Sergeant Ricks and he saw all of it in her face. Suspicion. And hope. Because the telephone was ringing and she had only to pick it up and cry out for help.
Tsuki no kokoro.
As the moon shines equally on everything within its range, so should the fighter develop such consciousness that will make him always aware of the totality of the opponent and his moves.
He attacked. Quickly, decisively.
His left hand snaked out, knife edge crushing Sheila’s larynx and ending forever her power to speak, but not killing her. Not yet. Her eyes bulged. It was a joke, of course; it wasn’t happening to her. For a few seconds she was both observer and participant, standing outside of herself and watching the beating, but the awful pain crept closer and trailing it was panic and fear with a stench of its own.
She held her hands to her throat and backed away from him. He followed and when
maai,
distance, was correct between them he struck again. He drove the heel of his right hand into her nose, crushing it, and she staggered into the receptionist’s desk, still not accepting this attack. But the pain was increasing; she couldn’t breathe and her skin was clammy.
He closed in, kicking her in the thigh, buckling her leg and dropping her to the floor. With no wasted motion he crouched over Sheila and expertly punched a series of piston blows into her kidneys. A strangled noise came from her throat as she stiffened, clawed at the carpet and willed herself to live, because she had not yet chosen between the two men who loved her.
Suddenly the man stopped. With surprising gentleness he pulled Sheila away from the desk and as the telephone continued ringing he lifted up her skirt, took down her panties and tossed them aside. He parted her legs and smiled lovingly down at her before removing his topcoat and jacket and unbuckling his pants. He inhaled deeply, feeling the pleasure of being fully aroused. He entered her, balancing himself on his elbows and knees, taking care to keep himself away from her bloody face.
He rode her briskly, losing himself in her flesh and feeling control slip away. In seconds he was groaning, pushing deep in his race for ecstasy and then he abandoned himself to that supreme pleasure, so close to death itself.
He collapsed on the carpet beside Sheila, lying quietly, breathing through his mouth and feeling a love he could not put into words. The two of them were united in
Chi-matsuri,
the rite of blood which was a thousand years old and which required that combat be preceded by a human sacrifice to the god of war.
Combat.
He sat up quickly and looked at his wristwatch. In less than an hour he and his enemy would be face to face.
He heard a death rattle from the woman’s throat. Her eyes pleaded for mercy, but all he could give her was release. Driving his right elbow into her temple, he demolished Sheila with a single blow.
Three men, two of whom were conversing about a marketing plan they had been working on for the past twelve hours, walked from the elevator across the empty lobby to a desk where a uniformed security guard sat watching television. All three signed out for the day. The guard looked up briefly, saw businessmen in topcoats, carrying attaché cases, then returned to the hockey game. The guard did not notice that the third man, whose scarf covered most of his face, took the ball-point pen in a gloved hand and traced the preceding signature.