Giri (33 page)

He said, “First, let me say I’m admitting nothing. If I had a statement to make I’d do it with an attorney present. Second, there is a deal I’d like to talk about and it has nothing to do with MSC or Molise. It has to do with a guy who’s killed a lot of people. A lot.”

LeClair said, “What’s a lot?”

Dorian looked up. “Thirty. Maybe more. All women.”

LeClair snorted and waved him away. “Okay, so you’re too scared to give me Molise. All right. But man, don’t waste my time with this off-the-wall shit. Thirty women. Come on.”

“I’m not shitting you. I said thirty and mean thirty. He rapes them and then he punches them out. Uses karate.”

Decker cocked his head and listened more carefully.

LeClair said, “And you know who this karate killer is?”

Dorian nodded.

“Hey, Decker, you hearing this?”

“I hear it.”

“Just want to make sure my ears aren’t failing me in my old age. Now Sergeant Raymond, you say you know who this man is and yet you haven’t come forward until now. Why?”

“What the fuck for? There wasn’t anything in it for me until now. We got a deal or don’t we?”

“Who is he?”

Dorian shook his head. “No way. First I want to make sure we got a deal. I want it spelled out I give you this guy and you drop all charges against me. And my wife. I mean all charges. You grab this guy and you close a lot of cases in a lot of cities. Yeah, I know him all right. We were in Nam together. When I learned it was him, I flipped out.”

The pieces spun around in Decker’s brain in a whirl, then came together in one final
click.
He wanted to jump up in the air and scream. He was on his feet. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” He left without waiting for LeClair’s reaction.

In the outer office he paused near the secretary’s desk, then changed his mind. Better make the call outside. In the hall he waited impatiently for the elevator and when it came, squeezed himself into a crush of people. He could feel the energy of almost
knowing,
of almost being sure, and it made him almost unbearably restless. He pushed his way off the elevator, stepping on feet and ankles as he ran toward a bank of telephones.

He pulled out the change in his pocket. No dime. Shit. He did have a quarter. He used that and dialed his precinct with a shaky hand. Busy signal. Jesus.

He hung up, pressed the return button, got his quarter back and dialed again.
Don’t let the line be busy.
His hand shook. The line rang. Come on, come on.

“Detective Spiceland. Manhattan West May I help you?”

“Ellen, it’s Decker. This
kaishaku
thing. What have you got? Quick. I’m due back upstairs.”

“Manny, I’m on two phones.”

“Let ’em wait. Tell ’em you’ll call them back. It’s important. Believe me.”

“Okay, okay. Lighten up. I’ll be right back.”

She put Decker on hold. The detective began chewing a thumbnail.
Had to be. It had to be him.

“Back the same day. Hello? Manny?”

“I’m here, I’m here.”

“All right. Here’s what I’ve done so far. Like you said, I contacted the martial arts publications. Got tournament dates, got the names of men competing in the tournament. Spent most of my time trying to find out if a woman was raped and killed the night the tournament was held. The answer is yes. Happened in the city or just outside in a suburb or something. Close enough to allow a man to get from the murder to the tournament in plenty of time. Times of death all seem to be before the tournament, though in a couple of cases the coroner wasn’t too sure. But it’s definite that the tournaments and the killings happened the same night.”

“How many tournaments did you check out so far?”

“Nine. Also called nine police departments in those cities. Came up with nine female victims. No special type. Caucasian, black, Hispanic.”

“Okay. Now listen carefully. You have those magazines there?”

“Sure. Right in front of me.”

Decker closed his eyes. “Open them up to the tournaments you checked out. Only those tournaments.”

“You mean get the names of the guys who competed?”

“Ellen, just do it, okay?”

“Don’t scream. I get enough of that shit around here when you’re gone. I’m looking. I’m looking.”

“See how many times the name Robbie Ambrose crops up.”

“Spell it.”

“R-O-B-B-I-E A-M-B-R-O-S-E. Hurry, up, damn it.”

“My, aren’t we testy today. I’ll be glad when your girl friend comes back from Europe. Ah, here we go. Denver, April this year. Winner by knockout, Robbie Ambrose. Check my list of murders. Woman raped and murdered in Denver same night. New magazine, turn the page. Dallas Challenge Pro-Am. Winner by knockout, one Mr. Ambrose. Woman raped and killed in Dallas that same night. Something called the Battle of Seattle. Robbie Ambrose. Knockout third round. Woman raped and killed in Seattle approximately an hour prior to the tournament.”

“Keep checking,” Decker said.

Minutes later a subdued Ellen Spiceland whispered, “Holy shit. Manny, do you have any idea what this means?”

“It means we’ve found the
kaishaku.
It means we know the identity of somebody who may have raped and murdered at least thirty women. It means Robbie Ambrose is the
kaishaku
.”

F
ROM THE WINDOW OF
his apartment Dorian looked down on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine ten stories below. His fingernails scraped at the seal around the neck of a fifth of vodka.

Despite today’s ball-busting session with LeClair, it had been a good day. He drank to that, bringing the vodka bottle to his mouth and taking a big swallow. He was under suspicion, but so what. There were no witnesses and it didn’t look like LeClair had any evidence. Best of all, tonight he was moving back in with Romaine.

Dorian lifted the bottle in a toast to the cathedral. It’s been divine, John. See you around.

He turned from the window to his television set and the Monday night football game. Today he’d laid five thousand on the Minnesota Vikings, who were ahead by twenty points and about to score again. If the Vikings hung on and won he would use the money to buy Romaine the sable coat she’d always wanted. Getting his hands on that pigeon list sure had changed his luck with Romaine.

He remembered how depressed he’d been after killing Pangalos and Quarrels. He’d gotten drunk and stayed drunk and with nothing to lose he’d dropped by to see Romaine. She had been down, too, way down, thanks to that prick Decker.

Dorian walked over to the television set, turned up the sound and placed the bottle of vodka on a folding chair. Then he walked into the bedroom, took folded shirts from the top of a dresser and dumped them into an open suitcase lying on the bed. One suitcase, that’s it. Two framed photographs—one of his graduating class at the Police Academy, the other of him and Romaine on their wedding day. A Bible given to him by his mother to keep him alive in Vietnam, which he never read. Other than the clothes on his back, he was taking nothing else with him. He had all the money he needed.

He closed the suitcase, carried it into the living room and looked around for his shoes. He found them near the couch, shook a cockroach out of the left one and put them on. He leaned back on the couch and watched Minnesota kick a field goal to go up by thirty points. He shoved a clenched fist at the screen. Way to go, Vikings.

Cigarettes. Where the fuck were his cigarettes? He found what was left of a pack in a jacket pocket and made a mental note to stop off and buy more before going to Romaine’s. At least there was still some grass left. He kept it hidden in the bathroom, taped behind the toilet. Grass made him horny. Might be too soon to put a move on Romaine, but he could try. You never know.

Robbie. Why the hell did he have to start thinking about Robbie now? Dorian reached behind the toilet, found his stash and took his rolling papers from the medicine cabinet. He rolled a fat joint, a farewell to his apartment, this neighborhood, this life.

Back to Robbie. At first LeClair hadn’t been interested. “I want Management Systems Consultants,” he said. “That’s why you’re here, in case you haven’t figured it out.”

Decker still had not returned when Dorian said, “This is your lucky day, Mr. Prosecutor, because the man we’re talking about just happens to work for them.”

LeClair took his time answering. “Sergeant, I’d appreciate it if you kept this between us. I don’t want Sergeant Decker to know what you’ve just told me.”

“Don’t worry about it. Decker’s not exactly one of my favorite people at the moment.”

Dorian was no fool. LeClair had just done a 360-degree turn. Suddenly he was interested in Robbie Ambrose, very interested. And Dorian took advantage of it. He stood up. “You know where to find me. No sense me staying here, seeing as nobody’s filing any charges. When you’re ready we’ll talk some more. One thing: any deal we cut means total immunity and I want it in writing. Romaine’s part of that deal. If we do business you stay the fuck away from her. Or there won’t be any deal.”

In his apartment Dorian took a toke on the joint, held the sweet smoke in his lungs for a long time, eyes closed. Panama Red. The best. He exhaled.

The front-door buzzer sounded. Dorian shook his head to clear it.

“Yeah?”

The buzzer went off again.

“All right, all right.” Whoever it was hadn’t bothered to ring from downstairs. That was the trouble with this damn building. No doorman and the tenants were forever leaving the front door open or buzzing in people without asking who they were.

Buzzzzzz.

“Coming, goddamn it.” He stood up. Woozy. He giggled. He planted his feet, squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, then started toward the door. At the door he took a few deep breaths, then looked through the peephole. Holy shit.

He opened the door.

Michi walked past him.

Grinning lasciviously, Dorian closed the door and flopped back against it. “Hey, Michelle. Well all right. When did you get back? Thought you was supposed to be gone ten days.” Christ was he horny.

He started toward her, the joint pinched between a thumb and forefinger.

Michi said, “Are you alone?”

Dorian looked around. “I’d say so. Yeah, I would definitely say so.”

Of course she wanted to party. Why else had she come. Dorian felt his hard-on. One for the road. Last time getting it on with Michelle. After tonight it would be just him and Romaine.

He said, “Let’s go in the bedroom.”

“Please turn out the lights.”

“In the bedroom we can—”

“The lights. Please turn them out.”

He frowned. Sounded like she had some kind of attitude. Okay, if it made the bitch happy he’d turn out the lights.

He saw Michi look toward the window facing the street. “Hey, momma, don’t worry ’bout the neighbors. Nothin’ out there but ‘Big John.’ Biggest goddamn John you ever saw.”

He laughed at his own joke, switched off the light, then, as he turned to offer Michi a drink, he felt his jaw explode with pain.

Michi had smashed him under the chin with her right elbow, snapping his head back and forcing him to bite down on his tongue hard enough to sever the tip. When Dorian’s hands came up to his mouth, Michi drove that same elbow deep into the pit of his stomach, knocking all the air out of him. And as his hands came down, the fingers of her left hand flicked out like a snake’s tongue, stabbing at his eyes, blinding him.

He fought for air, tried to cry out and couldn’t.

Michi attacked low, using her left foot to sweep Dorian at the ankles, taking both feet out from under him and dropping him heavily to the floor. He landed with a grunt, and before he could make another sound Michi shoved the sharp heel of her boot into his throat.

Dorian lay gagging on the floor, hands on his throat, his large body rolling from side to side. Michi turned from him and walked to the window. She peeked through the curtains down at the street below. Ten stories.
Hai.
She parted the curtains, unlocked the window and opened it. Cold air hit her face, tearing her eyes.

She walked back to Dorian, placed a gloved hand under each armpit and dragged him across the floor, past the flickering picture on the television set. Lifting his dead weight to the window was not easy, but she managed. Now he was half in, half out of the window and directly over a square-shaped, old-fashioned marquee leading to the building’s entrance.

Michi bowed her head to the memory of her family, then took off the dark brown cap that hid her hair and the
hachimaki
she wore around her forehead and temples. Wrapping her arms around Dorian’s thighs she pushed him out of the window, then leaned to the right where she could not be seen.

She left the window open.

Picking up her cap she walked across the room and looked out through the peephole to make sure the hallway was empty. Seconds later she was out of the apartment and walking down ten flights of stairs, fully expecting to find a crowd when she reached the ground floor. Instead the street was almost deserted. A bewildered Michi, scarf and dark glasses hiding her face, hesitated, then looked up. Dorian had landed on the marquee and no one had noticed.

Across from Michi the great doors of the cathedral swung open, sending light and sounds of medieval Christmas carols into the street. Throngs of people began to file out into the night. Michi hurried away from them.

Eight hours later Michi was awakened by an Air France stewardess. The flight was ahead of schedule. Because of strong tailwinds the plane would be landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport a half hour early. Michi, hungry and still tired, stretched and looked around the almost empty plane.

She found her boots, put them on, yawned. Through the early morning fog below she could see patches of green fields and scattered houses. The pilot came on the intercom to say that Paris was in the grip of a winter freeze. Michi smiled. Perfect.

The plane dropped lower, popping her ears. She worked her jaw until she could hear again. Her ears cleared in time to hear the screech as the wheels touched down, skidding slightly on the runway, and then the plane was on the ground. Michi’s heart beat faster. The most dangerous part of her plan lay ahead.