Kage (39 page)

hostility. They wore baggy street clothes and one had a nickel-

plated revolver dangling from his hand. The other man ges-

tured at me. I showed him the plastic bag I carried that was

filled with a bundle of paper I had doctored up to look like

Westmann’s manuscript. It was long gone, but this guy didn’t

know that. It was wasted energy: he peered in at the bundle,

but didn’t seem interested in any real way. I put my arms up

and he patted me down, searching for a weapon. Satisfied, he

stepped back, flipped open a cell phone, and had a short con-

versation, staccato vowels in a Latin rhythm. But I heard my

name mentioned. He nodded me toward the narrow hall that

led off to the restrooms and the fire door.

While we were doing this, an old Asian man limped in,

lugging a duffel bag. The one with the gun looked at him,

annoyed.

“
Oye, Viejo! Esta cerrado!”
But the old man obviously didn’t

understand. He gestured helplessly, mumbled something, and

started toward the counter. They propelled me toward the fire

door. The guy with the gun went for the old man, and I got

shoved along the hall by his partner so I couldn’t see what hap-

pened next.

But I heard the sound of the strikes hitting a body, the

whoosh of air as it was forced out of the lungs, and the sound

of the gun hitting the floor. My escort heard it, too. He turned

back, his eyes leaving me for a moment. It was a mistake.

I’m not sure whether he really registered what had happened

in the restaurant; I hit him so hard he blacked out briefly. But

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there Yamashita stood over a crumpled body, holding the shiny

pistol in his hand like it had germs. He came toward me, still

lugging the duffel.

Time, Burke. Move fast.

My escort’s knees had buckled and I took him down to the

floor. I put him in a basic armlock and set my knee on his neck

while I searched him for a weapon. I pointed with my chin to

the other man.

“Dead?”

Yamashita feigned shock. “Dead? No. But he will be uncon-

scious for a while.”

“What happens when he comes to?”

“He will have other issues to deal with. I broke both his col-

lar bones. It will make using something like this,” he dangled

the pistol in front of him, “difficult.”

The man beneath me was stirring: I could feel the muscle

tension build in his arm and neck. I found what looked like a

.45 automatic stuffed in his waistband. I put the muzzle against

the base of his skull and released the arm lock. His eyes rolled

back as he tried to get a glimpse of me.

“Get up,” I told him.

Time. Don’t give them time to think. It cuts both ways.

He was wobbly, but he managed to get to his feet by sliding

up along the wall.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He shrugged sullenly. I pulled the slide back on the pistol,

the movement of metal loud in the little hallway. I ground the

pistol up under his jaw and jerked my head in the direction of

his friend.

“You wanna end up like that? My friend here can make it so

you never walk again.” He lived in a world where the threat of

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violence was not an idle one. He knew danger when he saw it.

He could hear the fury in my voice.

“The repair shop,” he mumbled grudgingly. His accent was

thick, but it was clear enough.

“Where?”

His eyes moved to the fire door. “Out the door. Down the

alley.”

“They’re expecting me?”

His eyes flickered from side to side as if searching for

options, calculating his chances.

I pushed the pistol so he gagged slightly. “Don’t,” I ordered.

His eyes came back to me and he nodded in surrender.

“I am to take you.”

“Let’s go, then.”

The alley featured a few battered dumpsters, shattered rem-

nants of wooden loading pallets, and broken glass. It smelled

of old cooking oil and the acrid grit of city air. At the far end,

I could see the rolled steel doors of the bays of the auto repair

shop. There was an entrance door to the right and a narrow

drive leading down the left side of the building to the rear. We

halted in the cover of a dumpster and I slid the shells into the

shotgun. I racked the pump and put a shell in the chamber.

Our escort had gotten some of his color back and that worried

me. “Here’s the deal,” I told him. “You get us in the door and

then leave. Don’t try to warn him. Don’t look back.” I gestured

with the shotgun. “I see you again, I’ll kill you. Understand?”

“
Claro
,” he answered.

The three of us scuttled down the alley. Nobody spoke.

Yamashita made a faint whistling noise to get my attention.

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“
Ura
, Burke.” he told me.

“The back way? You think there’ll be a door?”

“Burke, it is repair shop. It was not designed as a fortress.

There will be a rear entrance.”

I slipped down the narrow drive. There was a gate, a high

chain link fence with plastic strips woven through it to block

the vision of what was behind the building. I swung it open just

enough to get through. I whipped around the corner, shotgun

up. The kid leaning against the car was in the process of light-

ing a cigarette. When he saw me, his mouth opened and the

cigarette fell to the ground, but the hand holding the lighter

hung in front of his face for a moment. His eyes were wide.

I kept him covered and tested the back door. It opened.

I jerked my head toward the street. “Get out.” It took a

minute to register, and then he nodded gravely, his hands held

up in surrender, and scooted around the corner. He was still

holding the lighter.

I slid into the building. It was a dim storeroom lined with

metal shelves filled with the jutting angles of auto parts. There

was an old desk covered with papers. The few small windows

were covered with pebbled glass and crossed with bars to pre-

vent break-ins. I picked my way carefully across the floor to the

door that led to the main area. It was wide open and I could

hear voices.

“Jefe!”
Our escort’s voice announced himself.

“
Ven’ aqui
.” The voice was thick and phlegmy.

I scanned the sight before me from the gloom of the store-

room. Two bays with hydraulic lifts, the rails fully up like

strange metal mushrooms. Walls lined with workbenches. The

smell of old metal and oil. And in the stained cement strip in

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the center of the room, a woman tied to a chair, a small work

spotlight shining on her and casting shadows in the dark shop.

Even from behind, I could tell it was Sarah from the shape of

her head and the slope of her shoulders. She had been stripped

to her panties and t-shirt, barefoot and bound and gagged. I

couldn’t tell whether she was conscious or not. I couldn’t even

be sure that she was alive.

That was when I almost lost it. But an internal voice cau-

tioned me.
Easy Burke
.
Go fast, but don’t rush
.

And I could not see Martín yet. He was there in the shad-

ows somewhere, perhaps behind a pillar. The hydraulic shafts

of the lifts broke up my line of sight. A deadly man. A cautious

man.
Wait
.

The front door opened and Yamashita came in, holding the

plastic bag with the manuscript in it.

“Who are you?” A voice came from the shadows, some-

where to my right. But I couldn’t pinpoint his location.

Yamashita raised his arms from his sides as if to show he was

harmless. He limped into the room, completing the picture of

a broken down, old man.

“I am the go-between,” my teacher stuttered, like a man

afraid. His eyes barely moved, but I knew he was scanning the

space, looking for our target. He didn’t react to Sarah’s pres-

ence, although I was sure that he had seen her. He shuffled

another few steps forward.

“Enough,” Martín ordered, and came into sight. He held

a large, black automatic in his right hand “Where is Burke?”

He was at the far right of the room, about halfway along the

wall. From where I stood, Sarah Klein was directly in my line

of fire. And Martín would be able to see me if I came through

the door.

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Kage

Yamashita shuffled to his left to come closer to Martín. “He

is waiting with your young men,” he explained. It appeared as if

he was merely eager to talk, but I knew what he was doing. He

was changing the angles. It’s what a good swordsman does. By

coming left, Yamashita would force Martín to move out from

the wall to free his gun hand to be able to continue to cover

him. And if Martín turned, even slightly toward Yamashita, I’d

be outside his peripheral vision. The Japanese call it the dead

zone.

Come on.
I raised the shotgun and drew a breath.

Behind me, the rear door clanged open and I knew that I

had waited too long and it was all coming apart.

The kid with the cigarette was back, and he was armed. It

was some sort of machine pistol, with a long extended maga-

zine jutting down from the handgrip. He came through the

door wide-eyed and started firing before he even saw me. “Mar-

tín!” he screamed.

I whirled toward him as rounds clanged off the metal door-

jamb I was leaning against. The shotgun went off with a roar,

but I didn’t stop to see if the first round hit him. I pumped

another load up and shot him square in the chest. Behind me

I heard a pistol shot. I wheeled back to the repair bay, hot and

sick with fear for what I would find.

Yamashita was nowhere in sight. Martín was moving toward

Sarah. Bound and gagged in the chair, she was squealing in ter-

ror at the sight of his extended gun arm, a questing, ugly thing.

But Martín moved like a man carrying a great weight, one who

was no longer sure he could remember what he was doing.

It gave me the time I needed. I moved into the room and he

saw me, but it was too late. The shotgun blast caught him high

in the chest; he spun around and down, the pistol spinning

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away into the grimy shadows. I shot him again.

I ran to Sarah and pulled the gag off. “Oh God,” she sobbed.

Yamashita ghosted up to the body on the floor. He rolled

Martín onto one side and pulled at something. It was then that

I noticed the throwing knife jutting from his neck.

My teacher saw my surprised expression. “This one was not

easy to distract. I used a more direct method.”

“Oh God, Burke,” Sarah moaned.

But I’m not sure He exists in Munenori’s world.

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24

Garden

The faces on the line of blue-clad swordsman were different,

but al the same: stolid, remote. Some were stil flushed with

recent exertion, the skin sweat-slick. Their eyes were dark spots,

markers of hidden thoughts. They were stil recovering from

the endorphin wash of hard training and the pul of the lesson’s

final meditation session, where the respiration and heartbeat are

slowed and you are pul ed down and away, deep into your core.

“
Sensei ni rei
!” I ordered, and we bowed to Yamashita, a dol-

men set among a field of polished wood and indigo uniforms.

He set his palms forward and inclined his torso toward us, a

grudging acknowledgement.

“
Otaga ni rei
!” I cal ed. We bowed to each other. “
Domo

arigato goziemashita.
The polite, formal phrase of thanks. But it

was mechanical, routine, a ritual murmur that did not connect

us. Or perhaps it was that my mind was elsewhere.

Sarah’s sister Deborah was pale with relief when we brought

Sarah back, but her eyes widened with concern when she saw

Sarah’s condition, and I told her some of what had happened.

She took her from me, steering Sarah gently to a bedroom.

Yamashita and I had sat quietly in the suburban kitchen.

It smel ed of coffee and the refrigerator was decorated with a

child’s drawings—Sarah’s niece. Smal magnets held notes and

receipts, coupons, and the other detritus of everyday life. Mail

lay unopened on a counter. From a distant room, the murmur of

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conversation as Deborah conferred with someone on the phone,

probably her husband. Other cal s fol owed and arrangements

were made. I heard a shower start up.

After a time, Deborah came into the room. “I’ve cal ed some

people,” she began. “The doctor wil want to see her—a coun-

selor I’ve got connections with…” she bit her lip and looked past

me out the window.

“The man who did this…” she began.

I shook my head. “He won’t ever hurt her again.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Deborah,” I answered bleakly. “I’m sure.” She saw the look

on my face and awareness fil ed her eyes.

“Good!” she said with a touch of vehemence, but then her