Second Skin (51 page)

So, with plenty of other less thorny pickings, the Yakuza stayed away, which suited Colonel Linnear just fine. Of late, the Colonel’s enemies within G-2 had been given to surveilling his known haunts, and Tenki, with no connections to his world, was an ideal place to rendezvous and hold clandestine meetings.

Eiko provided the Colonel and Okami with a suite of small rooms at the back of Tenki, and they retired there immediately. They had much to discuss. In February of 1947, they had become aware of a black market ring of alarming proportions. In those days black market rings were sprouting like wheat in a Kansas field, but this one was different. It was larger, more well-organized – and it had been run by an American who had somehow made an alliance with a Yakuza
oyabun.
This man was US Army captain Jonathan Leonard. Some diligent digging on Okami’s part, however, unearthed the man’s real name: Johnny Leonforte. Leonforte was working for someone named Leon Waxman, but despite exhaustive investigating neither the Colonel nor Okami could unearth anyone with that name.

When Okami had met Johnny Leonforte the following April, he’d also come in contact with his girlfriend. This woman, whose name was Faith Sawhill, was ostensibly a nurse in the US Army. Okami had killed Leonforte in a violent confrontation only to discover that it was Faith who was managing the operation. She had asked him to go into partnership with her and he had agreed. According to Okami, Faith knew nothing about a man named Leon Waxman, and at last the Colonel was forced to conclude that the name was just that – a nonentity floated by Johnny Leonforte to take any investigative heat off him.

Soon after, Okami had discovered that Katsuodo Kozo, the
oyabun
of the Yamauchi clan, had been clandestinely backing the Leonforte ring. He had done this through several supposedly disenfranchised under-
oyabun,
using their
kobun
– street soldiers – so no known member of the Yamauchi could be connected with Leonforte. Over the summer, the Colonel and Okami had agreed to do away with Katsuodo Kozo, and not long after, the
oyabun
had been discovered floating facedown in the Sumida River.

Almost immediately, the ring itself had been thrust into the background, because Okami discovered that Faith’s real role was as part of a pipeline back to the United States that was funneling secret intelligence on military personnel from Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby’s office. Willoughby, a thorn in the Colonel’s side until he had been forced aside several months ago, was the head of G-2, the Army’s intelligence operation in the Occupation. Willoughby was a well-known fascist with powerful friends in Washington; his former adjutant Jack Donnough – the man Okami had discovered was leaking the intelligence to Faith – had stepped up in rank and office following a disaster that caused Willoughby’s transfer. This disaster – the incineration of the group of war criminals Willoughby was training to spy for G-2 – had been engineered by Mikio Okami.

Faith’s people had a safe house that Okami had been to once – though Faith had warned him never to return there. It was in an industrial district that ran along the Sumida River, a private residence wedged between two windowless warehouses.

Okami remembered the extraordinary town house with its vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers, antique furniture, and floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with fascinating volumes on warfare, histories, and most prominently, philosophical texts. Whose iconoclastic tastes did it reflect? Why did Faith consider it a dangerous place for him to be seen? And whom did Faith ultimately report to?

These were questions Okami posed to the Colonel in the
toruko.

Colonel Linnear, with his uncanny ability to ferret out the truth, had already made significant headway. One of the reasons he had picked Eiko’s
toruko,
he now informed Okami, was that it serviced Donnough’s unsavory sexual proclivities. The major was a pedophile. He liked little girls, but his preference was for prepubescent boys.

Donnough was handsome in a wispy way. With his windblown sandy hair, high forehead, green eyes, and intense thin-lipped mouth, the Colonel could imagine him commanding a yacht heading into Newport harbor. He looked as if he came from money, but that didn’t make him a pushover. He was tough as nails – and as political an animal as the Army ever got. He’d outlasted his predecessor, Charles Willoughby.

He took it calmly enough when the Colonel showed him the packet of photos of him in the steamy sexual embrace of a number of obviously young Japanese boys.

‘I like this one especially,’ Donnough said, holding one up. ‘Could you possibly make me a blowup?’

The Colonel, who knew the measure of things, watched as Donnough carefully pushed the photos back in their envelope and dropped them on the floor at his feet. ‘Is there a fire anywhere where I can stuff these?’ Then he gave a little shudder and turned his sunny-cheeked face toward where the Colonel stood, silent as a cat. ‘What is it you want?’

The Colonel loaded his pipe, and when he had gotten it going to his satisfaction, said, ‘What a man does in private is his business, Major Donnough. But everything in life must be paid for and not always in the most obvious way.’ He let out a cloud of aromatic smoke. ‘I’m not here to judge you or to drum you out of the service. No, yours is to be a subtler form of payment for your pleasures.’

Donnough gave the kind of wry smile only a miser would make. ‘I hesitate to ask, but could you give me an example?’

The Colonel thought a moment. Then he took the pipe out of his mouth and said, ‘This stream of information on G-2 activities – backgrounds on the Army’s own men – where is it going?’

‘You know an Army nurse named Faith Sawhill?’

The Colonel sighed, came and sat next to Donnough. ‘This debriefing can be easy – or difficult – it’s totally in your hands.’

Donnough kicked the packet of photos across the room as if he could make them disappear in the baseboard. At last he said, ‘You ever hear of Sen. Jacklyn McCabe?... No, I didn’t think so. Well, up until late ’forty-seven he was a captain in the Army, served well in the war. Then he went home to Minnesota and, as a self-promoted war hero and Republican candidate, beat the pants off the incumbent Democrat senator.’

Donnough looked longingly at the smoke the Colonel was blowing. ‘McCabe’s wasted no time making quite a name for himself on Capitol Hill. He’s become a self-appointed defender of the American people against, as he calls it, “the insidious and pervasive threat of Communism.” He’s a limelight hog and the Hill is a perfect forum for him. He makes speeches almost nonstop, all on the same theme.’ Donnough sat back and, with nothing to do with his arms, folded them across his chest. ‘What I think he’s doing is compiling dossiers on everyone he can get his hands on. What he’s going to do with them is anyone’s guess.’

‘Give me yours.’

Donnough gave him a quick glance, then shrugged. ‘I haven’t thought about it too much, but if I had to guess, I’d say he’s contemplating a witch-hunt at home – a purge of everyone with even a hint of leftist leanings. Personally, I don’t think that would be a bad thing.’

The Colonel thought about this for some time. ‘Is this how Faith bought you? The pipeline’s going straight to Senator McCabe?’

‘I have my views but I’m no ideologue. No, the truth is more mundane, I’m afraid. I like all the good things in life a serviceman’s salary can’t buy. Faith bought me with money.’ Donnough crossed one leg over the other. ‘You know, I’m dying for a smoke.’

The Colonel went out of the room, came back a moment later with a pack of Chesterfields and a gunmetal Zippo lighter. Donnough took them gratefully, ripped open the packet, and tapped out a cigarette. He seemed calmer lighting up, as if his orderly mind had processed the disastrous situation in which he found himself and had made its peace with it.

‘Do you know who Faith Sawhill is delivering the intelligence to?’ the Colonel asked abruptly.

‘No, but it’s not directly to McCabe. He doesn’t know she exists.’ He exhaled in a long, drawn-out hiss. ‘McCabe doesn’t talk to women in that way. He’s a man’s man, if you know what I mean. Women have their place but that’s it. He’d never listen to what one had to say for advice, that I can tell you.’

The Colonel remained silent. He had learned interrogation techniques from the best in the business when he had been stationed in Singapore during the war. Silence was an underappreciated weapon in the interrogator’s arsenal. So was a feeling of empathy engendered in the person being interrogated.

Donnough took a flake of tobacco off his lower lip, then took a deep drag. ‘Who
does
she report to?’ Smoke purled out of his nostrils. ‘At first I thought it was this Mafia capo, Caesare Leonforte, legendary sort. He’s the
patr
ò
n
– got two sons, Alphonse and John. He and this capo, oh, what is his colorful name?’ – he snapped his fingers a couple of times – ‘Black Paul Mattaccino, that’s it. Both capos want to be connected to the increasingly powerful fascist contingent in Washington.’ He took another drag. ‘I may be right that Faith reports to Caesare Leonforte. But, if so, there’s someone else, someone Leonforte knows nothing about.’

‘You think Faith Sawhill is a double agent?’

‘Oh, not in the sense you and I would think. I mean, she’s not working secretly for the Communists or anything. But I get the impression that she doesn’t like the Leonfortes.’

‘She was living with one. Did you know Captain Leonard is really Johnny Leonforte, Caesare’s kid?’

‘Is that so?’ Donnough stared at the lit end of his cigarette. ‘Now that
is
interesting.’ He kept doggedly at his cigarette, dragging the smoke deep into his lungs. ‘But, you know, living and loving are two separate things. She might’ve hated John Leonforte’s guts, for all we know.’

We,
that was a good sign in any interrogation. It meant the person being interrogated had made the crucial leap from me vs them, to us vs them.

‘True,’ the Colonel said. ‘I know next to nothing about her. Maybe I should talk to her.’

‘Good luck to you, then. This one is like no woman I ever met. She’s hard as iron and twice as wicked. She knows her own mind.’ He stubbed out his butt, got another cigarette going right away. ‘I get the distinct impression Faith Sawhill has her whole life planned out.’

The Colonel changed tack for a moment and asked Donnough if he knew anything about the house wedged between two warehouses down by the Sumida. Donnough did not. He didn’t tell Donnough that Okami had been inside or that it was a safe house for Faith but not, apparently, for Okami. That was the most curious point. But if Donnough was right about Faith working for Caesare Leonforte
and
someone else, it would make sense she’d have a safe house that was insecure for Okami.

The Colonel rose. ‘That’s it for now.’

Donnough looked up at him. ‘You mean I’m free to go?’

‘You bet.’

Donnough got to his feet slowly. Almost reluctantly, his gaze slid toward the packet of photos on the floor.

‘Take them if you want. I have others.’

Donnough gave the Colonel that abstemious smile as he crossed to the door. ‘I don’t think so. I have my memories, after all.’

The Colonel waited until Donnough was almost out the door. ‘Oh, Major.’ He hesitated, turned back. ‘I would appreciate you doing your best to find out who owns that town house in the warehouse district.’

Donnough’s green eyes kept being drawn back to the packet of photos. He nodded and left.

Late that evening, Okami confirmed much of the Mafia background Donnough had given him. Okami, obsessed with the similarities between
omert
à
– the Sicilian code of loyalty and silence – and the Yakuza code of fealty, had made the study of the Italian and American Mafia his hobby. According to Okami, there was an intense and bitter rivalry between the Leonfortes and the Mattaccinos, and the forum for their struggle was, increasingly, Washington, DC. Both desperately wanted to extend their reach into a government in flux and therefore vulnerable to infiltration, bribes, and extortion. Sen. Jacklyn McCabe, the newest rising star, was the ultimate prize.

‘I want you to go after Faith Sawhill,’ the Colonel said.

‘In what way?’ Okami asked.

‘Jack Donnough thinks she’s a double, working for the Leonfortes and someone else. Who?’

‘Black Paul Mattaccino?’

The Colonel nodded. ‘Maybe.’

Okami looked out the window of the
toruko.
‘It’s a fanciful idea, but one we’re not likely to be able to pursue with Faith.’

‘Why not?’

‘Ever since I killed Johnny Leonforte, and she and I took over the network, she’s kept me at arm’s length. I’ve tried every way I know to discover what she’s really up to.’ Okami turned back to look at the Colonel. ‘She’s as closed up as a clam, and since Johnny’s dead, she’s as solitary as a nun. At least, I think so. Although I speak with her at least twice a week, I haven’t seen her in close to ten months.’

‘Where the hell is she? Sicily?’

‘I have no idea. And all the inquiries I’ve made have led me nowhere.’

‘Keep at it. There must be
some
chink in this mysterious woman’s armor.’

Okami said in the best Confucian tradition, ‘I will do my best.’

But two weeks later, Okami was no closer to unearthing Faith’s secrets. The Colonel was staring out at the gray skyline of Tokyo, which, daily, was changing as drastically as the view through a kaleidoscope. His rooms at the
toruko
had become a kind of home away from home, as if the influence of his enemies had put him under siege. He had been thinking of Faith Sawhill’s mysterious safe house down by the warehouses and who might own it, when it occurred to him that he ought to take a look at the place himself. As he went down the corridor, he passed the room where Eiko worked – filling the ledgers with her neat calligraphy, keeping track of the comings and goings of her girls – when she wasn’t performing less mundane functions with the clients themselves.