Second Skin (54 page)

‘Okay, okay.’ Black Paul sighed, knowing it was time to get down to business. ‘I’ve been using a network my family established over here to get close with McCabe. He, in turn, has gotten me tight with a lotta the big shots in DC. To do that, though, I had to pay a high price. My network’s been feeding him the dish on everyone in SCAP command through me.’

‘Senator McCabe is compiling dossiers on everyone high up in the military,’ Bernice said. ‘He’s recently confided in Paul that through the military personnel he now has under his thumb, he is beginning to compile the same kind of dossiers on State Department personnel.’

‘Damned braggart,’ Black Paul barked.

The Colonel looked at Bernice, but she seemed unperturbed by the capo’s blasphemous remark. An odd kind of nun, he thought.

‘McCabe has had his uses,’ Black Paul continued. ‘Through him I’m in with the people who count in running the nation. That’s jake with me, far as it goes. But now I’ve been hearing rumors that McCabe’s thinking of asking for congressional hearings on unAmericanism in the government. If it’s true, that’s nasty business and I want no part of it.’

‘You already are,’ the Colonel pointed out.

‘Perhaps we have been guilty of a kind of overzealousness,’ Bernice said.

There’s an understatement,
the Colonel thought. ‘Which brings me to another point. What are
you
doing in bed with the Mafia?’

‘Hey, bud,’ Black Paul said, ‘you’ll damn well be respectful to the sister when you speak to her.’

‘Paul, hush now,’ Bernice admonished.

‘I meant no disrespect,’ the Colonel said. ‘But, from where I sit, this is as... bizarre an alliance as I could imagine.’

Bernice smiled. ‘Perhaps
unholy
was a word that came to mind.’

The Colonel matched her smile. ‘It did occur to me.’

‘Hey, hey.’ Black Paul jabbed a forefinger threateningly. ‘I’ll have you know my family goes way back with the Order of Donà di Piave.’ He leaned forward, putting creases in his magnificent suit. ‘The Mattaccinos have
ties,
Colonel.’ He clasped his hands tight together in front of his face. ‘Ties you can’t even imagine.’

‘People like the Mattaccinos have their uses, Colonel.’ Bernice spread her hands. ‘We are an order of women – and women have all the limitations of gender working against them. We have been persecuted in one form or another down through the centuries.’ Her electric blue eyes would not let his go, and the Colonel found himself wondering whether she knew of his Jewish heritage. ‘God in His infinite wisdom gave Donà di Piave a mandate that has survived the centuries. We do God’s work in the manner He chooses for us.’ She smiled. ‘Where we are weak, He provides strength.’

‘Which is, presumably, where the Mattaccinos come in. Are you telling me God wants you to befriend gangsters – mafiosi?’

‘All are God’s children, Colonel,’ Bernice said. ‘Would you turn from those who sin? All are in need of redemption. Because of our influence, they contribute to the Church, to the neighborhood in which they live. They keep many people safe from harm.’

‘And prey on just as many others.’

‘I told you!’ Black Paul exploded. He jumped up. ‘I don’t hafta hear this kinda –’ He bit his lip to choke off the expletive. ‘This was a goddamned mistake an’ I knew it!’

Bernice kept her eyes on the Colonel and remained calm. When Black Paul had run out of blasphemies, she said, ‘Who among us are not sinners, Colonel? Will you throw the first stone?’

The Colonel, chastened, said nothing. Bernice was right. How could he, a man who had broken laws, murdered, even, in the name of his overriding vision – who had gotten in bed with the Yakuza – how could he take the moral high ground with these people?

‘What is it you want?’ he said at length.

Black Paul stared down at him, then switched his gaze to Bernice. Clearly, he was amazed.

‘We need your help to reverse course. We’ve gotten what we wanted from Senator McCabe. But now, with the increasing risk of his radical antiCommunist witch-hunts, he’s become a threat,’ Bernice said with astonishing pragmatism.

Bending over between them, Black Paul made a fist. ‘It’s time to crush him inna ground.’

‘And you want me to help you?’ the Colonel asked.

‘McCabe is scheduled to arrive here in Tokyo the beginning of next week,’ Bernice said.

‘Excellent,’ the Colonel said, rising, ‘I’ll take out my gun and shoot him dead.’

‘Madonna!’ Black Paul clapped the heel of his hand against his forehead. ‘Whatta we need this jamoke for, Bernice?’

She turned her gaze on him for a moment. ‘Because we can’t do it without him. Neither you nor I can be seen anywhere near Senator McCabe.’

‘Devil or no,’ the Colonel said, ‘I won’t be a party to his murder.’

‘What murder?’ Black Paul’s hands whirled like dervishes. ‘Who said anything ’bout murder?’

The Colonel rounded on him. ‘It’s time to crush him into the ground, you said.’

‘Yeah, but –’

‘Sit down, both of you.’

The men sat at Bernice’s command.

‘Colonel,’ she said in her deep, calming voice, ‘we need to find a way to neutralize Senator McCabe, nothing more. We want to strip him of his influence, not kill him.’

The Colonel thought about this a long time. He dug out his pipe and spent precious moments filling it, lighting it, and getting it going to his satisfaction. At last, he said, ‘It may be possible. For a price.’

‘Money’s no object,’ Black Paul interjected.

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Paul,’ Bernice said. ‘The Colonel is a highly pragmatic man. I’m certain money will play no part in our bargain.’

‘Yeah?’ Black Paul said uncertainly. ‘Then what?’

The Colonel looked at both of them. ‘First, I want to speak with Faith –’

‘No!’ Black Paul shouted. ‘Absofuckin’lutely not! I will not have it! Faith’s outta this discussion!’

The Colonel turned to Bernice.

‘The fact is Paul’s right. Faith is no longer here. She has returned to the States.’

‘She could verify everything,’ the Colonel said.

‘Y’see?’ Black Paul’s hands spun like windmills. ‘The bastard doesn’t believe a word of what we’ve told ’im. He’s like every outsider I came in contact with.’ He turned to the Colonel, outraged. ‘You have her word. She’s a fuckin’ nun, for chrissake!’

‘That will be quite enough, Paul!’

Black Paul turned away, stalked on stiff legs to the curtains, and stood staring at them.

‘Colonel, I’m afraid this point is non-negotiable,’ Bernice said firmly. ‘Faith is gone, you’ll have to accept that.’

‘You know what you’re asking me to get involved in, Sister. Is this so different from murder? You’re asking me to take Senator McCabe’s
life
away from him. Without his career, with his reputation ruined, he may put a gun to his head.’

‘The bettah for alla us,’ Black Paul said from across the room. The maniac’s a devil. Take it from me, I’ve broken bread with the sonuvabitch an’ almost choked on it.’

Bernice and the Colonel ignored the outburst.

‘You know what McCabe could do to America if he gets his way,’ Bernice said. ‘Rip it right apart. Friends, families, reputations, careers, all ruined. Tens, hundreds. And for what?’

‘Speculation is not enough,’ the Colonel said. ‘What it boils down to is you want me to clean up the mess you had a hand in making.’

Bernice shook her head. ‘That’s not it at all.’ Then she half-turned her head and in a louder voice said, ‘Eiko-san.’

Eiko came in. She was carrying a buff-colored folder and she would not meet the Colonel’s eyes. She handed the folder to Bernice and hurried out the way people flee the site of a catastrophe.

Bernice silently handed over the folder. The Colonel took it and it seemed to burn his hands.

‘Whatta you doing?’ Black Paul said, coming back from his exile at the curtains. ‘I thought we agreed –’

Bernice held up her hand and now her creamy contralto had a steely note to it. ‘He deserves to know.’

The Colonel, filled with trepidation, opened the folder. It was his G-2 file, all familiar stuff, and he relaxed. Then he got to the end. Two pages had been added as a confidential addendum. They were on plain paper but bore the official G-2 seal. With mounting horror, the Colonel read details of his partnership with Mikio Okami. He turned to the second page. OF JEWISH HERITAGE. There was no point in going on. The words stuck out on the page as if they had been written in fire instead of on an Army typewriter. Lines from Shakespeare’s
Richard III
came into his mind:
Murder, stern murder in the dir’st degree, All several sins, all used in each degree, Throng to the bar, crying all, ‘Guilty! Guilty!’

‘That is the G-2 office copy,’ Bernice said softly. ‘A duplicate was passed on, through Paul, to Senator McCabe.’ The Colonel looked up to meet her steady gaze. ‘You know what will happen, don’t you, Colonel? Jew. McCabe will brand you a Communist conspirator simply because several well-known Jews were known to sympathize with the Soviet Union. And you’re a British national, to boot, serving in SCAP. That fact alone has made you powerful enemies in Washington. These people would dance a jig around your funeral pyre.’ Bernice took the file from him. ‘Now the threat of careers, reputations ruined does not seem so remote, does it, Colonel? It has hit home in the most personal way.’

The Colonel cleared his throat. ‘What about G-2? Has intelligence seen this file?’

‘Not since it was updated.’ Bernice slipped out the last two pages and held them up. ‘Shall we?’

The Colonel nodded numbly. He took up a heavy silver lighter, put it to the lower corner of the papers. Flames flared, eating the evidence.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Richard III was so right, the Colonel thought as he watched Bernice drop the gray ash onto the chased-silver tea tray.

Bernice crossed herself. ‘The deed is done. Now what are we going to do about it?’

Maj. Jack Donnough was in a jovial mood when he entered the Colonel’s rooms at the back of the
toruko.
‘You’ll never guess who’s going to be G-2’s special guest come next week. It’s classified, so when I tell you –’

He gave a squawk like a chicken about to get its neck wrung. His eyes bulged, sensing his dire fate as the Colonel hurled him against the back wall. His head slammed back painfully, his teeth rattled, and he saw stars. Before he knew what was happening, the Colonel had kicked over a chair and had jammed him onto it. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to make this nightmare go away, but a hard metallic click made his eyes snap open.

‘Wha –?’

Then the barrel of his own service revolver was filling his mouth. Its taste and length made him gag.
Christ,
he wanted to say.
Christ on the cross!

‘Now I am going to count to three,’ the Colonel said with his face close to Donnough’s, ‘and then I am going to splatter your brains all over the wall. Is that clear enough for you, Donnough?’ The major froze, as if this extreme lack of motion might somehow save him. ‘Then I am going to place this gun in your hand and I will spread those photos of you all around and put in a call to the MPs. Let them make of it what they will.’

Donnough began to retch.

‘Go ahead, do it.’ The Colonel ground the muzzle of the revolver into Donnough’s palate. ‘You’ll choke on your own vomit.’

Donnough caught himself, tried to stop retching.

‘You did it to me, didn’t you, Donnough? What made you take such a desperate chance? Did you think I wouldn’t get a look at how you doctored my G-2 file? Fascist bastard.’

Abruptly, he withdrew the pistol, slapped the major so hard across the face he flew off the chair. Huddled in a corner, his head down, he drew his knees up to his chest and began to cry.

The Colonel, disgusted by this breakdown, dragged the chair over and sat down on it backward. With his forearms loosely draped over the chairback he peered down at Donnough. ‘Well? I’m waiting, Major.’

Donnough sniffled, wiped his running nose on his sleeve. ‘I – I was scared. I didn’t know what else to do. I had to try to save myself.’

‘That’s it?’

He nodded dumbly.

Why not? the Colonel thought. The mundane answers were most often the truth.

‘All right, listen up,’ the Colonel said briskly. ‘I know Senator McCabe is coming into town the beginning of next week under an intelligence blackout. I also know some of his peculiar sexual proclivities.’ He paused a beat. ‘I also know about
you,
Donnough.’ When the major’s head came up and his bloodshot eyes met the Colonel’s, he said, ‘You and McCabe were an item when he was in service, weren’t you? That’s how you know so much about him.’ Another tidbit provided by McCabe’s former partners. One thing you had to say about them, they were filled with bits of useful information.

The Colonel stood and, wheeling the chair away, grabbed the front of Donnough’s uniform blouse and hauled him upright. The major’s mouth was rank with terror. ‘Now you’re going to do exactly what I tell you.’ He lifted the pistol so that Donnough’s head shied away. ‘And let me tell you, if you fuck up in any way, I
will
put this into your mouth and pull the trigger. Is that clear?’

Donnough, still half-stunned, nodded.

‘And one other thing,’ the Colonel said. ‘My G-2 file has been replaced without those addenda you wrote. If you attempt to alter it again –’

‘I – I won’t. I swear.’

‘So sorry, but the plumbing in my usual room is under repair,’ Eiko said to Leon Waxman when he arrived at the
toruko.
‘We will have to use another.’

Waxman shrugged. He was thinking about what deal he could consummate after he got hosed down by the Jap broad.

Eiko led him to the rear of the building. As they passed by the Colonel’s office, Waxman heard a voice. ‘I don’t give a good goddamn what you think is best. I’m handling this.’ Silence. The man was obviously on the phone. Johnny slowed his pace. ‘That’s right,’ the Colonel said. ‘Now you bloody well listen to me, Mr Mattaccino –’