Second Skin (9 page)

‘Relax, Mr Tony,’ the masseuse said in a gentle whisper. ‘You’re tensing up again.’

Yeah, well, who wouldn’t, Tony thought as he felt her fingers kneading deeper. Christ almighty, the humiliations he had to put up with. A bossy wife who thought she was a man, who couldn’t – or, worse, wouldn’t – give him a son. A daughter who was happier away from home in some place in Connecticut where Margarite had stuck her, wouldn’t even tell Tony where. And then there was this thing she was having with that fucking ex-cop Lew Croaker. It was enough to drive any real man insane.

But Tony D. knew he had to be cool. Patience, never his long suit, was the key. If he could be as patient with Margarite and Francie as he was in his contract negotiations with the studios, he’d be okay. In like Flynn. The bitches would have to respect him, after a time. A reconciliation would come. Margarite would see how idiotic this fling with Croaker was and he could bed her again, maybe even get her to pop out the son he wanted so dearly. You weren’t really a man until you sired a male child, that’s what the old man had said, his hands filthy from the Weehawken chemicals, and he was right.

He turned his head from one side to the other to ease the strain, and that was when he saw the heavy curtains move. He lay very still, his heart thudding slowly and heavily. He blinked, looked again. Stirring still. But that was impossible. This building was like so many of the city’s modern skyscrapers: the windows did not open. A breath of fresh air came to him, stinking of soot and car fumes. He moved his arm, so slowly the masseuse did not detect it.

‘Doris,’ he said softly, ‘I think I’d prefer the lavender.’

‘Yes, Mr Tony,’ the masseuse said, lifting her hands off him and moving silently to her equipment bag where her containers of oils were grouped with a thick rubber band.

As she bent over her capacious bag, the curtains billowed outward and Tony sat up. They parted to reveal a large circular hole cut in the window glass. The precisely cut glass lay like a gigantic lens, gripped by a pair of powerful suction cups, on a wooden scaffold that window washers use.

The man who had cut the glass took one step into the room. He was dressed in the anonymous denim overalls of a window washer. His right hand was filled with a .38 fitted with a snub-nosed silencer. He grinned at Tony D.’s nakedness, showing crooked yellow teeth. ‘Bad Clams says, “Good-bye, Tony.”’

Phut! Phut!
The sounds were insignificant, much as if Tony had passed wind, but their effect was anything but. The grinning man spun backward, his mouth frozen in that same smirk, but his eyes opened wide, registering shock at the silencer-equipped Colt .45 in Tony’s oily fist. He grabbed onto the curtains, pulling them half off their track, blood spurting from chest and throat. Then he pitched to the floor.

‘Too bad you won’t be able to tell Bad Clams anything,’ Tony said into eyes already beginning to film over.

He heard heavy gasping and turned, seeing Doris with one hand in her mouth, the other clutching something white, perhaps the bottle of scented oil she had just taken from her bag. Her eyes were wide and staring as she backed up against one wall.

‘It’s okay,’ he said reassuringly. ‘It’s all over.’ He got off the table and, holding the .45 at his side, walked toward her. ‘You’re safe now.’ He tried a smile, but still panicked, she was fixated on the gun. Just like a woman. The last thing he wanted was anything to alert the building security. His was a strictly legit business, and any event to the contrary could kill his reputation. Hence the silencer on his .45.

He lifted it, placing it gently on the massage table, coming toward her with his hands raised and open. ‘See? There’s no problem. It’s over.’

He was within a pace of her and he could see her breathing calm. She took her hand from her mouth. Tiny white ovals were imprinted on the skin where she had almost drawn blood.

‘Doris!’ He touched her. ‘Okay? Are you all right?’

‘It’s not me I’m thinking of,’ Doris said as she buried the four-inch stiletto blade in his sternum.

‘Oh, fuck! Wha –?’ He fell against her, then opened his mouth to scream and found her fist jammed into it.

‘Bad Clams says you should take better care of yourself, Mr Tony,’ she said, staring intently at him as if he were a frog she was about to dissect.

He wanted to curse her, to reach for his weapon, but he could manage neither. His legs had turned to jelly and his extremities had turned to ice. He grunted instead, as she quite expertly dragged the small but razor-sharp blade up through his lungs and into his heart and his full mass came against her.

Dead weight, Doris thought as she pushed him down to the floor. She wiped the handle of the blade, then dragging the would-be assassin over, pressed his still-warm fingers around the folding handle. Looking around, she used a towel to drop the Colt between the two bodies. She picked up the white tampon within which she had secreted the stiletto. She jammed it into her bag, gathered up the rest of her equipment. Shouldering her bag, she ducked through the neat hole in the windowpane, clambered out onto the scaffolding, and was gone.

‘So you followed him all the way back here.’

‘Yes,’ Nicholas said.

‘What kind of place has this mysterious Vietnamese gone into?’

Nicholas looked at the bat-winged glass and ferroconcrete building in the center of the arty, tourist area of Roppongi. ‘See that buttressed glass bubble terrace on the second floor? He went into the French restaurant there called Pull Marine. It’s new, I’m told. Ultraopulent place with prices to match.’

Tanzan Nangi had not turned to face Nicholas. Instead, he continued to sit in the leather backseat of his Mercedes limousine, staring through the smoked-glass window out at the steel-gray skyline of Tokyo that rose above Roppongi’s rooftops.

Five minutes ago, the Mercedes limo had slid to a stop behind Nicholas’s black Kawasaki. Earlier this morning, he had had Koei drive him back to the dock-side near Tsukiji where he had left it. From the car, he had phoned the hospital and was told that Watanabe was in stable but guarded condition, so weak that he had not yet regained consciousness. When he did, Nicholas knew he would have to question him.

Nangi had come in response to Nicholas’s video summons via the Kami. Nicholas supposed he might not have emerged from his unknown den were it not for the startling news that the CyberNet data had been stolen.

What did Nangi see, Nicholas wondered, in Tokyo’s rain-befogged cityscape? Individual signs and shapes were blurred into a giant pachinko parlor, a riot of neon colors and loud whirs and whistles, nothing more than an approximation of reality, which was what this city of symbols really was.

‘And whom did he contact there?’ Nangi said.

‘A woman,’ Nicholas said. ‘Her name is Honniko.’

‘She has the data now?’ Kanda Tōrin said.

‘Yes.’

Nangi had not come alone and this surprised Nicholas. He was accompanied by his new vice president. The many things Nicholas wished to discuss with Nangi could not be brought up with Tōrin here, and again he felt the change in his special relationship with his friend and mentor.

So long from Nangi’s side, he could not shake the concern he felt for him. Nangi was no longer as vigorous as he had once been. Last year’s lightning trips to Russia, Ukraine, Singapore, mainland China, and Hong Kong had taken their toll on the older man. Perhaps they had even had some cause in his heart attack. But there was still the question of his behavior.

True, he was obsessed with saving Sato and, therefore, with the success of the CyberNet. But this very obsession made Nicholas all the more guilty for deserting him during the onset of this crisis.

Nangi moved uneasily, and pale light flared off his artificial eye. He had been through much in the war, not the least of which was losing his best friend, the man who had willed him Sato International. ‘This is a disaster of incalculable proportions,’ he said, shaking his head slowly back and forth. ‘We must get the CyberNet data back at all costs.’

‘Still, it is inconceivable to me how the data were stolen at the reception,’ Tōrin said. ‘It speaks of a gross lapse in security.’ Of course, he was comfortable criticizing an area not currently under his control. Was he angling for that cut of the pie, as well? Nicholas wondered. ‘This is the second such breach within eighteen months. Another tech, Masamoto Goei, was found selling Sato secrets. I suggest a full-scale investigation be launched.’ Yes, he was.

‘Linnear-san did well to save Watanabe-san’s life,’ Nangi said without enthusiasm. He sighed and raised a hand, perhaps in acquiescence to the young vice president’s suggestion. ‘Perhaps, Tōrin-san, we erred in rushing the TransRim CyberNet into service more quickly than was prudent.’

Tōrin was silent. He was smarter than to try to answer that loaded question. No matter what he said, he’d look bad. But Nicholas used his reticence to ask the question most on his mind since the reception last night.

‘Nangi-san, could you explain to me who or what Denwa Partners is? Tōrin-san introduced their name at the presentation as the co-owners of the CyberNet.’

Nangi passed a hand over his face, just as he had last night when he had video-logged on the CyberNet to Nicholas at the office. ‘Ah, yes. I have not had time to tell you, Nicholas-san. But during your long absence, in order to accelerate the start-up date we were forced to bring in several partners.’

‘Partners? Why wasn’t I advised of this? We had an agreement.’

Tōrin’s brow furrowed in consternation. ‘Nangi-san, pardon this unforgivably rude question, but didn’t you inform Linnear-san of the partners’ agreement via the Kami?’

Nangi closed his eyes, ignoring Tōrin’s query. ‘But, you see, we didn’t have any choice.’ He gestured to the young man on his left. ‘Actually, it was Tōrin who came up with the idea.’

Nicholas gave a brief glance at Tōrin, who sat ramrod straight, his handsome face a complete cipher.

‘I think it was quite brilliant, really,’ Nangi said. ‘Bringing in corporate partners spreads good-will, which along with the success of the CyberNet, is what we most need now.’ He shook his head like an old terrier. ‘Terrible about the prime minister. Did you hear? It was broadcast early this morning. What a shock. And now this CyberNet disaster. But Tōrin-san is good, very clever, indeed, and now that the CyberNet is operational, I’ve given him the task of running it day to day.’

As if this were a signal, Tōrin leaned forward and pulled down a small, polished burlwood door, revealing a bay, equipped with a mini-hibachi and all the accoutrements for making tea. He began to prepare green tea for the three of them. Nangi, though he had his head turned away from the two men, must have known what was happening because he kept silent.

Nicholas watched Tōrin as he beat the powdered tea to a fine bitter froth with a bamboo whisk. He placed the first cup in Nangi’s hands. Nicholas received the second. Then he lifted his own. He watched Nangi with the anxious covetousness of a nanny with her sickly charge, as if his good or bad health would directly reflect on him.

Nangi finished his tea, but apparently it failed to calm him. He said, ‘The launch of the CyberNet was all perfectly orchestrated. Perfect. But now that the data have been stolen, I don’t know what will happen.’

Nicholas stared out the window while sooty rain slid slowly down the pane. He did not care for Tōrin’s attitude. It was almost as if he were indicating that Nangi’s brain was deteriorating, that his memory was not what it had once been. He worked to clear his mind of anger and concentrate on the matter at hand.

Everything had changed at the moment he had discovered that Nguyen was working for Mick Leonforte. What did Leonforte want with the TransRim CyberNet data? He wasn’t foolhardy enough to attempt to start his own competing cybernet with the information; Sato’s lawyers would slam him with so many infringement suits he’d be out of business in a matter of months. What then?

Nicholas had no idea, but he knew he had to find out. His encounter with Mick in Floating City had been profoundly disturbing. And, if he were to be brutally honest with himself, it had been preying on his mind ever since. There was something strange about Mick – and terrifyingly familiar as well. It was as if he had known Mick long before they had ever met. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?

‘More tea?’

Nicholas turned to see Tōrin, solicitous as a geisha, bending over Nangi, but Nangi shook his head, turned to Nicholas, said, ‘Find that data. You must bring it back to us. The CyberNet is our only hope.’

‘Nangi-san, we must speak –’

But his friend was waving him away. ‘I am tired. We will talk later, yes?’

Nicholas looked up, saw Tōrin holding open the limo’s door. As he stepped out into the drizzle, Nicholas said to Tōrin, ‘Please come with me a moment.’ The younger man nodded in that curiously obsequious manner that Nicholas suspected he trotted out to hide his rapacious appetite for advancement and power.

Nicholas watched Tōrin fastidiously open a black umbrella over both of them. Nicholas said, ‘Now I think you had better bring me up to speed on everything.’

Tōrin, who continued to industriously play the servant manqué, said, ‘Of course, Linnear-san. You were so helpful to me last night. I want to be of as much assistance as I can.’

Nicholas was aware that Tōrin was baiting him, playing to his impatient occidental side. It was a common tactic by which canny Japanese most often trapped Westerners. He was certainly prepared to play this the Japanese way, but that did not mean he wouldn’t have some surprises for the younger man.

‘As you know, my absence from the office has put me at something of a disadvantage. I am going to have to rely on your reports to make certain I am fully briefed on Sato business.’

Tōrin nodded, a ghost of a smile playing across his pressed-together lips. ‘I am honored, Linnear-san. Though there is, doubtless, no replacement for your legendary firsthand impressions, I will endeavor to provide an inadequate substitute.’

Despite himself, Nicholas was impressed. Tōrin had managed to insult him in the guise of praising him. On the other hand, he did not like being chided for his absence, especially by Tōrin, who had no business rebuking anyone of superior status.