Tengu (10 page)

Russo lifted
his pencil and pointed toward the back of the van. “What you got inside there,
Mr.

Yoshikazu?”

Yoshikazu
looked at Russo for a long time. “I don’t carry
nothing
,”
he said at last.

“Your rear end
is well down,” commented Russo.

“I get fixed.”

“Supposing it doesn’t need fixing, Mr. Yoshikazu?
Supposing you’re carrying something heavy in the back of this van?”

“I don’t carry
nothing
.”

“Well, why
don’t you open it up and let’s take a locfk?”

Yoshikazu
thought about that. He wiped sweat away from his upper lip with the back of his
hand. “I don’t think I want to open,” he said.

Russo put away
his pencil. “Mr. Yoshikazu, I have the legal right to demand that you open your
van. If you fail to do so, then I’m going to arrest you, and your van will be
impounded.”

“That’s not
possible,” said Yoshikazu. “This van is not mine. I have no entitlement to
open.”

Russo adjusted
his cap. The headband was sweaty.
“If you don’t open up this
van, Mr.

Yoshikazu, then
I’m going to open it up for you.”

“No!” shouted
Yoshikazu, with unexpected vehemence. “You not open! I don’t carry
nothing
!

You not open

At that moment,
Massey came up with his notebook in his hand. “You having trouble here?” he
asked.

“Guy refuses to
open the van,” said Russo. “What you got?”

Massey held up
the notebook. “It’s a legitimate vehicle, not reported as stolen or missing. It
belongs to the Florida office of the Willis Candy Corporation. Their head
office is in Century City.”

“You have candy
in there?” Russo asked Yoshikazu.

Yoshikazu
nodded. “Just gum. That’s all. Just five cases gum.”

“Good,” said
Russo. “In that case, you won’t mind us taking a look.”

There was a
tense silence. Yoshikazu looked at the police officers wide-eyed. Russo could
almost see the word desperation hovering over his head like a bubble in a
cartoon. Whatever Yoshikazu was carrying inside this van, he was scared
shitless about letting the police take a look at it.

“
It’s
better you don’t open,” said Yoshikazu breathlessly. “I
think I appeal to better nature.

Here–I pay you
money. You not open. Here–I pay you fifty dollars.”

“Keep your
hands in sight,” snapped Massey, as Yoshikazu reached inside his windbreaker
for his billfold. Yoshikazu paused, and then lifted his hands again. “It’s an
orfense to attempt to bribe a police officer,” said Russo.
“If
you carry on this way, Mr.

Yoshikazu,
you’re going to wind up doing three to five. Now, let’s cut the crap and open
this van up.”

At that
instant, there was a loud, hollow, metallic beating noise from inside the van.
Yoshikazu went pale. Russo frowned at Massey, and then demanded of Yoshikazu,
“What was that? What the hell have you got in there?”

“Waking up,”
babbled Yoshikazu. “That’s why I hurry. That’s why I run light.
Waking up.”

“Waking up?
What’s waking up?”

In reply, there
was another burst of ferocious knocking from inside the van. Someone or
something rattled and kicked at the doors, and thundered at the panels. Massey
held Russo’s arm and pointed to the side of the van. Bulges were appearing in
the sheet metal as if the van were being slugged from the inside with a
ten-pound hammer. In moments, the whole side of the vehicle was pimpled with
them.

Russo took out
his revolver.

“All right, Mr.
Yoshikazu, I want that van open.”

“I not do it!”

“I said open
it–and move

Yoshikazu
dropped to his knees on the concrete.

Russo ordered
Massey, “Go get the pump shotgun.” Massey ran back toward the patrol car, one
hand holding his hat on, as if all the dogs of hell were snapping at his heels.

Russo edged up
to the back of the van, his pistol raised, and cautiously put his ear to the
panel.

“Is there
anyone in there?” he shouted.

There was
silence.

“I said,
Is
there anyone in there?”

There was an
ear-splitting bang, and the door of the van was punched out into a huge bulge.
He jumped back and stood with his gun in both hands ready to fire. But the lock
on the van doors held, and whatever it was inside the van shuffled off toward
the front end. Russo could see the vehicle swaying as it made its way forward.

Massey came
panting back with the shotgun. Russo said, “Give me some cover. I’m going to
see if I can get those doors open.”

Massey asked,
“What is it in there?
Some kind of wild animal?”

“I’m not sure.
And Emperor Hirohito here isn’t about to tell us.”

“Maybe I should
call the zoo.”

“Maybe we should
just find out what the hell we’re dealing with. Did you ask for backup?”

“Sure,” said
Massey. “A couple of minutes, they said. There’s been a multiple pileup on the
Ventura Freeway.”

“Okay,” said
Russo, sweating. “Then let’s do it.”

Russo advanced
toward the doors again, his revolver held out in front of him. The van was
motionless, silent. Russo coughed. Behind him, Massey raised his gun and
clicked off the safety.

Russo reached
the van. He glanced sideways at Yoshikazu, but Yoshikazu was still on his knees
on the concrete, his face white and rigid. Russo waited for a short while, and
then tapped on the van doors with the butt of his gun.

Massey said
tightly, “It could have gone back to sleep again.”

Russo turned to
Yoshikazu. “That possible?” he asked.

Yoshikazu shook
his head.

“You have one
last chance to tell me what it is,” said Russo.

Yoshikazu
whispered, “You not open. I appeal to better nature. Easy thing, you let me go,
say nothing, forget.”

The Japanese
was shaking, and his face was jeweled with sweat.

Russo looked
back at Massey. “Now I’ve heard everything.”

Massey grinned.
“You have to admire his...”

The rear doors
of the van burst open with a devastating crash, and Russo was hurtled backward
across the concrete. Massey fired his shotgun out of nervous reaction, but his
shot went wide.

A short,
heavily built man in a glaring white mask swung from the back of the van and
threw himself on Russo. Russo felt as if a whole bag of cement had been dropped
on him from a second-floor window. He pressed the muzzle of his gun against the
man’s side and screamed,

“Get off, or
I’ll blow your guts out!” But the man seized Russo by the neck with mad,
unstoppable ferocity and began to twist.

Russo saw
scarlet.
Nothing but scarlet.
He didn’t know where he
was or what was happening. He fired his gun and felt the shock of the recoil
and the thump of the bullet entering his attacker’s body. But the pain didn’t
stop, and the viselike grip on his neck didn’t let up, and he dropped his
pistol–a numbness as agonizing and overwhelming as an electric shock stunned
his reflexes.

Massey fired
again, hitting the masked man in the muscle of the right shoulder. The shot
turfed up a bloody lump of flesh, but the man kept on wrenching wildly at
Russo’s prostrate body as if nothing had happened. Massey ran two or three
paces nearer, knelt down, aimed, and fired at pointblank range. There was a
deafening report, and he saw the yellow cotton of the man’s clothes scorch
black where the bullet entered his, side.

The masked man
lifted his head, turned, and hit out with a swing of his arm that sent Massey
sprawling. Massey knocked his head hard on the concrete, and for a moment he
was stunned.

The masked man
climbed to his feet, his clothes bloody and burned from the gunshots. He picked
up Russo as if he were a child, and carried him over to his patrol car.

The masked man
gripped Russo by his ankles and swung him around. Russo was choked and only
semiconscious, but he was still alive. He could feel the grip on his ankles,
and he could feel the world tilting and rushing around him as the man spun him
around like a flail. Then, with all of his terrible strength, the man gave
Russo a final swing and smashed him face first into the windshield of his
police car. Razor-sharp fragments of glass sliced the flesh away from Russo’s
cheeks and forehead, and a long sliver stabbed up into the soft skin under his
chin and penetrated his tongue.

Russo couldn’t
scream, or cry, or do anything. He was helpless in the grip of his maddened
killer. He could only close his eyes and hope that the pain would end.

The masked man
swung him back, out of the shattered windshield, and then around again. He beat
him against the police car’s hood, and against the headlights, and against the
grille, until the car was splattered with blood and jellyish brains, and Russo
was crushed and dead. Through the darkness of his concussion, Massey could hear
Russo’s death as a series of soft, hollow thumps.

The traffic on
the freeway passed by and didn’t stop. But this was one time when you couldn’t
blame anybody. There was too much blood.
Too much horror.
And the sight of a mangled policeman with a head that was nothing more than a
smashed watermelon, sliding off the hood of his wrecked car, well, that was
reason enough to step on the gas pedal and keep going, trembling, until you
reached home in Pasadena.

The masked man
turned toward Massey. His breath came in deep, distinct whines. Massey opened
his eyes and saw the man standing over him, and he tried to think where his
shotgun was, and whether it was even worth struggling. He felt a moment of
utter helplessness and fear.

But then the
masked man turned away.
Unsteadily, uncertainly, as if the
pistol bullet and the two shotgun bullets had hurt him at last.
He stood
by the side of the freeway, rocking on his heels, and then promptly sat down.
After another few seconds, he collapsed.

Massey tried to
stand up. He had managed to lift himself onto all fours when Yoshikazu came
around the van; he had been hiding on its other side. Yoshikazu raised a
warning finger, instructing Massey to stay where he was. Then, with great
difficulty, he gripped the masked man under the arms and began to drag him
across the concrete back toward the van.

Massey watched
Yoshikazu for a while. Then he crawled toward his shotgun, picked it up, pumped
another round into the chamber, and knelt on the ground, pointing the gun at
Yoshikazu’s back.

“Don’t you make
another move,” he said.

Yoshikazu
turned. “I have to put him back in van. He could revive.”

“You heard me,”
said Massey.

A green
Plymouth station wagon slowed down beside the police car, but when the driver
saw the blood, and the gun, and Yoshikazu laying the short man down on the
concrete, he took off with a shriek of tires.

Massey said,
“Stand up slowly and put your hands on top of your head.”

Yoshikazu began
to raise his hands. But then, quite suddenly, he dropped to the ground and
rolled behind the body of the masked man, using him for cover. Massy fired
twice. His first bullet hit the short man in the
leg,
the second ricocheted off the concrete.

Yoshikazu
tugged an automatic out of his windbreaker and fired back. The bullet hit
Massey in the side of the head, in an extravagant spray of blood. He reeled on
his knees and then toppled face first onto the ground.

Yoshikazu
scrambled to his feet. His teeth were clenched with tension and fear. He humped
the bleeding body of the masked man back up to the van and succeeded in
dragging him inside. He wedged the doors together, even though they were
twisted, and prayed to the gods of fortune that they would hold. Then he ran
forward to the open door of the driving cab and climbed in.

Within fifteen
seconds, he was off.

In the
distance, from the Ventura Freeway, came the howl of sirens as the California
Highway Patrol came to answer Massey’s backup call. Phil Massey lay on his race
on the concrete and watched his own dark blood trickling into the dust. A few
feet away, Ed Russo-4ay on his back, his hands stiffly clenched in front of his
chest, his face already beaded with flies.

I
t was almost
sunset
. In his suite at the
Los Angeles Bonaventure Hotel, Gerard Crowley was sitting in a Chinese silk
bathrobe smoking a long Havana cigar and watching the CBS News. The suite was
suffused with dying golden sunlight; on the double bed, naked, Francesca was
stretched out asleep, exactly as he had left her. There was a plum-colored love
bite on the side of her neck.

Gerard kept the
cigar clenched between his teeth and smoked steadily, as if the cigar were an
aqualung, essential to his survival. He always smoked that way. Once he lit a
cigar, he puffed it furiously down to a finish and then stubbed it out. He
treated his friends and his lovers in the same way. The only exception, ever,
had been Evie.

On the
television, a frowning commentator was saying, “... throughout the Tennessee
Valley area, and caused widespread damage to homes, shopping centers, and
factories. . .”

Gerard testily
blew out smoke. On the rear bumper of his car was a sticker which read God
Bless America...
 
She Needs It. That was
more than slightly ironic, considering what he was getting into now. But
Gerard’s life had always been haunted by religion, and by irony.

He thought
about the pain and the hard work that had finally brought him to this
thick-carpeted suite. He thought about Evie. He turned his head and looked at
Francesca, at her unconsciously parted thighs, and he thought about her too.