Japantown Page 5

  As the top real estate developer in Europe for the last two decades, Bertrand had a net worth north of three billion dollars. His architecture and development firm had project billings of $800 million for the next fiscal year. He owned homes in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Dubai, and Florence. He mingled with the elite and as a favor designed their summer homes on the Riviera.

  The Riviera—that was the problem.

  Castore coveted Bertrand’s latest coup. The greedy Spaniard had offered him twice the purchase price for the half-mile stretch along the Italian coast, then plan-B’ed him with a proposal for a joint partnership. Bertrand had refused both offers and in an instant knew he’d made an enemy for life. But the Italian find was too precious to forfeit even a sliver of its worth—it was Europe’s next Riviera in the making. When the property came on the market, Bertrand saw the potential in an instant, as did Castore a week later. After Bertrand had refused Castore’s offer of a joint partnership, the whites of Castore’s dark, calculating eyes seemed to flash red with anger.

  Shaking off the memory, Bertrand went through a series of breathing exercises to expand his lungs, then dove into the crystal-clear waters. He sluiced fifteen feet down through the brine before arching up to the surface.

  He relished his midnight swims. On the cobalt sea, the world seemed endless, the possibilities infinite. When he returned to France, he would crush that scheming Spanish rodent, and he knew exactly how. It was not his style to be so vulgar or ruthless, but instinct told him Castore was the exception that proved the rule.

  As a feeling of satisfaction overtook him and he smiled to himself, powerful arms encircled his waist and then vanished, leaving in their wake a strange heaviness at his hips.

  Had he really felt arms around him? In the Tyrrhenian at midnight?

  Unexpectedly, his head slipped underwater and he began to sink. He stretched for the surface, managing to snatch a mouthful of air before being drawn under again by an inexplicable weight.

  His hands went to his waist and what he found shocked him. Strapped to his midsection was a diver’s belt loaded with weights for a man twice his size. He clawed at the buckle and pulled. Nothing. His eyes bulged in surprise.

  In a pinch, Bertrand could hold his breath for as long as three minutes. He had that much time, minus what—the five seconds he’d just lost? His fingers scrambled over the buckle. The belt had been modified to include a lock and a slot for a key.

  Ten seconds.

  Bertrand had never seen such a belt. Diver safety required instant release. This was a custom-made death trap. He was now ten feet below the surface and sinking fast. His ears popped. He stretched his jaw to relieve the pressure.

  Twenty seconds.

  Don’t panic, he told himself. There’s always a way out. The cove, he knew, was thirty feet deep, no more.

  Thirty seconds.

  Get to the bottom, a voice in his head advised. You know what to do. He brought his knees to his chest, tucked, rolled, and swam downward. The bluish-gray light of the moon washed over the grainy ocean floor. The extra weight at his waist worked in his favor, accelerating his descent and saving him precious seconds. Bertrand moved along the bottom until he found what he sought.

  Fifty seconds.

  Obsidian peppered the sandy floor of the cove. As a builder, Bertrand knew his geology.

  He grabbed a specimen the size of his fist, found a sharp edge, and began sawing the swatch of nylon near the buckle. The material was stringy, maybe an eighth of an inch thick, but it frayed easily under his volcanic razor.

  Seventy seconds.

  The work went quickly. He reached the halfway point.

  Ninety seconds.

  Maybe he could rip the material now, save a few seconds. He tucked the rock under his arm and tugged—the material resisted. He tugged again. Again, resistance—and then disaster. The abruptness of his movement jarred the rock loose from its nesting place under his arm and he watched in horror as it drifted lazily to the bottom.

  One minute, forty.

  Bertrand scrambled to retrieve his tool and set to work again.

  Two minutes.

  He should have stayed with what was working. Fool! Wasting valuable time!

  Calm down. Focus.

  He stilled his doubts and began sawing again.

  A shadow passed overhead. A milk shark, he thought. Suppressing the urge to flee, he stayed intent on his task.

  Two minutes, twenty.

  He was nearly done. His chest began to ache. Focus, focus. Another half inch. He could feel the weight begin to sag off his hips, listing toward the bottom.

  There! The last thread snapped and the belt fell away.

  Two minutes, forty.

  He crouched, paddling in reverse to force himself closer to the ocean floor, then launched himself off the hard sand with a powerful thrust, rocketing upward.

  His lungs were burning now. He wanted to draw a breath. He was twenty feet from the surface.

  Two minutes, fifty.

  He began to choke. His mouth opened.

  No!

  Drawing on the steely willpower that had fueled his rise to the top of his field, he clamped his jaw shut, but immediately the physical necessity to open his mouth overrode his internal command. He swallowed water.

  Ten feet.

  His chest heaved from the lack of oxygen and his body snorted more water in through his nose.

  No!

  Five feet.

  Salt water coursed through his nasal passages and he felt the sting of foreign liquid entering his system.

  He broke the surface, coughed up seawater, then vomited. Once, twice, three times.

  His lungs purged, he released a triumphant shout into the moonlit night and the echo rolled over the gentle Mediterranean swells into the distance. Air, fresh air! He had never come so close!

  Then strong fingers grabbed his ankle and pulled him under.

  He kicked but the grip held.

  His head was three feet below the surface.

  A second belt snaked around his waist.

  Oh God, no!

  He kicked, but his strength had been siphoned off by the exertions of his first escape. He needed oxygen to fuel his efforts, and he’d been dragged under at the exhale. His lungs were empty. His chest ached to draw in air. Salt water seeped in. He tried to expel the invading fluid, but there was no air pressure left in his lungs. More water shot down his throat. He gagged and kicked violently. The belt dragged him steadily downward. His lungs began to fill.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement and turned his head. A diver! And behind the mask a curiously passive Asian face.

  Sinking lower, he clawed desperately for the surface, his arms swinging wildly. He thrust powerfully with his muscled legs and was propelled upward. His fingertips touched air, then he felt a cool sensation near his lower ribs as his lung sacs were swamped with seawater. He lost muscle control, and when the sea brine hit his brain, he lost consciousness.

  He stopped struggling, and slowly, drifting with the languid motion of the sea, his corpse sank to the bottom of the cove.

  Out of the dark waters, a black shadow in a wetsuit and diving gear glided over, inserted a key into the belt, and released the weights. Bertrand’s body began to rise. A minute later it bobbed to the surface while below a second diver swooped along the bottom of the cove and scooped up the other belt.

  Twin bubble trails rose behind the divers as they swam away with the only evidence of murder.

  CHAPTER 10

  EVEN with the news blackout, he found me.

  After lunch I had locked myself in the office to nail down the purchase of the seventeenth-century Buddhist temple statues. But before I could lift the receiver, Abers rapped on the door. “You’re up, mate,” he said, and strolled away. Usually that meant one of my regulars was asking for me.

  I wobbled to the front of the shop and froze.

  Disbelief clutched my chest.

  Standing at a
glass counter and fingering a sixteenth-century Japanese sword guard was Katsuyuki Hara, renegade Tokyo communications mogul and poster boy for the new Japan. He’d broken all the rules and still prospered, in the process becoming a local hero. He was the nail that couldn’t be hammered down, the exception to a strict social code that preferred conformity and discouraged independence. As a barrier-breaking rebel, he became a public figure revered for the hope he inspired in young entrepreneurs even as he headed for the financial stratosphere. As a newly minted billionaire, he groomed himself accordingly: face tanned, skin lotioned, hands manicured. He wore an expensive French suit of charcoal gray with a faint maroon line, the kind of item ordered from Benz-owning tailors who pulled down six-figure incomes.

  The choking feeling in my chest was not because the mogul stood in my parlor but because there was no plausible reason for him to pass through my front door. He’d obviously taken a wrong turn. Yes, he collected art, but on a higher plane. If memory served, he’d last been spotted at the Christie’s auction in New York, where he bought a Hockney and a Pollock.

  I said, “Can I help you?”

  Sharp eyes scanned me from head to foot. “Are you Jim Brodie? Jake Brodie’s son?”

  That explained it. He knew my father. Or his work.

  “Yes.”

  Off the mogul’s left flank stood the Great Wall of China, an Asian bodyguard of Chinese or Korean descent with expansive shoulders and hair cropped to bristles in a style you don’t see much in Japan anymore outside military schools and martial arts clubs. His face was round and meaty. Cheekbones pushed his flesh to the sides and made him look like an overfed Buddha. The muscles across his chest and down his arms weren’t overfed, though. They stretched his brown knit shirt to the limit and spoke of strength and speed.

  Hara glanced around the shop with disapproval. “Not at all what I expected. Is it perhaps an older brother who took over Brodie Security? Or a relative?”

  His English was flawless.

  “Nope. Just me. You’ve got the right Brodie and the right place.”

  I’d listed Brodie Antiques on the agency’s website and in the phone book as the stateside contact for Brodie Security. Embedded in the wall alongside the front door was a brass plaque that announced our presence with discretion: Brodie Security—Inquire Within, which riled Abers no end.

  Narrowing his eyes, Hara raised the sword guard. “Tell me about the tsuba.”

  The object in question was disc-shaped and about three inches across, with an elongated triangular slit at the center to accept the tang of a sword. Because sword guards formed a pivotal part of the samurai’s most important possession—his symbolic soul—some of them had been decorated with silver, gold, lacquer, hammered smithery, cloisonné, and inlay work by the finest craftsmen in the land. Today, collectors around the world sought out the best pieces.

  “That particular tsuba is from the late fifteen hundreds and belonged to a Tokyo family that can trace its lineage back to a samurai ancestor who served Lord Hideyoshi.”

  Hara nodded. “Impressive. And the motif?”

  The front side of the guard showed two wild geese in flight; the reverse side showed the same pair, one soaring free, the other plummeting earthward, perhaps weakened by its attempt to crest a pagoda in the background, or perhaps wounded by a hunter.

  “The motif sets off the hazards of warfare against the Zen belief in the impermanence of life.”

  “At least you know your art,” the mogul said flatly, replacing the piece in the case. “How are you on the investigative side of things?”

  Outside on the street, a jet-black Silver Shadow limousine idled at the curb. A chauffeur, capped and immaculate, swept a long-handled feather duster back and forth across a spotless hood that gleamed in the afternoon sun.

  I said, “Why don’t you step in the back? We can talk there.”

  I ushered him into the conference room adjoining my office. With its beige carpet, coffee-colored leather chairs, and walnut table, it was a class act. The table was an early-eighteenth-century William and Mary that I picked up at an estate auction. A Charles Burchfield watercolor hung on a pastel gray wall. Burchfield was a talented but underappreciated mid-twentieth-century American master. We got along just fine.

  Hara took a seat and the Great Wall angled his shoulders into the room. The next instant, Abers appeared with coffee, set it down, then eased the door shut, giving me a thumbs-down behind the mogul’s back as he closed us in.

  Hara crossed his legs. I remained standing, an eye on the Wall.

  Hara scanned the room. “Ano e mo warukanai kedo . . .” The painting’s not bad either, but . .

  I dropped my head in a modest bow. “It’s adequate,” I replied in his native tongue with the proper tone of self-deprecation.

  Hara was a handsome man in his mid-fifties, his picture often in the news. In person, he had the same square chin, the same glowing tan, the same piercing eyes. What was different was the shock of white hair combed up and back. The stills in Fortune, Time, and Asia Today showed him with a black mane graying with dignity around the edges.

  “Do you handle any work here?”

  I decided he wasn’t talking about the art.

  “I run stateside security jobs out of this office, but Tokyo is still the main liaison for the agency. I hire local expertise as needed, or bring people over from Tokyo.”

  The Wall had spread his legs, squared his chin, and clasped his hands behind his back. At parade rest, while the general spoke to the flunky.

  I jerked my chin at the watchdog. “Isn’t he kind of big for a pet?”

  Hara smiled without merriment. “Are you any good at what you do?”

  “Some people think so.”

  “You were involved in the recovery of the recent Rikyu, were you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Impressive, but in the end that’s only art. Are you as good as your father was?”

  What was I supposed to say to that? I shrugged. “I know how to get in and out of trouble.”

  In truth, I doubted I could measure up to Jake’s legendary talents. Several people had lost their lives over the Rikyu and I came close to losing mine. At Brodie Security the vote was still out.

  “That tells us you’re clever. But are you tough?”

  “Enough.”

  Hara moved his chin maybe half a millimeter, and the Great Wall charged.

  Anticipating the move, I preempted his attack, brushing his rising hands away with a forearm sweep and plowing the heel of my other hand into his nose but pulling back enough to keep the breathing apparatus from turning to pulp. Anything less and he would have trampled me. The Wall staggered sideways and grabbed for his face. I connected with a knee kick to the stomach, eschewing the more damaging targets above and below. He went down, but it was all I could do to keep from screaming at the intense pain that streaked down my leg. From beneath the bandage, I felt skin tear and blood trickle. In the heat of the attack, instinct had overridden caution and the knife wound had slipped my mind.

  Now I was going to need stitches.

  CHAPTER 11

  HARA stared at the immobile form at his feet.

  I said, “A little less bulk, he’d make a nice doormat.”

  The businessman raised his eyes to mine, his expression empty of mirth, anger, or any other emotion. “The Sony people recommended your firm. Highly. I guess it hasn’t slipped any.”

  “Guess not.”

  Jake had roped in high-profile clients like Sony and Toyota, and they stayed on after his death. Name clients allowed me to keep my father’s loyal staff gainfully employed, but the problem was, VIP security took a lot of bodies, and each one required a salary. And a raise. And had growing families. Keeping the enterprise going was an uphill battle, but one I felt I owed Jake.

  The Wall groaned.

  I said, “Tell your boy to stay on the floor and play carpet until we’re done.”

  “Surely that won’t be necessary
. You’ve amply demonstrated what I wished to know.” The magnate’s eyelids slipped to half-mast. “By the way, my name’s Katsuyuki Hara.”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Do you?”

  “CompTel Nippon. From making computerized toys in a garage in Shibaura to electronics to chips to factories in Southeast Asia, Europe, and China. Then radio, TV, cable stations, a couple of publishing houses, and one of the first Japanese to jump on the information superhighway bandwagon. Fiber optics, wireless, telecommunications. On and on. A lone-wolf innovator in a flock of consensus-driven companies. Golden touch, never a wrong move. Except maybe in selecting bodyguards.”

  He grunted. There may or may not have been some pleasure in the noise. “Tell me, Mr. Brodie, do your dual occupations of antiques dealer and PI mesh?”

  Skepticism tinged his tone, as if the two professions were mutually exclusive.

  “They both require scrappers,” I said.

  “You know why I’m here?”

  “No, and frankly, I can’t see any reason why you would be.”

  “You saw my family.”

  I didn’t understand him, so I let the words hang. The silence between us grew dark and heavy.

  “Last night. On the pavement.” Five words, and he had trouble with each. His voice was fresh and controlled, but the pain was fresh, too, and less controlled.

  “The Nakamuras?”

  “That’s right. My eldest daughter’s married name.”

  Japantown. The mother.

  “I see,” I said. “I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry.”

  Once more I saw the woman’s death mask and what I imagined must have been a tormented end to her life. For the briefest instant I wondered about Mieko’s final moment. Had a madman come for her in the night? Had she seen him? Had she known her fate in the seconds before the flames consumed her?

  “I want you to find him, Mr. Brodie. The person or persons responsible.”

  “Me?”

  “You. Your agency. I want him found and exterminated. Like the cockroach that he is. If it were physically possible, I would ask you to kill him twice, very slowly. I will pay you well in any currency you wish and deposit the funds anywhere in the world you desire.”