and abbreviation of perpetrator-had gotten away through the rear entrance, leaving a trail of Tamura’s blood in his wake; and that so far nobody in or out of the Yakuza claimed to know anything about the slaying. But maybe McFate had turned up something new, Logan said; he’d had a four o’clock appointment with a Japantown informant-which explained his absence from the Hall.
As for the two Japanese guys in Yamasaki’s white Ford, I had no proof they were Yakuza. And even if they were, they hadn’t tried to do anything to me or threatened me in any way. There was no statute on the books forbidding anybody from simply following anybody else around; they had as much right as I did to drive where they pleased. Unless they did hassle me, there wasn’t much the Department could do about them.
None of that made me happy. If I’d gotten it from Logan I was sure as hell going to get the same thing from McFate. Well, if the police wouldn’t pursue the medallion angle I saw no reason, as long as I was careful about it, why I shouldn’t. That was what Mrs. Gage was paying me for, after all.
I badly wanted another look at that photograph, and with Eberhardt’s support I might have been able to get permission from Logan. But McFate showed up just then and that put an end to the office bull session.
McFate didn’t have an office; all he had was a desk in one corner of the squadroom, under a window that looked out on the freeway approach to the Bay Bridge. But you’d have thought that corner was the Chief’s private sanctum, the way he held court. He told Eberhardt and me to pull up chairs and sit down, then stood over us so we’d have to look up at him. He was dressed in a sort of irridescent blue-gray suit today, with a pearl-colored shirt and a blue two-tone tie fastened by a pearl tack. The only thing that spoiled his elegant image was the scowl he wore on his face; he was not exactly overjoyed to see either of us.
“You’re looking spiffy as hell these days, Leo,” Eberhardt said. “The good life must be agreeing with you.”
“I have no complaints. And you, Eb?”
“I got complaints, but you wouldn’t be interested. You put on some weight, huh? You’re a little thicker around the gut since the last time I saw you.”
“I haven’t put on an ounce,” McFate said stiffly.
Eberhardt said, “Hunh. Must be the cut of your suit,” and got out his disreputable pipe and one of those little tamper things pipe-smokers carry. Either he liked McFate even less than I did, or it was just that he had no use in general for people who thought they were better than the rest of us. Whatever the reason, he had the needle out and honed sharp.
“I take it you’re not here on a social visit,” McFate said. He sounded annoyed now. “State your business. I have work to do.”
“I like the way you talk, Leo. ‘State your business.’ I like that.”
“Well?”
“The Tamura case,” Eberhardt said. He leaned over, scraping at his pipe bowl with the little tamper thing, and managed to dislodge ash and dottle onto McFate’s pristine desktop. When he tried to blow it off he succeeded in spreading it out over more of the surface.
McFate glared at him. “Can’t you be more careful with that pipe?”
“Sure, Leo. Sorry. But you know how it is with us old retired guys. We get a little clumsy sometimes.”
McFate had had enough of Eberhardt; he switched his attention to me. “What about the Tamura case?” he said. “Did you forget to tell me something?”
“No,” I said. “But some things have happened since last night.”
“Yes? What things?”
I told him about the two guys who’d been following me in Ken Yamasaki’s car. I told him about the medallion, and how I was sure Simon Tamura had been wearing one like it in the old photograph, and outlined my theory that Tamura’s death was somehow linked with Haruko Gage’s secret-admirer problems. I took the medallion out of my pocket and unwrapped it and showed it to him. And when I got all done he looked me in the eye and said, “Nonsense.”
I didn’t say anything. But Eberhardt said, “How come, Leo? You got to admit it’s possible.”
“Anything is possible,” McFate said. “But Simon Tamura’s murder was Yakuza-related-a simple, straightforward gang killing. I’m satisfied of that.”
“You are, huh? Why?”
“Because of certain facts that I’ve learned.”
“What facts?”
“I don’t think I ought to discuss them.”
“Come on, Leo. Who do you think we are? Spies for the Yakuza? Undercover Chronicle reporters?”
“I don’t find that funny,” McFate said.
“That’s because you got no sense of humor. What’re these facts you turned up?”
McFate stayed silent for ten seconds or so, with his scowl pulling his eyes and mouth down at the corners. Then, grudgingly, he said, “Tamura was in trouble with the local gang heirarchy. It appears he had been skimming off part of the take from his mizu shobai operation.”
“So you think the bosses put out a contract on him.”
“What amounts to a contract in the Yakuza, yes. My informant was surprised it took them this long to purge him.” He looked at me again. “Paid assassins don’t stop to steal medallions off the men they’ve murdered, and they certainly don’t send little mementos of their handiwork to women, anonymously or otherwise. They are not that sort of psychopathic personality.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But if you’re right about it being a contract hit, how do you explain those two guys following me around today?”
“In the first place, you don’t know they were kobun — ”
“What?” Eberhardt said. “What’s kobun, Leo?”
McFate sighed in a way that said he wished to God he didn’t have to suffer fools as well as knaves. “Low- level soldiers. Hired muscle.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And in the second place,” McFate said to me, “you don’t know that their reason for following you has anything to do with the Tamura homicide. It could be something else entirely.” He paused. “ Is there something you haven’t told me?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, then.”
“What about the medallion? I’m sure this one matches the one Tamura was wearing in that photograph.”
“And if it does? What does that prove? It’s probably a common enough Japanese trinket.”
“Haruko Gage says it isn’t.”
“She could be wrong, you know.”
“She could also be right. At least compare this medallion to the one in the photo.”
“I’ll say it again,” McFate said, as if he were talking to a contentious and not very bright kid. “Even if they match, what does it prove?”
“All right. So how about letting me compare them? For my own satisfaction.”
“I don’t see what purpose that would serve. Besides, you’ve wasted enough of my time already. I have work to do.”
Eberhardt stirred. He’d been loading up his pipe again and he was getting ready to light it. “Leo, for Christ’s sake unbend a little,” he said. “Let him look at the photograph. You had it brought in, didn’t you?”
“Of course I had it brought in.”
“And it’s back from the lab by now, right?”
“Yes. It’s in the Property Room. But I told you-”
“So you don’t even have to go along. Just call down and tell them we’re coming. It’s no big deal.”
McFate scowled as if it was.
“Come on, Leo,” Eberhardt said. “Be a mensch. ”
McFate was a mensch, if just barely. He said, “As a favor, then,” in reluctant tones and made the call.
When he hung up I asked him, “Are you satisfied that Ken Yamasaki isn’t involved in the homicide?”
“I’m satisfied he isn’t directly involved. Why?”
