He nodded again. ‘Crosed up.’
‘Crosed up?’
He pantomimed closing a door and locking it.
‘Oh, closed up. For the night? Uh. .. nasai?’
The tattooed man shook his head. ‘Alee time.’
‘Forever? For good?’
‘Hai.’
Great, Gunn. Down an alley in the middle of Shit City, Japan, and the store’s closed. Any other bright ideas?
‘Domo arigato,’ she said, with a tiny bow.
‘Do itashimashite,’ he answered.
She went back outside and walked to the doorway beside the tattoo parlour. There was a red sign beside the door with gold letters, but it was in calligraphy. A light gleamed feebly inside. She tried the door. It was open. She cracked it a few inches and stuck her face up to the opening.
‘Hello? Whoever you are? Are you there?’
She pushed it open a little more and went in. There was a small anteroom followed by a flight of stairs. Nobody had used this building for a very long time; refuse littered the anteroom and the steps. She walked to the head of the steps and yelled down: ‘Hello! Anybody there?’
Still nothing. Another weak lamp glimmered on the end of a cord hanging from the ceiling at the foot of the staircase.
Well, the note said to go down to the pier on the first floor. Let’s do it, Gunn.
She started down the stairs.
Across the street, the man with the little ears stepped from a doorway. He had watched her get out and enter the tattoo shop. Now the cab driver was watching the building she had entered. He would be a nuisance. Little Ears strolled across the alley and approached the taxi from the driver’s rear. As he got to the window, the driver turned and looked up at him. Little Ears struck him with his right hand, a short, straight blow with the fingertips, just below the ear. The cab driver’s head jerked against the headrest, and his mouth fell open. A moment later, he crumpled in the seat.
Little Ears approached the building cautiously. The window in the front door was haloed with dust. He made a small circle with his hand and looked in. The Gunn woman was at the foot of the steps. She turned into a hallway and went out of view. Little Ears quietly entered the building.
The place was scary. Eliza found herself in a long grim narrow hallway. At the far end she could see a door hanging awkwardly from its hinges, and beyond it, the bay. A foghorn bleated far off in the darkness someplace and was answered by another, from even farther away.
She walked about halfway down the hail and stopped. There were sounds all around her: water slapping at pilings; the creaking of old wood; and somewhere in front of her in the darkness, a rat, squealing and skittering across the floor. Squinting down into the darkness, she said to herself, You’re not walking down there, Gunn. There is no way you are going one step farther.
‘Hello?’
Nothing.
I’m not going another inch. I don’t think this is funny at
A door opened at the far end of the corridor and yellow light flickered on the floor. She walked a little closer. The sounds surrounded her now. The stairs behind her, creaking with age; the dock, groaning with the tide.
She was nearly at the doorway when a hand grabbed her from behind. It squeezed her mouth shut. She felt cold metal against her throat. She tried to scream, but it was impossible. Breath, foul with garlic, was hot against her cheek.
‘Easy, lady,’ a voice said in her ear. ‘We’re gonna do us a little fishing.’
She jerked her head up sharply and the hand slipped away from her mouth and she bit it. Hard. And kept biting until she tasted blood in her mouth. The man screamed and she whirled away from him. Another grabbed her in the darkness and spun her into the room. She was caught in a kaleidoscope of movement, images and voices: a new voice in her ear saying, ‘Don’t worry, you are okay’; a table in the middle of the room with a candle, set in a pool of its own wax, burning at one corner; another man standing between her and the candlelight; a towering, frightening silhouette in a thick fur jacket; black shaggy hair; a black full beard. And those eyes, peering from the dark, shapeless face; cold gray eyes looking right through her; the big man charging past her, swinging through the doorway in a crouch.
Little Ears was backed against the wall, his bleeding hand in his mouth, his face bunched up with anger. He hadn’t expected the big man. As he turned, the big man’s foot swept in a wide arc and shattered Little Ears’ wrist bone. The gun, a police special, spun out of his hand, flew across the hallway and stuck in the plaster wall, muzzle first, its stock and chamber protruding out into the hail.
Little Ears swung his hands up in a classic karate position and leaped toward the pistol, but before he could complete the move, his attacker twisted sideways and lashed out with his left leg. He missed, but the move distracted Little Ears and the big man whirled and caught him deep in the gut with the heel of his other foot. Breath whooshed out of Little Ears like air from a punctured balloon. His face turned red with pain and he jack-knifed forward, clutching his stomach. The big man twisted him around with one hand and slammed him in the middle of the back with the palm of the other.
Little Ears flew across the hallway, almost tiptoeing, trying vainly to regain his footing. His arm smashed through the cracked pane of the door, hanging at the entrance to the dock, was caught there for a moment and then the door tore loose and he sprawled headlong onto the dock in a shower of broken glass and curse words. The old dock creaked under his weight. He rolled fast, got his feet under him and jumped into a crouch, but the big man in the fur jacket was all over him. He grabbed Little Ear’s wrist, twisted hard, stepped in close and flipped him in a
