He came over to the desk, looked in what was left of the carton of squid, then the carton of rice. 'Any meat in this?'
I shook my head. Pike had turned vegetarian about four months ago.
He dumped what was left of the squid into the rice, took a set of chopsticks, sat in one of the director's chairs, and ate. Southeast Asians almost never use chopsticks. If you go to Vietnam or Thailand or Cambodia, you never see a chopstick. Even in the boonies. They use forks and large spoons but when they come here and open a little restaurant they put out chopsticks because that's what Americans expect. Ain't life a bitch?
I said, 'There's chili paste.'
Pike shook what was left of the chili paste into the rice, stirred it, continued to eat.
'There's another Modelo in the box.'
He shook his head.
'How long since you've come to the office?'
Shrug.
'Must be four, five months.' There was a door to an adjoining office that belonged to Pike. He never used it and didn't bother to glance at it now. He shoveled in rice and broccoli and peas, chewed, swallowed.
I sipped the last of the Modelo, then dropped the empty into the waste basket. 'I was just kidding,' I said. 'That's really pork-fried rice.'
Pike said, 'I don't like losing the girl.'
I took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. The office was quiet and still. Only the eyes in the Pinocchio clock moved. 'Maybe, whatever reason, Warren wanted the Hagakure stolen and wants people to know and also wants them to know that he's had a child kidnapped because of his efforts to recover it. Maybe he's looking for a certain image here, figuring he can make a big deal out of recovering the book and his daughter. That sound like Bradley to you?'
Pike got up, went to the little refrigerator, and took out a can of tomato juice. 'Maybe,' he said. 'Maybe it's the other way. Maybe somebody wants Warren to look bad and they don't give a damn about the book just so they stir up as much publicity as they can. Maybe what they want is to make the big Japanese connections lose interest. Or maybe they just want to hurt him. Maybe he owes money.'
'A lot of maybes,' I said.
Pike nodded. 'Maybe is a weak word.'
I said, 'Maybe it's the yakuza.'
Pike shook the little can of tomato juice and peeled off the foil sealer tab and drank. A tiny drop ran down from the corner of his mouth. It looked like blood. He wiped it away with a napkin. 'We could sit here maybe all night and the girl's still gone.'
I got up and went to the glass doors and opened them. Traffic noise was loud but the evening air was beginning to cool. 'I don't like losing her either. I don't like getting fired and told to forget it. I don't like it that she's out there and in trouble and we're not in it anymore.'
Mirrored lenses caught the setting sun. The sun made the lenses glow.
'I think we should stay in,' I said.
Pike tossed the little can on top of the empty Modelo bottles.
'We stay with the yakuza because they're what we have,' I said. 'Forget the other stuff. We push until someone pushes back and then we see where we are.'
'All we have to do is find the yakuza.'
'Right. All we have to do is find the yakuza.'
Pike's mouth twitched. 'We can do that.'
Chapter 15
Nobu Ishida had lived in an older split-level house on a Leave-It-to-Beaver street in Cheviot Hills, a couple of miles south of the Twentieth Century-Fox lot. It was dark, just after nine when we rolled past his home, rounded the block, and parked at the curb fifty yards up the street. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked.
The house was brick and board and painted a light, bright color you couldn't make out at night. Ishida's Eldorado was in the drive, with a tiny, two-tone Merkur behind it. There was an enormous plate glass picture window to the left of the front door, ideal for revealing the house's brightly lit interior. A woman in her fifties passed by the window talking to a young man in his twenties. Both the woman and the man looked sad. Mrs. Ishida and a son. With Dad not yet cold in the grave, there was plenty to be sad about.
Pike said, 'Me or you?'
'Me.'
I got out of the car as if I were out for an evening stroll. A block and a half down, I turned, came back, slipped off the walk into the shadows, and went to the west side of the Ishida house. There were two frame windows off what looked like a bedroom. The bedroom was dark. Past the windows, there was a redwood gate with a neatly painted sign that said BEWARE OF DOG. I whistled softly through my teeth, then broke off a hedge branch and brushed it against the inside of the gate. No dog. I slipped back to the street, then followed a hedgerow to the east side of the house. The garage was on that side, locked tight and windowless, with a narrow chain link gate leading to the back yard. I eased open the gate and walked along the side of the house to a little window about midway down. A young woman in a print dress sat at the dining room table, holding a baby. She touched her nose to the baby's and smiled. The baby smiled back. Not exactly a yakuza stronghold.
I went back to the car. Pike sad, 'Just family, right?'
'Or clever impersonators.'
Forty minutes later the front door opened and the young man and the woman with the baby came out. The young man had a pink carry-bag with teddy bears on the side, probably stuffed with Pampers and baby bottles and teething rattles and Bert and Ernie dolls. Mrs. Ishida kissed everyone good-bye and watched them walk out to the little Merkur and waved as they drove away. 'You see that?' I said.
Pike nodded.
'Classic yakuza misdirection.'
Pike said, 'You're a pip on stakeout.'
Just before midnight, an L.A.P.D. prowl car turned the corner and cruised the block, arcing its big spot over the houses to scare away burglars and peepers. At one-twenty, two men jogged down the middle of the street, one white, one black, breathing in unison, matching strides. By three, I was stiff and hungry. Pike had not moved. Maybe he was dead. 'You awake?'
'If you're tired, go to sleep.'
Some partner.
At twenty-five minutes after five, an Alta-Dena milk truck rolled down the street and made four stops. By six- oh-five, the sky in the east was starting to pinken, and lights were on in two houses down the block. At fourteen minutes after eight o'clock, after jobs had been gone to and children had been brought to school and lives had been put under way, Nobu Ishida's widow came out of her house carrying a Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag and wearing a black suit. She locked the door, walked to the Eldorado, got in, and drove away.
I said, 'Let's do it.'
We climbed out of the Corvette, went through the little chain link gate next to the garage, then around to the back. There was a standard frame door off the kitchen, and French doors opening off the family room to a small, kidney-shaped swimming pool. We went in through the French doors.
Pike said, 'I'll take the back of the house.'
'Okay.'
He disappeared down the hall without making a sound.
The family room was a nice-sized space with Early American furniture and pictures of the kids and a Zenith console color TV and absolutely nothing to indicate that Nobu Ishida had an interest in feudal Japanese artifacts.
