Stalking The Angel

The kitchen was all steel and white with a high industrial ceiling. It was hot, even with the kitchen's blowers going at top speed. There was a narrow hall at the right rear of the kitchen with a door that said OFFICE. On the left, there was another little hall with a pay phone and a sign that said RESTROOMS. I passed a woman carrying a tray of pot sticker dumplings and went into the men's room.

It was small and white, with one stall for the toilet and one urinal and one sink and one of those blowers that never get your hands dry and a smudged sign above the sink that said that employees MUST wash with soap. The grad student was standing at a urinal. He looked over and saw it was me and you would've thought I'd kicked him in the groin. I gave him the smile, then I threw the little bolt that locked the door. He said, 'You'd better not touch me.'

I said, 'Is this place owned by the yakuza?'

Scared. Very scared. 'Open the door. Come on.'

'I'll open the door after we talk.'

He zipped up and moved away from the urinal. His mouth was working like maybe he'd cry, like he'd spent a lot of time thinking that something like this would happen one day and now it was. Malcolm Denning. I said, 'The shit is about to hit the fan, boy. Do you know what the yakuza is?'

He shook his head.

I said, 'Did you know a man named Nobu Ishida?'

He shook his head again and I slapped him in the center of the chest with an open right hand. It made a deep hollow thump and knocked him back and frightened him more than hurt him. I said, 'Do not bullshit me. Nobu Ishida was in here three times a week for three months. He spent big and he tipped big and you know him.'

Someone tried the door, then knocked. I opened my jacket to show the Dan Wesson to the kid and said, 'Occupied. Out in a minute.' The kid's eyes were big, and his mouth opened and closed like a fish. Koi. He said, 'I didn't know him. He was a customer.'

'But you know the name.'

'Yes, sir.' Yes, sir.

I said, 'Nobu Ishida was a member of the yakuza. Every two weeks he was here with other people and those people were probably in the yakuza, too. A girl named Mimi Warren has been kidnapped, maybe by the yakuza, and maybe by someone who knew Ishida. I want their names.'

The kid looked up from the place under my jacket where the Dan Wesson lived. 'Mimi was kidnapped?'

I looked at him. 'You know Mimi Warren?'

He nodded. 'She comes here sometimes.'

'Here?'

'With her friends.'

'Friends?' Witness interrogation had always been a strong point.

'A girl named Carol. Another girl named Kerri. I really didn't know them. They're around, you see them, you say hi. They'd come and dance and hang out. We get pretty good bands.' He was looking past me at the door. Like maybe somebody was going to kick it in. 'I don't know anything about a kidnapping. I swear I don't. They're going to miss me and come looking. I'll get in trouble.'

'Tell me about Ishida.'

The kid spread his hands. Helpless. 'There were always three other men. The only one I know was Mr. Torobuni. He owns the place. Please.' Terry Ito had said that Yuki Torobuni runs the L.A. yakuza.

I opened the door and let the kid out. A pink-faced guy in a nice Ross Hobbs suit gave me a helluva look when I walked out after the kid.

Mimi Warren? Here?

When I got back to the bar, three men were waiting at the table with Joe Pike. There was an older guy with a lot of loose skin and a cheap sharkskin coat over an orange shirt, and a very short guy with two fingers off his left hand and the sort of baleful stare you get when life's a mystery. There was also a tall kid with too many muscles in a three-quarter-sleeve pullover. Eddie Tang. He grinned at me. 'What do ya know. It's Mickey Spillane.'

Pike's mouth twitched. 'You missed all the fun,' he said. 'While you were out, somebody phoned for reinforcements.'

Chapter 17

The older man in the cheap sharkskin looked at Eddie. 'You know this one?' No accent.

Eddie nodded. 'He came into Ishida's.'

I said, 'Wow, Eddie. Last week you're working for Nobu Ishida, then Ishida gets osterized, and now you're working for Yuki Torobuni. You're really on the rise.'

Yuki Torobuni said, 'How do you know who I am?'

'You're either Torobuni or Fu Manchu.'

Torobuni dipped his chin at Eddie. 'Let's go in the back.'

Torobuni moved past me and went down the steps toward the kitchen. The midget swaggered after him the way midgets will. Pike and I went next, and Eddie trailed behind. The Butterfly Lady watched us go, lean hips moving to The Smiths, little butterfly dancing. Nice moves.

Eddie said, 'You like that, huh?'

Some guys.

When we got into the kitchen, Yuki Torobuni leaned against a steel table and said, 'Eddie.' Everything was Eddie. Maybe the midget was a moron.

Eddie moved to pat Pike down. Pike pushed Eddie's hand away from his body. 'No.'

The midget took out a Browning.45 automatic about eighteen sizes too big for him. The smell of sesame oil and tahini and mint was strong and the kitchen help was careful not to look our way.

Eddie and Pike were just about the same height but Eddie was heavier and his shoulders sloped more because of the insanely developed trapezius muscles. Eddie sneered at Pike's red arrows. 'Those are shit tattoos.'

Torobuni made a little forget-it gesture with his left hand. 'Let's not waste our time.' He looked at me. 'What do you want?'

'I want a sixteen-year-old girl named Mimi Warren.'

Eddie Tang laughed. Torobuni smiled at Eddie, then shook his head and gave me bored. 'So what?'

'Maybe you have her.'

Torobuni said, 'Boy, I never heard of this girl. What is she, a princess, some kind of movie star?' Eddie thought that was a riot.

I said, 'Something called the Hagakure was stolen from her parents, and whoever got it kidnapped the girl to stop the search. It's a good bet that whoever wanted the Hagakure is also in the yakuza. Maybe that's you.'

Torobuni's face darkened. He barked out a couple of words of Japanese and Eddie stopped laughing. 'Whoever stole the Hagakure kidnaps the girl to stop you looking for it?'

'That's the way it looks.'

'Not too bright.'

'Geniuses rarely go into crime.'

Torobuni stared at me a moment, then walked over to a giant U.S. range where a woman was taking a fresh load of tempura shrimp from the deep fat. He mumbled something and she plucked out a shrimp on a little metal skewer and handed it to him. He took a small bite. He said, 'Two years ago I had a man's face put in here.' He gestured at the grease vat. 'You ever see a fried face?'

'No. How'd it taste?'

Torobuni finished the shrimp and wiped his hands on a cloth that was lying on the steel table. He shook his head. 'You're out of your mind to come here like this. You know my name, but do you have any idea who I am?'

'Who killed Nobu Ishida?'