I said, 'Peter Parker.'
Kerri looked confused.
'Most people know me as The Amazing Spider Man.'
Kerri turned and ran back up the stairs.
'Mimi,' I said, 'you and I have to talk.' Somewhere deep in the house, doors opened and closed and footsteps sounded on hardwood floors.
She said, 'I won't go back.'
'I won't make you go back.'
She said, 'You won't?'
Frank, Bobby, and another man came out of a door on the ground floor and looked up at me.
Bobby's cheek was swollen and beginning to color but he still managed a grin. Probably because he had a Ruger.380 automatic in his left hand instead of a nightstick. He aimed it at me and said, 'Here's where I put the fuck on you, asshole.'
That Bobby. What a way with words.
Chapter 25
Frank shook his head like Bobby was backward, and pushed the Ruger down. 'Don't be stupid.' He looked at the third man. 'This is the guy from out front. Elvis Cole.'
The third man was in his early sixties and good-looking in a solid, muscular way. He was deeply tanned and had crew cut hair and the sort of nose you get when you spend a little time in the ring. Kira Asano. He said, 'What's the meaning of this?'
'Gosh,' I said, 'I never heard anyone say that in real life.'
Asano stepped forward and put his fists on his hips.
I looked at Mimi. 'Are you all right?'
She blinked big eyes and scratched herself.
'Answer me.'
She nodded.
I looked back at Asano. 'You're in a world of shit, old man.'
Half a dozen kids had gathered below us in the big room, watching. Asano glanced over them, let his fists drop from his hips, and turned away. 'Bring Mr. Cole along, would you, Frank?'
Frank took the gun away from Bobby and held it down along his leg. Frank looked at me. He wasn't Bobby, all right. 'Come on.'
We followed Asano across a large sunny room with a pool table and into a smaller room that looked out over the tennis court and pool and most of the San Fernando Valley. I didn't see any more of the Gray Army. Maybe there weren't any more. Eddie Ditko had said that once there had been a couple hundred members, but that was a long time ago. Maybe, like the house, the Gray Army's time had passed and its smell had grown musty and it had fallen into disrepair. Old news.
There was a glass desk in the room and some modern chairs and about a million photographs on the walls. On the largest wall there were several mounted samurai swords and a Japanese flag and a portrait of Asano in a Japanese military uniform. He looked young and strong and proud. The portrait had probably been done very close to the end of World War II. Asano went behind the glass desk, crossed his hands behind his back, and stared at me. When Asano walked, he had a tendency to strut, and when he stood, he had a tendency to posture, but there didn't seem to be a lot of confidence to it, more like the strutting and posturing were habits he had developed a long time ago. He said, 'You have no right to be here, Mr. Cole. This place is a private home which you have entered against my wishes. You are not welcome.'
'I rarely am, but that's beside the point,' I said.
'Mimi Warren is a minor whom the police and FBI believe is the victim of a kidnapping. They're looking for her and they'll find her. I'm interested in her well-being.'
Asano smiled reasonably. 'Why would anyone think Mimi has been kidnapped? Does she look kidnapped to you?'
'She staged a phony kidnapping when she ran away from home.'
'Ah.'
'Mimi seems to have a lot of anger toward her parents. I think she saw it as a way to hurt them.'
'Ah.'
'I think you had something to do with it.'
Asano sat down. He put his hands on the desk in front of him and laced his fingers. 'Don't be absurd. I am the leader of a movement, Mr. Cole, a locus for the lifeblood of a system as old as any on earth!' He made a fist and gestured with it.
I said, 'Jesus Christ, Asano, I'm not fourteen years old. Save all the Divine Wind crap for someone else.'
Bobby said, 'Hey.' Bobby had been recruited a long time ago and nothing better had come along. He probably wasn't bright enough to know, one way or another. Frank had been around a while, too, but he was smarter. He put a hand on Bobby's arm. Waiting to see what I had.
Asano made the reasonable smile again. He said, 'If Mimi has done something as foolish as involving the police in a false crime, I certainly know nothing about it. Mimi is free to come and go as she pleases. Everyone here has that freedom. Gray Shield Enterprises and the Gray Army are duly licensed nonprofit political organizations of the state of California.'
'Really aboveboard and oh-so-legal, huh?'
Asano nodded.
I said, 'Is Eddie Tang a member?'
Asano's eyes flickered.
I said, 'Here's what I think. Maybe you didn't participate in the runaway or the fake kidnap, but I'll bet you knew about it and that makes you eligible for a contributing charge. And I'll bet you've got the Hagakure. That puts you on deck for grand theft, receiving stolen goods, and accessory before and after the fact.'
When I said it about the Hagakure his hands started to shake and all the hard edges softened and he looked like an old man caught on the toilet. It hadn't been Eddie, all right.
Bobby said, 'Jesus, Frank, shoot the motherfucker.' Frank shifted behind me.
'The Hagakure has to go back,' I said.
Asano said, 'What are you talking about?' His voice sort of croaked and he looked at Frank. It made me wonder who ran the place. It made me wonder a lot of things.
'She's a screwed-up kid with garbage for parents and she came to you looking for something, and you screwed her, too. You had her steal the Hagakure for you.'
'No.'
'The kids you've got out there are here because they've got no place else to go. Not because of any ideal. The Gray Army movement is dead, and having the Hagakure isn't going to bring it back to life.'
Asano stood up. He started to say something, but nothing came out. He looked confused. Frank took a step toward him, then stopped. The Ruger was up now and pointing at me but Frank didn't seem interested in using it. He said, 'If that's the way it is, why aren't you here with the cops?'
'Because the cops are going to want a piece of Mimi for setting all this up and wasting their time. If the cops were here they'd drag her home or maybe to juvie detention.' I looked at Bobby. 'You remember juvie detention, don't you, Bobby?'
Bobby said, 'Fuck you.'
I said, 'Maybe there's a better way to do this than bringing in the cops right now.'
Frank looked at me a little more and the gun lowered. 'What do you want?'
'The kid doesn't want to go home and I won't know what I should do about that until I talk with her. Maybe there's a way to get her back home that will make things right for her.'
Frank said, 'Okay.'
