He didn’t answer.
“Your friends are dead. That could be bad news for you, or good. Bad because I can easily make you dead, too. Good because, if I don’t, there’s no one to contradict your story about what happened here. You could tell them I surprised the guy at the other end of this wall, you chased me, I jumped on a motorcycle and fled. Yeah, maybe you’d have to cut off a pinkie digit to show how contrite you were, but you could tell them your honor would never be fully restored until you had tracked me down and killed me. They’d let you live. I won’t. Now, who wants me dead?”
There was a pause while he did the math. He said, “Mad Dog.”
“Why?”
“You killed his cousin.”
“What about his father? Who killed his father?”
“We don’t know. But we’ll find out.”
Interesting. It sounded like either Mad Dog didn’t know it was me, or he didn’t want people to know he knew.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you. You know him well. He came with you to the Kodokan. So he could watch. Is he here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“After you killed me here, how were you supposed to report to him?”
“We’re supposed to call him.”
“What number?”
“I don’t have it here. It’s written down.”
I knew he was lying, but I had no way to make him tell the truth. I could try scaring him, beating him. And eventually he’d cough up a number or an address, and I’d call or go there, and find out he’d given up his favorite bento delivery service, or his dry cleaner, or masseuse, or whatever.
No. This was a dead end. I stepped in close and raised the Hi Power to hammer-fist his head the way I had the first guy.
But I’d miscalculated. Pig Eyes understood I had no reason to let him live. I’d killed the other two; why would I let him go? He’d know I wouldn’t, and he’d know I’d do it from close, not wanting to risk attracting attention with the sound of a gunshot. And while the average person will deploy a dozen forms of denial to avoid accepting the truth of his imminent demise, this wasn’t an average person. He was a tough career criminal, smart enough to be in some sort of leadership position. An expert judoka. And during the time I’d spent fruitlessly questioning him, I’d given him precious moments to build his resolve and his readiness.
So the instant I stepped in to finish him, he did the only thing he could. He snapped his arms out and let gravity take over. If I’d been thinking properly, I would have jumped back and just shot him, the hell with the noise. But I’d already committed to the hammer-fist, so I followed him down with the butt of the gun, catching him with a weak blow that lost whatever energy it might otherwise have had because his body was moving through space ahead of it. The side of his head smacked into the tree, he twisted, threw a leg past my knees, and scissored, taking my legs out. I went down on my back, getting the wind knocked out of me, the two guns cutting painfully into my spine. He was on the gun and straddling my torso amazingly fast, gripping the barrel in both hands, twisting the muzzle away from him. My finger wasn’t in the trigger guard — good because if it had been, the way he was twisting the gun would have snapped it off; bad because it meant I couldn’t shoot him. But my hands and wrists were strong from hundreds of hours of gripping the heavy cotton judōgi. No matter how frantically he tugged and twisted, he couldn’t get the gun away from me. But nor could I get it from him. He changed tactics and smashed my hand into the ground, once, twice, again. I felt the impact up my arm and knew I was going to lose the gun. I reached behind my back with my left hand, felt the grip of one of the other pistols, pulled it free with a yell. He let go with one hand and grabbed the second gun in it just as I thumbed the safety down. Now we were both holding two guns, each of my hands around the grips, his hands around the barrels. His judo technique might have been better than mine, but one hand against one hand, I was stronger. I slid my finger into the trigger guard of the pistol in my right hand and, staring into his eyes, started turning the muzzle implacably toward his head. His pig eyes were bulging and his teeth were clenched, but his shaking arms weren’t enough to stop me. At the last instant, he tried to leap back, but too late. I put a round into the side of his face. Brain matter and skull fragments blew out the opposite side, and he slumped to the ground next to me.
I scrambled out from under him, scared about the noise of the shot. My hand felt numb from the way he had pounded it against the ground. Did I have blood on me? I couldn’t have avoided it entirely, though from what I had seen I thought most of it had exited to my side. I glanced around. I saw no one in the immediate vicinity, and maybe whatever visitors were in the area, saying their prayers and laying their wreaths, would listen for a moment, and then tell themselves it must have been something else. It didn’t matter. I had to get the hell away. I thumbed the safety up on the unfired gun and shoved it back into my pants, held the other under my tee shirt, and started walking fast on shaking legs.
I’d gone maybe twenty feet when I heard a car to my left. I turned just in time to see a black sedan screech to a halt on the access road I was crossing. The driver was pure yakuza — scarred face, punch perm, dark glasses. And in the backseat—
Mad Dog.
I brought out the Hi Power and took aim with a two-handed grip. The driver floored it. There was the sound of burning rubber and wheels spraying pebbles and then he was rocketing straight at me. I pressed the trigger. I’d been aiming at the driver, but the shot went through the windshield dead center — that numbness in my hand was screwing up my aim. I tried to recalibrate and then he was on me. I dove out of the way, breaking into a judo roll and yelling involuntarily as the two pistols bit into my back. I didn’t care — I was just glad the damn things hadn’t seen fit to fire and shoot my ass off.
I came to my feet and had just enough time to fire once more. It hit the trunk, and then the car went around the corner and was gone. If I was lucky, the bullet went through the backseat and drilled Mad Dog. But I didn’t think so — it had hit too far to the other side. And I didn’t think the first shot had hit him, either.
I made my way quickly back toward where I’d originally come in, the baseball cap pulled low, wiping the face paint off with spit and a handkerchief. I kept my head down and stayed on the narrow dirt paths between plots, avoiding the main roads and pedestrian arteries. I couldn’t avoid passing a few people, but between the cap and my averted face, I wasn’t unduly concerned about anyone identifying me for the police.
So Mad Dog had been here — as a spectator, naturally, not a player, the same as at the Kodokan. They’d heard the shot and thought someone had dropped me. Maybe they’d radioed and hadn’t gotten an answer. Regardless, they’d come racing around so Mad Dog could see his trophy, recently stuffed and mounted.
Well, slight miscalculation, asshole.
I kept moving, my back singing where the pistols had bitten into it. Yanaka Cemetery was large enough to have its own kōban, police box, and though I imagined the officers there were more accustomed to helping the newly bereaved locate the plots of loved ones and instructing hanami revelers to clean up the garbage disgorged by their picnics, I didn’t want a confrontation. I didn’t want anything at all to get in the way of my finishing Mad Dog. And that lying piece of shit, McGraw. I thought again of what he’d said. This is a business relationship. You provide some benefit, and you represent a cost.
You got that right, I thought. I do represent a cost. And I’m going to cost you everything.