“I understand you have information about Oda.”
Sato blanched white as if his throat and not Pig Face’s had just been cut. Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip at the mention of the man’s name.
“You are the underboss of a powerful yakuza family,” Quinn said. “Surely you are not frightened of this man.”
Sato shook his head. Face was everything to a yakuza chief. Loss of it meant giving up control, and lack of control in his world meant certain death. He breathed deeply as he weighed his options.
Quinn kept the handgun pointed at Sato’s chest. “You know where he is?”
“I do not,” Sato said.
“Then you are no good to me.” Quinn’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Wait!” Sato screamed. “Tanaka is the boss. He would know where Oda is.”
“I see.” Quinn nodded. “And where do I find this boss of yours?”
“I would have to set up the meeting.” Sato’s face twitched.
Quinn shot a glance at Ayako, who’d been whispering in the corner with her niece. She shook her head, then stood to stride purposefully to the desk.
Staring down at Sato with a molten hatred unique to tormented women, she leaned in, her lips brushing his ear.
“We saved Miyu,” she hissed. “But you will just find another girl and do the same thing to her.”
“I—”
“Shut up!” Ayako pressed the point of her dagger to his shoulder. “You take whatever you want with no thought to the suffering you cause. Let me tell you what it feels like to be on the receiving end of such treatment…”
Sato’s lips pulled back in a tight line, revealing his teeth.
“Such violation is a slow arrow through the heart,” Ayako whispered. “First there is a terror, then helplessness — then pain…” She pressed the blade home, slowly at first, using the flat of her hand to drive it deep into the fleshy part of Sato’s upper arm.
Sato jerked hard against the belts holding his wrists, arching his back as the blade severed nerve and muscle.
Quinn wondered how many helpless young women he’d terrorized, sending them into such spasms as they tried in vain to get away. He touched Ayako’s hand when she withdrew the knife and moved to stab Sato again. She wilted immediately. Hand trembling, she let the bloodstained blade clatter to the desk.
Killing a man was no small thing. She’d already done it once tonight, and Quinn wanted to save her from the added memory of another. Sato’s black eyes flicked back and forth as he watched the exchange, his body collapsing against the chair when he realized Ayako wasn’t going to end him right there.
He should not have relaxed so soon.
Quinn turned to a whimpering Watanabe, who had come to his senses enough to stare wide-eyed at his thrashing superior’s treatment at the hands of a woman he paid for sex. Up to now, he’d been so absorbed in his own injuries that he’d paid no attention to what was going on.
Quinn gave him a nod. “I’m assuming you can take us to Tanaka.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Watanabe nodded his head so hard it looked as if he might break his own neck.
“I told you he smelled of urine,” Ayako said, looking up from where she comforted Miyu-chan.
Quinn rubbed his chin with the rear sight of the pistol. It was an H&K P30 and fit his hand perfectly.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “Go tell Tanaka exactly what happened here. Make sure you tell him we killed six of his guys and whacked your pinkie off with relative ease. Then, tell him I’ve got his shipment of Ecstasy.”
Watanabe looked up, kneeling, both hands flat on the ground in front of him, subservient.
Quinn was tempted to prod him with a foot but didn’t want to make the mistake of getting too close unnecessarily. “You understand?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. Blood pooled on the floor around his mutilated hand. “I understand.”
“You have Ayako-chan’s cell number?”
“Yes.”
“Then get out of here.” Quinn pitched the man his severed finger. “And tell Tanaka he doesn’t have forever to get back in touch.”
Watanabe flailed to his feet and disappeared up the stairs as if being chased by a ghost.
Suddenly exhausted, Quinn looked around the room at the blood and devastation. The cloying smell of blood and urine filled the basement room.
“Take Miyu-chan ahead.” He waved Ayako out the door but kept his eyes focused on a quaking Sato. A picture of Emiko Miyagi as a motherless child flashed across his mind. “I have one more thing I have to do.”
CHAPTER 46
Dr. Todd Elton filled a syringe and set the glass ampule on the shelf. A commotion of voices drew him out to the hallway just as Brody Teeples pushed open the door and barged through the clinic like a snowplow. A look of barely contained anger boiled under a heavy, furrowed brow. Huge hands, calloused and used to working outside in the weather, clenched into white-knuckled fists.
Elton considered running, but there was nowhere to go. Three pregnant women took up all the exam rooms, and a guy with a compound fracture in his wrist was sacked out on the table in the X-ray lab. With all the rooms full, patients lined the hallway — a guy who’d been in a fight with a table saw held a piece of his thumb in a wadded paper towel, a man with the perfect imprint of a horse hoof over his collarbone, and a seventeen-year-old high school girl who’d stepped on a rusty nail while going out to bottle-feed her calf. A half dozen more Elton hadn’t spoken with yet sat, stood, and slumped up and down the narrow hall.
“I want to see my wife!” Teeples bellowed, ignoring all the other patients. “Where is she?”
Elton put up a hand, forcing himself not to backpedal. He swam, jogged, skipped rope, and even did a little CrossFit to stay in shape — all good, honest exercises that didn’t involve bashing his fists into other people’s faces. In a time like this, clean blood work and an excellent body mass index was bound to work against him.
Teeples outweighed him by at least eighty pounds and, judging from his nose, got in a knockdown drag-out fight at the bars nearby at least once a week just for the fun of it.
“I don’t even know if she’s still alive!” Teeples said, coming to a stop two feet away. “You are gonna take me to her right damn now!” He jabbed the doctor in the chest with a thick index finger at each word.
Elton took a reflexive step back, rubbing his chest. It occurred to him that he’d never really been hit in the face before. Judging by how painful the chest pokes were, he’d be lucky if a full-blown punch with a fist didn’t knock him out cold.
Brandy stepped out of one of the exam rooms and moved to help. Elton motioned her to stay back.
“Your wife’s over in the hospital, Brody.” He raised both hands, hoping it looked conciliatory. “I’m not going to lie to you. She’s very sick. It’s too dangerous for you to see her right now. Anyway, the CDC is in charge of who comes and goes. Not me.”
“I’m going to see for myself.” Teeples strode forward, raising his fist and brandishing it like a hammer to make a point. “I don’t give a shit what you or the CDC—”
Elton realized he was still holding the syringe. Without thinking, he jabbed it into the man’s bicep, giving him the full injection.
Teeples lashed out, but it was fearful instead of vindictive and more of a glancing blow. Still, it caught Elton on the chin and sent him staggering back against the wall. He had to catch himself to keep from falling on the guy holding the severed thumb.
“What the hell was in that?” Teeples bellowed.
“Okay.” Elton held up his hands again to ward off any further attack. He worked his jaw back and forth. It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. “Just stay calm. We can fix this.”