There were no more sounds of the man running, but he guessed the reason. He burst out of the brush into the clearing. Stars were bright in the watching sky, the moon a fountain of light silhouetting a figure sprinting in its glow. A power line and a maintenance road stretched to the crest of a small hill, where the man's feet flew over the smooth surface of the dirt road. It took only a few strides before Kenji knew he couldn't keep up. This man was a lithe, long-muscled runner.
Fear swept through him. He saw his wife's disgusted, hurt face. He raised the gun. You couldn't shoot a man for taking a picture. But your whole life, everything you value- your honor, your vanishing fortune… The finger squeezed in the middle of the debate. Eight times it squeezed. It was an unlucky shot, almost an accident, he would later conclude. Hitting a running man with a pistol at fifty yards is really not possible with precision. He knew the instant he pulled the trigger that he had a hit. His knowledge of the hit, he decided, came from a spiritual union with the hunted, rather than the sickening thud that was the bullet hitting flesh. Startling to think that you would actually hear the strike, hear the thump of expanding lead boring through bone and meat.
For a moment Kenji considered the odds that the body could be hidden, the evidence destroyed. He and his security man, Hans Groiter, would be back first thing in the morning to dispose of the body. For money Hans could do something like this. Already he and Hans were so deep into the dirty deeds of life that he didn't fear Hans or his reaction, although this accidental shooting was rather more dramatic than anything they had done previously.
It was a sick moon with stars strewn across the sky like diamond teardrops. There were already crickets and frogs, the scurrying of the newborn in the brush, and other sounds of dawn in springtime. Kenji wondered why a night like this could not be left to love.
He covered the fifty yards to the body, taking in the moon, the stars, his life, the law, the jail cell, the publicity, the whole panoply of what-ifs that encompassed both capture and escape. He played it through his mind first one way, then the other, careful to give equal time to the possibility of failure. It was bad luck to assume a win.
The photographer lay flat on his back in the middle of the road, his sport coat looking tattered. To Kenji's horror, the body still moved; there were strange breathy sounds gurgling through frothy blood that looked black in the moonlight. Oddly, or maybe it wasn't odd for bohemian photographers, the man wore denim jeans and a white T-shirt sporting a heavy bloodstain that in a well-lit photo would have made a dramatic statement.
The clip of his pistol was empty. Kenji waited a moment and realized the wheezing and choking could go on quite some time. Obviously, it was a lung shot that missed the heart. He had made a mistake, and he knew that to escape his mistake he needed to control his mind. Justice lay in his own consciousness, not in the sovereign state. Kenji would make his own justice. He walked away until the choking was a whisper.
This man's death dragged on. Walking back, Kenji decided that he was strong enough to partake in this man's death.
"Help." The man was trying to talk. Looking down to find the camera, Kenji couldn't escape the sight of the seizing body, head thrown back, mouth gaping. "Help me."
For whatever reason, he felt nothing. He yanked the camera over the man's head, cursing as the photographer tried to push out the word ''help'' through cups of blood.
''You die hard.'' Kenji opened the camera and pulled out the film, then grabbed the man by his feet and pulled him out of the road and into a thicket of stickers that tore at his clothing and his flesh. He noted the distance between the giant electrical towers, about halfway between. The blood would make the body easy to find.
Kenji remembered this power line, knew it eventually intersected the logging road about a half mile from where his Rolls sat with Catherine, who by this time would be shivering. He elected to walk back through the woods, letting the trees thrash him, recalling that white people had whipped themselves to receive some strange absolution from then-wrongdoing. Already he wondered whether tomorrow or the next day he might feel something. Perhaps when he lifted his little boy over his head or touched his wife in the night, he would feel the weight of his guilt.
He reached the car and walked to the back door on Catherine's side, took off his coat and brushed himself off. For a few moments he had allowed himself the luxury of infatuation. It would never happen again. But this time there was no question that he would yet have Catherine physically.
"What was all the shooting? Thank God you're all right. I mean, my God, no one should get shot over pictures." She was terrified, rambling. "The photographer is all right. Please, dear God, tell me he's all right."
Kenji paused. And then he lied. "He's fine. I was so pissed that I made him dance. He danced and I shot. I stripped out the film. It's OK."
Kenji walked around the burgundy car, noticing the gleam of the moon in the satin finish. He got in the back on the other side and motioned Catherine to him. The strain showed on Catherine's face.
"Guess you took care of him," she said a little too brightly.
"Shall we resume?"
"You've got to be kidding-after that?"
"But you were so…," he started, casually reaching for her purse.
"What are you doing?"
It took only a second to find the small transmitter.
"How crude."
She looked pale, the skin on her face even tighter. He dropped the 9mm in her lap. She shook, but at first he said nothing.
"Talk."
"Please don't hurt me." Her lip was quivering.
"You've got the gun, not me."
She held her hands up as if the gun were a loathsome creature.
"My husband has very little, just his government pension from the Senate. We have huge debts, legal fees. Your assistant wanted to test you. He wanted evidence if you failed the test. He promised we'd get a little part of Amada. He said there might be some discovery that would make Amada very valuable. The details… I'm unclear."
"All you had to do for the money was seduce me?"
"There were other things… Political favors."
"Ah, that would be after he took over for me." Kenji chuckled but felt only hatred. "What do you know of this… discovery?"
"All Satoru would tell us is it could involve a lot of money. There was a guaranteed minimum of fifty thousand cash no matter what happened. Otherwise, I never would have done it."
"I assume the pictures were to be given to my wife and father-in-law as an excuse to throw me out."
"Only if you took me up on my offer."
For a fleeting moment he wondered whether this was all Satoru's idea or if his father-in-law had a hand in it- probably the former. Satora was ambitious.
Putting his arm around her, he put his face an inch from hers, holding her tight. Chanel again filled his nostrils. He didn't worry about his sweaty smell or unkempt hair.
"Here's what you'll do. You will tell Satoru that I wouldn't touch you. We were never here. After the restaurant I took you home. I will give you and your husband the stock you were promised in a revocable trust. It will be revoked automatically upon my death. Only I can take the stock back during my life. You will get your millions if I decide so. So save some of your income from the trust and wish me a long life. But you will never deny me your body-ever. Agreed?"
A pause.
"OK," she said, looking out the window at nothing but the darkness.
"OK," he repeated. "Our deal starts now."
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