“Sure. As long as we can get out of here before midnight.”
I left him and went back into the reception area and plunked myself down in the rattan chair next to Kerry. She said, “What’s the matter? Why are you scowling?”
“Something McFate just told me,” I said. “The dead man back there was Yakuza.”
“What’s Yakuza?”
“Japanese gangster outfit. Sort of like the Mafia.”
“Oh God,” she said.
“Take it easy. It’s not as ominous as it sounds.”
“No?”
“No. I don’t know much about them, but they’re big in Japan and East Asia and they’re starting to get a foothold over here. Prostitution, extortion, that sort of thing. But they only prey on other Japanese-merchants and tourists, mostly.”
“Oh. Then the dead man… do you know his name yet?”
“Simon Tamura. He ran this place, I imagine.”
“Then he was killed by other Yakuza? One of those underworld execution things?”
“Looks that way,” I said. “The Yakuza are supposed to believe that they’re descendants of samurai warriors. And Tamura was murdered with a samurai sword. A ritual killing, maybe, to avenge some breaking of the Yakuza code.”
“Well, thank God you’re not mixed up in it, for a change. It’s bad enough that you had to find the body. And that I had to be here with you.”
“No argument about that.”
“One murder case after another ever since I’ve known you,” she said. “One of these days…”
“One of these days what?”
“You know what I was going to say.”
“Yeah. But I’ve lived this long; I intend to go on living a good while longer.”
“I hope so. Sometimes… damn it, sometimes you scare hell out of me.”
“Sometimes, babe,” I said, “I scare hell out of myself.”
We lapsed into silence, but it was all right between us because Kerry reached over after a few seconds and took hold of my hand. Her fingers were dry and chill-unlike the room itself, which was as warm as Tamura’s office. It started me sweating, and I stood up finally and fumbled with the knob on the radiator until I got the heat shut down.
Cops went in and out, and what seemed like a long time later two white-outfitted interns clumped in with a body bag. Almost immediately after they disappeared toward the office, McFate reappeared and headed toward Kerry and me. We both got on our feet.
“Tamura was definitely Yakuza,” McFate said without preamble. “He had one of their tattoos on his chest-a samurai warrior battling a dragon. And his desk is full of incriminating evidence. He was a local mizu shobai kingpin.”
I had no idea what that last meant, but I was not going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. I figured he’d tell us anyway, and he did.
“ Mizu shobai means ‘water business,’ ” he said in his supercilious way. “Extortion from Japanese bars, restaurants, and night clubs in the Bay Area-a variation on the old protection racket. Very lucrative.”
“Which means he probably had rivals.”
“Probably. We’ll find out.” He paused. “Do you still plan to talk to Ken Yamasaki?”
“That depends,” I said, “on whether or not he had anything to do with Tamura’s death.”
“Then you had better not try to contact him until you find out.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. You don’t intend to do any investigating into Yakuza activities, do you?”
“No. Why should I?”
“You shouldn’t, if what you told me earlier is true.”
“It’s true. I don’t lie to the police, McFate.”
“But you do go off on tangents now and then.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning you lost your license once,” McFate said, “and it would be a shame if it happened again. So I’d advise you to confine your present activities to tracking down secret admirers. Leave the Yakuza to us.”
I could feel myself getting hot; he was rubbing salt into old wounds now. But making an issue of it with him was not going to buy me anything except trouble. I made myself say, “You don’t have to worry about me,” in a neutral voice. “Is it all right if we go now?”
“You can go, but I want to ask Ms. Wade a few questions before she leaves. For the sake of corroboration.”
Kerry looked at me. I said, “I can use some fresh air. I’ll wait for you in the car.”
She nodded, and McFate gave her one of his charming smiles, and I beat it out of there before I did or said something stupid. There were a couple of reporter types hanging around out front, but they didn’t seem to know who I was; I glared at them the way cops do and they didn’t bother me. I walked up to the end of the block, letting the wind and the steady drizzle cool me off. When I came back to the car I sat behind the wheel, with the window rolled down a little, and watched the clock in the grocery store window.
Five more minutes passed before Kerry came out. She said as she slid in beside me, “Whew, am I glad to get out of there!”
“Did McFate give you a hard time?”
“Not really. But the way he kept looking at me, I was afraid he might try to make a pass. What’s the matter with him, anyway?”
“He’s an asshole,” I said, and let it go at that.
We didn’t take a shower together that night. We didn’t do anything together that night, primitive or otherwise. The combination of the murder and McFate had knocked out all of my amorous feelings and intentions, and Kerry wasn’t much interested either. So we said good night in the car in front of her building, and I drove home and crawled into bed alone.
Some day, all right. A real prizewinner.
Chapter Six
I was up at eight-thirty in the morning, and showered and shaved and in the kitchen for breakfast before nine. The thought of eggs in any form, particularly accompanied by grapefruit, started an unpleasant burbling in my stomach. So I hunted around in the refrigerator for something else nonfattening to eat, but all I could come up with were celery stalks and carrots and some yogurt that Kerry had bought for me. Pineapple yogurt, the container said, fruit on the bottom. Yeah, I thought, but not on the bottom of my stomach. I put it back into the fridge, along with the celery stalks and the carrots, and opened a can of V-8 juice. I could get some solid food into me later on.
The telephone rang while I was pouring coffee. I went into the bedroom and hauled up the receiver, and Eberhardt said, “Find any more bodies this morning? Or is the day still too young?”
“Not funny,” I said. “You heard about last night, huh?”
“Me and a few million others. You ought to start reading the papers regularly; you get mentioned in them enough these days.”
“That’s one of the reasons I don’t read them. Front-page stuff this time?”
“Sure. A guy gets hacked up with a samurai sword-that’s good copy. In particular when he’s a big noise in the local branch of the Yakuza.”
“How many times did my name get taken in vain?”
“Only once. Not much ink at all. Just that you and Kerry found the body.”
“Kerry got mentioned, too? Damn McFate. I thought he might at least leave her out of it.”
“Leo likes to see his name in the papers,” Eberhardt said. “He figures everybody else does too.”
“Listen, Eb, I’m not mixed up in Simon Tamura’s murder. Or with the Yakuza. I went to those baths to talk to one of the employees-not Tamura, another guy-on a minor domestic case.”
“Did I ask?”
“I just wanted you to know.”
“Well, I thought it was something like that. I figured you’d have told me if you were messing with anything as big-league as the Yakuza. Besides, you’re not dumb enough to take Kerry into a place that fronts for a gang of thugs.”
“Thanks-I think.”
“Don’t mention it. You going to be busy today?”
“Some. Why?”
“I bought a desk and a chair and a couple of other things yesterday,” he said. “They’re being delivered this afternoon. I thought maybe you’d want to help me move things around.”