He released the full clip and pumped the sleeve several times, checked the safeties, then thumbed cartridges onto the bed pad. They lay thick and blunt and deadly, the brass shimmering in the light. Nick checked the feeder springs in all the clips. They would do. Just as the old .45 would have to do — it wasn't Wilhelmina, of course, but then no other gun was. And he could have done with the stiletto, Hugo, nestling along his right arm in the chamois spring sheath, but that was out. He had to use the tools at hand. He jammed the Colt into his waistband and buttoned the trenchcoat over it. It bulged, but not too much.
Tonaka was watching him closely. He sensed her approval in her dark eyes. The girl was, in fact, feeling more optimistic about matters. She knew a professional when she saw one.
She handed him a small leather keyfold. "There is a Datsun in the parking lot behind the San-ai Department store. You know it?"
"I know it." It was a tubular building not far down the Ginza, resembling a massive rocket on its pad.
"Good. Here is the license number." She handed him a slip of paper. "The car may be watched. I don't think so, but it may be. You will just have to take that chance. You know how to get out to the Sanya district?"
"I think so. Take the Freeway to Shawa Dori, then come off and go as far as the baseball stadium. Cut right on Meiji Dori and that should get me somewhere around the Namidabashi Bridge. Right?"
She came closer to him. "Pretty right. You know Tokyo well."
"Not as well as I should, but I can make out. It's like New York — they keep tearing it down and building it again."
Tonaka was closer now, nearly touching him. Her smile was sad. "Not in the Sanya district — that is still slums. You will probably have to leave the car near the bridge and walk in. The streets aren't much."
"I know." He had seen slums the world over. Seen them and smelled them — the dung and the filth and the human garbage. The dogs that ate their own excreta. The babies that would never have a chance and the old waiting to die without dignity. Kunizo Matu, who was Eta, Burakumin, must feel very strongly about his people to return to a place like Sanya to die.
She was in his arms. She pressed her slim body against his big hard one. He was surprised to see tears glistening in the long, almond-shaped eyes.
"Go, then," she told him. "God be with you. I have done all I can, obeyed my honorable father in every detail. You will give him my — my respects?"
Nick held her gently. She was trembling and there was a faint scent of sandalwood about her hair.
"Just your respects? Not your love?"
She would not look at him. She shook her head. "No. Just as — as I say. But do not think of that — it is between my father and me. You and I — we are different." She pulled a little away from him. "I have a promise to keep, Nick. I depend on you to make me do so."
"I will."
He kissed her. Her mouth was fragrant, soft, as moist and yielding as a rosebud. As he had suspected she was not wearing a bra, and he felt the swell of her breasts against him. For the moment they melded, shoulder to knee, and her trembling increased and her breathing roughened. Then she pushed him away. "No! We must not. That is all — come, I will show you how to leave this place. Do not bother to memorize it — you will not be coming back here."
As they were leaving the room a thought struck him. "How about that body?"
"That is our concern. It will not be the first we have disposed of — when the time is right we will put it into the harbor."
Five minutes later Nick Carter felt the light touch of April rain on his face. Hardly more than a mist, really, and it was cool and soothing after the confines of that basement. There was a hint of damp chill in the air and he buttoned the old trenchcoat about his throat.
Tonaka had led him into an alley. Overhead the dark turbid sky reflected the glare of the Ginza's neon lights half a block away. It was late but the street was still swinging. As he walked Nick could smell the two odors he identified with Tokyo — hot noodles and freshly poured concrete. To his right was a desolate flattened expanse where a new basement was being dug. The concrete smell was stronger. The cranes in the pit were like sleeping storks in the rain.
He came to a side street and turned back toward the Ginza itself. He came out a block from the Nichigeki Theater. He paused on the corner and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply and letting his eyes rove and register the frenetic scene. At nearly three in the morning the Ginza was cooling down a bit, but it was not yet dead. Vehicular traffic had thinned, but mobs of. people still ebbed and flowed up and down that fantastic street. Noodle vendors still piped. Brash music poured from the thousands of bars. Somewhere a samisen twanged softly. A late-running tram clanged past. Over it all, as though the sky was leaking rivulets of color, washed the bright surf of the neon. Tokyo. Brash, brawling, bastard of the West. Spawned by rape of the dignified maiden of the East.
A ricksha went by, the coolie trotting wearily with his head down. A Yank sailor and a cute Japanese girl were in heavy embrace. Nick smiled and tossed his butt away. You hardly ever saw that any more. Rickshas. They were as old-fashioned as clogs, or the kimona and obi. Young Japan was hip — and there were plenty of hippies.
High on his right, just under the clouds, winked the warning light on Tokyo Tower in Shiba park. Across the street the bright neon of a Chase Manhattan branch told him, in Japanese and English, that he had a friend. Nick's grin was a little sour. He doubted that C-M was going to be much help in his present situation. He lit a new cigarette and took off. His peripheral vision was excellent and he saw the two neat little cops, blue-uniformed and white-gloved, coming up to his left. They were walking slowly, swinging their batons and talking to each other, casual and harmless enough, but there was no point in taking chances.
Nick went a couple of blocks out of his way, keeping an eye on his back trail. Nothing. He was suddenly very hungry and he stopped at a garishly lit tempura bar and ate a huge dish of vegetables and batter-fried shrimp. He left yen on the stone bar and went out. Nobody was paying him the slightest attention.
He left the Ginza, walked down a side street, and came into the San-ai parking lot from the rear. Sodium lights cast a blue-green haze over the dozen cars there. The black Datsun was where Tonaka had said it would be. He checked the license, twisted the paper into a spill for another cigarette, then got in and drove out of the lot. No lights, no shadow of a following car. So far he appeared to be in the clear.
When he sat the heavy .45 dug into his groin. He put it on the seat beside him.
He drove carefully, keeping well within the 32-kilometer limit until he was on the new Expressway and heading north. Then he stepped it up to 50 kilometers, which was still within the night limit. He obeyed every traffic sign and signal. The rain increased and he rolled up the driver's window nearly to the top. As the little car grew stuffy he could smell the sweat and dirt odor of Pete Fremont's suit. There was little of the crazy Tokyo traffic at this hour and he saw no police cars. He was thankful. If the cops stopped him, even for a routine check, it was going to be a little tough, looking and smelling the' way he did. And there would be the .45 to explain. Nick knew the Tokyo police from past experience. They were tough and efficient — they had also been known to toss a man into the pokey and conveniently forget him for a few days.
He passed Ueno Park on his left. Not far now to the beisubooru Stadium. He decided to leave the car in the parking lot at the Minowa Station on the Joban line and walk into the Sanya district by way of the Namidabashi bridge — in the old days they had executed criminals out here by the bridge.