"Maybe so."
He sipped at his Scotch and watched her. She was nervous. Very nervous. She was wearing a single strand of small pearls and she kept gnawing at them, getting lipstick on them. She kept fidgeting in the chair, crossing and recrossing her legs, and he saw a flash of brief white pants.
"Carter-san?"
"Yeah?"
She chewed the nail of her little finger. "I like to ask you something. Yo'u not get angry?"
Nick grinned. "Probably not. I can't promise that, Kato. What is it?"
Hesitation. Then; "You like me, Carter-san? You think I am pretty?"
He did. She was. Very pretty. Like a sweet little lemon-colored doll. He told her so.
Kato looked at her watch again. "I am most bold, Carter-san. But I do not care. I am liking you now for a long time — ever since we try to sell you cookies. Most liking you. We have time now, no men come until evening, and Mato and Sato not yet. I would like to take a bath with you and then make love. You do?"
He was genuinely touched. And knew he was being honored. In the first instant he did not want her and then, in the next instant, he knew that he did. Why not? It was, after all, what it was all about. Love — and death.
She misunderstood his hesitation. She came to him and brushed her fingers over his face lightly. Her eyes were long and darkest brown and full of amber sparks.
"You understand," she said softly, "that it is not a business thing. I am not being geisha now. I give. You take. You will do?"
He understood that her need was great. She was frightened and, for the moment, alone. She needed comfort and this was what she understood.
He kissed her. "I'll take," he said. "But first I will take bassu."
She led him to a bathroom. A moment later she joined him in the shower and they soaped and scrubbed each other in all the fine and private places. She had a lily smell and her breasts were those of a pubescent girl.
She took him into an adjacent bedroom with a real United States bed. She made him stretch out, supine. She kissed him and whispered, "You be still, Carter-san. I do everything at first."
"Not quite everything," said Nick Carter.
They were sitting quietly in the outer room, smoking and regarding each other with satisfied affection when the door burst open and Mato and Sato came in. They had been running. Sato was crying. Mato was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown, paper. She extended it to Nick.
"This come to Electric Palace. For you. With a note. We have… have read the note. I… I…" She turned away and burst into tears, gasping, the makeup running down her smooth cheeks.
Nick put the parcel on a chair and took a note from the unsealed envelope.
Pete Fremont— we have Tonaka. Proof is in the box. If you do not want her to lose the other one come at once to Electric Palace club. Wait outside on curb. Wear the trenchcoat.
There was no signature, just the round stencil of a wooden chop done in red ink. Nick showed it to Kato.
"Johnny Chow."
He ripped the twine from the parcel with nimble big fingers. The three girls hovered, silent now, stunned, awaiting the new horror. Sato had stopped crying and had her fingers jammed into her mouth.
Killmaster had a hunch that it was going to be pretty bad. It was worse than that.
Inside the little box, nestling on a pad of cotton, was a bloody slice of rounded flesh with the nipple and aura intact. The knife had been very sharp and the user most skillful.
A female breast.
Chapter 9
Killmaster had rarely been in a colder, more murderous rage. He gave the girls curt orders in a voice like ice, then left the geisha house and walked over to Shimbasi dori. His fingers caressed the cold butt of the Colt. At the moment he would have. emptied the clip into Johnny Chow's gut with all the pleasure in the world. If indeed it was Tonaka's breast that had been sent him — the three girls were convinced of it, because that was the way Johnny Chow played — then Nick meant to exact an equal amount of flesh from the bastard. His stomach churned at what he had just seen. This Johnny Chow must be a sadist to end all sadists — even for a Chicom.
There was no taxi in sight so he kept walking, eating up the distance with angry strides. There was no question of not going. There might still be a chance to save Tonaka. Wounds did heal, even the most drastic, and there were such things as artificial breasts. Not a very appealing solution, but it was better than death. He thought that to a young and lovely girl anything, very nearly anything, would be better than death.
Still no taxi. He wheeled left and started walking toward the Ginza-dori. From where he was now it was about a mile and a half to the Electric Palace club. Kato had given him the exact address. As he walked he began to sort it out in his mind. The cool, experienced, crafty and calculating mind of a top professional agent.
It was Pete Fremont who had been summoned and not Nick Carter. That meant that Tonaka, even in the agony of torture, had managed to cover for him. She had had to give them something, a name, and so she had given, them Pete Fremont. Yet she had known that Fremont was dead of alcoholism. Ail three girls, Kato, Mato and Sato, swore to that. Tonaka had known that Fremont was dead when she gave him the man's clothes.
Johnny Chow did not know that Fremont was dead! Obviously. Which meant that he did not know Pete Fremont, or knew him only slightly, perhaps by reputation. Whether or not he knew Fremont by sight would soon be revealed — when they met face to face. Nick touched the Colt in his belt again. He was looking forward to that.
No taxi yet. He paused to light a cigarette. Traffic was heavy now. A police car cruised past without paying him the slightest attention. Not surprising. Tokyo was the second largest city in the world and if the cops were sitting on the Fremont thing until they could find the body again, it was going to take them a little time to get organized.
Where were all tie goddamned taxis? It was as bad as New York on a rainy night.
Far down the Ginza, still a mile away, loomed the glittering silo structure of the San-ai Department Store. Nick shifted the Colt to an easier position and began walking again. He did not check his backtrail because now he did not give much of a damn. Johnny Chow must be pretty sure that he would come.
He remembered Tonaka saying that Pete Fremont had helped the Eta girls occasionally, when he was sober enough. The chances were that Johnny Chow knew that, even if he did not know Fremont personally. Chow must want to make some sort of a deal. Pete Fremont, though a bum and an alcoholic, was still a newspaper man of sorts and might still have connections.
Or Johnny Chow might just want to get his hands on Fremont — give him the same treatment that he had given Kunizo Matu. It might be as simple as that. Fremont was an enemy, he helped the Eta, and Johnny Chow was using the girl as bait so he could get rid of Fremont.
Nick shrugged his big shoulders and kept walking. One thing he did know — Tonaka had covered for him. His identity as Nick Carter, AXEman, was still safe. A dead man was fronting for him.
He did not notice the black Mercedes until it was much too late. It swooped out of a swirl of traffic and edged to the curb beside him. Two neatly dressed Japanese leaped out and began to walk alongside Nick, one on either side. The Mercedes crawled after them.
For an instant Nick considered the possibility that they were detectives. He discarded that idea at once. Both men were wearing light topcoats and kept their right hands in the pockets. The taller of them, wearing thick glasses, nudged Carter with the gun in his pocket. He smiled.
"Anata no onamae wa?"
Cool hands. He knew they were not cops now. He was being offered a ride, true Chicago style. He carefully kept his hands away from his belt.