"No one ever did that to me before!" she exclaimed. "Don't stop!"
No one before? Not more than a thousand times, anyway! She was obviously well familiar with the procedure, primed to respond to it.
Then she came, explosively, catching my head between her thighs and crushing it with painful force. "Oh, that's good! My husband never socked me like that! Not in three hours, he couldn't do that to me!"
He had tried for three hours? At the time that seemed like a pretty good testimonial for someone. Him or me?
Soon she subsided, and I made as if to dress. I had fought the good fight and won a victory of sorts, I thought, and my head was beginning to clear. "Oh, don't go!" she exclaimed, horrified. "The night is young yet!"
Young? Maybe so, but I felt old. I tried to demur, but she clung to me, literally. Her arms caught firmly around my hips, and one of her breasts was wedged into my crotch. It was a difficult plea to deny. I couldn't even think of an equivalent judo hold to name. And of course I had no convenient way to go home at this hour if she didn't take me. Not that I had any clear idea what the hour was.
It turned out to be true: her night was young. Like an indefatigable warrior, she was soon after me again, eager to arouse and be aroused. "I am a nymphomaniac," she said candidly.
A nympho! I believed it. The dream of the Playboy-type American male. But I doubt that many of those studs have actually tried it. Enthusiasm diminishes with each too-rapid repetition, until the act becomes extremely uncomfortable. I know; I learned the hard way.
"Keep going—that's good," she murmured passionately. "It reminds me of Larry, short but oh so wide, it always hurt the first time..."
I wondered just how that description applied. Was it Larry who was short and wide, or merely a portion of him?
"I used to work for the telephone company," she continued. She certainly liked to talk. She kept up a running monologue throughout, which was just one more disconcerting thing about her. It was like having a play-by-play report on a sport event, only I was one of the players. Well, at least I knew what the score was. "My hours were eight to twelve and six to ten, a split shift. I had two boyfriends. I'd split for Zack from twelve to four, and for Aaron overnight."
Split shift indeed! Sex from A to Z. Was she teasing me? I wished one of those boyfriends would spell me now. She had bitten me so many times I felt as though I'd been in a fight to the death. My loins certainly felt deceased. If Ilunga saw me now, she'd probably castrate me. Here she was getting information for me on how to fence the diamonds, while I—
The diamonds! When was I going to get out of this? At last Onelida had mercy and let me collapse into sleep. I dreamed of Cuba and judo tournaments: the anticipation, the excitement, the agonizing loss. Luis had been there, my friend, though his team opposed mine. I seldom meet people I really like, but those I do like are normally in judo or proficient in another martial art. Luis had beaten me in informal randori, judo practice, yet he had made me feel like twice a winner. The right remark at the right time.
It would be good to see him again.
Then I dreamed of Fu Antos, the ninja mystic, now reincarnated as an old-eyed child. I did not like Fu Antos; I was afraid of him. I respected his formidable powers, but I knew his basic philosophy was not mine. He was not a violent throwback to medieval times; he was a native of those times. That factory destruction... I would try to help him, of course, out of respect for Hiroshi. But the faster my part of this effort was over, the better off I'd be.
The thing about Fu Antos was his ki. It was too strong, an overwhelming magic. Call it super-hypnotism, if you will, or voodoo come true. I am a twentieth-century man; I do not believe in magic or voodoo, and I distrust hypnotism. And none of these are perfect parallels to his ki. That demonstration Fu Antos had made, when he made me think I had committed suicide when I was actually killing him—if he could do that, where were his limits? Then, to see him reincarnated immediately in the form of a young boy—this defied common sense.
So I preferred to forget Fu Antos, just as I had to forget my prior experience in the northern Shaolin monastery and my lost fiancée, Chiyako. I was strong physically; I feared no man in honest hand-to-hand combat. But I was weak emotionally; my mental and spiritual wounds had never really healed. I had never achieved any lasting certainty of values or peace of mind. How comforting it would be to turn off my doubting mind and exist the way so many other people did, certain of my own worth and morality. But somehow I could not.
Chiyako smiled at me, her stunningly beautiful face framed by soft black hair. Half Chinese, and, as it were, half kung fu. Behind her I saw the old Shaolin monastery where I had, almost, found spiritual relief.
Then all vanished in the flare of bursting bombs, and I felt the utter helplessness and horror of the destruction my presence had wrought. The monastery was rubble, Chiyako was dead—because of me.
I woke in a cold sweat. The monks had given me life, but where was my soul? They had told me I had a mission, and I thought at one time that mission was to abolish the scourge of kill-13 from the world. But that was done, and still I was unsatisfied. It was as though my mission remained unfulfilled.
Yet I had been through similar nightmares before. Always, the new day came, as it did now, and I busied myself in the trivia of contemporary routine. Today I had diamonds to fence and weapons to buy. Tonight Luis would come. Some trivia!
I paused in my thoughts, looking around. Something unpleasant rippled up my spine. It was daylight, perhaps nine o'clock. Someone was knocking on the door.
After a moment of disorientation I remembered that I was not in my own apartment. Onelida was just emerging from the bathroom in her negligee, looking flower-fresh. She had the stamina of an ox.
She heard the knocking. "Omigod, I forgot! That's my husband!" she whispered.
Her husband! What was this?
"He's a brute of a man!" she said urgently. "Run out the back way. Hide in the car!"
I was not afraid of any "brute of a man" per se, for I have fought the best. But if she were, after all, still married, then I was an interloper. I wanted no part of that.
I slid out of bed, grabbing my clothing from the chair in a messy bundle. Naked, holding it defensively before me, I barged out the back just as Onelida opened the front. Had the man seen me?
I scampered barefoot across the pavement, searching for her car. Something moved, and for a heart-stopping instant I thought it was a person, a housewife. But it was only a cat jumping down from a garbage can. All I needed now was an arrest for indecent exposure—me and the hickeys all over my body.
Luckily I found the car without being seen. I dived inside, banging my forehead on the steering wheel. I huddled there, trying to get dressed in a hurry in that hellishly cramped space. A man emerged from the same door I had so precipitously exited from. He carried a pair of shoes in his big hand. My shoes.
I would have driven off in a panic, but I didn't have the car keys.
The man came purposefully up to the car. I waited, chagrined. I could not fight him; I was in the wrong. Why hadn't the bitch told me she was still married? I would simply have to take whatever he dished out, and she had not exaggerated about his size. A stevedore, by the look of him.
I saw Onelida standing in the doorway, looking scared. Beside her was the child, Jan. The prior absence of her daughter should have alerted me; nine times out of ten the woman gains custody of the child in a divorce action, even if she is a poor mother. Where else would Jan have stayed, with only one parent? Obviously she was out with her father, who would return. Had returned.
He peered in the window while I cowered. "You did not have to run," he said mildly. "The bitch does not mean anything to me. I only came to bring my daughter back."
I opened my mouth but could not speak.
"All I care about at this house is my little girl," he said. "I'd ten times rather take her out for a night than her mother. I'm even sending her to self-defense school so no one can
hurt her. I don't give a damn about Onelida; I quit bothering after the first dozen lovers she had. You know, she was even cheating on her A.M. and P.M. lovers when she worked for the phone company?"
I made an explosive exhalation of breath, half-laughter, half-amazement. Every part of this misadventure was incredible.
He nodded. "Every time we have a quarrel, she goes out and finds another stud. Anyway, she's insatiable. You can visit anytime you want, as long as you can stand it. You don't have to sneak around. Just make sure the child's not there, okay?"
I nodded dumbly, not having the nerve to tell him I was Jan's self-defense instructor. But maybe he knew.
"Here's your shoes," he said, handing them in. "Nice meeting you. I know what you've been through." And he ambled away. I would have felt better if he had bashed me one.
Fifteen interminable minutes later, Onelida, dressed, came out to the car. "I'll take you home," she said.
She drove. On the way we passed a park. She halted the car. "This is pretty quiet this time of day," she said. "We can do it right here in the car." And she opened her blouse, revealing her braless bosom.
"Thanks, no," I choked. Now I was really feeling my hangover. The sight of her body made me feel sick, literally. It had been quite a night of conditioning. "No time, got to get home!"
"But I haven't had it this morning!" she protested indignantly. "My husband won't touch me, the bastard."
Which reminded me of the Bastard Bones—another unfortunate association. So that was where she had spent that fifteen minutes, trying to make her brute of a husband oblige her. But he was too smart to start in. "Home," I said firmly. I knew we'd never get out of that park if I made any attempt to fill the bottomless pit.
To my immense relief, she acquiesced. I suppose she had an eye to the future; if she made a pest of herself this time, she might lose out the next time. I had no intention of there being any next time, but had sense enough not to say that. She started the car again and drove me without further comment to my apartment. Her very silence was a reprimand; and so help me, I actually felt guilty. Was she hoping I'd invite her in for a two-hour quickie? No chance!
"See you again," she said as I stepped out.
"Sure," I lied.
Chapter 5:
Hot Ice
As I entered my apartment, I remembered yet again Hiroshi's bag of diamonds. I rushed to the laundry hamper, fearing the worst. They had to be there, but if they weren't—
And they weren't. The bag was gone.
I looked wildly around the apartment, refusing to believe it. The place was its usual sloppy self, dusty and not too clean. My judo gi was hanging over the back of a chair, undisturbed. My ancient black-and-white TV set sat in one corner, and my shelf of martial-arts books was along one wall. Overall, the place was in need of a woman's touch, but the one woman I ever wanted to touch it was dead. It certainly did not look as if anybody had been here in my absence; everything was exactly as I had left it. For an hour I ransacked my own apartment. I was sweating. I had no air-conditioner, but that was only half the reason. Because I didn't like a stuffy room, I had locked my door—and left my window wide open to let in the night breeze.
Some protection! But ordinarily I had nothing worth stealing. Naturally I should have taken better precautions this time, but it was a bit late for recriminations.
I had no luck. The diamonds had been stolen while I was out on my ridiculous hot date. What a price I had paid for my foolishness. I might as well have put up a billboard: DIAMONDS IN HAMPER—PLEASE STEAL.
I fell back on the bed. Who could have done this? I had been criminally careless to leave the diamonds exposed; yet who would have suspected I had them? I had never been robbed before, and nothing else had been touched. The thief had obviously known exactly what he was after, and where to look.
Who had known, then? I ran over the list.
First, Hiroshi himself. No, he was no suspect. He had no motive; he wanted me to have the diamonds. He had nothing to gain by stealing them back, when I would gladly have returned them. And he was honest. I could not imagine him acting in a criminal fashion.
Second, Ilunga. Again, no. She had been a criminal, technically, but was changed now. Her basic nature had never been criminal, and she had never lied to me or coveted anything that was mine. All she wanted of me was—me.
The Bastard Bones gang? They didn't really know, and most of them were in no condition to attempt a robbery right now anyway. And they would not have stopped with theft; they would have laid into things with sections of pipe, ripping up my apartment in an orgy of vandalism. This was a more dispassionate, professional job.
Who else? Had the waitress at the bar overheard our conversation? I doubted it; she had other duties, and we had desisted when she was near. The general hum of conversation in such places provides a certain privacy, anyway.
What about Onelida? No, she had been with me all the time. Even in my sleep I had been aware of her insatiable hands running over my body, her torso pressing near, as if to wring out the last vestige of experience. Her husband or daughter? They would have had to be in collusion with her, and I doubted either was the type. And it really made no sense, distracting me all night when an hour or so would have done. On top of that, there had been nothing furtive about any of them; I had been the furtive one.
Then it came to me: the yak-milk drinker. He could have caught on. Hiroshi might even have confided in him. I hadn't liked his face, anyway; too oily and sweaty.
Well, I could run him down. Hiroshi would know where to find him.
Hiroshi! How could I locate the little aikidoist?
The phone rang. I jumped; was that Hiroshi, presciently calling in?
No; it was Ilunga. "I have a name for you."
Oh, no! She had the contact, but I had no diamonds. If I had regretted my night's dalliance before, I felt abysmal now. "You awake yet?" Ilunga inquired in response to my silence.
Suddenly a new notion came to me. "Did you tell your contact what we had?"
She sounded disgusted. "I was not born yesterday, honky. He thinks I have skag."
She meant heroin. Smart indirection. "There's a hitch."
She caught on instantly. "Not even a white man's that stupid!"
"I was. I went out on a date." No, better not go into that. "I've got to find Hiroshi."
"That must have been some date," she muttered. "But you're in luck, more than you deserve. I saw him with a fat Mexican and a boy, not fifteen minutes ago. Going down toward the bar." The bar! "Thanks!" I said, hanging up. I scrambled into my clothing and headed that way.
No Bastard Bones punks were about. Not surprising.
They were there, having a breakfast, naturally, of yak's milk. And if I judged correctly, yak cheese. Hiroshi and the boy were on one side of the table, José Peon on the other. I slid into the booth beside José, so as to block any attempted escape.
"There has been a theft," I said grimly.
José turned toward me, and I tensed. "Señor, I do not know what you have lost, but I think it is your temper. I suspect you suspect me of something."
"José is blameless," Hiroshi said.
That put me in an awkward spot. Hiroshi was a trusting soul, but he was no fool. He could touch a person's hand and know by his ki whether that person was friend or enemy. I could not accuse José now.
"Perhaps we had better excuse ourselves," José said. His son sidled out.
"The boy," I said, thinking how easy it would be to scramble in a window and out again. An invitingly open window.
Hiroshi shook his head. "My friend means well," he said to José, as though apologizing for me.
"Say no more," José said, smiling. "If we can help—"
"Perhaps another time."
I had to move out of the way so that José could leave. I did not feel at all comfortable as his bulk passed me.
"How can you be sure?" I demanded when we were alone.
"The diamonds are gone, and you
met this man only yesterday. What do you know about him?"
"All acquaintances must have a beginning," he said calmly. "I excused José because this misfortune is not of his making, and it would not be polite to involve him in it." He looked at me with that gentle yet soul-penetrating manner he had. "Do not blame yourself. It is not possible to keep a matter such as Fu Antos' mission entirely secret. I have been aware of the inimical presence of others since I arrived in America. I thought it was merely the fundamental arrogance of your Western society, but when you accepted the diamonds, that presence deserted me and followed you. Then I knew that someone was after that wealth."
Some of Hiroshi's inexplicable actions became explicable. "You were being tailed, so you tested to see what they were after!"
He nodded. "I was sure no harm would come to you, or I would not have done it. The parties never approached me closely while I retained the bag; for some reason they doubted their ability to take it from me, though I sought to provide opportunity."
"I'm not surprised." Hiroshi had been seemingly careless with that bag, but he was always alert, unlike the lummox I had turned out to be.
"Now, fortunately, we have succeeded in transferring the diamonds."
"Fortunately! You said you needed the money for—"
"That is true. But it became more important to identify our enemy. So long as he was unknown, we could not safely proceed with our mission."
"But how—?"
"It is possible to orient on specific objects," he explained. "I have attuned my perception to the diamonds. I shall be able to trace them, if they are not too far away."
This smacked of the supernatural, but I kept my hackles down. I had heard of strange new discoveries about the human brain and its perceptions. Some people could receive the aura of particular objects and tune in on those objects even though blindfolded. It had been demonstrated in the laboratory, I understood. Certainly, if anyone had such a talent, Hiroshi would be the one. His power of ki was miraculous, second only to that of his ancient mentor, Fu Antos.