By the Sword

  “Fine. He was embarrassed. I’m sorry for him. Now—”

  “Because he was so embarrassed, he didn’t sign it on the nakago as he often did—”

  “The what?”

  “The tang, the butt end inside the handle. Instead he engraved it with ‘gaijin.’” O’Day pointed to the ideogram in the close-up photo. “He locked it away and prayed the gaijin wouldn’t return. Finally, as he neared the end of his life, he gave it to a samurai who’d done him a service. No one ever knew who that samurai was and the so-called ‘Gaijin Masamune’ became something of a legend—supposedly stronger and sharper than anything Masamune had ever made. The story was known only to experts and collectors, and a lot of them thought it was a just that—a story. That all changed in 1955.”

  Jack had to admit he was interested now.

  “What happened?”

  “The Peace Memorial Museum opened in Hiroshima. And on display was this naked katana blade. Its tsuka—handle—was missing and the blade was riddled with holes. It had been found at ground zero, right where the Aioi Bridge used to be. It had the gaijin ideogram engraved on its tang.”

  “Could have been a fake.”

  O’Day scowled. “Aren’t you listening? It was found at ground zero. It should have melted. But it didn’t. Only some of it melted—the regular steel that Masamune had added to the gaijin’s. The gaijin’s steel resisted the heat. Remember the part about the blade’s mottled finish? That was because the Earth steel, instead of blending with the steel that had ‘fallen from the sky,’ formed discrete pockets. So when it melted away, the remaining gaijin steel was left riddled with defects.”

  Despite knowing the answer, Jack said, “I gather it’s no longer in the museum.”

  “No. The place opened in August, the sword was gone by mid-September.”

  Jack now knew what museum Naka was hiding from. But he couldn’t have stolen it—not unless he was a lot older than he looked. Must have been his father.

  “That brings us back to the reason I’m here.” How to put this? “Look, you’re known in certain circles as a guy who provides a service for goods of uncertain origin.”

  Well, that was better than just coming out and calling the guy a fence.

  O’Day gave him a mean look. “What are you saying?”

  Jack held up his hands: peace. “Look, I’m in those circles, and I even do a little myself. Thing is, you’re also known as an expert on swords. So, if I was burdened with a katana that I wanted to be rid of, you’d be the guy I’d call.”

  O’Day said nothing, simply sat and glared.

  Jack cleared his throat. “Well? Heard anything?”

  Finally O’Day shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Lie. He hadn’t heard about the Masamune Gaijin—his shock had been too genuine—but he’d heard something. What?

  “Too bad. Look, you hear anything, you call Abe. There’s a finder’s fee in this for you.”

  He smiled. “If I find it, better hope the guy doesn’t know what he’s holding, because if he does, he’s either not going to part with it, or he’s going to want a ton.”

  “So it’s worth a lot?”

  “Ohhhhhh, yeah. I hear from him, I’ll point him toward you—and expect a fat finder’s fee.”

  “And if he doesn’t know what he’s got?”

  “Hell, I’m going to buy it from him.”

  “Then what? Sell it back to my guy?”

  “Yep. Hope he’s got deep pockets.”

  “He might.”

  “He’d better.”

  Jack sensed a lie. This guy was a katana-collecting Gollum, and the Gaijin Masamune was his Precious. If he got his mitts on it, no way was he letting it go. Not for any amount. At least not now. Maybe he’d part with it down the road—cash in and be able to brag to his katana-collecting buddies that he once owned the Gaijin Masamune.

  Jack couldn’t wait around. If O’Day got to the blade first, Jack might be forced to play rough and gank it. An iffy and dangerous proposition he wished to avoid. The best solution here was to find this Eddie Cordero before O’Day did, and hope for the same: That he didn’t know what he had.

  Jack turned and headed for the door. “You hear anything, you’ll call Abe, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Suuuuuure.

  2

  Hideo leaned close to the computer screen as he ran through the tape from the security camera focused on carousel seven at Kennedy International. He’d arrived, gone straight to the Waverly Place mansion—one of a number around the city owned by Kaze Group—and set up shop.

  He hadn’t had to ask how the baggage scan had made its way to Sasaki-san. Kaze Group had a hand, in one form or another, in the production of almost every piece of electronic equipment in the world. The chairman had no doubt ordered an image of the sword embedded in the pattern-recognition software. When that image passed through the scanner, it was automatically forwarded to the chairman.

  And since Kaze had a hand in most of the world’s security systems and surveillance cams, Hideo had easily hacked into JFK’s network.

  The tube had been loaded onto Northwest Flight 804 out of Kahului Airport, then transferred to Delta Flight 30 in Seattle. Flight 30 had arrived on time at 3:36. Hideo fast-forwarded ahead to 3:45 on the day in question and watched the passengers crowd around the carousel. He watched the baggage start to slide down the chute. The tube appeared at 3:58 and was picked up by a stocky, dark-haired man who had already picked out a suitcase. As he turned and walked toward the cam, Hideo executed a number of freeze frames, enhancing and downloading each to the server in the basement.

  He was glad this was streaming video rather than a three-or five-second refresh. He might well have missed the opportunity for a close-up.

  The man was traveling as Eddie Cordero. Hideo would soon learn his true name.

  Then he switched to the exit cam, advanced it to 3:58, and waited for the man with the tube and the rolling suitcase. He appeared and walked over to the taxi area and waited in line for his turn. Hideo downloaded enhanced frames of the taxi’s license plates and the medallion number on its roof light.

  He leaned back and smiled. All he had to do was track down those plates and medallion number, pass a little cash, and he’d know where that particular cab had dropped off the passenger picked up that day shortly after four P.M. at JFK.

  He was beginning to understand why the chairman had chosen him: His computer skills made finding the man easy.

  As easy as brewing tea.

  3

  Dawn stroked against the jets in the endless lap pool in Mr. Osala’s private rooftop health club. She’d always liked swimming and now she could swim as long and as far as she wanted without ever having to make a turn. She’d read it was the best exercise of all, and knew it was toning her body.

  She’d hoped the repetitive activity would totally numb her brain, act like a physical meditation mantra, but just the opposite. It cleared her head of everything but what she needed a break from.

  Those posters.

  Her mind wouldn’t let go of what they meant: Jerry wasn’t the only one looking for her. She’d thought she was in a bad situation before, but now she knew it was worse. It had ruined her day out—everything had been super up till then. But at least now she knew what she was up against.

  She stopped swimming and stood panting in the warm flow from the jets.

  What to do?

  She was a virtual prisoner here, but if Jerry found her, she’d be a total prisoner until she gave birth. And that would be, what, like January? Like next year? She shuddered. No way.

  Here at least she had tons of comfort and Mr. Osala would cut her loose as soon as he’d tracked Jerry down and dealt with him.

  What did he plan to do with Jerry once he found him? He always said “deal with him.” But what did that mean?

  God help her, she hoped he meant totally kill him. After what Jerry had done to Mom, she wanted him dead—he deserved to be de
ad. God himself should strike him dead.

  A sob broke free.

  And this thing inside her…every day it got a day older. Right now she could think of it as a thing. But what if it got to the point where she could feel it kicking and turning inside her? When did that happen? It wouldn’t be a thing then. It would be a baby. Even with the total grossness of what it was and how it got there, she sensed she’d get to a point where she couldn’t kill it.

  So despite what Mr. Osala said about the thing being like an insurance policy, she totally had to get it out of her ASAP. Even if that meant running the risk of Jerry killing her if he caught her and found out.

  And she thought she might have a way. It would be tricky, but if it worked she might have her cake and eat it too, so to speak.

  4

  “You say Eddie Cordero is his AK? You know that for sure?”

  Jack sat in an inside booth at the Highwater Diner, perched on the west side of the West Side Highway, practically in the Hudson. Reaching it was real-life Frogger, but worth the risk.

  Teddy “Bobblehead” Crenshaw slouched on the far side of the table, slurping iced coffee through a straw. Atop his pencil neck sat a size-eight skull that tended to wobble back and forth as he walked. Nobody called him Bobblehead to his face—he got testy about that. But no one referred to him as Teddy behind his back. When out of sight, he was Bobblehead all the way.

  A half-eaten BLT and a hundred-dollar bill sat between them on the Formica tabletop, the latter weighted down by a salt shaker. Teddy’s head was steady now as he sat and sipped and kept glancing at the Ben.

  “For sure,” Jack said. “What I don’t know is his real name and where to find him.”

  Bobble seemed to think on this, then took a big bite of his sandwich and spoke around it. “The Man ain’t involved, right?”

  Bits of bacon and mayo sprayed the tabletop and the c-note. Eating with this guy was like sitting front-row center at a Gallagher concert.

  “Not at all.”

  “Because I already feel like a snitch as it is. Things’ve been kinda tight lately, y’know? But if fingering him is gonna bring real heat down on this guy…”

  Jack wanted to shake him but knew he had to let Bobble run through his guilt trip.

  “I understand. Reason my guy came to me is because he doesn’t want the police involved. And there’s a good chance ‘Eddie’ might make something on the deal.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to deal?”

  Jack shrugged. “That’s his choice. I’ve been hired to get something he stole back into the hands of the previous owner. There’s an easy way, and there’s a hard way. I prefer the easy way, and so should your friend, ‘Eddie.’ Especially since my guy might be willing to pay a ransom. A little cooperation and it can be a win-win-win-win situation.”

  Bobble frowned. “Huh?”

  “You get money, ‘Eddie’ gets money, I get my fee, and the guy gets his property back. We all walk away happy.”

  Bobblehead nodded. He seemed to like that spin.

  “And if he’s not who you’re looking for?”

  Jack tapped the bill, right on Ben Franklin’s forehead. “Like I said: If I think your info’s in good faith, you get this to keep. If it’s the right guy, you get another.”

  He sighed and stuffed the end of the BLT into his mouth before speaking. “All right. Here’s how it goes: When I heard you was looking for a second-story man going under Eddie Cordero, Hugh Gerrish popped into my head right away. He’s a major possibility.”

  “Possibility? So this is a guess? You don’t know this guy uses that AK?”

  Jack wasn’t looking for guesses. Guesses could send him chasing ghosts.

  “No. Don’t know for sure, but dig: Gerrish is a second-story man who loves the ponies, especially the thoroughbreds. Take two of the greatest jockeys in history, mash their names together, and you come up with Eddie Cordero.”

  Jack leaned back, as much to avoid the Sledge-o-Matic effect from Bobblehead as to think. That was why the name had rung a bell. Jack had worked a racetrack scam in his younger days. Didn’t care for the sport, but anyone who knew anything about the ponies knew the names Eddie Arcaro and Angel Cordero.

  “Did he disappear for a while and come back with a tan?”

  “No tan, but he disappears for a couple weeks and then he pops up again, and he’s buying rounds, saying what a sweet job he pulled.”

  “No details?”

  “He’s smarter’n that.”

  Jack mulled this a bit. Definite possibilities here.

  “Okay, he sounds worth a shot. Where’s he live?”

  He shrugged, setting his head to bobbling. “Don’t know him well enough for that. We both just tend to end up at the Fifth Quarter down on St. Mark’s. But you can find out easily enough.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s out at Belmont most every day during the season—’cept Mondays and Tuesdays when it’s dark. And since this is the season, all you gotta do is find him and follow him home.”

  “Great. But I don’t know what he looks like.”

  “He’s forty-something, real skinny, brown hair—dollars to donuts he dyes the gray—and…”

  His voice trailed off as he saw Jack’s face. Must have reflected the disappointment and frustration he felt. Wasted time.

  “You know how many guys at the track look like that? Next you’ll tell me he wears a Yankees cap—”

  “Naw-naw, he’s a Mets fan.”

  “I need a Capone scar, I need an Aaron Neville mole. And if he hasn’t got anything like that, I need a photo.”

  Jack slipped the Ben from beneath the salt shaker and began to slide it toward his side of the table.

  “Hey, wait.”

  “Good story, Teddy. But no address? No picture? No deal.”

  Bobble grabbed his wrist. “Wait! Wait! I ran into him last Saturday during the Fifth Quarter’s Preakness party, just a couple days after he showed up from his ‘sweet job.’ Bastard won big too.”

  “So?”

  “So Suzy the bartender was taking pictures with her phone when we were celebrating. I think she got one of me with Gerrish and some other guy. If we’re lucky, maybe she hasn’t erased them.”

  Jack rose and shoved the hundred into his pocket.

  “Looks like we’re heading for the East Village.”

  5

  It hadn’t taken Hideo long to single out Kenji as the smartest of the yakuza assigned to him. And although he seemed the oldest of the three, he could not be much past twenty-seven or twenty-eight.

  He was the only one to exhibit any signs of intellectual curiosity. His two fellow hoodlums, Goro and Ryo, seemed to have no interests beyond smoking, drinking, watching TV, and playing cards.

  Hideo didn’t understand the need for Kaze Group’s alliance with various yakuza groups. More powerful than all of them combined, it could crush them in a matter of days if it so wished. Yet it maintained ties. Why? Because it required a buffer between it and certain activities?

  He had noticed that once out of sight of his fellows, Kenji dropped his swagger and confrontational demeanor and became a sponge for any knowledge or information to be had.

  “What do we do now, Takita-san?” he said in English.

  Good for you, Hideo thought.

  Of the three, Kenji spoke the best English, and was obviously trying to hone whatever fluency he had.

  The taxi trail had led to a dead end. Hideo had gone to the cab company and paid off the dispatcher to let him check the fare records of the vehicle in question. Yes, it had picked up a passenger at Kennedy at shortly after four P.M. that day, but had dropped him off at Belmont raceway. Hideo doubted the mystery man lived at the racetrack, so he’d have to find another way.

  Sitting at his workstation, he called up one of the close-ups he’d culled from the surveillance tapes.

  “I’m going to run this through our latest facial recognition program, map the landmarks of his features, an
d create a mathematical faceprint.”

  As he started the programs, a series of dots of varying colors began to appear on the face, connected by multicolored lines. Then numbers popped up as calculations were completed.

  Kenji pointed to the screen. “You can no longer see his face.”

  But Hideo’s gaze was drawn from the screen to Kenji’s hand. The tip of his left little finger was missing, cut off at the first joint. Hideo knew what this meant: yubitsume. Kenji must have made a mistake somewhere along the line and, by way of apology for his wrongdoing, cut off the tip and sent it to his kumicho, begging forgiveness.

  Apparently he was forgiven, or he wouldn’t be here. Hideo hadn’t noticed it during the trip because he’d worn a fake fingertip to divert suspicion. Traveling yakuza often became targets of increased scrutiny.

  Kenji’s cuff had slipped back, revealing the lower end of an intricately patterned sleeve tattoo. Hideo had never seen these yakuza unclothed, but he would bet Kenji and Goro and Ryo were covered with them, head to toe. Yakuza tradition demanded it.

  “Takita-san?”

  Hideo snapped his attention back to the screen. What had Kenji said? Oh, about not seeing the face.

  “Yes, but the computer will use that numeric formula to create a template to which it will match other faces.”

  “But where—?”

  “One Police Plaza will be our first stop.”

  According to information on the flash drive, the sword had been stolen from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum over fifty years ago.

  “We can go to the police?”

  “Not physically, but we can visit without leaving these seats. The man we are looking for was transporting a stolen object. He may not know the history of its original theft, but I believe he knows that what he carries was not legally obtained. That makes him a criminal. And most criminals at one time or another are arrested. And when they are arrested, they are photographed. And those photographs are stored…”