The Katana Page 2

  Her thick, hairy hands reached behind her neck as though to unzip her brown blouse. Smiling, she walked over to the antique dealer, who sat on the floor staring up at her in open-mouthed fear. He didn’t know what to say. She was right, totally, completely right. Leo and Edgar needed money for their rich, New York lifestyle and they had tried to get it by slipping a phony Katana by Flowers.

  Edgar was due to leave for Europe tomorrow, maybe the day after, to sell the real Katana to a private collector for a lot of money. Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. God, that much money had looked so good in their imaginations, so very, very good. Now it was a noose around both of their necks.

  Why had the two of them been so stupid as to think they could fool Flowers? So what if he was in London and they were in America. Flowers was nobody to mess around with. They had tried it and now it looked as if the scheme had exploded in their faces.

  Robert Sand narrowed his eyes, watching Mrs. Thomms’ every move. Her expression had changed. Something was about to happen, he knew it, sensed it. That mean dyke wasn’t moving closer to the antique dealer to kiss him good night.

  Kiss him good-bye, maybe. That is one rotten bitch.

  Her voice was low, hard, demanding. It went into Wilfred Leo like a chain saw. “Where is Mr. Johns?” She breathed deeply. Killing” always excited her.

  The small antique dealer looked up at the big woman, answering her as though he was in a dream. “Don’t know. Home, ah, home. He—”

  “Does he have the Katana?”

  Wilfred Leo nodded yes, his mouth open. A dream. It was a dream, wasn’t it?

  She knew where Edgar Johns lived. Wilfred Leo wasn’t any use to her now.

  Dennis and Giorgio were watching Mrs. Thomms, guns now tucked in their belts. The men were tense, silent, knowing what would happen. They’d seen it before and it wasn’t pretty. But you watched anyway because you couldn’t help yourself. You watched the way you watched a traffic accident or a man leaping off a tall building. You watched because you were drawn to bloodshed by something you couldn’t explain.

  Dieter watched too, gunhand relaxed at his side, head turned away from Robert Sand and toward his sister, his yellow teeth biting his lower lip in anticipation. Go on, Josepha, go on. Do it, do it!

  The Black Samurai’s mind worked fast. There would be no better moment. Once Leo was dead, the big woman and her three goons could devote their entire attention to him. And being on his knees under three guns was bad odds.

  Dieter was relaxed, off-guard, his mind on his sister. The other two, fifteen feet across the room, had also gone loose, guns tucked away, their minds off the black man who knelt on the pale green rug and made no sound. He wasn’t a problem to them because he hadn’t yet given them a problem.

  Dieter was the nearest one to him, and Sand’s instincts told him the thin, long-faced German was so attached to his dyke sister, he wouldn’t wipe his ass after a shit unless she told him to. Ain’t that cute. Jack and Jill with a Sieg Heil accent.

  Got to be soon for me, thought the Black Samurai. I’ve got to make a move soon if I want to walk out of here alive.

  Looking down at Wilfred Leo, Mrs. Thomms smiled, both hands still behind her back. She would enjoy killing him. Mr. Flowers’ orders. “You Americans have a word for it. Inoperative, yes? Yes, that is the word. Inoperative. Means finished, yes? No longer in use.”

  Wilfred Leo knew, he knew and still he couldn’t move. Fear paralyzed him. And he stayed sitting on the floor.

  She was quick.

  Her right hand was a blur. It came from behind her neck with a straight razor, her wrist snapping in the air and flicking the blade out, and in the same motion, she backhanded the shiny steel blade down and across the right side of the small man’s neck, sending warm blood spurting high in the air.

  He squealed, feeling the pain fill his head. He clutched at his neck, both hands wet and sticky with his own blood. Still on his knees, he opened his eyes and saw nothing, feeling only a horrible ache in his neck. His mouth was open and only a soft sound—“Uhhhhh”—came out.

  Again Mrs. Thomms raised her right hand, the bloody razor high overhead, the pink tip of her tongue peeking out from between her thin lips. Finish him. Finish him good, the way Mr. Flowers ordered her to.

  She was ready to slash down again, and Dieter, frowning with concentration, his lower lip caught between his teeth, leaned forward to see it all. Leaned forward toward his sister and the man she was slashing to death. He enjoyed watching Josepha do things like this. She was so strong, so powerful, so in control of everything around her …

  Now, thought the Black Samurai, his eyes sweeping the room, seeing the three gunmen watch Mrs. Thomms kill the little antique dealer.

  Now or never.

  The Black Samurai attacked.

  Chapter 2

  ESCAPE

  FALLING QUICKLY TO HIS right, palms of both hands flat against the rug, Sand lashed out sideways with his left leg, a swift, powerful attack, stretching the leg as far as he could, driving the edge of his left foot into the back of Dieter Berle’s right knee.

  “Hey—!”

  Dieter cried out, feeling the awful pain in the back of his knee, throwing both arms up wide for balance as he dropped down to the floor on his knees, flinging the loosely held gun from his hand and across the room at a blue and white vase on a small brown table.

  The gun flew into the vase, shattering it into expensive chips of German porcelain. Snapping her head around at the sounds of Dieter’s cry and the shattered vase, Mrs. Thomms looked, widened her eyes, and, heart pounding, she yelled—“Dieter! Dieter!”

  Dennis and Giorgio turned from watching the bleeding, dying antique dealer, and hands clawing at the guns jammed into their belts, they charged.

  The Black Samurai was faster. And smarter.

  Scrambling to his feet, he was on Dieter Berle in a fraction of a second, crouched behind the kneeling man, who moaned and called out, “Josepha! Josepha!” Jesus, his knee! Oh God! The pain was worse than anything he’d ever known before. Did somebody shoot him? What happened?

  Cupping both hands, Sand spread his own arms apart, then smashed his cupped hands over Dieter’s ears, yelling “Kiaiii!”

  The martial arts cry, which belonged to all warriors for all time, filled the room, stunning everyone, paralyzing them in place for brief valuable seconds.

  Lightning exploded in Dieter Berle’s head, and the pain was so severe, it sliced deep into his eyeballs. When he cried out, screaming at the top of his voice, the pain smothered the sound and he heard nothing.

  Quickly, Sand’s right arm was around Dieter’s neck and he pulled back, driving the hard bone of his forearm into the skinny German’s throat, still keeping him on his knees but bending his head back. In less than a second, Sand’s left arm had gone under Dieter’s left armpit and his left hand was behind the German’s neck, pushing hard against the right side of his head.

  The choke was complete.

  Pull back against the throat with the right forearm, push forward on the head with the left hand.

  “AWWWK!” Dieter made a dry, ugly sound like a sick bird, his face turning red, his eyes bulging, both hands clutching Sand’s rock-hard forearm. Air. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe!

  His tongue was out, his head turned sideways, and still on his knees, he continued to make that ugly sound, the pain in his knee forgotten.

  Air. He wanted air. Josepha. Josepha. Help me, help me.

  “Take one more step and I’ll hand you his head to play with.”

  Dennis, five feet ten inches tall, paunchy in an unpressed blue suit, his sandy hair receding from his wide, shiny forehead, didn’t know what the hell to do. He stood there, feet nailed to the carpet, the .38 almost hidden in his beefy left hand, eyes flicking from Dieter to Mrs. Thomms and back again.

  Christ, thought Dennis, an Irish hood who often hired his muscle and gun out to Mr. Flowers, what the hell do we do now? How did the
black get his hands on Dieter? That Sambo must move like the wind.

  Dennis chewed his lip. Christ. She’ll blame us, me and Giorgio. No matter what happens, that Thomms bitch is going to blame us for her baby brother getting roughed up. Mark that down as trouble to come. She goes loony anytime something happens to that little queen. She’s killed for him with her bare hands and been happy to do it. What a fucking pair those two are. But right now, me and Giorgio got to worry about that nigger, because if we don’t get Dieter away from him, her highness here is going to have our balls in a jar.

  Dennis took one step forward toward Sand, raising his gunhand, and Sand, lips pressed tightly together, eyes on Mrs. Thomms and her two armed hoods, applied the pressure. He pulled his forearm back, cutting into Dieter’s windpipe, pushing the head forward at the same time with his left hand.

  Dieter stiffened, straightening up, feeling an iron collar of pain around his neck. He was growing more and more panicky from no air. His mouth was open as he tried to call out his sister’s name but no sound came out. He was getting dizzy and the edges of a soft blackness crept closer and closer.

  His hand felt cool and the ache was going away. But not really. He was losing consciousness and the pain only appeared to be leaving him.

  “Wait!” Mrs. Thomms cried out, her right hand with the bloody razor held high in a signal for her men to stay in place. Her brother. Nothing must happen to him. Nothing. His safety was all that mattered. After that, she would think about the black man.

  Silence.

  Then Sand spoke. “He’s losing consciousness. He’ll be dead soon if you drag this out. I’m leaving, he’s coming with me.” He never took his eyes from Mrs. Thomms.

  “No!” she said, her eyes blinking in panic, her heart pounding. Dieter. Oh, Dieter.

  Dieter’s gun was somewhere behind the brown desk, out of sight. Can’t take the time to look for it, thought Sand. And he didn’t have a gun of his own. Who needed a gun to talk with a skinny, forty-five-year-old, hundred-forty-pound antique dealer?

  Bad tactics to stay here and fight. Smarter to use Dieter and escape. Much smarter. You fight when you have to. A samurai uses his brains as well as his hands and feet.

  “He comes with me.” Sand didn’t phrase it as a question. It was a statement of fact.

  “And then—?” Mrs. Thomms fought to keep her voice calm, level.

  “He’s yours when I get on the other side of the door. But you get cute, and as fast as you think you can pull a trigger, I can move faster. His head won’t be worth a dime. I’ll crack his neck before you or your goons can move a finger.”

  Mrs. Thomms nodded, torn between her anxiety for her brother and wanting to revenge herself horribly on the black man. Horribly.

  “If anything happens to Dieter, I’ll find you, I’ll find you no matter where you are in this world, you understand that?”

  Sand understood. His smile was tight, touching a corner of his mouth then disappearing. Who said dykes didn’t have a heart? “In that case, maybe I should make sure I can sleep nights. Maybe I should make sure you won’t be a problem to me.”

  Silence. Mrs. Thomms breathed deeply, eyes bright with hatred for the black man. Never had she hated anyone the way she hated him. There was no way she would ever forget this night. Not ever.

  Dennis frowned, looking from Sand to Giorgio, a curly-haired Italian with a pointed nose and chin. Hell, why not shoot the black bugger now. If he was going to use Dieter to get a gun and kill them all, why not shoot him right now. To hell with Dieter, they had to think about themselves.

  As though reading his mind, Mrs. Thomms told him without looking, “Dennis, if you do anything to get my brother killed, I’ll make sure you won’t have a day without pain for as long as you live, you understand me?”

  Licking his lips, Dennis nodded. He understood. Mrs. Thomms made no idle threats. She was a terrifying woman, and men who underestimated her once never made that mistake again. Letting the air out of his lungs, Dennis dropped his head to his chest. He understood.

  So did Giorgio. Which is why he let his gun hand dangle at his side.

  “You can go,” said Mrs. Thomms to Robert Sand as though dismissing him. “But you remember what I said about my brother.”

  Sand, easing the pressure on Dieter’s throat, said nothing. No sense pressing your luck. Mrs. Thomms controlled her hoods now, but if they thought their lives were threatened, they might start shooting through Dieter. And that would be hard on the Black Samurai. Besides, Sand wanted to get to Edgar Johns in a hurry.

  Sand backed up, dragging Dieter with him. “On your feet, on your feet!” Now they were nearing the door, and a half-conscious Dieter, face now a bright red, hands still clutching Sand’s forearm, struggled to get to his feet. The German made a small sound of pain as his right leg sent torture up and down his body.

  Air was coming to him in thimblefuls. His lungs burned, his throat was one dull ache, and his head seemed to be huge and lightweight, filled with cool air that sometimes appeared ready to push its way out of his skull, smashing it into thousands of pieces.

  He was half on his feet, body in a sitting position but without a chair under him.

  They were at the door. In front of Sand, no one had moved. Mrs. Thomms watched him, her face stiff with fear for her brother and hatred for the black man using him as a shield. She would find that nigger, find him and give him a painful death. A promise.

  Reaching behind him with his left hand, Sand turned the doorknob, eyes still focused in front, seeing the antique dealer lying on his side, back to Sand, blood seeping from under his head; seeing Mrs. Thomms and her two hoods frozen in place like menacing statues.

  The door was opened and Sand dragged Dieter through quickly. Closing the door behind him and still holding the German around the neck with his right arm, he straightened him up until he faced the door. Sand felt no pity for the man. Dieter was a part of what his friends had done to Wilfred Leo. And Sand knew what was to have happened to him. That’s why no one attempted to hide the killing or anything else from him.

  Sand wasn’t supposed to be in a position to tell anybody what he’d seen or heard.

  Dieter faced the door, mouth opened and loudly drawing air into his burning lungs, his head throbbing. Air. Oh God, he wanted air.

  You like guns, thought Sand, remembering the casual way Dieter had toyed with his life. You had me on my knees, a finger pull away from death. OK, Fritz. Here’s yours. ENJOY.

  Grabbing a handful of long, reddish brown hair at the back of Dieter’s neck, Sand pulled the German’s head back then smashed it forward into the door, breaking his nose and knocking him unconscious.

  As Dieter sagged, then slumped down in front of the door, Sand turned and raced down the hall.

  Samurai!

  The door was jerked open and Dieter fell inside, landing on his side, then rolling onto his back, arms spread wide. Blood trickled from his crushed nose.

  Crouching over him, Mrs. Thomms picked his head and shoulders up tenderly, cradling them in her huge arms. “Dieter,” she whispered, “Oh, Dieter, Dieter.” Quickly her fingers felt his neck for a pulse, found it, and she sighed.

  Dennis and Giorgio stepped around and over her, leaping into the hall, guns drawn, heads turning left, right.

  The hallway was empty.

  “Who is this?”

  “A friend of Wilfred Leo’s, just a friend.” The telephone voice was deep, carefully friendly, and alert as a tiger in a tree, about to pounce.

  “Yes, but—?”

  “Look Mister, Mister—?”

  “Johns, Edgar Johns.”

  “Ah yes,” said the tiger voice, “you are Mr. Leo’s partner, yah?”

  An alarm went off in Edgar Johns’ mind and he clutched the telephone with both hands, frowning and biting his lip, getting more and more worried without knowing why. That voice. He knew it but he couldn’t pin it down. He knew it and he also knew that he was supposed to be afraid of it. He was
confused now. So much on his mind.

  “Uh, Mr. Johns, can Mr. Leo reach you anywhere? I mean he is coming back, but perhaps it will be, oh, half hour … thirty minutes, maybe less, I do not know. Where are you?”

  That voice. Deep. An accent. German? Swiss? Scandinavian? You met so many people in the antique and art world, many of them foreign. Accents, accents, always accents. He and Wilfred knew tons of people. But that voice, that voice.

  “Where are you, Mr. Johns?” The tiger voice was slightly more insistent now, urgent but controlled, as though the answer were important but the voice didn’t want Edgar Johns to think so.

  “I’m, I’m—”

  He hesitated. What was bothering him? The Katana. That goddamn, beautiful sword of gold, silver, and red rubies was certainly bothering him. Until he got rid of it, he wasn’t going to sleep too well at night. But this voice was bothering him, too. Maybe there wasn’t anything to it, maybe it was just paranoia, unnecessary and useless fear, something else to turn his hair gray.

  Edgar Johns, fifty-five, pudgy from too much fine food and expensive wine, picked at stylish gray mutton-chop whiskers covering both sides of his round, pink face from ear to jawbone. Then he smoothed his pink silk caftan, feeling his fat thigh underneath. Nervous gestures to help him postpone answering the tiger voice.

  “Oh, it’s really not important.” Edgar Johns swallowed hard, both hands again around the gold-plated antique telephone receiver. Clearing his throat, now almost stopped up with a growing fear, he said, “I’ll call him back.”

  “But Mr. Leo left explicit instructions,” said the tiger voice, “that if you called, we were either to keep you on the line until he returned or find out where you were so he could talk to you. He has something very important to tell you.”

  Heart pounding, Edgar Johns sat up, shifting his weight to the edge of the two-thousand-dollar red leather wing chair in his Greenwich Village duplex penthouse. “Wha-what is it?” He frowned, eyes staring at nothing, mind racing as he quickly tried to guess what Wilfred might have on his mind. What could it be?