The Deadly Pearl Page 2

  Tonight he wasn’t running through the dark streets of a foreign country, nor was he risking his life to stop a multimillion-dollar scheme from ruining a nation. All he had done was agree to help a man find his only daughter. Not much of an international crisis, and no evil millionaires or sadistic warlords in sight.

  Just a frightened man who loved his daughter and wanted her back alive.

  Sand and Foster walked up the steps of the rundown tenement on Avenue D in the East Village and stepped into the dirty hallway under pale patches of light from one dim yellow bulb. They were heading for Roger Tubb’s apartment on the second floor. Roger was a small-time black pimp with a reputation in that area for peddling runaway white and black teen-age girls.

  Like most pimps, Roger picked his targets carefully. Always go for cripples. Hit on the young, the weak, and the naïve.

  Sand had suggested checking out discothèques and hamburger joints, places where kids hung out, places cheap pimps used as hunting grounds. Roger’s name had turned up three times in only two places. For Sand, that was enough of a reason to stop looking around for the moment and go check out Roger.

  The smell in the hallways was the worst thing. It came on strong, like a punch in the throat, a sick-to-the-stomach combination of shit, piss, and sour vomit. It was enough to fry your lunch as it lay in your stomach, and maybe cause it to slide out through your mouth, nose, and eyes.

  Close your eyes, and the dead, dry cockroaches, broken green wine bottles, dried used condoms, and newspapers damp and yellow with piss stains would disappear.

  Close your eyes, and the smell would still jam itself up both nostrils. The graffiti in English and Spanish relied a lot on the word “fuck,” and that seemed to be the literary peak.

  The East Village. A hype covered in shit, a con job in the best tradition of greedy New York landlords and real-estate hustlers. East Village sounded better than the decaying, overcrowded, crime-ridden, racially tense “Lower East Side” that the area really was. Name it and claim it.

  As far as Sand was concerned, selling this area on the basis of a name change was like wiping your ass with a piece of toilet paper, then selling the toilet paper as a Picasso.

  Tomorrow the Baron returned from Europe, and Sand being on a mission entirely of his own choosing, no matter how brief, might be a problem. At the moment, he didn’t care.

  They reached the top of a flight of dirt-covered stairs, each concrete step covered by a black spiderweb of dirt-filled cracks. Around them television sets shouted through doors covered with a series of cheap locks and gouges where burglars had plied their trade before or even after the locks were installed.

  Latin music jumped out at them from behind another locked door, and a baby cried almost in time to the music. Roger lived in the last apartment on the second floor, and six feet before reaching his door, Robert Sand stopped, tense and alert, his left hand pressing gently on Foster’s chest, keeping the black Secret Service agent in place behind him.

  “Wha—?”

  Foster opened his mouth, but Sand lifted his left hand in a quiet command for silence. Slowly Sand moved toward the cheap wooden door painted a bright red. His keen hearing had picked up sounds that had nothing to do with television, babies, or bongos.

  There was a struggle going on behind Roger’s door. Glass shattered, and something thumped to the floor. Muffled voices started quickly, then went quiet.

  Sand turned to Foster. “Something’s wrong. Roger’s got trouble.”

  The black Secret Service man unbuttoned his tan topcoat, pulling his .45 from a shoulder holster. Sand was unarmed, but he noted that Foster, like most federal lawmen these days, carried heavier handguns than city cops. Sand himself preferred a .45 over just about any other handgun, although he had used magnums and the German Walther, two guns that, like the American .45, were capable of lifting a man off his feet. One shot from a .45 could remove a man’s hand better than forty swings from an ax.

  At the moment, he wasn’t sure if what was happening in Roger’s apartment was worth Foster going through the front door with a gun in his hand. “Put it away,” he whispered. In his state of mind, Foster shouldn’t have that gun in his hand unless his life depended on it. Or Rochelle’s life.

  Again Sand whispered, the words spaced carefully, slowly. “No gun.” His eyes locked with Foster’s, and he didn’t shift them until the stocky man holstered the .45.

  Now they were in front of Roger’s door, and the sounds were clearer, though they weren’t meant to be heard beyond the room. A hard voice said, “Sucker, Pearl’s down on your ass ’bout that fifteen-year-old gal. What you go and do that for? You know Pearl’s got to get a shipment ready!”

  Smack! Sand recognized that sound. A man getting punched in the face, hard, with a lot of hate behind the blow.

  A small, high-pitched sound came close behind the slap. A female. A man’s voice said, “Bitch, you shut your lip, hear me? You go hollering, and I put my foot in your mouth. Hey, man, keep that child quiet. What the hell you think I brought you along for? O.K., let’s get back to my man, Roger.”

  Sand looked up at Foster, now standing across from him, crouched, left ear close to the door. Foster stiffened, his eyes bright with anticipation, his breathing shallow and rapid. His heart pounded, his hand shook. Roger was getting his ass kicked behind the door, but that meant nothing as far as Foster was concerned.

  Behind that door was a fifteen-year-old girl, maybe his daughter. Maybe. He wasn’t waiting. Before Sand could stop him or say a word, Foster eased in front of the door, his quiet motion deceptive. Suddenly he lifted his knee chest-high and smashed his foot into the doorknob, once, twice, his face as hard as brown wood, his eyes wide open but seeing something that was far, far away.

  Uncool, goddamn uncool, thought Sand, his mouth curling in annoyance at Foster’s kicking in the door. Dumb. Now they know we’re here before I’m ready for them to know. He nodded his head once, reminding himself that he was right in choosing to work alone all of the time. He hated the idea of his life being in anyone else’s hands.

  Hell, he was trying to understand Gray Foster’s fears for Rochelle’s life, but John Wayne-ing a door without having at least a small idea of who was on the other side might get a bullet up your nose.

  Can’t stay pissed forever, thought the Black Samurai. Time to stand up and say hello.

  Foster’s kicks had opened the door, but not all the way. It moved six inches and stopped dead, held in place by a cheap, thin brass chain. That didn’t stop Foster. Crouching, he threw his strong stocky body at the door, now torn and splintered on the edge nearest the locks. The chain flew off as if it were a golden thread, and the door crashed loudly into an opposite wall.

  Kicking in the door had made a lot of noise, but no one had come out of the other apartments to check it out. Curiosity got you killed in the East Village. Caution could keep you alive one more day.

  Inside the small apartment with its cheap, faded furniture, everybody froze for seconds, posing for a camera that wasn’t there.

  Minutes ago Roger had been good-looking, thin, with skin between brown and yellow, hair puffed in a dark brown afro, dark brown moustache, and a goatee just under the lower lip. The pretty-boy type. He wouldn’t be good-looking anymore.

  He lay on a pale green rug, on his side, head hanging down. His chest heaved up and down in a fight to push air through his crushed, bleeding nose and lips swollen with pain. The front of his skin-tight yellow jumpsuit, opened to the navel, was damp with his own blood, and his eyes were glazed and unseeing. He wasn’t good-looking anymore. He was ugly and sickening to look at. Exactly what Pearl paid to have done.

  A tall black man dressed entirely in brown leather touched his blue-tinted glasses with his left hand, casually shoving his right hand into his jacket pocket. His voice was arctic-cold. “You two be chocolate pigs, then I wanna see me a badge. You ain’t got no badge, then …” He left the sentence unfinished. The silent warning had been giv
en as loudly as if he had shouted it. Cops were one thing. But anyone else busting through a door was a different matter, and he had two men backing him up.

  Sand stepped behind Foster, moving slowly into the room, feeling the tension that made living down here dangerous. The man in brown leather didn’t have his hand in his pocket because it was cold.

  Brown Leather shouted, the veins on his neck leaping out. “I said badges, Jim, and I mean now!” The other two men shifted until they were facing Sand and Foster.

  Foster ignored the man who had just shouted at him, his eyes quickly connecting with the darkened corner of the room where the teen-age girl stood, her dark legs bare under a nine-inch-long orange miniskirt. From the waist up she was in darkness. Just her bare, thin black legs identified her as female.

  Foster rushed forward, his face grim, stiff-arming the man in brown leather out of his path, pushing him into a flat-faced, wide-nosed black wearing a red newsboy cap.

  Here it comes, thought the Black Samurai. He was right.

  Brown Leather lost his balance, going back on his heels, one arm clawing at the air to keep from falling. He bumped into the black in the red cap, and for seconds both fought to keep from falling.

  Both were off-balance only for a count of three, but the Black Samurai used those precious seconds. Foster had placed their lives in danger right up to the eyebrows. Sand was alert enough to see that, but now was no time to discuss it.

  Foster was a walking stick of dynamite with a short fuse, looking for a place to explode. Tonight he had found it.

  Brown Leather was a touchy hood. Off-balanced, his eyes snapped to Foster’s back, and his words came out as quickly as speeding bullets. “Nigger! Your ass …” His hand clawed at what he had in his pocket, but in the time he was off-balance and trying to pull out his .32, the Black Samurai moved.

  Sand took one quick step, then threw his body sideways into the air, aiming a vicious body block at Brown Leather and the hood in the red cap. He smashed into them, his left shoulder and thigh knocking them backward into a green stuffed chair and onto the floor.

  He was on top of them, with the two men grunting, cursing, pushing, and clawing at him with strong, murderous hands. He tore free, turning quickly on both knees to face them.

  A lamp crashed to the floor. Anger made the attackers breathe loudly, and shoved them, wild-eyed, into a rage brought on by the Black Samurai’s quickness.

  He was on his knees, using time and the small space around him as best he could. Getting to his feet would have taken two seconds too long.

  Brown Leather scrambled to his feet, hand still fumbling in his pocket for the .32, a small gun but big enough to kill somebody if you were close and pulled the trigger often enough. His face frightening in its hard cruelty, the hood charged Robert Sand.

  Take him out before he gets closer, thought Sand, and before that hand comes out of his jacket pocket filled with the final answer. From his kneeling position—the attack had been practiced thousands of times in samurai training—Sand threw himself to the floor, landing on his left hip.

  When his hip touched the floor, his right leg thrust up, foot ramming into Brown Leather’s groin, heel mashing the softness there. The tall hood screamed, stopping in place, his mouth wide open and his eyes white bulges. There was more agony running through him than he had ever thought existed. Christ, his balls!

  Both of his hands went to his crotch, trying in vain to stop the pain from traveling any farther. He fell to his knees, inhaling deeply and loudly, mouth moving desperately to shape some words. But the pain was winning, and he couldn’t think of anything he really wanted to say. He couldn’t think at all. He stayed on his knees and moaned.

  Behind him, Sand heard a man yell, “Goddamnit,” but things were happening so fast in front of him that he couldn’t tell if the shout had come from Foster or the man Foster was fighting. What Sand was sure of was that a struggle was going on behind him, and a lot of furniture, mirrors, and pictures would never be the same after tonight.

  For certain, Foster had found someone to take out his anger on. Whoever this muscle was, they didn’t like Roger, and they didn’t like strangers either. It was all tied up with the fifteen-year-old black girl in this room, but for now Sand couldn’t think about it.

  His eyes flicked up in time to see the man in the red newsboy cap move quickly from the green chair, a straight razor with a black plastic handle held high in his right hand. Red Cap’s voice was tense, and the words came out quickly. “O.K., chump, show me somethin’, come on, show me somethin’.”

  Sand’s eyes never left the man’s face. He wanted to know where that razor was at all times. The eyes. Always the eyes. A man’s eyes will tell you if he’s afraid, when he’s about to move, if he has the guts to move into you. Watch the eyes. That’s what Master Konuma had emphasized. Often he would make his samurai stand facing each other for an entire hour, staring into each other’s eyes, learning to concentrate and observe. Not moving, not talking.

  The Black Samurai had learned his lessons well. His motion was swift and sure as he rolled away from the man with the razor, but always keeping his eyes on the man’s face. Behind him, the young girl screamed, high-pitched and filled with a terror she probably never felt in high school. His keen ears gathered in the noise from the struggle between Foster and the third hood, a struggle that sounded as loud and dangerous as it had for the past ten seconds.

  Seconds. It all happens so fast, thought the Black Samurai. So damn fast, and before you know it, you’re bleeding or dead. Quick fights, quick death.

  If you want to live, you’ve got to be quick yourself.

  He was.

  He was on his feet, his eyes still on Red Cap’s flat-nosed face. Red Cap liked to talk. The razor made him confident, overconfident. “Chump, I don’t think yo’ mama gon’ like the way you look when I get finish.”

  You’re not finished yet, thought Sand, but he kept quiet. Red Cap smiled. He and the razor. They were a good team.

  He moved forward slowly, feet scraping across the green carpet, his eyes gleaming, a small smile on his thick lips.

  Sand’s hand came out of his pocket, and he tossed the coins into Red Cap’s face—nickels, quarters, dimes, pennies, the small pieces of metal forcing the razor-carrying hood to cross both arms in front of his face and crouch, leaning backward.

  Karate attacks must be focused, said Master Konuma. Make your hands and feet into weapons. When you come in contact with an opponent’s body, be as strong as possible. Tense your entire body, turn it into steel. Concentrate. Gather all of your mental and physical strength and place it behind each attack or defense.

  Sand had seven years of this kind of training. And when Red Cap ducked, his eyes closed, arms folded in front of his face, it was all over for him.

  The Black Samurai kicked him in the knee, a hard, vicious smash with the entire strength of his hips and thighs behind the kick. Red Cap’s arms dropped from his face, and he seemed puzzled at the sudden pain eating its way up his leg and even into his brain. His leg felt as if a machine was chewing at it, and he looked down at it for just a fraction of a second. He never remembered anything after that, only a swift movement in front of him. More sudden pain. Then he felt nothing at all.

  Sand stepped into the man, blocking down hard with his left forearm on Red Cap’s right wrist, sending the razor falling quietly to the green carpet. So strong was the Black Samurai’s every movement that even the block brought new pain to Red Cap.

  The next two blows were faster than Red Cap had ever seen anyone move in his life.

  Sand’s right elbow smashed into Red Cap’s stomach, a blow as powerful as anything done with a steel bar, knocking every bit of air from his gut and brain, driving him into a pain-filled blood-red darkness. He caught only a flickering movement of the second blow before passing out.

  Quickly drawing his fist back tightly to his right side, Sand drove the same elbow up under Red Cap’s chin, bone crashing int
o bone, the powerful elbow strike speeding upward and coming up under the jaw.

  Red Cap flew backward as though jerked back on wires, landing on top of a small table, rolling off it, and taking it crashing with him to the faded green rug.

  No points for second place in a fight, thought Sand, taking a deep breath. Me or you. Better you.

  He turned quickly. Foster was standing, one hand pressed against a wall for balance, his chest heaving up and down with the effort of trying to stay alive. There were two long bloody scratches on his right cheek, and a pocket had been ripped off his gray suit jacket.

  A man lay at his feet, one leg twitching. Casually, as if remembering something he should have done earlier, Foster kicked the man in the ribs, his foot making a sickening sound as it landed on bone. The man arched his back and moaned.

  Sand frowned. Foster was going to take a lot of getting used to, and one thing had to be straightened out between them. No more going through doors on impulse. No way. Tonight they were lucky. Even with the fight, the razor, the kicking ass while a man lay on the ground, they had still been lucky.

  None of the hoods had been holding a gun when the door burst open, and the hoods had decided to take a few seconds out for conversation before getting nasty. That was luck, a lot of luck these days, and especially in the East Village.

  He started to speak to Foster, when he suddenly saw something that surprised him more than anything that had happened tonight.

  Foster turned his face to the wall and began to cry, his shoulders rising and falling quickly, his head bowed low. Again and again he pounded his fist into the wall, the sound eerie and almost unnerving in the messed-up apartment.

  Suddenly the Black Samurai knew why.

  The girl.

  She was in the safest place she could find, the corner farthest away from the fighting. She was slumped there, face bright with tears, both hands covering her mouth, a white sweater and orange miniskirt fitted tightly to show off her thin child-woman body.