2 Oct 90—HONOLULU
Ernie Funo heard the glass break and opened his eyes just as the men entered his bedroom. They wore black suits, white shirts, dark ties, and hats. The hats seemed odd and old-fashioned.
The tall one spoke very quickly and harshly in Japanese and the other pulled Funo out of the bed. The clock read 3:01 in the morning.
“I can’t speak Japanese that quickly,” Funo said.
“My name is Ito,” said the shorter one. “You and a white woman went to a ship this night. Where is the master of the ship and where is the white woman?”
“I don’t know what you mean, I’m a journalist—”
Ito slashed him then across the belly. The knife was so sharp that there was no pain at first, none at all. And then the pain came in a sickening wave. Funo instinctively grasped his belly and felt blood on his hands.
His eyes were filled with terror.
Ito said, “We don’t have time for this. You were part of the theft of the machine. This was very dishonorable.”
“I didn’t steal anything—” Funo said.
“You and a white woman. And this captain. You paid money to a drug addict to ask about the captain so you know the sea captain was gone to accept a shipment.”
“I don’t know anything, I just made a guess, I—”
“You talked to two men in Tokyo, on newspapers, about our organization and about the shipment of machines by Masatata. We have no more time to waste with you. Where is the white woman and the sea captain?”
Harsh silence. Funo moaned. His hands could not hold in the blood. He was on his knees and he could not remember how he got there. This nightmare had invaded his bedroom and was arrayed around him. Both men had knives in their hands.
“At the hotel,” he said. “At the hotel.”
“What hotel? What is her name?”
“Rita Macklin,” Funo said.
“What hotel?”
“The Holiday Inn on the beach.”
“Does she have the machine?”
“She’s a journalist, only a journalist, I’m a journalist—”
“You are a traitor and a thief,” Ito said. He looked at the other man, Takahashi. He nodded.
Slash.
The cut was from ear to ear. Funo, again, scarcely felt the edge of the knife because it was so sharp. But he felt blood gurgle in his throat and he realized this was the way his short life was going to end, with a betrayal and with him on his knees, naked at the side of his bed. He wanted to believe this was only a nightmare and that he would wake up in time to live, but now the blood was filling his throat and coming into his mouth and across his lips and he was dying, really dying.
At that moment, Rita Macklin sat very stiff and still in a chair in the terminal of Honolulu International with a large manila envelope on her lap. She wore gray slacks and a gray sweater and she carried no other bag except her purse. The captain had specified speed and she had believed him.
It was a different Captain Peterson sitting in the seat next to her. He had come up and dropped the package on her lap and sat down. He had done all the talking. The talk was almost a whisper and it was very frightened. Peterson’s weathered face was not pale but his hands trembled.
“I know you’re in a game of your own, you’re no more a journalist than I am,” he had said over the phone.
“All right,” she had replied.
“I knew it. You’re the G, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
“Stop fucking me around, I got no time. There’s killing going on. People are getting killed and I don’t want no part of it. I got the package and I’ll turn it over—that’s what you want, isn’t it? Only I am not goin’ to prison for no murders. I don’t murder people. I don’t want to get killed. What do you say?”
“I say I want to see the package.”
“I’ll get you the fucking package but I got to go clear. What do you say to that?”
She had waited a moment before answering. “I say, get me the package. Bring it to the hotel.”
“I ain’t going near no hotel. There’s three guys they’ve killed since I landed last night and they crawled all over the Pequod, I missed them by twenty minutes, and when I call the man, the man in Santa Barbara, he hears your name and he freezes but he pretends he doesn’t. I don’t want no more part of this.”
“Denisov,” she had said, very softly, building a house of cards and being amazed how high it was.
“I don’t know no Denisov.”
“The Russian man in Santa Barbara,” she had said with more confidence. It had to fit that way; Devereaux had said that name on the morning he came back to Bethesda.
“I know the Russian. His name is Dennis. Mr. Dennis. He could be maybe named that from some Russian name but I don’t know no Denisovitch or whatever you said. But you know, don’t you? You’re ahead of me, aren’t you?”
No, she had thought. I know so little. And she had wished Devereaux was there and she could ask him what to do next.
They agreed to meet right away at the airport, Peterson was going to get a flight out for anyplace, he would give her the damned package and she would make promises for the government.
Peterson was whispering, leaning toward her ear like a penitent telling sins. “The city is spooked. Japanese from Tokyo are all over the town and they’re not taking any names or prisoners. They sliced Jimmy Wong at midnight, Jimmy was one of my customers. They crawled all over my boat after I left, I got that from one of the boys on the waterfront. Shit, these guys are killers and that’s what they want, honey, that little thing on your lap.”
“What is it?”
“Exactly what you thought it was.”
She stared at the thing as though it might bite her. She was afraid because Peterson was afraid, but she was also excited. It was the thing Devereaux had been after; it was enough to satisfy whoever wanted it from Devereaux, and Devereaux would be freed from his task. That’s what she was thinking.
“I want to open it.”
“Do whatever you want, I gave it to you. I held up my end, you gotta hold up your end,” Peterson said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get the hell out of here. I can’t leave the Pequod, I thought about it, I was going to fly out of here but what the hell am I going to do without my boat? I’m going to take her out until this blows over…”
“But you trust me?”
“I don’t trust you, I don’t trust nobody. But I don’t want that fucking package on my hands. You work for the G, I could see that with all the questions you were asking, so you take care of it, you take this damned thing back to them and you leave me out of this. That’s the deal. I’m shook, I admit it, but I didn’t have nothing to do with no murders and I don’t want nothing to do with the fucking Jap gangsters. They’re killing people, Miss Macklin, you ought to do something about that.”
“Do something about what?”
“Killing people. Taxpayers pay people like you to take care of things like this,” Peterson said.
She turned and stared at him. She made her face calm, the way she thought a federal agent would look at him. “We’re not interested in you, Peterson. We were interested in the package.”
“I know that. You’re a spy, aren’t you? I thought that’s what this was about when that Russian first come to me and talked about taking a package for him. That was months ago. A Russian spy. I hope you put him away for the rest of his life. I didn’t know this was something against the government.”
“You didn’t,” she said.
“I swear to God. I don’t want trouble with the G. There was only that one time.” He was still trembling and he looked around when he talked, though no one was near them.
“All right,” she said. Indifferently. She could scarcely contain her excitement but the calm mask across her eyes didn’t crack. “You take off. But don’t mention my name, not to Denisov or anyone.”
“I won’t mention your name and don’t mention mine,” Peterson said. “There wasn’t that much money anyway.”
In fact, Peterson lied without meaning to.
He mentioned her name once more an hour later as the sun gilded Diamond Head above Waikiki Beach and moved slowly above the horizon. She was aboard the American Airlines flight for Los Angeles, the first of the day, and the package was in her lap still but now she had opened it and seen what it was.
Peterson mentioned her name to two Japanese men named Ito and Takahashi and he had told them she was a government agent and he had told them about Mr. Dennis and an address he had been given on De La Vina in Santa Barbara. He wanted to convince them that he would tell them everything he knew because they had begun the conversation by slicing off his little finger on his left hand. When Peterson had told Ito and Takahashi everything he knew, they ended his life exactly in the way they had ended the life of Ernest Funo. They were close, very close to the trail and the machine was somewhere just ahead of them. They decided to stake out the Holiday Inn where Rita Macklin was expected to be in her room. They would find a way to uncover her and without causing undue attention to themselves. They were sure of that.