I’m partial to underdog stories; who isn’t? I enjoyed researching this one.
• • •
The ironic thing about the night Mr. Ten Fifty-Five died on Iiko’s table was that she was supposed to have that Saturday off.
She’d asked for the time three weeks in advance so she could spend the weekend with Uncle Trinh, who was coming to visit from Corpus Christi, Texas, where he worked on a shrimp boat, but the day before his bus left, he slipped on some fish scales and broke his leg. Now he needed money for doctors’ bills, and Iiko had volunteered to work.
The Mikado Massage was located on Michigan Avenue in Detroit. On one side was an empty building that had once sheltered a travel agency. The Mystic Arts Bookshop was on the other and shared a common wall with the Mikado. There was a fire door in this wall, which came in handy during election years. When the mayor sent police with warrants, they invariably found the bookshop full of customers and the massage parlor empty. On the third Sunday of every month a man came to collect for the service of keeping the owner informed about these visits. Iiko had seen the man’s picture under some printing on the side of a van with a loudspeaker on the roof. Detroit was the same as back home except for no Ho Chi Minh on the billboards.
Although its display in the Yellow Pages advertised an all-Japanese staff, the Mikado’s owner, Mr. Shigeta, was the only person in residence not Korean or Vietnamese, and he was never seen by the customers unless one of them became ungallant. He was a short, thick man of fifty-five or seventy with hair exactly like a seal’s, who claimed to have stood in for Harold Sakata on the set of Goldfinger and had papered his little office with posters and lobby cards from the film. One of them was supposed to have been signed by Sean Connery, but when Iiko began to learn to read English she saw that Sean was misspelled.
She had been working there four months. She made less than the other masseuses because she was still on probation after a police visit to the Dragon’s Gate in the suburb of Inkster, which had no fire door, and so she gave only massages, no specials. She kept track of the two months remaining on her sentence on a Philgas calendar inside her locker door.
The man she called Mr. Ten Fifty-Five always showed up at that time on Saturday night and always asked for Iiko. Because he reminded her a little of Uncle Trinh, she’d thought to do him a kindness and had explained to him, in her imperfect English, that he could get the same massage for much less at any hotel, but he said he preferred the Mikado. The hotels didn’t offer Japanese music or heated floors or scented oils or a pink bulb in a table lamp with a paper kimono shade.
Normally, Saturday was the busiest night of the week, but this was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, when, as Mr. Shigeta explained, the customers remembered they were family men and stayed home. Mr. Ten Fifty-Five, therefore, was the only person she’d seen since early evening when Mr. Shigeta had gone home, leaving her in charge.
Mr. Ten Fifty-Five was duck-shaped and bald, with funny gray tufts that stood out on both sides of his head when he waddled in from the shower in a towel and sprawled facedown on the table. He often fell asleep the moment she began to rub him down and didn’t wake up even when she walked on his back, so it wasn’t until she asked him to turn over that Iiko found out that this time he’d died.
Iiko recognized death. She’d been only a baby when the last American soldier left her village, but she remembered the marauding gangs that swept through after the Fall of Saigon, claiming to be hunting rebels but forcing themselves upon the women and carrying away tins of food and silver picture frames and setting the buildings on fire when they left. Iiko’s brother Nguyen, sixteen years old, had tried to block the door of their parents’ home, but one of the visitors stuck a bayonet between his ribs and planted a boot on his face to tug loose the blade. Iiko hung on to her mother’s skirt during the walk to the cemetery. The skirt was white, the color of mourning in Vietnam, with a border of faded flowers at the hem.
When Iiko confirmed that Mr. Ten Fifty-Five’s heart had stopped, she went through his clothes. This was much easier than picking pockets in Ho Chi Minh City, where one always ran the risk of being caught with one’s hand in the pocket of another pickpocket. Iiko found car keys, a little plastic bottle two-thirds full of tiny white pills, a tattered billfold containing fifty-two dollars, and a folding knife with a stag handle and a blade that had been ground down to a quarter-inch wide. She placed it and the money in the pocket of her smock and returned the clothes to the back of the chair. The tail of the shabby coat clunked when it flapped against a chair leg.
Iiko investigated. There was a lump at the bottom where the machine stitch that secured the lining had been replaced by a clumsy crosshatch of thread that didn’t match the original. This came loose easily, and she removed a small green cloth sack with a drawstring, whose contents caught the pink light in seven spots of reflected purple. When she switched on the overhead bulb, the stones, irregular ovals the size of the charcoal bits she swept weekly from the brazier in the sauna, turned deep blue.
She found a place for the stones, then went out into the little reception area to call Mr. Shigeta at home. He would want to know that a customer had died so that when the police came they would find nothing of interest except a dead customer. While she was dialing, two men came in.
Both were Americans. One, a large black man with a face that was all jutting bones, wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and a Pistons jacket. He towered over his companion, a white man with small features and sandy hair done up elaborately, wearing a shiny black suit with a pinched waist and jagged lapels. Their eyes continued to move after the men had come to a stop a few feet from the counter, searching the room.
“Sorry, we close,” Iiko said.
She was standing in front of the sign that said OPEN TILL MIDNIGHT.
“You’re back open,” said the sandy-haired man. “Long enough anyway to tell us where’s the fat bulb guy that came in here about eleven.”
She shook her head, indicating that she didn’t understand. It was not entirely a lie. The sandy-haired man, who did almost all the talking, spoke very fast.
“Come on, girlie, we know he’s here. His car’s outside.”
“The stuff ain’t in it, neither,” said the black man.
“Shut up, Leon.”
“Not know,” said Iiko.
“Leon.”
The black man put a hand inside his jacket and brought out a big silver gun with a twelve-inch barrel. He pointed it at her and thumbed back the hammer.
The sandy man said, “Leon’s killed three men and a woman, but he’s never to my knowledge done a slant. Where’s George?”
“Not know George,” she said.
“Keep it on her. If she jumps, take off her head.” The sandy man came around the counter.
Iiko stood still while the man ran his hands over her smock. She didn’t move even when they lingered at her small breasts and crotch. He took the fifty-two dollars and the knife from her pockets. He showed Leon the knife.
“That’s George’s shank, all right,” said the black man. “He carries it open when he has to walk more’n a block to his car. He’s almost as scared of muggers as he is of guns.”
The sandy man slapped Iiko’s face. She remained unmoving. She could feel the hot imprint of his palm on her cheek.
“One more time before we disturb the peace, Dragon Lady. Where’s George Myrtle?”
She turned and went through the door behind the counter. The two men followed.
In the massage room the sandy man felt behind Mr. Ten Fifty-Five’s ear, then said, “Deader’n Old Yeller.”
“I don’t see no marks,” Leon said.
“Of course not. Look at him. He as good as squiffed himself the day he topped two forty and started taking elevators instead of climbing the stairs. I bet he never said no to a pork chop in his life. Check out his clothes.”
Leon returned the big gun to a holster under his left arm and quickly turned out all the pockets of the coat and trousers, then with a grunt held the coat upside down and showed his companion the place where the lining had been pulled loose.
The sandy man looked at Iiko. She saw something in his pale eyes that she remembered from the day her brother was killed.
“This ain’t turning out like I figured,” the sandy man said. “I was looking forward to watching Leon bat around that tub of guts till he told us what he done with them hot rocks. I sure don’t enjoy watching him do that to a woman. Especially not to a pretty little China doll like you. How’s about sparing me that unpleasantness and telling me what you did with the merch?”
“Not know merch,” she said truthfully.
Leon started toward her. The sandy man stopped him with a hand. He was still looking at Iiko.
“You got more of these rooms?” he asked.
After a moment she nodded and stepped in the direction of the curtain over the doorway. The black man’s bulk blocked that path.
“Search the rest of the place, Leon. I’ll take care of this.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
Leon went out. Iiko led the sandy man through the curtains and across the narrow hallway. This room was larger, although still small. A forest of bottles containing scented oils stood on a rack beside the massage table. The sandy man seized her arm and spun her around. They were close now, and the light in his eyes had changed. She could smell his aftershave, sticky and sharp.
“You’re sure a nice little piece for a slant. I bet old George had some times with you. Especially at the end. It’s gonna take the undertaker a week to pry that grin off his face.”
Iiko didn’t struggle.
The sandy man said, “I could use a little rub myself. You rub me, I rub you. What do you say? Then we’ll talk.”
After a moment she nodded. “Take off clothes.”
“You first.”
He let go of her and stepped back, his small, hard fists dangling at his sides. He watched her unbutton and peel off the smock. Without hesitating, she undid her halter top and stepped out of her shorts. She wore no underthings. She knew her body was good, firm and well-proportioned for her small frame. She could see in his eyes he approved.
He took a long breath and let it out. Then he took off his shiny black coat. He hung his suit carefully on the wooden hanger on the wall peg, folded his shirt, and put it on the seat of the chair. His ribs showed, but his pale, naked arms and legs were sinewy, the limbs of a runner.
He saw that she saw. “I work out. I ain’t going to do you no favor like George and clock out on the table.”
She said nothing. He stretched out on his stomach on the padded table. “No oil,” he said. “I don’t want to ruin my clothes. Just powder.”
She reached for the can of talcum. While her back was turned to him, she laid down the folding knife she had removed from the sandy man’s pocket while he was holding her, poking it behind a row of bottles.
She sprinkled the powder on his back, set down the can, and worked her hands along his spine and scapula. His muscles jumped and twitched beneath her palms, not at all like the loose, unresisting flesh of Mr. Ten Fifty-Five. She had the impression the sandy man was poised to leap off the table at the first sign of suspicious behavior. She heard glass breaking in another part of the building as Leon continued his search for the blue stones.
Iiko was a skilled masseuse. Unlike some of her fellow employees, who merely went through the motions until the big moment when they asked the customers to turn over, Iiko had been trained by a licensed massage therapist. She flattered herself that she still managed to give satisfaction even under the strictures of probation. Gradually she felt the sandy man’s body relax beneath her expert hands.
To maintain contact, she kept one palm on his lower spine while with the other she retrieved the knife from its hiding place on the rack of bottles, pried it open with her teeth, and with one swift underhand motion jammed the blade into his back as far as it would go and dragged it around his right kidney as if she were coring an apple. The sandy man made very little noise dying.
When the body had ceased to shudder, she dressed and left the room. She’d dropped the knife; she’d come to regret that. The sound of a heavy piece of furniture scraping across a wooden floor told her that Leon was moving the desk in Mr. Shigeta’s office. The way to the front door and out led directly past that room; she did not want to take the chance of running into the black man as he came out. She let herself into the Mystic Arts Bookshop by way of the fire door in the wall that separated the two establishments.
The shop had been closed for hours. She groped her way through darkness to the front door but found that exit barred by a deadbolt lock that required a key. The same was true of the back door. An ornamental grid sealed the windows. For a moment Iiko stood still and waited for her thoughts to settle. There was a telephone on the counter, she knew; but that must wait. However much time she’d bought must be invested in action. It would not be long before Leon discovered the sandy man’s body, and then he would find the fire door. The lock was on the massage parlor side.
She switched on a light. Tall racks of musty-smelling books divided the room into narrow aisles. She removed a heavy dictionary from the reference section, carried it to the common wall, and set the book on the floor in front of the steel door. She repeated the procedure with another large book and then another. At the end of ten minutes she had erected a formidable barrier. Then she lifted the telephone.
She jumped when the thumb latch went down, stood and backed away from instinct when the door moved a fraction of an inch and stopped, impeded by the stacked books. She dialed 911, and when the operator asked what was her emergency, she laid the receiver on its side facing the fire door.
Just then Leon pushed the door hard. Two of the stacks fell, creating an avalanche. A pause, and then the black man gave a lunge. More books tumbled, but now the pile was wedged between the door and a metal rack weighted down with scores of books. It would not budge another inch.
Iiko switched off the light. A bank of deep shadow appeared on the side of the fire door nearest the latch, and she slipped into it noiselessly. She was just inches away from the black man. He’d worked up a sweat searching the Mikado for the missing stones and wrestling with the door; she could smell the clean sharp sting of it.
Nothing stirred in the bookshop. She heard the black man’s heavy breathing as he paused to gather strength, heard the buzzing queries of the 911 operator coming through the earpiece of the telephone a dozen steps away.
With an explosive grunt, Leon threw all his weight against the door. The pile of books crumpled against the base of the rack, the covers bending.
Another pause, this one shorter. Two hundred pounds of solid muscle struck the door with the force of a battering ram. The rack teetered, tilted, hung at a twenty-degree angle for an impossible length of time; then it toppled. Books plummeted from its shelves; steel struck the floor with a bang that shook the building. To the operator listening at police headquarters it must have sounded like an artillery barrage. Leon thrust his arm and shoulder through the gap. The big silver gun made the arm look ridiculously long. His entire body seemed to swell with the effort to squeeze past the edge of the door. Now would have been a good time to have that knife Iiko had left behind, but her life had taught her that regrets were time wasted for a life that was already short. He grunted again, and the noise turned into a howl of triumph as he stumbled into the bookshop.
But his eyes were unaccustomed to the darkness, and he set his foot on a spilled stack of books that turned under his weight. He sprawled headlong across the pile.
The opening into the massage parlor was more than wide enough for Iiko. She darted through, and before Leon could get to his feet, she seized the door handle and yanked it shut behind her, flicking the lock button with her thumb.
In the next minute it didn’t matter that the 911 operator could hear the black man pounding the steel door with his fists. The air was shrill with sirens, red and blue strobes throbbed through the windows of the Mikado. Gravel pelted the side of the building as police cruisers skidded around the corner into the parking lot of the Mystic Arts.
Iiko did not pay much attention to the bullhorn-distorted demands for surrender next door, or even the rattle of gunfire when Leon, exhausted and confused by the turn of events since he and the sandy man had entered the Mikado, burst a lock and plunged out into the searchlights with the big silver gun in his hand. She was busy with the narrow metal dustpan she used to clean out the brazier in the sauna, sifting through the smoldering bits of charcoal in the bottom. The stones were covered with soot and difficult to distinguish from the coals, but when she washed them in the sink they shone with the same icy blueness that had caught her eye in the massage room.
The glowing coals had burned away the green cloth bag as she’d known they would. She wrapped the stones carefully in a flannel facecloth, put the bundle in the side pocket of the cloth coat she drew on over her smock, and started toward the front door. Then she remembered the fifty-two dollars the sandy man had taken from her and put in the pocket of his shiny black suit.
The sandy man was as she’d left him, naked and dead, only paler than before. She thrust the money into her other side pocket and went out.
Waiting at the corner for the bus, Iiko thought she would take the stones to the pawnshop man who bought the jewelry and gold money clips she managed from time to time to take from the clothing of her customers. The pawnshop man knew many people and had always dealt with her honestly. She hoped the stones would sell for enough to settle some of Uncle Trinh’s doctors’ bills.