Kiai! & Mistress of Death Page 17

  I called Jim to let him know where I'd be. "Don't wait up for me," I said. "If I'm not home by morning, check Dato's, that's all."

  "Sure thing," he said uncertainly. Did he suspect what I was up to?

  Dato's dojo was closed when I got there a little before nine. But there was a light on in back, so I went around there and knocked. There was no response.

  I waited a few minutes, but he didn't come. It was a cold night, and with my usual foresight I hadn't dressed for it. So I tried the door, and it was open. He must have meant me to enter and wait until he came. He was a funny guckedven allowing for the attraction the martial arts had for farout characters. So I entered. Outside, the dojo was rundown. Inside it was elegant. This was an attractive display room: many senseis are connoisseurs and collectors of rare weapons. There were Chinese lacquered shields and battle axes, assorted daggers, a number of katana swords, and even a few pistols. Police clubs were laid out on a table, not ordinary ones, but—

  I heard a step behind me. Before I could turn I was struck hard in the back. The blow was not crippling, but it felt strange. I reacted instantly. I turned, seized him about the waist, and threw him violently? over my head in an ura-nage, the inside-out throw. Dato was old and small, weighing only about 110 pounds, and I was jumpy; I put more power into it than I would have otherwise. An attack from behind, when I had come to talk! He flew over my head as I fell back against the table, and he crashed against the wall just under a huge samurai sword.

  Dato dropped to the floor, heavily. The wall trembled, making the sword quiver on its mountings. He was still conscious. He started to get up, his arm swinging around to bang into the wall, while I stood there dumbly, braced against the leaning table. That small extra vibration did it. The samurai sword slipped off its nails and fell. I tried to shout a warning, but the force of gravity was faster than my reaction time. My cry still forming, I saw that immense blade crash down edge first.

  It sliced across his neck and clattered to the floor. Then I was over there, scattering police clubs, lifting Dato up, trying to stanch the flow. But there was blood spurting all over and his clothing was in the way, half cut, half intact, so that it was impossible to get it off neatly, and the light was poor and I was half in shock. As I looked, the spurts diminished and the pool of blood grew. An artery had been cut.

  It was not that injury or blood unnerved me unduly; I've seen plenty of both. But the sheer malignancy of the inanimate preyed on my mind as I struggled ineffectively to help him. Witchcraft, voodoo—it was as if Dato had been ensorceled and struck down by his own weapon. I was powerless to interfere. Where could I apply a tourniquet, when the gash had opened both jugular and carotids?

  Yet, amazingly, he spoke. "Jason! Jason Striker! I am dead, but the laugh is mine! I struck you with the fist of doom, stronger than that karateka's, and you will die."

  That first blow. That had been it! The delayed action death-blow!

  "When?" I demanded. "When does it take effect?"

  "You will never know, until the end!" he whispered. And began a liquid laugh. In the midst of his laughter the blood bubbled out from his mouth, and he died.

  I ran. All I could think of, in that awful moment, was that I was a man-killer. For the second time. That Vietnam memory how long was it going to haunt me? Who would believe that this had been an accident, self-defense? I had entered Dato's dojo at his secret invitation, and he had attacked me, and one of his own weapons had killed him. But any jury would say that my hand had wielded that blade, even though there were no fingerprints. The blood could have obscured prints, so I could not prove I had not touched the sword.

  But no one knew where I had been. I might never come under suspicion. So I was far better off to leave, once more fleeing the consequences of my action.

  The death-blow! No matter who suspected or what the law decided, I was doomed. The evidence had pointed to it, and Dato had confirmed it as he died. When would it strike? In a day? A month? A year? I would have to have a thorough medical examination, the same one I had urged on Worthen.

  Then I remembered. I was not free of suspicion. I had told Jim where I was going. He would make the connection as soon as the news of Dato's death got out.

  I knew it would be better to report to the police immediately and tell them everything. I was a law-abiding man. But Diago had also obeyed the law, and look where that had led him. The flight-reflex was too strong, and other objections crowded in. How would it look, to have the near-winner of the fabulous Martial Open booked for murder so soon after his success? What a reputation that would give judo! Nothing Dato had done could approach the harm I might do to my profession. And suppose the death-blow took effect while I was in prison awaiting trial? I couldn't tell the police about that; they would be sure it was the ranting of a man too eager to get out, or to fashion a defense of insanity. And Thera what would I say to her? After all my talk about the ethics of judo. Thera. I needed her now! Why had I held out on her? Age was no sufficient barrier to love.

  I had to talk with Jim. He at least had to know the truth, so he would keep silent. I had to catch him tonight, before the story broke.

  First I stopped at my own place and took care of all the blood. I washed it off and changed my clothes; they would have to be burned. But first—Jim.

  I drove to his apartment, but he was not there. Was he working out late at the dojo? Sometimes he did that, practicing special techniques in privacy. Yes, that was it.

  I went there, keyed up by nervous energy, wishing the whole episode with Dato had never happened, wishing I'd spent the time with Thera. I'd passed up romance—and killed a man with a sword. Make love not war!

  I had been a fool. There were worse things than having an affair with a girl like that.

  Jim's car was outside, and there was a light on in the dojo. I was reminded for an ugly moment of Dato's light, but I quelled that. Nothing sinister could happen to me in my own place. I used my key and entered quietly at the front. Once I talked to Jim, everything would be okay.

  He was on the tatami. I was about to call to him, for he did not know I was there. Then I realized he was not alone, and not practicing. There was a girl with him.

  I was furious. This was a profanation of the dojo and an abuse of the trust I had placed in him. A dojo is more than a martial arts training hall; it is a temple to the budo spirit, the gentle way of judo. Jim could have whatever affairs he wanted, but not in my dojo!

  But I needed his cooperation, so it was a poor time to condemn his lapse. Obviously he still hadn't mastered the proper attitude, but I couldn't hold myself up as any example, after killing a man and fleeing. I did not want the girl to overhear our conversation, either. So I would have to pretend I knew nothing of his little exploit, and catch him after he had gotten rid of his night's entertainment.

  I shook my head, watching them a moment more. They were really going at it. She thrust up her torso in time with his lunges, so it was a fifty-fifty proposition with both contributing effectively. The sight helped take my mind off the outer gloom that pervaded me. I could not see the girl's face from this position, but she certainly had nice legs. Firm, healthy thighs, no flab, but good form.

  I ducked out before working myself into a state. If Drummond's daughter were here at this instant, I'd soon be in the position where I'd have to give a different answer to his query. Just who had he thought was making it with her?

  Jim would be furious if he realized someone had seen him in action. So he wouldn't know. And I hoped he would keep my secret as well as I kept his.

  I sat in the car, lights out. Twenty minutes passed. At the rate Jim had been exercising, he should have wrapped it up long ago. Were they trying for a second go?

  Then I heard the back door open. At last! They were walking around to Jim's car. Mine was on the street, not obvious; I had to catch him alone, not now.

  They passed through the glow of the streetlight and I saw the girl's face. And I froze in shock.

&n
bsp; Thera.

  There was no mistaking either her identity or the nature of her relation to Jim. She stopped to kiss him as they reached his car—a lingering, intense caress. Not the sort given a partner on a one-night stand. A fiancé-kiss.

  I had introduced them to each other...

  The car drove off, and still I sat. I had thought the worst had happened when I killed Dato, and perhaps it had; but this second blow, in the moment of my vulnerability, hit me harder. I was not now in the throes of action; I was sitting still, completely open to the thrust. Thera obviously had not been as sick as she had claimed—if, indeed, she had been sick at all. How long had this been going on? Now, in retrospect, Jim's attitude of the past week seemed suspicious.

  How could I talk to him now? The answer was that I couldn't. If I met him now I might have a second murder on my battered conscience, and I was no Pedro, who could calmly contemplate that prospect. Yet I had to see Jim, because of tomorrow's news. What else could I do?

  For the moment I was numb to pain of any type. Tomorrow I would suffer; tonight I could concentrate on only one thing: home. Nothing further could happen to me there.

  I made it home and let myself in. I fell on the bed without undressing, seeking refuge in instant sleep.

  And dreamed of murder. I was fighting someone in the dark, interminably, knowing he was killing me. Strange weapons hung all about, S-shaped blades, boomerangs that fired bullets, crazy things that seemed quite possible and menacing in that trance state. Finally I lifted my mortal enemy with the ura-nage inside-out throw and hurled him against the wall. Then a sword was in my hand, stiff and cylindrical like a—like a—and he was split in half, the bamboo split, famous Japanese sword technique. But when I looked closer, only his neck was cut. I saw his face. It was Jim. I struggled awake, but sleep held me like a demon in its straitjacket, an endless suffocating canyon from which I could never quite rise. Despairingly I sank back into the depths of the nightmare. I was in a church, kneeling in prayer, begging forgiveness for my sins—and the priest was Dato, laughing in falsetto glee as he poured unholy water on me that burned like lava, melting me into another blackness. Once more I tried to rise, but I was floating in an ocean of warm blood, drowning in it yet not dying fast enough. Then I saw Thera, more beautiful than she could ever be in life, naked. I had a powerful reaction, and I reached for her, accepting all offers, and I knew that her affair with Jim had been nothing more than an irrelevant suspicion on my part, jealousy on a par with Dato's resentment of competitors, unworthy of me. But as I touched her vibrant flesh there was a terrible pain in my back, spreading through my chest to the heart, and in front of my amazed judo class I fell dead.

  It began again. The night was years long, eternally morbid. I lay supine, looking up at Diago, he of the kiai yell. "What are you doing in this particular nightmare?" I inquired.

  "I saw the headline," he replied, holding it up. JUDO TEACHER SLAIN. "I knew you needed me, Striker."

  "We murderers must stick together," I muttered, knowing it was too soon for the morning paper to have the news. "What's in it for you?"

  "I want to go home," he said.

  "Japan?"

  He nodded. "Now you understand my position."

  I began to fear that this was not dream-nightmare but reality-nightmare. I peered at the paper—and discovered that it was the afternoon edition. I had slept late. "Diago, I can't help you! We did shiai"

  "Your friend in Nicaragua. Call him."

  "Pedro? I cuckolded him!"

  "The way your student cuckolded you?"

  "What do you know about that?" I demanded angrily.

  "That girl is my distant cousin. I know what goes on in the white-sheep branch of the family."

  "Why didn't you teach her judo yourself, then?"

  "Drummond didn't want her sleeping with my color."

  "That isn't funny!" I snapped. "Thera doesn't—"

  "That same day they met, he came to her house."

  "She was sick! He took her home!"

  "Sick with lust. They did it in the garden. I watched from behind the fountain. An appropriate metaphor! After their urges were spent, they were sorry."

  "You mean she was avoiding me because—?" But of course it was true.

  "Jason, there is nothing for you here," Diago said. "I came to give Drummond good advice, and I gave it; now I do the same for you. Call Pedro, have him fly you to Japan. My old sensei Hiroshi understands about ki, and—"

  "Hiroshi!" I exclaimed.

  "Do not sneer. He may be aikido, not judo, but he taught me to extend my own ki through my voice."

  My mystery was solved; now I knew where Diago had studied. Of course. Hiroshi would have been the one to put ki into his kiai! But I could not dwell on that now. "Diago, that was a snort of recognition, not of disparagement! I know Hiroshi! But ki can't get me off a murder rap! And it can't bring me back my girl, or undo Jim's betrayal."

  "It can make you able to live with these things, though, as I have lived with racism and American justice. Go see the great teacher! And take me with you; I cannot get out alone, and I need healing too."

  Suddenly I found it easier to understand his position. I had reacted against attack, and killed in the process, and fled the law. So had he. I was no better than he.

  "Dato claimed he struck me with his delayed-action death-blow," I said. "Do you know anything about that?"

  "The blow itself I never learned. But Hiroshi—"

  "Yes." The notion was growing on me. It was the sort of thing Hiroshi should know about. Takao might have been familiar with the delayed death-blow. Too bad I had never thought to ask him. But Takao was dead, so it was time to seek the man with the ki. There was joy in that thought.

  I placed a call to Nicaragua. There was no direct line, and it had to go by radio telephone, but there was not actually much problem. I reached Vicente Pedro's mayordomo. That had to do; I left a message that I was on the same judo team with Diago and needed some fast training in Japan before the event. I knew Pedro would get the real message, for anyone linked with Diago was in bad trouble with the law.

  Then I gritted my teeth and phoned Jim. No answer. I felt black rage, knowing whom he was with. To do something, I went to the door to check for my mail.

  Jim stood there. He must have been trying to get up nerve to knock. I stared at him, but couldn't bring myself to speak my mind.

  Diago came to my rescue. "You will have to run Mr. Striker's dojo for a time," he told Jim.

  Jim looked blank. I had some notion what had brought him here. It was either his conscience, or the afternoon headline. But what could I say?

  "Mr. Striker will be away," Diago explained.

  "I know," Jim said. "I—"

  The phone rang. I went to answer it, fearing the worst. I still wasn't sure I had come out of my nightmares, and nothing seemed completely real.

  "Striker, he'll be at my airstrip at six," Johnson Drummond said abruptly. "My office is making out papers for Japan for you and Blake and Diago. Be ready to board."

  "Wait!" I cried. "Only two are going!" But he had hung up. Appalling efficiency.

  "You know what to do," Diago told Jim.

  "No," Jim said, agitated.

  I had not yet spoken to Jim, and he had not spoken directly to me. Diago was filling the vacuum, both ways. Ridiculous situation, but the vision of the bare figures on the tatami last night tied my tongue.

  "You cannot run the dojo?" Diago demanded, businesslike now that he had an immediate function.

  "I—I want to come along. With you."

  Still I couldn't speak. How had Drummond anticipated this? Obviously he had known about Jim and Thera.

  "To Japan?" Diago asked. "Don't you have business enough here?"

  "If I stay here, there will be questions," Jim said. "I'm not good at lying."

  "When you are good enough at other things," Diago said meaningfully, "you had better be good at lying!"

  I realized that Jim was in
the same situation as I had been with Pedro. He was sorry, but he couldn't say so. Probably he hadn't even known Thera was involved with me, until too late. Now he just stood there, mute, miserable.

  Diago threw up his hands. "You wish to travel with murderers—why not!"

  "You're not murderers!" Jim said. "And I—I'm not..." Which seemed to equate it nicely. Was it nightmare, or comedy?

  Pedro's private plane landed at the Drummond Industries private strip on schedule. Neither Drummond nor his daughter showed, fortunately; a lawyer-type drove up with our papers just as the plane arrived. The three of us bundled on, and the vehicle took off again immediately.

  "My uncle is piloting himself," a voice said as we settled hastily into seats. "We are proceeding to Managua, then to Japan. Is there anything you need?"

  "Amalita!" I exclaimed. She looked fuller, more mature, though less than a month had passed since the tournament. But it was not her young beauty—more buxom than Thera's—that I saw, so much as the image of a kris. This girl, directly or indirectly, was capable of murder without qualm.

  Jim looked at Amalita with immediate interest. I wondered whether I should warn him. But the devil in me kept my tongue still. Let him find out for himself.

  CHAPTER 11

  HOKKAIDO

  The city of Sapporo has a million people, but the interior of the great Japanese island of Hokkaido was rugged indeed. We drove through large uninhabited forests, but finally had to leave the car in the foothills of a mountain range.

  Makato grunted something as he studied the trackless snowy waste, and I needed no translation to know what he was thinking. Who would have expected to find the two of us together in the wilderness, so soon after our death match? I had been amazed to discover him at Hiroshi's dojo, training like any novice. But it made sense, once I worked it out. Makato had recognized the ki that had defeated him. Hiroshi, despite his broken arm, had wrought his miracle regardless, protecting me in a fashion Takao never could have done. The cause of Pedro's vengeance had been lost from the moment Hiroshi stood beside Takao that night, sharing his vow. Makato could never have hurt Hiroshi had the O-Sensei chosen to extend his ki in combat. Makato, recognizing a superior force, had decided to make it his own.