Chameleon

3

He hurried through lunch and left Hadashi with a fast ‘Thank you,’ anxious to meet Lizzie and the Magician and exchange information. But something else was gnawing at his brain, an insistent thought that had been bothering him ever since they arrived in Tokyo. He was thinking about what Kami-sama had said, feeding it into his memory bank for future reference, and it merely bolstered his ideas.

If Chameleon had died at Hiroshima, why had it taken Army Intelligence five years to officially declare him dead?

Taking shortcuts through alleys and side streets, he hurried across the city toward the hotel. He was three blocks from it when he first sensed that he was being followed. He stopped at a street corner and casually looked around but it was hopeless to try to single Out anyone in the crowds. He slowed his pace, began zigzagging through more isolated byways, hoping to confirm his paranoia. O’ Hara did not like surprises, and the intuition was undeniable. So he altered his course, working in a tightening spiral toward an enclosed alley that connected two of the most crowded boulevards in the Ginza, Showa-dori and Chuo-dori.

The walkway was dark and forbidding, coursing through a building that had been condemned several months earlier. It was rarely travelled because it was dim and the building was unsafe. Only two overhanging lights illuminated the block-long passage. O’Hara entered it and started toward Showa-dori.

In its dying years, before the building had been scheduled for demolition, the passageway had become a seedy shopping mall, its cheap antique shops and trinket parlours now deserted. Some were boarded up, windows had been smashed out of several of them, others were exactly as they had been left when the building was closed. Doors stood open, sale signs still dangled in dusty show windows, trash tittered the vacant stores. If he was being followed, O’Hara felt sure he’d be able to confirm it here.

Was he simply being followed? Or was he marked?

Walking down the alley, he listened to each step crinkling in the glass underfoot. The sounds of traffic faded away, and then he heard the telltale echo of his own footsteps. One. And a moment later another echo behind hint Two.

The third man was in front of him in one of the deserted stores, betrayed by a rustle of cotton, an errant breath. O’Hara exhaled slowly through his mouth, slowing down his own keen senses, listening, judging distances. The two behind were ten or so yards back. The other, the one in the store, was closer.

They were good, moving swiftly on feet of air. The alleyway was alive with energy. Ions swirled about O’Hara like seaweed in the surf.

Then they surprised him. The man in the store stepped out and stood before him not six feet away, a trim, hard-bodied youth in black, wearing Adidas sneakers, his back pole- straight, legs slightly bent. O’Hara flashed a look back up the alley. The other two were frozen in place, statues of rock framed against the dim light at the mouth of the alley.

These are not street fighters, 0’ Hara thought. They have too much style. The one in front moved slightly; residual light etched the side of his face. His smile and his bow were as subtle as a memory, but he made the challenge. Traditionalists, thought O’Hara, probably Okinawan. They were working as a triad and he guessed that the man directly behind him, the man in the middle, would be the best, the one in front the fastest and the last man would be the backup, the toughest to take out. He instantly decided on his moves.

It was 0’ Hara’s turn to surprise them. He whirled on the ball of one foot and made three hop steps toward the two men behind him, heard his challenger accept the bait, and then O’Hara stopped and executed three basic higaru moves almost as one, focusing his first blow on the lead man’s stomach before he even turned. The moves were designed to confuse the man at his back, to make him think O’Hara was attacking the middle man, a fast left to right jag, a thrust forward, and then as the lead man rushed forward, O’Hara executed a perfect ushiro-geri, forward and down from the waist until his head almost touched the ground and lashing out with a vicious back kick, straight into the attacker’s gut. O’Hara’s foot shattered the hard muscles in the lead man’s stomach and thrust deep up into his diaphragm. Something inside of the man exploded, his face seemed to crumble and he flipped forward to ease the force of the kick, but it was too late — his reflexes were not working. He landed badly and flopped over on his back in time to take a second kick to the temple. He rolled away, unconscious. The moves were so fast that the other two hardly had time to react. O’Hara dove between them, rolled and landed on his feet and launched himself straight up, shattering the third man’s jaw with the top of his head. The surprised assailant soared backward through one of the empty shop windows in a shower of glass.

The man in the middle whirled and kicked, jumped sideways, crouched and struck, O’Hara was waiting. He parried the blow, caught the fighter’s wrist and twisted it out and down and thrust a knee into his side. The fighter rolled away from him, got his feet under him and charged again, this time throwing a uraken, a back fist strike at the jaw. It was perfectly executed, his fist moving in a rotary movement and arcing past O’Hara’s elbow and catching the American on the edge of the jaw. The blow knocked O’Hara sideways into the boarded-up front of another store. He shattered the boards, burst through them and felt a nail tear at the shoulder of his jacket as he fell into a dusty window display of tasteless, gaudy lingerie. He kept rolling, bending his back and flipping back on his feet as the middle man dove after him, pressing the attack. O’Hara met him and then rolled back again, using the attacker’s own momentum to throw him farther into the store. Flipping backward and landing on his knees on the middle man’s chest, he struck twice, the first a nukite, a spear hand thrust straight to the bridge of the nose, the second a crippling chop to the throat. The middle man gasped, tried to throw a nukite and missed. O’Hara’s third blow should have finished him, but the fighter was tough. He rolled, threw O’Hara off balance, then twirled violently the other way, and O’Hara was thrust off.

The backup man now appeared in the shattered storefront, his face slashed by broken glass, one arm sliced open and bleeding. O’Hara did not retreat. He leaped sideways, deep into the darkness of the store, out of sight of the two remaining men for an instant, then charged the backup man from the darkness, jogging to the right and left and twisting sideways and diving under the man’s outstretched arms, coming up with a palm-heel shot that demolished what was left of the man’s jaw, knocking him back into the alley. A second later he felt a knife foot shot to his kidney, a blow that sent pain streaking up his spine and cramping his shoulders. It knocked him forward, but again he did the unexpected. He took two quick steps and then thrust backward, twisting as he did and colliding with the middle man, dropping to his knees, grabbed two handfuls of sweater and flipped the man over his head through the shattered window. The middle man landed on top of his backup.

O’Hara ignored the pain in his side and attacked again, this time using his favourite move, one which combined the arcing swing of the side foot blow with the ball of foot, a move requiring total commitment, for he had to literally twist in midair, picking up momentum from the swing of his foot, then turning it so the ball of his foot landed up under the nose. It was a perfect strike and the middle man sighed as he whirled away and collapsed.

But the backup man was still not out. His arms whipped into a defensive position as he stood and then just as quickly he tried his own side kick to O’Hara’s ribs and followed with combinations, an elbow shot followed by a two-fingered thrust up under O’Hara’s chin that snapped his head back and missed his windpipe by a fraction of an inch. Backup’s mistake was overconfidence. As O’Hara’s head jerked backward, the backup stepped in and tried a back fist strike.

O’Hara landed flat on his feet, saw the peculiar auguring punch coming, moved backward with it, let it glance off his cheek, slashed down with his own arm and locked Backup’s elbow under his own. He spun him around, snapped a knee into the man’s groin, and as he arched forward, got his other hand under Backup’s chin and twisted. The elbow snapped and O’Hara let the arm go, completed the move by swinging Backup in a full circle, letting him loose and hitting him twice with two spear hand punches. Backup dropped in a heap at his feet.

O’Hara turned toward the other two. It was all over. He instantly shook out the aches, massaged the pain from his kidney as he ran out of the passage, leaving the three attackers behind, and continued his journey back to the hotel.

He entered the hotel and found a quiet place near a rock garden in the corner of the lobby. Focusing on the water, he went to the wall and, entranced, began playing back everything he knew so far. The chain was becoming clearer to him. Chameleon, Hooker, Danilov — they were the keys. And one other. Dragon’s Nest.

Everything led to Kyoto and beyond, to Tanabe. They were getting close, the attack proved that. He didn’t know how long his three assailants had been following him, but it was safe to assume that they knew about Eliza and the Magician. They were all in danger.

It was Eliza who broke his concentration. ‘What happened to you?’

She was standing over him, looking at the torn jacket, the two bruises that were beginning to appear under his jaw line.

We’re shaking them up, whoever “they” are,’ O’Hara said. ‘I just got jumped by three pros a few blocks from here. I don’t know how long they’ve been following me, but the message is perfectly clear. Somebody’s nervous.’

She was more concerned about O’Hara than about the implied danger to all of them. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. I may have a sore throat for a couple of days, but other than that I’ll live. Have you heard from the Magician?’

No, but I have some interesting news,’ she said and recounted her conversation with Yerkes. ‘And there’s one other thing,’ she added.

‘What’s that?’

‘You remember the notation in Lavander’s book about Midas? It said ‘lgr. Ghawar.’ Remember that?’

O’Hara nodded.

‘O’Hara, Ghawar is the largest oil field in the world. It’s in Saudi Arabia. Maybe Midas is an oil field and the ‘lgr.’ means larger than. Larger than Ghawar.’

‘Which would make Midas the largest oil field in the world.’

‘Right!’

‘Well, where is it?’

‘I don’t know the answer to that one.’

‘You just can’t hide the largest oil strike on earth.’

‘Maybe the Magician’s turned something up,’ she said. ‘I’ll check the message desk.’

‘Wait,’ O’Hara said. ‘When you find the Magician, I just want you both to get out of Tokyo. Get the Howe satellite van and drive down to Kyoto tonight. I’m going on ahead by train.’

‘Can’t we all go together?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve made arrangements to talk to Hooker. The sooner I get there, the better.’

She touched the bruises on his throat. ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’

‘I’m okay. I just want you two out of Tokyo. Besides, the answers aren’t here, they’re at Dragon’s Nest.’

She kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Look, I’ll just check the desk...’

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, ‘or I’ll miss the train.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll make reservations for you at the Royal Hotel. You should be there by morning.’

‘But—’

‘Just check out the van, round up the Magician and do it.’ He kissed her on the cheek.

‘But—’

He was gone.

God, she thought, he’s maddening the most impulsive man I’ve ever met. She went to the desk and checked both her messages and O’Hara’s. There was an urgent message to meet the Magician at a street whose name she could not pronounce. She rushed out to try and stop O’Hara, but he was gone.

‘Shit,’ she said aloud and hailed a cab.

The place was near the waterfront, do.vn a dirty rut road that led across the railroad tracks and past a coal shack. The place was a dump, an overgrown lean-to with a red, white and blue sign that said ‘Harry T. ‘s.’ Rusting metal beer signs pockmarked the place, while behind it the sprawling Bridges shipyard obscured the bay.

The Magician was standing near the door of the place with his hands in his pockets looking forlorn. The sleeve of his Suit was torn loose and there was a large rent in his pants.

‘My God,’ said Eliza, ‘you look like an eighteen-wheeler backed over you.’

‘Worse,’ he said.

‘Worse?’

‘Worse. I got attacked by a bear.’

‘By a bear?’

‘I’ll tell ya all about it. Where’s the Sailor?’

‘He got this hot flash. He went to Kyoto. We’re supposed to meet him there tomorrow night.’

‘Shit. What am I doin’ here?’ the Magician said to nobody in particular and looked off into space shaking his head. ‘The last thing I needed was that fuckin’ bear, I’ll tell you that.’

‘Magician, what in hell are you talking about?’

‘What happened is, I was doin’ these waterfront bars down here tryin’ ta get a lead on Red Bridges. I mean if there’s one, there’s fifty bars down here. I was just hopin’ to, you know, luck into something, I am, after all, a piano player, not fuckin’ Front Page Harry.’

‘Maybe the next time there’ll be something you can do on the piano.’

‘I can piss on it, if it’s anything like the piano in there,’ he said, jerking his gloved thumb toward Harry T’s. ‘Anyway, they’s a lot of American sailor types around here, workin’ these yards, and everybody is telling me if I want info on Bridges, I need to talk to Kraft American.’

‘Who?’

‘Kraft American.’

‘Is that somebody’s name or what you had for lunch?’ “It’s the guy’s name, okay? What do I know. So that’s how I wound up here.’

‘Why here?’ asked Eliza.

‘Because Kraft American owns the joint.’

‘So? Is that it?’

‘No, there’s more. I just didn’t get to it all yet.’

‘Why?’

‘I had a run-in with this bear in there. Y’know, four legs, lotsa hair, long nose, big teeth, big fuckin’ teeth.’

‘What kinda bear?’

‘I dunno, a Japanese bear, I guess. He’s wearing this little straw hat that says “Win with Nixon” on the brim.’

Eliza started to laugh. ‘I don’t believe a word of this.’

‘Look, what are we standin’ here talkin’ about it for? There’s a fuckin’ bear at the fuckin’ bar drinkin’ a fuckin’ beer. Go see for yourself.’

‘I’m just going to take a look inside,’ Eliza said.

She took a look. ‘My god, it is a bear! That’s a big damn bear, too! I mean, look at that son of a bitch!’ Eliza said.

‘I wouldn’t talk about him like that,’ said the Magician.

‘What the hell is a bear doing drinking beer in a bar?’

‘How the hell do I know? Ask the bartender, he used to work for Bridges. He’s the one we need to talk to.,

‘That’s Kraft American?’

‘That’s what I understand.’

The bartender, a barrel of a man with a crew cut, a nose that had been broken so many times it wasn’t sure which way to point, and arms as thick as a tire tube, was wearing a black T-shirt with ‘Hot Tricks at Budakan’ stencilled across the front in bright-yellow letters. The tattoo on his left arm, an anchor embroidered with roses, had ‘USS Billfish’ bannered across it. A toothpick lingered forgotten in the corner of his mouth.

‘Wouldn’t it be illegal serving a bear beer? You can’t even take a dog in the supermarket back in America,’ Eliza whispered.

‘You can reason with a dog,’ the Magician said, which made as little sense as the bear at the bar drinking beer.

‘Gooda see yuh,’ the bartender said. ‘Everybody calls me Kraft American. I own the place, What’ll it be?’

‘I need something really strong. A piña colada,’ the Magician said. ‘And beer for my friend.’

‘Okay I make that piña colada with Russian rum?’ Kraft American asked.

‘Russian rum?’ the Magician said, somewhat aghast.

‘It’s all I got till my delivery tomorra’

‘Sure,’ the Magician said with a shrug. ‘It fits in perfect with everything else.’

‘Uh ... what’s with the bear there?’ Eliza asked.

‘Yuh mean the one with the hat?’

‘I don’t see any other bear in here.’

‘What can I tell you,’ Kraft American said apologetically. ‘He comes with the store, okay? The guy who owns the place before me, he’s kind of like a patriotic nut. The bear is just one thing. You haven’t gone to the john yet. You sit on the seat, a recording of “God Bless America” plays. Anyways, the deal is, the guy wants out. He offers me the place. The only catcher is, see, the bear stays. And his rah, rah, rah, America hat stays too. And the flag-wavin’ toilet seat, everything.’

‘Does he have a name?’

‘Name’s Harry S. Truman.’

‘Does he often tear a man’s clothes off his back?’ the Magician asked, still annoyed.

‘It was the piano. I woulda warned ya, but I didn’t see yuh siddown to play. Only problem we got with Harry S. is that the goddamn bear goes apeshit when he hears flat musical notes. Hurts his ears or sumpin. That piano ain’t been tuned since they built the Canal. The only way, see, to calm Harry S. down when he gets outa sorts like that, all yuh gotta do is whistle the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

‘You ever know a guy name of Red Bridges?’ Eliza asked.

‘Know him? Shit, yuh. Can’t count the nights I wheeled his ass outa here. Red was in here alla time. He loved Harry S. I mean, they was asshole buddies. Red’d sit there, tell that goddamn bear his troubles, he’d never talk to anybody else. He used to bitch about the dish.’

‘Dish?’ Eliza asked.

‘Yeah, enormous thing, maybe as big around as, uh, half a football field, Like that.’

‘What do you do with it, invite a thousand of your closest friends to dinner?’ said the Magician, looking around for a laugh.

Kraft American laughed. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said. Harry S. belched, then rolled his lips back and smiled at everybody.

‘Actually, what it is, it’s an underwater environment thing.’

‘How come it was so big?’ Eliza asked.

‘Uh, I dunno this fer certain, okay? This is scuttlebutt. But from what I hear, this saucer-type thing could sleep maybe twelve, fifteen people. Had regular apartments in it, like they was gonna live down there. It was designed by that Greek guy, y’know the one does all the underwater shit.’

‘Nicholas Kaginakas?’ Eliza said.

‘That’s the one. He died too. He was here for a while and then he went back to Greece and one day he dropped dead.’

‘What did Bridges make before they started building the dish?’ Eliza asked.

‘He was hot and heavy into the salvage business. Then Red bought about — oh, fifteen, sixteen of those old Liberty ships from World War II. Big, ugly bastards, but they could hold a ton. He worked on them for a while, refitting, putting in tanks.’

‘What for?’

‘Red comes up with the idea that you could gut them, put in storage tanks and use them for oil tankers. He did lotsa business, none of ‘em ever came back to complain. They was very unique, y’know, had ballast tanks in them like a submarine.’

‘Ballast tanks?’ said the Magician.

‘Yeah. I guess so’s they could equalize the way they float, empty and full.’

Harry S. picked up his empty mug between his paws and rapped on the bar, and Kraft American went down and drew him another beer.

‘What d’ya think?’ the Magician whispered to Eliza.

‘Didn’t Danilov say something about killing a man in Greece?’

The Magician nodded.

Kraft American came back with a pina colada and one draft beer.

‘This dish, you know where they took it?’ the Magician asked.

‘Nope.’

‘And Red Bridges died before it was finished?’

‘Yeah. Old Red was gettin’ fed up with the operation. It got bigger than he had planned. See, Red was just a good old pirate, a salvage jockey. He loved lookin’ for old wrecks. If he’d made a fortune dredging up some old treasure ship or a war vessel full of relics, that woulda made him happier than a pig in shit

— pardon the French, lady. But converting old tubs into tankers and building some underwater flyin’ saucer, that wasn’t his thing. That definitely was not his thing. He didn’t wanna be no big-timer.’

‘Did he ever find anything when he was salvaging?’ the Magician asked.

‘Sure. Just before he quit we found an old Jap troopship lyin’ in twelve fathoms off the Volcano Islands south of here. She was running from Iwo Jima in ‘45 and our dive bombers caught up with her. Then he got involved in this big-time shit and he never went back. She’s still down there, rusting away.’

‘Nobody else went back either?’

‘Far as I know, Red never reported the find. He was always planning to go back there when he retired.’

He stopped and shook his head forlornly, then went on, ‘He really agonized over selling the yard, though, after thirty-five years. I heard him tellin’ Harry S. all about it one night. He got a little soused, was unloadin’ on old Harry. Some people he worked with after the war wanted to buy him out. Poor son of a bitch dropped dead before he could make up his mind.’

‘Before?’ said Eliza.

‘Yeah. Two nights before he passed away, he’s in here with a bag on. He’s bitchin’ about gettin’ in a squeeze with the big boys. But what big boys he didn’t say.’

‘And nobody ever said what happened to the dish?’

Nope. Hauled it outa here — shit, must be three, four months ago now. Actually I’m glad it’s gone. Everything was very hush-hush, the guys’d come in, wouldn’t talk shop. That’s about the time they started hiring a lotta Jap guys. Hadda pass security tests, the whole shithouse mouse.’

Harry S. belched again. ‘Ye’re excused,’ Kraft American said.

‘Who owns the shipyard now?’ Eliza asked.

‘Uh, some big outfit over here. Can’t remember offhand, seems t’ me it’s down south somewhere.’

‘AMRAN?’ Eliza ventured.

‘No, sumpin like—’

‘San-San?’ said the Magician.

‘Yeah, you got it, man. That’s it, the San-San Company.’ Harry S. grumbled into his beer.

‘Whatsa matter, Harry, you got the blues?’ Kraft American said.

‘He gets the blues, “know, sits there with his face in the glass like some drunk, moaning.’

‘Maybe he’s horny,’ the Magician suggested.

‘I never thoughta that,’ Kraft American said and moved on down the bar to talk it over with Harry S., who continued to stare bleakly into his glass.

‘It’s beginning to fit together,’ Eliza said. ‘One more thing, Mr Kraft American, did Red ever mention the word “Midas” to you?’

‘Sure, lotsa times.’

‘He did?’

‘Yeah. That’s what they called the dish.’