Bill Pronzini - Quicksilver

“Your purpose, please?”

“Simon Tamura. Ken Yamasaki The two men in the white Ford.”

For all the reaction he gave that, I might have just recited my Christmas card list. He said, “Wait, please,” and went away with my card.

I sat there for another ten minutes, finishing my tomato juice. More people came in-tourists, mostly, with a few business types sprinkled among them. None of the customers was Japanese.

The Lump came back finally and stopped where he had before and handed me back my card. “So sorry,” he said. “It is not possible.”

“You mean Mr. Okubo won’t see me?”

“It is not possible. Good-bye, please.” And he turned and lumbered off toward the foyer.

It made me angry; it made me damned angry. I got off the stool and went after him and caught up just as he was nearing a door amidships, at the rear of the foyer. I scooted around in front of him, blocked his way. He stopped and looked at me out of those sunken eyes-the kind of look that was supposed to make me shrivel up and crawl away. I gave it right back to him, letting him see my anger.

“I’ve got a message for Mr. Okubo,” I said quietly. “Tell him that unless he agrees to see me, I’m going to start busting this place up. You know, destroy things-furniture, dishes, whatever I can lay my hands on. Maybe knock some of his people around a little too. One man can do a lot of damage in a few minutes. Then he’ll have to call the police; too many witnesses for him to do anything else. There’ll be newspaper reporters along when the cops get here, and I’ll tell them why I did it. Simon Tamura, Ken Yamasaki, the two men in the white Ford. Plus everything else I know about the Yakuza and the Kara Maru. It’ll be all over the papers tomorrow, he can bet on that. Should be great for business.”

The Lump didn’t react or move or speak.

“I know what you’re thinking, pal,” I said. “You’re thinking you’re a pretty big guy yourself and you and one or two of your friends can stop me before I do much damage. But don’t count on it; I’m just as tough as you are. Tougher, because I’m mad as hell. Tell Mr. Okubo that too. Either he and I talk like gentlemen or you and I fight like animals.”

He spent another few seconds absorbing all of that. Then some more customers came in and animated him again. He said, “Wait, please,” and made a careful sidestep around me and disappeared through the amidships door.

I went over to lean against one of the bulkheads. What I’d said about busting the place up had been a bluff; I was to old for that kind of brawl, and it would not only land me in jail, it would get my license yanked all over again-for good this time. But Mr. Okubo didn’t know any of that. He would either buy the bluff or he wouldn’t, on its own merits. It all depended on what he thought of me and how much it mattered to him whether he gave me an audience or not.

I had to wait more than ten minutes this time, and I was wired pretty good when the Lump reappeared. He stood in the open doorway and beckoned to me: Okubo had bought the bluff. I moved over there and into a companionway, and the Lump let the door swing shut. But we didn’t go anywhere just yet.

He said, “Weapons, please.”

“I’m not carrying any weapons.”

“You will please allow me to search.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. I did not want him putting his hands on me. Instead I backed off a ways, in case he had any ideas of getting rough, and opened my jacket. He didn’t move. So I took the jacket off, tossed it to him, watched him paw through it. Then I turned around in a slow circle so he could see that the only bulges on my body were made by fat deposits. “Satisfied?”

“ Hai,” he said. He let me have my jacket back and waited until I put it on. “This way, please.”

We went down the companionway, made a left-hand-turn into another one. At the far end of the second one was a closed door. The Lump tapped on the door in a deferential way, reached down to open it, and then stood aside to let me go in first.

It was a big compartment outfitted as an office, with carpeting on the deck and Japanese woodblock prints on the bulkheads and a massive teak desk set between a pair of portholes that looked out over the Bay. Some overstuffed chairs were arranged on the left side; on the right side was an elaborate teak bar. The room was soundproofed: when the Lump shut the door you couldn’t hear any of the restaurant sounds, or the cries of gulls outside.

There were two men in the compartment. One of them was standing next to the desk; the other was sitting stiffly in the nearest of the overstuffed chairs. I took the standing one to be Hisayuki Okubo. He was a good deal older, better dressed-a tan suit made out of silk, from the looks of it-and had an air of authority about him. Still, he wasn’t such-a-much. Short, a little on the plump side, with bland features and slicked-down hair like a gangster in an old George Raft movie.

Nobody moved for a few seconds. Then the guy in the silk suit came over to me, bowed slightly, and introduced himself. Okubo, all right. The Yakuza godfather. Not such-a-much in most ways, maybe, but when you saw his eyes up close like this, you could tell what he was made of. They were as cold and flat and hard as steel boilerplate, and they made a lie of the politeness in his voice and his manner.

I said, “I’ll make this short and sweet, Mr. Okubo; we’ve both got better things to do. I’m here to ask you to leave me alone, quit having me followed. I didn’t have anything to do with Simon Tamura’s murder, so there’s nothing for you to find out. Besides, it’s annoying and it makes me nervous and it’s interfering with my work.”

Okubo was silent. So were the Lump and the guy in the chair, who looked tense and worried. It was so quiet in there I could hear myself breathing.

“Well, Mr. Okubo?” I said finally.

“Tell me, please, what work it is you are presently engaged in.”

I told him. What I didn’t tell him was that there was some kind of connection between the Tamura homicide and Haruko Gage’s secret admirer. I did not want to get into that with him unless I was forced to.

He said, “You went to Mr. Tamura’s bathhouse to speak with Ken Yamasaki-correct?”

“That’s right. Mrs. Gage gave me his name along with a number of others, all former boyfriends. I’ve been trying to talk to Yamasaki ever since, but he hasn’t been around.”

“Why do you wish to speak with him?”

“The same reason I went to the bathhouse. And also because it’s his car those two boys of yours are using to follow me around. But then, you already know that.”

“Yes,” Okubo said, “now I do.”

“How was that again?”

“Also, those two men are not ‘my boys,’ as you put it.”

“Sorry; I didn’t mean that as a racial slur. Kobun, then, or whatever it is you call them.”

“No,” he said.

“No? Then what are they?”

“Friends of Mr. Yamasaki’s.”

“Not Yakuza?”

“Friends of Mr. Yamasaki’s,” he repeated.

“I don’t think I understand…”

“Would you still like to speak with him?”

“Yamasaki? Yeah, I would.”

“Very well. You may.” He turned and made a gesture toward the young guy in the chair. “This is Mr. Ken Yamasaki.”

It surprised me. I hadn’t paid much attention to the young guy; now, when I looked at him, I could see just how tense and worried he was. Afraid, too: the fear was in his eyes and in the faint sheen of perspiration on his forehead. He was pretty much as Haruko had described him to me-on the near side of thirty, slender in a way that was almost girlish, with ascetic features enhanced by thick, black-rimmed glasses.