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Jerry stared at him. "Are you serious? Are you asking that as a serious
question?"
Gerard didn't even blink.
Jerry put down his turkey sandwich. His throat was drier than ever. "If that's
the way it has to be ... then yes. If that's the only possible condition for
David's release."
Gerard smirked, and then let out a grunt of a laugh. "You're even more
innocent than I imagined," he said. "Do you really think that anybody who
wanted to kill you would actually honor this agreement, and release your boy?
Your boy's being kept alive for one reason only: you're still alive. Once
you're dead, why should anyone bother? Your boy will be knocked off, too.
You're not likely to come back from the grave and argue about it, are you? And
your boy will be far too damning a witness for us to let him go."
Jerry was silent for a long time, staring at Gerard in
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hopeless anxiety. Then he said, "You've come to meet me for a reason, right?
Either to have me killed, or to put up some kind of a suggestion."
"That's right," said Gerard. The waitress brought his whiskey, and he paid for
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it with a $20 bill. "You see, everything was fine until yesterday night. Then,
they sent out a Tengu to kill Admiral Thorson, who is the only other man apart
from your good self who might have jeopardized the Tengu project by
recognizing what the Tengu actually are and by helping the police to trace
them back to where they came from."
"Admiral Thorson was in a coma. He had been for months. Why should they bother
to send out a Tengu to kill him?"
"They're crazy, that's why," said Gerard. "And, besides, they're Japanese.
Although they won't admit it, a whole lot of what they're doing has got
something to do with the ancient Japanese principles of revenge and honor. You
and Thorson knew about the Tengus: y6u had to die. Don't ask me why. The whole
thing's like some kind of nightmare."
Jerry said, "I get the feeling you're trying to tell me that you're changing
sides. You're not trying to threaten me, are you? Or are you? You're trying to
find out if I'll forgive you enough for what you've done to help you."
Gerard took out another cigar and clipped off the end. "This Tengu project
isn't what it seems, believe me. There's something really heavy going down;
and when I say heavy, I mean heavy."
Jerry picked up his sandwich, looked at it, and then put it down again. He
said, "You took my son, right? All I want to hear from you is that you're
prepared to help me get him back again."
Gerard briefly closed his eyes, to indicate his assent.
"I don't trust you," said Jerry. "For Christ's sake, how can I trust you? It
was you who took him in the first place."
"I'm not asking for anything," Gerard said. "Not
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279
sympathy, not forgiveness, nothing. I'm just asking you to believe that in the
past twenty-four hours, I've changed my mind about the people I work for, and
I've begun to change my mind about myself. The motivation has been completely
selfish. I'm scared, if you want to know the truth. I've never been scared of
anyone or anything in my life, but I'm scared now. And the reason I'm scared
is because I'm in love. I've been dating my secretary, Francesca. I was
supposed to go back to Nancy Shiranuka's place last night and talk about the
Tengus, report on what we'd been doing out at Rancho Encino. But I didn't go.
Instead, I took Francesca to L'Ermitage, where nobody was going to find us,
and I spent the whole night talking myself out. My past, my present, and my
future. The whole Rancho Encino thing went wrong, it all turned into a
massacre. I can't live with that. When you're really in love for the first
time, you realize you can't accept half the things you accepted before. You've
got a responsibility to yourself, and to the person you love."
He smoked, and rubbed at his forehead, and then he said, "I can't erase what's
happened, you know? I can't bring Sherry Cantor back to life. But I would if I
could. And I'll do whatever I can to help you get your son back. I thought I
was a frigid, emotionless tough guy before any of this started, and the fact
is that I'm not. I don't think anybody is, when you really take it down to the
bottom line. You can't be a lover and a killer at the same time. And that's
why I said I was sorry when I first came in."
Jerry said, "Nancy Shiranuka told me they were holding David at some ranch
near Pacoima.''
"That's right."
"What goes on there? When you say 'they,' who do you mean? How many people do
they have there?"
"The ranch at Pacoima is where they're creating the Tengus," said Gerard. "The
head guy there is Doctor Gempaku, he's the guy who actually develops the
Tengus, brings them into being. Then there's ten or eleven guards; they all
wear black masks on their faces, so you can never
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tell which is which. But they're all armed, and they're all skilled in Oni,
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which is some kind of ancient martial art."
"I know about Oni," said Jerry.
"In that case, you'll be quite aware that these guys are totally deadly," said
Gerard.
"Yes," said Jerry. He felt awkward with Gerard, suspicious of him. And yet at
the same time he could recognize that Gerard was going through an inner
turmoil that, if he only allowed it to, could bring him out of a life that had
been shallow and cynical and exploitative, and into an existence that would be
honest even if not particularly profitable.
Jerry hadn't been at L'Ermitage, during those hours in which Gerard had drunk
whiskey after whiskey, and talked, and argued, and made love to Francesca in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]