He just might be able to walk away from this.

    Hideo watched the street while Kenji worked on the front door lock to Gerrish's apartment building. Goro and Ryo crowded around him, shielding his actions from passing eyes.

    They had blindfolded Cooter-san and dropped him near a hospital, then gone back to the Kaze house to await darkness. He used the time to write up a report on Goro, detailing his disobedience. Goro would lose another joint on his little finger as a result.

    When he'd finished he read it over and realized that the incident was as much a failure of command as a failure of discipline. He deleted it.

    Hearing a grunt of satisfaction from Kenji, Hideo turned and saw the door swing open.

    "Excellent work," he said as Kenji used a toothpick to jam the latch. "You three wait nearby. I will call you if I need you."

    The three nodded and moved off as Hideo entered the vestibule.

    He had decided to do this on his own. Not simply because he could not trust the yakuza to restrain themselves, but the mere sight of them would certainly frighten Gerrish. If the man would not open his door, how could Hideo persuade him to sell his katana?

    And he would sell it. Whatever his asking price, Hideo would meet it. He had one hundred thousand in cash in his briefcase. He would bring more if need be. He didn't care. It wasn't his money. And Sasaki-san would pay anything. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand—a mere pittance to the chairman. Not even an hour's interest on his holdings.

    The elevator deposited him on the fourth floor. To his left, across the hall, he saw a door marked 4D.

    The moment had arrived. Soon—perhaps tomorrow, if all went smoothly—he would be on his way back home with Sasaki-san's precious katana safely stowed in his luggage.

    Jack came in through the fire escape. He'd donned a goth look for the night: sneakers, ripped jeans, a hoodie, and leather gloves—all black. He'd used a bump key on a back door of the adjoining building, come across the roof, and down the fire escape to what he figured to be 4D. Behind him, across a fairly broad alley, loomed the blank wall of the Tabernacle of Prayer.

    The window opened into a darkened bedroom. It was locked but old and he easily popped the latch with the screwdriver he'd brought along for just such a purpose.

    He eased up the sash and listened. Quiet as a coffin. No sign of life. Gerrish was probably out. This might prove easier than he'd expected.

    He slipped into the bedroom and headed for the hall. Best-case scenario: He'd toss the place, find the katana, say sayonara, and be gone before Gerrish came back.

    If he didn't find it, that could mean either that Gerrish had hidden it really well or, worse, sold it. In that case he'd have to settle in and wait for the man's return.

    Jack stopped in the hallway, his senses tingling with alarm. Why? The place was dead. And then he recognized the smell.

    Blood.

    He pulled out a penlight and flashed it around until the beam found the corpse. Blood everywhere, especially the corpse—its entire front was saturated with it.

    He stepped closer and recognized Gerrish. His throat had been slashed. Looked like the work of a straight razor.

    Or a katana.

    Jack knew right then he wouldn't find the sword here. Could be a lot of reasons for Gerrish's offing, but Jack's gut told him it was the sword. Someone else had wanted it badly enough to kill for it—maybe even used it to do the deed.

    Time to go.

    He turned back to the bedroom and saw red-and-blue flashes through the window. He stuck his head out and saw a pair of NYPD cruisers in the alley, and four cops talking to a couple of kids.

    Shit.

    Three choices: Climb back to the roof now and risk being spotted, wait them out, or leave by the front door. The third offered more chances to be seen by one of the neighbors, but he needed out of this crime scene. Now.

    If he put on a pair of shades and pulled up his hood, he figured he'd be all right. He was doing just that on his way to the front door, carefully avoiding the blood splatters, when he heard a knock. He looked up and saw the door starting to swing open.

    A voice said, "Mister Gerrish?"

    Who—?

    Didn't matter. Couldn't be caught here. He spun and dashed back to the bedroom. He was about to dive out onto the fire escape when the window lit up, then faded.

    A peek out showed the two kids cuffed and bent over a car hood. One of the cops was flashing his car's searchlight back and forth over the building's outer wall. Another was using his light on the Tabernacle. Jack didn't know what they were looking for but they'd sure as hell spot him if he tried to escape.

    "Mister Gerrish?" the voice repeated from the front room.

    Only one thing to do.

    He backed into the bedroom closet, pulled his Glock, and closed the door—the damn hinges gave out a faint squeak. He measured his breathing and waited, hoping it was anyone but a cop.

    Anyone but a cop.

    Upon approaching, Hideo had noticed that the door to apartment 4D was unlatched. He'd knocked anyway but the door had swung open under the gentle impacts.

    Only darkness within.

    "Mister Gerrish?"

    He pushed the door open wider.

    "Mister Gerrish? Are you here?"

    He was concluding that Gerrish-san had left without fully latching his door, when he heard a high-pitched whisper of sound from within. He stepped across the threshold and fumbled along the wall for a light switch. He found one and flipped it.

    Hideo found himself in a short hallway looking into the apartment's front room. A dozen feet away a body lay sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood. The sight drove him back against the door, slamming it shut. He dropped the briefcase and fumbled for his phone. He speed-dialed Kenji's number.

    "Get up here now! All of you!"

    He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and conjured visions of Omi-shima, the tranquil Inland Sea island he'd visited last summer. He needed to calm himself. He couldn't allow the yakuza to see him like this.

    By the time they arrived, he was standing by the body, briefcase in hand, looking calm and composed, although his gut was churning with nausea at the smell of all that blood.

    The yakuza, on the other hand, took everything in stride, with no more reaction than if they'd found a dead animal along the side of a road. If a stick had been lying nearby, he was sure one of them would have picked it up and poked the poor man.

    Gerrish. No question in Hideo's mind, and confirmed when Kenji pulled the wallet from his pocket and checked his ID. He checked the throat wound that gaped like a second bloody mouth.

    "A very sharp knife."

    Hideo met his gaze—better than looking at that wound. "Or katana?"

    He nodded. "Or katana. But you have shown me the X-ray. Such a rotted old blade could not have the edge to make this wound."

    Hideo had a feeling it very well could. Sasaki-san was not a junk collector.

    He felt his dream of heading home to Japan tomorrow shatter around him. The sword was gone. It had been used to kill its owner. He might never find it now.

    Yet despite that leaden certainty, he could not leave without being sure he had turned over every rock in this garden of death.

    "Search the place. Look everywhere—behind furniture, behind appliances, everywhere. Leave no corner uninspected."