is taking too long,” she said again. “Where the hell is everyone?”
“Seriously?” Han said. “You’re impatient about maybe getting shot at?”
“Well, it’s weird, neh? You called Sakakibara. He called SWAT. The Bulldog probably called a whole damn army—”
“Leaving one big question: who did you call, Mariko? When are you going to tell me how you’ve been working all this magic?”
Mariko didn’t want to answer that, and she didn’t want to sit and do nothing anymore. “Screw it, I’m getting myself a beer.”
She slid down off her stool and went behind the bar, which was unmanned; Furukawa had sent all of his people home. They had Suntory Malts on tap, so she poured herself a tall one. “I’m pretty sure that’s against regs,” Han said.
“Only if you’re a cop on duty. I’m suspended, remember?” She raised her glass in a toast.
“You can’t dodge me forever, Mariko. Tell me what’s going on.”
She took a long drink, steeling her nerve. “I made some deals with some bad people.”
“Like who? The Bulldog?”
“Yeah.”
“And the ancient ninja clan too, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“That is so damn cool.”
“Han, these guys do some seriously bad shit.”
He shrugged and puffed on his cigarette. “You know I’m a Giants fan, neh? You know what I say when someone hits a homerun against my Giants?”
“What?”
“I say that was a hell of a shot. These guys you teamed up with, they’ve got some serious swat. Let’s keep them in the lineup, at least until this game is over.”
Mariko shook her head. “This isn’t a game, Han—”
Her phone quivered in her pocket, distracting her. She pulled it out and saw it was a call she had to take. “Where are they?” she said. “You told me they’d be here by now.”
“The mask and sword will arrive shortly,” Furukawa said. “I’m afraid there has been a complication. They will arrive in the hands of a double agent.”
“What, you mean Joko Daishi’s?”
“Yes. I sent word that the relics were to be moved, then monitored communications between Endo-san and Norika-san. It seems they are not as trustworthy as I expected.”
“Perfect timing,” Mariko said. At that very moment, someone was pounding on the door. “I have to go, Furukawa-san.”
Han was at the door before Mariko could warn him away. “Well, hello there,” he said. He stepped aside to admit Norika, and checked her out as soon as her back was turned. Then he caught Mariko’s attention and mouthed the words I’m in love.
Usually Mariko had no trouble admitting when another woman looked good. Norika was the exception, for two reasons. First, she’d tried to kill Mariko once. Second, Mariko only had eyes for the bags slung over Norika’s shoulder. Both were taken from Mariko’s apartment. The smaller one was a muslin shopping bag, which contained something heavy and pointy. It had to be the mask. The larger one, tied to the first, was lavishly embroidered silk, very slender, almost as long as Norika was tall. In fact, it was a sword bag, formerly Yamada-sensei’s, and it could only contain Glorious Victory Unsought.
The only thing Mariko could think of to say was, “You’re not going to swing that mask at my face again, are you?”
Norika gave her a falsely sweet smile. “Keep hiding behind that bar and you won’t have to find out.”
Once again Mariko wished she had a gun. She wanted to tell Han to lock the door and draw down on his new ladylove, but she couldn’t do that without revealing the fact that Furukawa had just outed Norika as the double agent. Mariko wasn’t even sure Furukawa had it right. Wasn’t Norika the one who shot Joko Daishi and stole the mask in the first place? That was the story she told Furukawa, anyway. Could she have been lying? Yes. She was a genin of the Wind; she could lie about anything. The larger question was whether there was some ulterior motive in giving Mariko the mask. Was there anything so important that it trumped Joko Daishi’s need to keep the mask for himself?
If there was, Mariko couldn’t imagine what it could be. She wished she had more time to think. Norika could see Mariko had doubts about her, because she stopped halfway to the bar. “What’s wrong?” she said. “You don’t trust me?”
At the same time, Han looked back out the doorway and said, “Hey, aren’t you Endo Naomoto?” Then a lot of things happened at once:
Endo came in, his baseball bat hanging heavily in one hand.