Stalking the Angel by Robert Crais

touched his forehead. “Bug fuck.”
    “Eddie,” I said.
    Ito nodded. “Yeah. Eddie’s a real up-and-comer. Local kid. Arrest record could fill a book. We got him made for half a dozen killings but we can’t prove it. That’s the bitch with the yakuza. You can’t prove it. People down here, something happens, they don’t see it and they don’t talk about it. So you’ve got to put a guy like Ishida’s business under surveillance for eight months and pray some hotshot private license doesn’t come along and tip him that he’s being watched and blow the whole thing. You don’t want that to happen because Ishida is overseeing a major operation to import brown heroin from China and Thailand for a guy named Yuki Torobuni who runs the yakuza here in L.A. and if you get Ishida maybe you get Torobuni and shut the whole fucking thing down.” Behind us, the twoguys from the coroner’s office wheeled out the gurney. There was a dark gray body bag sitting on it. Whatever was in the bag looked rumpled.
    I said, “If they’re moving dope in, the guys down in Watts and East L.A. aren’t going to like it. Maybe what happened in back is an effort to eliminate competition.”
    Ito looked at Poitras. “You were right, Poitras. This boy is bright.”
    “He has his days.”
    “Unless,” I said, “it has something to do with the Hagakure.”
    Terry Ito smiled at me, then walked over to the cruller box and selected one with green icing. He said, “You’re smart, all right, but not smart enough. This isn’t your world, white boy. People disappear. Entire families vanish in the most outrageous manner. And there’s never a witness, never a clue.” Ito gave me a little more of the smile. “Have you read a translation of the Hagakure?”
    “No.”
    The smile went nasty. “There’s a little thing in there called Bushido. Bushido says that the way of the warrior is death.” Ito stopped smiling. “Whoever took your little book, pray it’s not the yakuza.” He stared at me for a little while longer, then he took his cruller and went into the back.
    Poitras uncrossed the huge arms and shook his head. “Sometimes, Hound Dog, you are a real asshole.”
    “Et tu, Brute?”
    He walked away.
    They kept me around until a dick from Hollenbeck got there and took my statement. It was 3:14 in the morning when they finished with me, and Poitras hadlong since gone. I went out into the cool night air onto streets that were empty of round-eyed faces. I thought about the yakuza and people disappearing and I tried to imagine things like nothing I’d ever seen. I tried, but all I kept seeing was what someone had done to Nobu Ishida.
    The walk to the car was long and through dark streets, but only once did I look behind me.

11

    The next morning Jillian Becker called me at eight-fifteen and asked me if I had yet recovered the Hagakure. I told her no, that in the fourteen hours that had passed since we last spoke, I had not recovered it, but should I stumble upon it as I walked out to retrieve my morning paper, I would call her at once. She then reminded me that today was the Pacific Men’s Club Man of the Month banquet. The banquet was to begin at one, we were expected to arrive at the hotel by noon, and would I please dress appropriate to the occasion? I told her that my formal black suede holster was being cleaned, but that I would do the best I could. She asked me why I always had something flip to say. I said that I didn’t know, but having been blessed with the gift, I felt obliged to use it.
    At ten minutes after ten I pulled into the Warrens’ drive and parked behind a dark gray presidential stretch limousine. The driver was sitting across the front seat,head down, reading the
Times
sports section. There was a chocolate-brown 1988 Rolls-Royce Corniche by the four-car garage with a white BMW 633i beside it. I made the BMW for Jillian Becker. Pike’s red Jeep was at the edge of the drive out by the gate. It was as far from the