Rules of Honour - 08 Read online

  I hoped now that Yukiko would repay that debt by telling Rink the truth about who had murdered his dad.

  I waited an hour.

  When Rink was a no-show I feared that he’d sneaked off again on another uncharacteristic rampage. But I was doing him an injustice and so I waited some more.

  Another hour later Rink finally approached. Since flying in we’d hired a rental car, and without looking at me he headed directly for the silver Chrysler. I fell in step with him, arriving at the car at the same time.

  I leaned on the roof of the car, caught my friend’s eye. ‘Well?’

  ‘She’s doing fine. The doctors say she’ll be able to go home in a day or two.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I said, and meant it. ‘But that’s not what I asked.’

  Rink nodded me inside the car. I’d have offered to drive, but things were usually this way with us. Rink didn’t trust me to stay on the right side of the road. Ordinarily he’d make some jibe, but not now. He started the car and pulled away, and he didn’t have a destination in mind judging by the way he paused at the exit. Finally he took a left, for no other reason than that it was as good as any direction.

  ‘She swears she doesn’t know who killed my dad.’

  We’d been there when a detective had attended her bedside and recorded a statement. Yukiko had related how she and Andrew had been wakened by a noise and her husband had gone downstairs to investigate. She had followed him down and seen a man in black standing over Andrew, a gun in his hand. The man had his back to her and she’d taken the opportunity to arm herself with a plant pot. The trouble was he’d heard her approaching and had struck her unconscious. That was all she could recall, despite all the detective’s attempts at teasing further detail from her. That was when she’d mentioned some trouble with Chaney and his friends and suggested that he might have had something to do with her husband’s murder. The detective had noted her words down, then left, and Yukiko had drifted into a fitful sleep. A few minutes after that and Rink had slipped away. At first I’d thought he’d snuck off somewhere to be alone, to grieve in private, and I gave him some space. But that only lasted until Yukiko had woken from her sleep and asked for him.

  ‘Do you believe her?’

  Rink nodded. ‘She told me that she mentioned Chaney to the cops because she thought he deserved extra notice from them, but that was all. She was also about to say something else but her nurse came in and she clammed up. Though I tried to press her on it afterwards, she wouldn’t say anything. She changed the subject, started making preparations for my dad’s funeral.’ There was a hitch in his voice at the end, so I allowed him a moment or two of reflection.

  ‘She doesn’t know who killed your dad, but she knows why.’

  Rink turned to me for a second and I barely recognised him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘that’s what I figure.’

  ‘So why won’t she tell the cops? Why not tell you?’

  ‘Giri.’ Rink looked at me again and this time his face was set in stone. ‘My mom is a firm believer in the old ways.’

  Giri. I turned the Japanese phrase over in my mind. It was a concept rather than a single word, and one I was familiar with. Not that it was a phrase easily translated in the West. Some have said that it means ‘duty’ but it goes much deeper than that. It is better defined as ‘moral obligation’, or a debt of gratitude where self-sacrifice outweighs the pursuit of happiness. Basically, Yukiko believed she owed someone her silence, and fulfilling her obligation won out over bringing her husband’s murderer to justice. Sometimes giri has been called the ‘burden of obligation’, and I could see that it was true in Yukiko’s case.

  ‘What about the giri she should show towards your father?’ Immediately I wanted to retract the question. ‘Shit. Ignore that, Rink. That was pretty insensitive of me.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, without expanding on it. I wasn’t sure which of my statements he was agreeing with.

  Hitomi Yukiko’s parents had been Japanese, staunch traditionalists raised in a land that was still governed by an emperor, whose rule was defined by a static feudal order that had existed in Japanese society for centuries. Even when they had moved to the US the Hitomi family had continued to abide by these ancient values, and had passed them down to their girl child. Even Rink, raised in the US, with a Scottish-Canadian father, held strongly to some of his grandparents’ teachings. I knew what was going through his head: if anyone held a burden of obligation to his father, it was he. By default that burden extended to me and I’d do everything I could to help my friend repay it.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  Rink concentrated on the road ahead. It was probably so that I didn’t see the tears in his eyes. ‘As soon as the police release his body I’ll see to my father’s funeral. Then I’ll avenge him.’

  It was a simple plan, but that was the type I preferred.

  Chapter 5

  Jed Newmark was drinking alone. Other drinkers in the bar on Stanyan Street surrounded him, but he’d chosen to ignore them and hunched over his drink at the bar. For a start he shared little in common with the young professionals who spent less time on drinking than they did on their cellphones. He was twice the age of the next oldest person in the bar, and that was the bartender. During the 1990s Cole Valley had grown popular with dot-commers, so much so that many of the original residents had moved out to make way for the young and affluent. Now some of those yuppie types were approaching their middle years, but they were still young punks to Jed. He felt old. Recently some young pup had heard his name and asked if he was any relation to Craig Newmark, the internet entrepreneur responsible for founding the San Francisco-based website Craigslist. Jed had played along and said yes. ‘Are you his dad?’ asked the young sycophant. Shit, Jed had thought, Craig Newmark has to be in his sixties by now.

  He cupped both hands around his glass, just a drop or two of whisky left in the bottom, peering over at his reflection in the warped mirror beyond the shelved liquor bottles. He looked toadlike, short, squat, and round faced. His mouth drooped down at the corners, but didn’t help smooth out any of the wrinkles round his puffy eyelids. To be honest, it was a wonder he hadn’t been mistaken for Craig’s grandad.

  He finished his drink, pushed the empty glass from him and slipped some dollars in the general direction of the bartender. Without even a nod of appreciation for the tip he’d added, the bartender continued serving Martinis to a middle-aged couple further along the bar. Feeling invisible, Jed walked out of the bar and into late afternoon sunlight. He blinked against the unfamiliar glare, before setting off for his apartment a couple of blocks south on Carmel. He was returning to an empty home. His wife, Rose, had died three years ago. Stomach cancer had spread to her liver where it did more damage than the hard liquor he’d consumed over the years ever did to his. Jed was alone in the world now. No children. No friends. That was not so until very recently, but then Andrew Rington had been taken during a senseless bout of violence in the man’s home.

  Jed muttered to himself as he walked. The liquor he’d downed had thrown a cloak of cotton wool over him, fogging the pain of grief he’d felt at the news of Andrew’s murder, but it was still there like an itch at the back of his head that he couldn’t shake. Fucking senseless. How could such a good man as Andrew Rington be gunned down in his own home? What had this world become?

  He had known Andrew and Yukiko for more than forty years. He knew the couple when they had lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, way back before the birth of their youngest son, Jared. They had been good friends, the more so because Rose and Yukiko got on so well, having grown up in the same neighbourhood of San Francisco as children. Jed had lost contact with the Ringtons for a few years, after him and Rose moved back West, and had been surprised to hear from Andrew a few years ago when they too planned to move back to Yukiko’s childhood home. Rose didn’t live too long afterwards, but it had been a happy reunion with Yukiko while it lasted. It had helped his wife through the fina
l painful days of her illness. Jed and Andrew occasionally took themselves down to Fisherman’s Wharf to cast a line in the sea, or to simply sit on the benches and spend a couple hours in companionable silence watching the antics of the sea lions out on the jetties near Pier 39.

  He felt the sting of tears and wiped at his cheeks with the back of a wrist.

  He’d shared good memories with Andrew.

  Then again, they also shared bad memories.

  The basement.

  He shook his head. Don’t go there, he commanded himself.

  The Cole Valley district originally grew up around a streetcar stop at the entrance to the Sunset Tunnel. Now that area at the intersection of Carl and Cole Streets was the neighbourhood’s small business district, and Jed still managed a tiny flower boutique Rose had opened there. He had closed it the morning he’d heard of Andrew’s murder and hadn’t been to the shop since. He couldn’t go on neglecting it like this, but he still could not face work today. He wouldn’t be able to be polite to his customers and that wouldn’t do. Neither could he go to the shop drunk as he was. Tomorrow, he promised, he’d go in and design a wreath fit to place on his friend’s grave.

  The home he’d shared with Rose was on the upper floor of a three-storeyed Victorian, the lower levels now rented to staff from the University of California. This time of day his neighbours would not be home, and he was glad that he wouldn’t be required to make small talk on the stairs. He pushed into his apartment having no memory of the walk back. Inside, the air-conditioning was turned too high, the air chilly. Nevertheless he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hook in the closet next to the front door, and kicked off his shoes and placed them on a shelf. It was an old habit adopted from his wife who had always had exacting housekeeping standards. He worked his feet into a pair of slippers, and then headed along the short hall passing the sitting room.

  Old age had brought intolerance to him, and he hated the cold. It played havoc with his joints. He decided he’d turn up the central heating before the mist returned and with it the ache to his bones. Perhaps a nice hot cup of coffee wouldn’t go amiss either. He entered the kitchen and placed the makings in his Mr Coffee machine and set it dripping. Like many of the items in the apartment the machine was a relic of earlier times, a gift bought for him by Rose back in the mid-1970s and carted round with them ever since. Thinking back on when she’d presented the machine to him, he smiled sadly. He was a fan of Joe DiMaggio, and his wife thought it apt that he receive a gift endorsed by the former baseball star. It was those little naive touches of hers that had made him love her so much. Feeling maudlin, Jed fetched his favourite mug, placed it next to the hissing machine and then made for the sitting room to deal with the heating.

  A panel in the sitting room controlled the central heating; it was on the wall to the left as he entered. Concentrating on the task at hand he pushed open the door and went towards the panel. It took a second for his booze-addled brain to notice that something was out of place. He turned from the panel to look at the figure standing across the room from him with his hands clasped at his lower back.

  ‘Who are you?’ Even as the question rolled from his tongue it became redundant, because the man had lifted his chin and Jed got a good look at his features.

  ‘I see you know that already,’ the man replied.

  Jed looked around the room, as though checking that nothing else was out of the norm. It was a wasted act, because it wouldn’t matter in the long run.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The man snorted out a laugh. ‘I think you also know that.’

  These days Jed was a florist, another thing he’d adopted and embraced from a life shared with his gentle wife, but he hadn’t always been. As a young man he’d had a very different skill set and the instincts he’d carried then surged to the surface now. He bunched his fists. ‘It was you. You killed Andrew Rington.’

  ‘It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘You murderous son of a bitch!’ Jed took a step forward.

  The man brought his hands from behind his back, and with them the silenced handgun he pointed at Jed’s face. He smiled. ‘Isn’t that what they call “the pot calling the kettle black” ’

  The gun spat, but Jed didn’t hear it. The bullet took out the back of his skull before the sound reached his ears.

  Chapter 6

  The sun was beating down from a sky devoid of clouds, the heat trickling like warm honey beneath my formal clothing. For the occasion I’d doffed my usual casual attire in favour of shirt, tie and black suit. Most funerals I’ve ever attended have been dour events conducted under leaden skies, and it felt unusual to feel the sunlight dance on my face. To banish the unfamiliar sensation I kept my head tilted down, but that was more befitting the ceremony at any rate.

  I was like a brother to Rink, as I’ve said, and by virtue of that relationship a second son to Yukiko and Andrew Rington, and I’d been allotted a place at the graveside. Rink was supporting his mom under the protective arch of his arm, while I stood to her other side. I felt a little awkward standing there in my stiff new suit and could have done with someone else to hold on to. Ordinarily my girlfriend, Imogen, would have been beside me, but not now. In the past few months we’d kind of drifted apart, the spells when we didn’t see each other, or even speak on the phone, growing longer. I’d told her about Andrew’s murder, and she’d been saddened, but hadn’t offered to join me at the funeral. I took that as her way of cutting me adrift. It had been coming, and my skipping off to the other side of the continent was as good an excuse as any. Partly I was happy she was moving on, partly I was disappointed that our relationship had come to an end. It was a depressing fact that we’d got together due to a violent death and now we had parted because of another.

  There were few other mourners. Not that Andrew wasn’t well liked or that he had no friends, but that had been a thing of the past. Most of his contemporaries were now in graves of their own; it’s a sad reflection that the longer one lives the fewer people there are to mourn your passing.

  The vicar presided, saying a prayer. Having helped us to lower the coffin, the four pallbearers supplied by the undertaker service stood back from the grave. Opposite us were two elderly ladies, friends of Yukiko, and three old guys who were passing acquaintances of Andrew. Behind us stood two more mourners. A thin old man with watery grey eyes and an aquiline nose who had introduced himself as Lawrence Parnell, and another heavyset old man with a bald head mottled by fine scars, called Rodney Faulks, were Andrew’s only genuine friends in attendance. I’d noticed Yukiko share nods with both men, before she’d frowned then searched the graveyard for someone else. When the missing person didn’t appear her expression had altered from grief to one of mild concern. But now, as the vicar made the sign of the cross over the coffin to a soft chorus of amen from the mourners, I saw that her attention had returned fully to her beloved husband’s interment.

  The cemetery was on a sloping hill, encircled by a stone retaining wall and towering eucalyptus trees. Between the trees stretched a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the blue waters of the bay and the rolling hills of the US mainland beyond. It was a picture-perfect view but held no interest for me. Though I had my head tilted in respect, I was peering from under my brows, watching. I didn’t doubt that there could be plain-clothed police officers out there somewhere, because it was standard practice at funerals of murder victims. Occasionally a killer liked to turn up at a funeral, mingle with the mourners and take perverted satisfaction from the grief they’d caused. Over the top of rows of headstones I didn’t see anyone suspicious, but then I didn’t have a full field of vision.

  A small bowl holding earth was passed around. Yukiko was first to sprinkle dust on the coffin, as well as casting in a single lily she’d brought for just that purpose. Rink followed, then I took a pinch of dust and did the same. Once we had finished we moved away, with Rink still cradling his mom, and it was my first opportunity to scan the spac
e beyond the Spanish Revival-styled rostrum and up towards the entrance drive where we’d left the funeral cars. A couple of people were up there, but they could have been visitors to other graves showing us a few minutes’ respect by keeping their distance. We headed that way and as we approached the couple moved deeper into the cemetery. They were a middle-aged couple carrying a wreath and of no concern. Something else caught my eye though. A large saloon car stood idling on the road outside the front gate. Even from this distance I could make out the silhouette of a head turned our way, but nothing of the features.The last thing anyone wanted was violence at a funeral, but I wondered if this was Andrew’s killer. More than anything I wanted to slip away from Rink and Yukiko, and go over there and check. But I didn’t; for all I knew it was a cop scoping us out. I just lifted my head and stared at him. A hand came out of the front passenger window. I didn’t flinch; it was empty, I could tell. The hand furled into a fist and knocked a short rhythm against the door. Then the engine roared and the saloon car peeled away from the entrance and took off at speed.

  ‘Who was that?’

  Rink had come silently to my shoulder. His mom was in the capable hands of her two lady friends, blissfully ignorant of what had just happened as she accepted their hugs and condolences.

  ‘I was just wondering the very same thing,’ I said.

  ‘You think it was Chaney?’

  ‘No.’ I’d credited Sean Chaney with more intelligence than this. From the way we handled him on the BART carriage he must have realised he was wholly outclassed. I was confident that he hadn’t run to the police to complain about us, because he would have had to come clean about why he’d made an enemy of us. He was a mug, but not an idiot.