"Yeah," Menck said. "I need to be busting some of the heads that busted mine."
Busting heads… Hank couldn't argue with that. What he'd really like to do was bust into this place with an AK-47 and mow down every one of the bastards.
But no… no guns. In the first place, Hank discouraged guns among the Kickers and had banned them from the Lodge. Not because he feared or disliked them—he loved guns—but because New York was so anti-gun. Carry permits were nigh impossible to get. Get caught carrying, even a gun you legally owned, and you faced felony charges. Get caught with an illegal piece and you were in even bigger trouble. Hank didn't think many of the Kickers would qualify for legal pieces.
But he had a much more important reason for wanting them left home tonight.
"All right, one more thing," he said to the ones still present. "Get the word out: no guns." Some disappointed groans and protests began. He raised a hand to cut them off. "I'm real serious about this. We don't know what kind of confusion we'll run into. We go in there with guns blazing, shooting up the place, we'll most likely kill as many of our own as the bastards we're shooting at. And worse, we've got no idea what the walls in that place are made of. If they're just drywall, a wild shot can kill someone two rooms away, and that someone might be Dawn." He smiled. "Or even worse, me." This got the laugh he'd hoped for. "So pass the word: no guns."
"What if they've got guns?"
"Both Darryl and Menck didn't see any. They had knives and nunchucks. If they had guns, they would have brought them. Look, they think they're ninjas or something. And ninjas don't use guns. For our own safety, we can't either. But put a bunch of knives, two-by-fours, chains, crowbars, baseball bats, maybe a few chainsaws into the hands of a bunch of pissed-off Kickers and these gooks won't know what hit them."
A solid cheer this time.
He clapped his hands. "Okay then. Let's start gathering some head-busting equipment."
Hank would carry a crowbar, but he'd also take along the.38 Chief Special he kept hidden in his room. Just in case.
And as for those Japs, the ones who survived tonight would curse the day they messed with Hank Thompson.
Jack watched the last of the fleet of cars, vans, and pickups roar off for Staten Island. Three of the Kickers who'd piled in had bandaged heads—Hank was one of them. The rest of them looked like a crowd of movie extras on their way to Castle Frankenstein. All they needed were pitchforks and torches to complete the picture.
When the street was quiet, he stepped from the shadows and hurried toward the Lodge building. He ran up the steps to find the front door open and a couple of Kickers hanging around inside. They gave him suspicious looks and stepped toward him as he entered.
Before they could challenge him, Jack positioned his faux tattoo where they could see it and said, "Am I late?"
The heavier of the two nodded. "Missed them. Just left."
"I got a call and came as soon as I could. Damn." He looked around. "Nobody else heading out?"
The guy shook his head. "Nope."
"Shit." Jack loosed a disappointed sigh. "Well, anything I can do around here till they get back?"
Now he was getting a different kind of look—incredulous. Jack guessed not too many of their peers volunteered.
Finally the thin guy spoke. "You can go upstairs and help Ansari and Stayer clean up the mess in the boss's room."
"Hank's room?" He assumed that was on one of the upper floors—just where he wanted to be. "What happened?"
They glanced at each other. The heavy guy shrugged and said, "Someone got killed."
Jack feigned shock. "No way! I heard something was stolen, but nobody said anything about—"
"We're keeping it quiet for now. Look, you want to help those guys, be our guest. Don't think you'll get an argument from them. They're on the second floor."
"Great."
He headed up the granite steps but passed the second floor and continued to the third. He hurried from room to room—all unlocked, all empty.
Well, he'd seen Dawn through a second-floor window. Maybe he'd find her there.
On the second floor he did another room-to-room search until he came to one with two guys scrubbing a red stain off the floor.
"Is there where Haber bought it?" he said, remembering the name and trying to sound more knowledgeable than he had downstairs.
Ansari and Stayer—he didn't know who was who—looked up at him.
"Who wants to know?"
"The guys downstairs said I should come up and help you. What needs to be done?"
"Well, your timing's fucking great," one of them said. "We're just about through."
Jack decided to go for the gold.
"Where's the girl?"
This earned him instant suspicion.
"What girl?" the other one said.
Jack was flowing toward a kneecapping mood. The Glock was a growing itch against the small of his back.
"The one whose picture I've been hanging all over town for weeks. Word is they found her. They got her here?"
"If you know so much, you should know the slants took her when they grabbed the boss's sword."
Jack didn't try to hide his shock. "They took her too?"
"Yep."
"What the hell for?"
The first one shrugged. "That's the million-dollar question. All we know is that Menck and Darryl was watching her down in the basement, now they've got broken heads and the girl's gone."
Jack stared at them for a few heartbeats as his mind reeled, then he spun and ran back down the hall.
"Hey, where you goin?" said a voice behind him. "I thought you was gonna help."
In your dreams.
He pounded down the stairs.
What the hell? He hadn't seen this coming. The Kakureta Kao had taken Dawn? Why-why-why?