The Fist of Toju

I righted the bottle and headed down the hall to the phone, noting with satisfaction that I'd spent about a minute getting there. The only thing worse than being woken by the phone is having to wait on the phone, so on my personal scoreboard it was Mystery Caller: 0, Me: 1. I picked up the phone and said "Hi" flatly.

"Ah, you know some Japanese," said the woman on the other end, "that's good."

"No, no, 'Hi' as in hello. Who is this?"

"It's about last night, you remember last night?" she said brightly. I pictured her smiling, head to one side. The picture was nice but it wasn't kick starting my brain.

"I don't remember giving anyone my phone number. Which bar were we at?"

"You weren't at a bar last night. You were robbing a hotel room."

I was awake now, staring at the wall in horror and rapidly remembering what I'd done: Turn off the cameras, steal the master key, have a quck look around, make off with the cigarette case. Not exactly a dashing, daring robbery worthy of a movie, but in everyday terms it was excitement, adventure and really wild things - or at least it had seemed so last night.

"Please be here as soon as possible, it would be better than having someone sent to get you."

"Where?"

"The hotel, of course," and she hung up.

* * *

I rode up the lift, palms sweating, and stepped out at the top floor. I rapped once, and was surprised when it opened before the second knock. The Japanese woman on the other side smiled brightly and ushered me in. Standing at one side of the room was a tall man in a suit - tall and built like the proverbial brick shithouse. Seated in an armchair was another man, slightly older than the other two and wearing a gold tiepin. The two men wore black suits and the woman was in grey, a slightly more sensible choice for the New Zealand summer.

"Please sit down," said the seated man with a smile, continuing to talk as I warily walked to the armchair placed opposite him and sat down.

"Would you like anything? Coffee, I think, might be the best choice. Aki will get you some. My name, at least the one I will tell you, is Shiro Kuroda, and I know who you are. You are wondering perhaps how I found out about you?"

He beckoned to the standing man, who brought over a small ornament and a laptop. The ornament was passed to Kuroda, the laptop placed on the table and fitted with a mouse. I recognized the ornament, I'd looked at it and thought it cheap and tacky - one of those fat Buddha statuettes with a stone set in its belly. The fake gold finish was starting to rub off, and the stone - which I was now sure would be glass - wasn't even set straight. Kuroda pulled at it and it came apart, revealing a mess of electronics.

"Surprisingly, the most expensive part was getting the exterior design right so that people would not be tempted to steal it," he said pleasantly. "The camera setup was easy to incorporate. This, however, is the thing you should be worried about"

He pulled a memory stick out, plugged it into the laptop and clicked a few times. Aki returned, smiling as she handed me a cup of coffee. On the screen a slightly pixelated image of me sneaked into the room, glanced at the table and and grabbed something off it, then left. I tried to remain calm, setting down the untouched cup of coffee and producing the gold cigarette case. I wiped it clean with a cloth I'd brought along for the purpose, leaned forward and placed it on the table. Sitting back in the chair I took a deep breath and looked up at Kuroda hopefully. He smiled, but it was the self-satisfied smile of someone about to get exactly what he wanted.

"I'm afraid I am going to ask you to do something for me. A small task, nothing too difficult. I have been trying to find someone to do this for some time, and now happy providence has brought you to me. You will required to deliver something for me. You will be the middle man in a little transfer of ownership."

From bad to worse, I thought. I looked around the room trying to figure a way out, my pulse racing. There was a way, not a pleasant one, but it was preferable to getting myself killed when I outlived my usefulness.

"If I don't...." I said slowly, drawing it out to make it sound like the worst thing that could happen, "you take me to the police?"

"Why yes, I will have Hiroshi here take you from this room with instructions to hand you over to the police. Of course, his English is not so good, sometimes he misinterprets "hand over" as "kill" and "to the police" as "dump the body in the harbour."

I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes, letting my breath out slowly, trying to get a grip on myself. I felt like I was going to throw up.

"Where am I taking this package?" I asked, eyes still closed.

"Aki will be accompanying you for the rest of the day, she will tell you."

I looked over to where Aki was leaning against some kind of writing desk, arms folded, watching me. She giggled.

* * *

It was mid-afternoon, and I'd been wandering around Auckland with Aki for most of the day. She had dragged me off shopping first, all the expensive places up Queen Street, starting with fashion stores I have never even heard of with clothes I probably devalued by walking in the shop. It wasn't so bad as playing backup on regular shopping trips, since there were nice chairs and coffee provided. I made the requisite sounds when she tried things on and tried to enjoy myself as best I could when my mind kept coming back to the idiotic situation I was in.

After that she hauled me off to find a nice looking cafe, where she quizzed me about my life and asked me all kinds of questions. It was lovely.... Until she leaned to one side, her hair cascading down her arm, jacket falling open to show a holstered pistol. I stopped in the middle of a sentence about painting and how the most satisfying thing was the mess, and stared. She gave me a questioning look, then looked down and laughed.

"Don't be silly," she said, smiling brightly and giving a casual wave with her free hand, "I'm sure you won't make me use it."

Now we were walking around the Auckland Domain, making the most of the shade under the trees while trying to say away from the people who occasionally came past. I was watching the ground as I walked, with my mind on other things while Aki spent all the time looking around. Talking was helping to take my mind off the immediate future that I could feel rushing up to meet me, so I fished around for something to talk about. She refused to tell me what the penance I would be performing was, so I struck out blindly for that safe, shallow end of the conversational pool.

"How did you end up working for Kuroda?"

"Oh, my brother got me a job working for him," she said airily, not really paying attention.

"What does your brother do?"

"Oh, that was him at the hotel. Don't worry; I'm sure if anything goes wrong he will kill you quickly. Now, show me the Winter Gardens."

We walked across the open grass and up to the doors. I held the door for her, and she stepped in, commenting on the brightness of the flowers spilling out of the gardens. Then she turned around and walked back out again.

"Too hot, maybe some other time."

"How about you tell me what I'm going to do for Kuroda?"

"Oh, just take a briefcase to him. Easy job."

"Doesn't sound bad," I said, thinking of any possible way it could go wrong.

"Yes, it will be a good trip up North for you, good thing Monday is a holiday."

"Up north!"

"Yes, to Cape Reinga. Now, show me the museum."

* * *

I checked into a motel in Pahia, the town itself was lousy, with tourists - the Bay of Islands is a lovely place which I was not in a position to appreciate - so I chose an out of the way place that probably had some of the last surviving examples of tacky decoration. The sofa with the orange vinyl back and brown nylon-covered cushions was a particularly nice touch. I laid my suitcase on it and sat down, feeling rather uneasy sitting on such a seedy piece of furniture but grateful of the rest after driving all day. I eyed the suitcase warily for a moment, and opened it. Surrounded by clothes inside was the briefcase, handed off to me in the middle of the night by a very nervous Asian man with greying hair. Before he left me he had shaken his head and said: "He will own you now, you cannot escape, not even to another country. I tried."

I pulled out the black case, and wondered again just what it was rattling around inside. It sounded pretty solid, and I'd been assured it wasn't fragile. I shrugged and took the little bag of improvised tools out of the suitcase, each one a previously successful jury-rigged key to a briefcase. I dropped the bag into my lap and upended the black case. It was no expensive top-dollar job, but it looked new. I glumly reflected on how much easier it would have been to buy a case, cut this one open and substitute a replacement, but when you're only opening it for curiosity's sake you really don't want to waste money.

I selected a likely candidate from the bag and inserted it in the left lock. I twisted it carefully and then wriggled it, trying to ease it around, but nothing happened. I tried a second, then a third, and finally managed to turn the lock. I smiled and pulled the catch, but nothing happened. I stared at it and then looked sideways at the other catch, and flicked it with my other thumb. It popped easily open. I sighed and returned to the now locked left of the case, fighting an urge to smash the accursed thing open. When I had it unlocked I pulled on the catch and paused, taking a deep breath. I opened the case and my jaw dropped.

A diamond.

As big as my fist.

I reached in and grabbed it. The stone was in the classic shape, a bevelled top and the bottom tapering to a point. I was aghast: I was sitting here in a seedy motel on a tacky couch with he price of the town in my hands. I placed it in the bottom of the briefcase and was about to close it when something in the pocket on the lid caught my eye. It was a pamphlet someone had thoughtfully tucked into the case. On the front was the diamond, with the impressive title "The Fist of Toju."

I dropped the pamphlet and set the case aside, wondering if they would let me live after I handed over the briefcase.

* * *

Cape Reinga isn't the most northern point of New Zealand's mainland, but it is more accessible than North Cape. There's actually two highways you can take, the main road and Ninety Mile Beach, officially a highway to allow tour busses a more scenic route, with a quick access at the south end and a winding way out between sand dunes at the top. I opted for the road, and drove past the occasional house-cum-bach, one of which had a letterbox that looked familiar. I slowed down and stared at it, a white lump of what looked like weathered wood. No, not wood - bone. It was a whale vertebra. I drove on, wondering where I could get one.

The last stage of a drive north is uphill; the road curves around a little and then comes up alongside a couple of huts for selling souvenirs and a car park, which overlook the lighthouse. I parked next to the only other car and got out, noting that the shop was closed. Thinking that even souvenir shop owners need time off I looked down the path to the bluff, where two men were standing by the lighthouse and watching me. I walked down towards them, making the most of the chance to take in the scenery. On the left was a steep slope down to the sea and on the right a gentle basin filled with small bushes, which I thought would be the place my body would end up if this didn't go well.

The light reflecting off the squat lighthouse hurt my eyes as I walked down towards it and I wondered how often it got repainted. Perhaps the elements at this lonely place blasted it clean often enough to make it only need painting occasionally. As I got closer I noticed with disappointment that the signpost that points the way to the capitals of various countries was missing all the signs. I glanced at Kuroda and his bodyguard and walked to the edge, and looked down at the little outcrop of rock escaping into the ocean, a continual war between the green and the blue with a clearly defined boundary marking the territory. The lighthouse could have been a beacon to warn people travelling by night they would fall off the world into nothing. Standing here you can get a perspective on infinity: You know what it means to imagine that we are alone in the universe because you've stood at the end of the country and imagined there is no other land - that you stand at the end of the world.

On any other day it would have been a nice view, but the desolate view only served to make me feel more alone. There was no wind, only the sun and the sound of the sea below. I could see Hiroshi coming over, so I set the briefcase down at the edge and stepped back, looking over to his master. As he reached it and bent to pick it up I jumped at him and pushed him, throwing my weight against him to send him down the slope; there is no easy way back up. He twisted and we grappled at the edge, he tried to turn and throw me down but lost his footing on the curve of the slope and went over, still clutching the briefcase. He let go of my shirt but as he fell past my knees he grabbed my pants and my leg was pulled from under me. I slipped off the hill, digging my fingers into the dirt to stop myself falling down.

I looked down at Hiroshi, who was staring up at me, holding the briefcase as he hung by the cuff of my trousers. I had to shake him off, as my fingers were beginning to scream at me and I didn't want to risk tumbling down the steep slope. I kicked at his hand but couldn't shake his grip, so I slammed my foot down on his hand and felt him slip down, another kick sent his hand off and he fell, sliding down the slope. He tried to get a foothold, which was a fatal mistake. His momentum made him fall back, and he balanced for a moment in horror before tumbling over, I heard a crunching noise on the first roll and then Hiroshi's body fell like a rag doll, the briefcase flying away. He rolled down the slope and tumbled onto the sand, not moving.

I stared down at the corpse on the beach for a moment and scrabbled up to the flat ground. Kuroda was standing a few paces away looking at me darkly.

"You will climb down and bring the briefcase to me."

"No, I think I'll go home."

He started to move his hand into his suit jacket, and I ran at him. He stood his ground and I was lucky to get there in time, catching hold of his arm before he could draw properly. I kneed him in the groin and then struggled for a moment, and I smacked my forehead into his nose. This had the effect of sending him down, with me crashing down on top of him. I hit him a couple of times to make sure, and got up. The gun fell out of his jacket as he balled up in pain and I grabbed it and ran up to the cars. I got into mine and pulled away. Looking in the rear view mirror I could see Kuroda coming back up the path and calling someone on a cellphone. As I drove down from the cape I tried to figure the best way to get out of here. The far north has very few options in the road department, and I was guessing that someone would be coming the other way on the highway. Of course, there was the other road - the beach.

* * *

I turned off into the dirt road that led to the beach, the road winded a little, dirt road becoming a track in the sand and eventually I was driving between two dunes. The car started to get sluggish and I had to stop. I grabbed the diamond out of the glove box and exited the car. The heat hit me like a hammer. It was noon and the sand had been heated all morning, so I was in a furnace with heat radiating up off the ground at me as well as cascading down onto me from the sky. The track ahead shimmered. I looked back the way I came and imagined I heard the sound of an engine coming over the dunes.

The north dune was lower than the southern one, but had less of a climb. I wanted height though, so I pocketed the diamond carefully and grabbed the gun from the passenger seat. A moment's consideration had me looking for a catch, and then I held it by the grip in my teeth and started up the steep southern dune. The dune was very high, with a steep incline, not unclimbable, but it was hard work. The sand flowed down under my feet, I could feel it in my shoes and it ran down over my hands as I climbed. The top of the dune was a surprise; it was solid enough to walk on without sinking in. I bent down and felt it - damp, the sun must have been on the front of the dune all morning. The dune rose slightly to the west, and ran flat to the east. I walked across the width of I and saw the other side had a steeper drop into a flat space between dunes with small rocks. I could probably slide down it, but that didn't appeal to me. The sound of a car made me decide on a plan. I took the diamond from my pocket and placed it on the edge of the dune, pushing it into the sand slightly, and headed up the slope and lay down on the other side out of sight.

The motor stopped and I heard a door open, and then a few moments later swearing in Japanese, some of which I recognised, to my amusement. Then there was the sound of a car door slamming and silence, which I was hoping was Kuroda climbing the sand dune. I was turned my head in hope of hearing him reach the top, feeling the sand grind into my hair. I fought to keep my breathing even and eased the safety off the pistol. I strained to hear, and heard panting. I waited a few more moments and then heard Kuroda muttering to himself:

"All dirty...."

I sat up and leaned forward. Kuroda, the front of his suit covered in blood, was standing at the edge of the dune holding the diamond, brushing damp sand off it. I braced myself and fired the gun, wincing from the kick. The shot went into the sand just behind Kuroda's feet and he turned and stared at the sound. I gritted my teeth and fired three more times into the sand and the edge of the dune gave way under Kuroda's weight, the man didn't even have time to scream as he disappeared. I leapt up and ran to the edge, looking down the gouge in the sand to Kuroda, who was on all fours and shaking his head to get the sand out of his hair. I dropped the gun and jumped, sliding down the dune feet first towards him, crashing into him and rolling onto my back.

I looked for Kuroda and saw him crawling away. The gun had fallen from my hand when I landed and if he found it I was dead. I jumped up and ran at him, knocking him down again, falling on top of him and trying to hit him, to knock him out so I could get out of this. As we wrestled my hand closed on a rock and I smashed it into his face, hitting him over and over, not thinking as he curled up into a ball, not noticing what I was doing to him until the blood flowed freely from the hole in his skull. I looked down at his ruined head and rolled off him, still clutching the rock. I looked at it and found my hand and arm were pink, and so was the ground.

Lit by the sunlight passing through the blood stained Fist of Toju.

* * *

I walked out to Ninety Mile Beach. The name is a mistake from the early days of the country when some cattle drovers had used the beach, because they could average thirty miles a day they assumed the three day trip meant the beach was very long, but of course the cattle got slowed down in the sand and so it's not quite that long - I was glad of that today.

I headed into the water and washed off the sand and blood, still clutching the diamond. As I waded ashore I held I up to see it properly in the sun, and marvelled at the way it acted as a prism. It was beautiful - but flawed. I looked closely at it, and there were tiny scratches on it, ones I had not seen last night, that must have come from spnding so much time being rubbed against sand recently. The diamond was a fake. Probably an expensive crystal one, but it was still a fake diamond. Why not though? After all, how would any normal person seeing a large diamond for the first time know the difference? It was a display piece, nothing more. I felt cheated. After all I'd gone through, all I'd done, I'd saved a fake diamond.

I walked south along the beach, too tired to play the wave-dodging game or to look for interesting things. At one point I passed a wrecked car sunken into the sand, windows and windscreen gone, seats ripped out.... Dead, like Kuroda and Hiroshi. It's an appropriate place to die: one story I'd heard was that the spirits of the dead leapt off the north end of the country. The end of the world.

As I walked I saw a four wheel drive coming the other way, and I sighed, assuming it would be Kuroda's insurance policy. I stopped where I was and waited, I didn't fancy returning to the sand dunes. The vehicle pulled up next to me and I was surprised - I was so keyed up for trouble the first thing I thought was "why's he hired two girls?"

"Hey, whatcha doing walking alone out here?" asked the girl in the passenger seat with a smile. I considered my options, and decided to go for the half truth.

"I went up to the Cape," I said, forcing a smile, "and then tried driving down the beach, but my car got stuck. It's a piece of shit anyway, I don't care."

"Want a ride?" she asked, looking me up and down and still smiling.

"Yeah, that would be great," I said, and stepped up. She got out and opened the back door for me.

"I'll ride with you," she said, motioning me to get in with an exaggerated gesture. I climbed in the back and greeted the driver, who introduced them both.

"I'm Carrie and that's Sarah. What on earth are you carrying?"

I looked at the lump of glass in my hand and opened my mouth, paused and then thought up an apt description.

"It's a paperweight."

"What," said Sarah, now sitting next to me, "are you doing in the middle of Ninety Mile Beach with a paperweight?"

I smiled. She really was quite pretty, with wet brown hair and green eyes and a deep tan.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Give it to me," she said, leaning up against the back seat and tipping her head to one side, hair falling down and eyes bright.

"Oh, I intend to...."

Did that seem like a bunch of set-peices linked up? I was trying to capture something of Ian Fleming's style. His novels tend to end with a sudden fight, unlike the epic battles in the James Bond movies the books tend to be Bond approaching a situation and then there's a catastrophic battle that's usually about half a chapter in length. In setting the final battle in the dunes I'm especially thinking of The Man With The Golden Gun, where Bond limps into a stinking swamp to take down Scaramanga. There's also a piece of Goldfinger here: the climax of that book is Bond throttling Auric Goldfinger in a depressurizing plane - it's up close and personal, and like all Bond novels it's brutal. The henchman usually gets killed first in the books too, and often people die by simple accidents rather than having Bond kick everyone's ass. Oh, and there's always a girl to drive off into the sunset with. I'm obviously more awesome than Bond so I get two.

The girl's full names are Carrie McSexicus and Sarah Vaginastein. Don't blame me....

Cape Reinga is real, you really can see a line between the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean (I might have the colours back-to-front). I haven't been there in 12 years but writing about it brought it all back. I admit to cheating slightly, as I was there with a party of 50 other kids of 13 and 14 I had to remember what it was like to sit on the edge and pretend no one else was there. It's quite high, so the lighthouse is only about the size of a two-storey house (I remembered it slightly bigger until I found a picture). As for Ninety Mile Beach, there are coach tours that drive up it, and it's not too bad a way to see that and the other sights in Northland. Of course, if you want to appreciate Cape Reina you should go there alone. I don't reccomend driving up the beach in a car, as we really did find a dead one being swallowed by the sand. Oh and the beach is 64 miles long - the cattle drive story about the naming came from a school textbook I haven't seen in 12 years. The sand dune might not be so big now, but it was freakish to climb a mountain of trickling sand and find the top was solid. I never saw the other side of the dune, but here you'll have to give me dramatic license on that one.

There really was a whale vertebra letter box, it was really nifty though the girls on the bus thought it was evil and wrong.

Auckland Domain is awesome, and I think anyone who visits the city should check it out. The Winter Gardens are lovely, and the War Memorial Museum is a favourite place of mine. I was going to write in a scene where I get forced to steal the diamond, but that's just not going to be any good at all and I don't look as good in latex as Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Wondring what "house-cum-bach" means? Here, this is lifted from www.bookabach.co.nz: "In New Zealand a bach means a vacation or holiday home. Baches are usually found on or near a beach or lake and are typically full of character!" Uh, yeah, something like that. Basically "beach house." Pronounced the same as "batch" to confuse people, New Zealanders included.

Thanks to:

• iceowl, for giving me an excuse to write pulp fiction
• The Custodian for setting me straight on whether the sand/gun thing would work (yes)
• Impartial for proof reading the first bit
• Chiisuta for giving the girls some last names. Deary me.
• JohnnyGoodyear and tdent for reading the story and giving feedback

References

• http://www.travelblog.org/Australasia/New-Zealand/North-Island/Northland/Cape-Reinga/blog-77.html
• http://www.destination-nz.co.nz/destinations/cape-reinga.html
• http://teararoa.org.nz/walk.html
• http://goaustralia.about.com/library/weekly/aa041801d.htm
• http://business.baylor.edu/Phil_VanAuken/JapaneseNames.html
• Japanese names

Mistakes, naturally, attributed to my memory. Hopfully I'll get back there one day - and not have to kill people.

iceowl's adventure quest