Sensei (19 page)

fire, machine guns, and artillery barrages. They were churned into mud."

Coming up Fifty-ninth Street, he continued. "It destroyed the parish. They never forgave the commanding officer for taking their kids off to that butcher's yard. There's a tree planted here for each boy lost."

"That's some story, Mick," I said quietly. We were at the car again and stood facing each other across the hood.

"Yeah, but do you get the point?" He asked. We got into the car and sat there in the stuffy quiet. Micky stared out the windshield for a minute, then let out a thin stream of air from pursed lips and turned to me.

"Look, Connor. You're different, all right? Even as a kid. Interested in weird things. Mom and Dad knew it. And you were stubborn..."

"Still am," I smiled. It didn't make a dent in Micky's seriousness.

'"foil always have to do things your way. On your terms. Look at graduate school. Yamashita. The way you make a living."

I said nothing, waiting to see where he was going with all this.

"But the point is," and here he turned to look right at me, "this is different. Let me be the cop here. We're searching for Tomita right now. It's just a matter of time." I stayed silent. "I know what you're up to," he prompted, "You think you're gonna trap him."

He said it with such finality that I knew there was no dodging the accusation. "We've got a good chance," I protested, but he cut me off.

"No. You listen to me. For once in your life, listen," He was angry, but it wasn't the usual loud anger. This was quiet and white hot, with a voice focused and sharp.

"You can't deal with this on your terms. This is not some fucking game or contest. The guy is a killing machine. He kills because he can. Because he has to."

" "Only where love and need are one," " I quoted.

"What?" He hissed.

"A line from a Robert Frost poem," I said.

He exploded. "Will you cut that shit out!"

The air in the car was stifling. We were both sweating, but it was more than the heat.

Micky paused a minute as if trying to contain himself. "Look at the trees out there," he began again. "Every one of those kids thought he was going out to fight on his terms. Some romantic battle. Good and evil. Most never even came back in boxes. They're bits of bone that get plowed up by farmers in Belgium.

"You think all this martial arts stuff is gonna help you stop this guy? It's not."

I started to protest, to tell him that the idea was to entice

Tomita into a trap where we could deal with him. Besides, I explained, even if all else failed, there was Yamashita... Micky started the car and the air conditioning began to wash some cool air over us. It seemed to leech some of the tension from the atmosphere as well.

"Connor, this martial arts stuff," he said. "It's a hobby. You're good at it, but it's a hobby. A sport."

"It's more than that, Mick," I said quietly.

He waved that point away and swung the car out onto the road. We stopped at the light and watched the summer pedestrians.

"How many people have you killed, Connor?"

I said nothing.

"Tomita s killed two we know of. He tried to kill my partner." The light changed and we rolled on. Micky stared straight ahead. "I don't want him killing you."

We were quiet for a time. The familiar rhythm of driving acted like a tranquilizer: the whoosh of the air conditioner, the faint bumping of the tires as they hit road seams, the syncopated click of the turning signal. We watched the other cars and other people as if their presence were a guarantee of normality.

Finally, Micky asked, "OK, what's the plan? How do we do this?"

"We?" I said.

"We. You think I'm showing up at Mom's with the bad news that some lunatic killed you?" He smiled a little at the thought of it.

So I gave him the briefing. Most of it, he knew. The pattern of Tomita's attacks was at night or early morning in secluded places where the ritual duel could take place. I didn't dwell too much on

Yamashita's past and Tomita's connection to people associated with the Kunaicho. At this stage of things, it was just so much background noise.

"With Yamashita as bait," I concluded, "we should be able to catch him."

"So you're not gonna kill him?"

"I'd like to," I admitted. Then, I said, "Nah. We just need to stop him. Get him off the streets." I wasn't sure deep down about how truthful I was being here. But I wanted to allay Micky's concerns. "You said it yourself," I added. "Killing people is not my strong suit."

He pulled the car over and turned once more to look at me directly. "OK," he acknowledged. "But there's another thing, Connor. Why do you think Mori is involved here?"

"Well, because he wanted to warn Yamashita. And to catch the Kunaicho's wild dog, Tomita. I think we have a good chance of doing it."

"Fair enough, as far as it goes," my brother said. "But now lemme remind you about guys like this. He's a company man. All that stuff about warning his friend is fine. But there's gotta be more to it."

"OK," I said, not really seeing the point.

"OK," he mimicked me. "So tell me, Mr. Smart Guy. How does this situation benefit Mori?"

"He gets to catch Tomita," I answered.

"You mean arrest him?"

"Sure," I replied, at a loss to figure out what was generating the skepticism in his voice.

"And this guy is from some Jap bodyguard outfit? And he's gonna bust this guy, this killer? In New York? The papers would be all over it."

"What do you mean, Mick?"

"I mean the last thing Mori wants is to bust this guy. It would attract too much attention."

"So what's he after?"

"You figure it out. "You got the doctorate. But first, you ought to know something else. Since Art got hurt," his voice got husky for a moment like it hurt him to say it, "we've been trying to work the Japan angle ..."

"It's a foregone conclusion. We know that now."

"... yeah, but we should be getting more cooperation on this. But we're not. It's like they're stalling."

"Why?"

"Someone's doing a favor for the Japs. And they sent Mori here. But to do things quietly." He paused to let it sink in. "Mori isn't here just to catch Tomita, Connor. He's here to make sure no one finds out about him."

"And so ..."

"And so, he wants to kill him. That's why he brought that moron with the dye job. He's a shooter, plain and simple. He's got the look. They're gonna stake Yamashita out, and when their man gets into the kill zone, they're gonna open up with everything they've got."

He pulled back out into traffic and let me digest that for a while.

"So whattaya think?" he continued.

"Makes sense. There's only one problem," I said.

"What's that?"

"Yamashita's got his own plan. And he's better than they think," I said. I turned to look at my brother, who was one of the most competent people I knew. "He's even better than you think, Micky. And so am I."

He looked into my eyes. What he saw there, I don't know. Finally, he spoke. "Let's hope so."

He said it like he didn't have much hope. We rode in silence for a few blocks and he continued. "Of course, Mori and his goon also have another big problem."

"What?" I was preoccupied thinking about the new angles Micky had presented.

"Now I'm on their case."

We pulled up in front of the dojo. Micky slotted the car into a No Parking zone.

"That's true, Mick. "You are the biggest pain in the ass I know."

He smiled ruefully. "All part of the service, buddy boy."

But the things he said bothered me for the rest of the day. When Yamashita had finished with some late-day training, I asked him what would happen if things fell through. I didn't ask Yamashita whether he could deal with it. It would be insulting. But, as Micky had laid things out that afternoon, a sudden, troubling thought hit me: What was the worst-case scenario? The thing I feared most? What if the trap didn't work? If Micky missed? If Yamashita failed? What if I had to face Tomita?

I screwed up what little courage I had and asked my teacher what would happen then. He sat there and looked at me with those hard, dark eyes.

"You," he said, "are capable. Like most people, you are capable of more than you suspect. Whether you are ready, however, is another question. I cannot tell. Let us hope that it is something that is not asked of you."

Which was not exactly the response I was hoping for.

As the light began to fade, Mori's shooter started getting more focused. The untrained would have started to fidget with tension. The kid with the gun just seemed to grow more still, absolutely immobile with the effort of waiting. Yamashita looked at him and nodded with reluctant appreciation. Tomita's pattern was to strike late at night, when the energy and focus of his victims were at their lowest ebb. But Tomita was also unpredictable. He had succeeded in be sting the highly skilled before; no one wanted to take chances. We sat quietly. Moved slowly and carefully. Only our eyes shifted quickly.

If the shooter was like a predator hunkered down in the tall grass, his leader seemed more like a tightly wound spring. Whatever his relationship to my sensei in the past, I think that it paled in comparison to his driving need to neutralize Tomita. Deep down, I imagine he looked at Yamashita and myself as a secondary concern. We were, in the final analysis, just bait. An expedient. Nothing more.

When my brother came back with me and parked himself in a chair, Mori started to protest. Micky flashed his shield and gave him a wicked smile.

My teacher looked at me. "Is this what you wish, Burke?" I nodded.

He sighed and started to say something, but after a moment, he merely swiveled his head toward Mori and said, "This man is a guest." It seemed to settle the issue. But Micky's presence clearly didn't sit well with Mori. It was one more element he didn't have complete control over.

My sensei spent the evening hours talking with me about the way a challenger went about confronting someone in a training hall. I had seen the aftermath of Mitch Reilly's attempt, but it wasn't very informative. Considering how he ended up, Reilly wasn't a particularly good role model.

"When I was younger, Professor," my teacher began, "challenge matches between students in different schools taryujiai were not uncommon. They were prohibited in Japan a generation ago, but one occasionally hears of them even today."

"What were they like, Sensei?" I asked. We were seated in the garden again. Somewhere in the building, Mori and his gunslinger were staking out fields of fire and having hushed conversations. As it got darker, their conversations achieved a tone of whispered frenzy. In my master's garden, the faint hoot of car horns sounded like exotic animals far back in the undergrowth.

Yamashita cocked his head to one side. His eyes were wide open but focused inward on the gloom of things past. After a few seconds' consideration, he replied, "They were ... informative." His hands stirred slightly in his lap with nerve memory. "One could learn a great deal from the experience."

I'll bet, I thought.

"Of course," he looked right at me, "many people were quite seriously injured in the process. That... and the deaths ... were why the government eventually outlawed them.

"In the old times, Professor, a young warrior would learn all a local sensei could teach and then seek out 'instruction' at another dojo. A truly skilled fighter could go from school to school, challenging the best students and even the masters." A sip of air as he paused. "It was known as dojo arashi."

Dojo storming. I could imagine what it must have been like: hard young men clomping down the packed dirt roads of Japan with battered armor and well-kept weapons slung over their backs. They churned up the miles like hungry predators, hunting down new masters to defeat and new towns to prove themselves in. The good ones earned reputations. The less skilled, in the best of situations, learned to limp away quietly. Sometimes, only their ghosts moaned in phantom processional down midnight crossroads.

"The challenge needs to be delivered according to a certain form," Yamashita continued. "The challenger recites his pedigree and must request a lesson. Depending on the situation, the sensei may select a student to fight for him." He looked directly at me. "I do not think this will suit Tomita's purpose in this case, Burke."

Thank God, I silently thought. But I tried not to let the relief show on my face. I had thought a great deal about the prospect of fighting. I knew someone had to do it. And I wanted Tomita stopped. And punished. Destroyed for what he had done to Art. But after all the years I have spent with Yamashita I have become detached in some ways and capable of brutal honesty. I knew, when push came to shove, that there was a chance I was not good enough to face Tomita and prevail. It hurt me to admit it, but it was true. The slightest flaw in my performance would be fatal and meant that Tomita could escape. This, I rationalized, could not be allowed to happen.

But late at night, in the brief period of rest before my master would summon me for training in the darkness, the hot spark of my anger and resolve was smothered by something dense and ominous. It was the thing all warriors struggle against every time a fight beckons. No matter who stands before you, it lurks there too. We try not to name it, for words make the intangible more potent. But the thing that lurks there, cold and dense and lifeless as mud, is fear.

My master was looking at me. I had never spoken to him of this thing, and now he said nothing. But he knew.

Then his narrative continued. "The meetings were often arranged beforehand by seconds."

"Seconds?" I asked, refocusing my attention on the lesson before me.

He smiled and nodded. "It is, after all, a duel, Professor. Usually there are witnesses at the fight itself." "I doubt it in this case," I commented.

Yamashita nodded in agreement. "Yes. So." He closed his eyes in thought. "But one of the points in engaging in a duel is having the results known. Your prowess celebrated."

"You mean winning is not enough?"

My sensei opened his eyes and smiled at me. "Winning in a situation like this is everything. It means you survive. But no, it is not enough."

I looked at him quizzically.

"Tomita needs others to know of his deeds. It is why he leaves the signature at the scene. It is why he takes the risks he does."

I nodded. "I talked with my brother about this. He says that the killer wants to be caught."

Yamashita's eyes narrowed. "He does not wish to be caught, Burke. He wishes to win. To humiliate me and to take revenge. In doing so, he seeks to be acknowledged. Everything else is secondary."

Off in the house, the phone rang. Micky was inside and he picked it up. I could hear the murmur of conversation as a distant background to Yamashita s lecture.

"We need to remember this about Tomita, Burke. He has a..." the sensei searched for the word, "... need... to vanquish the opponent. But the duel also feeds his spirit, his ego. He will attempt to catch his opponent off guard for the duel it is, after all, heiho but he will also need to follow the ritual forms and force the victim to acknowledge his dominance."

I noticed how Yamashita always spoke of this event like it was something that would happen to someone else, and not to him. It was an interesting way to maintain a certain objectivity.

"This need is a dangerous thing," my teacher continued. "It makes Tomita very focused. Driven. His opponent needs to be focused on the surroundings and ready for him at any moment. But," he held up a thick forefinger to mark the point, "his need for the ritual may also permit the opponent to avert disaster." My teacher's eyes were very clear as he looked at me. "The one who fights this man must use the pause before the clash to find the center."

The Japanese spoke of the center, the ham, as the source of focus and balance and energy, of life. It was an early martial arts lesson that we all learned, and one that was repeated in one form or another during every day of training for the rest of your life.

I thought that his comment on centering was my teacher's final utterance, but Yamashita continued. "Remember, this man needs to defeat his opponent utterly, to humiliate as well as to vanquish. The desire will create a tsuki a gap in his concentration. It is here that the wise man may find an opportunity for victory. And survival."

I was digesting that little piece of gloom when my brother came out. He seemed eager but not particularly happy.

"I got a call. We got a lead on a lone Japanese national who entered New York a day before the killing. Traveling alone. No record of him leaving the area. He was using a different name, but the description fits..,. We're canvassing the hotels now." He made a face. "I gotta go."

I walked to the door with him. Mori's man watched us without saying a word, tracking us across the length of the dim dojo like a cyborg waiting to acquire a target.

"Listen," Micky said quietly at the door, "let's give this some time to play out. Stay put. There are two plainclothes guys in a car out front, so you should be fine. I'll be back. Don't go anywhere without me." He knelt down and fiddled with his pants cuff. When he stood up, there was a gun in his hand.

"Take this," he said.

"What!" I protested.

"Take it. It's my backup piece. This guy surprises you, you get real close, and don't stop pulling the trigger until it's out of bullets."

"Come on, Mick," I protested. The snub little gun was heavy in my hand. "What am I gonna do with this?"

"With luck, nothing," he said. "Stay put. Stay down and I'll be back soon."

He was out the door and I was left there, peering up and down the street ever alert for ninja assassins and feeling the heft of the pistol tug at my tired shoulder muscles.

Yamashita slid up behind me in that fluid, silent way he has. He looked at the gun with distaste, "your brother means well but he doesn't really understand what we do."

"No, Sensei," I had to admit, "he doesn't." We turned back inside and shut the door. The lights of the living area one floor up threw a soft glow down the stairs. The sensei and I followed the light, climbing up the steps like moths, moving soundlessly toward the brightness.

"I am not sure what you will do with the pistol, Burke. Generally, in times of great stress, it is wise to use weapons you are familiar with." Yamashita walked over to a side table, where a black lacquered stand held the two swords, long and short, of the samurai. He opened a drawer beneath them and removed a smaller weapon, cased in highly polished wood. It was a tanto, a small knife. The hilt less handle fit seamlessly with the matching scabbard to create a smooth oblong shape, hiding a blade of razor sharpness.

"Take this. "You are better with blades."

I felt a stab of panic. "What do I need any of this for?" I protested.

I thought I caught a flash of impatience surge across Yamashita's face, like the fleeting shadow of a bird moving across a rock face. "Burke. This man does the unexpected. What if he comes now and Mori and his man are not enough? What if he comes later and your brother fails you?" He paused significantly. "What if you are surprised by Tomita and he gets close? You will be in great danger, even if I am near. So ... you must cut." And here he began pointing out the various points where major arteries would be accessible.

"Here ..." The smooth scabbard touched my neck. "Here ..." He moved down my leg to mime severing the femoral artery.

"If Tomita comes in to cut down like so," and he assumed jodan, the high stance, which often precedes a vertical cut to the head, "do not be tempted to block the descending arms or to cut at them. The momentum of the blow will carry it through to your head."

It was a familiar lesson, but I let him continue. The rehearsal, the projection of the need to act on another person, seemed to calm my sensei. Who was I to upset him?

"Do not cut the arms," he repeated. "Instead, slice here," the tanto moved horizontally across my abdomen, "and the attacker will collapse."

He looked at me, and I nodded. "Also," he finished, "think about the eyes." As he said this, the phone rang again and I moved toward it.

"You mean watch the eyes to see where an attack will go?" I asked. It's an old adage in the martial arts. I was half-turned to pick up the phone, but I saw his look of disgusted disappointment.

"No," Yamashita sighed. "I mean think about stabbing him in the eyes."

Which was why, I suppose, I wasn't too focused when I answered the call. The mental image of ramming the tanto into an eye socket and burying the blade deep into a brain was a bit intense, even after the last few days.

It was Bobby Kay. A lot had happened since we first met, and even though Bobby's name had resurfaced with Micky, I hadn't really thought much about him lately. He was all charm on the phone, however, as if we were old pals.

"Hello, Professor! How are ya?" Ever the glad-hander, Bobby's mouth was often in gear way before his brain caught up. If he had paused to think even for a minute, he would have known the answer. I was up to my ears in a hunt for a murderer. As it turned out, his question was entirely rhetorical.

"Hey, I was wondering whether you could come by, Burke. You and Yamashita." Here a note of tension crept into his voice. Bobby continued the conversation, oblivious to the silence on my end. "Something's turned up. I think you should see it."

"Oh yeah?" I finally grunted.

"Yeah. Absolutely."

"Can't you tell me over the phone, Bobby?"

"Oh. Uh ... It's a little complicated, ya know? Better to come here and see what I've got." He paused, then asked, as if the thought had just sprung up, "Hey, is your brother still working on the case?"