Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
On the odd-shaped thirteenth block, Nicholas found what he was searching for. The building overlooked a small ancient temple and, just beyond, Atago Hill.
Inside, he changed out of his street clothes. Reaching into the black bag he toted, he withdrew a pair of white cotton wide-legged pants. These were kept up by a drawstring. Over this he drew on a loose-fitting jacket of the same color and material. This closed by means of a separate belt of black cotton tied low on the hips. Finally, he stepped into the
hakama
, the traditional black divided skirt worn now only by those who had mastered
kendo, kyudo, sumō
or held
dan
—black belt—ranking in
aikido.
This, too, was tied low on the hips to give a further feeling of centralization, handed down from the time of the
samurai.
Thus dressed in his
gi
, Nicholas went up a flight of perfectly polished wooden stairs. In his mind he heard the click, clack-click of wooden
bokken
clashing against each other. And it was suddenly last summer. He and Lew Croaker were in a New York
dōjō
and he was watching the look in his friend’s eyes as for the first time Croaker saw the flash of
kenjutsu.
Nicholas had always been slow to find friendship, principally because that concept in its Eastern form meant a great deal more than it did in the West. For him, as for all Orientals, friendship meant duty, the upholding of a friend’s honor, bonds of iron no Westerner could fathom. But Lew Croaker, within Nicholas’ orbit, had learned those definitions and had chosen to be Nicholas’ friend.
They had promised each other that after Croaker returned from Key West and finally wrapped up the Angela Didion murder, they would go fishing for blues or shark off Montauk. Now that would never happen. Croaker was dead, and Nicholas missed him with a fierceness that was almost physical pain.
He knew that he should clear his mind in preparation for what was waiting for him at the top of the stairs but he could not get the memory of his friend out of his mind. What turned out to be their final good-bye was a poignant moment full of the kind of hushed feeling two Japanese friends might express.
They had been at Michita, the Japanese restaurant in midtown Nicholas frequented. Their shoes were just outside the
tatami
room’s wooden lintel, Croaker’s heavy Western work shoes lined up next to Nicholas’ featherlight loafers. They knelt opposite one another. There was steaming tea and hot sakē in tiny earthen cups between them.
Sushi
and
tonkatsu
were coming.
“What time are you leaving?” Nicholas said.
“I’m taking the midnight plane.” Croaker grinned lopsidedly. “It’s the cheapest flight.”
But they both knew that he had wanted to get into Key West under cover of darkness.
The subdued clatter of the restaurant went on around them as if for once it had no power to touch them. They were an island of silence, inviolable.
Abruptly Croaker had looked up. “Nick—”
The food came and he waited until they were alone again. “There isn’t much but I’ve got some stocks, bonds, and such in a safety deposit box.” He slid a small key in a brown plastic case across the low table. “You’ll take care of things if…” He picked up his chopsticks, pushed raw tuna around with the blunt ends as white as bones. “Well, if it all doesn’t work out for me down there.”
Nicholas took the key; he felt honored. They fell to eating and the atmosphere seemed to clear. When they were through and had ordered more sakē, Nicholas said, “Promise me one thing, Lew. I know how you feel about Tomkin. I think it’s a blind spot—”
“I know what I know, Nick. He’s a goddamned shark, eating up everything in his path. I mean to stop him and this lead’s my only way.”
“All I mean is don’t let this…passion of yours lead you around by the nose. Once you get down there take your time, look around, size up the situation.”
“You telling me how to do my job now?”
“Don’t be so touchy. I just mean that life’s more often shades of gray than it is all black and white. Tomkin’s not the Prince of Evil; that’s the role you’ve assigned him. It’s just possible that he
didn’t
have Angela Didion murdered.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t think it matters what
I
believe.”
Now Nicholas did not know whether that was true, because he had become involved. He had accepted Croaker’s abrupt death so far away in Key West; he was here now in Japan because of it.
Giri.
“So long, Nick.” Croaker had grinned in the multicolored street lights just outside the restaurant. He had half stuck out his hand, then, thinking better of it, had bowed instead. Nicholas returned the gesture and they had both laughed into the night, as if warding off any kind of trepidation.
Their last moments together had been so casual, in the manner of most men parting for a short time. Despite what Croaker had given Nicholas, neither man believed anything would happen to the cop in Florida. And now it seemed to Nicholas that there had been so little time to savor what they had. For one such as Nicholas, so guarded, so hidden within himself, such occurrences were rare indeed. He found now that he liked to remember their times together, running scenes back in his mind’s eye as if they were clips from a favorite film.
He shook his head now as he reached the head of the stairs, more certain than ever that the path he had chosen for himself was the right one. He could not allow the murder of his friend to go unavenged.
Giri
bound him; it was, as all who had come before him had discovered, stronger even than life itself.
The
sensei
of this
dōjō
was sitting at the
kamiza
—the upper seat—of the
aikido
that which was made up of a series of
tatami
of uncovered rice straw padding. He was a man of indeterminate middle years with a dour countenance, a wide slash of a mouth, and cat’s eyes. He had burly shoulders and narrow waist and hips. He appeared almost hairless.
His name was Kenzo. This bit of information had been given to Nicholas—along with a letter of introduction—by Fukashigi, Nicholas’
sensei
in New York. “He is a hard one,” Fukashigi had said, “but I can think of no other to suit your array of, er, unconventional
bujutsu.
” He knew that Nicholas was a ninja just as he knew that there was a whole range of subdisciplines in which Nicholas could be his
sensei.
“Kenzo will not know what you are, Nicholas, but he will understand the scope of your knowledge and he will work with you.”
Behind Kenzo, Nicholas saw a raised dais flanked by a pair of seventeenth-century
dai-katana
—the longest and most lethal of the
samurai
swords—a traditional ceremonial drum, and, hanging on the wall between them, a rice-paper scroll that read,
“All things appear but we cannot see the gate from which they come. All men value the knowledge of what they know, but really do not know. Only those who fall back upon what knowledge cannot know really know.”
Nicholas recognized the words of Laotse.
Barefooted, he went upon the
tatami
, performing the
ritsurei
, bowing before the
sensei.
Then he presented Pukashigi’s letter.
Kenzo seemed to take a long time reading. Not once did he look up at Nicholas. At length, he carefully folded the sheets, returning them to their envelope. He put the packet aside and, placing his hands on the
tatami,
bent forward in the
zarei,
the sitting bow. Folding his legs beneath him, Nicholas returned the salutation.
And just at the far apex of his bow, the short stick came hurtling at him. There was just the hint of a blur at the periphery of his vision and if he had taken the time to think, he would surely have been rendered unconscious.
Instead, his right arm lifted reflexively even as his torso shifted to the right, away from the trajectory of the oncoming attack.
The stick struck the leading edge of his forearm, bouncing end over end like a pinwheel, but already Kenzo had leapt forward, using Nicholas’ own anticipated momentum as he swung to the left, using a punishing
shomen uchi,
a straight blow to the head to try to bring Nicholas to the mat.
In so doing Kenzo had grabbed hold of his right wrist and immediately Nicholas used an immobilization—
ayonkyo
—a twist of his own wrist so that now he was gripping the
sensei
’s left forearm. He dug his thumb deeply into the embedded nerve center running up the inside of the arm. But instead of backing away from the pressure, which would have allowed Nicholas to bring the now outstretched arm into alignment, Kenzo moved into the paralyzing hold, sacrificing one arm in order not to lose the contest.
A second short stick appeared from somewhere and he slammed it down hard on Nicholas’ shoulder. Nicholas gave up the
yonkyo
but instead of moving into a second immobilization as Kenzo suspected he would, he employed an
atemi
—a percussive—moving out of the
aikido
discipline as the
sensei
already had.
The stiffened fingertips jammed themselves into the space just below Kenzo’s collarbone, digging for the nerve juncture there. The
sensei
’s head jerked spastically up and away and Nicholas bore down.
But now the short stick was between their straining bodies, hammering against Nicholas’ rib cage. Nicholas moved in even closer, aware that Kenzo was attempting to swing the stick in a short arc in order to assault the muscles directly over the heart. This he must not allow.
He tried two quick dorsal
kites
before switching back to immobilizations. Nothing worked, and slowly the wooden stick began to arc its way closer to the left side of his chest. Power was slipping away from him and he felt his centrism now as a separate entity, far away and almost useless.
He cursed himself, knowing that he would lose. Loss of sleep, the time imbalance had conspired to sap his concentration. What reserves he still possessed were being rapidly depleted by the repeated
tambo
attacks. Blood was singing in his ears, bringing with it the first telltale signs of disorientation. Physical coordination would soon follow, he knew, unless he did something to forestall it.
And then a lesson in
kendo
leapt into his mind and, remembering Musashi’s Red Leaves Cut, he set his spirit toward gaining control of Kenzo’s stick.
Instead of defending himself, he broke his hands completely free and rushed toward the
tambo
attacks. In a blur he grasped the slippery cylinder, twisting it down and to the left, breaking the set of the
sensei
’s wrist as he did so, disrupting the energy flow long enough to deliver a vicious liver
kite.
Kenzo rocked back on his knees, swaying, and Nicholas followed through only to come up against the stone wall of the
sensei
’s calloused fist. Pain flamed through him and he gritted his teeth, pulling inward and down, digging the heel of his hand into Kenzo’s shoulder, using the other’s momentum to rock him off his haunches.
The moment the
sensei
’s shoulder touched the
tatami
, Nicholas broke off. His torso was bathed in sweat, his heart pounded, and with each breath he took, pain etched itself through his tissues.
He thought about how close he had come to defeat.
Ichiro Kagami was in a surly mood. He was a man of unusually calm and controlled disposition, a virtue that had awarded him with the vice presidency of finance for Sato Petrochemicals.
But today he had been unable to concentrate on any of the fine points being hammered out between this
kobun
and the American microchip company. He was enormously grateful when Sato-san had given the attending executives the signal to leave the proceedings before his lack of concentration became a liability.
After almost an hour of staring out the window at the misty rain forming in odd prismatic patterns against the windows behind him, he had had enough. He swiveled around, his fingertip stabbing at the intercom. He told his secretary to cancel all his upcoming appointments for the rest of the day. He told her where he could be found if an unforeseen emergency required Sato to get in touch with him.
Then he got up. Tokyo looked bleak and steel gray, all the gaiety of
hanami
that prevailed throughout the city for the past several days dissipated by the weather. But the cherry blossom viewing had provided no happiness for Kagami this year.
His face was a bleak mask as he walked out of his office. The soft lights, the beautiful
ukiyo-e
prints did not soothe his mind. He came to the iron-clad door and pushed through. Inside, in the locker room, he began to disrobe.
Everything would be fine, Kagami told himself, were it not for his brother, Toshiro. Brother-in-law, really, if the truth be told, he thought sourly. But Kagami’s wife was
hera-mochi,
currently enjoying meting out the ordeals she had had to endure from Kagami’s mother. She held the pursestrings. Several notches too tightly, he thought, as he padded naked along the wooden slats, into the baths.
While a young woman, her bland, flat face beaded in sweat from the heat and the exertion, cleansed him, Kagami thought about his wife. It was not that she begrudged him his
geisha.
Did not the monthly bills come to her and did she not pay them without a word of protest precisely on the fifteenth of every month? She did all that a wife should. And yet the manner in which she doled out tiny portions of the salary, the
oseibo
and
ochugen
—the year-end and midyear gifts from those in his department currying favor and promotion—left a bad taste in his mouth and, more often than not, sent him scurrying to Anmitsu, where all his favorite women resided.
Yet it was Toshiro even more than his wife who got under his skin, Kagami reflected as he transferred to the second bath.
Alone, Kagami inhaled the steam rising off the surface of the water. It was so hot that when he moved his limbs, even a little, they began to burn.