The Miko - 02 (26 page)

“Now I reiterate to you, Nicholas-san, that there is nothing mystic about this layer. It is not meditation. We are not now speaking of the province of the holy man, for you and I are certainly not that. We are both men of the world and have not the time nor the inclination to give up the plethora of worldly appetites the holy man must divest himself of in order to reach these exalted states.

“
Getsumei no michi
, the moonlit path, is open to you now, Nicholas. You must find it and learn to sink into it. I cannot help you in this other than by alerting you to its existence, but it may be of some help to daydream and then follow that daydream home.”

“How will I know
getsumei no michi, sensei
?”

“By two things. One is that you will feel all sensation gained in weight and resonance.”

“Do you mean that I will hear better?”

“Yes, but only in a certain way. Do not confuse weight with amplification. You will not, as you say, hear any better. You will hear
differently.
The second sensation will be the awareness of light even when there is none in your immediate surroundings.”

“Forgive me,
sensei,
but I do not understand that.”

“It is not necessary to understand, Nicholas. Merely to remember.”

At the last Akutagawa-san’s voice had begun to fade, and now Nicholas feared that he was all alone on the lower slope of the hillside. He was a long way from the
ryu
and the mist had damped his usually reliable directional facilities.

He felt the first hard pangs of panic welling up in his chest. He found he had an overpowering urge to cry out to Akutagawa-san but the acute loss of face involved not only for him but, even more importantly, for Kansatsu, his former
sensei
who had guided him here, made him bite his lip instead.

Through the fluttering of his heart he recalled Akutagawa-san’s one bit of advice: to take a daydream and ride it home. He sat down on the damp ground in the lotus position and closed his eyes. He struggled to control his breathing, the intense pounding of his blood in his veins. His hands lay open, palms up on his bent knees.

He opened his mind to the first image that swam to the surface. Yukio. Instinctively he clamped down on the image and he thought, No, it’s still too painful, I don’t want to think about her loss, try something else.

But nothing else would come. Yukio was who he wanted to daydream about, and with a great effort he willed himself to relax and think about her.

Cascade of night-black hair, those heavy-lidded eyes so full of sexual promise. He recalled their first meeting at the military dance, her firm, warm thigh pressed against his leg and then, astoundingly, the erotic feel of her mound rubbing against his crotch, her eyes sparkling with mischief as they danced amid the spinning couples.

He remembered the shower he had taken, the sinewy shadow appearing beyond the glass door, its abrupt opening and Yukio standing beside him, nude. Droplets of water beading along her cool flank, the jut of one dark-nippled breast. His startled sound as she moved against him. The warm friction, the silken embrace, the peach taste of her mouth, the hot swipe of her tongue. And the heated, liquid union, the long ecstatic slide, the engulfment while the silvery sheen of the water spattered their shoulders and necks in a cascade of…

Light!

His head came up and his eyes opened. And abruptly he saw Akutagawa-san standing to the side of him, silent, observing. Nicholas felt a peculiar heaviness in his chest, an oddly sexual feeling. He felt as if he had descended into a depression from which he had the perfect vantage point on the world. He was aware of more even while he saw less in the conventional sense.

He moved his head. Was he actually
seeing
Akutagawa-san or sensing him? He opened his mouth and voiced the question.

“I have no answer to that, Nicholas, save to say that it does not matter.
Getsumei no michi
is there and we use it. But I will tell you this quite important aspect of it. It is body sense rather than ego. It is only your non-Oriental side that seeks an understanding. Your Oriental side allowed you to let go of your ego, something no Westerner could ever do because he is too afraid. He fears a letting go because in the primitive mind it is eternally linked to death. Westerners, as we are aware, seek to understand death because they fear it so. They cannot accept as we do; they have no concept of
karma
, nor can they see what is most apparent to us, that death is part of life.”

Akutagawa-san began to move, and as he did so it was Nicholas’ impression that his
geta
’d feet did not touch the earth. “Now that you have found the moonlit path, it is time to use the energy there to conjure up the first superficial stages of the
Kuji-kiri.
This alone will take many months and at first it will be bad for you, for here we will manufacture pure terror and before you can inure yourself to its manifestations you must succumb. Nightmares will haunt your sleep as they will your waking hours. You will become sunken-eyed and even at the lowest ebb may wish to commit
seppuku.
”

“You do not frighten me,
sensei.
”

Akutagawa-san’s grim visage did not lighten. “That is good. Now remember well what you have said as we begin our descent into the maelstrom of hell.”

The dawning of a dank, drizzly Monday brought everyone back to reality. A smog alert was in effect, and immediately Nicholas stepped out of the hotel entrance he could see why. The air above the slick streets was brownish gray and, as it rose upward, so solid seeming it completely obscured any structure above the twelfth floor. No hope of seeing the crest of Fuji-yama from Sato’s office this day.

Tomkin, joining him in the limo for the stop-and-start trip across town to Shinjuku, seemed better, though he was still pale and drawn from his ordeal and he said the smog was giving him a pounding headache.

As they left the limo outside Sato’s building, Tomkin caught him by the arm and said in a low, gritty voice, “Remember, Nick. This week’s our deadline. You’ve got to make the merger happen now.” His eyes still contained a tinge of fever brightness and his breath was as foul as ever.

Miss Yoshida met them at the elevator’s summit and ushered them into Sato’s enormous office. This high up the windows overlooked darkness; it could have been the middle of the night. All the lights were on as if to dispel this cloud of gloom.

When they were all seated comfortably—save for Ishii, who stood against the wall like a guard—Sato began. “Before we resume our negotiations, I would like to explain why I asked our respective counsels if they would step away for a moment. No disrespect to Greydon-san was intended, but Nangi-san and I both thought it prudent to keep this part of our meeting just between us.”

He cleared his throat while Nangi lit a cigarette with careful deliberation. “Tomorrow afternoon’s meetings will have to be rescheduled, I am afraid, because we must attend the funeral of our loyal friend, Kagami-san.” He paused for a moment as if unsure how to proceed. “It may seem a crass request to make at this time, but we quite naturally feel that some answers must be reached.” He leaned slightly forward so that he approached the area where Nicholas and Tomkin were seated side by side on the sofa.

“Linnear-san, I must tell you that we are absolutely mystified by the manner of Kagami-san’s death. We know nothing of this
Wu-Shing
that you mentioned on Friday, nor can we think of a reason for murder being committed here.

“In light of all this I trust that you now, having had some small time to marshal your thoughts and surmises, may give us some insight into what happened to our poor colleague and friend.”

It was an elegant speech and Nicholas admired it. But he could not rightly say that his mind was fully focused on the murder of Kagami. Truth to tell, since he had seen Akiko at the wedding his mind had been filled with nothing but the burning image of her face and the maddening thought, Is she Yukio?

He felt slightly ashamed now to have been so slavishly self-involved all weekend. It was utterly unlike him and that, above all, worried him.

Now, as he hurriedly recalled the catalog of his observations in and around the blood-splattered steam room, he muscled his own doubts and fears aside.

He laced his fingers together, tapped the thumbs. “Over and above the bizarre appearance of the
Wu-Shing
tattoo on Kagami-san’s cheek, there were a number of abnormalities that would, I think, preclude a simple explanation such as assault by a madman, that sort of thing.”

“It was premeditated,” Ishii broke in. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“I am,” Nicholas said. “For one thing, the murderer left no discernable footprints outside the door, even though that area’s constantly saturated with moisture.”

Sato groaned heavily and glanced at Nangi. When the other did not return his gaze, Sato stood up and walked to the bar. Though it was only a little past ten he fixed himself a drink, and it was a measure of his agitation that he forgot his manners completely and failed to offer anyone else a refreshment.

He took a long swallow and, staring at nothing in the mirror behind the bar, cleared his throat. “Linnear-san, you said there were a
number
of abnormalities.”

“Why don’t you wait for the police?”

A Westerner would have, of course, given an answer. Sato merely stared at Nicholas. And what his eyes said was, That is why you were allowed inside Sato Petrochemicals business, because we want no police intervention.

Nicholas had asked the question because he had to be certain of these people. Why they did not relish the thought of police involvement did not concern him; why they had involved him did.

“I fear Kagami-san was not killed quickly.”

“Pardon me, but what do you mean?” Ishii asked.

“He was struck many times,” Nicholas said, “by a sharp-bladed weapon.”

“Do you know what kind?” Sato asked.

“I’m not certain,” Nicholas said. “It could be any number of
shuriken.
”

Sato had gone through half his long whiskey. Otherwise there was no outward sign of his agitation. “Linnear-san,” he said, “when you first mentioned this
Wu-Shing,
you said it was a series of punishments. May we deduce that because it uses the character
Wu
, there are five of them?”

Nicholas looked uncomfortable. “Yes, that’s correct.
Mo
is the first and therefore the least of the punishments.”

“What can be more severe than death?” Nangi said somewhat angrily.

“I was referring to
Mo
itself.” Nicholas looked at him. “Strictly speaking, it should only have been that: tattooing of the face.”

Nangi’s cane click-clacking across the short expanse of bare wooden floor that separated Sato’s true office space from the informal conference area where the rest of them stood or sat announced his approach. “Then this murdering of the victim as well is unusual.” He had pounced on it immediately.

“Highly unusual,” Nicholas said. He sat quite still, his hard hands clasped between his knees. He forced an absolute calm onto his face, into every aspect of his physical being. The last thing he wanted was either of them to become aware of his inner feelings. His mind was still reeling from the thought that someone from his own
ryu
, someone steeped in the arcane ways of
aka-i-ninjutsu
, could perpetrate such an act. It was quite unthinkable. And yet it had happened. He had seen the grisly evidence and he knew there could be no doubt at all. Fervently he prayed that no one would ask him the one question that might detonate the whole situation.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Tomkin said, and Nicholas prepared himself to answer the unanswerable. “This Wo-Ching or however it’s pronounced, is Chinese you said. What’s with this cross-referencing between Japanese and Chinese? I thought the two cultures were separate and distinct. I thought only ignoramus Westerners say they can’t tell one from the other.”

The phone rang in the ensuing silence and Ishii launched himself away from the bar to pick it up. They waited while he spoke softly into the receiver. He had left instructions that they not be disturbed.

He punched a button, hung up. “It’s a call for you, Nangi-san,” he said. What dark emotion swam within his eyes? Nicholas wondered. “Apparently it cannot wait.”

Nangi nodded. “I’ll take it in the other room.” He went back across the office, through the open passageway to the
tokonoma
where Nicholas had first caught sight of him.

The tension in the room was thick and now Nicholas used his training to seek a way of dissipating that high level of energy, as well as diverting interest away from areas he was still reluctant to discuss here. “Why an ancient form of
Chinese
punishment should be taught in an essentially Japanese discipline is simple,” he began. “It is said—and not I think without a great deal of merit—that
ninjutsu
had its origins on the Asian continent somewhere, more specifically in northeastern China. Certainly it had existed long before Japan became civilized.

“But then so have many of the more ancient customs and traditions in Japan.” He got up and went across the room, his movements pantherlike. He moved like some dancers Tomkin had seen, with a very low center of gravity, as if the floor itself were springy as a mat of dried grass.

Resettling himself on the sofa across from Tomkin, with Sato and Ishii on his left side, he continued. “In fact, China and Japan are more closely bound than either country likes to admit, since the enmity between them is longstanding and quite bitter.

“Nevertheless, you only have to take such a basic of life as language to see what I mean. Chinese and Japanese are virtually interchangeable.”

He paused a moment to see if the Japanese were going to protest. “Until the fifth century there was no written Japanese language at all. Rather, they relied on
kataribe
, people trained from birth to be professional memorizers, building up a finely detailed oral history of early Japan. But that, as we know today, is a mark of a primitive civilization. Chinese characters were introduced into Japan in the fifth century, but the practice of using
kataribe
was so firmly entrenched in a culture always reluctant to change that it persisted for at least another three hundred years.”