The Miko - 02 (30 page)

It seemed vastly ironic to Nicholas now to be kneeling by the side of this dying man, the same man whom he had vowed to destroy. But he did not question it. Tomkin’s
karma
was his own. Nicholas accepted these events as he accepted all else in life, with equanimity and calmness. It was just this unique quality which had allowed him to put away his intense desire to talk with Akiko, his bewilderment at her physicality. It was what allowed him to recover so quickly from the awesome implications of Kagami-san’s terrible murder.

He was Eastern in nature, even though there was but a hint of his mother’s blood in his face. The Colonel, had he been alive today, would have recognized in the visage of his son an almost exact duplicate of his own youthful self, save that Nicholas’ hair was as dark as his mother’s and his eyes somehow did not contain the directness of Western culture.

Within Nicholas now swirled many emotions. He recognized the hate for Tomkin which had allowed him to go to work for him, even become his friend in order to be close to him, to sow the seeds of his revenge for his friend’s murder at Tomkin’s behest. And yet…There were qualities about the man that had begun to affect Nicholas. For one thing, he was fiercely loyal. He would try to bring the sun down from the sky for one of his people who was legitimately in trouble. For another, his abiding love for both his daughters, but especially Justine, was touching. It was in the nature of the man that he could not very well express that love. But his understanding of his troubled younger daughter and, just as importantly, his acknowledgement—at least to himself and to Nicholas—of his complicity in her emotional state was laudable.

Though Tomkin could often be loud and crude, these abrasive qualities hid a man of much emotion. Indeed, in private moments, many of which he had chosen to share with Nicholas, when his guard was down and he was relaxed, he could be an engaging, even a charming, companion.

Nicholas looked down at the gray, deflated face. Devoid of animation, Tomkin had the countenance of an overused wax doll. He recalled Tomkin’s sadness over Justine’s relationships; how he had ached for her when she had been used by Chris; the final anger that had both saved her and caused her to turn away from him.

Nicholas recognized that Justine should be here; perhaps only he knew how much solace her presence would bring to Tomkin now. Ultimately, it was his family that was Tomkin’s weak spot. It seemed cruel indeed that he should die here so far from home and his daughters, all that he loved. Facing death, Nicholas felt always slightly diminished. He understood dimly that that was a Western facet of his personality, a legacy from the Colonel. His Eastern half understood fully that death was integrated with life, the two the same, really. If you were one with all things, then death was one of them. That, at least, should be some solace to him now.

Nicholas saw the eyes flutter open, the brown of the irises dirty and almost gray. Breath was an enormous effort, the dry-lipped mouth was half open.

“I called Greydon,” he said. “He’s just outside.”

But there seemed no recognition at all in the eyes as they drifted, drifted across the room. Outside, day had died and the nighttime splendor of Tokyo was a blaze of neon fire, holding back the darkness with its multicolored shell.

Tomkin turned his head, and Nicholas followed his gaze. There was nothing there, a blank wall. What did Tomkin see there that held the last of his attention? Only cats sat and stared at nothing.

Then a shadow passed across the wall, and as if it were somehow connected to him, Tomkin shuddered once and Nicholas said, “Doctor?” though it was merely a formality; he knew death when he saw it.

“Mr. Linnear?”

Nicholas rose slowly and turned to see the worried face of Greydon, Tomkin’s attorney.

“How is he?”

“Let the doctor tell you.” Nicholas suddenly felt tired.

Taki knelt beside Tomkin’s form with his stethoscope, listening intently. After a moment, he pulled the instrument from his ears. “He’s expired, I’m afraid.” He stood up and began to write in his notepad.

Greydon wiped at his face with a linen handkerchief. “This is so sudden,” he said. “I never…well, I never suspected it was so close.”

“You knew about Tomkin’s illness?” Nicholas said.

Greydon nodded distractedly. “Yes. Dr. Kidd, his personal physician, and I were the only ones.” Then his eyes seemed to focus and he looked at Nicholas. “Tomkin had to come to me for the will, you see. I had to know.”

He took a deep breath. “Would anyone mind if I had a whiskey and soda?”

“Excuse me,” Sato said. “The circumstances…” He went quickly to the bar and made Greydon his drink, gave it to him. He made something for Nangi as well, who was looking very pale.

Greydon took a long pull at his drink and touched Nicholas on the elbow. “Please,” he said quietly, “come with me.”

Away from the others, Nicholas stopped. “What is it?” he said shortly. His mind was elsewhere.

Greydon snapped open his black lizardskin attaché case. “There are certain matters which must be—”

“Not now,” Nicholas said, putting his hand on Greydon’s arm. “There’ll be plenty of time for formalities later on.”

The lawyer looked up at him from his half-bent position. “I’m sorry, Mr. Linnear, but I have explicit instructions. Mr. Tomkin was quite clear on this point.” His hand dipped into the case, extracted an oversized buff envelope. Nicholas’ name was on the front. The flap was sealed with a blob of red wax. He handed it over. “Mr. Tomkin requested that immediately upon his death you be hand-delivered this envelope and that you read it and sign it in my presence.”

Numbly Nicholas looked down at the envelope. “What’s in it?”

“It’s a codicil.”

“A codicil?”

“To Mr. Tomkin’s will.” Greydon’s face was anxious again. He touched Nicholas on the wrist. “You must read it now, Mr. Linnear. It was Mr. Tomkin’s express wish.” His eyes seemed large and moist. “Please.”

Nicholas turned the envelope over, broke the seal. He lifted the flap, took out several sheets of paper. The top one was in Tomkin’s unmistakable oversized scrawl. He began to read.

Nicholas,

You are no doubt slightly bewildered by recent events. That is only natural. I must confess to wishing that I knew just what emotions are dominant in you now. I only know that were I there now I would never be able to tell them from your face. In many ways you have been even more of an enigma to me than my daughters. I suppose that is only right, since you have come to seem like a son to me.

Actually I think that is only fitting. Wasn’t it Oedipus who wished to kill his father? Oh, yes, I know. Because I have come to know you. I have done many foolish things in my life, things on which I have little desire to dwell.

I had an unquenchable desire for power, and toward that end I destroyed people, whole companies even, to achieve my desires. But, in the end, life has a way of making fools of us all, and why should I be any different?

Meeting you changed my life, I can’t deny that. Oh, at first not at all. I was too iron-willed for that. But I remember that long night while both of us waited for Saigō to come. You were there to protect me yet, in my fear and desperation, I spoke to him, offering to sacrifice your life for mine.

It was only later that I realized how foolish I had been. And I suspected that you had overheard me. I’m right, aren’t I? Well, it doesn’t really matter much to me now. Only to say that after that night I began to understand you. Some quality within you that I am still at a loss to define, began to creep through me like a mist. I’m glad you came to work for me, just as I’m glad you will marry my daughter. That, too, is fitting.

There are, perhaps, many reasons why you would want to kill me. But perhaps the most insistent is for what happened to your friend, Lewis Croaker. He thought I murdered Angela Didion; and you thought I had him killed.

You’re wrong. And you’re right.

I’m truly sorry, but I cannot be more specific. I’ve perhaps already said more than I should. To business:

On the next sheet of paper you will find a legal document. It assigns you sixty percent of the voting shares for Tomkin Industries. With it you can sit on the board of directors; you may even change its composition. Though Justine and Gelda each retain twenty percent, that will be entirely your prerogative, just as it was mine. Sign it and you will become the president of Tomkin Industries. Don’t think too much about it, follow your instincts. But know that this is what I want, Nicky, with all my heart and soul, if such a thing truly exists. Soon you and Justine will marry. I am pleased that you love each other. No one understands better than I how precious such a commodity is these days. You’re family now, you see, in all ways.

If you sign you will make me very happy. I’ll know that the company is in the right hands. But know this: there is one thing that you must do immediately after the funeral. Greydon, who is no doubt standing by, will tell you what it is.

Good-bye, Nicky. Tell my girls I love them,

Raphael Tomkin

It was witnessed by Greydon, dated June 4, 1983.

Nicholas sat down on the arm of Sato’s chair. His head was buzzing and he fought desperately for control. Nothing in his training had prepared him for this.

“Mr. Linnear?”

Slowly Nicholas looked up, becoming aware that Greydon had been trying to get his attention for some time.

“Mr. Linnear, will you sign the codicil?”

There was just too much happening at once. Nicholas felt overwhelmed. Emotion welled up from the Western part of him, while his Eastern half fought desperately to suppress those same emotions which if they surfaced would surely cause loss of face. Nicholas felt in the middle for the first time in his life, at odds with either side of himself. Because he wanted to do both: feel and not feel at the same time. Sato had been quite correct. In this country grief was an extremely private emotion, held back from even those closest to you. And yet, he felt acutely the presence of the Colonel urging him to grieve, telling him that it was all right, that it was a man’s prerogative to cry, to feel, to need solace in times of stress; it was what everyone wanted.

And still nothing showed on his face. Perhaps Nangi, the astute master that he was, might have seen the pain flitting like dark darting fish in Nicholas’ eyes. But Nangi would never even contemplate such a gross intrusion of privacy. Ever since Tomkin was stricken the Japanese had steadfastly looked only at each other, giving no chance for loss of face.

“Mr. Linnear?”

All at once Nicholas found himself in the first attack position, his muscles corded, his hips and knees already moving on their own, the red killing drive welling up in him and his arm beginning to lift.

“Yes?”

Greydon blinked rapidly behind his glasses, standing immobile and defenseless, and Nicholas thought to himself, What am I doing? appalled at the misdirection of emotion, the readiness of his body to act on his
aka-i-ninjutsu
training. It was as if all his time in America had been shed from him and now, returned to his natural element, he was reverting, cerebration giving way to instinct as he had been taught. For
jahō,
the magic of the ninja
ryu,
required the absolute imprisonment of the laws and strictures of so-called civilization.

But this was not Nara prefecture and he was not within the cool stone walls of the Tenshin Shoden Katori. He was no longer a pupil but a
sensei.
He should know better. But he was not entirely Eastern, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise.

And at precisely this moment, as if a great and towering glacial floe that had blocked his path for ages, reflecting the light in its icy rills and ridges, had cracked asunder, he understood the latent anger he felt toward the Colonel for bearing him, for imbuing him with his Western genes, reactions, instincts—his coarsened method of viewing the world. Nicholas realized that his unfaltering reverence for his father was merely a mask for the resentment that lay smoldering in white heat inside him. And abruptly he knew what he must do.

He relaxed his body, consciously draining it of the adrenaline which, unbidden, had been released in the onset of
kokyū suru,
the attack stance. Handing Greydon the papers, he said, “Give me some time, will you,” and went across the room, from island to carpeted island, past the four Japanese, who would not dare look into his face, who spoke in low, quick tones of mundane matters.

Nicholas went around the side of the sofa and Tomkin appeared before him again, already laid out as if on a bier. There was a bitter taste in Nicholas’ mouth and a burning behind his eyes. The day the Colonel had died, the Linnears’ new gardener, another old man, a Zen master of his leafy domain, to take the beloved Atake’s place in the house on the outskirts of Tokyo, had begun to rake the snow. And Nicholas could see again the lines of dark and white, the sight of melancholy winter transmuted by personal tragedy into the embodiment of death.

Nicholas knelt down at right angles to Tomkin’s body, bowing his head formally as one does to acknowledge the head of a family. After the revelations of a moment ago there seemed no difference between this corpse and the one he and his mother and Itami had buried with such ceremonial pomp and circumstance so many years ago.

Save that now the ache inside him, unknowable and seemingly absolute, had been dissolved in the knowledge of his view of the Roundeyed Barbarian. Though the Colonel had come to love the East with an unfailing passion, still he had been
gaijin
and throughout all his life growing up in Japan Nicholas had suffered because of it. The blood, the blood. The Japanese could not get over that, could not, in their heart of hearts secreted far away from their public display of affection for him, forgive him for that ultimate transgression.

In Raphael Tomkin Nicholas had perceived, albeit unconsciously, all the traits, though untrue, ascribed to his father. He saw now that part of his hate for Tomkin was his hate for what the Colonel had been, what he could not help being. He was an Easterner trapped in a Westerner’s body.
Karma.
But Nicholas understood now that he had never been able to accept that, that he had for so many years unconsciously fought against that
karma,
just as he had steadfastly refused to face his deep and abiding hatred.