The Samurai's Daughter (18 page)

I made it home by late afternoon. Walking along the street, I bowed and called out a greeting to my neighbor, the elderly Mrs. Yuto, who was using a broom to sweep a few leaves that had fallen off one of the small, scraggly potted trees that lined the space in front of her house. I had no idea of the species of the plant, or its age; I imagined it had been there for years, just as she had.

Mrs. Yuto's tiny white brows drew together sharply at the sight of me, and she didn't return the bow.

I could have passed on, but I hesitated. Maybe I'd done something to offend her without knowing it. “Greetings, Yuto-san! I wish you congratulations on a happy new year.”

She nodded, but said nothing.

“Uh, Yuto-san, is there some problem? I apologize if I've caused any trouble…”

“The police were here,” she said in a low voice.

“To—my house?”

She nodded. “They spoke to that foreign man who was staying there.”

“I see.” The worst had come to pass. The fingerprints had been checked yesterday, and the police were interested in Hugh in connection with the attack on Ramon.

I went into the house. It was empty; not a sign of Hugh any
where. I rushed back out. Mrs. Yuto was still sweeping, but this time there was a self-satisfied smile on her face.

“Did they take him with them?” I asked in a low voice.

“I don't know. I was inside doing other things,
neh
?”

“I see,” I said, thinking how much she seemed to savor being the bearer of bad news. “Well, I guess that I'll check with the police myself.”

“A good idea. These days, police are cracking down on illegal foreigners overstaying their visas.”

I stared at her small, tight face and sputtered, “The person in my apartment is my fiancé, and while he is Scottish, he's here legally on business with an American law firm.”

“He might like it better in those places,
neh
? There are more foreigners there.”

A kid parking his bicycle was taking an overly long time—as if he was dawdling in order to eavesdrop. And I noticed that a woman a few doors away was also watching our exchange. As much as I wanted to say something nasty back to Mrs. Yuto, I knew that whatever I said would be repeated throughout the neighborhood.

I turned my back so the watchers couldn't see my expression, and gave Mrs. Yuto a disgusted glare. Then I set off for the neighborhood's police box, which was a stucco building about the size of a closet, close to the primary school on the hill.

Hugh wasn't there. In fact, the constable didn't know what I was talking about. Once I realized that, I quietly made my apologies for disturbing him and trekked back down the hill. If the Yanaka police hadn't taken him into custody, maybe it had been the police from Kanda, the neighborhood where Ramon Espinosa lived.

I walked toward the train station, with every step feeling an even greater sense of panic. I began running. As I ran, the soreness around my knees radiated. I was in the wrong shoes to be doing this. I was in the wrong neighborhood, the wrong life. I could barely see through my tears, but I knew people were watching. That made me run all the harder, until I smacked into something solid: a briefcase with the Mark Cross insignia on it, just like Hugh's. I looked up, and there he was, dressed in business clothing and looking just the way
he always did—except for the fact that he wasn't smiling, but was craning his head to look past me.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I—I was headed for the train station. I was in a panic, that's the reason I was running so fast that I didn't notice you in my way—”

“Well, this is perfect timing,” Hugh said, brushing off his briefcase and taking me by the arm. “I'm glad I caught you before you went out. Where are you going, anyway?”

“The police! I heard from my neighbor they came by to take you into custody—”

“Hold on,” Hugh said, laughing. “They only came to remind me to register as a foreigner living in the district. Apparently I should have gone to the ward office to give my name and information.”

“Oh! That's all?”

“Yes, yes, that's all. They were as cordial as could be.”

I sighed. “So why were you gone from the apartment?”

“Doing my job! I was at the Imperial Hotel, where I've gotten a suite set up for Charles and Eric and me to work. They're coming in tomorrow, so I wanted to get a jump on things, make some important calls—”

“Chika has your mobile phone,” I said. “I told Tom to have her give it back.”

“Great. I could use it, though now I have some lines through the Imperial Hotel as well. Say, want to go out for dinner and catch up on all the news?”

I shook my head. “I'd rather go home. Want to do take-out?”

“Sure. Any decent sushi around here?”

“Do you really want sushi? I'm in the mood for something warm and comforting, like a big bowl of ramen.”

“Can't we do both?”

In San Francisco a week ago, I would have said no. But now I felt easier about things. The neighborhood
izakaya
prepared noodle dishes beautifully. I knew that it also had an agreement with a sushi shop around the corner. It was possible that I could make one call to the
izakaya
to get both kinds of food, plus the supersized bottle of Kirin beer that was my favorite.

Hugh agreed enthusiastically to the plan, and when we got home he went into the bathroom to fill the tub while I phoned the restaurant to order noodles for myself and assorted sushi that included Hugh's favorites of sea bream, grilled eel, snapper, and salmon roe. As I recited my credit card number, I noticed a flood of papers on the floor next to the phone. A fax had come from my cousin Tom; he had translated the first few chapters of Kazuo Shimura's history textbook.

I wandered into the bathroom, where Hugh was up to his neck in aromatic water.

“Tom found the history textbook, and he's started a translation.”

“Great. That's what you wanted, isn't it?”

“It'll be interesting to see how my great-grandfather writes about the samurai era,” I said. “Knowing how much he cared about the family sword and all.”

“Could I read it, too? I can use all the help I can get learning about Japan.”

“Sure.” I looked away from him, distracted by a sound. “I think the delivery boy's at the door. Let me get the food.”

“Brilliant. But I'm not ready to come out of this tub yet,” Hugh said.

“Don't worry. We can eat later.”

I opened the front door, and sure enough, there was the delivery in a set of lacquered red boxes. They weren't real lacquer, of course, but hardy plastic—because the custom was, after ordering a delivered meal like this, to leave the empty boxes outside your door to be picked up by the restaurant's bicycle-riding delivery person the next day. It was much more effort for the restaurant than using disposable food containers, but I thought it was much more elegant this way.

I checked my watch. Five-twenty. I was almost depressed. Why did I bother spending an hour to make something like a bowl of ramen when a restaurant could do it so much faster? And it wasn't as if I saved any money by cooking things myself. Grocery store ingredients were just as expensive as the finished dish served in a restaurant.

I carried the two boxes inside. Hugh's sushi was obvious—it was in a lower, flat rectangular tray. Then there was my box, a taller one;
inside, I knew, was my bowl of hot udon, plus a side order of cold
zaru soba
I'd ordered in case the sushi wasn't enough for Hugh.

I carried Hugh's meal to the tea table, then returned for my food box. When I it picked up, I heard a pleasant hissing sound inside. The
udon
was really hot.

I opened up the boxes and placed the various covered dishes atop my own real lacquered pine trays. Then I added a few old Imari plates, ivory chopsticks, and napkins I'd stitched myself from hand-dyed indigo fabric. I took the cap off the liter bottle of Kirin and filled a glass for each of us. I read a bit of my great-grandfather's history, but I was really in the mood to eat. I went to the bathroom door to urge Hugh to end his bath.

“Yes, yes, I know it's here. I can hear it sizzling.” He came out, tying the belt on his bathrobe, and drew me into an embrace. He smelled amazing—a combination of my own Kanebo soap, his Grey Flannel, and that sexy Hugh Glendinning smell that made me think of having him for dessert—after the
udon
, of course.

Reluctantly, I dragged myself back to the meal at hand. It was true—the bowl was hissing so much that its top was rattling.

“I wonder how they do it…some fabulous technology?” Hugh said, going to the table.

“Yes, hot noodle dishes are served too hot to be eaten…that way you can linger for hours. It certainly makes delivery work easier, too.”

I knew it would be a while before I could put soup to mouth, but I couldn't wait to inhale the familiar aroma. This shop was one of the few places I knew that served a truly vegetarian noodle soup; the soup stock was not flavored with pork or chicken, but with rich red
miso
and dried shitake mushrooms. There was also a hint of chili that I loved. They called it Chinese Priest's Udon: “Priest” because there was no meat, and “Chinese” because of the spice.

I lifted the lid. A line of steam blew out at me with an odor that was noxious and choking—not the soy-ginger-garlic I'd been anticipating, but something that made my eyes water and burn. And in the split second before I shut my eyes, I saw there was no soup in the bowl at all—just a small black device that was spewing thick white smoke.

“Argh!” Hugh said, just before he started choking.

“Shut your eyes! It's…ga-ga-gas,” I said between coughs. I couldn't smell it, but it cut into my airway and eyes like a knife. I shut my eyes instantly and began walking toward where I thought my door was.

“I'm trying—” I heard sounds of fumbling, as if Hugh were attempting to put the lid back on the bowl.

“No time. This is a gas attack,” I sputtered. “Outside.”

“Not dressed,” he coughed back at me. “Two degrees—”

I reached out blindly, grabbed his arm, and pulled. Even though my eyes were tightly shut, they were running like faucets. I opened them a fraction to see where the doorway was. Once I had my bearings, I stumbled toward it, dragging Hugh.

When I tugged on the doorknob, I realized I'd locked the place up for the night. Damn. I struggled crazily with my three locks and finally got the door open and the two of us out on the step. Hugh was hyperventilating, and I was coughing. I couldn't see him, but at least I knew he was with me. And the noise he was making meant that he was alive.

“What the hell kind of special did you order?” Hugh coughed between each word.

“That restaurant is very reliable.” I dissolved into another coughing bout.

“I guessed that,” Hugh said. “You only order from reliable places, right?”

I buried my face in his terry robe, letting it absorb the tears. “Tear gas. Do you think that's what it was?”

“Don't know. I've never been gassed before, but my eyes are running.”

“We need to call the police,” I said.

“Shall we go to your neighbor? There's an old lady who was looking at me when the police came—”

“Mrs. Yuto!” I said. “Oh, no. We can't do that. I didn't tell you this before, but she's completely against our living arrangement. And she said all the neighbors were talking. We can't go to them, Hugh—we're all alone.”

He caught me by the shoulders, and I slowly peeled open my eyes to look at him. “Rei, are you telling me none of these people will help us?”

I took a deep breath. I was beginning to be able to get in air again. “I'm not sure. This is a conservative neighborhood. It's not like Roppongi or Aoyama or even the part of Yokohama where my relatives live.”

“Then let's walk to the police station,” Hugh said, standing up. “Whoever did this should not get away with it.”

 

Sergeant Nishimura, the constable on duty at the neighborhood police box, was sympathetic, but not overly worried. He assured us that if it had been Sarin, we'd already be dead. I suppose that should have cheered me up, but it didn't.

Nishimura, who was an organized fellow, sent a colleague to the crime scene and another to the restaurant. Apparently the delivery boy had dropped off a perfectly normal food order about five minutes before I'd opened the door. He said I hadn't responded to his knocking and he'd left because I'd prepaid for the food with a credit card, and thus he didn't need payment.

“Perhaps some mischief-maker may have acted right after the
food delivery. Shimura-san, do you think anyone in the neighborhood wishes you and your friend to have misfortune?”

“Sure I do. From Mrs. Yuto onward, apparently none of them like me anymore.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I'm living with a foreigner. Why else?”

Sergeant Nishimura coughed delicately. “But you, Shimura-san, are a foreigner yourself. You've not reported any problems before. It must be something else.”

I translated for Hugh, who had been looking impatient. When he heard Sergeant Nishimura's comment, he nodded. “Yes, your neighbors have always been fine. I mean, when I went out today, several people said hello in English and smiled at me.”

I hugged my arms around myself. Hugh was such a hopeless optimist. He'd probably run into Japanese tourists visiting the neighborhood, not its real denizens.

The sergeant called a supervisor, who ordered an antiterrorism crew to analyze and air out my apartment. The tear gas capsule had already been removed, and was brought to us for inspection. The sergeant explained it was a common product marketed to women, security guards, and others interested in self-defense.

“Made in Japan?” Hugh asked, and I translated.

The sergeant shook his head. “This one is a U.S. manufacture. It could be purchased here or there, or many other points in between.”

I thought more about this detail two hours later, when the police assured us that my apartment was again safe for inhabitation.

“Someone was watching for the food to be dropped off. Then, seeing I didn't respond to the initial knock on the door, he or she dumped out the soup, put in the tear gas, rang the doorbell, and ran off.” I paused. Who knew that we were going to order in food, and that I wouldn't take it right away? Who walks around with a tear gas canister at the ready? Do you think…Morita Incorporated could be behind this?”

“Could be,” Hugh said. “I wasn't aware that they knew anything about the class action plan. Maybe they got wind after my conversation with the police in San Francisco.”

I shivered. “Are you saying someone in the SFPD with a pro-Japanese leaning might have contacted the company?”

Hugh squeezed my hand. “It seems far-fetched, but it's possible. I mean, we're talking about one of the world's most successful electronics companies. There could be substantial rewards for anyone who helped that company keep its status. And it might not have been a mole within the police—it could have been someone at your parents' party, or the person who broke into the house and rifled through my things…”

“What can you do?” I had no idea myself. I felt utterly hollow.

“I'll meet with them to lay the cards on the table,” Hugh said.

“But how can you handle a meeting by yourself with all those Japanese executives?” I asked gently. “I know you used to do that kind of thing with Sendai, but you were all on the same side. Not to mention you had a translator.”

“I'll do it with Charles Sharp, of course, and Eric will be there to do the translations.”

“That's right. You mentioned that they'll be flying in tomorrow,” I said.

“Eric's already here. Charles comes tomorrow.”

So the forces were landing—for better or worse.