"So, you know a lot about O'Hara, eh?" he said.
"I've studied nothing else for almost two months," she said, and recited the litany.
"I do not mean to offend you, Gunn-san, but you do not know O'Hara, you know about O'Hara. To catch a wolf, you must understand a wolf."
"There you go again."
The waitress padded back with their tea and left as silently. Eliza waited until she was gone before continuing the conversation. "His friends won't talk about him and his enemies don't know anything to talk about," she said.
"That is good to know."
"Then how can I learn anything about him?"
"You know he came here as a youth. You do not know that he was very difficult at first. What we call chiisai. It would mean in America 'small knives.' One who is of the street gangs. The first year was very difficult. But I was persistent and we became friends and after that, Kazuo was like an empty bucket waiting to be filled."
"And you filled the bucket."
"I merely provided the water. He filled the bucket."
"You were his teacher."
"One of them. I showed him the way. He learned very quickly. He became a master of tai chi and then went on to higaru, which is a very difficult form of mental discipline and protective movement. I have seen him stand in the position of the bird, on one leg, for six hours without moving or blinking an eye. He reached the ultimate degree of higaru, which is known as higaru-dashi. It is difficult to translate precisely. I think you would call it ... the Dance of the Vipers. And I have seen him achieve the no-mind state in a few seconds by simply listening to the sound of the wind."
"The no-mind state?"
"It is a Zen exercise, a form of meditation that cleanses the mind and frees one of all thought. It is achieved by concentrating on a distinct sound. A bell, perhaps, or a self-spoken mantra. For some, the process can take hours. O'Hara-san can achieve no-mind in seconds by concentrating on any sound, even the fiddling of a cricket. When he achieves that being, he can memorize entire pages of a book by simply staring at them. They become paintings in his mind."
"We call it a photographic memory."
"Excuse me ... dozo ... a photographic memory is a gift of birth. The no-mind must be learned. O'Hara does not merely learn, he becomes a master. And still the bucket is not full."
"He sounds like some kind of mystic."
"He is simply a man of honor who has learned that the wise man seeks everything within himself. The ignorant man takes everything from others."
"I call that instinct."
Kimura thought about that for a few moments and said, finally, "An oversimplification."
"This is very frustrating," she said. "After all this time, too. What I bring is good news."
"Or the cleverest trap of all."
"Believe me, I'm not very clever, and a trapper I definitely am not."
"Let me explain it another way. You see that stone garden over there. It was designed by Buddhists over four hundred years ago. Everything in it has meaning, the way the stones are arranged, the way they are raked, the placement of the big rocks, what we call stone boats. Only a small part of them is showing, the rest is below the ground, so we can only imagine what is there. I want to believe what I see and hear, but I must not ignore what is imagined."
Eliza's shoulders sagged. "All right," she said, "suppose I show you the documents. That should prove he's a free man."
"But you say these papers are only for the eyes of Kazuo."
"I came to deliver a message to O'Hara," she said. "If I must show you the letters first, then that's what I'll do."
"That would appear logical."
He sipped his tea and delicately placed the cup back on the saucer. "This must be a very powerful man, this one with the message for O'Hara."
"That he is."
He finished his tea and dabbed his lips, and, very abruptly, he stood up. "You will be at your ryokan later today?"
"Yes, yes!"
"I must think about this, Gunn-san. You have a quality I admire. You are naïve. It will help in the thinking. Sayonara." He bowed and turned and left the tearoom.
"Well, what am I supposed to do," she called after him, "just sit and wait?"
He waved his umbrella at her without turning. "A disease can be cured," he called out. "Fate is incurable."
"Oh hell," she said, "just what's that one supposed to mean?"
But he was gone.
The day had turned warm and pleasant and, with the Kimura ordeal behind her, she strolled back to the eki, stopping along the way for a snack, ordering a bowl of soba, a kind of buckwheat noodle popular all over Japan, managing her chopsticks like an expert. Now, as she opened the door to her room, she felt for the first time that maybe, just maybe, she would find the elusive O'Hara.
She knew something was wrong before she went in, so she entered the room cautiously. It was as if someone were there with her. But she could see the entire room from the door. The closet doors were open, as was the door to the lavatory.
She checked outside. A gardener was weeding the lawn in the rectangle formed by the one-story inn. "Shitsurei shimasu," she said.
He looked up and smiled. He was young, and very good-looking, a strange combination of the East and West, with his tenugui headband and his Adidas sneakers. She got her Berlitz translation book, and very carefully pronouncing each word, asked him if he spoke English: "Eigo o hana-shimasu ka?"
He shook his head.
"Aw, forget it," she said and went back inside.
She decided it was a delayed reaction to all the excitement. Just a little paranoia, and why not. It had been one crazy day. She needed to go down to the ofuro and relax in a hot bath. Then she saw the suitcase lying on the futon.
It wasn't there when you left, Gunn, old girl.
The maid, perhaps?
Then why is it open?
She went over and lifted the top very gingerly. The O'Hara file lay on top, very neat, but not where she had left it. And on top of it, a slip of paper. The message said:Give this to the taximan, he will take you to the proper place. Leave at 7:30. It will take 30 minutes. Go to the pier at the rear of the ground floor. Red Dragon Fireworks. 8 p.m.
The address was spelled out in calligraphy.
Swell.
III
Kimura walked slowly through the park, past the topaz gardens and the Zen pools, which were marvelously lush and green, even this early in the spring, and headed toward the city. A priest from the Tenryu-ji temple on Mount Hiei scurried by, taking the path down through a stand of tall Japanese cypress trees, setting off on a lonely vigil, the Walk of a Thousand Days, one which the Zen Buddhists believe would grant him special powers. A thousand days of austerities which the Buddhists believed would reveal to them the secret powers of Zen.
Kimura remembered his vigils well. Three times he had done the Walk of a Thousand Days, and even now he could remember those lonely times vividly. The last was just after his wife had died. He was fifty-five at the time and had walked almost a thousand miles in the three years he was gone, begging at doorways for his meals, as is the custom. The mystical journey had eased the hurt of her death.
He remembered her constantly, and the things he loved most in the world still reminded him of her: their grandchildren ; the great temple of Kinkaku-ji, where they had met, and which had since been burned to the ground by a mad Buddhist monk; the giant weeping cherry tree in Maruyama Park under which he had asked her to be his wife; and the gold-and-silver Lotus Sutra scroll, which contains the fundamental text of the Tendai, the definitive teachings of Buddha, and where he had spent three days in meditation before becoming a Master of the higaru-dashi.
This park was full of sweet memories, and as he walked through the giant torii and left it, he dedicated his happy thoughts to the gods.
He walked past the sprawling International Hotel and the American Culture Center to the Gion district, two miles away. This was the old world, the world he lo
ved. The alleys were narrow and spotlessly clean and bordered by high bamboo fences, the shops were true to the architecture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Here, among the people he knew best in the world, the Kyoto dialect had not yet been bastardized, and there was harmony in the symmetry of the houses and among the people who lived in them.
He did not go straight home. He turned instead and walked down a bamboo-walled alley to a house that sat back from the rest of the homes on the street. It was a handsome structure, two hundred years old and perfectly preserved, its handmade latticework oiled and shiny.
The owner of the house was known as Mama Momo, Mother Peach, because her complexion was still smooth, unwrinkled and unblemished despite the storms of sixty-odd years. Kimura had known Mama Momo since the year after his wife died; she was an old friend, and an understanding one. He came to the house twice a week, and each time he brought her 5,112 yen, which is $22.54, in a rice paper bag that was hand-painted by an artist in one of his kendo classes. And each time she would wait until he went to the back before she opened the bag and counted the money.
He walked down the hall to the rear of the house and entered a room which was decorated with chrysanthemums, and with sprigs of plum and cherry blossoms. The house was built in a rectangle with its rooms facing a stone garden in the courtyard. Kimura sat on a tatami, stared at the single stone boat near its center and waited.
How much of Eliza's story was true, he wondered, and how much was hidden from view? Was she what she seemed? Kimura's instincts told him to trust her, but looking at the stone boat, he was forced to consider the possibility that she, too, had come to kill O'Hara.
His thoughts were interrupted by a young girl, no more than twenty, who entered the room with a tray of oils and knelt beside him. She bowed and then smiled at him and ran her fingertips down his cellophane cheeks. Kimura took her other hand in both of his and smiled back.
"Ah," he said, in the dialect of Kyoto, "Miei, my favorite."
She giggled and answered in the same dialect, "We are all your favorites, Tokenrui-san." She knelt behind him and slipped off her kimono. Her voice was a bird's, soft and melodic, and she began to caress his chest and shoulders.
There was a knock on the door. Kimura sighed and leaned back on his arms. The girl put the kimono back on.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"It's me."
"Dozo."
A big man slid the paneled door open, left his shoes beside the door and entered the room. He was a shade over six feet tall, Caucasian, with a great shock of black hair, a full beard and slate-gray eyes. He bowed to Tokenrui-san and sat cross-legged in front of him. Miei slipped behind the old man and began massaging his shoulders.
The big man, too, spoke in the dialect of old Kyoto. "Sorry to disturb you," he said.
"I have plenty of time."
"You met the girl?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"I found her refreshingly exuberant and naïve for a Westerner."
"In what way?"
"A certain desperation to get the message to you. But death was not in the desperation. There was ... innocence ? I played some games with her. Reciting abstractions as if they were written in the Tendai. By now she probably thinks everyone in Japan over fifty speaks like a bad American movie."
"But you trust her?"
"Ah, an interesting question. Let us say I am willing to convey her message to you. I am not sure I am willing to advise you to listen."
"I read the correspondence in her room. There are two letters. One from the Winter Man lifting the sanction. The other from Howe, verifying its validity. There is also a document from a man named Falmouth in which he swears under oath that the Winter Man offered him twenty thousand dollars to carry it out."
"So, it would seem her story is true."
"There's a catch," O'Hara said.
"Ah?"
"She's got a shadow."
"Anybody known to us?"
"No. In fact, judging from his manner, I would say he is not even of the Game. He acts more like an American gangster."
"What else?"
"He is large, with a bullethead and little pig ears. They are so small, they're almost a deformity."
"And this man, Little Ears, he followed her?" Kimura asked.
"He watched your meeting from the hall of the Ashikaga shoguns. Sammi stayed with him the entire time."
"Hmm. If it is a trap, does it not seem likely she would have told him where she was going so he could go ahead?"
"Yes," O'Hara said. "Unless they are even more clever than we imagine."
Kimura looked back at the stone boat in the garden for a few moments and nodded. "That is an option," he agreed. "Have you arranged to meet her later?"
"Yes, at the old place in Amagasaki."
"And you will be there ahead of them?"
"Right. Unless she gives him the address first."
"You will know if they are partners. She will tell him where the meeting place is and he will go ahead. If he stays behind her, get between them and force him to make a desperate move. If he does, you will know."
"One other thing. I have checked out her papers. She is what she says she is."
"By tonight you will know. This is the first time I have had any feeling about those who have been sent here. I like the young woman. I hope she is what she appears."
"Either Sammi or I will call you after it's over."
"I will be waiting."
The big man got up and went to the door. He looked back at Kimura and Miei and chuckled. "You certainly have a way with the young ladies. What's your secret?"
"I tell them if they make love to an old man, the gods will add many years to their life."
"And..."
"And they believe me."
IV
They drove south on the Kobe highway, around the sweeping curve of the bay until, looking back over her shoulder, on what was an uncommonly clear night, she could see the lights of the big industrial plants and shipyards of Osaka harbor.
The trip along the waterfront into a rowdy little village between Osaka and Kobe, its streets teeming with sailors and workers in hardhats, took less than half an hour. They were in what appeared to be the red-light district. The driver, an elderly man who muttered a lot to himself, guided the Honda through the heavy pedestrian traffic, entered a narrow, winding street, ablaze with neon calligraphy, pachinko parlors and strip joints, and then turned into an even narrower alley.
The driver stopped in front of a tattoo parlor, twenty or so feet from the main street. He turned to her. "Missu sure about numba?" he asked. "Thisu no prace you go." He checked the piece of paper and shook his head. "Thisee bad place all over."
"How much?" she asked."Ikura desu ka?"
He told her the fare and continued shaking his head as she counted it out. "No good bah, no good bah," he repeated several times.
"Yeah," she said. "It's getting to be the story of my life. I've been in every no good bah between here and Rio de Janeiro. Arigato, old buddy."
"Wanna me wait?" he asked.
She brightened. There was a sense of security in knowing somebody in the country was looking out for her.
"Hai. Dome arigato," she said. "I'll just check." She got out and went into the tattoo parlor. The operator was naked from the waist up. He was a short man with an enormous belly and his head was shaved, except for a tuft at the back, which was tied in a pony tail. The man he was working on was covered with tattoos. Hardly an inch of skin on his torso and arms had escaped the needle.
"Uh, anybody speak English?" Eliza asked timidly.
The tattooist stared at her without expression, grunted and went back to work. The needle hummed and the customer jumped as it touched his back.
"Speak Engrish a riddle bit," the tattooed man said.
"I'm looking for the Red Dragon Fireworks office," she said. "It's supposed to be here, in this building."
"Fiewooks?"
"Fireworks. Firecrackers. You know, boom, boom." She made a giant imaginary mushroom with her arms.
"Ah." He nodded and smiled and pointed toward the floor.
"Downstairs? Uh ... shita ni?" she asked.
He nodded again. "Crosed up."
"Crosed up?"
He pantomimed closing a door and locking it.
"Oh, closed up. For the night? Uh ... nasai?"
The tattooed man shook his head. "Alee time."
"Forever? For good?"
"Hai."
Great, Gunn. Down an alley in the middle of Shit City, Japan, and the store's closed. Any other bright ideas?
"Domo arigato," she said, with a tiny bow.
"Do itashimashite," he answered.
She went back outside and walked to the doorway beside the tattoo parlor. There was a red sign beside the door with gold letters, but it was in calligraphy. A light gleamed feebly inside. She tried the door. It was open. She cracked it a few inches and stuck her face up to the opening.
"Hello? Whoever you are? Are you there?"
She pushed it open a little more and went in. There was a small anteroom followed by a flight of stairs. Nobody had used this building for a very long time; refuse littered the anteroom and the steps. She walked to the head of the steps and yelled down: "Hello! Anybody there?"
Still nothing. Another weak lamp glimmered on the end of a cord hanging from the ceiling at the foot of the staircase.
Well, the note said to go down to the pier on the first floor. Let's do it, Gunn.
She started down the stairs.
Across the street, the man with the little ears stepped from a doorway. He had watched her get out and enter the tattoo shop. Now the cab driver was watching the building she had entered. He would be a nuisance. Little Ears strolled across the alley and approached the taxi from the driver's rear. As he got to the window, the driver turned and looked up at him. Little Ears struck him with his right hand, a short, straight blow with the fingertips, just below the ear. The cab driver's head jerked against the headrest, and his mouth fell open. A moment later, he crumpled in the seat.