The 47th Samurai

by Stephen Hunter

  But some of the stuff was so strange.

  In one, the hero, a dour samurai who wanders the landscape with his kid in a baby carriage, kills a guy and the dying man says happily, “At last I got to see the Soruya Horse-Slaying Technique.”

  He had really wanted to see the hero’s sword-fighting skill; it was worth his life to see it, and he felt privileged even as he bled out!

  One day there was a knock on the door. He answered it and discovered a beautiful young woman, serene, poised, possibly a little annoyed. It was his daughter.

  “Hi, sweetie. What are you doing here?”

  “The question is, what are you doing here?” Nikki said.

  “I guess Mommy gave you the address. How is she?”

  “She’s fine, she contends. That’s her talent.”

  “Right.”

  Nikki walked in as if she owned the place. She was wearing jeans and a ponytail and cowboy boots. She was twenty-three and in graduate school in New York to be a writer.

  “You were going to come visit, remember?”

  “Yeah, well, you know Pop, sometimes the old goat forgets.”

  “You never forgot a thing in your life. Daddy, what on earth? I mean, really? This Japanese thing? What on earth?”

  She looked around: the kanji composition that he had received from Philip Yano hung on one wall and on the other was a brush painting of a bird called a shrike sitting on a twisted piece of limb. There were piles of books, a huge TV and DVD player, and a hundred-odd DVDs, most with kanji lettering and pictures of lurid men in ponytails on them.

  “Do you want a Coke or anything?”

  “How about some sake? Wouldn’t that be the beverage of choice?”

  “I’m not drinking again.”

  “Well then, you’ve apparently managed to go insane without the booze.”

  “Opinions vary on that issue.”

  She sat down next to the wall.

  He sat down across from her.

  “What’s with the bird?”

  “It was painted in the year sixteen forty by a man named Miyamoto Musashi.”

  “And who was he?”

  “A samurai. The greatest, many say. He fought sixty times and won them all. I like to look at it and think about it. I like to try to understand the flow of the strokes. He also wrote the kanji over there. Do you see it?”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means ‘Steel cuts flesh / steel cuts bone / steel does not cut steel.’ It was given to me by Mr. Yano the night he and his family died.”

  “God. Do you understand how nuts you sound? Do you understand how upset Mommy is?”

  “There’s plenty of money for her. She shouldn’t have any problems.”

  “She has one huge problem. A husband who’s gone crazy.”

  “I’m not crazy.”

  “Tell me. Tell me as if it makes any sense at all. What is going on here?”

  “Sure, okay. You’ll see, it’s not so nuts. It’s all about swords.”

  “Swords.”

  “Japanese swords. ‘The soul of the samurai,’ or so they say.”

  “It sounds like you’ve started to believe all those screwball movies you have lying around.”

  “Just listen, all right? Hear me out.”

  He narrated, as plainly as possible, the events of the last few months, beginning with the arrival of the letter from the superintendent of the Marine Historical Division and ending, essentially, the minute before she knocked on the door.

  “And so you never returned to Idaho? You came here instead, and took up this life.”

  “I have principles for a hard job. One, start now. Two, work every day. Three, finish. That’s the only way you get it done and any other way is a lie. So when I got off that plane, I thought, Start now. Now. So I started.”

  “What on earth are you planning next?”

  “Well, there’ll come a time when I feel I’m ready. When I’ve learned enough to go back. Then, somehow, I’ve got to look into things, I have to make sure that some kind of justice is done.”

  “But—correct me if I’m wrong—you have no evidence whatsoever there was some foul play in the case of these poor people. I mean, fires do happen, families do die in them. It happens every week.”

  “I understand that. However, Philip Yano had an idea that the blade I brought him had some historical significance. Now, reading about this stuff, seeing how important swords still are to the Japanese, how they still dream about the damned things, how they study and practice with them, it gets damned interesting.”

  “How much are they worth? Top end?”

  “It’s not money. There would be a lot of money, yes. But to the Japanese the sword ain’t about money.”

  “Don’t say ain’t.”

  “I’m trying. It keeps creeping in. Okay, the sword isn’t about money. It’s more important than money. They have some peculiar beliefs that you would find very strange. I found them strange too. But as I learn about them, they begin to make a kind of sense. You can’t think about this as an American would. It’s a Japanese thing. It has to do with the meaning and the value of the sword, and the prestige a certain sword would have.”

  “Now here’s what someone else would say. A clinical psychologist, for example. He’d say, There was a man who was vigorous, heroic, and extraordinary, but also stubborn, obsessive, and somewhat self-indulgent. Even narcissistic. He loved the warrior reflection he saw in the mirror. He never talked about it, but he loved it. He loved the silent respect he got everywhere in life, and the way his presence could quiet the crowd with a single harsh glance. But then he got old, like all men. Suddenly, he’s facing retirement. He secretly doesn’t want to sit on that porch. And watch the seasons change and count his money. He wants a mission. He wants something to define his warrior life. He’s not the sort to go fishing. So something comes along, and using his considerable cunning and intelligence, he insists on seeing reasons, patterns, clues, hints, all kinds of things that he fancies only he, in all the world, not the professional investigators, not the fire department arson squad, none of them, can see. And it adds up to conspiracy, plots, murder, exactly the sort of thing that demands forceful action from a forceful man, a warrior. And he happens to be that forceful man. He happens to be that warrior. Do you see where this is going?”

  “I’m sorry you see it that way.”

  “There’s no other way to see it. Oh, Daddy. You’re too old. You’re slow, you’re old, it’s over. You were a great man; you can be a great old man. But don’t be the man about whom they say, No fool like an old fool.”

  “Sweetie…let’s go get some dinner or something, okay?”

  “Yes, in Idaho.”

  “No, here. We’ll get sushi.”

  “Ugh. Raw fish. Please, anything but that.”

  “I have to tell you this. There are obligations here you don’t know anything about. Deep, family obligations. Long story, no one would care, except me. But…obligations. This goes a long way back, and my father in the war, and the Japanese he fought.”

  “I wish your father had never won that medal. It has haunted you your whole life. You don’t owe the Japanese he killed a thing. It wasn’t your war.”

  “Honey, it was.”

  “You’ve seen too many of these silly movies where guys in bathrobes, flip-flops, and ponytails cut each other’s heads off.”

  “Maybe so. But to me, it feels like I’m going home.”

  “Just promise me one thing: you won’t grow a ponytail.”

  After that, it was pleasant, but Nikki felt her father’s need to return to his obsessive course, and so after dinner—she got through the sushi, somehow—she left, leaving him to his self-decreed mission.

  His days were the same. The next development was the arrival of a package with a blue label, marked SAL, from Japan, wrapped in that perfect Japanese way.

  Had he ordered something? Some book, some pamphlet? He’d bought a lot of weird stuff off the Inte
rnet, out-of-print books, Japanese sword exhibition catalogues, guides to sword fighting. But no: it was a thin package of copied documents, official in nature, no source given; they were typed in kanji with utmost precision, and included hand-drawn diagrams, badly Xeroxed and difficult to read. The whole thing had a spy quality to it; it seemed somehow illicit, the product of a penetration.

  He’d have to have someone read it to him but he knew well enough what his anonymous donor from a Tokyo post office had sent him: it was the Yanos’ autopsy report.

  16

  KIRISUTE GOMEN

  Nii handled the negotiations because, even among the most trusted, most senior of the 8-9-3 Brotherhood, Kondo Isami would not show his face.

  Nii met with Boss Otani in the latter’s office suite, a corner of a tall building in West Shinjuku, the fifty-fifth floor. The office was luxuriously appointed as befitted a man of Boss Otani’s accomplishment: he controlled much of the action in Kabukicho, more than a hundred clubs. He employed in his main group and in several subgroups one hundred of the fiercest yaks in all of Tokyo, men who would die for him instantly. He owned a controlling interest in three gambling syndicates, the north and west sides of the Tokyo amphetamine franchise, and more than a thousand prostitutes. He himself had killed many times on the way to his current lofty position.

  It helped, of course, that at one time his ascent had been blocked by a certain ambitious boss in another organization, who could not be reached and who waged a terrifying war on Boss Otani. This man’s gang of killers had left Boss with the hundred-stitch scar that ran from his nipple to his hip. It was then that the boss made the acquaintance, anonymously, of Kondo Isami of Shinsengumi. In a week, the boss’s rival dropped by for a tête-à-tête. Boss Otani did most of the talking, for of the two têtes, his was the one still attached to a neck.

  In black suit and somber mien, young Nii tried not to pay attention to the Tokyo skyline, which stretched to the horizon outside the fifty-fifth-floor window. It was, nevertheless, truly magnificent, the double towers of the Tokyo municipal government buildings, the fabled Hyatt hotel made famous in a movie, the cheesy Washington Hotel, which Boss Otani partially owned.

  “Man or woman?” said the boss.

  “It doesn’t matter, Oyabun,” said Nii, careful to use the term of respect.

  “What does matter?”

  “Corpulence. He wants a tubby one. He likes a certain density of flesh.”

  “What happened to your head, young man?”

  Nii’s left eye was still swollen shut. It looked like someone had puttied a large grapefruit to the left side of his face and the grapefruit had begun to rot and turn weird tones of purple that were shot with veins of red and smears of green-blue.

  “It was unfortunate,” said Nii. “I forgot to duck.”

  “I hope whoever had the temerity to strike such an important man paid for it.”

  “He did. Most quickly, Oyabun.”

  “Were you the author of this justice?”

  “No sir. Kondo-san himself was. It was magnificent. I have never seen such speed.”

  “Did you learn from Kondo-san?”

  “I believe so.”

  “You are quite lucky to have encountered such a wakagashira, a young boss, so early in your life. Study hard, kobun. Acquire knowledge and experience and give yourself over. You will prosper, or die gloriously.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Anyway, a fat one?”

  “A jelly-belly. You can see why.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  The older man, whose face looked like a Kabuki mask shaped to express decadent rage, punched an intercom button, and another man in an exquisitely tailored black silk suit, came in. He wore horn-rims and had neat hair. He bowed deeply before his employer and spiritual leader.

  “Yes, Otani-san?”

  “I require a woman.”

  “Certainly, Otani-san.”

  “She needn’t be a beauty. She needn’t be a top producer. In fact, it’s probably best if she’s not. She should, of course, be a guest worker. She should have no family in this country. She should have no reputation, no charisma, so that when her circumstances alter, her absence does not cause comment. She must live alone, she must work a very late shift. She must have no bad habits or infections of any kind.”

  “There are dozens of such candidates. Alas, none of them live alone. At the rate they are paid, none can afford to live alone. Plus, one of every group, sometimes two, must report secretly to their bosses.”

  “I understand. So be it,” said Nii. “He would consider it an acceptable risk.”

  “Yes, and if there’s fuss, the remaining hens can be plucked too.”

  “At the Club Marvelous, the guest workers are Korean ladies. They tend to corpulence and keep to themselves when not in the club. One of them should suffice. What is the timing to be, sir?”

  “Nii?”

  “Oh, sooner rather than later. He wants this cutting test done, and then the restoration must begin and that will take some time. We must be ready by December.”

  “Did you hear?”

  “I did,” said the factotum. “I will supply name, time, route home. I assume Kondo-san prefers his pleasure at night? Things are much easier to arrange at night. We own the night.”

  “He would prefer daylight, of course,” said Nii, “for more exact details are revealed. But he understands the impossible cannot be done. Night is acceptable.”

  “Who disposes?” said Boss Otani.

  “It’s certain to be unpleasant. Perhaps the testers should provide disposal,” said the factotum.

  “Nii?”

  “Yes. We’ll dispose.”

  “Good. Then it is settled.” He addressed Nii. “Tomorrow you call the Club Marvelous and the manager will supply you with the details.”

  “Kondo-san thanks his friend and mentor,” said Nii.

  “I would do any favor for Kondo Isami,” said Boss Otani.

  The Korean woman left much later than her sisters. They got off at five and walked, en masse, to the subway station at Shinjuku. It wasn’t the danger, for Kabukicho was patrolled by police and yaks, both intent on crushing disturbances, who kept the crime rate to almost nil. However, unpleasantness could occur if a single woman met a group of men. Westerners were the worst, especially the Canadians and the Texans, though Germans occasionally acted out as well, and some nasty Iranians might be encountered. If the men were drunk and horny and angry, and had received the age-old message “For Japanese men only” in many bars, it could be awkward for everybody and end with teeth knocked out, eyes blackened, feelings ruffled.

  But on this night the woman, a corpulent enough country girl from outside Pusan, had been stopped unaccountably by her boss. She had been quizzed about another girl, who was suspected of sleeping with westerners on her own (rare) spare time. All proceeds must be generously shared with management and a strict no-freelancing rule was enforced.

  But this woman did not room with the suspect, so what was the point? It made no sense to her and cut into the five hours she had off, and she had now missed the 5:40 a.m. train and another wouldn’t depart until 6:10 a.m.

  She hurried alone across the splotches of illumination, the dark shadows of Kabukicho, as dawn approached and another night of expensively purchased sin put itself to sleep. She headed east down Hanazono Dori, heading toward Shinjuku station. Her cheap wood-soled sandals clattered on the empty street as she rushed, the clubs now mostly deserted, the barkers gone, the sailors headed back to the harbor, the airmen to the air bases, the tourists to their giant hotels. It was the hour of the hare.

  The street, which drew its name from a shrine a few blocks behind her, was featureless in the low light. She didn’t like this part of the walk; she focused on the brighter lights of a major cross street ahead.

  And then she saw—hmmm, a blur, a move, some kind of disturbance—and, with it, heard a rustle, a shift, a clunk, some weird night noise that had bu
t one characteristic, that it didn’t belong.

  She turned, looked back into the blur of countless vertical signs, brightly lit from within, blazing into infinity. The rain spattered on her glasses. She drew her cheap raincoat more tightly against her, annoyed that it was useless against the sudden chill. It was probably nothing, but she felt that someone was waiting for her just ahead. You could never be sure, and she had so much responsibility, she could not afford to be robbed or injured. She hurried back along Hanazono Dori, hoping to get to a large avenue that would still be populated, like Yasukuni Dori.

  And where were the cops? Normally, she hated the police cars, particularly the sullen young officers who looked at her as if she were a member of the herbivore kingdom, but now she wished she saw the red light of official presence. Nope, nothing. Not far off she saw the jagged skyline of East Shinjuku, lit with spangles of illumination, promising a new world order or something.

  Her life was crap and would never be anything but crap. She worked for next to no money under tight supervision, giving hand jobs and blow jobs and greek the night long. She had absorbed enough Japanese sperm to float a battleship. On a good month, she scraped together a few thousand yen to send back to Korea, where her mother, her father, and her nine brothers and sisters depended upon her. She suspected that it was her father who had secretly sold her to the Japanese man, but family loyalty was nevertheless something she felt powerfully, a Confucian conceit that gave everything she did the faintest buzz of virtue. It meant that in the next life she would be something higher, better, easier.

  She turned back, to check again. It was then that she saw the two men. They were in the shadows, moving stealthily, matching her movements, but when her eyes fastened on them, they froze, almost melting into nothingness like skilled Red guerrillas. She stared and in seconds lost their outline. Were they really there? Was she dreaming this?

  “Hey,” she called in her heavily accented, grammatically fractured Japanese. “Who you? What want? You go away, you no hurt me.”