Cash Cassidy Adventures: The Complete 5-Book Series (Plus Bonus Novels)

by K. T. Tomb

  Savannah’s tone betrayed that she was still in a pretty bad mood with him.

  “Ok, we’ll do that. Sounds perfect!” Travis knew from Savannah’s face he was trying too hard. “How do we get the sellers to tell us anything, though? We can’t just walk in and say ‘Hi guys, konichiwa, don’t suppose you know that this amethyst is probably illegally obtained, by the way, who sold this to you?”

  That got a laugh out of her, at least.

  “Travis, you really have no idea on how to lie to people, do you? We pose as investors, or wealthy buyers. We have Thyri’s credit cards, and it’s not like we’ll be able to take anything we buy out of the country, so we can return it or sell it before we leave Japan. If we throw enough Yen at the problem, it’ll at least give us some clues.”

  “Or provide us with more problems.” Travis said darkly, as he sipped on his coca-cola and wished it was a Shiraz. “Remember that we still need to find this Kinagawa, or his descendants, to have any hope of recovering the deeds to the mine, which we also don’t know the location of. I think maybe we should split up; one of us searches for Kinagawa, and one does the amethyst buying.”

  Savannah snorted at him.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot, Travis? I left you for one night and you got drunk and nearly blew our flights. You stick with me. Besides which, you don’t speak Japanese.”

  Travis wanted to argue the point, but Savannah was right. He knew no conversational Japanese at all, nor did he know how many people here spoke English; what was sure was that the phrase ‘amethyst mine’ was not going to be on the average person’s vocabulary list. Savannah had clearly not quite forgiven him for getting drunk again, so he tried to look as contrite as possible. Bed was his main priority, his only desire now. All other concerns could wait until morning.

  Chapter Six

  Three days. Three days of endlessly trawling in the old quarter of Tochigi, with no results to show from it apart from increasingly frayed tempers, had left Savannah demoralized and Travis itching for a drink.

  It seemed to them that every single antiques dealer and curiosity shop was selling pieces of amethyst—their hotel rooms were getting quite cluttered with the stuff—but no one would tell them where it came from. Amethyst in statues, amethyst in necklaces, rings and bangles, raw amethyst, uncut and natural, but none of it was the Deep Russian quality. The trail was cold, or if not cold, suffering from hypothermia at the very best.

  On a whim, and at much protesting from Savannah who only relented when Travis pointed out that doing things her way had not yielded any results, the fifth day of their adventure in Japan was spent searching the graveyards of Tochigi, looking for clues to either Kanagawa or the Namarisawa family. A city the size of Tochigi had several large grave yards, and Travis was relentless in his pursuit. He knew that if this search turned up nothing, Savannah would have them antique shopping again in no time. Travis had no idea how Adam stayed sane working as he did with antiques. Travis could see their value, but quite often the trinkets had no particular relevance to the spirit of the culture that they came from. They told him nothing, except that the artisans who made them were skilled. The pieces that mattered to him were far older, from before the times when humans could simply write down their history. Those antiques told stories.

  It was getting late in the afternoon, and they had already visited two cemeteries when the first bit of luck came their way. It had been painfully slow going, with Savannah progressively getting more exhausted and miserable with the rigors of translating the Japanese script marking the names of the deceased, when in the third cemetery they encountered a teenage boy around fourteen, lighting some incense at a shrine. Savannah’s eyes scanned the engraved kanji on the shrine, and whispered “Namarisawa” in Travis’ ear. The boy clearly had very keen hearing, as he turned slowly to them. He bowed slightly and Savannah and Travis returned the gesture, a little stilted still with the unfamiliar courtesy.

  Then to Travis’ surprise, he spoke in slightly accented but otherwise perfect English.

  “Excuse me, but how do you know of my ancestor?”

  “I’m not sure if it is your ancestor that we know of,” Travis said, “we have been hired to find out what we can about a Mr. Namarisawa who owned a mine here, a long time ago.”

  They boy looked at him uncertainly.

  “This is he. This is the Namarisawa grave, inside lay the ashes of Akira Namarisawa, and his wife Yuki. I am the great-great grandson of Tetsuo Namarisawa, his brother. My name is Ryo Suzuki.”

  Travis couldn’t quite figure out what relationship that made him to Miya Richards, it was something like a second cousin twice removed. Genealogy was never his strong suit. He smiled at the boy.

  “Hi, Ryo. I am Travis, and this is Savannah. Did you know that you have relatives in America? Descendants of Akira Namarisawa are the ones who sent us here.”

  “Hmm. You should go back to America, Travis. The mine was just an old story, it doesn’t exist.”

  “We think there might be something in the story, or at least our client, your relative, does. Do you know of a family called Kinagawa?” Savannah said.

  Travis gritted his teeth; he would rather not have brought the family who destroyed the lives of the Namarisawas into the conversation; not yet. Ryo seemed to agree, his eyes blazed with what looked like resentment and anger.

  “Yes, I know. We stay out of their way. We know what they did, and it was for nothing. There is no mine, it was just something that the Namarisawas made up to have Akira executed for treason. They said Akira was keeping money for himself and not paying taxes, defrauding the Emperor. He was just a business man, my grandfather said. My family never recovered from losing all our businesses to the Kinagawas, and we’ve always lived with the shame.”

  The boy looked crestfallen, although the events that he felt pain over occurred decades before he was born.

  “When I am older, I am going to reclaim my family’s honor and make us prosperous again. Not here though. Tochigi is owned by the Kinagawas. I can’t wait to leave.”

  Savannah pressed on, “You know of the Kinagawas? Do you know where they are?”

  Ryo laughed bitterly. “Of course, everyone knows. Most of the property in town is owned by them, most of the small businesses have to deal with them for just about everything. Have you seen the advertisements for Himiko Corporation goods?”

  Savannah and Travis shook their heads; they had been far too focused on finding amethysts and graves to pay attention to the overhead sign boards.

  “Well, that’s them. They have a building in town, but you do not want to go there asking about the Namarisawa family, I can tell you. My uncle did just that, years ago before I was born, and he was never seen again.”

  Travis considered the boy’s tale. Could it be true? It sounded ridiculous. The darkening skies seemed to add to Ryo’s ominous story. A company, running a town from behind the scenes, it wasn’t unheard of for businesses to deal in multiple sectors, and Ryo was clearly a biased source of information. Still, it didn’t bring them any closer to finding the mine, and Travis certainly didn’t want to get embroiled in what seemed like a long running family dispute. A thought nagged at his mind until it formed into a question.

  “Ryo, if there was no amethyst mine, why is Tochigi so full of amethyst jewelry? It has to come from somewhere, right?” Ryo looked unfazed.

  “My mother said that it’s just because amethyst is preferred to jade in this area, lots of artisans import it from Brazil now, it’s cheap and tourists like to buy it because of the Amethyst Temple in Nikko.”

  “Amethyst Temple?” Savannah said, “What’s that?”

  “It’s in all the tourist guides, you must have seen them. There are lots of temples in Nikko, some of the oldest in Japan. Nikko is up in the mountains, not far from here. The myths say that the gods lived in a great temple there, right at the top of the tallest mountain. The monks moved there to be close to the gods, and made lots of statues for them with am
ethyst eyes, or something like that. There are loads of monkeys up there too, that’s the only reason I go. I caught one once, but he bit me. I was only little then.” The boy grinned at the memory. “The monkeys look friendly, but that’s because they are beggars.”

  Rain began to fall and Ryo said he had to get home; he had stayed out too long as it was. Savannah managed to get his telephone number and a promise that they could meet and talk to his mother, perhaps the next day. Ryo left, and the skies opened fully, dumping heavy rain on the woefully underprepared adventurers.

  “What did you make of that?” said Travis. “It’s a crazy story. I can’t quite seem to believe that it’s all true.”

  “Most of the myths that we think are crazy stories now had a basis in truth once,” Savannah said. “What we need to do is separate the truth from myth. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to see this Himiko Corporation for ourselves.”

  “Agreed, it’s ridiculous that a business of that size would dirty its hands with murder, or at least abduction. Still, it doesn’t answer the question of the amethyst mine itself. I’m quite interested to meet Ryo’s mother. Something about this doesn’t quite add up.”

  Travis and Savannah walked down the hill, back towards the hotel, their minds growing increasingly full of questions that seemed to present no answers.

  Chapter Seven

  FROM: s.summers@adventuresinc.org

  TO: tragnarsson@lothbrukinvestments.com

  SUBJECT: Report 6, Tochigi

  Thyri,

  Still stymied as to veracity of amethyst mine claim. We met a local boy, apparently a distant relative of client. Seems like there is a long standing feud between the descendants of the Namarisawas and the Kinagawas—which reminds me, please have a word with your “contacts” and see what they can get us on the Himiko Corporation. Apparently it is owned by the Kinagawas; if there’s anything suspect about them, I’d like to know. We’re going to check them out tomorrow, see if there’s anything we can find out before we go to Nikko on Tuesday, which at this time looks like the best lead to find out where all this amethyst is coming from, if it is indeed produced domestically.

  Later as we find out.

  RE: Travis.

  He’s putting up a good front, but the withdrawals are affecting him quite a lot. He’s barely eating, and his eyes keep glazing over. I was expecting the mood swings, but he’s really off his game. If it was up to me I’d ditch this whole thing and stick him in rehab to dry out properly, but I’ll follow your direction. If he falls off the wagon while we’re here, I will have no choice but to cancel this whole thing, especially if the Himiko Corp turns out to be rotten.

  Are you sure this was such a good idea?

  Get back to me with the information requested as soon as you can,

  Savannah.

  Chapter Eight

  The Himiko Corporation offices were much like any other in Tochigi.

  Unlike the skyscrapers and office blocks that grew like forests in Tokyo, Tochigi prefecture was decidedly a rural area, with few buildings over half a dozen stories tall. Travis had to admit he liked the aesthetic of the building, relatively low-tech save for the magnetic security door at the entrance and the ubiquitous security cameras. The receptionist sat behind a simple, functional wooden desk which Travis guessed was made from cedar. Behind her, affixed to the wall, lay a map of Honshu Island which, with a legend in English and Japanese, detailed the spread of the Himiko Corporation’s holdings and interests. He didn’t know exactly how big Tochigi Prefecture was, but there were dozens of tiny inscriptions denoting interests in timber, exports, plastics and technology businesses as well as many others. Savannah had decided that their best plan of action here would be to straight out ask the Kinagawas about amethyst mining, if they could see them at all, and see where the dice fell.

  Travis didn’t like it, but was unable to provide a superior course of action; besides which, he wasn’t entirely sure that Savannah had returned him to her good graces as yet, so he thought it was best to go along with it. Savannah spoke briefly with the pretty young Japanese girl at the reception desk, who in turn spoke into an intercom, and gestured for the two Americans to take seats on a pair of comfortable chairs next to some kind of verdant greenhouse plant with broad leaves. Travis was still studying it with limited interest when the receptionist attracted their attention and showed them upstairs, past several closed doors with plaques written solely in kanji to a spacious meeting room on the second floor.

  The room was entirely incongruous with the stylistic concept of what they had seen in the rest of the building. Pure white walls, with a large touch screen computer set into one, a curiously shaped white table that was clearly vacuum molded but looked like it had been carved from pure white marble by the powers of erosion alone and then topped with an impossibly thin oval of synthetic material. The table was clearly not designed so much for practicality as for its decorative qualities. Travis assumed that this room was where the Kinagawas met people to impress on them their high tastes, although the room might be a little more fitting to the top penthouse of the Docomo Yoyogi building in Tokyo than a four story office complex in Tochigi. Travis was just about to comment to Savannah about the possible delusions of grandeur inherent in the design of such a room, when a second door on the far side of the room opened, and a tall, impeccably dressed Japanese man in his late forties or early fifties entered.

  “Konichiwa,” he said, in a deep voice that belied his slim frame, “Greetings. My name is Hando Kinagawa. I am president here at Himiko Corporation, Tochigi. My secretary tells me that you have some interest in our business. Of course, I will be only too delighted to answer any inquiries from honored visitors to my country.”

  His accent was barely noticeable, but Travis thought he heard the tell-tale clipping that came from one learning English on the east coast of the United States, probably Boston.

  “Hello, Kanagawa-San,” Savannah bowed as she spoke.

  Travis was awkwardly trying his best to copy her.

  “This is Travis Monahan and I am Savannah Summers. We are geologists from the University of California, Los Angeles. We are honored that you have taken the time to speak to us on short notice.”

  “It is my pleasure, although, I am confused as to why geologists would be interested in Himiko. We do not have many interests in your field of study.” Kanagawa folded his hands and smiled politely.

  Travis felt distinctly under-dressed for the occasion in his crumpled shirt, stubble and jeans.

  “Well, you do have interests in quartz mining here in Tochigi Prefecture, and we’d like to know more about the geological topography from someone in the know, as it were,” Savannah smoothly replied. “We’re especially interested in similar silicon-oxygen tetrahedral deposits in Japan, how much the deposits are, where they are, and so on.”

  Kanagawa’s smile seemed to waver slightly, but remained in its fixed, friendly position.

  “Well, Ms. Summers, as you know so much about my company, you may be aware that we only use quartz for electronics, so I am, unfortunately, unaware of the exact details of the geological make-up of the area. Japan has very strict environmental legislation on mining; for over a hundred years since the Ashio copper mine incident, and especially now since Fukushima... it is difficult to mine anything. I would advise you speak to the Geological Survey of Japan, they have offices in Tokyo. Now, if you would excuse me, I must get back to my business. It was a pleasure to meet you. My secretary will show you out. Please, take my business card, if I can help you any further.”

  Kinagawa gave a cursory bow and exited the room as the same young secretary from the front desk entered, and politely ushered Savannah and Travis out.

  Outside the Himiko Corporation offices, rain was falling gently from slate autumnal skies. Savannah pointed out a noodle shop across the street, and the two lecturers quickly crossed and entered. Travis ordered food, but by the time they had found a place to sit in the crowded restaurant, filled with
people escaping the rain like them, he noticed that Savannah had not said one word.

  “Okay Sav, what have I done now?” He was getting pretty sick of the silent treatment.

  “Guilty conscience, have you?” Savannah smiled at him, “For once, it’s not about you. Did you pay any attention at all to what was said in there? Or rather, what wasn’t said?”

  “Can’t say that I did. How do you know so much about quartz anyway?” Travis was silently impressed with Savannah’s ability to speak competently on things that were wildly outside of her field of study.

  “For a university lecturer, you really don’t read much. We do have Wi-Fi in the hotel rooms, you know. That’s not important, anyway. Kinagawa cut the meeting short as soon as I asked him about quartz, you must know that amethyst is a kind of quartz, right? Good. Why would he do that? Only if he had something to hide.”

  Savannah looked infuriatingly pleased with herself, but Travis had to admit that she was probably right.

  “So, what’s the next step, genius?”

  He smiled to let her know it was in good humor.

  “Ryo Suzuki; we should talk to his family. And then check out this Nikko place and see the Amethyst Temple.”

  Finishing their noodles, which were far better than the slightly run down restaurant would suggest, Travis and Savannah wound their way back through the market quarter of Tochigi where they had spent so much time acquiring curios during their first few days. As they were crossing a street, Travis heard the high-pitched whine of over-revved motorcycles approaching from his right. His higher cognitive functions were still mulling the possibility that Kinagawa was really hiding something, but his instincts were for once sharp enough to grab Savannah by the arm and sprint for the far curb across the road. Rubber screeched on the wet tarmac, and as Savannah cried out in surprise he braced himself for the crunching metal crash he was sure would occur.