Falling From the Floating World

by Nick Hurst

  ‘What do you mean? This is my rest week, Kumichō said.’

  ‘Rest at Horitoku’s – your appointment’s in half an hour.’

  I cursed as I hung up. It would surely be easier for everyone if they could just give me advance warning. I grabbed my jacket and made for the door.

  I went to the passenger door of Sumida’s car and my heart sank. I got in the rear instead and was met by one of Sumida’s understated greetings and the silent back of Kurotaki’s head. The tension didn’t lessen when we set off – Sumida’s taciturn nature wasn’t the ideal foil for gliding through mildly awkward situations, let alone times like these.

  Kurotaki appeared to be simmering quietly, but after a few minutes he decided to break the mood with his unique brand of charm.

  ‘What’s this shit?’

  ‘“Grateful Days” by Dragon Ash. It’s a hip-hop tune from way back.’

  ‘It’s shit.’

  Sumida was unmoved. ‘When you do me a favour and give me a lift, you can play whatever you want.’

  Kurotaki grunted, his need to let out his bile ominously unfulfilled.

  ‘Fucking slut.’

  I had no intention of responding. I wanted nothing to do with him.

  ‘Fucking slut!’

  Sumida finally reacted to the implicit demand for a response.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That slut over there.’

  Kurotaki pointed over the crossroads we were held at towards an elegant Japanese girl and her well-dressed gaijin boyfriend.

  ‘What else can you say about a girl that lets herself get fucked by a gaijin? Dirty whore. No offence.’

  The last words were directed at me and just as intended there was offence. I bristled at the slight levelled my way, the gaijin he was really referring to. But my real fury was for Tomoe and the slur aimed at her. Having failed to protect her in person, my urge to defend her honour was more powerful than I would have thought. I battled against it and this time managed to swallow my anger before it raged to my mouth. There was nothing I could do now. I needed to put my feelings aside until a time I could act.

  ‘You can let me out here,’ grunted Kurotaki, getting out without another word and slamming the door.

  I moved to the front seat and seethed in silence.

  ‘So, have you found out what you need to, for whatever you have to do?’ asked Sumida, interrupting my thoughts of revenge.

  ‘Apparently,’ I said, my anger latching on to this festering irritation. ‘Although I don’t know what I’m supposed to have found out and I have no idea what I’m going to be made to do.’

  Sumida smiled. I assumed it was at Takata’s guile rather than my plight.

  ‘Don’t worry about it – he’ll have all the angles covered. Just keep watching him. You’ll soon know.’

  ‘How long have you been a yakuza?’ I asked, suddenly curious about him.

  ‘Nine years,’ he said. ‘I joined from a biker gang. We were a bunch of arseholes, to be honest. We didn’t give a shit about anything – we did whatever we wanted to do. But you can only get away with that so long without stepping on other people’s toes. I was caught dealing meth in Takata-gumi territory. They slapped me around a bit and told me I could join them, leave town or be killed.’

  ‘And what do you want? I mean, how long are you going to keep doing this?’

  He looked puzzled by the question. ‘Forever – who else is going to employ me now? In any case, I get girls when I want them and make as much money as I can spend. Why would I want to change? There are plenty of opportunities in the yakuza as long as you’ve got balls and a semblance of a brain. I keep my head down and my eyes and ears open. I’ll be ready when my chances come.’

  He fell silent again. He was probably as surprised as me by how much he’d said.

  ‘What about Kumichō? How did he get to where he is?’

  ‘Kumichō? He’s old-school.’

  His attention was caught by a fleck of dust on the dashboard that didn’t exist. He brushed it away.

  ‘He was born around the end of the war. You wouldn’t believe it to look at him now but he came up in hard times – he had to fight for everything he’s got. Back then there were hardly any guns, it was all hand-to-hand, vicious stuff, and Kumichō was meant to be the most ferocious of them all. There are all sorts of stories. He’s meant to have ripped the voice box out of one guy and gouged the eyeballs out of another, all in the same fight.’

  I shivered. I felt I now knew more about Takata than I needed to, but Sumida was like a monk breaking his vows.

  ‘Then he got put away for a murder. It wasn’t actually him – it was the boss of the time, Dewaya’s, back when we were known as the Dewaya-kai. But taking someone else’s sentence was a good way to earn your spurs, especially if it was the kumichō’s – you’d get a certain promotion for that. I think he did it for other reasons though. Apparently, there was a lot of internal positioning as Dewaya grew old. Kumichō thought he’d let them weaken each other with in-fighting and clean up when he came out.

  ‘When he was released he took his own sub-crew and moved through Tokyo, kicking out anyone who stood in his way. With his success, the fear-factor and everything else, he wasn’t challenged when Dewaya stepped down. That’s when we became the Takata-gumi.’

  So Sumida was keeping his counsel while he learned, but he clearly had his sights set higher for when Takata was no longer around. He might have been below Kurotaki at that moment but if I was going to put money on anyone for the long-term, it would have been him.

  ‘Come on, get out – we’re here,’ he said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘You’ve got a four-hour session. Look out for me when you’re done.’

  I just about held back a string of obscenities. It turned out that while the outline had been inked with a machine, the shading was to be done by tebori, literally to ‘hand-carve’. Horitoku didn’t go as far as chisel into me but considering the tool he was using he might as well have. It looked like a slim, flat-ended paintbrush, but in place of bristles at its tip, needles were bound to a metal stem with red silk thread. He punched it into my skin with alarming speed and as he jabbed and flicked the tool made a disturbing sound, somewhere between the click of knitting needles and a barber’s scissors’ snip. It felt just like being stabbed with a needle-tipped paintbrush.

  ‘The girl,’ I said, looking for distractions. ‘Make her pretty please. As close to Tomoe as you can.’

  He stopped.

  ‘Of course she’ll be pretty,’ he said sharply. ‘She’ll be the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen. You think you’ve got an amateur on the job?’

  I apologised. It was the horimono equivalent of questioning Hokusai. Even if I wasn’t obliged to show respect where it was due, the conversation with Sumida was fresh in my mind.

  ‘I just meant that ukiyo-e, it was incredibly beautiful, but, um … they never managed to make the girls look quite as good.’

  ‘Maybe they had different criteria for what they considered beautiful then.’

  ‘Maybe. I still can’t help thinking they were better at mythical creatures and landscapes.’

  ‘Well, keep pondering on that and don’t concern yourself with me,’ he said as he resumed the assault. ‘I’m tattooing the likeness of Ka-chan – I wouldn’t make her anything less than perfect. She’ll be so beautiful you’ll wish you had her on your chest so you could see her every morning when you shave.’

  It was good enough for me.

  ‘By the way,’ I started again with an unasked question from my last visit. ‘Do you know why Kumichō is making me have a tattoo? Not that there’s any reason I shouldn’t,’ I added hastily. ‘It’s just you said fewer yakuza are having them now so they can’t be as easily identified.’

  ‘Maybe he thought you needed some encouragement to identify yourself,’ he replied. ‘But he loves ukiyo-e and horimono in any case. I did his bodysuit and he often drops by to see the latest work.’

  Th
e thought made him wistful.

  ‘It’s a shame, the decline in yakuza clients. I could relate to them, I understood what they did. Everything’s changing. An “IT consultant” started coming recently – I’ve got no idea what that even is. He seems a nice enough guy but I can hardly understand a word that he says.’

  He drifted into his reveries. My focus was on pain. Rather than becoming numbed my skin seemed to hurt more with fatigue, the instrument of torture not only needle-sharp but now red-hot as well. I craved the short pauses between attacks where excess ink was wiped away with a soothing damp tissue and became increasingly despairing at their end. A thought distracted me.

  ‘Do you know Fujiwara Daisuke?’ I asked, wondering if the floating world winds might allow their whispers to drift my way.

  ‘No,’ he replied bluntly. ‘Why?’

  I deliberated a moment. I was talking to a man who did tattoos for the Takata-gumi and was close to Takata himself. Opening up didn’t seem to be the best way to keep something quiet. Then again, there was something about him that made me think he could keep a confidence, especially if he thought it would help Tomoe. I didn’t have any other ways to get a break.

  ‘I wanted to speak to him. I think he’s linked to Tomoe’s disappearance.’

  He grunted and stabbed my back.

  ‘I know of him but I don’t know him. The kabuki actors are still part of our world, but the TV and film guys – they’ve got one foot out.’

  ‘Ow!’

  I reacted to a particularly brutal attack on my shoulder blade. He ignored me and jabbed at the same spot again.

  ‘Now, why would you think he’s part of the business with Ka-chan?’

  He might have had my limited trust but I wasn’t going to expose Tatsuzan.

  ‘His name came up.’

  ‘Well, if I’m not mistaken he’s under the management of the Tasogare Talent Group,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right. I tried calling his agent but she wouldn’t put me through.’

  ‘Mm. Well, be careful how you go there – they’re owned by the Ginzo-kai.’

  There they were again. Every place I wanted to go seemed to have them waiting behind the door, something that was particularly inconvenient considering they topped the list of people who wanted me dead.

  It suggested it may have been their boss at the sumō meeting. That made sense – I imagined he was one of the very few people with the clout to argue with Takata. It also implied they were no longer on good terms. And if your enemy’s enemy is your friend, this might mean Takata didn’t want me killed. It was a rare ray of light, especially now I knew his methods of dealing with people he did want to harm.

  ‘So why didn’t you get through? You strike me as a resourceful kind of guy.’

  ‘I’m a gaijin nobody, he’s a superstar. If he doesn’t want to speak to me, what can I do?’

  ‘Why didn’t you get Ka-chan to help?’

  At times it seemed like I was on a different wavelength to everyone I’d recently met.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean?’

  ‘Your girlfriend is one of the most admired and respected people in the floating world. You might be inconsequential, but the name Katsuyama opens a lot of doors.’

  ELEVEN

  ‘I represent Katsuyama II. Would you please have Fujiwara-san call me as soon as he returns.’

  There wasn’t much she could do faced with the newfound authority in my voice. This wasn’t the request of a nobody. It was an equal making a demand.

  ‘But—’

  I cut her off by leaving my number.

  ‘Please have him call me as soon as he can,’ I said and hung up.

  Two minutes later my mobile rang.

  ‘I’m told you represent Katsuyama-san?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said brusquely. It was petty but I’d had enough of being the begging boy – someone else could make an effort for once.

  ‘And what is it you want with me?’

  ‘I’d like to meet up. There were some loose ends left when Katsuyama went away and your name’s come up more than once. I thought I should check with you before things went any further.’

  It was a gamble but either he had enough of an involvement to be worried by this or he didn’t, in which case there was no point meeting up.

  ‘It’s not going to be easy,’ he said, sounding blasé. ‘My schedule’s incredibly busy. When were you thinking?’

  ‘Sometime this afternoon or the evening at the latest – it needs to be soon.’

  We’d see how relaxed he really was.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ he said, not sounding particularly happy at the demand.

  I heard him cover the phone, muffling the voices that followed.

  ‘This evening then,’ he said. ‘Come to my place in Omotesandō.’

  I took a right out of the station down Omotesandō Dōri and then turned left, away from the designer boutiques and into quiet side roads. They were similar to the others in this castle-town of a city, but differed in their refinement and expense. Fujiwara’s place was hidden at the end of an alley that came off a crescent. It had a particularly luxurious air.

  I rang the bell and after being quizzed briefly I was buzzed in. The gate opened to reveal a small but well-proportioned garden surrounding a building that oozed money rather than charm. A maid was waiting at the door, and after fussing over me for a moment, she led me through a white-walled hallway into a large, coldly minimalist room.

  ‘Thank you for coming at such short notice,’ said Fujiwara, rising from the sofa. Considering I’d been the one who demanded the meeting, it was an obvious attempt at gaining control. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  There was nothing one could immediately single out for criticism. He was handsome, his hair was perfectly styled and his clothes looked like they came from all the right shops. But something about him was too obvious, as though he took his tips from watch ads in glossy magazines. I may have backed down to Takata and Kurotaki but I wasn’t going to defer to any alpha-male business from him.

  ‘I’ll have a glass of cognac,’ I said. ‘Hine, if you’ve got it, but if not something else nice. It’s been a long day.’

  He tried to give me a strong look but it wasn’t up to recent standards. I ignored it and he nodded to the maid who scurried from the room.

  ‘So what it is you want to clarify?’ he asked in a more haughty tone. ‘It’s been a busy day for me too and I have further appointments after yours.’

  Again there was nothing I could put my finger on, but it seemed as though with this his true colours shone through. Or perhaps it was me. He wasn’t only film-star good-looking, he was talented – I’d checked him out on Wikipedia – and there was a possibility he’d slept with Tomoe as well. Jealousy doesn’t make for a good judge. I decided I disliked him all the same.

  ‘Katsuyama-san came to see you before she went away,’ I said.

  ‘She did,’ he agreed.

  ‘She wanted to talk to you about the sumō meeting,’ I added, hoping the fewer blanks there appeared to be, the more he’d fill in.

  ‘She did.’

  He wasn’t really playing his part.

  ‘So why were you there with him?’

  He looked at me slightly intrigued. Perhaps it was a different line of questioning to Tomoe’s.

  ‘My agency had a couple of ringside boxes and offered one to him. Their relationship’s been getting stronger recently and I suppose they wanted to encourage that. His meeting with Takata was already arranged, but I think he felt it would be more natural to go backstage with someone like me.’

  ‘Someone like you?’

  He looked at me in exasperation.

  ‘An actor.’

  I looked back blankly.

  ‘Actors, rikishi, artists, writers – we’re all part of the floating world.’

  I smiled. He didn’t know he only had associate status.

  ‘With me being part of the ukiyo, it
was only natural I accompanied him behind the scenes.’

  This was all well and good but it was getting me no closer to knowing who ‘he’ was. Asking would have given my ignorance away.

  ‘Why’s his relationship been getting closer with your agency?’

  ‘It’s been that way since Kōda died. I imagine it will be until another kuromaku appears.’

  Christ. Instead of the name I needed, I was hit with a barrage of other information. Now I needed to look into ‘Kōda’ and find out what a kuromaku was.

  ‘Onishi had visited the studio before but very rarely. It was only when Kōda died that he started to come more often. He’d meet Yabu – Tokyo boss of the Ginzo-kai – there.’

  Finally, among all of this, he had a name. Onishi. But it didn’t make sense. Why would the Education Minister be mixed up in this? His only claim to fame I knew of was his controversial revision of the history curriculum. Short of having the Chinese bomb Pearl Harbor it was difficult to see how it could be portrayed in a more nationalist light.

  ‘You’re close to Onishi then?’ I asked, trying to keep him talking.

  For a split-second his studied mask of nonchalance slipped and a look of terror flashed across his eyes. Almost immediately, he reorganised his face.

  ‘I wouldn’t say close; we’re acquainted. But anyway,’ he hurried on, ‘in a break I took him to the changing area where he met up with Takata. And that’s it. That’s all I know – your people know a lot more.’

  If that was true, what had worried him into meeting me?

  ‘But I don’t know exactly what happened at the meeting.’

  ‘Your boss does. You can ask him.’

  ‘He’s a busy man. And maybe he would tell me something different to what you told To— Katsuyama. So can you tell me what you told her please?’

  But something had changed in his expression. Whatever he had thought I had on him, he no longer believed I did.

  ‘Maybe your girlfriend had more persuasive methods of interrogation,’ he said, straight-faced but with a smirk in his voice. ‘I don’t think you’ll match up, so perhaps you should find time with your boss.’