Bundori:: A Novel of Japan

by Laura Joh Rowland

  And the murder had cast a pall over the quarter. Visitors clustered in nervous groups along the street and in the teahouses, their customary boisterousness restrained. Servants slunk about their business. Samurai strode warily, hands on their sword hilts. All seemed loath to meet one another’s gazes, or Sano’s. A palpable aura of fear and mutual suspicion hovered in the air. Sano felt an increasing pressure to conclude the investigation quickly, before violence could erupt in this place where men’s passions were already overstimulated by drink and sex.

  The Great Joy, located on a side street off Naka-no-cho, was one of the most prestigious pleasure houses. The wooden window lattices, walls, and pillars looked freshly scrubbed and polished. Scarlet paint brightened the balcony railing. Curtains of the same shade, emblazoned with the house’s white floral crest, hung over the entrance. As Sano and his escorts reached the house, these parted and a man dressed in gaudy silk garments stepped out.

  “Greetings, sōsakan-sama,” he said, bowing. Of some indeterminate age between forty and sixty, he had a fattish, pear-shaped body and a head to match. His knotted hair was streaked with gray. Yet his face, with its flat nose and cheeks, was unlined, perhaps preserved by the oiliness of his complexion. “I’m Uesugi, proprietor of the Great Joy.”

  His bow-shaped mouth seemed fixed in a permanent smile, but his shiny black eyes were like the counting beads on an abacus—hard, cold, calculating. “This murder is a very serious matter. However, let me assure you that the Great Joy has played no part in it.”

  To Sano, Uesugi’s hasty disclaimer indicated the opposite. Was he hiding something? His uneasiness might result from a combination of class consciousness and concern for his business. While prominent Yoshiwara brothel owners held high places in peasant society, samurai snubbed them as money-worshipping flesh merchants. Uesugi wouldn’t welcome an encounter that could embarrass him. And his establishment would suffer from association with the Bundori Murders.

  “I’ve no reason to believe that the Great Joy is at fault,” Sano said mildly, wanting to put Uesugi at ease and off guard. “I only want to know who the murdered man was, and with whom he spent the time up until his death. Can you tell me?”

  As a pointed hint, he directed his gaze to the curtained entrance, then back to the proprietor.

  Uesugi’s smile remained, but his eyes jittered back and forth as he assessed his options. In a flat voice stripped of its former unctuousness, he said, “Is this really necessary?”

  Sano didn’t bother arguing. Uesugi was just stalling; he knew he had no right to refuse a request from a bakufu official. “Your house will get less bad publicity if we talk inside,” Sano said, gesturing toward the swelling crowd of gawkers in the street.

  Admitting defeat with a curt nod, Uesugi stood aside and lifted the curtain for Sano. On the right side of the entrance hall the watchman’s bench stood vacant. Uesugi opened a door in the lattice partition to the left and ushered Sano into the main parlor, where two maids were sweeping the floor mats. This room, the scene of many gay parties of courtesans and clients at night, looked drab and unwelcoming by day. Uesugi’s smile grew strained, though whether only because he disliked having a potential customer see the house in this unglamorous light, Sano couldn’t tell. He let the proprietor show him into an office behind the parlor’s wall mural.

  “Please be seated,” Uesugi said stiffly.

  Kneeling behind the low desk, he called a servant and ordered tea, which came almost immediately. While they drank, Sano studied the room and its owner. The office was not unlike that of any prosperous shopkeeper. Sunlight filtered through a wall of paper windows, opposite which stood wooden cabinets and fireproof iron chests for storing records and money. Uesugi seemed even more ill at ease here than in the street; he sat unnaturally still, and his gaze wouldn’t quite meet Sano’s. Was he ashamed of the sordid side of his business—or fearful that he might incriminate himself?

  “Who was the dead man?” Sano asked.

  Uesugi glanced toward a ledger on the desk, which he’d probably consulted before Sano’s arrival. “His name was Tōzawa Jigori, and he’d just arrived from Omi Province. When the watchman questioned him at the door, he admitted he was a rōnin. He engaged the company of a courtesan named Sparrow.”

  The proprietor delivered these facts willingly enough, but his face now shone with nervous sweat as well as oil. Sano, remembering his examination of the corpse, thought he knew why. Anger stirred within him.

  “When did Tōzawa arrive?” he asked evenly.

  Uesugi hesitated. “The day before yesterday.”

  “Then he was entitled to stay in Yoshiwara until this morning. Why did he leave last night?”

  The disappearance of the proprietor’s smile validated Sano’s suspicions. “I was only following standard procedure,” Uesugi huffed.

  “You searched his possessions and found out that he hadn’t enough money to pay his bill. So you threw him out. After confiscating his swords, of course.” Sano’s ingrained disgust for the venal merchant class fed his anger. “You know there’s a killer on the loose, and you sent an unarmed man to his death!”

  Uesugi folded his arms in defiance. “I would go bankrupt if I let customers get away without paying. And how was I to know he would die?”

  Self-revulsion sickened Sano. He could despise Uesugi for valuing money over a man’s life, but the blame belonged to him alone. His failure to catch the killer had doomed Tōzawa—as it might others. And part of his rage stemmed from the fact that Uesugi’s statement had weakened the scenario he’d begun to construct.

  There had been no robbery; the missing swords would never prove a suspect’s guilt. The penniless Tōzawa could have fallen prey to a predator who didn’t care—or even know—whom he killed. Furthermore, the likelihood of a connection between Kaibara and Tōzawa seemed minimal. Tōzawa was a lowly rōnin, far beneath Kaibara’s status. Sano doubted whether Tōzawa’s family records would reveal a relationship between two men from such different backgrounds, though they might link the rōnin to Endō Munetsugu. But Sano had far too much work in Edo to make a long research trip to Omi Province.

  Then he saw a way to eke value from this interview, punish Uesugi, and protect Yoshiwara’s guests.

  “Give me Tōzawa’s swords,” he said.

  “But, sōsakan-sama—”

  “Now.” He would take them to Aoi, who might be able to divine some clues from them—and whom he longed to see again.

  Fury hardened Uesugi’s eyes; his tongue rolled behind his compressed lips. Then he stood and opened a cabinet with an angry jerk that expressed his reluctance to part with valuable loot. From among at least twenty confiscated swords, he selected a pair and thrust them at Sano.

  “Thank you,” Sano said. “Also, you’ll convey this order to your Board of Administrators.” This governing body was composed of all the Yoshiwara pleasure house proprietors. “Until the Bundori Killer is caught, no swords will be confiscated as payment for debts. No guests will be forced to leave the quarter after dark. If you and your colleagues don’t comply, you’ll pay a large fine for each violation. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sōsakan-sama.” Uesugi spoke politely enough, but his angry glance toward the door made clear his wish to throw Sano through it.

  “Good. Now I’ll speak to everyone in the house who was here last night, starting with the courtesan who entertained Tōzawa. As to those guests who’ve already left, give me their names.”

  “That’s impossible!” Uesugi sputtered, his controlled courtesy shattered. “The privacy of the yūjo and guests—”

  “Is more important than catching the killer? I don’t think so.”

  In a rapid about-face, Uesugi’s smile returned, and he conceded, “As you wish. I’ll write out the names for you. Then I’ll bring everyone to the parlor.”

  Sano realized that Uesugi planned to give him phony names and smuggle the clients out the back door. “Excuse me a moment,” he said.

&
nbsp; He walked to the front door and called to the security officers waiting in the street: “See that no one leaves this house.” Returning to Uesugi, he picked up the ledger from the proprietor’s desk and tucked it under his arm with Tōzawa’s swords, then said, “Now I’ll help you collect your employees and their clients.”

  His anger and frustration somewhat relieved by his exercise of authority, Sano accompanied the glowering proprietor on a tour of the Great Joy’s private rooms. These occupied the rear ground floor and the entire upper level of the house, forming a square around the garden, with servants’ quarters facing the alley. Sano covered every corridor, knocked on every door. Cries of surprise greeted his summons. Frantic scufflings followed. Doors slid open, and a disheveled parade of sleepy-eyed, hastily dressed, frightened men and women straggled toward the parlor.

  In Uesugi’s office, which he’d appropriated for his interviews, Sano beheld with surprise the woman who knelt opposite him. Sparrow, Tōzawa’s companion of last night, was clearly one of the house’s second-class courtesans, and hardly the delicate creature that her name suggested. Long past her prime, she’d lost whatever physical charms she’d once possessed. Her figure was heavy and shapeless under the blue and white cotton kimono, the skin beneath her eyes puffy. White strands dulled the hair piled sloppily on her head, and she had a double chin. The Great Joy certainly offered its clients a wide range of female attractions.

  “You entertained Tōzawa last night and the night before?” he asked.

  “Yes, master, that’s right.”

  Smiling, Sparrow arranged her skirts around her like a hen settling on a nest. Sano suddenly understood the allure Sparrow held for men, and why Uesugi considered her well worth keeping. She exuded maternal kindness. A client in need of solace could pillow his head on that soft bosom, take comfort from that warm, reassuring voice and smile, and sleep like a child in those cushiony arms. All for the same high price as the wildest sex. Sano was glad to find Tōzawa’s last companion such a woman.

  “Did Tōzawa talk to you?” he asked her.

  “Oh, my, yes. All my men do.” A cozy chuckle jiggled her body. “Because I like to listen.”

  Just as he’d guessed. “What did Tōzawa talk about?”

  “Losing his position when his lord fell upon hard times and had to let many retainers go. The hardships and shame he’d faced. How he hoped he could find work in Edo.” Sadness clouded Sparrow’s eyes: She, unlike the Great Joy’s proprietor, sympathized with the unfortunate Tōzawa. “He annoyed everyone with his loud clowning because he needed to make himself feel big and important. And when Uesugi told him to leave, he was angry, because everyone knew he was poor—that’s why he started a fight with Uesugi’s watchman and threw a tray of food against the wall.” She clucked her tongue. “Poor man.”

  That her years as a courtesan had given her insight into men, her next words further proved: “And yourself, sōsakan-sama. You’re troubled, aren’t you? Would you like to tell me about it?”

  Her query seemed like neither nosy impertinence nor an avaricious ploy, but genuine concern. Sano could see how she’d coaxed Tōzawa’s life story from him. She would make an excellent police detective—or spy.

  “No, thank you,” he said, smiling to take the edge off his refusal. “Did Tōzawa mention having any enemies in Edo?”

  Sparrow’s chin wobbled as she shook her head. “He said he was quite alone here.”

  So much for the idea that the murderer had killed Tōzawa out of hatred. “Did he speak of his family background?” Sano asked without much hope. He hardly expected Tōzawa to have recited his lineage, complete with the names of ancestors going back four generations.

  Therefore a shock of excitement ran through him when Sparrow said, “Oh, yes. He said that the disgrace of losing his master was even harder to bear because his ancestor was a great war hero. But then most samurai claim such ancestors, don’t they?” Her fond smile took the sting out of her implication that they were lying braggarts.

  In Sparrow’s statement, Sano found supporting evidence for his theory that joined Tōzawa with Endō Munetsugu and drew a parallel between this murder and Kaibara’s. Had both men been killed because of the murderer’s animosity toward their ancestors? Sano entertained the theory that the killer, stalking Tōzawa, had seen the commotion at the Great Joy, guessed its outcome, and waited on the dark causeway for his victim. Sano put forth his next question in a deliberately nonchalant voice, as if by pretending indifference he could elicit the desired answer.

  “The ancestor Tōzawa mentioned. Was it Endō Munetsugu?”

  “No, Tōzawa-san didn’t tell me his ancestor’s name.”

  Sano clung to the fragile hope that Endō could still be Tōzawa’s unnamed family hero. But he had no evidence to confirm it, and even if a link between the two men existed, it shed no immediate light on the murderer’s identity—or his motive for killing the unrelated Kaibara.

  Evidently perceiving Sano’s frustration, Sparrow leaned forward and placed a consoling hand on his arm. “Don’t be sad, sōsakan-sama. Tōzawa told me other important things about his ancestor. He said he was a brave general who won many battles for Lord Oda Nobunaga.”

  11

  Sano finished his inquiries in Yoshiwara, where the Great Joy’s other occupants didn’t supply any useful information, and a search of the quarter turned up no one who’d seen the lame, pockmarked suspect. Back in Edo, he traced and questioned the men listed in Uesugi’s ledger with no better results. Still, these dead ends failed to discourage Sano.

  Sparrow’s statement supported his belief that the rōnin Tōzawa was descended from Endō Munetsugu, as the hatamoto Kaibara was from Araki Yojiemon. Endō’s and Araki’s lords, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had been generals and allies under Oda Nobunaga. The historical records might reveal a link between past events and the murders. Sano decided to search the castle archives for this link before his meeting with Aoi.

  As he traveled through Nihonbashi, the day’s brightness faded from the sky, drawing after it a ragged quilt of clouds that gradually immersed Edo in a gray twilight. The strengthening wind swept dust through the streets, and an odd, silvery light edged the castle’s ramparts and the peaks of the western hills. Sano, walking beside his horse to rest it after the day’s hard travels, observed with dismay the effect that the murders were having upon the city.

  Although full darkness wouldn’t arrive for another hour, all the shops had closed for the night. The usual crowds of homebound merchants, artisans, and laborers had already vanished, leaving the streets in the possession of Edo’s worst rabble. Idle young samurai and townsmen roved in trouble-seeking gangs. Itinerant rōnin and other drifters loitered. Many frightened citizens, loath to leave the safety of their homes while a killer roamed, peered out from barred windows. But others catered to the menacing traffic and encouraged the depravity that could turn excitement into violence. Sake sellers did a brisk business, as did seedy teahouses—the only establishments still open. Illegal prostitutes flirted from doorways. On every corner, newssellers hawked broadsheets.

  “The Bundori Killer claims his third victim! Will you be next?” they shouted.

  At an intersection, a crowd gathered around an old crone with long, tangled white hair who squatted before a pile of smoking incense sticks. Eyes shut, hands raised heavenward, she keened, “The invisible ghost walks among us. Tonight another man will die!”

  As Sano had feared, the ghost story had spread, borne on a wave of contagious superstition that swelled unchecked because no other explanation for the murders had been found, and no human culprit identified. An evil carnival atmosphere pervaded the always unruly merchant quarter while Edo faced a threat the like of which it had never before experienced. Appalled, Sano tried to defuse the volatile situation before it turned dangerous.

  “Give me those!” He snatched the broadsheets from a newsseller and skimmed the sensationalized accounts of Kaibara’s, the eta’s, and Tōzawa
’s murders, accompanied by lurid drawings of the trophies. Outraged, he tore them up and scattered the pieces. “You’re scaring people. Go home!”

  Cutting through the crowd to the elderly mystic, he seized her arm. “Show’s over. Get out of here.” To the bystanders, he shouted, “Go home, all of you!”

  But more newssellers and seers continued to spread panic. The crowds ignored Sano’s pleas. He looked around in bewilderment. Where were the police?

  A doshin and two assistants strode past him. The doshin escorted a wild-eyed samurai whose hands were bound behind his back, while the assistants carried between them another, this one bleeding from a wound on his shoulder and moaning in pain.

  Sano hurried after the police. “What happened?”

  “These fellows each thought the other was the Bundori Killer, and they fought,” the doshin explained. To the gawking crowds: “Let us through!”

  Sano grew increasingly disturbed when he came to a gate, where he found two guards following his orders by questioning pedestrians. But at least three slipped by for every one halted.

  “You’re supposed to stop everyone,” Sano reproached the guards. “Do you want to let the killer get past?”

  The guards only shrugged helplessly. “There are too many people,” one said, “and they won’t answer questions or let us search them without a fight.”

  In more haste than ever, Sano continued toward the castle. The police could control the mounting hysteria for just so long. Only catching the killer would end it.

  As he hurried along the streets, leading his horse, he passed through deserted districts where dark warehouses and buildings razed by recent fires offered a hostile environment for the loitering crowds. A new thought took shape in his mind. He hadn’t yet felt personally endangered by the killer, and he shouldn’t now. Unlike Tōzawa, he was armed. Unlike Kaibara, he was young, strong, and capable of self-defense. And he firmly believed, albeit without proof, that the killer chose his victims because of who they were or what they represented to him.