December 6 (V5.0)

by Martin Cruz Smith

  ALTHOUGH HARRY WANTED to ditch the gun, he assumed he was being followed. Just to see, he detoured through an arcade specializing in pets. The passageway rang with a mixed chorus of canaries, lovebirds, cockatoos and a nightingale that trilled from a shrouded cage. Kittens, their tails bobbed to prevent them from turning into goblins, mewed in a fruit box. A weasel slunk round and round in a basket. There was only one beetle dealer, with a lean wintertime stock.

  “What you want is a stag beetle.” The dealer kept his hands in steady motion so that the beetle, a two-inch monster with antlers, walked from the back of one hand to the other. “There is no better investment in insects. A rhinoceros beetle like yours will drop dead after a single mating. What kind of champion is that? A stag beetle fattens off passion. No? Wait, I have more.” He indicated a cage with a six-inch mantis, a green stiletto. “Do you enjoy the educational sight of a wife eating her husband’s head? No?”

  Harry didn’t enjoy that or the sight of two plainclothes police squatting by the fruit box to tease the kittens. Two cops on foot and probably two waiting in a car near his. Forget subtlety.

  “Do you have trouble sleeping? Maybe you like the bucolic sound of crickets? I have crickets that are genuine songsters. No, you’re not a country boy. You’re Tokyo-bred, like me.” The beetle dealer kept the treadmill of his hands going while he looked Harry up and down. “Then it comes to this. If sports are your interest and you want your money back tenfold, a stag is your best bet.”

  Harry bet on horses, not beetles, not since he was a kid. However, he bought a bamboo beetle cage with a bed of wood flakes. He was trying to leave town, and what did he have now, Harry thought. First a gun. Now a beetle. Terrific.

  WHEN WESTERN DANCING was declared unpatriotic, a storage company run by yakuza took over the Asakusa Ballroom and covered its parquet floor with stacks of scenery and flats from the surrounding music halls and theaters. The yakuza specialized in the business of theatrical storage because it was a good excuse for men to hang around doing nothing. The ballroom had also become a refuge for the ne’er-do-wells of wartime society, out-of-work dance instructors practicing to the raspy tango of a gramophone, horseplayers with time on their hands since the racetracks were closed. A midday card game was going when Harry arrived. Taro sat holding a box of his brother’s ashes, and although the sumo filled a pair of chairs and was dressed in yards of rich kimono, he looked undone and deflated.

  “All I can think of is my brother,” he told Harry.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Jiro would like you to eat. I think Jiro would like me to eat, too.”

  A boy was attending the cardplayers. Harry sent him for noodles from the kitchen next door. The cardplayers kept an eye on Taro and the box. Gamblers were superstitious. Not reverent but easily spooked. They didn’t like anything written in red, because red was the color of call-up notices from the army. They hated the color white because it suggested death, and here Taro had brought a white box with THE REMAINS OF KAGA JIRO written in brushstrokes down the side. A short man in a wasp-waisted suit arrived in a rush as if he’d been summoned. The cardplayers called him over, and seconds later he moved with bouncy strides toward Harry and Taro.

  “Tetsu.” Harry gave his old friend a bow.

  Tetsu had done well. Providentially too short for the five-foot requirement of the army, he had fulfilled his youthful aspiration to become a yakuza and ran the ballroom game. Not that it was so difficult. The games were raided by police in the same desultory spirit that licensed prostitutes were supposed to study ethics once a week.

  “Harry, Taro, good to see you both. Let’s go get something to eat. You like Chinese?”

  “The food’s coming,” Harry said.

  “Jiro.” Taro indicated the wooden box.

  Tetsu said, “I’m sorry. I mean, you must be so proud. Jiro’s ashes? Oh.” He bowed to the box. “All the same, we should go somewhere else. Harry, you understand. It’s Agawa, the old guy. He says the box is disturbing. He says he can’t even count his cards.”

  Harry looked over at a player with a gristly neck.

  Taro sighed. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait. Agawa can play with a tango at his back, but he can’t play when the ashes of a hero are carried in?” Harry did not like to see the deceased slighted or a grieving brother, a sumo no less, diminished. “Hey, Agawa, do you know what tomorrow is?”

  “I’m playing a hand, as you can see.”

  “What’s tomorrow?”

  “Sunday, as any fool knows.” Agawa shared a grin with his friends.

  “The date?”

  “December seventh.”

  “A big day,” Harry said. “Maybe the biggest day in history.”

  Agawa went on arranging the cards in his hand. “How is that?”

  “Awhile back, a bishop figured out through a careful examination of the Bible that Noah’s flood began on December seventh, 2347 B.C. That’s two thousand three hundred and forty-seven years before the birth of Christ. Tomorrow is the anniversary. In fact, it’s the uh…”

  When Harry started counting on his fingers, Agawa said, “The four thousand two hundred and eighty-eighth anniversary.”

  “That’s right. Agawa-san, you have the quickest mind here. It sounds like you count just fine.”

  Agawa put his cards down. “The entire thing is ridiculous. There was no Noah’s flood, not in Japan. The whole thing is a fairy tale.”

  “Isn’t it amazing what people believe?” Harry said. “Fairy tales and superstitions, demons and ghosts. You’re a rational man, Agawa-san, and you wouldn’t mind that our friend Taro brought the ashes of his brother, do you? Thanks.”

  Agawa grunted, which Harry took as not necessarily yes or no but at least not violent objection. Harry suspected that two Japanese didn’t need words at all, they could communicate perfectly well with grunts, grimaces, winces, frowns, inhales, exhales, eyes cast down and to the side, brows furrowed with concern or gathered in anger, not to even mention bows.

  Tetsu was pleased. Like a traditional yakuza, he hated confrontation. He played with a cigarette lighter, which drew respectful attention to the fact that he missed the little finger of his left hand, had cut it off, actually, to atone for some shame he had brought on his boss. People didn’t know or care what the shame was. Sincere atonement was all. He said, “That was smooth, Harry.”

  With the tension broken, the cardplayers came over to commiserate with Taro, acknowledging the white box with that inexpressible combination of pride and regret people felt for those who had sacrificed themselves for the emperor. At the same time they sized up Taro, all but squeezing his arms, because they were sumo fans. Betting on the semi-sacred sport of sumo was illegal except for members of sumo fan clubs, who were expected to be devotees wagering token sums. Naturally, everyone in the ballroom —including Harry— was a member of one sumo fan club or another, and during a tournament, they bet fortunes. It helped that sumo was eminently fixable, particularly now. Food was rationed even at sumo stables, and lower-ranked wrestlers had to survive on the scraps that top-ranked sumos left. Harry had seen young sumos famished after a morning’s workout, wandering the food stalls for handouts, as sad a sight as hippos browsing in a riverbed gone dry.

  Goro joined them. He was elegantly dressed, a pickpocket who had married well and no longer dipped but couldn’t resist bad company. He prodded Tetsu. “Show them the latest.”

  Tetsu pulled off his jacket and tie and dropped his shirt off his shoulders. His upper body, from his neck to his waist, was continuous tattoos, on his chest a Siberian tiger stepping into a pool defended by an octopus and on his back the image of a smiling Buddha, eyes closed, hands prayerfully together, ignoring monsters and dragons that swarmed on all sides. To Harry, Tetsu looked baptized not in water but in ink. When they were boys, Harry was the one who had accompanied Tetsu to his first tattoo session, performed by a drunk on a bench in UenoPark with bamboo sl
ivers instead of steel needles. Tetsu twisted now and pointed to his new addition, a goblin creeping around his kidney. The inks were sharp and fresh, the skin puffy and Tetsu’s face betrayed a sweat of tattoo fever.

  Harry said, “That’s got to make an impression in the public baths.”

  “And women.” Goro spoke like an expert. “Of a certain kind.”

  “What do you think old Kato would have thought?” Tetsu asked Harry.

  “He would have said you were a walking masterpiece.”

  “Yeah? It’s good to see you and Taro. And Jiro, of course.” Tetsu pulled on his shirt. “We’re most of the old gang, four out of six, right? Then there’s Hajime, good riddance, and Gen, way up in the navy.”

  Taro climbed out of his funk when the noodles arrived. You had to water a plant and feed a sumo, it was as simple as that, Harry thought. Taro again became a mountain of dignity delicately scented by the wax that stiffened his topknot. As he relaxed, the cardplayers pumped him for information about other sumos. Had this one lost a fingernail? Had that one jammed a toe? The dance instructors dropped the needle on a fresh record and traded places. They moved in silhouette, tangling and untangling their legs. Harry remembered that the first time Oharu had sneaked him into the ballroom, an imitation Rudy Vallee was singing through a megaphone. A dance cost three yen, and men bought a strip of tickets before they were admitted past a velvet rope to a floor where two hundred couples milled under the hypnotic spell of a mirror ball trying out the fox-trot, the waltz, the Bruce. Women in Western gowns sat demurely along the wall while men walked back and forth to exercise their scrutiny. Oharu led Harry up to an empty mezzanine, which had a view of the bandstand and an engineer in a cockpit over the entrance, alternating colored lights and the mirror ball. Reflections raced across the floor. Harry felt them flit across his face. He also noticed that few of the men actually knew how to dance.

  “It’s just to hold a woman,” Oharu whispered. “She may be the only woman he’ll ever hold.”

  “Except a whore,” Harry pointed out.

  “Well, this is nicer. The girls are only paid by the number of tickets they turn in, so they have to be pleasing.”

  “How come we’re the only ones up here?”

  “The management closed it off. They don’t want the customers sitting, they want them dancing and buying more tickets. Besides, too many things can happen in the dark.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things. Sometimes a man forces himself on a woman.”

  “If anyone tried that on you, I’d stop him.”

  “I know you would.”

  She had only to brush her lips gently against his cheek and he burned.

  TETSU WAS EXPLAINING to Taro and the cardplayers that a small sumo had a natural advantage. “Smaller men have more spirit. It’s concentrated.”

  While Tetsu was in an expansive mood, Harry drew him aside and raised the subject of Iris’s travel clearance. The problem was purely bureaucratic, as Harry described it, something that could be resolved in a minute by a phone call to the Foreign Ministry from a respected patriotic group like, say, National Purity. National Purity put patriotism into action, assassinating liberals and moderates, trimming and changing the nature of political discourse. National Purity touched high and low. The same superpatriots who were honored guests at the imperial palace used yakuza to extract protection money from businesses large and small. Harry kept the Happy Paris open not by doing anything as crass as handing money to a bagman, but with generous donations at the shrine of National Purity.

  Harry said, “This time I want to meet our patriotic friend at National Purity in person so that I can explain the situation and ask his advice. Then he will make a call to the ministry. Very simple. This is for a German ally, after all. But I want you to go with me, so that when I vouch for the German, you can vouch for me.”

  “I don’t know, Harry.”

  “There’ll be a donation to your favorite shrine, too.”

  “Oh.”

  Harry set the time. He considered mentioning the gun. However, now that he’d brought up Iris, he didn’t want to queer the deal. A gun was a red flag; yakuza themselves rarely used guns, and for a civilian to unload one suggested major complications. Why would Hajime go to such trouble to foist a gun on him unless it had been involved in at least a triple homicide? Harry couldn’t forget Hajime smirking through the train window, letting his own gun peek from its holster.

  Agawa walked over from the card game. He nodded toward the box next to Taro. “Is everything in there? I know someone who got a box that was empty.”

  “Empty?” Taro was alarmed.

  “Just saying. It was a shock to the family.”

  “That would kill my mother.” Taro picked up the box tentatively. The box was wisteria wood sanded to a satin finish and tied with a white sash. He had carried it to the ballroom but hadn’t tested its heft before.

  Agawa said, “There should be an official album of the unit Jiro fought in, along with photos of the emperor, the imperial standard, regimental banner and commanding officers, plus personal snapshots, a map and description of the circumstances in which he died and clippings of his fingernails and hair. And the ashes and pulverized bone, of course, in a stoppered container or a sack.”

  “It sounds as if everything is in there.” Taro tipped the box one way and then the other.

  “Better be sure,” Agawa said.

  “I’m not ready for this, Harry,” Taro said. “I’m not prepared.”

  “You’ll have to open it at home,” Agawa said.

  Taro set the box on his lap and fumbled with the sash, his big fingers turned to rubber. He lifted the lid as if opening a tomb.

  “Everything there?” Agawa asked.

  Taro reached in and delicately sorted through the contents. “The album. The album and a little sack for ashes, but the sack is empty.” His face went as white as the box. “That’s all.”

  “That’s outrageous,” Agawa said. “You should make a protest.”

  “You don’t want to make a protest,” Harry said. “Let’s go.”

  “This is going to kill your mother,” Agawa said.

  “We’re going.” Harry put the lid back on and helped Taro to his feet.

  While Tetsu carried the box, Harry got Taro to the ballroom foyer and set him on a chair, which he sagged over on both sides. Harry sent Tetsu back to keep anyone from following.

  The chair trembled under Taro’s weight. He said, “I took the boat away from Jiro, and now I lost his ashes. I should have looked out for him. He was my little brother.”

  “By fifteen minutes. He probably kicked you out, he was that sort of person.”

  Taro hung his head. “Now to lose his ashes.”

  “You didn’t lose Jiro’s ashes.”

  “My mother will think so. She’ll tell everyone I deliberately lost them.”

  “You didn’t.”

  This was a perfect example, Harry thought, of how a tiny woman could make a sumo tread in fear. He looked around at the foyer’s dirty carpet, cloakroom alcove, clouded ashtrays, broken abacus and a cold potbellied stove. Harry opened the box and took out the empty sack.

  “What are you doing, Harry?”

  “Making things right.”

  Before Taro could move, Harry opened the stove trap and, with the shuttle, transferred ash. One scoop half filled the bag. Harry drew the drawstring tight, deposited the sack in the box, wiped his fingers on his pants and knelt a little to bring his eyes directly to Taro’s.

  “Now you have the ashes. Now your mother will have peace of mind. You will have peace of mind, too, because you will know that you have done everything possible to make her happy and allow her to pray for him. You have lost him, and now he is found. A good shepherd rejoices more in the one lost sheep he has found than in the hundred that never strayed.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it.” Harry retied the sash and looped it over Taro’s he
ad for carrying.

  “I could kill Agawa. It’s good he asked, though.”

  “Funny how things work out.”

  “How can I thank you?”

  “Now that you mention it, I’m presenting a donation to the head of National Purity, who is a famous sumo fan. Why don’t you come and set a patriotic tone?” He gave Taro the time and place. “I’ll be counting on you.”

  “Sure, Harry. I’m sorry, I fell apart there for a minute.”

  “No harm done. Ready?”

  Taro rose to his feet, a full-size sumo again. They got out on the street, and with every step, he was steadier and more impressive, shoulders squared, expression solemn. Once on the Rokku, he and Harry parted ways. Watching Taro stride through the crowd, Harry felt not so much the pride of the good shepherd as he did the satisfaction of a butcher who managed at all times to keep his thumb on the scale.

  12

  IT WAS ON an evening in April that Gen introduced Harry to the Magic Show. They had met at a new John Wayne movie and afterward strolled like cowboys in a marquee glow. Most naval officers were shorn like sheep, but Gen had managed to hang on to his hair, and in his panama hat, he exuded a style and confidence that made Harry want to hang back and applaud. Gen’s only problem was that he looked more like an actor playing a hero than a real hero. He had been assigned to Operations, and while another officer on the rise might have severed relations with as dubious a character as Harry, it wasn’t in Gen to be careful. Their relationship was too old, too strong, too complicated. Trust and distrust seesawed between them. Gen knew Harry too well, and that went both ways.

  Gen consulted his watch from time to time, which meant nothing to Harry until they returned to the Happy Paris and Gen suggested the willow house across the street instead. Through the window slats of the Paris, Harry saw Michiko lean on the jukebox, waiting for him, mouthing some whispery song in a wreath of smoke. At the willow house, a lantern winked a more discreet welcome within an open gate.