The Japanese Corpse ac-5

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "You mentioned the Zen master just now," the commissaris reminded him.

  Dorin laughed. The commissaris and de Gier waited, but Dorin was looking at a spot between them.

  "That's your answer," de Gier asked, "laughing?"

  "It's a proper Zen answer," Dorin said, screwing his face into an expression of humility. "They always laugh, or shout something ununderstandable, or beat you on the head. Zen masters do that."

  "What are they masters in?" de Gier asked. "Buddhism or something?"

  "Zen is a Buddhist sect, a method to gain insight. Zen masters are supposed to have complete insight."

  "How did they get it?"

  Dorin spread his hands. "Who knows? Through meditation, I suppose, because that seems to be the monks' main activity; sitting quietly in a large hall and staring at the floor. They concentrate on what the master has told them, and every now and then they go and see the master to show him what they have done with it. Before I got my present job I had to go in for all sorts of training and I was also required to spend three months in a Zen monastery, somewhere up North, in the mountains. I dressed like the monks and they shaved my head. It was a difficult time, more difficult than the commando training. I would rather jump from an airplane to parachute into a jungle than spend a week in a meditation hall. But I suppose it was good for me. Everything looked very different when I got back."

  "How?"

  "More real. Zen masters use everyday life as the subject of their teaching. A lot of mystics try to get away from everyday life, from the normal routine, but with Zen everything is upside down. And Zen teachers never moralize. That's what I liked most about the training. They expect you to be able to sit still and concentrate and find your own answers. They don't talk at you from an outside point of view, tell you what is good and what isn't. I was never impressed by morals myself, maybe because I grew up in America, but was taken to Japan all the time by my parents. I lived in two worlds, and what was good in the one was bad in the other. In Japan it is proper to burp after a meal; in America you get slapped if you do it."

  "The Zen master didn't care about the stolen art business," the commissaris said. "He said the junk should be spread around, or so I understood from what the sergeant told me."

  "Sure," Dorin said. "Why not? My father used to take me to Kyoto and we had to ask permission to see a sculpture or a painting, or even a rock garden. Even as a child I thought the priests shouldn't be allowed to control national treasures. The Western system is better. Museums, open to everybody."

  "And the drugs?" the commissaris asked. "Do you care about drugs being spread around?"

  Dorin had been smiling, but now his face closed. "Yes," he said. "I care about the drugs. The yakusa are helping the Chinese to get even. Once the Western nations poisoned China with opium; now it is the other way around."

  "How about Japan itself? Who sells the drugs here? You must have a drug problem. I saw many addicts in Tokyo."

  "Yakusa," Dorin snapped. "That's why I volunteered for this assignment."

  A train stewardess came in with a tray of coffee in paper cups, chirruping gaily. "Ko-hi. Ko-hi."

  "Arigato, thank you," the commissaris and de Gier said simultaneously. Dorin was smiling again.

  "You volunteered?" the commissaris asked.

  "When I heard about the heroin. Heroin dealers are hard to catch. Their profits are so high that they can buy almost everybody. If the yakusa hadn't been stupid enough to get into the art trade too, they would be invulnerable. But they are touching national treasures and are irritating the government. If we had to approach them from the heroin angle, we would have to leave the matter to the police and I know what would happen after a while."

  "What would happen?"

  "Nothing. Perhaps the police would be allowed to catch a few little fellows, scapegoats, silly men the yakusa want to get rid of, and that would be the end of it. But with famous statues being stolen we've got it made. I have been given a free hand. I can move in commandos if I want to. With a bit of luck we may be able to raze the daimyo's castle to the ground. All the Supreme Court is asking for is proof and witnesses. They won't worry too much about the methods used during the investigation."

  "We will be witnesses," the commissaris said, "once we have proof."

  "We'll have proof soon," Dorin said, raising his voice a little, as if he wanted to reassure his audience. "I spent a year in the police before I joined the Service. Police methods are slow and boring, I thought. There are so many safeguards protecting the suspect that the investigating officer feels like a weevil in a bowl filled with beancurd. This case will be adventurous. I am glad I am in it. It'll be like watching a movie, with the difference that I'll be actually taking part in the story and should be able, to some extent, to change its course.

  "Maybe I have the makings of becoming a true samurai, although I don't come from a samurai family. My forefathers were merchants, and merchants don't rank high in our country, not even now, and now they control Japan through their companies, which have sucked and clawed themselves into almost everything. But merchants are still the lowest on the scale. The samurai, the warriors, come first. They are reputed to be straightforward, simple, detached and courageous. After the samurai come the farmers. They are not so detached, because they have their cattle and crops to worry about, but they are close to nature and the beauty of the country. The fishermen have the same status as the farmers. They are connected to the sea, a source of life to us and an eternal inspiration. Then and only then come the merchants, who aren't inspired by anything but their own greed. They are bound by desires; they have small mouths and huge bellies and have to feed continuously. The men who started the last war were merchants, not samurai. The merchants wanted to tap the sources of all Asia, maybe of the world, for their own profit. Merchants want to have things, a samurai prefers to be, not himself but part of whatever he happens to do, and whatever he does he tries to do as well as possible, even if it means losing his being."

  The commissaris was nodding energetically and de Gier grinned.

  "You agree?" Dorin asked, surprised.

  "In theory," the commissaris said, "but what you are saying is not so easy to practice. By the way, did you do something about your agents following us everywhere, or are they somewhere in the train?"

  "No," Dorin said. "We are free of them now. I spoke to my chief in the Ministry and he spoke to your ambassador. They were called off. We are on our own, but I was given a telephone number which I want you both to memorize. I don't think we'll ever use it, but one never knows. This phone is supposed to be manned night and day. All you have to do is tell it where you are, and somebody will show up to get you out of your spot. I don't think it'll work myself. I think it's a number connected to a police radio room with a changing staff."

  The commissaris opened his mouth but changed his mind, masking the movement by pretending to rub something off his underlip.

  "Here you are," Dorin said.

  De Gier took the slip of paper and held it so that the commissaris could see it. They began to mumble the number to themselves, and after a while Dorin took the note back and held a match to it. He blew the match out, dropped it into the ashtray and without any warning, still smiling politely, jumped across the compartment, grabbing de Gier by the throat. De Gier raised his hands, got hold of Dorin's left wrist, pressed his thumbs against the palm of Dorin's hand and snapped the hand back, bringing Dorin to his knees. He followed it up by giving the Japanese a sharp knock with the flat of his hand, hitting him in the ribs. As Dorin fell, the commissaris had his pistol out. Dorin picked himself up and sat down again, rubbing his back.

  "Very good," he said. The commissaris was putting his gun back. "You hadn't loaded your weapon," Dorin said. "I think you should do that. I don't mind, I am sure you wouldn't touch the trigger before analyzing the situation properly."

  "I might," the commissaris said. "I am an old man, my reflexes are slow. But I will load the next time. Have
you and de Gier been playing tricks like this for the last few days?"

  "Yes sir," de Gier said, "but Dorin is quicker than I am.

  "You are catching up," Dorin said. "I have been trained like this for several years. There were nine cadet officers in my squad, and whenever we were together we used to attack each other. I have been grabbed while I sat on the toilet, reading a newspaper. My friend came in with door and all, kicking it from the hinges. I was in a Western-style bathroom, and the toilet was away from the door, so fortunately the door didn't hit me, but I was hampered because I had my trousers down."

  "So what did you do?" the commissaris asked.

  Dorin smiled self-consciously. "Well, I couldn't think of anything clever, so I threw the newspaper in his face. It was folded so it didn't just flutter around but really hit him, blocking his view for a moment, and then I jumped forward hitting him in the stomach with my head. I got him in a lock grip afterward. The attacker is really always in the worst position. He leaves many openings; a prepared defender is better off. It is de Gier's turn to attack me now."

  "You take turns? So you are prepared, aren't you?"

  "We break the rule all the time. I may attack him again."

  "Don't attack roe," the commissaris said. "You'll maim or kill me, and my wife will be upset. Besides, I want to meet these priests. Are we going straight to the monastery?"

  "No, we'll stay in an inn close to Daidharmaji. A priest will come to see you tonight and he will bring one of his temple's paintings. He speaks English fairly well. He used to be a tourist guide and he is a graduate in English, not that that means much. It is very difficult for us Japanese to really master a foreign language, I don't know why. We can pass all the written examinations, know everything about grammar, learn twenty thousand words by heart and we still can't speak the language. For me it is different because I grew up in America. My father was a diplomat and I went to American schools and played with American children. I began to think in English when I was a toddler. But this priest never left our islands."

  "Are the yakusa trailing our priest, do you think?"

  "They should be," Dorin said. "I made a telephone call just now, there are phones on the train, and spoke to an associate in Kyoto. Last night the yakusa made the priest a final offer and he refused, very politely, of course. He didn't make a definite refusal, but said that he had to think about the matter. He ran up his debt to the bar in three consecutive nights, gambling and playing around with the girls. Maybe he owes them a few thousand dollars by now, an amount he can never pay, for priests get only a little money from their administration, just pocket money really. Some of them have extra income, but this particular priest hasn't. So the yakusa thought they had him in the palm of their hand. There's also the blackmail angle. They could tell a high priest about his behavior and he might be sent away. They could do it nicely, by presenting their bill to Daidharmaji's administration office, for instance, but they wouldn't do that easily. If the priest loses his position because he is sent away, there is nowhere for him to go. Japanese society is very closely knit. Everybody would know about him and would be hesitant about employing him. And without his status as a priest he is of no use to the yakusa, for he won't be able to get at the temple treasures anymore."

  "So tonight we may have our first adventure," de Gier said.

  "Your second adventure," the commissaris said. "You had one in Tokyo, you remember? You will have to restrain yourself. I don't want a dead man hovering around us, not even a dead yakusa."

  "Sir," de Gier said, and closed his eyes. The commissaris fell asleep a little later. Only Dorin was left to feel the last impact of the holy mountain, its white dome touching the stratosphere.

  \\ 12 /////

  "Hold it!" the Adjutant shouted. "I didn't hear you properly. Start all over again, please."

  "This is the State Police, adjutant. Lieutenant Blok speaking. I am told you are temporarily in charge of the Japanese corpse investigation, and that you are interested in the location of the corpse. Is that right?"

  "Yes," Grijpstra shouted. "Yes, sir. And you found it?"

  "Don't shout, adjutant. Yes, I think we found it. But we haven't dug deeply yet. We have touched the body. So far only a hand is showing. I have told my men to wait for you before they go any further."

  "Where are you, lieutenant?" Grijpstra whispered.

  "In the White Horse pub in Abcoude,* adjutant. If you come out right away, you should be here in thirty minutes, it isn't rush hour yet, but you'll have to leave right now or you will take forever."

  "I am on my way, sir," Grijpstra shouted, and banged the phone down, grabbing bis coat on the way out.

  ***

  "No," he shouted at the elderly sergeant in charge of the garage. "I don't want my own car. I am in a hurry and I want a marked car with a light and a siren. Give it to me.

  "But I haven't got one available," the sergeant explained patiently. "What's wrong with your own car? We tuned it this morning and took the rattle out of the right door and fixed the horn. We have even put new batteries in the flashlight and we had the carbine checked by the arms room and…"

  "Ha," Grijpstra shouted, as a white VW drove into the garage. "Give here. Out! Out! you fellows!"

  The two uniformed constables looked at him in consternation.

  "We are on patrol duty, adjutant, we only came in for gas."

  "Out!" Grijpstra's heavy voice boomed, as he pulled the driver's door open. The constables got out, looking at the sergeant who made a helpless gesture.

  "Murder-brigade business?" the driver asked. "Somebody got shot? I heard nothing on the radio. It's been quiet all afternoon. All we found was a drunken lady pushing a perambulator full of bottles. There was a baby stuck between the bottles and we took the lot to the station. The chief told us to take the baby to the crisis center, but we are almost out of gas. We need that car, adjutant."

  "Take my car," Grijpstra said. "The flashlight has fresh batteries and the carbine has just been oiled."

  "But…" the driver said, but Grijpstra was behind the wheel and the car backed out of the garage, its blue top-light flashing. They heard the VW's tires complain as Grijpstra forced it through a half circle in the yard, and the siren began to wail as he drove through the gates.

  "What's eating him?" the driver asked the sergeant.

  "His girlfriend called," the sergeant said. "The hot weather is bothering her and she took all her clothes off and now she feels lonely. Take that gray car over there."

  "But it isn't marked," the driver said sadly. "We are supposed to drive a marked car."

  Another VW drove into the garage, driven by a cadet-constable. "Your rank is higher," the sergeant said softly.

  The driver jumped at the VW. "Out, you fellow!" he roared. "We need that car!"

  "But I am supposed to do an errand for the chief inspector," the young constable said. He said it to the sergeant. The car was already leaving the garage.

  "Far?" the sergeant asked.

  "No."

  "Take a bicycle," the sergeant said. "There's a nice one, that one in the corner, with the rusty mudguard. But be quick or somebody will come rushing in and take it off you, and it's a hot day and I am tired."

  Grijpstra parked the car and screwed himself out of the narrow seat. He looked at his watch and smiled. Twenty-one minutes, and every light he had gone through had been red. The wail of the siren was still in his ears as he pumped the burly lieutenant's powerful hand.

  "You haven't had dinner yet, have you?" the lieutenant asked.

  "No sir. It's only half-past four. I had lunch."

  "I hope it's properly digested. That corpse won't be a pleasant sight."

  They went out to the grave in the lieutenant's elegant Porsche and found half a dozen State Police constables in their neat dark blue tunics waiting respectfully around a hole which looked conspicuously black in the warm, dark green meadow. A ten-year-old boy stood next to one of the constables and was introduced t
o Grijpstra. The boy had heard what the police were looking for and had remembered that he had seen a man dig in a held.

  "One man?" Grijpstra asked.

  "One man," the boy said.

  "A yellow man with funny eyes? Japanese?"

  "We have already questioned the boy a few times," the lieutenant whispered into Grijpstra's ear. "He doesn't know what a Japanese looks hke, so we tried a Chinese on him. There's a Chinese restaurant nearby and he has often eaten there with his parents. But he says he was too far away to see what your suspect looked like. All he remembers is that the man was fairly small and dressed in a dark suit. He also remembers the BMW, a white car parked where my car is parked now. He thought it was strange at the time that a man should be digging in his uncle's field. The field hasn't been used for a few years and the grass is high, as you can see."

  "A pity he didn't stop to find out what the man was doing," Grijpstra whispered.

  "Yes, the boy was on his way to the cinema and he didn't have time to stop. But he came to us, good thing he did. We might have found the grave on our own, we were getting close to this field, but it would have been another few days and we could have missed it. The grass was growing again in the loose earth. With this sort of weather and the night rain we have been having lately, it grows quickly."

  Grijpstra patted the boy on the head. "Yes, well, I am ready when you are."

  The lieutenant nodded at his men. The constables began to dig, while the lieutenant told the boy to go home. The constables were groaning and sweating. The thin hand was free now and the arm followed. The constables cursed. Insects had eaten some of the flesh away and they were approaching the head. They were handling their short spades as if the clumsy tools were surgical instruments. Grijpstra was on his knees, peering down, as the head came free. Kikuji Nagai's body had assumed the prenatal posture; in death he had crawled back into the womb. His knees were up against his chin, the back was bent, the head turned down; only the one arm was stretched out, the other supported his head. There wasn't a stitch of clothing on the body. Two men in civilian clothes were taking photographs from every possible angle, even going as far as lowering their cameras into the grave. The flashes of their light bulbs accentuated the weirdness of the corpse with its bald sleeping head, part face, part skull.