Kamakura Inn

by Marshall Browne

  Not missing. Here! Just up to their necks in snow. Aoki switched off the radio and rubbed warmth into his hands. Today was the seventh anniversary. He wondered if it was significant only to him. For sure, Ito and Yamazaki would be rushing back to Tokyo the moment the road was open.

  A woman’s voice called him from outside the door, then it slid open: Mori, in her hands a small lacquer tray with his tea and a tube of ointment on it. She bowed. “For your lips, sir.” She clucked her tongue and pointed at the floor, and Aoki saw that two dead mice were lined up there. “She’s brought them to you, sir,” the maid said.

  ~ * ~

  A red woolen scarf wrapped around his neck, the ointment smeared on his lips, Aoki left his room. Last night flashed back, like the aftertaste of a delicious dessert, soon eaten and soon forgotten. Yet the appearance of Kazu Hatano’s twin sister, in such a role, had amazed him.

  Aoki walked the corridors. Saito’s theory that the missing woman had deposited her bloody clothes in the station locker and fled to the family’s ryokan might merely be the Go-player’s fantasy, and how far could he be trusted, anyway? All his statements were sardonic, apparently infused with black humor. She’d been dead and gone these seven years, not hiding out. Her photo had been in every paper, on every TV screen. This Osaka guy could be just laying down a bullshit trail, following some personal, sardonic agenda.

  Aoki shook his head. Now he was fantasizing! His own photo had appeared beside Tamaki’s in the papers. Newspaperman Eichi Kimura’s had also been bracketed with the Fatman on the front pages, but only once; then the party had killed the story. The journalist had come uninvited into his life, and he’d hardly known him, yet he’d died because of their wives’ friendship.

  Ascending the stairs to the hall, Aoki remembered the man Kimura had met the night before his murder. In a bar in Shinjuku, Madam Kimura had told the police, the mystery man had suggested to her husband that he back off writing about the Fatman. Big money was offered, and she said Kimura had turned it down. A mistake; he should’ve at least played along. According to his wife, he’d tried to question the man, whom he guessed was a government bureaucrat. Kimura hadn’t described him further. By seven the next morning, her husband was dead.

  Ito and Yamazaki—would they be able to claw back lost ground when they escaped from here, to surround and eliminate the forces against them, as that damned Saito was doing on the Go board? Maybe Saito was no more than an ardent observer of lurid crimes, who’d struck it lucky at this ryokan where he’d come to view autumn leaves and replay the classic Go match. Aoki shrugged and shook his head.

  ~ * ~

  He was already at the Go board. This morning he wore a dark green kimono, which appeared almost black in the gloom. Click-click-click, stones in an unusual spurt. The big man leaned back from the table and motioned Aoki to take a seat. There was a glint in his eye. Instead of sitting, Aoki moved to stand near the fire.

  “So, Madam Ito hurried back to the mountains and went into hiding within these walls. Have you thought any more about that?” Aoki frowned. Again Saito had resumed a previous conversation as though there’d been no interval, one of his tricks. He said, “Where’s the evidence for that?”

  “The whole case was short on evidence.” Saito placed his big hands on his lap. “Your personal case was almost as dramatic as Madam Ito’s, wasn’t it? Especially your wife. Please accept my condolences on that tragedy.”

  Yet again! The intimacy of these strangers’ condolences was unreal to Aoki.

  Saito shrugged, at the fate that life dealt out, and turned back to the Go board. Aoki, his face dour, went to breakfast.

  At the moment Aoki returned from the dining room, Yamazaki entered the anteroom and paused to gaze at the board. The MOF official had on a padded gray kimono touched with red silk on the breast; his height, perfect grooming, and obvious composure under pressure gave him a power-edged elegance. An ivory-handled dagger, with a razor-sharp blade . . . Aoki grimaced. He was turning into a damned poet, sponsored by his family and the ryokan.

  Yamazaki said, “The Master’s play was affected by his bad health. The match was his swan song. After all, no one goes on forever.” The nasal voice was as thick as syrup. Aoki’s eyes narrowed. Yamazaki knew which match was being replayed. Saito smiled but said nothing. The MOF man gave an acerbic smile and went in to breakfast.

  Saito asked, “Will we have our game of chess this evening?” Aoki bowed his agreement and went to the hall.

  ~ * ~

  “This storm is really something,” Kazu Hatano said, coming out of her office. “A different world from Tokyo, isn’t it? It’s a great inconvenience for our guests.” Yes, it most certainly is, Aoki thought. Even at her most businesslike her voice intrigued him. She studied him, as though expecting a request, but he had no requests to make. Today she wore a dark blue kimono flecked with white, like falling snow against a night sky. Did she ever wear Western clothes? She lingered behind the counter. “Of course, now I must worry about fresh food.”

  Fresh food? What was she thinking about the seventh anniversary? It had to be in her mind. Amazingly like her sister, and where was the sister right now? Doubtless this woman knew of her visit to the Camellia Room; the charge would be on his bill. He glanced up. Under the snow’s weight, the roof was emitting creaks as though a vise were being tightened on unseasoned wood.

  From the bench, Shoba’s eyes flicked at him, then away. The gray, snowy daylight hardly penetrated the small windows, yet the red birthmark on the bodyguard’s head shone like a beacon in the gloom. “Beyond this place, the real world still exists,” Aoki told himself as he headed back to his room. The twin sisters must have some idea of the circumstances of their mother’s disappearance, might know it all. If alive, how would she look today? She’d be in her early fifties. At some point he was going to question Kazu Hatano about the case, but he needed an opening, and the circumstances and timing would have to be just right. Even then, it might be a useless attempt.

  ~ * ~

  Ito waited on a landing, his expression stern and peering, his thick lips working over his teeth. He raised a small hand to stop the detective. His breath hissed. “Mr. Aoki, why are you here?”

  An ambush. Aoki was startled at the impoliteness. The man’s dark eyes were gleaming at him from their fleshy pouches. “I’m on vacation.”

  “Vacation?” The banker stared at the detective for a long moment, scrutinizing Aoki’s face even more intensely. “Ah, yes.” He nodded to himself and moved on up the stairs, stiff-backed with tension.

  Aoki went to his room. Vacation! Even in his own ears it sounded false. The banker was wire-tight with nerves. Join the club.

  The cat sat outside his door gazing up at the image of the camellia. She came to Aoki and brushed against his legs, and he stroked her. “You were doing some killing last night,” he said, “before you bunked down with me. “

  ~ * ~

  Six months ago, a rainy night in Ginza. Aoki’s classmate Shimamura was a thin fellow in a rumpled suit. At their junior high school he’d been a ball of energy, nicknamed “Mexican Jumping Beans.” He worked at the Ministry of Finance. The MOF people were the cream—graduates of Tokyo University. Aoki was seeking a specialist’s perspective as to how persons such as ex-governor Tamaki might interface with the yakuza—and the banking system. He couldn’t mention Tamaki’s name.

  Shimamura’s hair was plastered to his head; the poor brilliant guy couldn’t manage to get himself an umbrella. Aoki signaled for a towel.

  After they’d passed over schooldays and downed the first beer, his friend had been surprised at the subject Aoki raised. He sat back. “Straying into new territory, aren’t you, Hideo?”

  Aoki shrugged. “It’s become a hot issue. My bosses have focused on the political middlemen in action between the banks and the yakuza, the guys who’re the movers and shakers.”

  Shimamura frowned, as though at an unpleasant vista.

  “What does the MOF th
ink about it?” Aoki asked bluntly.

  The bureaucrat gazed into his beer, then raised his eyes to Aoki’s broad, tough face. “Hmmm . . . What I say is off the record.” Aoki nodded. Shimamura put his beer glass aside. “It’s not as simple as you’ve depicted it. Sometimes politicians are the go-betweens. Some of ‘em have smoothed the introductions of the yakuza to the banks, but plenty of times, the yakuza deal direct.” He blinked a few times. “Listen, a banking catastrophe’s been looming for over a decade. No one in government or big business wants the degree of the problem out in the open. No one knows what to do without causing a systemic collapse. They’ve been propping up weak banks, merging ‘em with stronger ones, arranging phased write-downs of bad debts. None of this gets anywhere near the heart of the problem.”

  Shimamura kept his voice low. “There’re still trillions in gray-area loans on the books. It wouldn’t take too much to terminate our banking and financial world.” His thin hands were locked together.

  Salarymen were coming in, bar-girls were appearing at their sides, and the room was filling up with smoke and noise. Shimamura glanced around and leaned closer to Aoki. “Maybe up to half the bad debts still on the books involve the yakuza. Somebody’s called our economic woes the ‘yakuza recession.’ Not exactly wrong. The borrowers either have strong links to the yakuza or are directly controlled by them. Most of these loans will never be recovered.

  “How did this wonderful situation come about? In the 1980s big corporations were raising loans overseas, and some of our banks, to keep up their growth, started courting the gangsters, pushing loans down their throats. The yakuza saw it as a way to get into legitimate business. A lot of ‘em invested in real estate at the crazy highs, and they’ve dropped an immense bundle. Now they’re not paying back their new banker friends, and the banks are fighting to stay afloat.” He sat back, picked up his glass, and drained it.

  Aoki studied him. How did a forthright, abrasive guy like his friend, who wore awful suits, get into the MOF? In their student days, Shimamura often started fights he could never win. Frequently, Aoki had to step in to finish off what his friend had started and save him from being beaten up, collecting black eyes and split lips himself for his efforts.

  Shimamura said, “The government’s paralyzed. They’ve got to risk letting some of the worst cases crash, support the stronger cases. The ones that’ve been deepest in with the yakuza and the dirty politicians should be in the former category. But they can’t face up to doing it. “

  A girl approached, bringing more beer.

  “The fellows of my generation are kicking the problem around among ourselves, but our bosses are sitting tight, gray suits, old gray minds—gray loans.” He grinned painfully.

  That was it. They drank more beer and revisited their youth, recalling old teachers and classmates. When they got up to leave, Shimamura turned suddenly to Aoki. “Bix Beiderbecke!”

  “ ‘Krazy Kat!’ “

  They grinned at each other over the old jazz memories, over the old addiction, and parted with a warm handshake. It was 11:00 P.M. Walking away through streets ablaze with eye-aching neon, Aoki observed a flock of kimonoed women from the bars seeing their customers into black limousines, customers who weaved unsteady courses; doubtless some of them were bankers, some of them yakuza.

  In the ryokan, reliving this, Aoki had been pacing the room. Now he stopped. Ito and Yamazaki would be returning to an inferno. Yet maybe they’d seen the Fatman coming. Maybe they’d come here to work on a counterattack, and the weather had stepped in to play a deadly, delaying hand. Nonetheless, they might have a plan.

  Again he felt dizzy and sick to his stomach from the uncertainties. He’d been away from the job too long.

  Maybe Madam Ito had taken her own life, and Ito or Yamazaki had sought to cover this up with the bloodied clothes to avoid the disgrace of the ménage-à-trois coming out—although it had come out anyway. Even that made more sense than Saito’s theory that she was alive, but there was no conclusive evidence for either proposition. He wished again that he had that mountain of a dossier. He knew it would’ve been raked over and over. However, a vital piece of information might be buried there, waiting for the right brain to interpret it. His brain kept darting into alley after alley. Hyper-fucking-active! In this strange place, maybe it was being funneled toward the heart of the case.

  Aoki’s eye fell on the bonsai plants. One of them was missing, the sick one. It must’ve died. Shit!

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Twelve

  INSPECTOR AOKI AWOKE IN DARKNESS. He cheeked his watch with the flashlight: 5:15 P.M. The maid would not have wished to disturb him to light the lamp. He’d had no lunch; instead, he’d fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep. He pulled the quilt over his head. Presently he’d take a bath. Right now he felt drowsy, but his mind was again picking up the case.

  Two maids at a Kyoto ryokan had told a reporter how Yamazaki had thrown Madam Ito to the floor in a violent outburst; how they’d heard her pleading as he’d perpetrated “terrible acts” on her; how the next day, she’d kept to her room, hiding her bruised face. Aoki doubted the story’s veracity. In his opinion the MOF official would disdain such conduct, and it had come out that that paper was paying for information, much of which couldn’t be verified.

  It was weird, how these unchronological recollections were bombarding him—as if they’d been stored in the ryokan’s guts, as much as in his mind, waiting for him and now were being pulled out by a mysterious hand, like rabbits from a hat. Crazy thinking. He sat up. He must stay pragmatic, yet flexible. Carefully, he extracted sleep from his eyes with his fingertips.

  He was no stranger to violence. He’d come to know himself, in that respect. He frequently dealt with scum who inflicted deadly harm on their victims and escaped justice. The frustration had occasionally boiled over in him. A few times he’d gone out of control. Once, a pimp-cum-pusher had been mocking and reticent about giving him an address. Smack! Aoki slapped him with bone-jarring force. The man, grinning, spat a mouthful of blood on Aoki’s suit. The red haze smoldering in Aoki exploded. One-handed, he pinioned the guy against a wall by the throat, tore open the man’s trousers and seized his testicles, and twisted with all his strength. Afterward, he’d taken a few deep breaths and rejoined his partner, and they’d gone to the address.

  He stared at the Camellia Room. How long had the ryokan been in the Hatano family? He put on a yukata and went to the bath.

  Aoki had washed and immersed himself when Yamazaki entered the bathhouse. The second time they’d shared the bath. Obviously Chairman Ito followed a different bathing routine. They floated in the steamy atmosphere. It was the stone bath, and the water temperature was higher than in the other. The detective noted that the MOF man’s testicles were low-slung, potent-looking. Aoki shut his eyes. Today, he had balls on the brain.

  “Abominable weather,” Yamazaki said.

  “But pleasant here,” Aoki replied.

  The tall man began to talk languidly about food, then about the specialties of Kamakura Inn. “You know about these places, do you, Inspector?’ Aoki grunted noncommittally into the steam. “Ah. Well, each provincial daimyo had to leave his wife and children in Tokyo, virtually as hostages, and the daimyos themselves were required to live there every alternate year. As they moved to and from, each traveled with a retinue of a thousand or more servants—at great expense, to keep them short of funds.” He chuckled. “The shoguns were very creative, very cautious in many ways. On his travels a daimyo stayed in honjin—the forerunners of ryokans like this one.”

  “This one isn’t on a major road,” Aoki ventured.

  “This kind came later. Nonetheless, honjin were its prototype. One like this was for rich merchants who wanted to get away to enjoy the hot spring, the solitude, the change in the seasons. Our co-guest seems to fit that bill, doesn’t he?”

  Aoki had no comment. What he’d heard was some of the story he’d tried to remember from his father.


  They luxuriated in the warmth. The crippled bank was away on another planet. Tokyo. Out of the steamy silence, the MOF man said, “I note your interest in Go.” Aoki grunted, noncommittal again. “Our co-guest is possibly a high-grade player.”

  Aoki thought for a moment. “He says he plays as a spiritual discipline. “

  Yamazaki laughed, a gurgle of phlegm. “D’you believe that? In the old days, that might’ve been true for some. I think this fellow sees it as a test of strength—a sedentary martial art.”

  The detective nodded to himself.

  When Aoki returned to his room, the kotatsu had been refueled and stoked up. He looked down at it, thinking. After his wife’s funeral, he hadn’t changed the routine that he’d adopted since his suspension. The surveillance on him had been reinstated. Moving from the coffee shop to the park and his observation of the neighborhood’s juvenile and geriatric life to the bar must’ve become wearisome to his anonymous police watchers. However, Watanabe had been right to upgrade their vigilance, and the police shrink had been right to ring an alarm bell. After Tokie’s death, hatred for the Fatman had been implanted in his brain like a rock placed in a raked sand garden. Another crook who was escaping justice and retribution! Nonetheless, he was incapacitated, and powerless.