Kamakura Inn

by Marshall Browne

  Aoki’s eyes hardened. Meditation! Were old Zen mottoes, the historic Go match, and last night’s events figuring? Hatano should be in the kitchen slicing up stuff for lunch. “Very well.” He gazed at this beautiful woman, this enigma; she looked back with steady but troubled eyes.

  She knew. More from a kind of current between them than from anything he read in her eyes, in the midst of this death and terror, she knew of his feelings. Silently he let out a breath, bowed, and left.

  In the hall he pulled up and ran his hand through his spiky hair, getting himself together. He lit a cigarette. The maids would be working in the anteroom for a while, company for Ito. He turned and headed down the staircase. Outside the Azalea Room, which he now thought of as the morgue, tapers smoked in a tin of sand and incense suffused the air. He sniffed with distaste: a scent to conceal the smell of death. He took out his flashlight and slid open the door. The two bodies lay side by side. The laundry bag, in the shape of a soccer ball, had been correctly positioned against Shoba’s shrouded corpse. A coverlet had been drawn over Yamazaki. Aoki lifted it. The face had shrunk, and the complexion had turned sallow; all traces of the MOF man’s strong personality had vanished.

  Aoki directed the flashlight at the incision on the abdomen. Yeah, the liver. Organs were routinely taken from executed prisoners in China for use in transplants, but that wasn’t relevant here. The forensic guys were going to be doing some head-scratching with this one.

  He didn’t know why he’d come here again; perhaps, subconciously, he was fearful that the bodies would go up in smoke. Face expressionless, he went upstairs.

  When Aoki returned to the anteroom, the banker had moved to the window and was peering above a snowbank at snow-drowned trees—maybe estimating how many more hours he’d be shielded from the world, or from death. Aoki studied the tense figure; hands behind his back, one within the other, Ito seemed to be drawing the freezing landscape into himself. He could have brought his radio, but he hadn’t. The news was now a second-string preoccupation— or the radio’s batteries had run down. The way he told it, he’d turned his back on the yakuza, but, for sure, this man knew that once you moved into their sphere no escape was possible; if you sought to draw a line, it’d be with your own blood.

  Aoki went to the fire and warmed his hands. How far away was that snowplow, the linemen? He’d been looking for a weapon, and the samurai sword had been his first thought. If the outside world hadn’t broken through by evening, he’d slip the blade out of its scabbard. The cover of darkness was needed to kill and get clear; they must be gambling that there’d be tonight to finish the job—if logic had any place in this madness.

  Aoki’s lighter flared, and he stuck a fresh cigarette between his lips. Saito or Hatano? But Saito was in his fifties, and Hatano was in residence when Ito and Yamazaki had arrived for their impromptu getaway; he couldn’t have been put in place by the yakuza. Was it down to a random factor? Something that was way out of sight, that his thinking hadn’t discovered—something like Kazu Hatano’s devil’s gate that couldn’t be blocked by snow? Aoki’s stomach had begun to ache. Forget that! Saito was in it up to his balls. He was playing the eccentric, Go-playing amateur criminologist to a T, reveling in his mysterious status, his black humor. But who’d actually done the knife work in each case? His earlier thoughts about an assassin being hidden here were as relevant as before. Grimly, his brow creased, Aoki tasted the tobacco, thinking, A yakuza under Saito’s instructions.

  He glanced across at the still rigid Ito. Whatever Kazu Hatano and her sister were up to was connected to the missing woman, their mother—that was the way he read it. He couldn’t see her figuring in the violence of her stepfather’s situation or whatever her half-mad father’s agenda was.

  ~ * ~

  After lunch, Kazu Hatano had nothing new to report. Her men had dug out thirty feet from the main door, but it was a trench to nowhere. The road remained embedded in an estimated ten or twelve feet of snow. The detective and the banker had eaten lunch at their separate tables. For a moment, Aoki had wondered whether they should be putting this food in their mouths. Chef Hatano’s disturbed face came up on his mental screen. According to him, loan sharks and bankruptcy had pushed him over the edge, but Aoki’s vibes told him it was only part of the story.

  Grim-faced, Aoki decided that doctored food wouldn’t be the way of it, and managed half a bowl of rice and drank a small bottle of Sapporo Black Label beer; no Heineken in these mountains. He went to work with a toothpick, his eyes locked on the banker.

  ~ * ~

  At 4:00 P.M. the meager daylight was finished, and the maids hurried about filling the oil lamps, while shadows slippery from the shine of lamplight reclaimed the rooms, alcoves, corridors, and stairways. Ito had turned to the folder and become absorbed in the papers it held. Saito hadn’t appeared, and Aoki sent one of the maids to find out if he was still in his room. He was sleeping, she said. Sleep!

  Ito got up, glanced at the detective, and went out carrying the folder. Aoki followed. The small, dumpy man moved smoothly down the corridor to the main hall and knocked on the office door. Aoki heard Kazu Hatano’s voice respond, and Ito entered.

  Aoki stood by the brazier, gazing at the closed door. What kind of conversation could those two have? This looked different from the banker’s previous visits to complain about the phone. Noiselessly, Aoki crossed the hall and stood by the door, but he could hear only the faintest murmur of voices. They must be conversing almost in whispers. The ex-stepfather to the ex-stepdaughter, though was “ex” the fact? He went back to the brazier and gazed at the red charcoal, seeing her face in the glowing heart of the fire.

  ~ * ~

  Ito took a bath at 5:30 P.M. while Aoki sat on a stool in the bathhouse and watched, wondering what the meeting had been about. The banker’s face was closed with thought and resolute. The fear evident this morning appeared to have evaporated. Was the man willing himself to come through tonight, focused on getting back and settling his score with Tamaki? He’d arranged to dine at seven, seemed determined to keep up his routine. Aoki flexed against the stiffness in his shoulders. Did this man have a spare thought for the unfortunate Shoba? Aoki brooded on the wallowing figure in the stone bath. He hadn’t once sighted Saito in the bathhouse; obviously he took his meals in his room, and his baths at eccentric hours. Apart from his appearances in the anteroom at the Go table, he’d been a virtual recluse at the ryokan.

  What had evaporated in Aoki’s case was his appetite. While two maids fussed around the solitary Ito in the dining room, Aoki went back to the office. The housemen had disappeared, and the doors and snow shutters were closed.

  He knew that wanting to be close to this woman had drawn him back here. He fancied that she’d been staring at the old-fashioned black phone. The office door was open, and he stood in it. She was seated at her desk wearing a kimono new to him: dark green, with a gold and amber pattern. It seemed to give off a mellow light. Her hair was immaculate and her face made up again; the freckles had done their vanishing trick. Drinking this in, he had a strong feeling that she’d steeled herself against future developments.

  Aoki cleared his throat. “Please instruct the staff to retire immediately after dinner. No one should be out of his room after 9:00 P.M.”

  She nodded.

  “As soon as he retires, I’m going to guard Mr. Ito’s room. When you leave the office, please ensure his phone has an outside line switched through.”

  She gave him a quick look. “I’ll have a brazier placed in the corridor.” Her voice was low and husky. She pressed a bell, and when a maid appeared, she gave that instruction and one for a thermos of tea to be prepared.

  “Very well,” Aoki said. They exchanged a long look, and he turned to go. The lady at the sanatorium would have to wait. He had life and death on his plate, and three other things to check on before Ito was ready to leave the dining room.

  Minutes later he’d reached the northeast corner and was outside the C
hrysanthemum Room. Behind the paper wall, Saito’s radio was playing music, and the man from Osaka coughed.

  Aoki moved on, into the ryokan’s subterranean region, and stood in the kitchen doorway, amid cooking smells and sizzling sounds. Four people were at work in the smoky room, preparing the last dishes of Ito’s dinner. Hatano leaned arrogantly against a bench, and they stared at each other. Aoki left. He looked at his watch: 7:05 P.M.

  At his next stop, the sword was no longer on the wall. Aoki stared at the empty scabbard and swore softly. It hadn’t been used last night, so why tonight? Or had the killer anticipated his intention and moved to place the weapon beyond the reach of Hideo Aoki? An overpowering compulsion to check Saito’s room came down on him again. If he burst in, would he find the Osaka man testing the edge of the samurai weapon?

  Swiftly he descended the staircase, sliding his hand down the bannister. Each flight was lit with a single oil lamp, but many corridors were unlit. He flicked on his flashlight and lit his way into the one that led to the Chrysanthemum Room and hurried toward it. The flower seemed to rush out of the darkness at the light beam. The music was still playing. Without ceremony, he slid back the door.

  The lighted room was empty; the bed wasn’t made up on the tatami mat. Aoki let his breath out. Along the corridor, in the dark, a floorboard creaked. He swung the flashlight in that direction and gasped as it hit a white face. Saito! The man from Osaka was standing in an alcove staring toward him, must’ve been following him. Did he have super night vision? The thought scudded across Aoki’s mind.

  “What are you doing?” the policeman said roughly.

  The low, harsh voice came. “What am I doing? Going to my room.”

  “From where?”

  “From where I’ve been—the bath—and from communing with the restless spirits in these corridors. Spirits of those who have died violently and who will cause trouble unless appeased. Have you come upon the shrine in your own wanderings, Inspector?” Aoki held his flashlight on the long face, the glossy hair. Saito had raised a hand to shield his eyes. Spirits! The detective’s jaw tightened.

  “Please go to your room and remain there. Everyone is to keep to his room till morning.”

  Without another word, Saito brushed past and entered the Chrysanthemum Room. Aoki smelled the scent of sake on his kimono, the warmth of the big man’s body after the bath.

  The detective returned to the hall, and thence to the anteroom. It would be fruitless to ask anyone about the sword. He thought of going to the kitchen and seeing what he could pick up in the way of a weapon. Forget it! He had his black belt. Yet probably the deceased Shoba had had one, too. He stood in front of the fire waiting for the banker to leave the dining room.

  ~ * ~

  At 8:45 P.M., when Aoki saw Ito back to his room, a brazier, its charcoal banked up and radiating heat, had been placed in the corridor near the black-lacquered hardbacked chair upon which Shoba had been seated. By the chair leg was a thermos flask. The only light was from an oil lamp positioned on a nearby chest.

  “I will be here,” Aoki said. “The phone will ring when the line is restored. It could be anytime now. As soon as it is, I’ll speak to the police. I suggest you don’t undress.”

  Ito was breathing evenly. He stood immobile in the dusk, his face mounds and shadows, the eyes dark holes. He’d wrapped a thick woolen scarf of indeterminate color around his neck. He nodded brusquely and entered the Lily Room. Aoki stared after him. No fear in those eyes now; his manner had transformed into obduracy and determination. Did he know something new? Aoki lit a cigarette and paced back and forth. The tobacco suffused his throat, and he coughed briefly. He heard someone passing on the stairs, probably a maid on a last task.

  Shortly before 9:00 P.M. deep silence claimed the ryokan. His instructions seemed to have been put into effect. He swung his arms, loosened his shoulders. He’d put on the lightest of the padded kimonos to give himself more freedom of movement, and karate drills were running in his head. He remembered the words of his first instructor: “If an assailant with a bladed weapon comes at you, turn and run like hell; if you can’t run, here are things you can do.” He’d become professionally reliant on his pistol. Too reliant.

  Four paces along the corridor, the great splash of blood across the door and wall had already turned a brownish color, and above it the white lily seemed to float in space. Aoki had that impression; he was no longer surprised at such thinking. Tomorrow, the ryokan would be back in the world, as far as it ever was, and tonight would be history. He hoped. He stopped his pacing. The sound of Ito’s gentle snoring was coming through the fragile fusuma door. He shook his head in wonder.

  ~ * ~

  Below freezing—it must be. Aoki’s face stung, and his fingers had a chilblain tingle. The brazier was fighting a losing battle. He stood as close as possible to it. No way he’d sit down on that chair. It was near midnight. He jerked his head to one side, listening hard, always fucking listening . . . He fancied that the silence in the corridor had assumed a different quality. It was shrilling in his ears with the insistent intensity of cicadas on a summer night. Summer! A dream of paradise. Though this place was never completely silent. He was scared and angry. Eyes straining, heart beating faster, he stared right, then left, into the shadows beyond the light from the lamp, but no danger declared itself.

  At one o’clock, he took a mouthful of tea from the thermos. Its medicinal taste still in his mouth, he seemed to be entering a neutral space. The charcoal shifted, releasing an extra gust of warmth. Abruptly he sat down on the chair, sending the thermos cap rolling on the boards.

  As furtive as a cat hunting in woodland, an insane spirit was feeling its way along the doors. Aoki could sense it, not hear it. His head, which had fallen down, snapped up and swiveled, straining to pick up movement, but he was confused. He jumped to his feet, his heart pounding afresh, loosening his arms. The corridor seemed to be swirling with fog. He blinked rapidly, trying to displace the fog in his head. That fucking tea!

  Like a thrown knife a scream came out of the darkness. The stairway. His body had locked rigid. Immediately the scream’s echo was fading away. A new shock: A female voice, pleading, desperate, came undulating through the corridors—but no words to understand. He was running in that direction before he knew it, slippers slapping down on the boards, but the voice was receding faster. Breathing hard, he pulled up on the landing, shaking his head again to clear it. The sound was still going away from him. Being dragged away now. Upstairs or down? Not another sound in the labyrinth. No responding cries of alarm and inquiry. Was he the only one who’d heard? Impossible. The sound had ceased, and the utter silence seemed a crazy sequel.

  He realized what he’d done—been lured into doing. If he’d taken more than one mouthful of that tea . . . He wheeled and raced back to the Lily Room, flashlight jittering ahead, controlling his breathing, his effort. Old lessons kicked in: Never exhaust yourself in a pursuit; remain fit to fight. No lily in the flashlight beam. With the shock of a worst fear realized, Aoki saw that Ito’s door had been slid wide open.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Twenty

  THE QUILT HAD BEEN FLUNG back. The air in the Lily Room was disturbed, as if ripples from a stone thrown into a pond were still radiating. Aoki’s throat was gripped by a steel band, but his feet moved fast and quiet over the boards.

  Disturbed by the outcry, had the banker found Aoki missing and gone in search of the detective, or panicked and sought to hide himself? If he had a destination, it might be the anteroom. Aoki’s heart was pounding in his chest.

  The inspector lit his way along the corridors. All the oil lamps that he passed were out. He was sweating. The temperature had risen. More than drafts were wafting past him, he imagined. He grimaced in the darkness: That tea had come out of Hatano’s kitchen.

  In the entrance hall, eyes straining, he peered at the front doors. Bolted. Above his head the roof timbers creaked under the snow’s weight as, being as quiet
as he could, he hurried toward the anteroom. His flashlight flickered over a scroll of lake and mountains and shot into the anteroom, searching the corners, wavering over the seating groups. Nothing. The fire was out. Through the semi-misted window he made out the stubs of the icicles and the snow glowing eerily. He listened and heard only the frozen mountains emitting the tortured roar that had become permanent inside his head.

  In the corner of his eye—a slight movement. His hand and the flashlight beam whipped to the far edge of the big window. Something swinging there, a blurred shape. “Oh, shit!” He moved to the window, rubbed away the mist with his hand, and shone the light through the glass. The body twisted on a rope and turned with tantalizing slowness until the light played on the features; tiny yellow points burned in the open eyes.

  Aoki’s heart gave a gigantic thump. He was back in his small kitchen at Kamakura, another body suspended before his horrified eyes, his swooning mind. Microseconds ago he’d sucked in breath. He was biting his lower lip. He flicked the flashlight beam down, looking for blood, but the padded kimono appeared inviolate, as immaculate as when the banker had retired.

  The only blood was wet on Aoki’s cracked lips. He shifted the light again. The hands were loose at the small corpse’s sides, the fingers now as fragile-looking as the icicles. On the floorboards near Aoki’s feet were blobs of melting snow, and the door beside the window was ajar. He pointed his light downward through the window glass: footprints—but smudged in the fast-melting snow.