Kamakura Inn

by Marshall Browne

  A huge, unprepossessing building, with a giant banner proclaiming the sponsors name looped across its front, confronted Aoki. Men, many in traditional dress, moved in the street, coming and going. Aoki stood on the pavement, watching. Then he went through the doors into a vast hall.

  ~ * ~

  The hum of a thousand voices enfolded him, resonating high up in the cavernous space. Men sat at Go tables or nearby, observing the matches in progress; others moved around. A week ago Aoki would’ve been astonished at the sight. Now his heart sank at the task. In their uniform traditional clothing, individuals were a homogeneous mass. The competition was in its third day, and many of the tables had become vacant as contestants were eliminated. About a hundred tables were still in play: the high-grade players. If he was here, Saito must be in that group.

  Aoki, his face hard, hissed softly through his teeth. What now? At one side of the hall there was a low gallery, only about ten feet above the heads of the players. A few of the spectators were sitting there. It was a place to look down on the tables without being conspicuous.

  He found the stairway, and minutes later he was seated in the gallery’s second row, scanning the tables below. The farthest occupied ones were about ten yards from his position. Saito was tall, but sitting down, that distinction was lost. Methodically Aoki’s eyes moved over each table, each person. The players were in profile to him. He was looking for the long head, the abundant brushed-back hair with its blue sheen, the big shoulders. After five minutes, no such individual met his careful scrutiny, but the tables were close together, and he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t missed one. He blinked, moistening his eyes. He repeated the process. Nothing. He sat back in his chair. If Saito was here, he wasn’t at one of the tables.

  “But what are the odds that he would be here?” he asked himself with renewed doubt. The fellow could be in Paris or New York, or anywhere the yakuza had a bolt-hole, or he could be back home, deep in his real identity and existence.

  Shaded electric lights brightly illuminated each match. Below him, the embattled formations of stones glittered. Grimly, again he remembered how handfuls had whistled viciously through the anteroom’s darkness. Should he go down and walk through the crowds of observers? The organizers would have a list of the participants, but Saito—his Saito—wouldn’t be here under that name.

  In the corner of his eye—a golden flash. He swung his head around. Again the winking flash. A man at a table, only six paces or so out into the hall, had turned to speak to someone behind him; had turned toward Aoki. The insistent flash had come from a badge on the front of his cloak.

  Aoki’s breath choked in his throat. His heart seemed to stop. Saito! The luxuriant brushed-back hair was gone—this man had a sparse dark thatch streaking over yellowed skin—but seen from the front, the long, saturnine face was unmistakable to Aoki. He was smiling his sardonic smile as he listened to the man behind him.

  Aoki thrust forward. Caught by the movement, Saito’s eyes lifted to the gallery and met the detective’s. Aoki couldn’t detect the facial reaction, though the Go-player’s gaze remained steady. Now he was speaking to a second man behind him, out of the corner of his mouth.

  Aoki left his seat, ran up the gallery stairs to the corridor at the rear, and raced along it. He’d almost reached the stairs to the main floor when two men in suits rushed up them. They were in their thirties, well built, well dressed, looking tough and competent. Their suits were of identical cut; one was blue, one dark gray. They came to a halt, blocking the detective’s way. Aoki pulled up, his eyes narrowed. No trademark tattoos or missing fingers in evidence, but they were yakuza.

  “Mr. Aoki?” one inquired. He’d put his hand in his pocket.

  Aoki nodded. “And you?”

  Gray-suit smiled condescendingly. “Mr. Saito would like to speak to you.”

  “Then we’re on the same wavelength,” Aoki said tersely, and started to move past them.

  “Just a minute,” blue-suit said, stepping forward. “Excuse, please.” He ran his hands expertly over Aoki, especially checking for an ankle holster. “Hmm,” he said.

  The suits escorted him to their boss. “Clean,” blue-suit said.

  Saito stood in the center of a small room at the side of the hall, his big hands locked together across his belly, a slight smile on his face. “Inspector Aoki, congratulations!”

  Aoki stared at him. The hairpiece Saito had worn at the ryokan had been state-of-the-art. He had less hair than Aoki, and what there was was cut to a stubble. Several large brown marks showed on his cranium. “I thought I’d seen the last of you. However, Go was a link between us at the ryokan, wasn’t it? And, after all, you’re a top detective. “

  The room had a bare wood floor and was unfurnished except for a couple of hard-backed chairs.

  “So. You’re yakuza,” Aoki said.

  Saito tilted his head, raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think that?” His harsh voice echoed in the empty wooden space. Aoki jerked his head at the two suits, who were standing with their backs to the door.

  Saito smiled. “Everyone has bodyguards these days, from corporate chiefs to top government bureaucrats.”

  With a small shock, Aoki realized that the gold badge wasn’t the Fatman’s Club’s. It might’ve been a Go club badge; he couldn’t recognize any distinguishing feature. He raised his eyes from it to Saito’s face. “I’d like you to answer some questions.”

  The man who was possibly from Osaka, who was certainly in Osaka right now, nodded. “Why not? But are you still suspended, Inspector? You’re not carrying a weapon. So, an unofficial visit?”

  Aoki ignored the question; his distrustful expression didn’t change, but his eyelids flickered. “ ‘If you meet a Buddha, kill him. If you meet a patriarch of the law, kill him.’ “ He spoke with cold aggression.

  Saito’s eyes narrowed. After a moment, he said, “Yes?”

  “Your little motto for Ito and Yamazaki—and perhaps myself?”

  Saito laughed. “Motto? But you’re still alive.”

  “Things didn’t go as programmed.”

  Saito moved his shoulders in a slight flexing movement and thought for a moment. “I’m involved in this interesting case at the ryokan, am I? Under suspicion?” He shook his head ruefully and gazed down at the boards. “Why did I leave before the arrival of the police?” He looked up at the detective’s face. “It was possible to leave; it was time to leave. Have you considered that one might not wish to be caught up in that kind of sensation, for what I’d call legitimate reasons?”

  Aoki stared at the half-amused face, trying to read it, to analyze the brain processes. The mask of the joker? All that he could make out was arrogance, and a bizarre agenda exuding from the big man like a hot breath from a furnace. Nothing that he said could be trusted.

  “I enjoyed our conversations. I hoped I was being of assistance to you, showing you just where the fault lines were, so to speak. Crimes of passion, crimes of revenge—my interest in them is quite genuine.”

  Aoki stared into his eyes. A great game-player, and still playing. A competitor, and a cynical, tantalizing, contemptuous murderer, maybe the one who’d dined off the parts in that refrigerator.

  It came at him in a rush. That fatal night, under the plate cover, had Hatano been taking Yamazaki’s liver to this man? He drew in a long breath. He had the bastard’s number, but not enough evidence to nail him. Would he get out of here alive, even? Now Aoki felt sweat running in his armpits. At the ryokan this yakuza boss had imparted his comments to the hick cop with avuncular contempt. Power, and killing people with impunity, bred such superiority. Aoki’s mouth tightened until its corners tingled.

  Saito, the gleam of mirth in his eye, said, “In this morning’s paper I see someone’s dug up the interesting fact that Miss Hatano and her sister are the sole beneficiaries of Mr. Ito’s estate . . . Ah, you don’t know that. I wonder why that banker would leave a fortune to a stepdaughter who hated him? Guilty conscience?
Atonement? Or maybe it was just an old will he never got around to changing. “

  At a loss, Aoki rubbed his jaw with his hand. More fucking smoke being laid down! He was being led in circles. Saito spread his hands in the air. “Try to look more at the big picture. Open up your mind.”

  In a voice barely under control, Aoki said, “Ito and Yamazaki were corporate and human garbage, but no one deserves to die like they did.”

  The tall man smiled down on the detective. “You’re a simple kind of fellow, Aoki, which has its points—”

  “Cut the crap. It might take a while, but we’re going to get you.” Aoki realized he’d snarled like an animal. The yakuza, any place, any time, could chomp up and spit out the likes of him. Choking on his emotions and his impotence, he stood there. It was fortunate they’d taken away his gun.

  Saito’s smile broadened. “And I suppose you think you’ll reopen the investigation into ex-governor Tamaki, or maybe do something on your own account.” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “Inspector, get in touch with the realities in our nation.”

  “More crap,” Aoki hissed.

  Saito laughed indulgently. The hubbub of the Go hall rose up in the silence between them.

  Aoki said, “I know about your perverted diet. Chopped liver, lightly fried, is it? With Chef Hatano’s delicate touch, and a special sauce?” This time Aoki forced control on his voice, kept it level. “Something to make normal men vomit their guts, something to share with another pervert—Colonel Oto.” Aoki threw in the last bit recklessly.

  Saito had become absolutely still. The humor had dropped from his face like a discarded mask. He was as deadly as the winter-entombed mountains where they’d met. “Good-bye, Inspector. Don’t try to find me again.” The new voice was as razor-sharp and as final as a blade slicing a throat. Gray-suit had put his right hand in his pocket and was gazing at his boss.

  Aoki turned his back and walked out of the room.

  ~ * ~

  His heart was pounding and his limbs were trembling with anger as he pushed his way between gray-robed bodies, not seeing the academic faces preoccupied with arcane formations of small round stones, but in a few moments he was calming down. He went to the administration desk and showed his badge to an elderly man. “Table number 44,” he said. “The very tall competitor, who is he, please?”

  The official consulted a list. “That is Mr. Yamamoto, from Kobe. He’s an amateur of the seventh grade.” He peered up at Aoki.

  “Do you know him well?”

  “He comes here each year. I believe he’s a merchant.”

  “What is his address in Kobe?” The man consulted a thick folder and pursed his lips. “Would you write it down for me, please? “ The man wrote it on the back of his own name card.

  Aoki walked a few paces from the desk, then returned to it. “Do you have records of matches played at past competitions?”

  The man nodded and placed a volume before the detective. Aoki found the results for 1998 and ran his finger down a column. His finger stopped. He nodded to himself, gave his thanks to the official, and left the building.

  Aoki stood in the cold street. Yamamoto had played Nagai in a quarterfinal, and beaten him. He inhaled, took chilled car exhaust fumes deep down into his lungs, and coughed. Nagai had lost match, life, and body parts; it’d been a case of winner take all. Neither Saito nor Yamamoto was the Go-player’s right name, and the Kobe address would be fake, so where did he go now?

  Thirty yards along the pavement to his left, three men had come out another door and were walking toward a limousine parked at the curb. Saito’s tall figure was between the two bodyguards, his head bobbing above theirs. Aoki gazed after them as they hurriedly got in the car and drove off. It’d happened in seconds, and though he started forward, he couldn’t get the license plate number.

  In hazy yellow blobs, the big-city sodium lights floated away down a wide avenue, and now he gazed in that direction.

  Saito had failed to kill him at the ryokan. He’d had luck on his side—the dual incidents involving Madam Ito, first drawing him away from the banker’s door, and then, later, into the secret room had taken him out of range. Hatano had made a mess of it in the anteroom, and Saito had run out of time. For Saito the priorities had been Chairman Ito and Yamazaki. Aoki had been added to the list at the behest of the Fatman and Watanabe. Even so, with his henchman in tow, why not tonight? The broad avenue gave no answer.

  In his mind, the world of Go had died out. The unfinished business behind him with Saito was relegated to a waiting room. He was calming down. He’d found Saito once; maybe he’d be that lucky again.

  Aoki shuddered. In his brain, the Fatman, grinning and unscathed, had stepped forward from his impregnable world. The man who had brought disaster to Aoki, whose power had killed Tokie; the player in this dark sequence of events most deserving of retribution, who, against all the odds, must be brought to justice. Aoki’s eyes glowed in the Osaka gloom. He had a good idea where he might find him. It was Friday night.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THE BEST MOMENTS IN OSAKA were those at departure. Aoki had always loathed this city, and more so now. The bullet train picked up speed until it was purring through the night. Aoki sat weary, stiff, and hurting, but alert. Saito’s world had been left behind. Ahead, in Tokyo, waited that of the Fatman, ex-governor Tamaki. Before his eyes, he had this flowing, dark, tumbled landscape into which humanity had shoehorned so much infrastructure, so much of its history, and, as he saw now, so much of its culture. Fie lit a cigarette and gazed at it wide-eyed.

  At 11:15 P.M. they arrived at Tokyo Central station. Passing the lockers, he had an image of Madam Ito moving up the thronged concourse with her damaged wrists, her damaged mind, and her parcel of bloodstained clothing.

  He took the suburban train to Kamakura.

  The apartment was steeped in its silence. A small space of iced air; he still hadn’t turned on the heating. He didn’t feel as if he wanted to resume residence. Tokie’s scrolls hung on the walls, memorials to the poems she’d loved. He put on water to heat for coffee, then went into the bathroom and splashed his face. He gasped at the icy shock. In the living room, a message light winked on the phone. He pressed a button. “This is Superintendent Motono. Where are you, Inspector Aoki? I need to confer with you urgently. Phone me. Now.”

  Aoki shrugged. For the second time that day, he entered his father’s room. The locker seemed to await his hands. He took the sealskin pouch and lifted out the revolver. It was clammy, and he carried it to the kitchen and wiped it off with a rag. The old man had drowned it in oil when he put it away—sixty years ago? Many of his father’s writer-heroes had committed suicide, Kawabata and Akutagawa, and some who weren’t his heroes, like Mishima. From his outsider’s place, with his detective’s mind, Aoki had listened to him on this. As a young patrolman, he’d cut down suicides from trees on Mount Fuji. He wondered if his father had kept the gun with suicide in mind. When old age became insupportable? It was a distinct possibility.

  Aoki broke open the revolver’s chamber. Five years ago he’d taken a course at a prefecture academy where they’d been shooting ,45s, and he’d helped himself to a few rounds. He found them among the paraphernalia in his desk drawer: three stubby, brass-rimmed rounds. Five years—would the charges still be sound? He shrugged. He went back to the kitchen and fed the rounds into three of the six chambers. Again an atmosphere of predestination washed through him. He put the revolver into his overcoat pocket.

  This isn’t the way, you know, his father said.

  I don’t know, said his wife. It just might be. A point of difference between those two! He sipped coffee. He had to step out of their world now, into his own.

  Aoki hadn’t eaten since the hamburger and felt empty. At Central station, he glanced at his watch, then went to a tempura bar, where he sat on a stool and ordered two crisp-battered prawns, one eggplant, and rice. He washed the meal down with tea. One of his nig
ht-owl snacks. Ten minutes later, he caught the train.

  ~ * ~

  The Fatman was a creature of habit. In the seventeen-month investigation he’d run, Aoki had at times thought he knew as much about the ex-governor’s surface life as the Diet member did himself; just as he knew about much of his covert criminality, assembled in the sealed records at headquarters, presuming they hadn’t walked.

  Each Friday night, Tamaki had gone to his parents’ house to spend the night alone, sending his driver and bodyguard home. He’d never missed once. The old house with its traditional garden, rooted in Zen, obviously cast a strong influence over the Fatman. Aoki had wondered about the sentimentality this implied. Was it an escape to the past, to a cleaner life? A respite from the dirt in his political and business lives? He’d decided that the evil bastard wouldn’t be capable of such a notion; it was merely the Fatman in another mysterious dimension.