by Rob Swigart
Chazz smiled and stepped into the small dressing room to change.
As he fastened the ties of his black-skirted hakama, he could hear the students gathering on the mat. Class would be small today, he was sure. Recent events had dampened enthusiasm for recreation, and for most students aikido was recreation, a form of physical exercise that developed balance and centering and gave them some confidence that they could protect themselves if necessary.
There were six students present when he started class, four men and two women. Another woman arrived a few minutes late. He led them through a series of silent stretches and warm-ups, working toward flexibility and strength, then into a series of basic exercises, demonstrating timing in getting off the line of an attack, so when it arrived they would be in the safest place, beside the attacker, looking in the same direction, blending their energy with that of the attacker, then redirecting that energy.
He spoke softly of energy, of ki. The body follows the energy, not the other way around. Move your ki, blend it with the attacker’s, and the physical body will follow where you lead it. He called up one of the students, a powerfully built man with a confident, somewhat fierce attitude. Chazz asked him to punch him in the stomach. The man adopted a martial arts stance, right foot back, right fist cocked at his hip, the left in front for protection; then he stepped forward with his right foot and punched, throwing his hip into the blow.
Chazz scarcely seemed to move yet when the punch arrived he was standing alongside the attacker, his left forearm resting on top of the attacker’s right wrist. Gently he urged the punch out another inch or so, not by holding, but by guiding. Then, with a swift step of his own he reversed direction, seized the man’s hand and twisted it to his left, folding the man’s palm toward the inside of his own wrist. The attacker flipped neatly into the air and landed on the mat with a loud slap. “Kote-gaeshi,” Chazz said slowly, allowing the Japanese term to sink in. “It means ‘wrist-reversal.’”
The student, on his feet again, punched hard and fast with his left hand; once again Chazz was beside him, leading the punch a little bit further, drawing him a little off balance, then with the quick reversal threw him onto the mat. This time he did not let go of the back of the man’s hand but held it bent toward the wrist, holding the arm straight up and down and then leaning on it as on an umbrella handle, holding the wrist painfully bent over the man’s head, forcing the shoulder into the mat. “A good uke knows his limits,” Chazz explained. “He knows when to yield, when to absorb. And most important, he knows when to slap the mat just at the limit of the stretch.” The man slapped the mat hard, and Chazz let him up once more. “Like that,” Chazz smiled.
Four more times they repeated the exercise, then he told the class to practice.
They punched and turned, fell and rose again. The only sounds were harsh breathing, grunts and the sharp slaps on the mat when they fell. Chazz moved around, correcting here, adjusting there. From time to time he clapped for their attention and showed them the kinds of openings they might leave for counterattack— failing to get off the line, failing to move far enough back beside the attacker, failing to put their hips into the throw, failing to connect the bend in the attacker’s wrist with their center of balance so the throw only seemed to work on the wrist and arm, not on the whole person.
Sometimes he changed roles and attacked the students, taking falls from them when they merged their energy with his correctly, absorbing their throws without moving when they didn’t.
The time passed quickly. About halfway through, three men came in and stood near the door, watching. He could not make out who they were against the bright backlighting through the windows at the end of the hut. He deferred talking to them until the end of class, but after several minutes he moved to the edge of the mat and bowed to them. They bowed back, very formally, which told him they were Japanese, though he still could not make out their faces.
The end of the class arrived and a few of the students stayed to work out on their own. While they trained, Chazz took a live sword from the rack and thrust the scabbard through his belt on the left side. He began moving, slowly at first, but with increasing speed, through the series of the seven sword suburi over and over, first a simple shomen, an overhead downward strike; then raising the sword high overhead, settling back with it, down and out of sight, hidden by his legs, then the swift shomen. He moved on through the series of left- and right-sided yokomen strikes to the temple; then strikes and thrusts to right and left, moving forward. He ended with a series of reverse strikes, turning and stepping, forward and back.
His anger and frustration faded as he worked. Imaginary opponents fell before him. Aggression was contrary to the spirit of aikido, of blending and harmony, yet between himself and his weapon there was harmony. The sword, the man, the opponent, the space between and the intent on both sides, all became mere aspects of one whole.
Zanshin, his teacher would say. He must maintain zanshin. Awareness, a state of alertness that expands and extends in all directions, not merely toward the single opponent. In his zanshin state he knew that the students had stopped training and were watching; he was aware also that the three men were there in the shadows. He did not stop his practice, however.
Soon he was sweating heavily. His arms began to ache, but he kept on, step, strike, turn, step, strike. The sound of the blade moving through the air gratified him as he increased the speed. Then he sheathed the sword and began the first of the iaido exercises, techniques for fast draw and cut. Seated on his heels in seiza, knees slightly apart, he breathed slowly in and out. On the second exhale he rose to his knees, stepped forward with his right foot, and drew the sword for a swift cut to his imaginary opponent’s right temple. The sword then moved back, over his left shoulder for a stab to the rear, overhead for the killing downward strike, canted to the right and over the right shoulder for another rearward stab, then, in a quick arc diagonally to his right to throw off any imaginary blood, he pointed the sword at his fallen foe, and returned it smoothly to its sheath while standing and stepping back. The entire process took enormous concentration and focus for awareness and smoothness, yet was over in seconds.
He repeated the exercise five times. Then he went on to perform the other nine exercises, which included moving strikes turning right and left. He repeated each one five times.
When he finished the men were gone. He said goodbye to the students, changed, packed his gi, and locked up the dojo.
It was dusk, when the soft vague lavender air led so gradually into darkness it was hard to say when it turned from day to night. His old white VW van loomed in the fading light like a promise. Chazz was smiling.
The Bronco was parked along his path. When he walked up alongside it, he stopped and bowed. The door opened and a heavyset man emerged. The other two stayed inside.
Chazz, balanced in hanmi, the triangular stance, in a ready kamae that was completely neutral, waited.
The man stood quietly in the failing light. Then he smiled. Chazz could see the smile, the gleam of the teeth.
“You are Dr. Charles Koenig,” the man said. His voice showed no trace of an accent; only the stilted formality of his phrasing betrayed his foreign origin.
“I am.”
“I am Ueda.”
“Is there something I can do for you, Ueda-san?”
“We are in the same business, Dr. Koenig. We are both biologists. What do you make of recent events, might I ask?”
“What recent events are those, Ueda-san?” Chazz asked blandly.
Again he saw the smile. “Ah, so.” The final syllable lingered as it hissed into silence. “I refer to a poisoning.”
“The poisoning is your concern?”
“No. You mistake me. The poisoning is not my concern. It is no one’s concern. I wonder if you are making it your concern. I wonder what your interest is, Dr. Koenig.”
There was a long silence. Ueda’s smile remained in place, hovering in the increasing darkness. It re
minded Chazz of the Cheshire cat, leaving only his smile behind as the rest of him faded away.
Chazz ignored the implied question, setting it aside for later consideration. “Did you enjoy the class, Ueda-san?” he asked politely.
“Oh, yes. Very much. You are a good teacher. This, perhaps, is what you should be doing here on this lovely island. Teaching aikido. I too have done some martial arts, Dr. Koenig, since university days. I do not do aikido, not the outward form, but styles differ yet principles remain the same. Budo, the way of the warrior, is in all the arts of my country. You have much spirit. I can see that. You are a big man, very strong. You should stay a teacher.”
“I believe I understand you, Ueda-san. I’m afraid, though, I will have to do whatever I must. You are a biologist?”
Ueda bowed slightly from the waist. “So. I do wonder about your interests, Dr. Koenig.” He opened the car door and slipped behind the wheel. As the light came on inside the Bronco, Chazz could see the thin man with glasses in the passenger seat, another in back. They were looking at him politely. The light went out as Ueda closed the door.
Chazz continued toward his van.
Ueda started his engine and rolled down the window. “Dr. Koenig!” he called. Chazz stopped. “Yes?”
“There is no poison, you know.”
“Not anymore,” Chazz said. “But there was.”
The Bronco drove away into the night, leaving Chazz standing beside his van.
CHAPTER 26
SMALL CLOTS OF MIST, dark and poisonous, floated overhead, bringing death.
Grant Welter, pinned by pain to his bed, gazed upward with fear in his eyes. Yet he said nothing. Would the clouds come, let fall their drizzle of grief and drift on uncaring? He knew they would. They would.
Recent events were a distant memory, an ache without source or goal. Death was coming from above, and he, helpless in this bed, could do nothing but submit. It would surround him as a mist, seep into his skin, his eyes, his heart, and there would caress and burn and squeeze.
He did not, would not, could not speak of these things. Sandstone was forbidden. He didn’t know what it was, not so precisely he could have said with certainty that it was something he knew about. No. He did not know, and if he did know, he would be punished.
So he said nothing to the man seated on the chrome and plastic chair beside him. Instead he looked upward through a square of glass at the sky, the distant puffs of vapor approaching so slowly their progress was torment to him, a ponderous but inexorable anguish.
Once he shifted his arm and a groan escaped his lips. The sound reinforced his fear. He may have bit down on his lip to stop his involuntary confession.
He knew what sandstone could do. He must forget.
“You’ve had a rough time,” Cobb said softly, as if speaking to a comfortable old companion. “You were injured, and now you’re here. I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you could talk if you did, but it seems to me the people you are protecting, the people you were running from, are ruthless people. Not worth protecting, I don’t think.”
No answer came back through the silence, no echo of the question left unspoken and hanging. Welter’s eyes showed white around their rims, isolating pupils in sclerotic seas. He seldom blinked.
After a time Cobb spoke again. “We found a paper in the computer room. Printed in Japanese. Of course your guests were Japanese. Ueda.”
He spoke the name with subtle emphasis. Did Grant Welter start at the name? Did he show, in the smallest flick of eyelid or tightening of small muscles at the corner of his mouth, that the name meant something to him, something of fear or pain? If so, the moment passed as quickly as it came, leaving behind an impression fainter than the afterimage of an illusion.
“The paper was a printout from your computer, a report. I can make out some characters, Grant. Some characters, and some numbers.”
Grant Welter watched death approach. The clouds there, against the green slopes of the volcano, against the aching blue of this subtropical sky, had moved. Closer, they were, closer. They would arrive. They would. What did numbers matter now?
“Makeda,” Cobb said softly. “A name, Makeda. A large company, a big name in Japan. An international corporation, with many interests. Food. Whiskey and beer. Industrial chemicals. Detergents. Drugs.”
Was there another slight flicker around any of those words? Did drugs or chemicals mean anything? “Why were your guests interested in the quote for Makeda on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Grant? Was the stock in trouble? Was there some bad news about Makeda that made the stock decline? What was that news?”
Welter watched the sky. A cloud was changing shape, reaching out a formless arm toward him, a fist, a threat, admonishing. Do not speak, the cloud commanded. Wait for me.
Aloha 234 was a memory more distant than the pain in his head and back, farther from him than the hours staring down the aisle of the 737 at the policeman. The clouds— they were real. They came closer. He had no past, no memory.
“Makeda stock did not fall, though, Grant.” Cobb Takamura’s voice murmured on, a pleasant, almost hypnotic drone. “Not much. Not far. It rose, then it fell. Then it rose again. Not much. A couple of hundred yen each way, that’s all. Why was Ueda worried? What made him want to check on Makeda stock prices? Was it only curiosity, the fact that he owned stock himself?”
Two clouds, once separate, joined forces, touching first their edges sharply outlined by toxic light, then slowly flowing together, massing for their tremendous slow advance on Grant Welter. He said nothing, made no sound, no move. He was, he knew, already dead.
“Victor Linz, Grant. Why did he die?”
Who said he died? Death was coming, yes, always coming. The mist, vapor, fog, the clouds, they all brought death, the soft yellow poisons that turned flesh to rot, that gagged the breath, stopped it in putrid fluids, made it rattle in the throat; poisons that turned stomach and bowels to shivering fear. But who was Victor, who has had the victory here? He died first, leaving Grant Welter to linger in pain.
“He won’t answer.”
Cobb looked up at Dr. Shih, standing in the doorway to Welter’s room. He nodded. “Yes, I know that. He won’t answer. Still, he knows more about this than we do. Perhaps if I keep asking, an answer will come. As you know, being Chinese yourself, the Chinese have a saying: ‘In time the grass becomes milk’.”
She laughed. “The Chinese do not like milk.”
Takamura frowned. “No? Well, I got that from Charlie Chan.”
“Bad source. He was Caucasian, you know that. Warner Oland. He’s had brain damage, spinal cord damage. He can’t talk.” Dr. Shih tilted her head at Welter, who stared unblinking to the west. “He couldn’t answer even if he wanted to,” she repeated.
“Still, I wait, I watch, I ask my pointless questions, and from time to time I get a hint of an answer. There is much to do, of course, but I think there is little reason to rush.”
“Perhaps not. You should know, though, that Elliot Propter has regained consciousness again. The others seem to be recovering even better.”
“Do you have any better idea what it was?”
Dr. Shih spread her hands, one of which held a pair of stainless-steel forceps with nothing in their grip. “No,” she admitted.
“That is why I continue to question this reluctant witness. Why did you panic, Grant?”
Dr. Shih patted Cobb on the shoulder and left. Grant Welter looked at doom and did not answer.
“Victor Linz is dead, shot down while jogging early Sunday morning. You told us Ueda was gone that morning too, early, also jogging. You told us you were home, in your room, watching from your window as Ueda jogged down the driveway toward the highway. But then you said that you went for a walk, and you saw some men in white medical suits, beside a panel truck. They spoke of poison, of Candide. What was the weather like at that hour, Grant? Was it raining or dry? You do not answer, yet you swallow when I ask. What does that tell me?” Cobb laughed s
oftly. “Nothing, Grant. It tells me nothing; a reflex only. You do not believe Ueda shot Victor Linz, though. Perhaps it tells me that. And you? I do not believe you shot him, either. You had the wrong weapon, and did not use hollow-points. So who shot Victor Linz? And what is the connection between Linz and Makeda?”
The clouds grew larger, climbed higher, massed and ready. Already the poisons were at work.
“What is sandstone?” Cobb Takamura asked. Grant Welter said nothing. “You know the answer to that one, Grant.” Cobb sat awhile and waited for answers that would never come. Finally he stood and stretched his back and arms.
* * *
Sergeant Handel was standing beside the car eating out of a bucket of fried chicken. It was clearly finger-lickin’ good, because he was licking his fingers.
“Sandstone,” Cobb said, “is connected with Makeda in Japan. Why do I get the feeling that they were cooking up something ugly, and that the satellite and Victor Linz are connected?”
“You’re psychic?” Handel offered.
Cobb looked at him. “Perhaps. What about the tape?”
Handel carefully placed the plastic lid back on the chicken bucket and tossed it into the backseat of the car. “It’s eight-millimeter videotape, not audio. I asked Hirogawa to find us a player. We should have it after lunch.”
“You just ate lunch,” Cobb pointed out.
“No, it’s too early for lunch.”
“What was that? Fried chicken, yes?”
“Yes. Brunch. I didn’t have any breakfast. It’s ten-forty. We could eat lunch at noon. He’ll have the VCR by one.”
“I see. Really. Then perhaps we should try our friend Kano, who left such a provocative message on Welter’s machine.”