Sano Ichiro 10 The Assassin's Touch (2005)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “I’m not looking for a scapegoat,” Sano told Nakai. “If you’re as innocent as you claim, you have nothing to fear from me. But you’d better stay alive and in town until I’ve finished my investigation.”

  He nodded to his companions, signifying that they were done with Nakai for now. They filed along the balcony and climbed down the ladder. As they gathered at the bottom, Sano looked up at Nakai. The captain stood on the balcony, gazing down at them, his expression as much aggrieved as hostile.

  “Do you think he was bluffing?” Hirata said.

  “If he was, he put on a good act,” Sano said.

  Detective Arai said, “Do you think he’s guilty?”

  “He’s still our best suspect.” Sano turned to Tachibana. “Go follow him. Don’t let him see you, but don’t let him out of your sight. I want to know everywhere he goes, everyone he associates with, and everything he does.”

  “What if he tries to touch somebody?” asked the young detective.

  “Stop him,” Sano said, “if you can. If he’s the killer, we may not be able to prevent another murder, but at least we can catch him in the act.”

  “Yes, Honorable Chamberlain.” The young detective slipped away and lost himself in the crowds.

  “In the meantime, we’ll go back to my estate,” Sano told Hirata and the other detectives. “Maybe Ejima’s informants have been brought in, and we’ll find more suspects among them.” Furthermore, he had a country to run, and he’d been away far too long. As they plowed through the audience and another match began in the ring, Sano wondered if Reiko was faring any better on her investigation. He hoped she’d confined it to the hinin settlement and would soon be done.

  * * *

  14

  Ryōgoku Hirokoji was Edo’s top entertainment district, situated on the bank of the Sumida River. It had grown up in an open space created as a firebreak after the Great Fire of Meireki, during which thousands of people were trapped and burned to death because they were too many to cross the bridges to safety. As Reiko rode through Ryōgoku Hirokoji in her palanquin, she gazed out the window with curiosity. Colorful signs on the stalls along the wide avenue advertised attractions not seen in the officially licensed theater district, such as female performers. She admired the gorgeously elaborate models of Dutch galleons at one stall; others featured live parrots, human giants, and goblins made out of shells and vines. Priests and nuns begged coins from the strolling crowds.

  Reiko had heard her servants talk about this place, but had never been here since it was mostly the domain of the lower classes. Now her guards rode close, ready to protect her from the thieves and other evildoers who mingled in the crowds and lurked in the alleyways. But its disreputable air excited her.

  A young nun, dressed in a baggy hemp robe, her head shaved bald, hurried up to Reiko’s palanquin and thrust her begging bowl in the window. “Alms for the poor!”

  Reiko said, “There was a carnival owned by a man named Taruya. Can you tell me where it was?”

  The nun pointed down the street. “Through that red gate.”

  “Many thanks.” After Reiko dropped a coin into the nun’s bowl, her escorts bore her toward the two wooden posts painted red and crowned by a tile roof. She’d expected to find the carnival closed since Yugao’s father had left, but people were lined up at the ticket booth outside. Beyond the gate spread the connected stalls of a “Hundred-Day Theater”—a variety show. As Reiko climbed out of her palanquin and her escorts bought tickets, she had an uneasy feeling that Sano wouldn’t be pleased to hear that her inquiries had taken her beyond the hinin settlement. But she must serve justice, and she’d already come this far.

  She and her escorts passed through the gate and into another world. Hundreds of stalls spread before her. Their roofs overhung a maze of narrow passages, blocking the sunshine. Red lanterns suspended from the ceilings cast a garish glow on eager faces in the throngs that jostled past Reiko. Chatter, music, and laughter resounded; the smells of sweat and urine assailed her. Hawkers, stationed outside the curtains that draped the entrances to the stalls, beckoned and called to potential customers. Some curtains hung open to reveal gaming dens where men shot arrows at straw targets or tossed balls through hoops, and others in which storytellers recited tales for enthusiastic audiences. At other stalls the curtains were closed. Men flocked to them, handing over coins. A hawker opened a curtain to admit a customer, and Reiko glimpsed bare-breasted girls dancing on a stage inside. As the crowds swept her and her escorts along a passage, she saw another curtain lift to expose two men and a woman, all nude. The woman crouched while one man penetrated her from behind and she sucked the erect organ of the other. Moans erupted from men seated below the stage. Shock stunned Reiko.

  Lieutenant Asukai shouted to her over the noise: “What shall we do?”

  “I want to talk to whoever owns this place,” Reiko shouted back. “Find him for me.”

  While the other guards stood around Reiko, shielding her from the riffraff, Asukai plowed through the crowds and spoke to the nearest hawker. The hawker replied and pointed down the passage. Reiko looked in the direction indicated. Toward her ran a young woman. Her feet were bare, her eyes wild with fear. She clutched a cheap cotton robe around her body. Long hair streamed behind her. She gasped as she fought past the crowds. Two samurai came chasing after her. In their wake trailed a small, tubby, middle-aged man.

  “Don’t let her get away, you idiots!” he shouted.

  Lieutenant Asukai returned to Reiko and said, “That fat man is the owner. His name is Mizutani.”

  Reiko and her guards joined the pursuit. The crowds hindered them. Startled exclamations arose. They struggled along winding passages, on the heels of the carnival owner. Just as the woman reached a doorway, the two samurai caught her. She screamed. Mizutani yanked open her robe, baring her full breasts and shaved pubis. He removed a cloth pouch from inside the robe, then slapped her hard across the face.

  “How dare you steal my money, you little whore?” he shouted, then told the samurai, “Teach her a lesson.”

  The samurai began beating the woman. As she screamed, wept, and raised her arms in a vain attempt to shield herself, the spectators cheered and laughed. Reiko shouted to her guards, “Stop them!”

  The guards stepped in and grabbed the samurai, who appeared to be rōnin hired to do dirty work at the carnival.

  “That’s enough,” Lieutenant Asukai said. He and his comrades flung the rōnin away from the woman. “Leave her alone.”

  She hurried, sobbing, out the door. Mizutani exclaimed in outrage. “Hey, what arc you doing?” He reminded Reiko of a tortoise—his neck was short, his nose beaked; his eyes had a cold, reptilian stare. “Who are you to interfere in my business?” He turned to his rōnin. “Throw them out.”

  The rōnin drew their swords. Reiko was upset that she’d inadvertently created another troublesome, dangerous scene.

  Lieutenant Asukai said quickly, “We’re from Magistrate Ueda.”

  The owner’s attitude changed abruptly from high dudgeon to startled dismay as he realized he was facing officers of the law. “Oh. Well, in that case …” He waggled his hand at the rōnin. They sheathed their weapons while he hastened to defend himself: “That dancer was keeping tips from customers instead of turning them over to me. I can’t let my employees get away with cheating me, can I?”

  “Never mind that,” Asukai said. “The magistrate has sent his daughter here on business.” He indicated Reiko. “She wants to talk to you.”

  Puzzlement blinked the owner’s cold eyes as they turned in her direction. He said, “Since when does the magistrate’s daughter do business for him?”

  “Since now,” Asukai said.

  Reiko was thankful that she had him to back her up, although she wished she had her own authority. “Did you know Taruya?” she asked the carnival owner.

  His expression conveyed offense that a woman should interrogate him so boldly. Lieutenant Asukai said, “Whateve
r she asks, you’d better answer, unless you’d like Magistrate Ueda to conduct an inspection of your carnival.”

  Visibly daunted by the threat, Mizutani capitulated. “Taruya was my business partner.”

  “You owned the carnival together?” Reiko asked.

  “Yes. Eighteen years ago, we started out with one stall. We built it up into this.” His proud gesture encompassed his sprawling, noisy domain.

  “And now the carnival is all yours,” Reiko said, thoughtful and interested. “How did that come about?”

  “Taruya got himself in trouble. He was sleeping with his daughter. Somebody reported him to the police. He was demoted to hinin and banned from doing business with the public, so I took over.”

  Reiko glanced at the hawkers collecting money from customers who flocked to the stalls. Taruya’s demotion had been lucrative for his onetime partner. “Did you buy out Taruya’s share?”

  “No.” Mizutani licked his lips; his tongue looked gray and scaly. He seemed uncomfortable, although Reiko didn’t think him the kind of man to feel guilty for taking advantage of his partner’s trouble. “We made a deal before Taruya went to the hinin settlement. I would send him money every month and run the show until his sentence was finished. Then, when he came back, we would be partners again.”

  “How generous of you,” Reiko said. “But he won’t be coming back. Did you know he was murdered?”

  “Yes, I heard. What a terrible thing to happen.” The regret in Mizutani’s voice sounded false; his eyes showed no emotion, only his wish to know the purpose of Reiko’s visit. “There was some gossip that his daughter Yugao stabbed him and her mother and sister.”

  “There’s some doubt about that. Do you think she did it?”

  Mizutani shrugged. “How should I know? I hadn’t seen any of them since they moved to the settlement. But I wasn’t surprised to hear Yugao had been arrested. That girl was strange.”

  “Strange in what way?” Reiko said.

  “I don’t know.” Mizutani was clearly growing vexed by the conversation. “There was something just not right about her. But I really didn’t pay her much attention.” He chuckled. “She probably got fed up with Taruya in her bed.”

  “But perhaps she wasn’t the only person to want him gone,” Reiko said. “Were those monthly payments a burden to you?”

  “Of course not.” Mizutani spoke as though insulted by the suggestion. “He was my friend. I was glad to help him out.”

  Shouts suddenly erupted down the passage: A fight had started. As men flung punches at each other and spectators egged them on, Mizutani strode toward them; his rōnin followed.

  “Hey! No fighting in here!” he shouted. “Break it up!”

  The rōnin waded into the fray, separating the combatants, while he bustled around and supervised.

  “Do you want me to fetch him back?” Lieutenant Asukai asked Reiko.

  A bright spot of color in the street outside the carnival caught her eye. She saw, through the milling crowds, the woman that Mizutani had beaten, stooped over a horse trough, bathing her face.

  “No,” Reiko said. “I have a better idea.”

  She led her entourage out of the carnival. The woman turned at their approach. Her mouth was swollen where Mizutani had hit her; blood trickled from her lip. Reiko took a cloth from under her sash.

  “Here,” she said.

  The woman looked suspicious that a stranger should offer her solicitude, but she took the cloth and wiped her face.

  “What’s your name?” Reiko said.

  “Lily,” the woman answered. She was older than Reiko had at first thought—in her thirties. Hardship had coarsened her voice as well as her pretty features. “Who are you?”

  When Reiko introduced herself, fear shone in the dancer’s eyes. “I only took a few coppers from him. He didn’t need it, and I did—he pays me so little.” She stepped backward with a nervous glance at Reiko’s guards. “I saw you talking to him. Did he tell you to arrest me?” Tears wavered her voice; she clasped her hands in entreaty. “Please don’t! I’ve got a little boy. It’s bad enough that I’ve lost my job, but if I go to jail, there’ll be no one to take care of him!”

  “Don’t worry; you won’t be arrested,” Reiko said. She pitied the woman and deplored Mizutani. This investigation kept reminding her that many people lived on the brink of survival, at the mercy of their betters. “I only want to talk.”

  Lily cautiously relaxed. “About what?”

  “Your former employer.”

  “Is he in some kind of trouble?” Hope brightened Lily.

  “Maybe,” Reiko said. “Were you working at the carnival when his partner Taruya was running it with him?”

  “Yes. I worked there fourteen years.” A bitter expression came over Lily’s swollen, bruised face. “Fourteen years, and he throws me out because I took money that I earned myself!”

  “How did they get along?” Reiko asked.

  “They were always fighting over money.”

  And the fight had been resolved in Mizutani’s favor. Reiko said, “How convenient for Mizutani that someone reported Taruya for having incestuous relations with his daughter.”

  “Is that what Mizutani told you—that somebody reported Taruya?” Snide amusement inflected Lily’s voice. “It was him. He did it.”

  This certainly put a different twist on the matter. “How do you know?”

  “When Mizutani had parties at his house, I used to wait on the guests. I would overhear things they said. One night his guests were two doshin. He told them he’d caught Taruya and his daughter Yugao in bed together.”

  A thought disturbed Reiko. “Was Mizutani telling the truth when he said he’d witnessed the incest?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d never heard of anything funny going on between Taruya and Yugao. Neither had anyone else at the carnival. We were all shocked.”

  Reiko wondered if Mizutani had invented the whole episode. Without the incest, Yugao had no apparent reason for murder.

  Lily’s expression turned eager. “Can Mizutani get in trouble if he lied?”

  “If he did, he’ll be punished,” Reiko said. Her father abhorred false accusations and wouldn’t stand for one that had made outcasts of an entire family.

  “I heard that Yugao killed her father. Did she really do it, or could it have been Mizutani?” The dancer practically salivated at the thought of her former boss convicted and executed.

  “That’s what I’m trying to determine.” Now Reiko recalled something the headman of the outcasts had said, and another thought occurred to her. “Taruya’s sentence would have been finished in six months if he hadn’t been killed. How did Mizutani feel about that?”

  “He wasn’t looking forward to Taruya getting out of the hinin settlement. It was no secret,” Lily said with a sardonic laugh. “The carnival had a bad time during the war. Mizutani lost money. He’s run up big debts, and the money-lenders have been threatening to break his legs unless he pays them. I’ve heard him say that the last thing he needed was Taruya coming back and claiming his half of the business. And that’s not all he’s said.”

  She paused, and Reiko said, “Well?”

  “I can’t talk anymore. I have to find a new job, or my little boy will starve.” She fixed a nervous, entreating gaze on Reiko. “If I help you, then you should help me.”

  Reiko hated to imagine herself and Masahiro losing their livelihood and trying to fend for themselves. Furthermore, she sensed that the woman had important evidence to relate. “If you help me, I’ll pay you.”

  Lily nodded, grateful and pleased at her own cleverness. “Last month I saw Mizutani and his two rōnin talking inside the dance stall. I stood outside and listened. You never know what interesting things you’ll find out.” A crafty smile lifted her swollen lip. “Mizutani said, ‘I saw Taruya today. He’s anxious to get back his share of the carnival. I told him that’s not fair, after I’ve been running it all this time. But he said a deal is a
deal.’ One of his rōnin said that Taruya still has friends here, and they’re gangsters who could make trouble for Mizutani if he backed out. Mizutani said, ‘There’s one way to break that deal. What if he were to die?’ ”

  A thrill of excitement tingled Reiko’s blood. “What else did they say?”

  “I don’t know. Mizutani saw me eavesdropping and told me to go. I didn’t hear the rest.”

  A new vision of the crime took shape in Reiko’s mind. The rōnin steals into the outcast settlement that night. He sneaks into Yugao’s house and stabs her father in his bed. When her mother and sister awaken and try to stop him, he kills them. He means to kill Yugao, but the street-cleaner Ihei comes out of the lean-to and surprises him. The street-cleaner flees in terror. The rōnin doesn’t want to leave any witnesses, but he hears people gathering in the streets. He slips out of the hovel. He hides in the backyard while the headman arrives, until Yugao has been arrested, then he vanishes into the night. In the morning, at the carnival, he tells his master that the deed is done.

  “Well?” Lily said eagerly. “Are you satisfied?”

  “One more thing,” Reiko said. Yugao was still a mystery. If she was innocent, then her confession was all the more baffling. “Did you know Yugao?”

  “Not really. Taruya kept his children away from us folks who worked for him.” Lily gave a contemptuous sniff. “He thought they were too good to associate with us.”

  “Is there anyone who did know her?”

  “There was a girl who used to be her friend. They were always together.” Lily frowned in an effort to recall. “Her name was Tama. Her father owned a teahouse around here.” Impatience crossed her face. “Do I get my reward?”

  Reiko paid Lily from the pouch where she carried money in case she needed to bribe informants. Lily went off looking much happier than before.

  “It’s getting late,” Lieutenant Asukai warned Reiko. She’d been too busy to notice that twilight was darkening the sky. The entertainment district had grown rowdier; the women and children had departed; young toughs and off-duty soldiers swelled the crowds. “We should take you home.”