Daughter of the Sword: A Novel of the Fated Blades

by Steve Bein

  “Mr. Travis,” he said.

  “Fuchida-san,” the American said, his voice booming and friendly. To Fuchida he sounded like an overeager car salesman. “What’s up? You got my sword?”

  Imagined visions flashed in Fuchida’s mind. Kaneda, that useless whale, sitting on a cot in a holding cell. Mas, Tiger, Takeshi—probably all dead. He envisioned them as he would have killed them: Mas with a puncture wound through the center of his enormous forehead; Tiger’s belly fat oozing from a stab wound right through the navel; a slash across the side of Takeshi’s skinny neck, just above the collarbone. “Yeah,” he said in his best American English. “I have it. We can do business now, yes?”

  “Hell, yeah. Pretty soon you won’t be the only badass samurai in the biz, huh?”

  “You will be badass samurai too. When do you come?”

  “The ship’s already en route. You’re sure we got no trouble with the cops?”

  “No trouble,” said Fuchida, still searching the manager’s desk. Americans never seemed to be able to understand the role of yakuzas in Japan. All those mafia movies swimming around in their heads gave them weird ideas about police and their ability to interfere with organized crime. Somehow gaijin just couldn’t get their heads around the idea that for all intents and purposes yakuzas were cops. The ninkyō dantai were police departments for those who couldn’t go to the police. It was the same as in The Godfather and Goodfellas, Fuchida thought, so for the life of him he couldn’t get why Americans had such a hard time understanding that policemen were the farthest thing from the average yakuza’s mind. It would take a death wish and a wish for career suicide to make a cop interfere with the clans that kept his whole country from going to shit.

  Still the American droned on in his ear. “You’re going need a big crew to handle five million dollars’ worth of merchandise. You know that, right?”

  Finally, a fifth of Wild Turkey, the good imported stuff, in a drawer meant for those hanging green file folders. And a set of four glasses nestled in there with it, only a little dusty. He blew one out and filled it. “Do not worry, Mr. Travis.”

  “I’m not the one who needs to be worried. All I have to do is plan what I’m going to do with my layover in Hawai‘i. It’s all on you after I jet over there to get my sword. I’ll call you later with the when and where.”

  The American hung up, and Fuchida reflexively closed the phone and dropped it into his pocket. It buzzed immediately. Right. The hospital. He drained his glass, pulled the phone out again, and flipped it open. “Yes?”

  “Sir, your father,” the night nurse said. “Did you hear what I said? He’s taken a turn—”

  “Yes,” Fuchida said. “A turn for the worse. I heard.”

  “I think you should come now, sir.” Her tone was equal parts compassion and reprobation.

  “I think you should mind your own business,” said Fuchida. “Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir. It’s just—”

  “I know. A turn for the worse. I’ll be there.”

  26

  For two days straight Mariko had been in a panic.

  Panic didn’t come naturally to Mariko. Her little apartment was orderly, as was her cubicle at the precinct, as was her mind. Usually. Panic made a mess of everything, and Mariko’s coping strategy had always been to arrange everything in order so that panic could never get a toehold.

  Because of that, once panic got a grip on her, Mariko didn’t know how to shake it. She felt it like a tight bear hug around the chest. It made her ribs hurt. It made her breath come in short little gasps. And it had been locking down like a boa constrictor for two days running.

  She’d filed the missing-persons report. She’d followed up on every unidentified case in every last hospital in greater Tokyo, then in greater Yokohama, asking specifically about unidentified patients with drug-related symptoms. She’d abandoned the hunt for Fuchida Shūzō entirely, choosing instead to read reports on every drug-related arrest or evidence seizure in the prefecture. Doing so violated no small number of departmental regulations. Those reports were none of her business, and she knew that son of a bitch Ko would have her ass in a sling if he ever caught word of it. But she did it anyway. She had to know what happened to Saori.

  The triathlete in her wanted to jump in the ocean and swim until she could feel nothing but exhaustion. The cop in her told her that would kill her; she’d never certified as an EMT, but she’d picked up enough to know that her battered ribs would see her drown if she tried to swim across anything wider than a bathtub. That left the sister in her screaming like a madwoman. She had half a mind to run out to Yamada’s place, grab that sword of his, and start hacking. She wanted to swing the goddamn thing until there was nothing left to chop and no strength left in her arms to chop with.

  It drove her crazy, not knowing where Saori was. No one had seen her since she stormed off that night, and now she wasn’t returning calls—not from Mariko, not from their mother, nothing. Mariko felt the way she felt when she couldn’t find her keys, the kind of obsession that wouldn’t let her pay attention to anything else. But this was amplified a hundredfold, leaving her perpetually on the verge of nausea.

  And then Bumps called, and Mariko kicked herself for not thinking of him beforehand. Again she risked drawing Ko’s attention when she did a quick search for the Narc guys who were using Bumps to bait other dealers. Then she hitched a ride with the nearest squad and went screaming downtown to the stakeout.

  She called the lead on the case along the way, using the cell number she’d lifted from the computer. He arranged to meet her in a sushi bar across the street from the panel truck he was using to stage his surveillance. They didn’t bother exchanging descriptions; every cop in the precinct recognized Tokyo’s only female detective.

  As such, Mariko was surprised to see a familiar face in the sushi bar. “Well, if it isn’t the giant-slayer,” said the tall cop she’d crossed paths with on the night of the attack at Yamada’s house. “Name’s Ino. Nice work the other night hauling in that beached whale.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, seriously. I’ve never seen a perp so big that you couldn’t cuff him. Me and the guys were wondering how you even got him into a squad car.”

  “Thanks. Where’s Bumps?”

  Ino nodded toward the window, which overlooked a sort of urban caldera. A small plaza stood surrounded by steep walls of steel and glass, concrete and neon, as if the city had erupted all around it and left this one little lowland behind. A one-way street cut through the plaza, though even with no traffic this could never have been a quiet place; the first few floors of every building were jammed full of Starbucks and McDonald’s, Mos Burger and CoCo Ichibanya, karaoke bars and Hello Kitty stores. But even with its thousand shoppers milling around like ants, this place was as serene as Tokyo got. In the center of the plaza there were even trees, short, fat palms sprouting out of a short, fat planter, surrounded by benches and looking like the spiky green hair of a creature from Dr. Seuss.

  Mariko saw Bumps Ryota marching back and forth past the palms like a caged animal. He paced in that strange jittery meth-head way, looking as if he might blow away at any minute. “He’s alone,” said Ino. “The buyer isn’t supposed to be here for another hour, but still, I’d appreciate it if you’d make it fast.”

  “No problem. I don’t relish being near that smelly bastard anyway.”

  Mariko stormed across the street, Ino’s long striding footfalls right behind her. Bumps gave her a glazed-over look, then stiffened up when he finally figured out who she was.

  “Uh…hi, Officer,” he said. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  He wasn’t. He looked nervous enough to wet himself, in fact, and Mariko was upset enough to punch him in the bladder just to see if it would happen.

  Instead she grabbed him by the sleeve, dragged him to the panel truck, and shoved him inside. Her ribs bit her like a pissed-off Doberman as she haul
ed herself up into the truck. Ino closed the door behind her, leaving Mariko and Bumps alone in the van.

  Bumps Ryota blinked hard, maybe trying to shake off sunspots. He took two steps and collided with a small aluminum table jutting out from the right-hand wall. He bounced from that to a stool, which he caught with his shins and tripped over. “Hey,” he said, palms flat on the floor, “this isn’t like the movies.”

  “You’re a movie star now?”

  “No. The truck. I figured you guys had video and phone taps and all that. Isn’t this a surveillance van? Only thing in here is a microwave.”

  Surveillance, she could have told him, was mostly eating, drinking, and watching nothing happen. She could have told him that in circumstances like that, the only thing more important than a microwave was a toilet. Instead she said, “Nothing in a cop’s life is like the movies, Bumps. Now where is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Saori. She’s missing. Where is she?”

  Bumps slid from his prone position to sit upright in the corner. “How should I know anything about her? You told me to get something on that coke dealer of yours.”

  “You were her pusher, Bumps. Did she come to you? Is she using again?”

  He blinked hard at her. “How did I get on the floor?”

  “Is she using, Bumps?”

  “You think I’m an idiot? We got a deal, Officer. I sell your sister so much as a Tylenol, you rat me out to the guys I get my shit from. Why would I have anything to do with her?”

  Mariko blew her breath out through her nose. She had a pounding headache, and Bumps Ryota’s dirty-laundry smell wasn’t helping one bit. “Addicts are creatures of habit,” she said. “If she’s using again, she’ll go to people she knows.”

  “Well, not me.”

  He was telling the truth. Mariko listened to a lot of people’s lies in her line of work, enough of them that she wasn’t often wrong about them. She pressed her fingers to her temples to relieve pressure.

  “So,” Bumps said, “did you, you know, want me to tell you what I found out about your coke dealer?”

  “Frankly, I don’t give a shit,” Mariko said, not even meaning to say it aloud. She didn’t have time to think about the cocaine trail. Saori was the sole priority.

  No. Mariko wanted that to be true—at the moment she wished more than anything that it could be true—but reality was harder and colder than that. Pushing any harder on the search for Saori would only serve to draw Ko’s attention, and even if Mariko found her, she couldn’t help Saori anyway. Saori had made it all of eight days into rehab before falling off the wagon. Even if Mariko got lucky and found her again, all she could do was take her back to a detox program that didn’t work.

  “Fine, Bumps, go ahead. Tell me about your dealer.”

  She heard herself say the words, and heard Bumps blather on too, but she didn’t even bother getting out her notepad. As soon as he said, “I don’t have a name for you yet,” Mariko tuned out the rest. “Tall guy” and “ponytail” and “tattoos” did her little good without a name. Mariko felt powerless. The only two things she could muster the energy to care about were her sister and the cocaine threat, and she had no leads on either of them. Yamada’s sword case had grown interesting, but she had no leads there either. She was sure Dr. Yamada knew more about the would-be thief than he was letting on, but he was strangely reticent about revealing details.

  “Detective Oshiro?”

  “Huh?”

  Bumps was staring at her. “Are you listening to me? I’m telling you, this is one dangerous son of a bitch. Gives you the feeling he could snap at any moment, you know what I mean?”

  “Uh-huh. This from the guy who needs a minute or two to realize he’s tripped and fallen on the floor. I’m sure your instincts about him are spot-on, Bumps.”

  “I’m telling you—”

  “What? What are you telling me? That life as a CI isn’t as safe and comfy as you thought? Bumps, you’re a drug dealer. Did you think the biggest risk in your profession was not having a pension?”

  “You can’t blow me off like this. You’re supposed to protect me.”

  “So help me protect you. You got a name for me?”

  “Uh. No. But—”

  “Don’t bother calling until you do. Unless you can tell me who your coke dealer is or where my sister is, as far as I’m concerned all you hoppers and dealers can swindle each other and kill each other all you like.”

  Then something clicked for her. Scum associated with scum. Dealers with dealers. Cops with cops. Everyone associated with their own kind.

  She pulled her cell from her pocket, cycled through the recent calls, and rang one of them back. If she couldn’t make any headway on Saori or the coke case, at least she could make progress on the other thing. “Dr. Yamada?” she said. “We need to talk. I’ll be at your place in half an hour.”

  27

  Yamada’s front door was unlocked. Strange, Mariko thought, given the attack the other night. It was a remnant of a more peaceful era. She opened the door to be greeted by the familiar scent of green tea. Yamada was in the sitting room, kneeling beside his low table and facing her.

  “It’s me, Dr. Yamada. Detective Oshiro. You really shouldn’t leave your door unlocked. You just had a breakin, you know.”

  “As polite as ever,” Yamada said. His wrinkled hand gestured at the table, where two steaming teacups were waiting. The tatami mats were still stained brown where his assailants had bled on them, though it appeared he’d taken pains to clean up what he could. “Do come in, won’t you?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mariko said. “I shouldn’t tell you how to run your own house.”

  She stepped out of her shoes, bowed curtly to the professor, and sat across the table from him. The battered left side of her rib cage protested every step of the way. “My sister’s missing, so I’ve been rude with everybody. I was looking into her case when I had an insight into yours. Well, not so much into your case as into you, sir. This Fuchida Shūzō, the one who’s trying to steal your sword, you’ve met him personally, neh?”

  “Of course.”

  There it was again: that maddening capacity of his to make her feel like a twelve-year-old version of herself. How could that possibly be an “of course” kind of question?

  She forced herself to take a deep breath. Then another. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  He shrugged. “It didn’t seem relevant.”

  “How could it not be—?” This time it took two deep breaths to keep herself from screaming. “Dr. Yamada, you could have told me his name the first day I came out here. What took you so long?”

  “All things in due time. Come now, Inspector, you’ve done some research on him by now. What have you learned?”

  “Nothing.” Mariko didn’t appreciate the fact that he just assumed he knew how she’d go about doing her job, and she liked it even less that he was dead right. She’d pulled up files from every police database she could find, and filed a dozen warrants to search the files of mortgage lenders, car dealerships, banks, and governmental services for any records on a Fuchida Shūzō. The warrants had yet to yield any fruit, and just when she’d started delving into the police records, Saori had disappeared, and it seemed she’d taken Mariko’s ability to concentrate with her.

  “Now, now,” said Yamada, “you’re brighter than that. I think you’ve already deduced rather more about him than the fact that he and I have met. Why don’t you tell me what you know?”

  Mariko felt the bile burning in her stomach. Her ribs pained her too, and neither was as painful as the effort it took to restrain her frustration. “All right. He’s involved with the bōryokudan, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. What makes you ask?”

  “Tattoos. The fat man had them. The others who broke in the other night, they had them too. A lot of yakuzas do. If this Fuchida sent those four the other night, he’s probably a yakuza himself. Hm. I can’t say I ever spent much tim
e cultivating contacts in the bōryokudan, but I’ll ask the yakuzas I know and see if they’ve heard of him.”

  A look of shock spread across Yamada’s face. “You know yakuzas personally?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you speak to these people?”

  Mariko laughed. “Of course. I’m a cop, Dr. Yamada; it’s almost impossible not to get to know a yakuza or two. Besides, they’re handy; they know what’s happening on the streets long before we do, and there’s nothing they love more than showing off to cops. I’ll ask my guys. If they know him, believe me, they’ll brag about it.”

  Yamada’s eyebrows slowly sank back to their customary place; his mouth relaxed its O shape as the stunned look evaporated from his face. “I’m sorry, Inspector. It never occurred to me that police officers and criminals would be so…so…well, so friendly.”

  “‘Friendly’ isn’t the word for it. Call it professional courtesy. Let’s hope they can come up with something better than I can get through official channels, because so far our databases don’t have shit.”

  “Are all young ladies of your generation so well mannered?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Forget your databases. What have you discovered about him?”

  Yet again she found herself feeling shortsighted and immature. Somehow he adopted the roles of grandfather, schoolteacher, and commanding officer in her mind. But now that he asked the question, in the simple way that he’d asked it, she found herself making connections she hadn’t consciously drawn.

  “He’s an expert too, isn’t he? On swords, I mean. He’d have to be. You can’t break into houses at random in hope of stealing medieval weapons. Only an authority on the subject would know which ones to steal and where they were.”

  “Keep going,” said Yamada.

  “How many authorities on medieval swords can there be?” Now the connections were flashing like lightning, so fast Mariko could barely keep up with them. “You’re an academic. You go to conferences and such, neh? That’s it. You know him because he’s an academic like you. Is he another history professor?”