Steel Breeze

by Douglas Wynne

  “Tell me again why you did not kill the boy in the woods.”

  “There wasn’t enough time. His father found us.”

  “Not enough time.” Sensei let the statement hang in the air. Dust motes floated in the slanting late afternoon sunlight. The notion that time was a factor for someone with Shaun Bell’s training was dubious, perhaps even laughable. But Sensei was not laughing.

  “There was a headless doll in the sandbox. Did you see it?” Sensei asked.

  “No, Sensei. An auspicious omen, perhaps.”

  “And yet, it was not an auspicious day.”

  Shaun focused on his breathing, keeping it steady, keeping his rate of respiration down so that his heartbeat wouldn’t quicken. He hoped Sensei couldn’t hear the adjustment of his breath in the silent room. The doll was a peculiar coincidence. He hadn’t put it there; it had just been at the scene, unearthed by chance. But it had given him the idea to repeat the motif with one of the boy’s own toys. Of course, for the warrior, there was no such thing as chance. Did the appearance of the doll indicate that his course was aligned with heaven? But which course? He was at a fork in the path. How many of the tentative steps he had taken down the divergent way to see if his feet felt right on it had Sensei witnessed?

  It didn’t matter now. As always, the master was correcting his trajectory. But if Sensei knew with certainty of a betrayal, then Shaun would not be looking at the sword on the mat right now, divining its meaning and waiting for it to be drawn on him. He would already be dead. There was still doubt in the master’s mind, and Shaun needed to advance into that space swiftly and decisively.

  “I hesitated, Sensei. I’m sorry. My skill with the short blade is less certain. If I’d had my katana I would have acted, but the need for a concealed blade, a shorter blade…. I doubted my reach, and when the moment arrived and the man had found us, I decided that no cut was better than a poor cut.”

  The master’s face was like stone as he listened to the excuse. Then he said, “You doubted the method. Did you not also doubt the righteousness of the kill?”

  Shaun was silent. The accusation was plain. To try to deflect it with a lie now would be disgraceful and transparent. He might as well offer his neck and ask for a dagger. Sensei had always been able to read him like a book.

  When Shaun was a boy, there had been a period after his parents’ divorce when he became mute, unable to talk to his classmates, his parents, anyone. During those months, he had retained only his ability to speak to animals. His parents never knew that he talked to the dog in the privacy of his room. They didn’t listen at the door, and they spent more time on the phone with the shrink discussing pills for him than they spent with him. Nor did they ever know that when the kindly old Japanese man moved into the downstairs rental, he was the person Shaun found his voice with again. In retrospect, it made sense. Sensei was in a different class of human, much more aligned with the animal kingdom; he was a pure predator.

  “Remember,” Sensei said, “that your actions transcend you. You are an instrument in a greater hand. You are a razor shard blown on the wind of karma. When we met, you stepped into the path of that wind, but you are not the one who stirred it, nor can you set its course.”

  “Hai, Sensei.”

  Sensei raised his right hand from his lap. Slowly and deliberately, he picked his sword up from the mat and set it down again in front of his student, orienting the blade in the proper position this time. “Do the honors,” he said.

  Shaun bowed deeply to the sword and exhaled. He picked the weapon up and inserted the scabbard through the straps at his waist.

  “Rise,” Sensei commanded him.

  Shaun Bell walked to the basement door with his master one step behind him. He still half expected to hear the tachikaze, the wind sound, of a sword behind him as he descended the stairs.

  He drew a deep cleansing breath as he set foot on the concrete floor at the bottom. His left hand was curled around the mouth of the scabbard, his right resting at his side. Striding silently across the room, he moved his left thumb to the drawing position and used it to push the handguard, loosening the blade from its snug fit in the saya, freeing it up for a fluid drawing cut. Once the body was in motion, there might be pauses in the lethal dance, just as there were silent beats in the rhythm of music, but there were no stops and no discrete movements—everything flowed into everything else. The stride, the draw, the cut, the chiburi in which blood and tissue were jettisoned from the blade in a sweeping arc, all of it was one dance.

  The black folds of the hakama swirled around his feet as he quickened his step, giving the feeling that he was not walking but gliding across the empty floor of the training room.

  Mindful of every nuance of posture and grip, alignment and bearing, he drew the blade in a fluid, accelerating flash, rolling the scabbard with his left hand just before the steel cleared the oiled wood, allowing the curved blade to travel upward from his waist to his shoulder, slicing clean through the flesh of the pig carcass mounted on the wooden stand in the center of the room.

  The top half of the animal slid toward the floor with a sucking sound, but before it hit the concrete, the blade had already come down again, retracing its path from ceiling to floor, and severing the pig’s head clean off at the neck.

  Bell took a step backward into a long stance, and completed the form with the wet umbrella chiburi, sending a rain of thickening blood to splatter against the concrete wall.

  He re-sheathed the blade with a graceful gliding maneuver, drawing the flat edge across the crook of his left arm and over the webbing between his left thumb and forefinger where he gripped the mouth of the scabbard, a long exhalation of breath synchronized with the sliding of steel into wood.

  Sensei paced around the pedestal, examining the remaining section of carcass still fastened to it and the two pieces that now lay on the floor.

  “It was the same height as the child?”

  “Hai, Sensei.”

  The master nodded, appraising the clean angles. “You will not fail again.”

  Chapter 4

  “What do you mean it’s not that simple, Chuck? I came here of my own volition. Now bring me my son. We’re leaving.”

  “There’s some doubt about your fitness to take care of him.”

  “What?”

  “I called your father-in-law. He’s on his way with a lawyer. You should call yours too before we all sit down and discuss what’s best for Lucas in light of recent events.”

  Desmond felt his face flushing hot with anger as his mind reeled. The entertainment lawyer he’d used a few times to look over contracts was unqualified for the job. And what was the job, exactly; a custody battle with the Parsons? His hands clenched, and he realized that in a situation like this, a man could lose control very quickly. He knew he had every right to be angry. It was normal to be angry, accused of unfitness when there was a real threat out there. But if he showed his rage, he would only look more suspect, more like a man capable of violence.

  “Where’s Lucas?” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady.

  “He’s with an officer, playing with puzzles. He’s fine. I gave him juice and a snack from the vending machine.”

  “What kind of snack?” Now this fucking guy was feeding his kid? He didn’t know the first thing about Lucas. What if he had a peanut allergy?

  “A bag of Cheez-its. That okay, Pop?”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I wanted to talk to you alone about the drawing, and that his grandparents are coming to see him too.”

  Desmond closed the space between them and reminded Fournier that, although he didn’t have the same weight to throw around, he was taller. “What game are you playing, Chuck?”

  Fournier angled his eyes up and locked them on Desmond’s. “You’ve been under a lot of pressure as a single parent.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just what I said.”

  Desmond
took a step back. “You think I did it.”

  “Do you still have that sword hanging on the wall of your writing room?”

  “You saw my writing room. It’s my den. And I don’t keep weapons around in a two‐bedroom apartment with a toddler.”

  “Where do you keep ‘em?”

  “If I can’t see Lucas, this conversation is over.”

  Desmond sat down at the table, folded his arms and stared at the sketch of the samurai mask until he heard Fournier leave the room. He tried to remember everything he’d seen on TV about interrogations and police procedure. He didn’t write crime fiction, so he hadn’t done the research, but he knew they couldn’t hold you if they weren’t bringing charges against you. He could get up and leave. But he wasn’t going anywhere without Lucas, and Fournier knew it.

  A paper cup of water from the cooler sat on the table between Desmond’s laptop and the Xerox copy of the sketch. Desmond figured Fournier and his partner were probably sitting on the other side of the mirrored glass watching him. He opened the laptop and read the haiku again. It reminded him of that old saying about the early bird getting the worm. Was it supposed to evoke that? He often found that phrase kicking around the back of his head in the morning when he was dragging his ass around the apartment, making coffee, and trying to retrieve some scrap of story from the receding tide of REM sleep. And the message had been put on his manuscript, right where he would see it first thing in the morning while trying to get the worm du jour. So what did that mean?

  Solitary. The solitary drake, the solitary dragon…dives. An animal with no mate, that part was obvious, but no duckling either. Was that a threat? He looked again at the pencil sketch. It really was the epitome of an angry face, a demonic face, with steeply arched eyebrows that morphed into fiery clouds above round eyes glaring over high cheek bones pushed higher by a wide-open mouth, downturned at the corners in a grimace that seemed to scream for vengeance.

  He didn’t know what words Lucas would have used to articulate these details or how he might have helped the artist revise what would have at first been a rendering of a human face, but however they had arrived at it…this was a picture of a mask. No man could sustain an expression as extreme as the one on the page. And he knew he had seen its like before—it was a classic samurai battle mask.

  The door clicked open and Fournier came in, followed by Phil and Karen Parsons and a tall lanky guy who resembled an undertaker in a suit that looked expensive but too short for his frame, as if he had outgrown it.

  “Hello, Desmond,” Phil said, looking down at him, eyes lingering on the sketch. Karen wore a tight smile that clashed with her beauty like a tacky plastic watch worn with an evening gown. Desmond had always liked her, and he still thought she was too smart for this shit, but Phil had probably cozened her into it. Then again, maybe not. She had changed since Sandy’s death, in some ways that were obvious (like her true age catching up with her face all at once) and in others that Desmond could only speculate about. All he knew for sure was that his easy rapport with her had been winnowed away with her daughter’s ashes.

  No one introduced the thin man, but Fournier did ask Desmond, “Did you lawyer up?” It came out in a jovial tone, as if the detective were asking a houseguest if he needed a beer.

  “If you’re not charging me with something, I don’t believe I need one.”

  Fournier opened the door on the far side of the room and ushered them across the hall into a larger room with a long conference table. There was no mirrored glass in this room, just a window that looked out onto downtown Port Mavis. The city was waking up now, cars idling in illegal parking spots right across the street from the police station, while commuters clamored to grab a newspaper, a pastry and a cup of coffee at Tradewinds—the newsstand and café that had been called a “soda fountain” back when Phil and Karen were dating and Sandy existed in some quantum state, a mere potential, waiting for a spinning vector to collapse, like a coin revolving on a countertop.

  When they had taken their seats and turned their attention to Fournier, the detective tipped his hands in the general direction of Phil Parsons. Desmond’s father-in-law was no stranger to the station; he was an ex-cop who had retired early when a chunk of flying rubble jettisoned by a jackhammer had taken out his left knee at a night construction site. Fifteen years later, now past his normal retirement age, he still walked with a limp. He was balding, in a handsome way, probably because his square jaw and bright eyes were accentuated by the absence of hair. Phil was the type of man who would always show the remnants of the physique he had built in his youth, even as the skin overlaying that frame wrinkled, the sinews sagged, and the inevitable paunch expanded. But his personality was leaner than his body. If Phil Parsons were a canned food, his label would have listed bullshit in the less than 2% category.

  “Desmond, just to be clear, I don’t think you killed my daughter,” he said with no change in posture. “That piece of trash is doing life, and there isn’t a day that goes by I don’t wish we lived in a state with the needle. But it does sound to me like you’re losing your marbles. Typing spooky poems to yourself and trying to convince people that you and Lucas are being stalked…that what I’m hearing?”

  “Yesterday I found Lucas with a stranger at the edge of the playground. The man had his back turned to me, but it seems he was wearing a mask. You were a cop, Phil. Does this…I don’t know, raise your hairs at all?” Desmond shot a quick look at Karen, then added, “There were also decapitated toys, at the playground and the apartment. Did Chuck tell you that?”

  Phil nodded. There was a brief silence. Karen folded her hands on the table and leaned in, but she gazed at a blank space on the Formica as she spoke. “Desmond, please understand that we are only here out of concern for Lucas. This may not be easy for you to hear, but…you’re a creative type of person, that’s just who you are, and….” She met his eyes now. “You must understand that in getting to know you, I’ve seen you at times when you just seem to be elsewhere.”

  Desmond drew a deep breath to make up for how shallow his intake had become while listening to this setup. He knew where this was going.

  She raised a hand slightly to keep him from launching in, and continued. “I’ve heard you say in interviews that you listen to your characters like voices in your head. You make them sound like they have a…I don’t know, a will of their own, or an agenda that isn’t necessarily yours.”

  “Karen that’s different. Don’t use my work against me.”

  “You have a vivid imagination.”

  Desmond scoffed at the idea with a short laugh. “That’s like saying that cops are paranoid all the time, even when they’re off duty. And ironically, you guys aren’t paranoid enough right now.”

  Phil said, “You’ve been coming unraveled since we lost her, Des. You were barely there before, and now your daydreams are taking over.”

  “So what exactly do you think? You think I wrote myself a cryptic message, pulled the head off of Lucas’s toy, and had my computer dusted for prints…why? Why would I do those things?”

  “You feel guilty,” Phil said, like he was pointing out to Desmond that he had some mustard on his shirt.

  “But you don’t think I am guilty.”

  No.”

  “Well, he does.” Desmond nodded at Fournier. “Right, Chuck? Deep down, you still think I killed her?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I think.”

  Karen looked at Chuck Fournier with something new in her eyes.

  Phil said, “It’s not uncommon. It’s a form of survivor guilt. You think you should have been able to save her, so you convince yourself the killer is still out there. This time he’s threatening Lucas, and you get a second chance to be a hero.”

  “You’re a shrink now, Phil?”

  “No, but I can refer you to one.”

  “Desmond looked at Karen. “Is that what you think? I’m so delusional I’m mistaking my own shadow for a monster?”

  She re
turned his gaze but said nothing.

  “What about this drawing?” Desmond said. “Why would some innocent stranger be wearing a mask at a playground, and why did he run when I found him with my kid? How does that fit into your theory that I’m delusional?”

  There was another moment of silence and when no one else spoke up to fill it, the lawyer shot a glance at Phil for permission, then cleared his throat and said, “One reason why a man might wear a mask would be so that his own son doesn’t recognize him.”

  Desmond didn’t even know how to begin responding to the accusation. They had made up their minds about him and anything he said now would only dig him in deeper. He wondered if the microphones in the room were on, if the conversation was being recorded. But aside from the break-in at his apartment—which no one took seriously anyway—there had been no crime committed. He had started the whole chain of events himself by calling Chuck Fournier. And he could end it right now by walking out. He stood up. “Bring me Lucas,” he said to Fournier, “We’re leaving.”

  The lawyer looked alarmed. “Mr. and Mrs. Parsons are initiating a guardianship case against you on the grounds of instability and unfitness. You could spare your son a great deal of discomfort and stress by reaching an agreement outside of a courthouse.”

  Desmond waved his finger. “I’m not having any such discussion. You have no authority. None of you do.”

  The lawyer continued, “If you call on counsel, we can hammer out a temporary solution whereby you would retain visitation rights contingent on submitting to a psych evaluation—"

  “Fuck you, Lurch.” Then turning to Fournier, “Where is my son?”

  “Desmond, if you leave this meeting…,” Fournier said with no sign of rising from his chair, “You’re gonna have to start asking yourself things like are there any retail records for the purchase of a hoodie sweatshirt that Lucas wouldn’t recognize? Is there a web search history for samurai masks from your IP address? Think about it, Desmond. A warrant wouldn’t be hard to get.”