Giri (25 page)

He stopped playing the flute and looked at Michi. Her eyes were on the shrine and he knew she was thinking of the old religion. Shinto was nature worship. Its
kami,
gods, were not only men, ancestors, emperors, but animals, rocks, trees, rivers, birds, mountains. Shinto was also purification by wind and water. The mouth and hands had to be rinsed before entering a shrine, a symbolic reminder of the days when one could not be admitted to the shrine without being immersed in a river or the sea.

Decker was about to play the flute again when he decided that it would intrude on Michi’s thoughts. She obviously wanted to meditate on the shrine a little longer, so Decker pocketed the flute and stood beside her in respectful silence. Let her pray for her dead in peace.

What was it Kanai had said to him a few nights ago at the Cleveland Gallery?

“You here in the West fear that your god will find you guilty of your sins. We Japanese concern ourselves with avoiding shame. This means we must live up to the expectations of others. We cannot live merely for ourselves. This is why we work so hard in business, to avoid shame.”

To avoid shame.

Decker thought of that when Kanai said, “According to your newspapers the killing of Alan Baksted remains unsolved.”

“Seems to be the work of a professional hit man. Unfortunately, if police fail to solve a homicide within seventy-two hours, it usually remains an open case. Means we don’t have witnesses, motives, clues and probably won’t get them.”

“There were torn fifty-dollar bills found on the body of Mr. Baksted.”

“I guess he took something that didn’t belong to him.”

“I have received letters and telephone calls from representatives of the Marybelle Corporation. I am told I can now see its private lists of gamblers, what you call its “pigeon list.’ ”

Decker’s turn.

In the crowded gallery the two men stood side by side in front of a framed watercolor by Ellen Spiceland’s husband. LeClair had ordered Decker to say nothing to the Japanese about Baksted, the Golden Horizon or the murder of Paul Molise junior. Decker didn’t have to tell Kanai of Molise’s connection to Marybelle and the Golden Horizon; the subject had already come up over dinner in the Fûrin a month ago. Kanai was waiting to hear the effect, if any, of those two murders on any investment he might make in the Golden Horizon. How did Decker tell Kanai what he wasn’t supposed to tell him?

The detective sipped warm champagne from a plastic glass, then said, “Officially, I cannot comment on this case, Kanai-san. Please understand.”

“
Hai.
Duty, Decker-san. Please excuse my lack of understanding in expecting you to reveal what must remain a confidence between you and your superiors. Tell your secrets to the wind and the wind will tell them to the trees.”

For the Japanese nothing was what it appeared to be. Kanai was either being considerate or was shrewdly challenging Decker to find a way to pass on information without breaking the rules. The detective was undecided about playing the game and then he remembered what LeClair had done to Benitez and DeMain and he remembered LeClair’s way of despising those he had dumped on. He shrugged. And decided to play.

He said, “Kanai-san, are you going to buy one of Mr. Juriot’s paintings?”

“He has talent, yes. A strong sense of color, perhaps too strong for my taste. But I understand that Caribbean artists tend to emphasize color. One or two works have impressed me. I would buy to encourage him, yes.”

The detective looked at Kanai. “These days people buy art as an investment.
A
hedge against inflation. They also buy collectibles. But you see, you have to be careful with certain collectibles.”

He sipped from his glass. “Myself, I’d hesitate if a collectible involved, say, two million or more.”

He cocked his head for a final evaluation. “
Takai desu. Hai, takai desu
.” Too expensive.

Decker looked back at Kanai in time to see the Japanese bow almost imperceptibly. But the detective noticed it.

“
Domo arigato gozai mashite, Decker-san
.”

The detective returned the bow, his gesture just as contained and controlled. What Decker had just done for Kanai was no small service and both knew it. The detective would be in a position to collect on this favor in the future.

And Kanai’s sense of honor would compel him to repay.

In front of the
torii
at the Japanese Garden, Michi, eyes closed, bowed from the waist, then opened her eyes and smiled at Decker. He kissed her lips lightly, and they began walking once more, enjoying the crisp day and the clear, cold air. When they stopped to view the
Waiting House,
the tiny house where guests traditionally waited before being greeted by the host for the Japanese tea ceremony, she said, “I prayed for my father, my mother, my sister.”

“Missed my chance,” Decker said. “Should have offered a prayer of my own, a prayer that you’ll come back to me from Europe.”

She squeezed his arm. “You do not have to pray for that I shall come back to you, I promise.”

“Let me know when your flight lands. I’ll try to meet you if I can. By the way, which god did you pray to, or is that a secret?”

She laughed. “No, it is not a secret. I prayed to the local
kami,
to whichever god lives in that shrine behind us. Every village, every town has its own god, so I asked the god of Brooklyn—”

Decker grinned. “You what?”

Michi continued in all sincerity. “I asked the god of Brooklyn for his protection and that I might endeavor in all things, that I might persevere and never retreat from my duty. I asked for strength to serve the divine will and, of course, I praised him, as is our custom.”

Decker looked upward. “The god of Brooklyn. Five boroughs we got in this city. Does that mean each one has its own god?”

She nodded, still serious. “And each town in those boroughs, each neighborhood, each village, they have their own gods, many of them.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Something else I prayed for. I prayed for you, that you will be safe in your job, that you do not get hurt.”

He drew her close to him. “All I want from the god of Brooklyn is that he give you two safe flights, one going, one coming. The rest of it I’ll handle myself.”

She looked down. “With Paul Molise dead, is it not easier for you?”

He shook his head as they began walking again. “Wish it was. Unfortunately, it’s still hairy. Same bunch of players, except that one, Molise, is going to be replaced by someone we don’t know, someone whose habits are a damn mystery, who we’ll have to learn about pretty fast if we want to have a chance against him. I mean in one sense, it’s starting over. The Molise family’s still in business and so is Management Systems Consultants. With one player gone, a substitute comes in for him and the game goes on.

“See, Michi, we were getting close to Molise. Pangalos could have helped us squeeze him, but with Molise dead, Pangalos, at the very least is going to hang tough. Just makes it harder on us, is all. We needed Molise alive, not dead. And I still can’t afford to make a mistake with LeClair.”

LeClair was now in Washington for a quick conference with the Justice Department on whether or not Molise’s death would spark an outbreak of gang war among organized crime. LeClair didn’t know the answer. And neither did Decker. If Paul junior’s death was a mob hit, all hell was going to break loose among New York’s five crime families.

Molise’s bodyguard had had his throat cut. No mystery about how he died. Molise, however, was another story. Cause of death had been some sort of metallic object, something long, thin, sharp. Stabbed under the jaw, slicing the tongue in two and causing a wound in the roof of the mouth. Wounds in both eyes as well, but the coroner wasn’t sure if the jaw and mouth wounds and eye wounds had been caused by the same weapons. Whatever the weapons, the killing had been brazen and deliberate.

Had Molise been killed as a warning to someone else? Had he been punished by someone in the underworld? His father had vowed to kill the person or persons who had murdered his beloved son. Decker didn’t want to be the man who had iced Paulie. In the pre-Castro days, Paul senior had sliced off the ear of a man who had betrayed him, then tied the man to a rope and trolled him behind a fishing boat off the Cuban coast and watched as sharks, drawn by the blood, tore the shrieking man apart.

In the Japanese Garden, Decker and Michi stopped to look at a tall
Kasuga
lantern. Shaped out of stone into a miniature pagoda, the lantern bore signs of the zodiac. This was no place to be thinking of violence, and yet it was hard not to. At the Cleveland Gallery, Kanai had mentioned the
kaishaku
to Decker and Ellen Spiceland. A
karateka
who raped and murdered. Ellen had listened attentively, her mind storing up facts. Decker saw it in her face; she was going to do some checking on the
kaishaku.

Meanwhile, Decker had enough to keep him busy. LeClair. The task force. Cases with Ellen, ranging from child abuse to burglaries, from rapes to violence in local schools. And there was his role as a field associate.

Kaishaku.

On the way to the Instruction Building of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Decker mentioned the
kaishaku
to Michi. As she listened she clutched his arm tighter. “It sounds like something your soldiers did in Vietnam.”

Decker stopped. “Jesus, you’re right.
Double veterans,
they called them. But isn’t the
kaishaku
different?”

They resumed walking. “Yes,” she said. “He is what you call a second to the one who is to commit
seppuku.
To the samurai
seppuku
is a most honorable death. It is a form of self-punishment and only someone of great respect is allowed to perform it He must have a
kaishaku,
a friend who was a swordsman, and stays close to him, to put him out of his misery if the pain was too much. You know how
seppuku
is done.”

“Yes. The knife goes in deep on the left side and then is drawn across the stomach and up on the right side a little bit.”

“Much pain,” she said softly. “You can understand that someone might lose his nerve and cannot do what must be done to save his honor. Or they try to escape. To save them from pain and disgrace, it is the
kaishaku
who uses his sword to behead them. To us it is a merciful act to assist in
seppuku.
Women commit
seppuku
in a different manner.”

“How?”

She stopped and turned to face the shrine on the hill behind him. The words came with great difficulty. “An artery here.” She touched the side of her neck.

She turned to face Decker with tears in her eyes. “It is an honorable death for honorable people. When you do not want to be disgraced by your enemies—”

She couldn’t go on. Decker took her in his arms. Children like Michi and her sister grew up knowing about
seppuku;
it held little horror for them.

What role had it played in Michi’s life during the last six years? Decker wanted to know more. But he simply held her and said nothing.

Even though Kanai’s daughter was now in Japan, Kanai still wanted to see the
kaishaku
captured. “I am one of the backers of the
suibin
tournament in Paris next January,” he said.

“I didn’t know that,” said Decker. “Should be quite a show.”

“
Hai.
But it would be most shameful if this
kaishaku
is among the contestants. I greatly fear he could be. He is a skilled fighter, one who might respond to the challenge provided by such a tournament.”

“Don’t see how you can keep him out. I mean, how can you check the background of every single entrant? You’re going to have hundreds of fighters from all over the world.”

“It would be a service to the martial arts if he were to be apprehended or”—he drew a deep breath—“disposed of prior to the tournament. It would not be easy to stop him, but it could be done.”

Not by me, thought Decker. I’ve got my problems with LeClair.

Inside the Instruction Department of the Botanic Garden, Decker and Michi walked past rooms where classes were being given in Oriental brush painting, photography, orchid growing, flower arrangement and origami wildlife.

After some urging on his part, Michi agreed to make paper animals. As the instructor and the small class watched, she calmly folded sheets of yellow, blue, pink and orange paper into tiny deer, birds, a bear, an eagle. She worked fast, as though she were alone and time had stood still. Magic.

Only when Michi finished did she look up, embarrassed by the attention. The instructor, a gray-haired woman wearing thick glasses and leaning on a cane, picked up a tiny deer. There were tears in her eyes when she said, “I have never seen anything so lovely.”

Leaning forward, she kissed Michi and the class applauded.

The instructor held the deer in the palm of her hand as though the paper animal were alive. “May I please keep this, miss?”

Michi looked at Decker. “Asama. Michelle Asama.”

“Miss Asama.”

“Yes, of course.”

The class moved closer, holding their hands out for the remainder of the paper animals. Decker was so proud of her, so very proud. He took several sheets of colored paper and placed them in the pocket of Michi’s fur coat. He was going to have her teach him to make paper animals.

They drove back to Manhattan in the Mercedes that was on loan to Decker from the task force, taking the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the southern tip of Manhattan and stopping off for dinner in Greenwich Village, in an Italian restaurant where the waiters sang opera and the owner’s pregnant dog wandered from table to table silently begging. A waiter dropped to one knee in front of Michi and sang an aria from
La Bohème
and kissed her hand and she seemed so happy; Decker decided that this was not the time to ask her who in her family had committed
seppuku.
Nothing must spoil this night together.

At her apartment she made love with an energy that almost intimidated Decker. It seemed more like combat than love, almost like what had gone through her mind at the mention of
seppuku.
But then he was caught up in it and he couldn’t think anymore. He
felt.
He
experienced.