Rules of the Hunt (8 page)
Facing him,
slightly to one side, was Chifune, also on the floor but sitting in a manner
considered more appropriate for her sex.
Her legs were tucked under her and she was resting back on them, her
hands in her lap.
She looked submissive
and demure, every Japanese man's dream, which only goes to show, thought
Adachi, that what you see is rarely what you get.
She was
wearing a short Western skirt of some soft beige material, and in that position
it was well above her knees.
She had
removed the matching jacket.
Her blouse
was cream-colored and sleeveless.
She was truly
delectable.
The Beretta automatic pistol
she carried in a holster tucked inside the waistband of her skirt in the small
of her back had been removed and place in her purse.
She also carried a silencer, Adachi knew, and
two spare magazines of hollow-points.
The weapon was more than a precaution.
It was meant to be used.
Still,
she did not look in a shooting mood at the moment.
Adachi tried
to remember where he had left his revolver and when he had last trained with
it, but neither answer came quickly to mind.
Those were tomorrow's problems.
He looked through the skylight at the glow that was the
missed the stars.
He looked back
at Chifune and then raised himself on one elbow.
He drained his glass and she refilled
it.
As she came closer to him, he was
acutely conscious of her body and the softness and texture of her skin.
She returned to her original position.
"What is
Koancho's interest?" he said.
She shook her
head.
"I can't tell you.
You know that."
He
smiled.
"I know very little about
you," he said.
"I don't know
what you may or may not do.
I only know
what you do where I am concerned, and you do that extremely well."
Chifune
returned his smile.
"You're a male
chauvinist," she said sweetly, "but perhaps a little less extreme
than most Japanese men.
Make the most of
it.
Times are changing."
Adachi had to
admit that she was correct on all three points.
He did like — and had been brought up to expect — subservience in a
woman.
But he also had learned to enjoy
and respect independence in the opposite sex.
Truth to tell, Adachi liked women.
"Tell me
about Hodama," he said.
"You know
about Hodama," she said.
"Tell me
anyway," he said.
"
The what
I
know
will join with what
you
know and that
will add up to what
we
know, which
quite probably will be more than
I
know right now.
I think
it's
called synergy."
"Gestalt
psychology," she said.
"The
whole of anything is greater than its parts."
"Tell me
about the whole Hodama," he said.
"Who would want to boil a nice little old man like that — to
death?
Actually, it looks like he died
of a massive heart attack almost immediately, but you know what I mean."
"I think
our problem is going to be too many candidates," said Chifune.
"Hodama led a long, active, and mostly
evil life."
"‘Our
problem’," said Adachi.
"That's encouraging.
I
thought observer status meant just that.
Koancho is not really into the sharing business."
He grinned.
"Like most security services, more into paranoia."
"‘Our’
problem," Chifune repeated quietly.
"Ah!"
said Adachi, savoring this new insight.
He decided not to pursue it for the moment, at least verbally.
Instead he stretched out a bare foot and
slipped it between Chifune's knees and then a little further.
She did not resist.
There was a faint flush in her cheeks.
"Hodama,"
he said, "but perhaps the shorter version for now."
Chifune was an
expert in various martial arts and related disciplines.
They all put a heavy emphasis on mind over matter.
She drew on this training as she spoke.
"Kazuo
Hodama was born in
He actually spent much of his early life in
His father was part of the Japanese
occupation forces.
Hodama therefore grew
up with both military and other government connections — which he was to put to
good use later on in life."
The occupation
of
subject to an arbitrary and frequently brutal Japanese military-dominated
regime.
"In
worked extensively for the authorities and specialized in putting down
resistance.
Mostly, he worked behind the
scenes.
He organized gangs of thugs to
beat up or kill Koreans who wanted independence, thus enabling the
administration to pretend they were not involved in the more extreme acts of
repression.
"Hodama
returned to
The world was in
recession.
That was a period when there
was major conflict in
Since the moderates could not seem to do
anything about fundamental issues like feeding the people, it is scarcely
surprising that the rightists won out.
The same thing happened elsewhere — in
Empty rice bowls are not good for
democracy."
"That was
a period of secret societies and assassinations," said Adachi.
"Various moderate government ministers
were assassinated.
Wasn't Hodama
involved in all that?"
"So it is
rumored," said Chifune.
"Whether he did any of the actual
killing
,
we don't know.
Anyway, for plotting to
assassinate Prime Minister Admiral Saito, Hodama was actually sent to prison by
the moderate regime in 1934, and served over three years, but then he was let
out when the extremists took over.
And,
of course, having been in prison for the cause put him right in there with the
new regime.
His rightist and nationalist
credentials were impeccable.
He had
endless contacts in government and in the military and through the various
secret societies he was involved with.
From then on, he was into everything — but always operating behind the
scenes.
He was already a
kuromaku
."
Kuromaku
, thought Adachi.
The word had a sinister ring.
There was a long tradition of such figures in
Japanese life.
Kuromaku
literally meant ‘black curtain,’ a reference to classic
Kabuki theatre, where a concealed wire-puller controlled the action on the
stage from behind a black curtain.
The
English equivalent would perhaps be godfather or string-puller or kingmaker,
but a
kuromaku
was more than all
these.
The word implied a person of very
special caliber, and more recently it suggested links to both organized crime
and politics at the highest level.
Above
all, the very sound represented power.
"Into
everything?" said Adachi.
His eyes
were closed.
He was rubbing Chifune's
soft wet center with his toe.
The
sensations were incredibly exotic.
Her
voice in itself was an aphrodisiac.
"Everything,"
said Chifune.
There was a slight quaver
in her voice.
Aikido, a martial art
which taught self-control, could take a woman just so far.
"He wheeled, he dealed, he traveled, he
traded, he spied, he made and broke people.
He had vast commercial interests.
He finished World War Two with the rank of Admiral, though there is
little evidence that he knew much about the navy except how to make money out
of it.
He both supported and used the
Tojo militarists."
"And," said Adachi.
This was an area where Koancho files would be
more complete
than his own
.
The police were not invulnerable to political
pressure.
The war was a sensitive
issue.
Detailed records of behavior
during that period were not encouraged by those in power.
"Prior to
connections with U.S. Army Intelligence.
He supplied them with information about
He was there a great deal.
Prior to the actual outbreak of war, there
were certain mutual areas of interest between the
Adachi
whistled.
"Energetic little fellow,
wasn't he?
Was he actually an American
spy?"
"We don't
know," said Chifune.
"They may
have thought so, but I doubt he was in the sense you mean.
Certainly he balanced things out by actually
funding part of the Kempei Tai — the secret police — operations in
"And then
came the bombs," said Adachi.
"Distracting even for a
kuromaku
."
"Very
distracting," said Chifune.
"
of time Hodama was arrested and slung into Sugamo Prison to await trial.
He was classified as a Class A war
criminal."
"I
imagine he was," said Adachi.
"But nobody hanged him."
"He had a
great deal of money hidden away," said Chifune, "on the order of
hundreds of millions of yen — and he was a good talker.
And he knew people and things, and he could
make connections.
And he had people
outside who worked for him.
Part of his
money went to found a new political party — democracy now being in fashion
again."
"The
Liberal Party," said Adachi, "which merged with the Democratic Party
in 1955, which as the Liberal Democratic Party has ruled this country ever
since.
Ouch!
Why couldn't somebody less controversial have
got himself killed?"
"You're
leaping ahead," said Chifune.
She
looked straight at him as she slowly unbuttoned her blouse and then removed
it.
Underneath it, her skin was golden.
She removed her bra.
She had small but full breasts and prominent
nipples.
"Don't," she said.
Adachi raised
an eyebrow.
He was glad he had changed
into a
yukata
when he had returned to
his apartment.
Its light cotton could
accommodate his growing excitement.
Western trousers would have strangled the thing.
Heavens, in some ways the West had a brutal
culture.
"The war
crimes trials took place.
They lasted
for two and a half years right here in
and on December 23, 1948, seven of the defendants — six generals and one
premier — were executed.
Shortly
afterwards, Hodama was released.
He was
never formally charged, let alone tried."
"The
guilty are punished; the innocent go free," said Adachi.
"That's modern justice for you."
"Ha!"
said Chifune.
She unzipped her skirt,
raised herself slightly off her knees and then slid the garment over her head
with a technique that would have done credit to a striptease artist.
Adachi wondered how many times she had
performed that movement before, and for whom.
The thought hurt a little.
She moved
forward and untied his
yukata
and
gently slid him inside her.
Adachi
groaned with pleasure.
Sex with Chifune
was decidedly not like that with other women he had known.
Chifune was an artist.
Sight, touch, sound, taste, smell; she played
on all his physical senses, but most of all she played games with his
mind.
He was obsessed with her, but he
feared her.
He loved her, but did not
trust her.
There was no certainty or
predictability to their relationship.
He
knew little about her, and her file, as an employee of the security service,
was sealed.