The Cloud Pavilion (16 page)

Astonishment replaced some of Masahiro’s fear. “How—how did you know my name?” The man was a stranger.

“I’ve seen you at your father’s house,” the
r
nin
said in a flat voice that didn’t match his scary appearance.

“You’re a friend of Father’s?” Masahiro dared to feel relief.

The skin around the
r
nin
’s eyes crinkled with amusement underneath the grime. “You could call me that.”

Masahiro was suspicious and wary nonetheless. He tried to tug his arm free, but the
r
nin
held on tight.

“I didn’t know Father had friends who look like you,” the boy said.

“Your father has all sorts of friends you don’t know.”

That remark didn’t comfort Masahiro. “How did you recognize me?”

“I saw you leave the castle dressed as a messenger boy. A while later, I noticed you in a different outfit.” The
r
nin
flicked his finger against Masahiro’s head kerchief. “I took a closer look, and I thought, ‘That’s Chamberlain Sano’s son.’ ”

“Nobody was supposed to know.” Masahiro was disappointed that his disguise hadn’t been as good as he’d thought. “How did you?”

“You were riding the same black-and-white pony.”

“Oh,” Masahiro said, chagrined.

Suddenly he noticed that the
r
nin
’s fiercely slanted eyebrows were drawn on his face with charcoal, like those of actors in Kabuki plays. A thought struck Masahiro: He wasn’t the only one wearing a disguise. And the
r
nin
was better at noticing things than most people.

“Did you come to visit Father yesterday?” Masahiro asked.

“Yes . . .” Now the
r
nin
looked startled, displeased, and amused all at once. “You were eavesdropping.”

The
r
nin
was the spy named Toda.

“But I don’t recognize you,” Masahiro said. “You look so different today.”

“Well, that’s the purpose of a disguise.” Toda added, “I’ve learned a few more things besides those I inadvertently taught you. Here’s one: When you’re watching somebody, don’t assume that nobody is watching you.”

Toda had seen him following Yanagisawa. Masahiro felt foolish because he’d thought himself invisible and hadn’t noticed Toda doing the same thing. Now Masahiro realized that Yanagisawa was getting away from them both.

“Excuse me,” Masahiro said. “I have to go.”

Toda restrained him. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

“But we’re going to lose Yanagisawa!”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Toda said with a sarcastic laugh. “
I
am the spy.
You
are just a child. I’m taking you home.”

“But Yanagisawa—”

“No buts,” Toda said, “and forget Yanagisawa. If I let you keep playing spy, and something should happen to you, your father would kill me. Come along now.”

Sano returned to Edo Jail that afternoon with his cousin Chiyo and with Reiko. As he rode across the bridge over the canal that fronted the prison, the women followed in a palanquin. Major Kumazawa had insisted on coming along, and he trailed them with his troops and Sano’s. The procession halted at the gate.

Inside the palanquin, Chiyo said, “I’m afraid.”

“You’ll be all right,” Reiko said soothingly.

But she was worried about Chiyo, who seemed even frailer than yesterday. Shadows under her eyes bled through her white makeup. When she spoke, tears trembled in her voice. Under her brown silk kimono, her body was gaunt, hunched like an old woman’s; she’d aged years overnight. Reiko didn’t know how any woman could recover from kidnapping, rape, and the loss of her children. She was afraid that what Sano had asked Chiyo to do would make matters worse, even though Chiyo had willingly agreed to cooperate.

She heard horses’ hooves clattering over the bridge. She looked out the window of the palanquin and saw Detectives Marume and Fukida ride up to Sano.

“Where is the nun?” Sano asked.

“She didn’t want to come,” Fukida said. “When we tried to take her out of the convent, she became upset.”

“ ‘Upset’ is putting it mildly,” Marume said. “She cried and threw a fit. We thought we’d better just let her be.”

“You did the right thing,” Sano said, although Reiko could see that he was disappointed. “We’ll manage without her.”

“Am I the only one?” Chiyo said, alarmed.

Across the bridge came another procession: Hirata on horse back, accompanied by a few troops, escorting another palanquin. “No,” Reiko said. “Here’s one more.”

The troops dismounted, reached into the palanquin, and pulled out Fumiko. Her kimono had new rips and new streaks of mud. Her face was bunched in a murderous scowl.

“She put up quite a fight, but we got her,” Hirata said. Fumiko’s hands were tied behind her back and her ankles loosely bound together with rope so that she could walk but not run. “I hated to do this, but otherwise she’d have gotten away.”

Chiyo gasped. “Is that the girl who was kidnapped?”

“Yes,” Reiko said. “Her name is Fumiko.” She explained what had happened to the girl.

“The poor thing.” As Chiyo beheld the girl, the misery on her own face was leavened by compassion.

“What are we waiting for?” demanded Major Kumazawa. “Let’s get this over with.”

Sano looked across the bridge and said, “We’ve got company.”

Reiko saw a pudgy, gray-haired man with sagging jowls stalk up to Sano and Hirata. His sharp, gleaming eyes and the cruel curve of his lips brought to mind a hungry wolf. Three big, muscular fellows with tattoos accompanied him.

“It’s Jirocho,” Reiko said.

“Who is he?” Chiyo asked.

“A big gangster boss. He’s also Fumiko’s father.”

“Papa!” Fumiko cried.

Her wild eyes lit with happiness. She stumbled toward him, hobbled by the rope around her ankles, and threw herself at Jirocho. He pushed her away as if she were a stranger who’d dared bump into him. He didn’t even look at his child.

“Papa,” Fumiko said, her voice broken by tears.

In the palanquin, Chiyo murmured in sympathy.

“Honorable Chamberlain.
S
sakan
Hirata. Good afternoon.” Jirocho bowed in respectful yet perfunctory greeting. “I heard that you arrested the two kidnappers.”

“You get news quicker than anybody else in Edo,” Hirata said dryly. “But the men we arrested are only suspects at this point.”

“What are you doing here?” Sano asked Jirocho. His manner was cool and calm, but Reiko sensed his anger at this man who’d broken the law many times and punished his daughter for a crime that wasn’t her fault.

“I want to see the suspects,” Jirocho said.

“Why?” Sano said. “So that you can kill them?”

Jirocho didn’t answer, but his jowls tightened and his predatory eyes glittered. His men grouped around him, his wolf pack.

“Stay out of this,” Sano said. “If they’re guilty, I’ll see that they’re punished according to the law.”

“Maybe I can help you figure out whether they’re guilty,” Jirocho said. “Maybe I know them. Maybe I’ve seen them hanging around my daughter.”

Sano hesitated, and Reiko could feel him thinking that even though he distrusted the gangster, perhaps he needed Jirocho. He’d told her that the suspects had refused to confess and he had no evidence to prove their guilt. “All right,” Sano said. “You can come with us. But keep quiet and don’t interfere.”

He signaled the prison guards, who opened the gate. He and Hirata led the way inside. As the women climbed out of their palanquin, Chiyo whispered to Reiko, “I don’t know if I can bear this.”

Reiko took Chiyo’s cold, trembling hands in her own warm ones. “I’ll be with you. We’ll get through it together.”

She’d been inside Edo Jail before, and she knew what a terrible place it was, but she didn’t see much of it now. When she crossed the threshold, Sano, Major Kumazawa, and their troops closed protectively around her and Chiyo and Fumiko. On the walk through the prison compound, the men blocked Reiko’s view of everything except the upper story of the dungeon. But she heard cries from the prisoners, and the stench was overpowering. Reiko and Chiyo held their sleeves over their noses. Fumiko growled under her breath, like a threatened animal. She kept looking over her shoulder for a glimpse of her father.

The group moved into a plain wooden building and down a passage. There were chambers furnished with desks, some occupied by samurai officials. Sano ushered Reiko, Chiyo, and Fumiko, Major Kumazawa, and Jirocho into a vacant room. Detectives Marume and Fukida followed. Sliding doors along one wall stood open to a veranda that overlooked a courtyard with gravel strewn on muddy earth around a fireproof store house with mossy plaster walls. Sano positioned a lattice screen across the doorway.

“Stand close to the screen,” Sano told Chiyo and Fumiko. “Look outside.”

Chiyo and Fumiko obeyed. Reiko stood between them. They peered through gaps in the lattice. Jirocho, Major Kumazawa, and Sano stationed themselves behind the women. Into the courtyard walked Hirata, escorting the two oxcart drivers. Hirata positioned the men side by side, near the veranda, facing the screen. Chiyo uttered a faint moan and recoiled.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sano said. “They can’t see you.”

Avid curiosity filled Reiko as she beheld the suspects. The big, muscular man looked at the ground, his heavy shoulders slumped, his low-browed face sullen. His comrade, slight and wiry, smoothed his long, disheveled hair and grinned nervously. Gaps from missing teeth were ugly black holes in his mouth. Reiko had seen many criminals, and her instincts told her that these men were of that breed.

“Do you recognize them?” Sano asked. “Be honest.”

Chiyo gazed at the suspects. Her eyes shone with fearful fascination. “. . . I don’t know.”

“Well? Which one kidnapped you?” Jirocho barked at his daughter. These were the first words he’d spoken to her.

Fumiko turned to him, and Reiko could see on her face her longing to please him, to earn her way back home. She looked through the lattice and slowly pointed at the big man.

Reiko felt her breath catch. Behind her, Sano, Major Kumazawa, and Jirocho stirred. Fumiko’s hand moved hesitantly sideways. Her finger pointed at the other suspect. Then she let her hand drop. She shrugged and frowned hard, as if trying not to cry.

“She doesn’t know, either,” Jirocho said in disgust.

Sano called, “Turn them around.”

Hirata gestured his hand in a circular motion at the suspects. They rotated slowly, then faced the women again. Reiko looked from Chiyo to Fumiko. Their faces were devoid of recognition. She sensed their wish to identify their attackers vying with their duty to be honest.

“Maybe if we could get a closer look?” Chiyo murmured.

Sano gave the order. Hirata prodded the two men up the steps, onto the veranda. They stood close enough to touch. Reiko could see the pores in their tanned, weathered skin and smell their odor of urine, sweat, and oxen.

Fumiko shook her head. Chiyo shuddered, her nose and mouth muffled in her sleeve. “I’m sorry. I don’t know if it was one of them or not.”

The two men exchanged glances. They’d heard Chiyo. The slight one’s grin broadened; the big one smirked.

Anger swelled in Reiko. If they were responsible for the kidnapping and rapes, she didn’t want them to get away with it. She didn’t want Chiyo and Fumiko to have suffered this ordeal for nothing. But what could she do?

A thought occurred to her. “Let us hear their voices,” she said to Sano. “Make them say, ‘Dearest mother, beloved mother,’ and ‘naughty girl.’ ”

Sano gave the order through the screen. “Dearest mother, beloved mother. Naughty girl,” the big man said in a deep, thick, scratchy voice. The other man echoed him. Chiyo turned to Reiko in despair.

“I don’t think it’s either of them,” she said. “They both sound too young.”

“What do you think?” Reiko asked Fumiko.

The girl shook her head unhappily. Jirocho said, “Well, that’s that.” His face was grim; so were Sano’s and Major Kumazawa’s. The two suspects swaggered with glee.

“Have you ever seen them before?” Sano asked Jirocho and Major Kumazawa.

“No,” they said.

Reiko tried to hide her own disappointment. She didn’t want to make Chiyo and Fumiko feel worse.

Fumiko suddenly said, “Make them take off their clothes.”

“
What
?” Jirocho said, incredulous. He grabbed her arm and yanked her around to face him. “What’s the matter, didn’t you get enough pleasure while you were kidnapped? Do you want some more men? You little whore!”

He raised his hand to strike her, but Sano shoved him toward the door and said, “I warned you. Get out!”

As Marume and Fukida led the gangster away, Fumiko whimpered, “Papa!” then, “I didn’t mean it the way he said.”

Chiyo moved to the girl’s side. “I understand,” Chiyo said, putting her arm around Fumiko. “You want to see if we can recognize the men’s bodies. Isn’t that right?”

To Reiko’s surprise, Fumiko leaned into Chiyo’s embrace as she nodded. Reiko saw a tenuous bond form between these two women from different worlds. They had experiences in common that no one else they knew could fully understand.

Sano ordered the suspects to undress. They dropped their garments onto the veranda. Major Kumazawa said to Chiyo, “You don’t have to look.”

Her expression was resigned. “Yes, Father, I must.”

The men stood naked. The big man slouched, surly with embarrassment. The other’s nervous grin took on a lascivious cast. His organ began to curve erect.

Reiko averted her eyes, sickened by a sudden, unpleasant memory. She’d seen naked men before—beggars on the streets, youths swimming in the river—but only once had she had such a close observation of any except her husband. That had been the man who’d called himself the Dragon King, who’d kidnapped and nearly raped her. Now she felt her heart race and nausea roil her stomach. She kept her gaze on Chiyo and Fumiko.

Chiyo frowned, pondered the men, and said unhappily, “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I just can’t remember.”

Fumiko turned away, her face miserable with disappointment. “He had a big black mole,” she said. “They don’t.”

It was true: Both suspects’ penises were devoid of moles.

The big man guffawed and his friend tittered with relief. Fumiko ran out the door. Major Kumazawa said, “We’ve had enough,” and left with Chiyo.

“Take them back to their cell,” Sano told Hirata.

The suspects picked up their clothes, and Hirata marched them off. Sano turned to Reiko. “Well.”

Sharing his frustration, Reiko voiced the thought on both their minds: “The real kidnapper is still at large. What if it’s not one man but three? And how many more women will they hurt before they’re caught?”