Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro 07 - Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria

by Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria(lit)

  "Spare us the excuses." Sano noticed a mark on the skin below Noguchi's collarbone. He yanked open the man's kimono, revealing scar tissue that didn't quite obscure a tattooed Black Lotus symbol, and under it, another tattoo of a dragon.

  "So you've joined the Mori," Sano said, recognizing the gang's crest. "Trust you to find another set of hoodlum friends after the Black Lotus sect disbanded. Where is Lightning?"

  "I don't know." Noguchi viciously spat the words.

  Sano shot out a hand, gripped the man's throat, and squeezed hard. "Has he been here?"

  Noguchi squealed in pain and fright. His eyes rolled, and he jerked away from Sano, but Hirata held him in place. Although Sano disliked using violence against witnesses, he had little compunction about coercing this man who'd stolen their lord's weapons for the massacre at the Black Lotus Temple. Furthermore, Noguchi was his connection to the Mori, and Sano had neither time nor patience to waste.

  "Tell me!" he demanded, digging his fingers into Noguchi's windpipe.

  His face purple, Noguchi struggled in Hirata's grip and gasped for air.

  "Have you seen Lightning?" Sano hated abusing his power; yet he could gladly choke the breath out of Noguchi.

  Panic shone in Noguchi's gaze. His voice emerged in a croak: "All right, I'll tell you. Just please let me go!"

  Sano and Hirata released him. He staggered, wheezing and coughing. "Lightning was here yesterday," he rasped. "He took all the money from the cash box. But no one around here has seen him since. I swear that's the truth!"

  The letter came to Reiko soon after Sano went out to search for Lightning. She opened the bamboo scroll case that a castle messenger had delivered to the estate. The message inside was scrawled on cheap paper. Reiko read:

  I've found Wisteria. If you want to see her, go to the noodle stand around the corner from the bathhouse, tell someone there to fetch me, and I'll take you to where she is. Don't wait too long, or she'll be gone. And bring the money you promised me.

  Yuya

  Reiko was thrilled at this sign that Yuya wanted to help her and that Wisteria was alive after all, but suspicion tempered her hope of obtaining news that would benefit Sano. Yesterday, Yuya had seemed so averse to cooperating further that Reiko wondered at the motive behind the message. What had changed Yuya's mind? Reiko paced swiftly around her chamber, holding the letter, as she debated what to do.

  She feared walking into a trap, despite the lack of apparent reason for Yuya to hurt her. Reiko recognized this as a situation where instinct must yield to need, and decided to follow Yuya's instructions rather than miss any opportunity to gain valuable facts. She had doubts about meeting Wisteria, and she hesitated to go on her own, but she had no time to consult Sano; she didn't even know where he was, and she couldn't dally while a chance to save him slipped away.

  Reiko called a servant to bring two of Sano's best detectives to her. Fortunately, they hadn't yet joined the hunt for Lightning. When Detectives Marume and Fukida came to her, she showed them the message, then said, "Please organize a party of troops and take me to Yuya."

  As the detectives and soldiers escorted her palanquin out of the courtyard, Reiko glimpsed O-hana watching her somberly from the door. Her procession traveled fast through town, and soon Reiko alighted in a neighborhood of slum dwellings that tilted crookedly. A wind with a keen, icy edge blew debris down the street, rattled the buildings, and rippled puddles of sewage. While her entourage waited outside, Reiko entered the noodle stand, a narrow cubbyhole beside a grocer's shop. There, a slatternly woman stirred boiling pots on a hearth. Children squabbled in a room behind the kitchen.

  "I want to see Yuya," said Reiko.

  The woman nodded, then sent one of the children to the bathhouse. Reiko waited nervously. Soon Yuya slipped into the room. She wore a drab, threadbare cloak and an air of furtive excitement.

  "Where is Lady Wisteria?" Reiko said at once.

  Yuya responded with pouting lips and a martyred expression. "Buy me something to eat first," she said, kneeling on the floor. "I missed my meal because of you."

  Impatience nettled Reiko, but she ordered a bowl of noodles in miso broth. They sat together while Yuya ate with maddening slowness.

  "Last night, I woke up when someone tapped on my window and called my name," Yuya said. "I looked outside and saw Wisteria in the alley. She was crying. I said, `What are you doing here?' She said she needed my help and she didn't have anyone else to turn to. Her face was all bruised and bloody."

  Grimacing, Yuya sucked up noodles. Reiko stifled the urge to hurry her. "Wisteria told me that she'd had a big fight with Lightning-the man who owns the bathhouse," Yuya said. "He hurt her so bad, she was afraid for her life. She waited until he went out, then she ran away. She'd stolen some of his money, but she didn't know where to go. She said she'd pay me if I would find her a place to stay. She begged so hard that I took her to an inn where she would be safe. She's still there."

  "Can we go to her now?" Reiko said anxiously.

  Yuya gave Reiko a sour look and held up her half-full bowl. "Wisteria says she's tired of hiding. She wants to turn herself in and tell what she knows about the murder."

  "What does she know?" Reiko's heart lurched; she leaned toward Yuya.

  The prostitute smirked at her eagerness. "Wisteria saw Lightning kill Lord Mitsuyoshi. Afterward, Lightning took her out of Yoshiwara. She didn't want to go with him, but he told her that unless she did, he would kill her."

  Reiko felt a rush of exultation, stanched by skepticism. While investigations often turned upon a stroke of luck, this news that would exonerate Sano seemed too good to be true.

  "Wisteria hasn't gone to the police because she's afraid she'll get in trouble," Yuya continued, apparently unaware of Reiko's doubt. "Whatever she says, people might think she's lying to protect herself. With Lightning gone, everyone would just as soon blame her."

  The story made sense, and fabricating it would require more imagination than Reiko thought Yuya had; yet misgivings still restrained Reiko's need to believe.

  "I told Wisteria that you came to see me," Yuya said. "I convinced her that if you talked with her and believed her story, you would convince your husband that she's innocent. She agreed to surrender to you if the sosakan-sama will help her."

  Setting down her empty bowl, Yuya raised her eyebrows at Reiko. When Reiko hesitated, Yuya added, "Lightning will be looking for Wisteria, and if he gets to her before you do, he'll kill her."

  Reiko decided she had less to lose than to gain by taking Yuya at her word. If the story was true, Reiko could deliver Wisteria to Sano today. The courtesan would be safe from Lightning and the authorities, and Sano absolved from charges of treason and murder.

  "All right," Reiko said.

  Yuya gave her a smug, conspiratorial smile and held out a hand. "Pay me first."

  "My escorts are coming with us," Reiko said, taking a packet of money out of her sleeve.

  The prostitute shrugged. "That's fine with me," she said, tucking the money inside her robes.

  They left the noodle shop and climbed into the palanquin. "Go straight ahead four blocks, then turn right," Yuya said.

  Reiko conveyed these directions, and subsequent ones, to her escorts. As the procession wound through the streets, anticipation and anxiety coiled tight inside her. Curiosity about meeting a woman who'd been on intimate terms with Sano vied with dread of a hoax. Yuya lounged against the cushions, yet the sharpness of her gaze belied her body's relaxed posture. Reiko alternated watching her companion and watching the scenery. Dingy neighborhoods that all looked alike made it hard for her to measure their progress.

  "How much farther is it?" Reiko asked.

  "We're almost there," Yuya said.

  After almost an hour had passed, Reiko said with growing suspicion, "Do you really know where Wisteria is?"

  "Of course I do." Yuya bristled indignantly. "You're a high-class lady, and I'm a lowly whore, but if you want Wisteria, you better be
nice to me."

  The palanquin turned onto the main east-west road that crossed Edo. A mounted daimyo, escorted by many troops and attendants, filled the broad avenue. Pedestrians fell to their knees and bowed, while Reiko's procession slowed behind the daimyo's rear guardsmen. An inaudible sigh issued from Yuya; her body relaxed slightly. This tiny lapse of self-control struck ominous certainty into Reiko's heart.

  Yuya was taking her on an aimless ride. If they ever reached an inn, they would find no Wisteria, and Yuya would say the courtesan had run away. And Yuya was glad of a delay because she wanted the fraud to last as long as possible.

  "Your story about Wisteria was a lie," Reiko said, adamant in her conviction. "This is a trick."

  "No, it's not." Yuya regarded her with incredulity. "Why would I trick you?"

  Suddenly Reiko's amorphous fears crystallized. Incidents that had previously seemed to have neither relationship nor significance now fell into a chilling pattern. Yuya's sudden readiness to cooperate; an uninvited friendship at an opportune time; strange behavior and a generous gesture with a hidden motive-all centered around Reiko's memory of O-hana standing inside the estate while Reiko left it. Logic drew connections across gaps where facts were absent, forming a picture of a madwoman's brilliant treachery.

  "You want to lure me away from home," Reiko said, stunned. "How much did she pay you?"

  "Who? I don't know what you're talking about."

  But guilt quickened in Yuya's heavy-lidded eyes, and she sat up straight. Now Reiko understood that the danger she'd sensed was not here, nor to her own person; she had never been the direct target of malice. The awful truth horrified her.

  Grabbing Yuya's wrist, Reiko demanded, "What is she doing while you occupy me?"

  "Let go!" Yuya cried. She and Reiko struggled together, rocking the palanquin."You're talking nonsense. Why are you attacking me? Have you gone mad?"

  "Tell me," Reiko shouted, wild with panic.

  Detective Marume rode up beside the palanquin. Peering through the window, he said, "What's going on in there? Lady Reiko, are you all right?"

  Reiko's instincts blared a warning that no amount of reason could quell. She didn't know exactly what would happen, but she could guess the consequences. The street had cleared, and her procession speeded up, carrying her farther away from home, where she needed to be.

  "Stop!" she called to Marume.

  The procession halted. Yuya twisted out of Reiko's grasp, pushed open the palanquin's door, and jumped out. As she ran away down the avenue, the soldiers started chasing her.

  "Never mind her," Reiko shouted. "Take me home!"

  The procession laboriously turned in the direction of Edo Castle. Reiko sat desperate and frantic, her heart pounding with the fear that she was making a mistake, yet transfixed by the certainty that she was right about everything, despite the lack of any proof.

  She hoped she hadn't thrown away her chance to solve the murder case and save Sano. She prayed she would arrive home in time to avert disaster.

  32

  Lightning and the Mori gang are on the run," Sano said to Hirata as they rode across the Ryogoku Bridge, which connected Edo to the suburbs east of the Sumida River.

  "That would explain why they're not in any of their usual places," Hirata said.

  Below the bridge's high wooden arch, ferries and barges tossed on choppy gray waves. Behind Sano and Hirata, on the eastern bank, lay a popular entertainment district known as Honjo Muko-"Other Side"-Ryogoku. Sano and Hirata had spent the early afternoon searching teahouses, shops, and gambling dens frequented by the Mori, but found no trace of the gangsters.

  "We can't just keep roaming around, hoping to run into Lightning," said Sano. "There's not enough time, and too much area to cover."

  He gazed ahead toward Edo. Windblown clouds obscured the hills and misted the entire sky. Around the castle spread the houses where a million people lived. Somewhere in the teeming city were the detectives Sano had ordered to hunt for Lightning. Sano thought of his men slowly, laboriously combing the streets. Despair filled him.

  "Lightning may have already left town," Sano said.

  "The detectives we sent out on the highways will watch for him at the checkpoints," Hirata said.

  "He won't use the highways. Men like him travel by secret routes," Sano said. "To catch him outside Edo, we'd need an army spread across the country, searching every forest, mountain, and village. I still have allies who might lend troops for a nationwide manhunt. That may be our only option, now that we've run out of contacts and places to look."

  Hirata said, "The police must have information on the Mori. There was a time when I could have counted on their help. But with Hoshina controlling them, I can't get a single tip anymore." He gave a bitter laugh. "My clan served on the force for generations, and I'm no longer welcome at headquarters."

  "We'll try there anyway," Sano decided. "We've got nothing to lose."

  "Many of the doshin have blood ties with my clan," Hirata said. "Maybe I can convince them that their obligation to help me find Lightning outweighs any loyalty that Hoshina has extorted from them."

  Sano and Hirata rode to police headquarters, which was located in a walled compound in the southern corner of the Hibiya administrative district. There they dismounted in a lane outside a back gate, then entered the compound, walking rapidly along paths between the kitchens and servants' quarters, hoping to attract as little notice as possible. They arrived at the doshin barracks, a cluster of two-story, half-timbered structures and nearby stables, set around a courtyard.

  A peremptory voice behind them called, "Sosakan-sama."

  Halting, Sano turned and saw Police Commissioner Hoshina striding toward him, flanked by Yoriki Hayashi and Yamaga. Dismay struck Sano as Hirata muttered a curse. Hoshina wore a sardonic smile; Yamaga and Hayashi glowered. The two sides faced off in the courtyard. Sano felt his heartbeat accelerate with the surge of energy that precedes a battle.

  "Have you come to turn yourself in?" Hoshina asked him.

  Sano gave Hoshina a venomous look as he realized that he could forget the idea of seeking tips from the police. The officers might have been willing to help him on the sly, but not in front of their superiors, and Hoshina would stick to him like a burr until he departed the compound.

  Hastily revising his strategy, Sano said, "I've come to obtain your assistance, Hoshina-san."

  "My assistance?" Blank confusion erased Hoshina's smirk. "Why should I help you?"

  "To serve our mutual interests," Sano said. Yamaga and Hayashi looked puzzled, but Sano saw comprehension gleam in Hirata's eyes.

  "We have no mutual interests," Hoshina said in a tone replete with scorn. "Have you gone mad?"

  "No," Sano said, "I have identified the probable murderer of Lord Mitsuyoshi."

  The police commissioner's expression turned disdainful. "Spare me your lies. You're so desperate to save yourself that you're trying to frame another innocent person."

  Into the hostility that thickened the atmosphere, Sano enunciated a single clear, quiet word: "Lightning."

  Hoshina started; his features involuntarily tensed.

  "Then you know who Lightning is," Sano confirmed.

  "Of course. He's one of the Mori gang," Hoshina said, recovering his poise. "So you've chosen Lightning as your scapegoat? How convenient. But we both know he had nothing to do with the murder."

  Yet Sano could discern the thoughts racing behind Hoshina's calm facade. The police commissioner was frantically trying to determine whether his investigation had missed an important suspect, or Sano was bluffing.

  "We both overlooked Lightning because we were concentrating on the more obvious suspects," Sano said. "But Lightning was Lady Wisteria's lover, and he was in Yoshiwara that night."

  "So were a lot of other men," Hoshina said dismissively. "That means nothing."

  Sano sensed Hoshina weighing what he knew of Lightning against the facts of the murder case. Hoshina couldn't hide his
discomfiture at recognizing how well a brutal, reckless gangster fit the crime.

  "We have witnesses who've implicated Lightning in the murder," Sano continued. "Lady Wisteria's kamuro has admitted that Lightning forced her to let him into the ageya where Wisteria was entertaining Mitsuyoshi. Afterward, he bribed the guards to let him out the gate. They observed that he'd come into Yoshiwara with eight men, but left with nine. The extra man was Wisteria, in disguise."

  "You forced those people to say what you wanted," Hoshina said. "Your story is pure, ridiculous fabrication, and I'm too busy to listen any longer."