Black Wind

by F. Paul Wilson

  The fire in his father's eyes awed Matsuo. Here was a man who believed in Japan, and would fight for her. All the wonderful things Nagata had said about his father were not only true, but had been understated.

  Just then Cho, the head servant, appeared at the door and bowed.

  "What is it?" the baron said.

  "Toyama-san is here."

  The baron strode toward the door. "I have an important guest to see now. But think carefully on what I have said: When Japan spreads its roots, they will become most tightly entangled with America's."

  Matsuo turned to his brother after their father was gone. He whispered, "Toyama-san? The Toyama-san?"

  Hiroki's smile was indulgent. "Yes, little brother, our father has the great and near-great calling on him at all times."

  Matsuo stepped to the window and looked out at the garden below. Hiroki rose and hovered over his left shoulder.

  "That's Toyama?"

  "Yes."

  Even in faraway San Francisco, Matsuo had heard of Mitsuro Toyama. But it was difficult to believe that the thin, mild-looking, bespectacled gentleman strolling through the garden below was the organizer and head of the Kokuryu-kai, the Black Dragon Society, the most powerful secret society on the islands of Japan.

  "He may be known to the outside world as a supergangster," Hiroki said, "but he is also a superpatriot. Anyone who denies the divinity of the Emperor must soon answer to Toyama-san. He and Father became allies in 1920 when Prince Yamagata was trying to cause a breach between our Emperor—then Crown Prince Hirohito—and his betrothed, Princess Nagako."

  Hiroki then launched into a complicated outline of Palace intrigue as the two feuding clans, the Choshus and the Satsumas, schemed to place one of their clan's women as Hirohito's bride-to-be. Through Father's dexterous maneuvering, the Satsumas, the clan to which Matsuo's family belonged, succeeded in making a match between the Crown Prince and Nagako, daughter of Prince Kuniyoshi Kuni, an uncle of Father's and a venerable member of the Satsuma clan. The Choshus were furious and tried bribery, extortion, slander—everything short of assassination to break up the relationship. Toyama-san came to Baron Okumo and offered his assistance.

  "Is he a clansman?" Matsuo asked.

  "No. He was sent."

  "By whom?"

  "By the Kakureta Kao," Hiroki said with no little pride.

  The Hidden Face? What is that?

  "The Order was furious," Hiroki continued, "that the Choshu clan would dare to try to reverse—or even question—a decision of the royal family. The Black Dragon Society has members in all levels of Japanese life, from the underworld up through the police to the Palace Guard. But since Toyama-san owes a debt to the Kakureta Kao, the Black Dragons are at the Order's disposal. Needless to say, the path to the wedding between the Emperor-to-be and Princess Nagako was cleared of all obstructions."

  Matsuo shook his head slowly in wonder, still watching his father and the infamous Toyama in intimate conversation.

  "There is so much I have to learn about my family."

  "That is true." Hiroki indicated a watercolor on the wall. "See that painting?" Matsuo stood for a closer look. It showed a placid body of water with a gently smoking volcano on the horizon. "Father did it."

  Matsuo stared at the painting and felt the tranquility pour out of the soft blues of the water and the sky.

  My father did this?

  He felt Hiroki's hand gently come to rest on his shoulder. "Would you like to learn about your older brother?"

  "Oh, yes," Matsuo said, turning to face Hiroki. "Especially about the temple you mentioned."

  Hiroki's smile faded. "Yes. Of course. Then learn you shall. My sensei at the temple wishes to speak to you. He has many questions about America—and many about you."

  Matsuo swallowed and tried to smile. Something about this temple struck an uneasy chord within him.

  * * *

  Why Hiroki wanted to take him to the Kakureta Kao temple at night, Matsuo could not guess. What was wrong with the daytime? In the days since Hiroki had told him of the impending audience with the sensei, Shimazu-san, Matsuo had made inquiries of Cho, the chief of the household staff, and read all he could on the sect. What he had learned was intriguing but not comforting. The dark and brooding Hidden Face sect with its stern code of behavior and its masked priests who rarely left the temple and never showed their faces, even to each other, was totally alien to his experience. Its heritage supposedly went back to the time of the Great Jimmu, the first Emperor, which was fitting since it was fanatically devoted to the preservation of the Imperial Line.

  Matsuo would have preferred to learn of the Kakureta Kao from afar, but he could imagine no graceful way to decline his brother's invitation.

  "You have never seen Tokyo at night, have you?" Hiroki said as they slid into the backseat of the touring car.

  Matsuo shook his head. "No."

  He didn't say that he hadn't liked it much during the day and doubted he would find it any more likable after dark.

  "I will show you, then. The Tokyo of the night is an entirely different city from the Tokyo of the day."

  He gave a rapid-fire set of directions to the driver, and off they went.

  "How many districts in San Francisco specialize in nightlife?" Hiroki asked.

  Matsuo shrugged. He had heard of the Tenderloin and the red-light district by the waterfront, and assumed there were a few more.

  "Four or five, maybe."

  "Tokyo has more than thirty. We haven't got time for them all, but I'll show you a good sampling."

  Matsuo was agape at the seemingly endless array of bars, nightclubs, coffee houses, movie theaters, restaurants, beer halls, and geisha houses that passed outside their car windows. Everywhere lights, lights, lights, flashing and blinking every conceivable color. The tour started at the Ginza in the center of Tokyo with its crowds, its wide, bustling streets, and hundreds of bars and restaurants.

  But he sensed something strange, something wrong, something missing in the crowds of people filling the streets and sidewalks. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something didn't seem right.

  But then they were moving again, down to the Tsukiji district near the waterfront where the very rich found the most expensive geishas and restaurants among the canals; to Kagurasaka filled with military men from the nearby War College; around to Shinagawa, Ueno, and Shimbashi crowded with suburbanites flocking from the railroad terminal; through Kanda with its bookstores and drunken students; to the geisha quarter, Yotsuya; out to the willow-lined streets of Shibuya, the movie houses of Shinjuku, the open-air cafés of Ikebukuro.

  Finally, they passed through a great gate into a very crowded district. Narrow side streets wound away to either side, lined with shoulder-to-shoulder doorways, each with a tiny red light or lantern. A passing street sign read Gojukken machi, the Street of Fifty Houses.

  "Where are we now?" Matsuo said.

  "Yoshiwara—the most famous red-light district in all of the world. Love for sale." His older brother winked at him. "Perhaps I'll bring you down here sometime to sample its pleasures."

  Matsuo felt a stirring in his loins. He had seen pictures of lovemaking in the pillow book he had found in Nagata and Kimura's bedroom. Love for sale. It had an exciting ring to it.

  I've never even held a girl's hand.

  Hiroki tapped the driver on the shoulder. "To the temple."

  As they drove through the streets of Yoshiwara with its moving murals of males in search of pleasure, it suddenly struck Matsuo what had been bothering him about the night's tour—no women. Except for prostitutes, bar girls, and an occasional geisha hurrying by in a ricksha, the streets were filled with men only.

  "Where are all the women?"

  "Behind the doors, of course."

  "No-no. I mean the sisters, wives, and girlfriends of all these men."

  Hiroki glanced at him as if he were daft. "Home. Where they belong."

  "Don't they go out on the town at n
ight as well?"

  "Of course not."

  Matsuo looked out the window. The car was weaving along the Ginza again. As it crawled through a particularly thick tangle of cars, rickshas, and pedestrians, he studied the faces of those outside, noting the staggering gaits, the too-bright eyes, the too-loud laughter, the desperation beneath the gaiety. Here was a Japan he never dreamed existed—Japan with its hat off, its collar loosened, and its pants down.

  Matsuo didn't like what he saw.

  He had witnessed nocturnal squalor and public drunkenness in San Francisco, but that had been balanced by the sight of men and women of all ages out together as couples, arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand. What he saw tonight seemed . . . wrong. These were grown men out on the street, but they were acting like wild schoolboys on a binge. While their mothers and wives and sisters and girlfriends sat home alone. Was that fair?

  He hated rating San Francisco in any way over Tokyo, so he sat back in the seat and closed his eyes. He couldn't bear looking at those faces any longer.

  * * *

  The temple was a dark, shapeless blot against the sky. A cold wind off Tokyo Bay whistled up the street and knifed through Matsuo's thin coat as he hurried up the steps in Hiroki's wake. Except for the lone torch sputtering near the great iron-braced teak door, the building was completely dark.

  "Is anyone here?" he said as he caught up to his brother.

  "Of course. The priests live here."

  Matsuo resented the tone. Yes, he knew the priests lived here, it was just that it didn't look like anyone was here. All of Tokyo was lit up around them, yet this temple could have been a block of solid stone for all the signs of life it exhibited.

  Hiroki slammed the giant knocker against the door. Its clank echoed up and down the street. Its solid teak was carved with strange murals and ideograms.

  The door swung inward smoothly and silently. A tall figure stood just inside. The torchlight flickered off its dark, hooded robe. Matsuo stepped back, frightened. The face was masked. The eyeholes looked black and empty as the night.

  Hiroki bowed and the figure spoke.

  "Okumo-san." The voice echoed away behind the guard. "Shimazu-sensei is expecting me."

  "And who have you brought?"

  "My brother, Matsuo, from America."

  The hood turned toward him. "From America."

  Matsuo wanted to cringe before those black eyeholes but held firm. He bowed low, trying to show great respect.

  "Enter."

  As they walked past the guard, Matsuo heard the door clang shut behind them, shutting out the torchlight. For a moment he was lost, disoriented in the blackness. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he saw a long corridor ahead, dimly lit by widely set chochin. His brother was a silhouette in front of him, moving away.

  So cold in here, colder than the January night outside. But Matsuo felt another kind of chill, a cold that crept into his soul. Not evil or malevolent, but an icy calm that only total certainty and unshakable purpose could bring. It seemed to permeate the walls and saturate the air. Didn't Hiroki feel it, too? Or was he part of it?

  Matsuo shivered and hurried to catch up.

  "Aren't there any electric lights here?"

  He saw Hiroki shake his head in the dimness. "No electricity and no telephones. Little has changed within this temple over the past few hundred years."

  After a maze of turns and two downward flights of steps, they came to a small, barely furnished, lantern-lit room where a tall, lean figure with high, narrow shoulders waited. He wore a red mask, and was robed and hooded in dark blue. But most striking were his eyes—dark green and piercing in their intensity. Matsuo had never seen eyes like these. He bowed with his brother and both seated themselves before the priest.

  "So, is this the brother who will sit with you one day on the Imperial Council?" Shimazu said, his voice soft, like sand pouring into still water.

  Matsuo could see the green eyes flicking back and forth between them behind the red embroidered silk of the mask. He was uncomfortable under their penetrating scrutiny. He looked closely at the mask and noticed with a shock that it was fitted under small flaps of skin along the hairline and in front of the ears. It hung loosely below the chin and jawbone, and puffed out slightly when he spoke.

  Above his right wrist Matsuo spotted a black hexagon tattoo with a meshwork center, identical to Hiroki's.

  * * *

  Is this the one I will kill? Shimazu thought, relieved and yet strangely tense at being face-to-face with the younger Okumo brother at last.

  He was a fine-looking boy, fuller of face than Hiroki, but an undeniable family resemblance between them. The boy was a bit cowed by the temple but even as Shimazu watched, he could see Matsuo adjusting.

  One of you will have to die, he thought, looking from one to the other. Which one?

  Having use of the Seers was a boon most times, but a burden at others. Almost twenty years ago at the motsu a Seer had had a vision concerning Hiroki and his yet-to-be-conceived brother. Few currently in the temple knew of it. The vision was more convoluted than most, but it indicated that one of the Okumo brothers would have to be killed.

  But it hadn't been clear which one. And when.

  Shimazu trusted that in time he would know the who and the when. He prayed it would not be Hiroki. He had watched Hiroki develop from a toddler into a fine young man, devoted to the Emperor and to the Order. It could not be Hiroki who would die. It had to be the other Okumo— Matsuo.

  But how to know?

  Perhaps a few questions would help indicate the choice.

  * * *

  Hiroki's sensei seemed very interested in America. Matsuo found that almost everyone he met in Japan seemed interested in America. But Shimazu's questions were different from Hiroki's. The sensei asked about resources and the nature of the people. Were they warlike or were they peaceful? Would they follow their leaders blindly into battle or would they hesitate and question? Were they hungry for conquest or were they growing fat and happy on what they had?

  Matsuo answered as best he could, drawing on what he had learned in his classes and what little he had seen of the huge country. Yet throughout the interrogation he kept asking himself what was so important about America. He wanted no more to do with that country. He wanted to stay here in Japan and forget all about America.

  "Do you have any friends in America?" Shimazu asked.

  Matsuo felt a catch in his throat. He shook his head.

  "If Japan and America were at war, would you hesitate to fight against America?"

  "No." Matsuo was utterly sure of that reply.

  "What is the best thing you can say about America and Americans?"

  Matsuo thought on that one. He remembered the daily slights from strangers, the insults against the Japanese by California officials; he remembered Mick, and Izumi-san's battered head, and Frankie denying him.

  Matsuo said, "It is big."

  "Very well. What is the worst thing you can say about America?"

  The words tripped out of his mouth on their own: "Its people do not know giri."

  At his side he heard Hiroki's sharp intake of breath and saw Shimazu's eyes widen behind their openings. To not know giri was the greatest insult one man could hurl at another. It said that he was not fit for the company of honorable men, that he should be an outcast. Matsuo realized that he had just placed an entire nation in this category. Well, he had spoken the truth.

  Finally, Shimazu nodded with slow approval. "Yes. I think you will make an excellent addition to the Imperial Council."

  Normally, Matsuo would have basked in such approbation. Why, he wondered, did Shimazu's approval make him feel so uncomfortable? So… unclean?

  * * *

  Shimazu meditated a long while after the Okumo brothers had gone.

  Which is to die?

  He was more confused now than ever. He had been certain that the younger one would arrive full of American ideas and attitudes, that he would be enamored of Occident
al ways. Such a boy would have made the choice easy.

  But young Matsuo was no soft, decadent American in Japanese skin. He was more like a young samurai ready to lop off heads for the Emperor. The steel within him had been tempered in the furnace of America's racism. He was hard and he was resilient. He would make a fine weapon against the West.

  What disturbed him was the developing brotherly bond he sensed between Hiroki and Matsuo. That could prove to be a problem in the future. Hiroki might be so overcome with grief at his brother's death—and Shimazu felt certain it would be Matsuo who would die—that he might not function effectively. Shimazu would have to take measures to divide the brothers should the bond became too strong.

  No decision now, though. More time was needed. The elders of the Order had put the matter of choosing which brother would die entirely in his hands. They were not pushing him. And so he would wait, and watch. One slip, one sign that the younger one posed a danger, and Shimazu would snuff him out like a candle.

  And with that image in mind, he thought of Hiroki's fiancée. The time had come to do something about her. But he could not allow the elders to know of this plan, this death. He could not let anyone know. The slightest suspicion that he was behind the Mazaki girl's demise would destroy utterly his relationship with Hiroki.

  And she would have to die soon, before she left for America. Even though she would be thousands of miles away during her college years, Hiroki's thoughts would be drawn to her, distracting him from his destiny. Shimazu could not allow that.

  He went to the chest in the corner and lifted the lid. In the center lay a small case of ebony inlaid with ivory. He opened it and examined the contents. Doku-ippen: multiple slivers of wood, each resting in its own groove, each saturated with its own poison. Those in the upper tray were used for instant effect. Those below were subtler, bringing on death of a more lingering sort, but just as inevitable.