Kamakura Inn

by Marshall Browne

  It wasn’t unpleasant to see a man like Ito sweat. Bitterly, Aoki thought how ex-governor Tamaki had gone smiling into his future, one as golden as his past, unaffected by any retribution, leaving Hideo Aoki with a suicided wife, a heart-failed father, and a ruined career. Even in the face of this horrific crime, hatred turned over in Aoki’s stomach.

  He paused on a landing of the wooden staircase to get a cigarette going, drawing the smoke and aroma into his lungs. The perpetrator was still in the ryokan. Aoki had a sudden compulsion to run through the place tearing open the door to every room, every cupboard . . . Not that simple.

  However, he did begin to roam farther afield, exploring areas he hadn’t entered before. He descended several short stairways to lower levels, progressed along corridors, went through small empty rooms that seemed to him like forest clearings, passed doors whose paper paneling was browned with age. A rambling structure, obviously added on to over the centuries; a labyrinth. He wished he’d studied the layout from the overlooking road when he arrived. He was staying on the move, trying to keep warm.

  At the end of a long corridor hung with ancient scrolls, he found a small courtyard submerged by snow as high as the lintels of the two windows that looked upon it. His wife said, Some corridors lead to places of silence that bring true rest and induce insight. Then: We are very close to you.

  Very close indeed, his father added.

  Their voices were inside his head, but absolutely clear. “Am I losing my way even more, or starting to find it?” he asked. But they’d gone, or had no comment. He’d been asking about the poetic impressions and images that were emerging in his mind, as if a door had sprung open between a pragmatic cop’s world and the cultured world of old Japan. A floating world. Their world. “Find out for yourself,” he told himself.

  To his left, abutting the courtyard, was a gallery about thirty feet long, its flooring formed by wider planks. At its end was a door. Aoki stepped into the gallery. The floor leaped into life—into an urgent birdlike twittering. He froze. The twittering ceased. Aoki knew what it was. He was amazed. A nightingale floor! His father had introduced him as a young boy to the famous one at the castle in Kyoto—an ingenious floor, clamped and nailed into place; walking on it caused friction between the nails and their clamps, emitting the giveaway sounds. There was no way to move silently on it and it had been the shoguns’ warning against spies and assassins— another bit of their paranoia.

  “A nightingale floor,” he breathed.

  You remember that, do you? his father said. They were still here!

  This special floor could be protection for a hidden space. He went on, the agitated sound scraping his nerves. The door at the end was unlocked. He opened it and looked into two more corridors, one going ahead, one to his right. He closed the door and retraced his steps. Brooding on this discovery, he lit another cigarette.

  ~ * ~

  At 2:00 P.M. Aoki entered the service area. He did this by sliding open a door Kazu Hatano indicated and stepping into a dim corridor lit by a few oil lamps. She followed him and then took the lead. They walked for a minute and came upon the kitchen, a room with smoke-blackened rafters from which hung burnished pots and pans and bunches of dried mountain herbs. Along one wall a massive woodstove with banked-down fires glowed. A stone-flagged floor was spread with old tatami mats, insulation against the chill spearing up from it.

  Fifteen people waited in the room: four men, eleven women, absolutely silent. They must’ve been listening for the approaching steps. “Is everyone here?” Aoki asked Kazu Hatano. Already his eyes had found the face with the white scar over the eyebrow.

  “Yes.” She stared straight ahead. Obviously, that wasn’t true. Where, for instance, was her geisha sister? Aoki tightened his lips. The staff watched him. His glance fell on Mori, and she looked down. The light gleamed on steel: His eyes shot to a side table where a dozen kitchen knives were ranked, shining, deadly.

  All this at the service of Ito and Yamazaki’s banquets, his own simple meals, and Saito’s sour plums! Faces tense, they were waiting for him to speak. He might’ve been studying the cast of a Kabuki play before they got into makeup and costume. He cleared his throat. “I’m a police officer. You know what happened last night. I, or other police, will require to speak to each one of you. No one is to leave the ryokan, even if it should become possible.”

  He’d made his voice hard and official. Again his eyes came to rest on Hatano’s face: fifties, dressed as a chef, probably the head guy. A lean fellow, with an intense, tough look about him. Aoki modified the observation: more a brooding anger. It was a singular face that matched neither the artistry of the delicacies borne to the corner table on the last two nights nor the worried curiosity of the others in the room.

  Aoki’s glance moved on. He was putting them on notice that he was here, in charge, and that more was to follow. In his hand he held a list, in Kazu Hatano’s neat characters, of their names and where they’d slept last night. His eyes paused at one name, then continued down the list. What he needed now was a plan of the place. He looked up.

  “The murderer’s in the ryokan. Where else can he—or she— be?” He gave them a hard look. “Anyone who has any information, no matter if it seems unimportant, must come forward now.” He slapped the palm of his hand against his thigh; like a muscle jumping in a face, they gave a collective start. “Don’t wait for the interview if you heard or saw or even felt something. I want to know about it. It’ll go hard with anyone who holds back. You can ask for me at the office.” He spun on his heel and strode out, with Kazu Hatano hurrying behind. Nervous tension seemed to flow after them.

  Aoki went straight back to the murder scene, thinking about the questions he wanted to ask the proprietor, but Kazu Hatano realized where he was going and didn’t follow, turning instead for the office. He paused at the door to the Azalea Room; his improvised sign remained in place. He stood listening. Deep silence. He slid the door open. The room was faintly illuminated by a fragment of dull afternoon light from the window. He took the flashlight out of his pocket. The corpse was exactly as before; the severed parts in the alcove continued to make their grotesque, mysterious statement. The air was limpid, the odor unpleasant, and the cold seemed excluded from this room; his illusion.

  Aoki noticed the scroll in the alcove, played the light on it, and read:

  If you meet a Buddha, kill him.

  If you meet a patriarch of the law, kill him.

  He studied the characters again. It was difficult for him to render them into modern Japanese. The brutal message stood in stark contrast to the ryokan’s floating world. Maybe. For sure, the poem fitted this horrendous event, as much as the nightingale floor fitted that remote gallery. He brought out a pen and, holding the light under his arm, copied the characters onto a scrap of paper taken from his wallet.

  He stepped out of the room and closed the door. There was a prickling on his back, a tightening in his genitals. A vision of the professional knife work was engraved on his brain.

  ~ * ~

  Kazu Hatano was extremely tense, yet strength emanated from her as she gazed at Aoki: a police type, who’d stepped out from behind the guest. How had he come to be here? Aoki read that. He’d had enough dealings with businesswomen in Ginza bars to know, despite appearances, how tough they could be. He folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “And the guests. Three of us remain. No one else out of sight, is there?”

  “Of course not.” The freckles under her eyes were very clear. Aoki nodded. A sneeze overcame him, and he dug for a handkerchief. He’d been holding the scrap of paper in his hand. The poem seemed Zen-like to him. He gazed at it afresh; he wished to ask her about it, but it could wait.

  “Where is your sister?”

  He saw she’d been waiting for this.

  “She has disappeared.”

  Aoki regarded her. Her dark eyes held his. The silence endured, deliberate, on his part. “Do you mean she’s left the ryokan?”


  “That isn’t possible.”

  “What are you saying, then?” With an effort, he held his voice down.

  “There are hidden places.”

  “Unknown to you?” he said, incredulous, but Saito’s words about this came back to him.

  She nodded abruptly. “There’re chambers and spaces that were designed for hiding in times of trouble. Not all of them are known.”

  Beyond the walls he heard the faint whining of the wind. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “We haven’t completed our search.”

  “When was she last seen?”

  “Last night at about eight-thirty by one of the maids.”

  Aoki screwed up his brow. “Why would she disappear?” Her face was blank; her gaze had lifted and seemed to be passing him, communing with someone elsewhere. Her only answer was a slight movement of her hands. Aoki’s fingers rubbed his cheekbone. He said tersely, “A man’s been murdered, an honored guest who might’ve called on the services of a geisha. No doubt the room maid will know about that. Please ask her to come here. “

  She hesitated. Her breasts beneath the kimono rose and fell noticeably. “That has nothing to do with my sister,” she said, her voice firm and low. Giving him a look, she went out.

  “Maybe, maybe, Kazu Hatano,” he said to himself, and turned to inspect the room with more attention, especially the desk, with its many closed compartments. He gazed at these as if to X-ray them, then paced the room, his slippers whispering on the springy tatami.

  She knew something about her mother’s disappearance, perhaps something about Yamazaki’s murder—and how in hell couldn’t she know where her sister was? The tiny fractures in her demeanor were telling him that she was being selective with the truth. He turned and gazed at the desk again. She must have been like this with Watanabe, which would have strengthened the superintendent’s suspicions. Her mother had been a famous beauty when Ito’d found her. If those bloodstained clothes stood for the facts, she’d finished up a bloodied corpse, but “if” was the operative word. The Go-playing Saito had gotten into his mind about that.

  The Kabuki-like scene in the kitchen flashed back. Last year his father had taken Tokie to Kyoto to see the Kabuki plays. In his father’s opinion, Kyoto had the best atmosphere for them. Tokie wore her finest kimono to compete with the famed finery of the local ladies. Aoki stayed home, immersed in the case of a proprietor of a dry-cleaning firm who had stabbed a moneylender to death and clammed up. His own bit of Kabuki. He nodded to himself. As for the ex-husband, her father? The investigation was beginning to pulse stronger in Aoki. He’d get that fellow alone . . .

  At a slight sound, his head whipped around to the door. Paler than before, Kazu Hatano stood there holding a wide-eyed Mori by the hand.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Fourteen

  SHAKING WITH NERVES, MORI LOOKED at her employer for reassurance, but, except for holding her servant’s hand, Kazu Hatano was unresponsive, apparently lost in thought. Aoki glanced at her, then gave the middle-aged room maid a friendly nod. “Mori-san, last night, did Mr. Yamazaki ask you to arrange for the company of the geisha?”

  “Yes, sir.” Her voice was barely audible.

  Aoki breathed in, nodded again. “Did she go to his room?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “You arranged the appointment?”

  “Yes, sir, for nine o’clock.” Her breathing was coming in shallow puffs. She darted another frightened look at her mistress.

  Aoki sighed to himself, but he was patient with her. Little by little he heard that she’d gone off duty at eight thirty, and what she’d done then. She repeated that she hadn’t seen the geisha go to the room. Aoki stared at her for a long moment, then gave her permission to leave. With a hurried bow, she fled the office.

  He turned to Kazu Hatano. “You can see why it’s vital to talk to your sister.”

  With a start, Kazu Hatano emerged from her thoughts. “We will continue our search.” She looked away quickly, but Aoki caught the gleam of tears.

  The inspector went out to the hall, trying to interpret that. Lies were as prevalent here as the icy drafts penetrating the ill-fitting window frames. Granted, the place was a labyrinth, yet it was unbelievable it would take so long to uncover the sister. If she was alive. That pulled him up. He should look over the sister’s room.

  The terrified Mori had brought back to him an image of Ito’s trembling hands—and his anger and sarcasm. Had the media stories regarding the banker’s complacency over his wife’s affair with Yamazaki been another fiction? Yamazaki’s murder had the seals of both jealousy and revenge. Last night, the banker had been enraged on two occasions; this morning, his agitation could equally well have indicated a murderer fearful of discovery or a person appalled by the death of a close associate. Yet maybe the killing was for an entirely different reason. For sure, the banker knew more than he’d said. Aoki ran his tongue over his sore lips. Whatever the answer, the cruel cry that had sinuously traveled the corridors might’ve been the trigger for the murder.

  Had he and Yamazaki known that their meals were being prepared by Hatano, their predecessor in Madam Ito’s bed? Aoki rubbed his jaw. How much of this, of the past and the present, was in the reticent Kazu Hatano’s beautiful head?

  Minutes later Aoki slid back the door of his room. The charcoal glowed bloodred in the kotatsu. He lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch: The second hand swept past 6:00 P.M. He switched on the radio and was back in the company of NHK. The transmission was much worse than before.

  . . . Tokyo Citizens Bank continues to send shock waves . . . new speculation . . . allegations . . . yakuza connections. . . informed sources advise Bank of Japan . . . turned up substantial loans to front corporations controlled by gangsters . . . bank, recently withdrew from a commitment . . . property developments in Yokohama . . . Yakuza client, facing crippling losses . . . police search ... Ito and Yamazaki still hampered by weather conditions . . .

  Aoki switched it off and gazed into space. He’d heard enough. Someone inside the Citizens Bank was leaking. The Bank of Japan played close to the vest; there was no way it would’ve released information about an investigation so soon. He stubbed out the cigarette.

  The yakuza. That was something to think about; they didn’t tolerate anyone crossing them. Retribution could be brutal, but since the onset of the storm, it had been impossible to get anyone into the ryokan, and it was highly unlikely they’d have a sleeper at this remote place. Besides, Ito, who must’ve made the decision to cancel the loan on the Yokohama project, was still alive. Yet the killing had the pro stamp, though what hit man would play around with sexual organs like that? As for the surgical cut across the gut—

  He stared around the Camellia Room. He felt caged in the snow-besieged ryokan, suffocated by the multiple speculations insinuating his every brain cell.

  Saito appeared to be extracting maximum stimulation from the situation. Aoki had checked with Kazu Hatano; Saito had given an Osaka address, all right. When Aoki could, he’d look into it. His fingers touched the scrap of paper within the kimono.

  ~ * ~

  Inspector Aoki cleared his throat. She looked up quickly from a ledger. Here he was again! Was that what the look meant? The black hair, smooth as water coming over a weir, had that bluish shine and the same gold ornament. The scrap of paper was in his hand. “Excuse me, I have a question about the scroll in Mr. Yamazaki’s room—” He stopped. Her face had shot up in response to his “excuse me,” and for an instant he’d seen a simpler, worried woman. He came forward and handed her his note. “Please tell me about this.”

  He watched her eyes widen in surprise as she read, then let the hand holding the note fall to the desk. “It’s an old Zen motto. The scroll doesn’t belong to the ryokan.”

  “You mean it’s replaced another?”

  “Yes. It’s been brought from outside.” Her face had become even paler. “It is not something we would have he
re.”

  Aoki nodded. Nor would any inn proprietor. Two exhortations to murder; not a restful sentiment for guests. If the killer had done it, was the motive the same as for the severed genitalia left on display beneath it?

  Maybe Yamazaki had brought it in himself. The fellow’s personality, apparently, had been weird enough to play private jokes like that. He cursed under his breath.

  He’d seen no signs of searching going on, though if they were doing any at all, it would be in parts beyond the guest areas. He gave a slight bow and left. None of the staff had turned up at the office asking for him.

  He paused outside the office, a deep frown on his brow. Too much was going on in his head. He was missing the usual discussion and interaction with a colleague—just like he was missing his badge and gun. Bleakly, he considered what to do next. He reached into a pocket for the lip salve. As he applied it, as if sent to him as a respite, the fine blue veins on the back of Kazu Hatano’s hands came into his mind’s eye.